Nature's Inspiration Archives - Page 6 of 25 - Steve Jones Great Blue Heron

Another Nature Visit to Cumberland, Maryland, My Home Town

July 14, 2021/in Nature's Inspiration, Spirituality in Nature /by Steve Jones

Accompany me on a trip of reminiscence to my hometown, where powerful forces shaped the course and curve of my lifelong Nature-Inspired Life and Living.

Heart of Cumberland

Although I reside now in north Alabama, at the southern end of my beloved Appalachian Mountains, I return to Cumberland at least once a year. We visited for a couple of days at the end of May 2021. I offer a quick glimpse into the Nature of that visit with this Post, soon to be followed with one each of a rainy morning at Evitts Creek Three Ponds just north of I-68 east of Cumberland and a glorious afternoon hike around Rocky Gap State Park’s Lake Habeeb.

Whenever I return to my hometown I find time to at least stop by the eastern terminus of the C&O Canal, with an up-close view of the heart of The Queen City, the juncture of Wills Creeks and the Potomac, and the deep embrace of our Appalachians.

Low stratus obscured all but the lower notch of The Narrows.

Likewise, clouds eclipsed most of Knobly Mountain as it stretches deeper into West Virginia. The Potomac is the border between Maryland (left) and West Virginia. I recall as a kid walking from home (on the slight rise to the left) to fish the Potomac a half mile downstream from the photo point, beyond the sweeping curve. The pre-Clean Water Act Potomac harbored no game fish then (only carp, suckers, eels, and mudcats), and carried debris from untreated municipal and industrial effluents, and on summer days wafted foul odors. The river is now fishable and swimable. Who says we are destined for environmental ruin!

The city’s history links to the river (the canal), the mountains (coal and timber), and the ultimate transportation corridor to the Ohio frontier. The artificially channeled Potomac through Cumberland resulted from engineered flood control levees after the epic and devastating 1936 St. Patrick’s Day flood. The 184-mile marker (clearly disrespected by our avian residents) prompts vivid memories of biking from Cumberland to Georgetown some 30 years ago.

Bikers continue making the journey along the 184.5-mile National Historical Park. Below left a biker with trailer departs from my point. Another biker with the same group approaches me below right.

I found yellow sweetclover (left) and hop trefoil (right) to brighten the cloudy late spring morning.

And broad-leafed sweet pea (left) and purple crown vetch (right). All four species are legumes that fix nitrogen and enrich soils.

Bladder campion added a special pink and white touch… a delicate beauty.

Great wooly mullein stands ready below to launch its 3-5-feet tall flower shaft. The leaves are covered by dense velvety wool.

Fort Hill High School

My wife (Judy) and I graduated from this very same building in 1969, as did my mother in 1942. The school sits on a hill some 300 feet above the elevation of the Potomac, providing an unobstructed view to the Allegheny Front, the nearly 3,000 foot elevation escarpment just west of Cumberland. I know I spent what my teachers deemed far too many hours gazing westward over the city and into those wonderful ridges beyond. A great place to observe and appreciate Nature, especially the weather, an addiction I embrace yet today.

I lettered in cross country at Fort Hill. I mention it not to draw attention to my distance running prowess (I was such a plodder!), but because practice sent me into the rural landscape mosaic of hills, forests, fields, and streams nearby. What a magnificent escape into Nature. Cross country planted a seed for distance running that I carried into my 50s, when knees began to protest.

Allegany Community College

I have written often of my belief that there are incidents in life that seem to be coincidences, but instead upon my closer inspection and deliberation amount to correspondence and divine providence. As my love for Nature and the outdoors began to deepen, the local community college opened a brand new campus (below) the fall of 1969 (I graduated high school in June 1969) and initiated a forestry program. The campus sits along Evitts Creek. Cross country training often took me past the soon-to-be campus entrance. When I attended Allegany Community College the campus occupied grassy fields. Over the intervening five decades, mature landscaping and impressive oak trees have grown to occupy the valley floor. Our dendrology labs often took us onto the forested hill on the far side of Evitts Creek (below right and left).

I offer this Post not as a detailed ecological examination, but as a short reflection on three cornerstones of my formative years: the Potomac flowing through the Appalachians within walking distance of my home; experiences in secondary education and athletics at a hilltop high school overlooking the ridges and valley that I cherished; and the inauguration of a professional program of study in my forestry passion-field just four miles from my home. Coincidence? No, divine providence has guided my way. Robert Frost told my tale in The Road Not Taken:

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,

And having perhaps the better claim,

Because it was grassy and wanted wear;

Though as for that the passing there

Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay

In leaves no step had trodden black.

Oh, I kept the first for another day!

Yet knowing how way leads on to way,

I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

Divine providence presented the pathway that I chose. In fact, better stated, the path chose me.

Thoughts and Reflections

I offer these reflections:

The Nature of my youth shaped the seedling and sapling Steve Jones.
I attribute so much of what has shaped me to Divine Providence.
Fortuity and serendipity have been powerful life forces for me.

Inhale and absorb Nature’s elixir. May Nature Inspire, Inform, and Reward you!

Note: All blog post images created & photographed by Stephen B. Jones unless otherwise noted. Please circulate images with photo credit: “©2021 Steve Jones, Great Blue Heron LLC. All Rights Reserved.”

Another Note: If you came to this post via a Facebook posting or by an another route, please sign up now (no cost… no obligation) to receive my Blog Post email alerts: http://eepurl.com/cKLJdL

And a Third: I am available for Nature-Inspired Speaking, Writing, and Consulting — contact me at steve.jones.0524@gmail.com

Reminder of my Personal and Professional Purpose, Passion, and Cause

If only more of us viewed our precious environment through the filters I employ. If only my mission and vision could be multiplied untold orders of magnitude:

Mission: Employ writing and speaking to educate, inspire, and enable readers and listeners to understand, appreciate, and enjoy Nature… and accept and practice Earth Stewardship.

Vision:

People of all ages will pay greater attention to and engage more regularly with Nature… and will accept and practice informed and responsible Earth Stewardship.
They will see their relationship to our natural world with new eyes… and will understand more clearly their Earth home.

Tagline/Motto: Steve (Great Blue Heron) encourages and seeks a better tomorrow through Nature-Inspired Living!

Steve’s Three Books

I wrote my books Nature Based Leadership (2016), Nature-Inspired Learning and Leading (2017), and Weaned Seals and Snowy Summits: Stories of Passion for Place and Everyday Nature (2019; co-authored with Dr. Jennifer Wilhoit) to encourage all citizens to recognize and appreciate that every lesson for living, learning, serving, and leading is either written indelibly in or is powerfully inspired by Nature.

I began writing books and Posts for several reasons:

I love hiking and exploring in Nature
I see images I want to (and do) capture with my trusty iPhone camera
I enjoy explaining those images — an educator at heart
I don’t play golf!
I actually do love writing — it’s the hobby I never needed when my career consumed me
Judy suggested my writing is in large measure my legacy to our two kids, our five grand kids, and all the unborn generations beyond
And finally, perhaps my books and Blogs could reach beyond family and touch a few other lives… sow some seeds for the future

All three of my books (Nature Based Leadership; Nature-Inspired Learning and Leading; Weaned Seals and Snowy Summits) present compilations of personal experiences expressing my (and co-author Dr. Wilhoit for Weaned Seals and Snowy Summits) deep passion for Nature. All three books offer observations and reflections on my relationship to the natural world… and the broader implications for society. Order any and all from your local indie bookstore, or find them on IndieBound or other online sources such as Amazon and LifeRich.

Nature Healing the Scars of Chickamauga National Memorial Park

July 7, 2021/in Memorials, Monuments, Nature's Inspiration, Other National Parks /by Steve Jones

April 25, 2021, we visited Chickamauga National Military Park (NW Georgia, south of Chattanooga, TN) with our two Alabama grandsons. My purpose with this Post is to reflect upon the tremendous restorative power of Nature. The official National Park Service brochure tells the tale of the three days of terror.

War ravaged these Appalachian foothill ridges and valleys in northwest Georgia, just 120 miles from my residence, for three days 158 years ago in September 1863. The clash along Chickamauga Creek engaged 125,000 combatants. Nearly 4,000 men perished; the wounded totaled 24,000. More than 6,000 captured or missing. The opposing armies met during the struggle for control of Chattanooga, a critical transportation hub important to both Union and Confederate forces. Search the web for more information about the battle and the broader War Between the States.

The bloody three-day battle ravaged the land (and opposing armies) in that southern Appalachian foothill country. The setting now is pastoral…mixed open meadow and forest. Aside from battlefield monuments, signage, and cannons, the land looks pristine…untouched. Yet, 158 years ago the site saw the full fury of military might. The rehabilitation over the initial 27 years included cleaning up the mess, salvaging damaged materiel and equipment, and resuming some agricultural practices. Congress designated the site a National Military Park in 1890. Since then, Nature has conducted her own healing and recovery. I mention this only to say time and Nature heal most wounds and insults to the environment.

I will focus on Nature’s healing and offer photos and an ecologist’s reflections on what I saw and felt April 26, 2021 touring Chickamauga National Military Park with Judy, Jack, and Sam. Importantly, I grew up less than 100 miles from Gettysburg, Antietam, and Manassas Battlefields. Like Chickamauga, those famous battlefields are maintained by the National Park Service. And they, too, express Nature’s natural healing from gross abuse.

Today, Chickamauga’s pastoral vistas (left) and deep forest (right) belie the unfathomable violence that swept across the landscape. Acts of heroism, valor, and sacrifice marked the ferocious fighting. Men paid the ultimate price to either defend the South or preserve the union. That battle, the war itself, and the causes leading to succession and ultimate healing are written in history…a history we cannot and should not undo or rewrite. Humanity must learn from the past, and launch into the future. Despite the blemishes, we remain the bright light among nations on Earth, a USA attracting record numbers of wanna-be citizens to our borders. I remind you that today’s flow of humans is one-way. I hear nothing about an exodus from the US. One point of attraction, I suppose, is that while we memorialize all who died in our Civil War, we do so in beautiful Military Park settings. We don’t glorify the brutal war. Instead, we recognize that we can complement healing the nation’s soul by creating magnificent Parks to honor the casualties and help set our nation’s course into the deep future, far beyond this century and a half.

The Wilder Brigade Monument Tower stand at the southern end of the Park. We climbed the 85-feet to gain perspective. Today’s beauty contrasts to the 1863 photographs that show shattered trees, broken and battered materiel, cannon emplacements, and raw earth.

As I viewed the forest from above, I wondered whether any of today’s trees had witnessed the savaging. As I further explored at ground level, I found no trees that stood out as older than 150 years. I pondered, too, whether the cirrus-laced blue of our late April sky was similar to the firmament above the smoke-filled fields and woods of September 1863. How out of character such a peaceful sky would have been.

Perhaps something more in line with the raging fury would have been these two images I snapped from approaching storms last summer here in north Alabama.

