Late June Derecho — Nature’s Fury
I remind you that I am a weather addict, hooked on its captivating nuances, predictable (and not so predictable) patterns, and heart-stopping power and beauty. I witnessed one of Nature’s most powerful land-based weather phenomena last week — a derecho. Accuweather’s online definition: Derechos are often referred to as inland hurricanes due to the hurricane-like […]
June 22, 2018 Squall on Big Blue Lake
I am a hopeless weather junkie — addicted for life! I’ve included essays recounting personal episodes with Nature’s pleasurable terror in both Nature Based Leadership and Nature-Inspired Learning and Leading. A meteorologist friend in New Hampshire declared us weather perverts — we both thrill at weather that is harsh and threatening. For example, we believe […]
Bark Portfolio — Beauty and Mystery
A Poem as Lovely as a Tree? I’ve found fascination, entertainment, inspiration, wonderment, and joy in trees since toddler-hood! Poet Joyce Kilmer’s Trees captures my lifelong sentiment: I think that I shall never see A poem lovely as a tree. A tree whose hungry mouth is prest Against the earth’s sweet flowing breast; A tree […]
No-Nature Vigilante on Big Blue Lake
I write often of our idyllic life on Big Blue Lake. My bubble of peace and tranquility burst recently. Occasionally life events remind me that not all people share my love for Nature. June 6, 2018 brought such an event — a rude and real wake-up call that even here on Big Blue Lake (BBL) […]
Goose Family Progress — Thirty Days Later!
I introduced our new goose family May 7: https://stevejonesgbh.com/2018/05/07/big-blue-lake-update/ Our backyard nesting Canada Goose parents presented six hatchlings April 30 (below left), reduced to five when we next spotted them in our yard (below right). Sometime mid-month we spotted the parents and four goslings. May 30 the awkward gangling, seeming-teenagers […]
Six-Hundred-Sixty Mile Transect
We departed our Madison, Alabama home mid-morning, Thursday May 10, destination Fairmont, West Virginia, 660 road miles to the northeast. We stayed overnight in Princeton, WV about 200 miles from Fairmont, where we needed to be early afternoon for events in advance of Saturday’s Commencement ceremonies and my two addresses. We began our journey from […]
Idyllic and Pastoral — An Earth Stewardship Surprise and Exemplar
Colleagues Craig Cassarino and Dr. Jean Meade and I visited an east-central Ohio cattle operation owned by friends and associates whom Craig has known for two decades. Because we three are collaborating on a Nature-based, sustainable agriculture-themed education project near Morgantown, West Virginia (Jean’s location), Craig wanted Jean and me to see the property and […]
Fairmont State University Commencement
Fairmont State University Commencement Remarks May 12, 2018; S. Jones Having served Fairmont State University as Interim President July-December 2017, I felt honored to present the University’s Commencement address May 12, 2018 at both the morning and afternoon ceremonies. That’s the FSU campus below right, an aerial view from my week-before-Christmas-fly-over with one of our […]
Little River Canyon
Saturday April 21, I made my first visit to Little River Canyon (LRC) near Fort Payne, AL and the Georgia border. I felt as though I already knew it well. Twenty-one years ago when serving as Alabama Cooperative Extension Director, I accepted a nicely framed 15-by-21-inch numbered print (75/190) of the Canyon for Advancing the […]
Big Blue Lake Update
It’s been a while since I posted a simple Big Blue Lake update. For those who need a reminder, we built our retirement home (December 2015) on a four-acre pond/lake in northern Alabama’s Tennessee River Valley near Huntsville. Ours is the largest of a string of three bodies of water. We chose the lot because […]
Harnessing Nature’s Wisdom and Power
This morning (May 5, 2018) Positively-Positive, a global website with more than a million subscribers, posted a pilot essay I had submitted for their consideration: http://www.positivelypositive.com/…/positive-living-by-har…/ I am actively seeking to spread the gospel of Nature-Inspired Learning and Leading. This is a positive step! Note: That’s not me standing atop the hill in silhouette — […]
The Fire Tower at Monte Sano
Human history and Natural history are inseparable. We humans are not interlopers on this third rock from the sun. We are not invaders. We are residents… native to Earth. We are here because this is home — because this is the place that spawned us. There is not humanity and Nature. There is simply Nature… […]