Another Nature Visit to Cumberland, Maryland, My Home Town

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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

Steve's Books

 

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

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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.

HGH Road

 

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.

HGH Road

 

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!

HGH Road

 

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.

HGH Road

 

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!

HGH Road

 

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.

HGH Road

 

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

HGH Road

 

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

Steve's BooksHGH Road

 

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.

 

 

Early Spring in West-Central Pennsylvania

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March 27, 2021 we visited our son and his family in Butler County, Pennsylvania. While there we traveled with them to a lovely rolling hills horse farm and stables where our two granddaughters help care for and ride two horses. I could not resist wandering across the property, exploring early spring pastures and woodlots, and reveling under an amazing cerulean sky.

A Rolling Pennsylvania Landscape Under a Cerulean Sky

 

I offer this Post absent much of the ecological science and observations I usually include. Consider this more an aesthetic journey across a special landscape mosaic of open pasture, woods edges, and woodlots, all accented by a remarkable spring sky. Winter had not yet abandoned the farm, although spring was racing northward at roughly 100 miles per week. So, allow me to usher you across the farm, highlighting a few special elements along the way. Still-dormant woodlots, pasture grass coming to life, and a sky of beauty beyond compare.

Horse BarnHorse Barn

 

I was grateful to be in the out-there of western Pennsylvania!

Woodlot Edges

 

Such woods-edge scenes bring rabbits, deer, and soaring birds to mind. Mixed habitats and the ecotones that transition pasture to forest provide rich habitat for all manner of birds and mammals. The woodlots draw me in; the pastures lure me out of the forest.

Horse BarnHorse Barn

 

Tree crowns, too, reach into the pasture, not drawn by the open majesty, but by the bountiful pasture sunlight. And beneath those reaching branches, brambles and tree seedlings advance into the open. Sunlight is a powerful magnet. Given time…and a cessation of mowing or horse feeding…the forest would invade the pasture. Maintaining the forest/pasture mixed cover requires management, intentional practice by the landowners.

Horse BarnHorse Barn

 

I could not help but pause time and again to gaze skyward, especially at the forest edge. I wanted to capture the aesthetic bounty so that I might return to the image on an insufferably hot Alabama July or August afternoon!

Horse BarnHorse Barn

 

 

 

 

Some of the best things in life are free. I wonder, how many people walk about on a spring day with digital device in hand, unaware of the magic above and surrounding them.

Within a Woodlot

 

My wanderings always draw me into forests, for trees are my passion. I miss these western Pennsylvania forests, similar to where I grew up in western Maryland and not far from where I conducted my doctoral research in the Allegheny Hardwood forests of NW PA and SW NY. Below left is a bigtooth aspen, whose range extends little beyond the upper mid-Atlantic states, the northeast, and lake states. Aspen, both bigtooth and quaking, make me think of cooler summers and far deeper winters. That’s a red maple below right, a more common main canopy occupant than it is here in Alabama. Red maple ranges from the border with Canada  into most of Florida.

Horse Barn

 

Black cherry (below left) dominated the forests of my doctoral studies. I found northern red oak (below right) commonly on my measurement plots. I also found white oak, sugar maple, red maple, beech, yellow poplar, basswood, white pine, hemlock, and white ash.

Horse Barn

 

As I’ve begun to do in dormant season forests wherever I am, I captured the crown image below. Once again, tree crowns are not interlaced. Each individual stands alone with a ring of crown shyness isolating one tree from another. Unlike some of the massive crowns I’ve reported for white oak in particular in our southern forests, all of these crowns are narrow.

Horse Barn

 

The emerald ash borer mortality front passed through this area within the past five years. Here is a white ash standing dead. The bark is beginning to slough; its crown still reaches into the canopy. Most of its branches have fallen to the ground. Adjoining crowns have not yet filled the ash’s canopy void. I consider it a dreadful shame that this magnificent tree is fading from our Pennsylvania forests. The zone of ash mortality is approaching the Alabama/Tennessee border. I am concerned for our north Alabama ash.

Horse Barn

 

As I often do, I found tree curiosities in the woodlots. Below left a black cherry canker beckons wood bowl turners. And, I discovered that poison ivy (below right), just as it does across Alabama, is a common main canopy resident courtesy of its habit of regenerating with the stand and growing vertically in tandem with the trees reaching skyward.

Horse Barn

 

I confess to a fantasy. I’d like to develop a coffee table style book of forest curiosities and tree form oddities. All I need is a sponsor to cover the cost of touring across our eastern hardwood forests, camera in hand, applying my understanding and appreciation of applied ecology to my ever-keener eye for seeing what is hidden in plain sight.

Pastoral Setting

 

Even as the forester within me seeks the sylvan settings, I thoroughly enjoyed the pastoral elements of the farm. Yet, still I seem to accent the pastoral photos with trees. In western Pennsylvania someone had chosen to plant borders of Norway spruce. This Scandinavian-named species is native to much of western and central Europe, and is quite happy across the northeastern US.

Horse Barn

 

A farm pond near the homestead adds a nice domestic touch to the landscape. And, few things beat a white wooden fence.

Horse Barn

 

I’ll end with the two girls returning to the stables along the white fence. What could be better than wandering a new section of God’s green Earth with grandchildren?! I hope that I will have planted a seed of Nature-appreciation in them.

Horse Barn

 

I shall continue to enjoy Nature wherever life and living take me. Perhaps one day, long after only my writing and photos remain, the then two women will see their horseback photos, read my words, and remember their Pap and the seeds of Nature-Inspired Life and Living he sowed.

A Cerulean Firmament — Heaven Over Earth

 

Our grandchildren compose one element of our heaven on Earth. Yet, I could write ten thousand words and never truly express the utter power, hope, and spirit in this simple woods-edge cerulean firmament photograph.