Standing atop the tower, I snapped this photo of a loblolly pine at my eye-level…let’s call it a 90-foot tall tree. Loblolly grows fast in our climate. I can’t imagine this individual being much older than 65 years. Perhaps its grandmother absorbed lead and blasts during that long-ago September period.

Sam posed beside a gnarled tree just 30-feet from a deep-woods monument indicating the position of some battle unit. A war-scarred survivor just scraping by for 16 decades? I doubt it. I’ve seen hundreds of such odd tree forms throughout our regional forests. Nature’s treatments of wind, lightning, ice, and toppling neighbors exact a continuing toll. So, nothing to suggest that this tree suffered Civil War injury.

These forests look just like most other second- and third-growth stands I’ve explored, except that the trail (right) leads downhill to two cannon emplacements. I long ago concluded that Nature cares little, if at all, about human influences and imposed disturbances, which Nature matches with her own tornadoes, hurricanes, volcanoes, wildfires, floods, etc. She knows perturbations.

Yes, I know that the battlefield soil still carries the residue of those three days. A Park Ranger told me that they have catalogued untold numbers of mini-balls and metal fragments. Similarly, I’ve walked alluvial fields from Virginia south through the Carolinas, Georgia, and Alabama and found arrowheads, chips from tool-making, and Native American pottery shards aplenty. Whether from hunting and gathering, routine living, or horrendous battles, we humans leave the debris of our living behind. I believe the boys enjoyed our Chickamauga venture, even as they felt the horror of the battle. The interpretive museum and movie told the tale effectively and honestly. History, like Nature, is best understood and appreciated on the ground. Although a replica, the log building representing a home on the site that served as a field hospital, a nexus of where men died in care, field surgeons removed limbs, and terrifying sounds and sights filled the hours.

We can learn from history and Nature only if we accept the facts, parse the lessons, and consider all dimensions from beauty and magic to horror and terror. I’ll close this discussion with the white oak that stands majestically near the log building. To me it symbolizes the restorative and healing powers of Nature. I wonder whether during the dark of night it feels ancient echoes of musket fire, cannons roaring, and explosions.

In some ways, we naturalists and historians share the task of bringing the past to life… so that we might discover and translate lessons for life and living into the future. I have written often that every parcel of forestland has a tale to tell. I strive to read every forested landscape that I enter.

Thoughts and Reflections

I offer these reflections:

Nature is proficient at healing all wounds, whether human inflicted or natural.
Our National Military Parks complement healing the nation’s soul by creating magnificent parklands.
Human and natural history intersect in ways that stir the spirit within us.

Inhale and absorb Nature’s elixir. May Nature Inspire, Inform, and Reward you!

Note: All blog post images created & photographed by Stephen B. Jones unless otherwise noted. Please circulate images with photo credit: “©2021 Steve Jones, Great Blue Heron LLC. All Rights Reserved.”

Another Note: If you came to this post via a Facebook posting or by an another route, please sign up now (no cost… no obligation) to receive my Blog Post email alerts: http://eepurl.com/cKLJdL

And a Third: I am available for Nature-Inspired Speaking, Writing, and Consulting — contact me at steve.jones.0524@gmail.com

Reminder of my Personal and Professional Purpose, Passion, and Cause

If only more of us viewed our precious environment through the filters I employ. If only my mission and vision could be multiplied untold orders of magnitude:

Mission: Employ writing and speaking to educate, inspire, and enable readers and listeners to understand, appreciate, and enjoy Nature… and accept and practice Earth Stewardship.

Vision:

People of all ages will pay greater attention to and engage more regularly with Nature… and will accept and practice informed and responsible Earth Stewardship.
They will see their relationship to our natural world with new eyes… and will understand more clearly their Earth home.

Tagline/Motto: Steve (Great Blue Heron) encourages and seeks a better tomorrow through Nature-Inspired Living!

Steve’s Three Books

I wrote my books Nature Based Leadership (2016), Nature-Inspired Learning and Leading (2017), and Weaned Seals and Snowy Summits: Stories of Passion for Place and Everyday Nature (2019; co-authored with Dr. Jennifer Wilhoit) to encourage all citizens to recognize and appreciate that every lesson for living, learning, serving, and leading is either written indelibly in or is powerfully inspired by Nature.

I began writing books and Posts for several reasons:

I love hiking and exploring in Nature
I see images I want to (and do) capture with my trusty iPhone camera
I enjoy explaining those images — an educator at heart
I don’t play golf!
I actually do love writing — it’s the hobby I never needed when my career consumed me
Judy suggested my writing is in large measure my legacy to our two kids, our five grand kids, and all the unborn generations beyond
And finally, perhaps my books and Blogs could reach beyond family and touch a few other lives… sow some seeds for the future

All three of my books (Nature Based Leadership; Nature-Inspired Learning and Leading; Weaned Seals and Snowy Summits) present compilations of personal experiences expressing my (and co-author Dr. Wilhoit for Weaned Seals and Snowy Summits) deep passion for Nature. All three books offer observations and reflections on my relationship to the natural world… and the broader implications for society. Order any and all from your local indie bookstore, or find them on IndieBound or other online sources such as Amazon and LifeRich.

The Da Vinci Rule : The Universal Dendritic Pattern in Nature

June 30, 2021/in Nature's Inspiration /by Steve Jones

Nearly all of my Great Blue Heron Blog Posts document with photos and reflections some recent venture I have made into a natural area. This Post encapsulates a general observation I draw from many of my Nature-wanderings, and that I corroborate with a 500-year-old truth revealed by Leonardo da Vinci and known now simply as the da Vinci rule.

Leonardo da Vinci, I am convinced, saw the invisible. Or more accurately, he saw clearly what was hidden in plain sight. I’ve been reading Walter Isaacson’s Leonardo da Vinci, a fine-print 600-page tome on this amazing man who lived five centuries ago. da Vinci expressed what I view as infinite wisdom in the simplest of terms:

Human subtlety…will never devise an invention more beautiful, more simple or more direct than does nature, because in her inventions nothing is lacking, and nothing is superfluous.

Isaacson said of da Vinci’s power of observation:

Leonardo’s devotion to firsthand experience went deeper than just being prickly about his lack of received wisdom. It also caused him, at least early on, to minimize the role of theory. A natural observer and experimenter, he was neither wired nor trained to wrestle with abstract concepts. He preferred to induce from experiments rather than deduce from theoretical principles. “My intention is to consult experience first, and then with reasoning show why such experience is bound to operate in such a way,” he wrote. In other words, he would try to look at facts and from them figure out the patterns and natural forces that caused those things to happen. “Although nature begins with the cause and ends with the experience, we must follow the opposite course, namely begin with the experience, and by means of it investigate the cause.”

Universal Dendritic Pattern

Such was the approach he employed in many of his scientific and artistic pursuits:

We saw an example of this pattern-based analysis on the theme sheet, where he made the analogy between a branching tree and the arteries in a human, one that he applied also to rivers and their tributaries. “All the branches of a tree at every stage of its height when put together are equal in thickness to the trunk below them,” he wrote. “All the branches of a river at every stage of its course, if they are of equal rapidity, are equal to the body of the main stream.” This conclusion is still known as “da Vinci’s rule,” and it has proven true in situations where the branches are not very large: the sum of the cross-sectional area of all branches above a branching point is equal to the cross-sectional area of the trunk or the branch immediately below the branching point.

River Systems and Erosion

This stock image from the internet displays the da Vinci rule on an unidentified river delta:

Like waterways themselves, erosion of exposed agricultural land follows the same dendritic pattern. This early 1900s stock image of rill erosion depicts a scene far too common across the eastern US from 1850 through the first quarter of the 20th century. The da Vinci Rule provided the pattern by which abused cropland sent feet of topsoil across tens of millions of acres downriver, bringing foreclosure and abandonment to family farms, and helping to ensure the misery of the Great Depression.

Human Circulation and Nervous System

Yet another internet stock image confirms the dendritic pattern of the human nervous system. The Britannic website offers this information on dendrites, an element of the nervous system that actually bears the root form of the term dendritic: Besides the axon, neurons have other branches called dendrites that are usually shorter than axons and are unmyelinated. Dendrites are thought to form receiving surfaces for synaptic input from other neurons. My intent with including the technical language is to suggest that the science is exact and that among the scientists concerned with such things the da Vinci Rule is fully incorporated, even if not referenced by name.

The same pattern holds true of our circulatory networks, depicted stylistically in this stock image.

Trees

We cannot dispute the wisdom of observation in this canopy view from the bottomland hardwood forests of nearby Wheeler National Wildlife Refuge. The da Vinci Rule in action in broad daylight.

And the same for trees at the nearby Chapman Mountain Nature Preserve, and for trees I have seen in every domestic and overseas forest I have visited across my 50-years-practice of forestry.

The same holds true below ground. Witness these stream-bank-exposed roots at Huntsville, Alabama’s Goldsmith-Schiffman Wildlife Sanctuary.

The online Etymology Dictionary addresses the prefix “dendro”: word-forming element meaning “tree,” from Greek dendron “tree.” Trees, then, serve as the root (pardon the pun) for the dendritic pattern we are addressing.

Leaves

The da Vinci Rule applies broadly to leaf venation across the plant kingdom. Here is evidence on the leaves of rattlesnake weed and alumroot

And for the pinnate venation on these autumn pawpaw leaves.

These Ohio buckeye leaves comply with a da Vinci quote, “Nature never breaks her own laws.”

The dendritic venation on the ornamental elephant ears in our landscape beds illustrates the da Vinci Rule, its exquisite design adds an artistic dimension that I am sure would have inspired and intrigued the creator of the Mona Lisa and The Last Supper.

I’ve long been a da Vinci fan, finding timeless wisdom in his immutable observations from more than 500 years ago. Time and again, when I think I have made some groundbreaking discovery or revelation, I find that da Vinci, Humboldt, Leopold, Muir, Thoreau, Bartram, Marsh, or some other of the historic Nature-interpretation masters masterfully captured same in language more eloquent than my own.

da Vinci: Nature is the source of all true knowledge. She has her own logic, her own laws, she has no effect without cause nor invention without necessity.

Apparently the da Vince dendritic rule is time-tested by necessity over the eons. There is no better design for carrying out the work of Nature. Too bad that we humans often ignore the simple rules of Nature. Will we awaken before it is too late? Can we as an intelligent species apply Aldo Leopold’s wisdom:

Ethical behavior is doing the right thing when no one else is watching — even when doing the wrong thing is legal.

The land ethic simply enlarges the boundaries of the community to include soils, waters, plants, and animals, or collectively: the land… In short, a land ethic changes the role of Homo sapiens from conqueror of the land-community to plain member and citizen of it. It implies respect for his fellow-members, and also respect for the community as such.

I worry that Homo sapiens may over the long sweep of time amount to little more than a footnote in Earth’s future fossil record. I accept the da Vinci Rule. Perhaps we can also embrace Leopold’s Rule of Earth-Ethical-Behavior.

