Steve Jones at Mount Washington

Correcting My Blog Post Distribution Snag

Hello to all, including those of you who disappeared via an error in my automatic Blog Post distribution system. Welcome… and welcome back! I publish these Posts weekly, offering reflections and lots of my photos on Nature-Inspired Life and Living. All 210 (or so) that I’ve posted since January 2017 are accessible at: https://stevejonesgbh.com/blog/ My […]

Distant Thunderstorm

Cloud Verse

I’ve published more than 200 Posts in these pages over the past three years. I use a format of photos, reflections, and lessons drawn from places visited in Nature’s realm… here locally and even internationally. Seldom have I ventured beyond simple prose. But now I’ve completed a poetry writing class at the University of Alabama […]

Mushroom Hike

Land Trust Mushroom Hike on Rainbow Mountain

Covid-19 Context We’re now more than two weeks beyond the call to distance safely from our circle of friends, family, and associates. Judy and I speak of being under Covid-19 house-arrest. We continue our twice-daily neighborhood walks. I’m escaping as often as I can to local hiking trails and greenway bike riding. We are in […]

Verse

Nature Pauses Not for a Human/Viral Pandemic

  As I write and publish this brief Post March 28, 2020, our air is thick with pollen — ’tis the season! Six-year-old grandson Sam spent an hour outdoors with us today — social-distancing and all that. I couldn’t help but share a few photos and write a bit of verse about the paradox of […]

Resurrection Fern

Resurrection Fern — A Metaphor in Verse for Nature’s Simplicity

11 Photos An Exemplar for Simplicity in a World of Expanding Complexity I will mention but not dwell upon the fact that Covid-19 house-arrest spurs reflecting, creating, and writing… and encourages me to flourish in Nature whenever I can. March 21, 2020 I drove the short three miles to Rainbow Mountain Nature Preserve to hike […]

Dead Oak

Lyrical Expressions in Forest Pathogens… Under a Covid-19 Cloud

I write these words March 18, 2020, sheltered in-place in the midst of uncertainty as we face the Corvid-19 pandemic. As a forester (1973 BS) and applied ecologist (1987 PhD), my passion in semi-retirement is Nature, especially trees and forests. With all of my speaking, teaching, and consulting gigs on Covid-hold, I allocate my time […]

Opening Hike, Waterfall

Bethel Spring North Alabama Land Trust: Yet Another Natural Gem

A Corona Virus Statement of Context I am completing this Post on March 15, 2020 as the Corona virus pandemic is burdening our spirit, dashing economic activity, and giving us pause to reflect on the specter of a future bug that could place our entire humanity at peril. I am at my computer only because […]

Non-flowering Plants

Nature Poetry: Sowing Seeds for Earth Stewardship

Don’t judge each day by the harvest you reap but by the seeds that you plant. Robert Louis Stevenson   I am committed to Earth Stewardship, a mission component driving my entire life in these years of semi-retirement. Spurred by being no longer fully employed, watching the first two of our five grandchildren nudge to […]

North Alabama Land Trust

Leafless Tree I.D. Hike along Bradford Creek Greenway

  February 22, 2020, the North Alabama Land Trust hosted a Leafless Tree I.D. hike along Bradford Creek Greenway in Madison, AL. I remain convinced that learning more about Nature amplifies our commitment to Earth stewardship. Don’t we care more about other humans when we know something (positive) about them, including their names? I believe […]

Kazakhstan

My Edu Alliance Journal Article on Academic Leadership

I issue weekly (more or less) GBH Blog Posts on Nature-Inspired Life and Living. However, I still dabble in the arena where I operated for two decades prior to retiring: Higher Education Leadership. I conducted an August 2019 Academic Leadership workshop for VPs, Deans, Directors, and Chairs at Kimep University in Almaty, Kazakhstan. I developed […]

Non-flowering Plants

A Morning Visit to a Nearby Section of Wheeler National Wildlife Refuge with my Six-Year-Old Grandson

Wheeler National Wildlife Refuge here in northern Alabama covers 35,000 acres, 54.7 square miles. February 1, 2020, my daughter’s younger son (Sam, soon-to-be-six-years-old) and I visited an arm of the Refuge about a dozen miles due south of where I live and just six miles from where Sam resides. We hiked out a mile or […]

Camp McDowell

Examining a 70-Year Journey at Alabama’s Camp McDowell

I went back to McDowell January 20-24, 2020 to begin serious field work for developing McDowell’s Land Legacy Story — the Natural History corollary to existing books and essays on the facility’s Human History. Founders bought the first Camp parcels in 1946 and initiated Camp programming in 1948. I offer this brief Blog Post as […]