Flint Creek Trail at Wheeler National Wildlife Refuge
October 8, 2022, I co-led an OLLI (Osher Lifelong Learning Institute; University of Alabama at Huntsville) hike along the Flint Creek Trail, Wheeler National Wildlife Refuge near Decatur, Alabama. The day proved picture perfect with brilliant blue sky and unseasonably chilly. I enjoy leading these hikes; our OLLI members are mostly retirees, eager to learn […]
A Spectacular Autumn Sunrise at Alabama’s Lakepoint State Park and the Eufaula National Wildlife Refuge
This post offers 44 minutes of sunrise inspiration at Alabama’s Lakepoint State Park and Eufaula National Wildlife Refuge October 15, 2022. An equinox stroke eliminated my planned March 2022 trip to Lakepoint State Park for a quarterly Alabama State Parks Foundation Board meeting. I vowed to visit the Park once I recovered and summer had […]
Georgia’s Providence Canyon State Park
In concert with my October exploration of Alabama’s Lakepoint State Park and the Eufaula National Wildlife Refuge, I slipped over to Georgia’s Providence Canyon State Park October 14, 2022. I found a paradoxically attractive consequence of man’s irresponsible and poorly informed treatment of fragile soils for crop production. Scarred by agriculture in the mid-19th century, […]
Alabama’s Lake Point State Park; Managed Loblolly Pine
October 2022 I enjoyed my first visit to Alabama’s Lakepoint State Park near Eufaula. I found the Park’s forests and Lake Eufaula shoreline delightful, rich with Nature’s beauty, magic, wonder, and awe. See my focus on the Park’s managed loblolly pine forest, intersected with pleasant trails. A Park and a Refuge An equinox stroke eliminated […]
A Bounty of Observations from an Empty-Basket Foraging Hike
Wednesday afternoon August 24, 2022, fellow mushroom forager Dr. Bernie Kerecki (MD) and I bushwhacked through a riparian hardwood forest just north of the Tennessee River in Madison, Alabama. We stayed alert for chanterelles, oysters, chicken of the woods, hen of the woods, black-staining polypores, cauliflower mushrooms, wood ear jelly, and lions mane, all of […]
Cold Spring Loop Trail
John Muir aptly observed, In every walk with Nature one receives far more than he seeks. So, too, every time I explore a new (for me) north Alabama natural area I receive far more than I seek. Chris Stuhlinger, a fellow retired forester, and I co-lead a series of monthly hikes for the Osher Lifelong […]
A State Champion Yields to Decay and Gravity
July 9, 2022, the State Champion shingle oak at Joe Wheeler State Park succumbed to the forces of age, decay, and gravity…gently in its sleep. This Post serves as a reflective obituary and memorial. Nothing in Nature is static. Permanent is a human construct. Across my career I’ve held several interim or acting positions, wherein […]
Goldsmith-Schiffman Wildlife Sanctuary: A Tale of Two Extraordinary Women
This Post launches the 14-minute land legacy video tale for the Goldsmith-Schiffman Wildlife Sanctuary in Huntsville, Alabama. The Post chronicles and presents the year-long video production. Bill Heslip, retired videographer, and I conceived and co-led the effort…Bill Directed; I Produced. Bill dubbed our two-person team Two Guys & A Camera. We enjoyed the project immensely. […]
Mid-August Hike Circuiting a Summit-Glade Racetrack
August 16, 2022, Jim Chamberlain, friend and fellow Nature enthusiast, and I hiked to and circuited the Racetrack Trail at Wade Mountain Nature Preserve, located just north of Huntsville, Alabama. This summit-top limestone glade is a climax plant community dominated by low growing herbaceous species and associated shrubs and trees. I had done little homework […]
Spiritual Wildness in an Urban Setting
August 12, 2022, I visited the 20-acre Indian Creek stream-side property owned and stewarded by Huntsville, Alabama’s Grace United Methodist Church, toured by my friend and Grace UMC parishioner Jim Chamberlain, a fellow Nature-enthusiast. It’s fitting that a church owns this sacred place, where I feel the nearness of a higher Power, immersed in a […]
Special Post for October 2022 PLT Training
I offer this as a new Post, yet it encapsulates three previous Posts from my earlier wanderings on the Land Trust of North Alabama’s Chapman Mountain Nature Preserve in Madison County Alabama. My reason for this break from my normal routine is simple — I will participate October in presenting a Project Learning Tree (PLT) […]
Mid-August Hike — My First Visit to Wade Mountain Nature Preserve
August 16, 2022, I hiked the Racetrack Trail at Wade Mountain Nature Preserve just north of Huntsville, Alabama. Jim Chamberlain, friend and fellow nature enthusiast (below left), led the way on our early morning venture. He had hiked the preserve multiple times; this was my first visit to Wade Mountain. Like all of the Land […]