I developed my Retirement Mission Statement within the spirit of that same Leopold admonition: Employ writing and speaking to educate, inspire, and enable readers and listeners to understand, appreciate, and enjoy Nature… and accept and practice Earth Stewardship.

Thoughts and Reflections

I offer three observations from reflecting on the da Vinci Rule:

The universal laws of Nature are tested, timeless, and effective.
Nature never breaks her own laws.
Nothing surpasses the power of carefully observing Nature’s ways.

Inhale and absorb Nature’s elixir. May Nature Inspire, Inform, and Reward you!

Note: All blog post images created & photographed by Stephen B. Jones unless otherwise noted. Please circulate images with photo credit: “©2021 Steve Jones, Great Blue Heron LLC. All Rights Reserved.”

Another Note: If you came to this post via a Facebook posting or by an another route, please sign up now (no cost… no obligation) to receive my Blog Post email alerts: http://eepurl.com/cKLJdL

And a Third: I am available for Nature-Inspired Speaking, Writing, and Consulting — contact me at steve.jones.0524@gmail.com

Reminder of my Personal and Professional Purpose, Passion, and Cause

If only more of us viewed our precious environment through the filters I employ. If only my mission and vision could be multiplied untold orders of magnitude:

Mission: Employ writing and speaking to educate, inspire, and enable readers and listeners to understand, appreciate, and enjoy Nature… and accept and practice Earth Stewardship.

Vision:

People of all ages will pay greater attention to and engage more regularly with Nature… and will accept and practice informed and responsible Earth Stewardship.
They will see their relationship to our natural world with new eyes… and will understand more clearly their Earth home.

Tagline/Motto: Steve (Great Blue Heron) encourages and seeks a better tomorrow through Nature-Inspired Living!

Steve’s Three Books

I wrote my books Nature Based Leadership (2016), Nature-Inspired Learning and Leading (2017), and Weaned Seals and Snowy Summits: Stories of Passion for Place and Everyday Nature (2019; co-authored with Dr. Jennifer Wilhoit) to encourage all citizens to recognize and appreciate that every lesson for living, learning, serving, and leading is either written indelibly in or is powerfully inspired by Nature.

I began writing books and Posts for several reasons:

I love hiking and exploring in Nature
I see images I want to (and do) capture with my trusty iPhone camera
I enjoy explaining those images — an educator at heart
I don’t play golf!
I actually do love writing — it’s the hobby I never needed when my career consumed me
Judy suggested my writing is in large measure my legacy to our two kids, our five grand kids, and all the unborn generations beyond
And finally, perhaps my books and Blogs could reach beyond family and touch a few other lives… sow some seeds for the future

All three of my books (Nature Based Leadership; Nature-Inspired Learning and Leading; Weaned Seals and Snowy Summits) present compilations of personal experiences expressing my (and co-author Dr. Wilhoit for Weaned Seals and Snowy Summits) deep passion for Nature. All three books offer observations and reflections on my relationship to the natural world… and the broader implications for society. Order any and all from your local indie bookstore, or find them on IndieBound or other online sources such as Amazon and LifeRich.

Chapman Mountain Nature Preserve: The Intersection of Human and Natural History

June 23, 2021/in Land Trust of North Alabama, Nature's Inspiration, Preserves /by Steve Jones

April 3, 2021 I revisited Chapman Mountain Nature Preserve, just east of Huntsville, Alabama (USA). See my November 28, 2019 Great Blue Heron Blog Post for previous reflections: https://stevejonesgbh.com/2019/11/28/happy-thanksgiving-chapman-mountain-nature-preserves-terry-big-tree-trail/

And my June 16 Post about the fierce competition for canopy space within the Chapman Mountain forests: https://stevejonesgbh.com/2021/06/16/spring-visit-to-chapman-mountain-nature-preserve-the-intersection-of-human-and-natural-history/

From the Land Trust of North Alabama website: Chapman Mountain Nature Preserve is a 472 acre property located just to the east of Huntsville on HWY 72. While we have plans for 10 miles of trails, a little over 3 miles are currently open and ready to explore. Like all of our public preserves, Chapman Mountain is open dawn to dusk and access is free. These trails are not just for hiking though. Mountain bikers and horseback riders are also welcome and an 18-hole disc golf course is now open to play.

With this current Post, I offer reflections on the interplay of natural and human history on this, and nearly every forested property in northern Alabama. From an interpretive sign along the Terry Trail:

Along the trail you may notice an assortment of abandoned objects, from rusted metal waste, discarded household and farm items to an old car. We have chosen to leave these reminders of the history of this land, which was previously a working farm. Parts of the Terry Trail follow an old farm access road and the preserve includes remnants of an old homestead and barn. Use your imagination to visualize what this area may have looked like in the past and what it may look like in the future. Nature will continue to slowly change this site until one day these objects and this site’s history will no longer be apparent.

Native Americans occupied (extensive impact) the entire eastern US for at least 12,000 years prior to European settlement. Over the past 200 years, the European newcomers left the mark of their intensive management and settlement. So, picture as recently as 50 years ago a working farm, on-site residents, tilled land, pasture, and woodlots.

Interaction of Human and Natural History

Across the parking lot from the trailheads, loblolly pine trees shelter the 18-hole disc golf course. The flat land had been tilled into the 1980s. Consulting forester Brian Bradley told me that a 1985 aerial photo shows the field still in crops. By the mid 1990s the field has seeded naturally to pine from adjoining mature loblolly. The pine captured the site effectively. There is very little understory of ground vegetation and brush, the effect enhanced by what Brian describes as a very good prescribed fire in 2018. There is no sub-canopy of hardwood saplings and poles. The stand is pure, even-aged loblolly pine. Some day I will extract an increment core to determine the exact year of establishment (i.e. age). Brian revealed that a reliable logger thinned the stand in 2014-15, giving it the current look of a well-tended planted stand with stems evenly distributed. Brian, when pressed to give me his best estimate for stand age, offered his answer of 32+/- years, an estimate I embrace wholeheartedly! We also agree that the main canopy averages 75 feet.

Within the current forest this stone wall perhaps served one or more of several purposes:

Separated adjoining pastures
Divided pasture from cropland or garden
Resulted from stacking field stones removed from tilled land or improved pasture

No matter its intended function, the wall will outlast all of us, and in the meantime serve to memorialize the coarse hands and hard labor of those who built the wall. For those of us today who labor at our keyboards, what will be the physical manifestation of our work? I doubt that we will develop calloused fingertips or even a sun-blistered neck!

This now-massive American beech germinated from a beech nut that some squirrel, during the active days of the farm, cached among the stacked stones and failed to rediscover and consume. The beech grew for many years before the managed lands on either side of the wall reverted to forest cover. Its neighbors are younger by decades. The beech tree did not grow alone and without company. The huge spiral of dead grapevine grew tall with the beech, and has now reached beyond its terminal age, still weakly vertical and doomed within just a few years to finding home in decay on the forest floor. To every thing there is a season, whether grapevine or beech tree. A dead stem of unidentified hardwood species stands to the right of the beech in this image. I wonder how many Terry Trail hikers notice and appreciate the unique beauty of this trio? I see it as a sculpture, a work of art rich with its own legible historic context and story.

Below left the Terry Trail diverges to the left. An old farm access road extends straight from the photo point. Oh, the stories it might tell! I’m reminded of the jungle-covered Mayan cities, almost invisible to casual observers. I wonder were modern humans to disappear from our fine planet today, would the evidence of our existence be as hard to discern 1,300 years hence? Interstate 65 passes just 15 miles west of Huntsville. What could Nature accomplish with that 300-foot wide right of way over 13 centuries of abandonment? How long do asphalt, concrete, and steel persist without ongoing maintenance? How long before mowed shoulders and medium strips revert to deep forest? How long until Central Park consumes all of Manhattan Island? The narrow abandoned dirt road below is already nearly invisible to those who do not speak the language of reading the landscape.

Marie Bostic, Executive Director of the Trust, tells me that nearly every Land Trust of North Alabama preserve carries a story of at least one on-site still. This side trail leads to a spring head where the old still is rumored to have provided the homestead residents with the vital natural medicine. Distillation has rewarded civilized humans for at least 1,000 years:

The origin of whiskey began over 1000 years ago when distillation made the migration from mainland Europe into Scotland and Ireland via traveling monks. The Scottish and Irish monasteries, lacking the vineyards and grapes of the continent, turned to fermenting grain mash, resulting in the first distillations of modern whisky (Online from Bottleneck Management).

Why should the homesteaders on Chapman Mountain be deprived of the golden elixir?!

Trees have been eating barbed wired since the fencing breakthrough first received a patent in 1874. Nail or staple a wire to a living tree…and watch the tree inexorably consume the wire. This fence-eating oak is along an old fence line at the preserve. I frequently find long-abandoned wire fences across northern Alabama, cutting across what many would consider an undisturbed forest.

I normally like to see old trash removed from recreational land. However, I applaud the Land Trust for preserving the very real evidence of wildland domestication to tell the story of past land use. Nature is the ultimate healer. She will eventually erase the direct evidence. The old forest access road will meld into the forest. Even the old automobile will rust into oblivion. Only the rock fence will withstand centuries, (perhaps millennia) of weathering.

I have made reading the forested landscape one of my focal points for my wanderings and then writing these subsequent blog posts. I’ve said often that every tree, every forested parcel, and every landscape has a story to tell. I am intent upon learning more about the language Nature employs to leave her messages. Here I remind you of my five essential verbs.

Believe — I know the story is there; I believe that it is written in the forest.
Look — I cannot walk blindly and distractedly through the forest; I must look intently and deeply. The truth will not leap from the underbrush.
See — I must look deeply enough to see; to see the story Nature tells…and keeps hidden in plain sight.
Feel — I insist upon seeing clearly enough to evoke my own feelings of passion for place and everyday Nature.
Act — My passion needs to be intense enough to spur action: my writing, speaking, and doing what is necessary to promote informed and responsible Earth stewardship.

Thoughts and Reflections

I offer these reflections:

Rarely are our north Alabama forests untrammeled by the hand of man.
Today’s forests tell the story of past use, particularly the influence of post-European attempts at domestication.
Understanding the forest past adds to my Nature inspiration and appreciation.

Inhale and absorb Nature’s elixir. May Nature Inspire, Inform, and Reward you!

Note: All blog post images created & photographed by Stephen B. Jones unless otherwise noted. Please circulate images with photo credit: “©2021 Steve Jones, Great Blue Heron LLC. All Rights Reserved.”

Another Note: If you came to this post via a Facebook posting or by an another route, please sign up now (no cost… no obligation) to receive my Blog Post email alerts: http://eepurl.com/cKLJdL

And a Third: I am available for Nature-Inspired Speaking, Writing, and Consulting — contact me at steve.jones.0524@gmail.com

Reminder of my Personal and Professional Purpose, Passion, and Cause

If only more of us viewed our precious environment through the filters I employ. If only my mission and vision could be multiplied untold orders of magnitude:

Mission: Employ writing and speaking to educate, inspire, and enable readers and listeners to understand, appreciate, and enjoy Nature… and accept and practice Earth Stewardship.

