August 1, 2020 I invested more than three hours bushwhacking (hiking off-trail) through the upland riparian forests along the Tennessee River on the east end of Wheeler National Wildlife Refuge. I admit that my hunger for golden chanterelles served as incentive to challenge mosquitoes, deer flies, horse flies, ticks, chiggers, briers, poison ivy, draped spider […]
Straddling Twin TVA Lakes: Joe Wheeler and Wilson Alabama’s Joe Wheeler State Park has shoreline along both the lower reaches of Joe Wheeler Lake and the upper end of Wilson Lake. July 7, 2020, Alabama State Parks Naturalist Emeritus Mike Ezell and I hiked the Park’s Multi-Use Trail along the bluffs above Wilson Lake. I […]
A personal confession. I am a nemophilist: One who is fond of forests or forest scenery; a haunter of the woods. I did not know the word until recently. Shortly after seeing the term and definition on a very attractive poster with a sylvan scene, I heard a newscaster with respect to some impending catastrophe say, “We’re not […]
July 7, 2020 I hiked Joe Wheeler State Park’s Blue Trail with State Parks Naturalist Emeritus Mike Ezell. Together we explored at a leisurely pace, not willing to race through the forest at the price of missing any of Nature’s magic. The Parks do a good job with signage at Joe Wheeler. I hope that […]
June 15, 2020 I re-visited Buck’s Pocket State Park, approximately 75 miles from my residence, this time for the ribbon cutting re-opening the campground after a three-year major rehabilitation project. I had first visited the Park in mid-October 2019, viewing the Park only from the overlook, some 800 vertical feet above the campground: https://stevejonesgbh.com/2019/11/04/bucks-pocket-state-park/ Here […]
See the Great Blue Heron Post chronicling my June 8, 2020 introduction to the new Awesome Trail at Joe Wheeler State Park: https://stevejonesgbh.com/2020/07/06/joe-wheeler-state-parks-new-awesome-trail/ That single Post was not sufficient to chronicle all the Nature-magic we encountered. We also saw some spectacular mushrooms as we hiked our four-mile segment, justifying this second Post highlighting the fungi. […]
Allow me to set the stage for this Post with a simple quote from Wendell Berry: Outdoors we are confronted everywhere with wonders; we see that the miraculous is not extraordinary, but the common mode of existence. It is our daily bread. The Alabama State Parks Dirt Pass Trail Crew completed the eight-mile Awesome Trail […]
I visited the Goldsmith Schiffman Wildlife Sanctuary June 6 and presented my reactions, reflections, and photographs in a June 23, 2020 Blog Post: https://stevejonesgbh.com/2020/06/23/visiting-a-southern-sanctuary-my-orientation-visit/ Please see that earlier Post for general information about the Sanctuary. I’m following up now with a second Post, this one focusing on what I’ll term Nature’s insistence upon renewal. Suffice […]
Virtual Orientation: Southern Sanctuary I’ve often mentioned how fortunate we are in north Alabama to have so much wildness within an hour-and-a-half drive: several State Parks; Bankhead National Forest; Sipsey Wilderness; Wheeler National Wildlife Refuge; County Parks; Greenways; Nature Preserves; and the Goldsmith Schiffman Wildlife Sanctuary, which I visited for the first time June 6, […]
A statement of fundamental Nature-essence: Everything in Nature is relative in space and time, including our own lives. Nature-Inspired Poetry I’ve toyed with Blog-Post-by-verse a few times since I enrolled in a beginning poetry course this past winter at the University of Alabama in Huntsville. Funny that I spent much of my professional higher education […]