Below Ground at Rickwood Caverns I began my April 24, 2019 introductory visit to Rickwood Caverns State Park (30 miles due north of downtown Birmingham) in the main cavern with Superintendent Amanda White, entering through the controlled-entrance yellow door. Here’s Amanda with keys in-hand. Like Cathedral State Park, it’s the beauty, magic, wonder, and awe […]
Twenty-one State Parks totaling 48,000 acres constitute the Alabama State Parks System… from the Gulf coast to the Tennessee River Valley. The Parks Mission is succinct and compelling: To acquire and preserve natural areas; to develop, furnish, 0perate, and maintain recreational facilities; and to extend the public’s knowledge of the state’s natural environment. This Post […]
Water, Water Everywhere I returned to DeSoto State Park Thursday-through-Saturday April 18-20, exploring on my own Thursday and Saturday, and hiking with Park Naturalist Brittney Hughes Friday. This will be the first of three Blog Posts from my visit. The other two, in turn, will offer photos and reflections on 1) a spring day at […]
I’ve said previously in these Posts that I’m fascinated by all of Nature’s faces. From geography to plants to fauna to weather. Among weather phenomena, cloud magic and wonder furnish frequent inspiration. I present here a set of photos I snapped at home in northern Alabama over the past 30 days. April morning rain gave […]
I delivered The Spring 2019 Distinguished Lecture on Nature as Revelation at Bryn Athyn College (BAC) April 1, 2019. I had previously visited my friend and colleague, Rev. Dr. Ray Silverman, associate professor at BAC, located just northeast of Philadelphia. From the college’s web site: Bryn Athyn College of the New Church serves as an […]
I’ve been writing and issuing these Great Blue Heron Blog Posts on Nature-Inspired Life and Living for about two years, issuing to-date approximately 150 Posts. I have focused at least three dozen based upon exploring our Alabama State Parks. My hope is to have visited all 21 State Parks by the end of 2021. I […]
I returned mid-March to the site of my east-central Ohio Land Legacy Project, an 1,100 property that nineteenth-century agriculture brought to ruin. Poor practices led to wholesale erosion, impoverished land, and abandoned farms. Mid-twentieth century strip mining led to more “scars upon the land,” perhaps, in retrospect for this property, opening the door to reclamation […]
March 20, 2019, staff at DeSoto State Park (DSP) welcomed members of my Osher Lifelong Learning Institute (OLLI at University of Alabama in Huntsville) winter term course on Northern Alabama State Parks. The 35 or so registrants elected to visit DSP on this supplemental field trip from among the Parks we brought to OLLI during […]
And for as long as I stay here, I know I will also have to get to the wild places. And this was the vision of a world place that had stayed with me: somewhere boreal, wintry, vast, isolated, elemental, demanding of the traveler in its asperities. To reach a wild place was, for me, […]
This is the fourth and final post from my February 28-March 2 visit to Cheaha State Park. I joined some 120 environmental educators attending the annual meeting of the Environmental Educators Association of Alabama (EE AA). The group invited me to present the opening keynote address Thursday evening (2/28). I stayed for the entire conference, […]