Vision:

People of all ages will pay greater attention to and engage more regularly with Nature… and will accept and practice informed and responsible Earth Stewardship.
They will see their relationship to our natural world with new eyes… and will understand more clearly their Earth home.

Tagline/Motto: Steve (Great Blue Heron) encourages and seeks a better tomorrow through Nature-Inspired Living!

Steve’s Three Books

I wrote my books Nature Based Leadership (2016), Nature-Inspired Learning and Leading (2017), and Weaned Seals and Snowy Summits: Stories of Passion for Place and Everyday Nature (2019; co-authored with Dr. Jennifer Wilhoit) to encourage all citizens to recognize and appreciate that every lesson for living, learning, serving, and leading is either written indelibly in or is powerfully inspired by Nature.

I began writing books and Posts for several reasons:

I love hiking and exploring in Nature
I see images I want to (and do) capture with my trusty iPhone camera
I enjoy explaining those images — an educator at heart
I don’t play golf!
I actually do love writing — it’s the hobby I never needed when my career consumed me
Judy suggested my writing is in large measure my legacy to our two kids, our five grand kids, and all the unborn generations beyond
And finally, perhaps my books and Blogs could reach beyond family and touch a few other lives… sow some seeds for the future

All three of my books (Nature Based Leadership; Nature-Inspired Learning and Leading; Weaned Seals and Snowy Summits) present compilations of personal experiences expressing my (and co-author Dr. Wilhoit for Weaned Seals and Snowy Summits) deep passion for Nature. All three books offer observations and reflections on my relationship to the natural world… and the broader implications for society. Order any and all from your local indie bookstore, or find them on IndieBound or other online sources such as Amazon and LifeRich.

Spring Visit to Chapman Mountain Nature Preserve; Fierce Competition in the Forest Canopy

June 16, 2021/in Land Trust of North Alabama, Nature's Inspiration /by Steve Jones

April 3, 2021 I revisited Chapman Mountain Nature Preserve, just east of Huntsville, Alabama. See my November 28, 2019 Great Blue Heron Blog Post for previous reflections: https://stevejonesgbh.com/2019/11/28/happy-thanksgiving-chapman-mountain-nature-preserves-terry-big-tree-trail/

From the Land Trust of North Alabama website: Chapman Mountain Nature Preserve is a 472 acre property located just to the east of Huntsville on HWY 72. While we have plans for 10 miles of trails, a little over 3 miles are currently open and ready to explore. Like all of our public preserves, Chapman Mountain is open dawn to dusk and access is free. These trails are not just for hiking though. Mountain bikers and horseback riders are also welcome and an 18-hole disc golf course is now open to play.

With this current Post, I offer reflections on the intense inter-tree competition for sunlight, and the consequences of that fierce struggle within the forest, and pose some observations about the interplay of natural and human history on this…and nearly every…forested property in northern Alabama. I’ll begin by mentioning the forest diversity across the Nature Preserve.

Forest Diversity

Evergreen tree species on-site include loblolly pine (below left), eastern red cedar and shortleaf pine (further below). Hardwood forest (typical stand below right) species include: yellow poplar; black, chestnut, northern red, white, and chinkapin oaks; shagbark and pignut hickories; green ash; black walnut; persimmon; American elm; osage orange; honey locust; red and Ohio buckeyes; and dogwood. The list may not be exhaustive.

Eastern red cedar is another of our common evergreen species. This individual is one of the very few I saw thriving in the main canopy. The species is a pioneer. Birds disseminate the seeds widely by consuming the fruit and passing the hard inner-seed, scarified by digestive juices, as they forage for insects and seeds in areas disturbed by fire, timber harvesting, or grazing. Cedar often remains in maturing stands like the Chapman Mountain forests, but often as residuals under the topmost canopy.

Although situated off-trail, I found this shortleaf pine, with its circumferential bird-peck-agitated bark deformity, reaching high into the hardwood canopy. Note its narrow crown relative to the adjacent hardwoods, especially the wide-spreading white oak at the lower left of the image. I will say more about relative density, a forestry term that indicates the variability of crown space demanded by species. For any given tree base diameter, shortleaf pine expresses a lower relative density than white oak. On identical sites, a fully stocked stand of 12-inch-diameter shortleaf will have more stems per acre than a stand of 12-inch white oak.

Battle for Canopy Space

The relative density discussion around the shortleaf pine above sets the stage for transitioning into the battle for canopy space. Think about the essential factors for tree growth and development:

Rooting volume (soil depth)
Soil moisture
Soil nutrients
Sunlight
Temperature (soil and air)

My doctoral dissertation evaluated the effects of these factors (and surrogates for them) for Allegheny Hardwood forests of NW Pennsylvania and SW New York. We can’t see direct evidence of the fierce belowground competition for soil volume, moisture, and nutrients. I am beginning to focus greater attention on the upper canopy battle for sunlight.

We saw the very narrow shortleaf pine crown relative to the adjacent white oak. In contrast to the white oak, the green ash (below left) and southern red oak (below right) have narrow crowns.

The white oak crowns below are massive. This species demands a lot of aerial space. Thus, its relative density is high.

Below are adjacent white oak and red oak crowns, with white oak (lower half of frame) commanding far greater space. If I limited my examination to only eye level, I would see the two individuals at roughly the same diameter. Like the blind men and the elephant, we cannot limit our forest assessment to only one facet. I’m learning more and more. And, the more I learn, the less I realize that I know. That is a fact of life for the inquisitive…the student of life and living.

Black walnut stands adjacent to a white oak in the image below. Keep in mind that this stand is even-aged, regenerated following a disturbance, probably continuing fuelwood production up to the time of farm abandonment. All of the trees are likely within a 10-15 year age range. The walnut and white oak began their vertical development concurrently. Importantly, black walnut is shade intolerant. The USDA Agricultural handbook No. 271, Silvics of Forest Trees of the US: “In mixed forest stands, it must be in a dominant position to maintain itself.” The black walnut below (left side of image) is in the main canopy, but the white oak has muscled the walnut, forcing its crown far to the left, struggling to maintain its main canopy position. I wonder how much longer the walnut will remain in the stand.

American beech, like white oak, demands lots of crown space. This 30-plus-inch diameter individual commands the canopy, keeping adjacent trees at bay.

A dead, bark-stripped tree stands to the left (in both images) of the beech. Every battle for crown space yields casualties.

Every Battle Yields Casualties

This recently dead black oak still carries a Terry Big Tree Trail number. All of its fine branches have already fallen. The neighbor trees are closing the canopy void left by the black oak.

As I’ve observed repeatedly in these Posts, death is a real and continuing component in the life of a forest. This substantial oak snag bears testimony. I saw no outward evidence of physical trauma (lightning or wind) that may have resulted in death. Instead, I will presume that it failed in the competitive battlefield.

Here’s another dead oak with its accompanying canopy void.

Often the evidence of physical trauma is apparent, whether windthrow (below left) or wind snapping the trunk at its base (below right).

Site resources are finite. The competition for those fixed assets is a zero sum game. Some trees continue to grow and thrive at the expense of others.

To the Survivors Go the Spoils

Simply, to the victors go the spoils. Multiple windblown individual main canopy oak trees (below left) resulted in a large canopy opening (below right). A windfall (pardon the pun) of sunlight for the survivors. Adjacent trees will vie for the bounty of sunlight. Until the void closes, sunlight reaching the forest floor will generate a flush of vigor for herbaceous and woody growth in plants who patiently await just such disturbance. The entire ecosystem knows perturbance and sustains itself on the process of life, death, stability, and disturbance. The forest changes and persists.

Disturbance yields more than sunlight. Downed trees and branches decay quite rapidly in our warm and moist climate. Moss drapes the log below left. Fungi sprouting the devil’s urn mushrooms (below right) are just one of the innumerable species of decay fungi returning organic matter and nutrients to the soil.

The decay process is certain and predictable. The downed log below left will eventually decay to the more advanced condition below right and, in time, will incorporate fully into the soil organic matter.

Thoughts and Reflections

I offer these reflections:

Forest diversity offers a richness worth noticing.
Life and death dance without end in our forests.
To the victor go the spoils.

Inhale and absorb Nature’s elixir. May Nature Inspire, Inform, and Reward you!

Note: All blog post images created & photographed by Stephen B. Jones unless otherwise noted. Please circulate images with photo credit: “©2021 Steve Jones, Great Blue Heron LLC. All Rights Reserved.”

Another Note: If you came to this post via a Facebook posting or by an another route, please sign up now (no cost… no obligation) to receive my Blog Post email alerts: http://eepurl.com/cKLJdL

And a Third: I am available for Nature-Inspired Speaking, Writing, and Consulting — contact me at steve.jones.0524@gmail.com

Reminder of my Personal and Professional Purpose, Passion, and Cause

If only more of us viewed our precious environment through the filters I employ. If only my mission and vision could be multiplied untold orders of magnitude:

Mission: Employ writing and speaking to educate, inspire, and enable readers and listeners to understand, appreciate, and enjoy Nature… and accept and practice Earth Stewardship.

Vision:

People of all ages will pay greater attention to and engage more regularly with Nature… and will accept and practice informed and responsible Earth Stewardship.
They will see their relationship to our natural world with new eyes… and will understand more clearly their Earth home.

Tagline/Motto: Steve (Great Blue Heron) encourages and seeks a better tomorrow through Nature-Inspired Living!

Steve’s Three Books

I wrote my books Nature Based Leadership (2016), Nature-Inspired Learning and Leading (2017), and Weaned Seals and Snowy Summits: Stories of Passion for Place and Everyday Nature (2019; co-authored with Dr. Jennifer Wilhoit) to encourage all citizens to recognize and appreciate that every lesson for living, learning, serving, and leading is either written indelibly in or is powerfully inspired by Nature.

I began writing books and Posts for several reasons:

I love hiking and exploring in Nature
I see images I want to (and do) capture with my trusty iPhone camera
I enjoy explaining those images — an educator at heart
I don’t play golf!
I actually do love writing — it’s the hobby I never needed when my career consumed me
Judy suggested my writing is in large measure my legacy to our two kids, our five grand kids, and all the unborn generations beyond
And finally, perhaps my books and Blogs could reach beyond family and touch a few other lives… sow some seeds for the future

All three of my books (Nature Based Leadership; Nature-Inspired Learning and Leading; Weaned Seals and Snowy Summits) present compilations of personal experiences expressing my (and co-author Dr. Wilhoit for Weaned Seals and Snowy Summits) deep passion for Nature. All three books offer observations and reflections on my relationship to the natural world… and the broader implications for society. Order any and all from your local indie bookstore, or find them on IndieBound or other online sources such as Amazon and LifeRich.

Fighting for Light and Life in the Forest Canopy: Parsing Reality from Fantasy

June 8, 2021/in National Wildlife Refuges, Nature's Inspiration, Spirituality in Nature /by Steve Jones

March 20, 2021, I once again explored the hardwood bottomland forests on the eastern end of the Wheeler National Wildlife Refuge near Huntsville, Alabama. I focused my attention on the overstory, learning more about the fierce competition among trees for sunlight. I have found little in the scientific literature to refute or support my observations. I will continue studying forest canopies in subsequent dormant seasons. Dense hardwood foliage within the main canopy and vision-obscuring lower and mid-canopy foliage make growing season observations impossible.

Trees Talking to Each Other

Smithsonian Magazine (March 2018) published an article about Peter Wohlleben, titled Do Trees Talk to Each Other. From the article:

Wohlleben, a German forester and author, has a rare understanding of the inner life of trees, and is able to describe it in accessible, evocative language. Now, at the age of 53, he has become an unlikely publishing sensation. His book The Hidden Life of Trees: What They Feel, How They Communicate, written at his wife’s insistence, sold more than 800,000 copies in Germany, and has now hit the best-seller lists in 11 other countries, including the United States and Canada.

Since Darwin, we have generally thought of trees as striving, disconnected loners, competing for water, nutrients and sunlight, with the winners shading out the losers and sucking them dry. The timber industry in particular sees forests as wood-producing systems and battlegrounds for survival of the fittest.

There is now a substantial body of scientific evidence that refutes that idea. It shows instead that trees of the same species are communal, and will often form alliances with trees of other species. Forest trees have evolved to live in cooperative, interdependent relationships, maintained by communication and a collective intelligence similar to an insect colony. These soaring columns of living wood draw the eye upward to their outspreading crowns, but the real action is taking place underground, just a few inches below our feet.

Ah, the magical stuff of fairy tales and Harry Potter! I suppose that anthropomorphizing trees and forests is in vogue. I give this much to Wohlleben: much of the action is, in fact, taking place below ground. I have known about the essential role of mycorhizae since my undergraduate days, the synergistic interplay between fungi and plants, trees in particular. The relationship increases the tree root absorptive capacity (water and nutrients) by orders of magnitude.

I confess to being an old timber industry forester (1973-85). And I admit to holding steadfast to my belief that forests are battlegrounds for survival of the fittest. The National Geographic perspective on Wohlleben’s characterization of the inner life of trees is becoming commonly accepted dogma. In my objective applied ecology world, dogma stands as the enemy of science. Science is never decided by popular opinion.

From Fantasy to Reality

Let’s look at the bottomland hardwood forest below, composed of mixed hardwood species, well-stocked, with trees reaching more than 100 feet skyward. Certainly, its mycorhizal community is vibrant.

I simply do not subscribe to Wohlleben’s principal thesis: Forest trees have evolved to live in cooperative, interdependent relationships, maintained by communication and a collective intelligence similar to an insect colony. Instead, I see intense competition below ground for moisture and nutrients, and above ground for light and life. The overhead canopy view below shows oak crowns fully occupying the overstory, each, for now, having staked out its zone of occupancy, suggesting a stasis that simply does not exist in stands still developing, growing, and maturing. The trees have not agreed upon the terms of an armistice, a cessation of hostilities.

The tree extending over the top of this photo is a vibrant 30-inch diameter red oak. It is not, in my view, a caring larger sibling tending its slightly smaller and a little shorter neighbors. It is a ruthless competitor, as Darwin concluded, intent upon thriving and surviving so that its progeny extend to the next generation. Life in the forest is a zero-sum game. Essential resources of crown light and soil moisture and fertility are finite. What one tree gathers is at the expense of its neighbors.

Here’s a 16-inch-diameter shagbark hickory reaching into the main canopy (below right). It has secured its position, but it is not living in loving harmony with its neighbors. The much smaller tree to its lower left (appearing to emerge from the lower left corner of the photograph) is the same age as the hickory. It occupies a fraction of the canopy space. It will lose the battle for extended life in the crown. None of the adjoining trees, in some wave of generosity and compassion, will sustain it. They seek its small share of main canopy sunlight and below ground resources. In a very non-egalitarian manner, they will overwhelm it, and then fight the survivors for the resultant bounty.

Forest trees have evolved to live in cooperative, interdependent relationships, maintained by communication and a collective intelligence similar to an insect colony? No, not in the forests of my experience!

During the most recent dormant season (2020-21) I have for the first time over my fifty-plus years as a professional forester and applied ecologist, begun to study inter-tree crown competition. I’ve learned that white oaks in our forests demand a lot of crown space. That’s a white oak below at the top of the image. A shagbark hickory, with a relatively smaller crown rises from the lower left of the photograph. The trees are of similar diameter. Note that none of these main canopy dwellers are touching. They seem to agree not to invade each other’s space; the operative word is seem.

However, they are not respecting each other’s space. Instead, I am convinced that over thousands of generations of evolution, trees are hard-wired to avoid interlacing crowns. Such interlacing results in friction and abrasion as wind rocks and sways the crowns. Perhaps the old nursery rhyme has its basis in this crown shyness phenomenon:

Rock a bye baby, on the tree top,

When the wind blows the cradle will rock.

When the bough breaks the cradle will fall,

And down will come baby, cradle and all.

Regardless, evolution…and not neighborly love and respect…dictate that tree crowns do not physically touch!

Competition for essential site resources will result in less capable individuals succumbing. However, inability to compete effectively is not the only cause of stem mortality. Here’s a 20-inch-diameter red oak that wind-snapped 12 feet above the ground. Why this one? I can only speculate that it broke at some point of structural weakness. Unlike white oak, red oak does not demand a seeming inordinately large crown space. This individual dropped within just the prior 2-5 years…yet, already the crown opening it left (below right) is closing. Life in the forest is dog-eat-dog!

Let’s turn to a 22-inch-diameter dead white oak. I have no idea what resulted in its demise. I saw no evidence of lightning strike. The scientist in me seeks a direct cause. The fatalist simply observes that its time had come. I confront forest mysteries of all manner. Simply, a seeming vibrant and dominant individual died, leaving (below right) a standing skeleton of what once was a massive canopy, typical of dominant white oak trees in our forests.

It left a large void and considerable now-available sunlight. The adjacent survivors will battle to secure their share.

I see a ferocious ongoing competition for canopy light and life. I do not embrace the notion of a loving and caring community practicing intra- and inter-species communication and cooperation. And while I’m reacting to his basic premise, allow me to react somewhat viscerally to Wohlleben’s apparent hubris and assumed moral superiority to the knuckle-draggers in the forest products industry. I spent 12 years in that industry at the outset of my career, employed by a company that owned 2.2 million acres of forestland across the southeastern US, and responsibly practiced forest operations within the context of a deep land ethic. My final three years with the company, I led a unit directly charged with managing 500 square miles of company-owned forestland in central and southern Alabama. Although I did not anthropomorphize those forests, I did recognize the interconnected reality of the entire forest ecosystem: its plants, animals, other organisms, water, soil, and atmosphere. I had not by then run across this Albert Einstein quote: It’s not that one thing is a miracle, but that the whole thing is a miracle. Yet, I knew from my forestry education, my personal passion, and the company’s expressed land ethic that the whole thing is a miracle, including that I was privileged to work with such a magnificent natural system and work for a company embracing a land ethic.

Since Darwin, we have generally thought of trees as striving, disconnected loners, competing for water, nutrients and sunlight, with the winners shading out the losers and sucking them dry. I adopt Darwin’s view with respect to competition among trees. He did not say that the forest is not an integrated system, nor do I. I see our forests as complex meritocracies. The system and the individuals work best when the strong survive. Nature sets no quotas on species composition, nor does it seek some specific admixture of strong and weak. The whole thing, no matter how the pieces assemble, is a miracle.

Thoughts and Reflections

I offer two observations from my mid-March trek:
- The forest’s visible action occurs high above us; her invisible dynamism lies beneath our feet in the soil.
- The forest is a living miracle of biology, beauty, and fierce competition among trees.

Inhale and absorb Nature’s elixir. May Nature Inspire, Inform, and Reward you!

Note: All blog post images created & photographed by Stephen B. Jones unless otherwise noted. Please circulate images with photo credit: “©2021 Steve Jones, Great Blue Heron LLC. All Rights Reserved.”

Another Note: If you came to this post via a Facebook posting or by an another route, please sign up now (no cost… no obligation) to receive my Blog Post email alerts: http://eepurl.com/cKLJdL

And a Third: I am available for Nature-Inspired Speaking, Writing, and Consulting — contact me at steve.jones.0524@gmail.com

Reminder of my Personal and Professional Purpose, Passion, and Cause

If only more of us viewed our precious environment through the filters I employ. If only my mission and vision could be multiplied untold orders of magnitude:

Mission: Employ writing and speaking to educate, inspire, and enable readers and listeners to understand, appreciate, and enjoy Nature… and accept and practice Earth Stewardship.

Vision:

People of all ages will pay greater attention to and engage more regularly with Nature… and will accept and practice informed and responsible Earth Stewardship.
They will see their relationship to our natural world with new eyes… and will understand more clearly their Earth home.

Tagline/Motto: Steve (Great Blue Heron) encourages and seeks a better tomorrow through Nature-Inspired Living!

Steve’s Three Books

I wrote my books Nature Based Leadership (2016), Nature-Inspired Learning and Leading (2017), and Weaned Seals and Snowy Summits: Stories of Passion for Place and Everyday Nature (2019; co-authored with Dr. Jennifer Wilhoit) to encourage all citizens to recognize and appreciate that every lesson for living, learning, serving, and leading is either written indelibly in or is powerfully inspired by Nature.

I began writing books and Posts for several reasons:

I love hiking and exploring in Nature
I see images I want to (and do) capture with my trusty iPhone camera
I enjoy explaining those images — an educator at heart
I don’t play golf!
I actually do love writing — it’s the hobby I never needed when my career consumed me
Judy suggested my writing is in large measure my legacy to our two kids, our five grand kids, and all the unborn generations beyond
And finally, perhaps my books and Blogs could reach beyond family and touch a few other lives… sow some seeds for the future

All three of my books (Nature Based Leadership; Nature-Inspired Learning and Leading; Weaned Seals and Snowy Summits) present compilations of personal experiences expressing my (and co-author Dr. Wilhoit for Weaned Seals and Snowy Summits) deep passion for Nature. All three books offer observations and reflections on my relationship to the natural world… and the broader implications for society. Order any and all from your local indie bookstore, or find them on IndieBound or other online sources such as Amazon and LifeRich.

Oak Mountain State Park April Tree Form Curiosities

June 2, 2021/in Alabama State Parks Series, Nature's Inspiration /by Steve Jones

Tree Form Oddities and Curiosities

Marker Trees?

My February, 2021 Post addressed the fact and folklore of the so-termed Indian marker trees I encountered during a January 2021 hike in the bottomland hardwood forests on the eastern end of Wheeler National Wildlife Refuge: https://stevejonesgbh.com/2021/02/10/indian-marker-trees-separating-folklore-from-fact/

My conclusion in that Post was that most of northern Alabama’s supposed Indian marker trees post-date the presence of Native Americans, and that Nature’s tree form oddities usually have an identifiable cause in form of physical injury. In all honesty, even genuine marker trees resulted from an intentional human-induced physical injury.

April 14-16, 2021 I spent three half-days hiking at Oak Mountain State Park (Pelham, AL). I kept my eyes open for all manner of Nature’s wonder, including tree form oddities and curiosities. None of what triggered my camera (many images below) is an Indian marker tree, although I realize that many persons who champion the Native American attribution for such forms would contest my conclusion. For each photograph I will offer a suspected cause. I often quote Leonardo da Vinci, who 500 years ago mastered the art of acute observation and reasoned judgement:

There is no result in nature without a cause; understand the cause and you will have no need of the experiment.

Scottie Jackson, Central District Naturalist (left), stands with her left foot on what was the toppled stump of a sapling sweetgum. Some force (wind, ice, a tree or large branch falling on it) felled the young tree, lifting its upslope roots. Enough of its downslope roots remained intact to sustain life in the prostrate stem. Oak Mountain State Park Naturalist Lauren Muncher stands ten feet from Scottie at the point where the felled sapling stem severed (its calloused-over stub remains) and the still-vibrant tree produced a new vertical shoot that now reaches into the main canopy. An Indian marker tree? No, the cause is Nature at work, employing her seeming limitless power to overcome physical insult and injury. I am sure that Native Americans learned to create their marker trees by observing Nature in practice.

Nature knows her stuff. Like the sweetgum above, this American beech (as a sapling) toppled. Scottie is kneeling at its then-base. Lauren stands 12 feet away where the beech sent its shoot skyward, in this case into the intermediate forest canopy. Beech is shade tolerant and can survive long-term without being in the main canopy.

Here’s a closer look at both points. Examining both the sweetgum and the beech revealed a great deal. It also raised a question to which I have no firm answer. That is, along the felled stems did either or both individuals set new roots in addition to those still in soil-contact from the toppled base? Perhaps on some future outing I will carry my Sharpshooter spade in search of a similar tree so that I can answer the question. Based upon the less-than-vigorous appearance of the segment lying on the ground for both individuals, I am offering the hypothesis that the stems rooted at the point where the vertical shoot now extends.

As with so many of my photographed tree form oddities, I ask you to imagine. Imagine this now 18-inch diameter yellow poplar as a pole-sized tree being slammed to 30-degrees from the horizontal by a sizeable object…a falling tree or large branch, the impact severe enough to snap the top ten feet above the stump. This individual employed the mechanism stuffed in its genetic toolbox through countless yellow poplar generations — its internal chemistry stirred a dormant bud on its nearly prostrate bole. That bud awakened via growth hormones to send a shoot vertically, now extending into the main canopy. Is the bent stem pointing to something? Yes, everything points to something. Is it intentionally by some act of man pointing to something? No, this is a random act by Nature’s hand.

Here is an act occurring within the past year. A dead snag, probably this past dormant season, broke at its base, falling into a sugar maple sapling. The sugar maple now leans about ten degrees from the vertical. The impact snapped the maple ten feet above its base. I predict that the top will die beyond the break and that the leaning ten-foot base will activate a dormant bud or two, producing a stem that will reach into the mid-canopy. Like beech, sugar maple is shade tolerant and can survive under the main forest canopy for decades. This is a future tree-form curiosity.

Nature has no new tricks. Any force that acted decades (millennia) ago is still happening today. I accept the fortuity of finding the recent evidence of such a force at work on the sugar maple. In my ideal world, the on-park Naturalist would note the location of this future marker tree, and visit it every five years to develop a photo-chronology. The tree will either do as I predict…or not. If the former, the permanent photo record will serve as a resource for telling a tale repeated time and again in our forests.

Contorted and Misshapen

This American beech at Maggie’s Glen, I am sure, has a tale to tell. It has stood streamside for well over a century, witnessing Nature’s cycles and hundreds of hikers, picnickers, and campers. Far too many young lovers (and vandals) have carved their fleeting thoughts and initials into its bark. Perhaps an ill-placed campfire scorched and opened the wound that led to its hollowed state.

Trees don’t start out in life with a mission to develop in a manner that enables forest travelers like me to see from one side to the other. Oh, the wonder of hearing the stories this beech could tell!

Here’s a formerly forked black oak, which is trying to callous over the injury caused by the other fork wrenching apart. Even were the ceaseless efforts to succeed in fully callousing over the wound, the tree is destined to live with heart rot until some force sees through the façade and topples it.

Recall the sugar maple above. The maple (below left) may predict what the earlier tree will look like 10-20 years hence. I’m standing below right with a red oak that suffered a similar physical insult. Both trees are alive…and both will deal the rest of their days with severe heart rot.

This large yellow poplar lost its twin fork decades ago, long enough that no on-the-ground evidence of its fallen twin is visible. The tree continues it valiant efforts to callous over the wound. But valiant and successful don’t always overlap. Deep heart rot has already structurally weakened this individual. Will it break at the base due to the decay? I can’t be sure. The view to its crown shows it reaching into a co-dominant position. Despite its wound, the tree appears otherwise healthy and competitive.

Here’s testament that hollow is not imminently fatal. Who knows how long this American beech survived with just a circumferential rind of cambium and intact wood. It toppled, along with many solid-stemmed forest trees, summer of 2020 when the tropical storm strength remnants of one of the many gulf hurricanes shot northward across central Alabama.

Nature renders many forest occupants battered, contorted, and misshapen. I find fascination in both the cause and the result.

Multiple Stems

I recently taught an Osher Lifelong Learning Institute (at the University of Alabama in Huntsville) course focusing on our Land Trust of North Alabama. I incorporated several photographs of trail-side trees forked at near-ground level. Participants questioned me about the origin and relative frequency of such multiple-stemmed trees. I explained that many of our hardwood forests regenerated from stump sprouts following timber harvesting. Oaks, among several species, are prolific sprouters. This five-stemmed chestnut oak stump sprout cluster is a classic. Imagine a freshly cut stump in the center of today’s five stems. Now, visualize multiple dormant buds sprouting from the stump. There may have been (in fact, probably were) more than these five survivors. The photo below right views upward from the center of the five. Four of the five are growing somewhat straight, leaning out from the vertical so that each has its own crown space in the main canopy. The fifth stem (upper right of the image) curves away from the other four. It probably fell behind the others in height gain, resulting in its sharper angle away to get out from under their shade.

Multiple stemmed individuals are common in our second growth hardwood stands. To some, I suppose, a curiosity…yet, not a mystery.

Oddities and Curiosities of a Different Sort

We stumbled across dog vomit slime mold (Fuligo septica), an apt description given its amorphous mossy-lumpy yellow to whitish appearance. It’s also called scrambled egg slime mold and witches’ spit. The organism is slimy and gelatinous, much as its various monikers would suggest. I have encountered other slime molds. This one left an indelible impression, in part because of its common name. Certainly I categorize this slime mold as an oddity and curiosity.

We found several other examples of this species, each one distinct from the others. All are memorable in their own way.

Deep in the shade of a cove forest we found a mid-canopy American beech with a distinct vertical delineation separating the lichen-coated north side from what I’ll describe as the sun-bleached southern exposure. I don’t recall previously seeing such a strong north-south divide. I can offer no other explanation.

I shall continue to search for, examine, appreciate, and attempt to explain each and every forest oddity and curiosity.

Alabama State Parks Foundation

I’ll remind you that I serve on the Alabama State Parks Foundation Board, in part because of my love of Nature and in recognition for my writing many prior Posts about visiting and experiencing the Parks. I urge you to take a look at the Foundation website and consider ways you might help steward these magical places: https://asparksfoundation.org/ Perhaps you might think about supporting the Parks System education and interpretation imperative: https://asparksfoundation.org/give-today#a444d6c6-371b-47a2-97da-dd15a5b9da76

The Foundation exists for the sole purpose of providing incremental operating and capital support for enhancing our State parks… and your enjoyment of them.

We are blessed in Alabama to have our Park System. Watch for future Great Blue Heron Posts as I continue to explore and enjoy these treasures that belong to us. I urge you to discover the Alabama State Parks near you. Follow the advice of John Muir:

And into the forest I go, to lose my mind and find my soul.

In every walk with Nature one receives far more than he seeks.

I only went out for a walk and finally concluded to stay out till sundown, for going out, I found, was really going in.

Between every two pines is a doorway to a new world.

Thoughts and Reflections

I offer these observations:

I relish finding and seeking to understand and explain tree form oddities.
I find many curiosities; very few of them are total mysteries.
Most of our supposed “marker trees” post-date Native American occupation here in north Alabama; Nature does the marking.

Inhale and absorb Nature’s elixir. May Nature Inspire, Inform, and Reward you!

Note: All blog post images created & photographed by Stephen B. Jones unless otherwise noted. Please circulate images with photo credit: “©2021 Steve Jones, Great Blue Heron LLC. All Rights Reserved.”

Another Note: If you came to this post via a Facebook posting or by an another route, please sign up now (no cost… no obligation) to receive my Blog Post email alerts: http://eepurl.com/cKLJdL

And a Third: I am available for Nature-Inspired Speaking, Writing, and Consulting — contact me at steve.jones.0524@gmail.com

Reminder of my Personal and Professional Purpose, Passion, and Cause

If only more of us viewed our precious environment through the filters I employ. If only my mission and vision could be multiplied untold orders of magnitude:

Mission: Employ writing and speaking to educate, inspire, and enable readers and listeners to understand, appreciate, and enjoy Nature… and accept and practice Earth Stewardship.

Vision:

People of all ages will pay greater attention to and engage more regularly with Nature… and will accept and practice informed and responsible Earth Stewardship.
They will see their relationship to our natural world with new eyes… and will understand more clearly their Earth home.

Tagline/Motto: Steve (Great Blue Heron) encourages and seeks a better tomorrow through Nature-Inspired Living!

Steve’s Three Books

I wrote my books Nature Based Leadership (2016), Nature-Inspired Learning and Leading (2017), and Weaned Seals and Snowy Summits: Stories of Passion for Place and Everyday Nature (2019; co-authored with Dr. Jennifer Wilhoit) to encourage all citizens to recognize and appreciate that every lesson for living, learning, serving, and leading is either written indelibly in or is powerfully inspired by Nature.

I began writing books and Posts for several reasons:

I love hiking and exploring in Nature
I see images I want to (and do) capture with my trusty iPhone camera
I enjoy explaining those images — an educator at heart
I don’t play golf!
I actually do love writing — it’s the hobby I never needed when my career consumed me
Judy suggested my writing is in large measure my legacy to our two kids, our five grand kids, and all the unborn generations beyond
And finally, perhaps my books and Blogs could reach beyond family and touch a few other lives… sow some seeds for the future

All three of my books (Nature Based Leadership; Nature-Inspired Learning and Leading; Weaned Seals and Snowy Summits) present compilations of personal experiences expressing my (and co-author Dr. Wilhoit for Weaned Seals and Snowy Summits) deep passion for Nature. All three books offer observations and reflections on my relationship to the natural world… and the broader implications for society. Order any and all from your local indie bookstore, or find them on IndieBound or other online sources such as Amazon and LifeRich.

My First Visit to Green Mountain Nature Preserve

May 29, 2021/in Land Trust of North Alabama, Nature's Inspiration /by Steve Jones

Pleasant and Well-Managed Trails

April 11, 2021, along with my two Alabama grandsons, I visited Green Mountain Nature Preserve for the first time. The Land Trust of North Alabama owns and manages this 922-acre preserve south of Huntsville in Madison County. The three of us hiked four miles, exploring features of interest that I share in this Post. As with all the Land Trust’s public Preserves, the signage met (and exceeded) expectations. That’s seven-year-old Sam on the right; 13-year-0ld Jack to the left.

We began our journey along the west rim, where the slope dropped abruptly below us. As he always does, Sam found a stick-weapon, posing from his rimrock perch with the narrow canyon just beyond him and in the distance a broad valley. Had we delayed our hike a week longer, fuller hardwood foliage would have obstructed the view.

I applaud the Land Trust for superb trail condition and maintenance, the occasional bench-amenity, and bridges across seasonal streams.

Yet Another Look at Sharing Space in the Main Canopy

Along the west rim, we passed through stands dominated by Virginia pine. I aimed the camera 60-degrees from the horizontal into the live crowns. I then swung the camera to the vertical. As I’ve begun to notice across our north Alabama forests, crown shyness is apparent; adjoining Virginia pines respect the space of their neighbors. Long before Covid-19 and, I surmise, way before even our Native American forerunners settled north Alabama, our forest species practiced their own brand of social distancing!

Where hardwood mixed with the pine (below left), crown shyness maintains respectful distance between trees. Such is the case, I’m learning, where the stand consists of trees generally sharing the upper canopy space. I am eager to explore stands with a more complex vertical structure, where the canopy is tiered. Imagine a lower story of shade tolerant species like dogwood and beech, an intermediate canopy of mid-story species like sourwood. From my ground-level perspective, crown shyness would be masked by occupants of the tree crowns beneath the main canopy. Yet another task for me to pursue when dormant season returns next fall.

Recently dead main canopy occupants help illustrate interrelationships high above the forest floor. For scale I asked Sam to stand beside the two-to-three-year deceased oak. Its sloughed bark and naked stem caught my eye as we rambled past. Death’s decay has taken nearly all branches, leaving only its main spar surrounded by open sky, a void in the main canopy that already the adjacent trees have begun to occupy. Nature surely does abhor a vacuum.

Never do I enter Nature’s wildness when I found nothing new, puzzling, or meriting ecological examination.

Tree Form Oddities and Curiosities

Once again, tree form oddities and curiosities drew my attention. The boys shared in the fun…and seemed eager to learn the causes and consequences. During its teenage years, standing as a sapling, this chestnut oak tree fell victim to another tree or treetop falling onto it. Bent to nearly horizontal, the sapling snapped at ten feet above its base, retained its anchorage, and redirected its life force to a small branch at the point where its vertical trunk now rises into the main canopy. The boys posed riding this wild sylvan stallion.

My Dad, himself an avid outdoorsman, called this form pump handle trees, because they resemble, you guessed it, water pump handles. Like the chestnut oak, falling debris bent both the now-dead oak ( below left) and the smaller one at right. Both corrected and sent a shoot heavenward. Certainly, neither is old enough to be an Indian marker tree. Nature, instead, used a failsafe remedy to overcome physical injury.

The same is true for this chestnut oak. In some ways it’s uncanny how many of the injured and recovered stems we found within reach of the trail that morning.

Here is what I learned to call a wolf tree during my forestry days. Older than the adjoining stand, this chestnut oak grew unencumbered by direct adjoining tree competition. Its large coarse branching and extensive crown validate that early life of full-sunlight luxury. Why a wolf tree? As explained to me, for some years it stood as a lone wolf. Makes sense!

I always enjoy finding and puzzling over tree form oddities and curiosities. I find them wherever I roam in our hardwood forests.

Fanciful Features

Green Mountain offers far more that just pleasant woodland trails and tree form curiosities. Without elaboration, below is Alum Cave, a rock ledge overhang that likely sheltered Native American hunting and gathering parties for 12-13,000 years.

Two views of the spring rain-flushed stream cascading over rock ledges, fulfilling us as we stood in awe and appreciation.

A secondary falls nearby attracted Sam and Jack. Pap admired from above, electing not to tempt fate and tumble into the falls!

Sam has never found a stick he couldn’t convert into some form of implement. He termed this one his Indian war club.

Although the above factors favored us with great reward, we found other wonders along the way.

Special Spring Wildflowers

I have long been a spring wildflower enthusiast. Here is a highlight reel of just six we discovered and appreciated. Mountain azalea (below left) is one of my favorites. Woodland stonecrop (below right) provided a fresh splash of star-white.

Fire pink (below left) is also among my spring-select ephemerals! I never tire of seeing blue phlox (below right).

Violet wood sorrel (below left) graced us, and VA spiderwort blue-shouted its way into our field of vision.

I’ve been a spring wildflower enthusiast since my freshman year of college, when I took systematic botany in the spring term. It’s been a lifetime obsession!

Thoughts and Reflections

I offer three observations from my April introduction to Green Mountain Nature Preserve:

Nature always spurs inspiration and teaches humility.
Every trek through the forest is better with young people, especially grandchildren.
Spring wildflowers are always a forest highlight!

Inhale and absorb Nature’s elixir. May Nature Inspire, Inform, and Reward you!

Note: All blog post images created & photographed by Stephen B. Jones unless otherwise noted. Please circulate images with photo credit: “©2021 Steve Jones, Great Blue Heron LLC. All Rights Reserved.”

Another Note: If you came to this post via a Facebook posting or by an another route, please sign up now (no cost… no obligation) to receive my Blog Post email alerts: http://eepurl.com/cKLJdL

And a Third: I am available for Nature-Inspired Speaking, Writing, and Consulting — contact me at steve.jones.0524@gmail.com

Reminder of my Personal and Professional Purpose, Passion, and Cause

If only more of us viewed our precious environment through the filters I employ. If only my mission and vision could be multiplied untold orders of magnitude:

Mission: Employ writing and speaking to educate, inspire, and enable readers and listeners to understand, appreciate, and enjoy Nature… and accept and practice Earth Stewardship.

Vision:

People of all ages will pay greater attention to and engage more regularly with Nature… and will accept and practice informed and responsible Earth Stewardship.
They will see their relationship to our natural world with new eyes… and will understand more clearly their Earth home.

Tagline/Motto: Steve (Great Blue Heron) encourages and seeks a better tomorrow through Nature-Inspired Living!

Steve’s Three Books

I wrote my books Nature Based Leadership (2016), Nature-Inspired Learning and Leading (2017), and Weaned Seals and Snowy Summits: Stories of Passion for Place and Everyday Nature (2019; co-authored with Dr. Jennifer Wilhoit) to encourage all citizens to recognize and appreciate that every lesson for living, learning, serving, and leading is either written indelibly in or is powerfully inspired by Nature.

I began writing books and Posts for several reasons:

I love hiking and exploring in Nature
I see images I want to (and do) capture with my trusty iPhone camera
I enjoy explaining those images — an educator at heart
I don’t play golf!
I actually do love writing — it’s the hobby I never needed when my career consumed me
Judy suggested my writing is in large measure my legacy to our two kids, our five grand kids, and all the unborn generations beyond
And finally, perhaps my books and Blogs could reach beyond family and touch a few other lives… sow some seeds for the future

All three of my books (Nature Based Leadership; Nature-Inspired Learning and Leading; Weaned Seals and Snowy Summits) present compilations of personal experiences expressing my (and co-author Dr. Wilhoit for Weaned Seals and Snowy Summits) deep passion for Nature. All three books offer observations and reflections on my relationship to the natural world… and the broader implications for society. Order any and all from your local indie bookstore, or find them on IndieBound or other online sources such as Amazon and LifeRich.

Late March 2021 Tornado Damage at Oak Mountain State Park

May 19, 2021/in Alabama State Parks Series, Nature's Inspiration /by Steve Jones

My March 23, 2021 Great Blue Heron Blog Post reflected on natural disasters: https://stevejonesgbh.com/2021/03/23/reflections-on-natural-disasters/

Here’s a brief excerpt: From the perspective of managers and recreationists at Joe Wheeler State Park (Rogersville, AL), the December 2019 tornado that destroyed the campground amounted to a natural disaster. Nature “handles” such disasters in stride. In fact, such storms serve to renew the forest, or whatever ecosystem is affected. It is we humans who struggle with the impacts.

Ironically, just three days after I published that Post an EF2 tornado raced across the north side of Oak Mountain State Park (Pelham, AL). I visited the Park April 14-16 2021, just a couple of weeks after the tornado. The first afternoon my hosts took me to the Park’s north side, beyond the road closure signs, to view tornado damage.

Here are six photos taken by Park Superintendent Kelly Ezell March 26. The twister mowed the forest along the lakeshore.

Some areas appeared to have had their tops snapped at the base of the live crown.

The storm just grazed this shoreline before rushing northeastward just offshore.

Park crews were just beginning to reopen the road when Kelly snapped this photo (below left) of jackstrawed trees. By the following day, the road reopened to Park crews (below right).

I took the remainder of the photographs April 14. Spring greens are more evident in ground vegetation and in the standing hardwoods below right.

Whether trees snapped or uprooted the net result is a forest that must make a new beginning. The tornado did not destroy the forest. Instead, Nature has given the affected forest ecosystem a chance to renew…naturally renew.

The tornado moved away from the camera grazing the shoreline. Spring green-up is already masking evidence of its passing. The photo below right is the opposite shore. I saw no evidence of damage just those one hundred yards away.

The storm totaled several Park buildings, including a staff residence, near where Kelly and I snapped our photos. Sufficient advance warning allowed all staff to seek shelter at a safe central location. Fortunately no staff nor visitors suffered physical harm.

As a career-long forest ecologist, I will say quite confidently that the forest ecosystem suffered no permanent injury. Yes, individual trees were snapped or blown over. However, our forests are resilient. Seed stored in the forest litter seedbank will germinate. Many of our native hardwood species will sprout vegetatively from stumps or roots. Non-tree woody species will flourish with the light that will now reach the forest floor. Our native forests have been responding to natural forest disturbance as long as there have been forests. Nature knows change and disruption. She will not miss a beat.

Alabama State Parks Foundation

I’ll remind you that I serve on the Alabama State Parks Foundation Board, in part because of my love of Nature and in recognition for my writing many prior Posts about visiting and experiencing the Parks. I urge you to take a look at the Foundation website and consider ways you might help steward these magical places: https://asparksfoundation.org/ Perhaps you might think about supporting the Parks System education and interpretation imperative: https://asparksfoundation.org/give-today#a444d6c6-371b-47a2-97da-dd15a5b9da76

The Foundation exists for the sole purpose of providing incremental operating and capital support for enhancing our State parks… and your enjoyment of them.

We are blessed in Alabama to have our Park System. Watch for future Great Blue Heron Posts as I continue to explore and enjoy these treasures that belong to us. I urge you to discover the Alabama State Parks near you. Follow the advice of John Muir:

And into the forest I go, to lose my mind and find my soul.

In every walk with Nature one receives far more than he seeks.

I only went out for a walk and finally concluded to stay out till sundown, for going out, I found, was really going in.

Between every two pines is a doorway to a new world.

Thoughts and Reflections

I offer these reactions to visiting the recent tornado track:

Natural disturbance is the norm in our forests.
Our forest ecosystems are hard-wired to recover from fire, ice, drought, and wind (even tornadic winds).
Every major disturbance is an opportunity for forest renewal.

Inhale and absorb Nature’s elixir. May Nature Inspire, Inform, and Reward you!

Note: All blog post images created & photographed by Stephen B. Jones unless otherwise noted. Please circulate images with photo credit: “©2021 Steve Jones, Great Blue Heron LLC. All Rights Reserved.”

Another Note: If you came to this post via a Facebook posting or by an another route, please sign up now (no cost… no obligation) to receive my Blog Post email alerts: http://eepurl.com/cKLJdL

And a Third: I am available for Nature-Inspired Speaking, Writing, and Consulting — contact me at steve.jones.0524@gmail.com

Reminder of my Personal and Professional Purpose, Passion, and Cause

If only more of us viewed our precious environment through the filters I employ. If only my mission and vision could be multiplied untold orders of magnitude:

Mission: Employ writing and speaking to educate, inspire, and enable readers and listeners to understand, appreciate, and enjoy Nature… and accept and practice Earth Stewardship.

Vision:

People of all ages will pay greater attention to and engage more regularly with Nature… and will accept and practice informed and responsible Earth Stewardship.
They will see their relationship to our natural world with new eyes… and will understand more clearly their Earth home.

Tagline/Motto: Steve (Great Blue Heron) encourages and seeks a better tomorrow through Nature-Inspired Living!

Steve’s Three Books

I wrote my books Nature Based Leadership (2016), Nature-Inspired Learning and Leading (2017), and Weaned Seals and Snowy Summits: Stories of Passion for Place and Everyday Nature (2019; co-authored with Dr. Jennifer Wilhoit) to encourage all citizens to recognize and appreciate that every lesson for living, learning, serving, and leading is either written indelibly in or is powerfully inspired by Nature.

I began writing books and Posts for several reasons:

I love hiking and exploring in Nature
I see images I want to (and do) capture with my trusty iPhone camera
I enjoy explaining those images — an educator at heart
I don’t play golf!
I actually do love writing — it’s the hobby I never needed when my career consumed me
Judy suggested my writing is in large measure my legacy to our two kids, our five grand kids, and all the unborn generations beyond
And finally, perhaps my books and Blogs could reach beyond family and touch a few other lives… sow some seeds for the future

All three of my books (Nature Based Leadership; Nature-Inspired Learning and Leading; Weaned Seals and Snowy Summits) present compilations of personal experiences expressing my (and co-author Dr. Wilhoit for Weaned Seals and Snowy Summits) deep passion for Nature. All three books offer observations and reflections on my relationship to the natural world… and the broader implications for society. Order any and all from your local indie bookstore, or find them on IndieBound or other online sources such as Amazon and LifeRich.

Oak Mountain State Park April Wildflowers

May 13, 2021/in Alabama State Parks Series, Nature's Inspiration /by Steve Jones

I enjoyed three half-day hikes at Oak Mountain State Park April 14-16, 2021. This is the third Post from those hiking excursions. The other two are:

Fifty Shades of Green — https://stevejonesgbh.com/2021/04/27/fifty-shades-of-april-green-at-oak-mountain-state-park/

Important State Park System Announcement — https://stevejonesgbh.com/2021/05/04/governor-kay-iveys-exciting-april-2021-state-park-system-announcement-at-oak-mountain-state-park/

This Post catalogs the variety of spring ephemerals and woody plants in flower that I encountered while hiking incredible wooded trails like this one.

Spring Ephemerals

I won’t spoil these lovely spring wildflower photographs with my ecologist’s ramblings and pontifications, although my inclination is to observe, reflect, and explain. This time, I pledge to resist temptation and provide little more than name, rank, and serial number for each of these woodland beauties.

Hairy Phlox (Phlox amoena) and Lobed Tickseed (Coreopsis auriculata)

Southern Yellow Wood Sorrel (Oxalis stricta) and American Alumroot (Heuchera americana). I love the alumroot’s beautifully variegated leaves.

Dwarf Crested Iris (Iris cristata), an exquisite beauty unto itself!

Rattlesnakeweed (Hieracium venosum), with its own deeply variegated leaves!

Candyroot (Polygala nana) and Birds Foot Violet (Viola pedata). I found the Candyroot in an area prescribe-burned several weeks prior.

Jack-in-the-Pulpit (Arisaema triphyllum)

Firepink (Silene virginica) and (poison ivy; Toxicodendron radicans). I decided to dub the right image as Beauty-and-the-Beast. Firepink is one of my favorites (Beauty) and because I am quite sensitive to poison ivy I consider it The Beast.

Plantain-Leafed Pusseytoes (Antennaria plantaginifolia)

Woody Flowering Plants

The spring ephemerals above are not woody. They flourish and bloom before the overstory hardwoods foliate, blocking sun from the forest floor. Their growing season often begins well before last frost and end by the close of May. Grancy Greybeard (Chionanthus virginicus) was in full glory. I found Crossvine (Bignonia capreolata) at the overlook ledge on Shackelford Ridge.

Likewise, I encountered Rusty Blackhaw (Viburnum rufidulum) along the ridge. I do not recall ever seeing this species so robustly flowering.

Perhaps my favorite among all spring wildflowers, Mountain Azalea (Rhododendron canescens), greeted me along nearly every trail I wandered.

Spring wildflowers warm my heart. I’ve been an addict since spring semester of my freshman year in western Maryland, when Dr. Glenn O. Workman led his systematic botany charges in relentless pursuit of ephemerals from elevations of just 650 feet along the Potomac River to upwards of 3,000 feet at the Allegany Front. Although Doc is now into his 90s, we remain in touch…and, I still consider him one of my mentors and heroes. Judy and I perhaps ten years ago established a scholarship in his name at Allegany College of Maryland, where he taught and also coached tennis.

Alabama State Parks Foundation

I’ll remind you that I serve on the Alabama State Parks Foundation Board, in part because of my love of Nature and in recognition for my writing many prior Posts about visiting and experiencing the Parks. I urge you to take a look at the Foundation website and consider ways you might help steward these magical places: https://asparksfoundation.org/ Perhaps you might think about supporting the Parks System education and interpretation imperative: https://asparksfoundation.org/give-today#a444d6c6-371b-47a2-97da-dd15a5b9da76

The Foundation exists for the sole purpose of providing incremental operating and capital support for enhancing our State parks… and your enjoyment of them.

We are blessed in Alabama to have our Park System. Watch for future Great Blue Heron Posts as I continue to explore and enjoy these treasures that belong to us. I urge you to discover the Alabama State Parks near you. Follow the advice of John Muir:

And into the forest I go, to lose my mind and find my soul.

In every walk with Nature one receives far more than he seeks.

I only went out for a walk and finally concluded to stay out till sundown, for going out, I found, was really going in.

Between every two pines is a doorway to a new world.

Thoughts and Reflections

I offer these reflections from my recent spring wildflower hikes of discovery at Oak Mountain State Park:

The magic of spring wildflowers never wanes.
In fact, my appreciation sharpens every spring.
Borrowing from Muir, “And into the forest I go, to lose my mind and find my soul.”

Inhale and absorb Nature’s elixir. May Nature Inspire, Inform, and Reward you!

Note: All blog post images created & photographed by Stephen B. Jones unless otherwise noted. Please circulate images with photo credit: “©2021 Steve Jones, Great Blue Heron LLC. All Rights Reserved.”

Another Note: If you came to this post via a Facebook posting or by an another route, please sign up now (no cost… no obligation) to receive my Blog Post email alerts: http://eepurl.com/cKLJdL

And a Third: I am available for Nature-Inspired Speaking, Writing, and Consulting — contact me at steve.jones.0524@gmail.com

Reminder of my Personal and Professional Purpose, Passion, and Cause

If only more of us viewed our precious environment through the filters I employ. If only my mission and vision could be multiplied untold orders of magnitude:

Mission: Employ writing and speaking to educate, inspire, and enable readers and listeners to understand, appreciate, and enjoy Nature… and accept and practice Earth Stewardship.

Vision:

People of all ages will pay greater attention to and engage more regularly with Nature… and will accept and practice informed and responsible Earth Stewardship.
They will see their relationship to our natural world with new eyes… and will understand more clearly their Earth home.

Tagline/Motto: Steve (Great Blue Heron) encourages and seeks a better tomorrow through Nature-Inspired Living!

Steve’s Three Books

I wrote my books Nature Based Leadership (2016), Nature-Inspired Learning and Leading (2017), and Weaned Seals and Snowy Summits: Stories of Passion for Place and Everyday Nature (2019; co-authored with Dr. Jennifer Wilhoit) to encourage all citizens to recognize and appreciate that every lesson for living, learning, serving, and leading is either written indelibly in or is powerfully inspired by Nature.

I began writing books and Posts for several reasons:

I love hiking and exploring in Nature
I see images I want to (and do) capture with my trusty iPhone camera
I enjoy explaining those images — an educator at heart
I don’t play golf!
I actually do love writing — it’s the hobby I never needed when my career consumed me
Judy suggested my writing is in large measure my legacy to our two kids, our five grand kids, and all the unborn generations beyond
And finally, perhaps my books and Blogs could reach beyond family and touch a few other lives… sow some seeds for the future

All three of my books (Nature Based Leadership; Nature-Inspired Learning and Leading; Weaned Seals and Snowy Summits) present compilations of personal experiences expressing my (and co-author Dr. Wilhoit for Weaned Seals and Snowy Summits) deep passion for Nature. All three books offer observations and reflections on my relationship to the natural world… and the broader implications for society. Order any and all from your local indie bookstore, or find them on IndieBound or other online sources such as Amazon and LifeRich.