Horse Barn

 

I find Nature’s supreme gifts and magic moments whenever (and wherever) I enter wildness.

Thoughts and Reflections

 

I offer three observations:

  • Nature never disappoints those willing to look.
  • A cerulean firmament — gateway to Heaven on Earth.  
  • Life’s greatest pleasures are free.

Inhale and absorb Nature’s elixir. May Nature Inspire, Inform, Humble, 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 Books

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.

 

 

Tall Trees in Monte Sano State Park’s Cathedral Forest

/in , , /by

Thirty-Four-inch Yellow Poplar

I’m continuing to explore our north Alabama forests and their sylvan residents from the ground up with my newly acquired instruments for measuring tree heights. March 12, 2021, I led Jerry Weisenfeld, Alabama State Parks Advertising and Marketing Manager, along the Arthur Wells Memorial and Sinks Trails at Monte Sano State Park near Huntsville, Alabama. I love these trails for the spectacular cathedral grove within the lower slopes and rich limestone-sink soils in protected coves. These soils are extremely fertile and deep. Trees are sheltered on the lower slopes and concave sites from winds that may ravage nearby ridge tops.

We identified a particularly tall yellow poplar for our first measurement. At 34-inch diameter breast high (DBH, 4.5 feet above ground on the uphill side), the tree towered above us. We stretched our tape out 100 feet, then used a clinometer to measure percent sight-line to its base and top. This individual stands at 140′. That’s roughly a 14-story building, a testament to the incredible productive capacity of these remarkably rich soils and ideal site location!

Monte Sano

 

This vertically-giant yellow poplar stands among other tall members of its own species. Below right Jim uses the clinometer to measure the percent line of sight to the tree’s top. The percent scale works well at 100 feet from the base. A reading of percent converts directly to tree height in feet.

Monte SanoMonte Sano

 

The stand is fully stocked. The canopy is crowded. Little light reaches the summer forest floor.

Monte Sano

 

Yellow poplar efficiently captures sunlight high above the forest floor with crowns much smaller in diameter than species of white oak or beech, for example.

Thirty-Six-inch Yellow Poplar

Jerry and I wandered from the lower sink elevation to a terrace 30-40 feet higher, but still on a protected lower slope position. We identified another yellow poplar, this one a bit fatter at 36-inch DBH. Still towering, this one fell ten feet shorter at 130′. Viewing the ground from a 13-story roof ledge would be no less terrifying for me than standing atop a 14-story building. This yellow poplar stands just ten feet off the Wells Trail (below right).

Monte SanoMonte Sano

 

 

That’s it below at 100 feet away, seeming far distant with my iPhone camera, which in my hands does not capture forest distance and depth very well.

Monte Sano

 

The view below left is at 60 degrees into the canopy. That’s our 130-footer dead center. And below right the vertical view into the crowns.

Monte Sano

 

As I complete this Post on April 19, we have moved into nearly full foliage, making height measurements next to impossible until next dormant season. The leafy canopy obscures any given tree. We cannot measure when the top is not visible.

Twenty-Five-inch Chestnut Oak

 

We ascended from the lower slopes and sinks onto the plateau top, where we chose a chestnut oak to measure. Keep in mind that being on the relatively flat plateau is not the same as rising onto a narrow ridge line, with steeply convex upper slopes, sites that are generally among our least productive, especially if they face west through south. Chestnut oaks often populate those harsh sites. This one occupies a more favorable site, albeit not on par with the lower slopes where we measured the two poplars. We measured this oak at 95 feet, certainly not unimpressive for a chestnut oak.

Monte SanoMonte Sano

 

Reaching 9.5 stories high, this specimen is among the tallest chestnut oaks I have ever encountered. Oaks demand more crown space than our more efficient yellow poplars. Therefore, we can observe that the relative density of a comparable diameter chestnut oak exceeds that of a yellow poplar. I’ll dig deeper into the concept of relative density in subsequent Posts.

Monte Sano

 

I see and learn more with each hike through our forests. In no small way I regret that the season of crown observation and study has reached a summer halt. Nevertheless, I’ll find plenty of other avenues of exploration during the growing season.

The Sinks

Departing from isolating individual trees, let’s take a look at the sinks and the associated forest. The major sink along the Sinks Trail actually swallows all surface water that during storms and heavy rainfall flows into the great sink-of-no-outflow. Limestone outcrops below left provide the first hint. The towering forest occupies the bowl-shaped topography above and to the left of the limestone ledge. The ledge below right descends to the pit bottom where the surface flow disappears. For a sense of scale, the trunk that has fallen into the pit is close to 30 feet long and two feet in diameter on its larger end.

Monte Sano

 

 

The bowl extends below to the right side of the pit image.

Monte Sano

 

The stand of predominantly yellow poplar reaches 110 to 130 feet above. These stands by eastern forest standards are jaw-dropping.

Monte SanoMonte Sano

 

A die-hard forester, I am no longer in awe only of trees and their merchantable value.

And Nearby Spring Wildflowers

In fact, I have never been blind to values beyond timber. I have been, even during my forest industry days, a spring wildflower enthusiast. Blood root has long been among my favorites. Its pure white beauty, early-season appearance, and its fondness for deep fertile soils and associated majestic forests stir my spirit and soul.

Monte Sano

 

The far less spectacular harbinger of spring added a more subtle expression of the spring spirit.

 

And, we encountered a dense stand of bluebell leaves, but only a few precocious flowers daring to open so early.

Monte Sano

 

Another early ephemeral is cutleaf toothwort

Monte Sano

 

So, whether towering eastern hardwoods or rich-site early spring ephemerals, I am thrilled to enter the cathedral forest of Monte Sano State Park.

Alabama State Parks: A 21-Pearl Necklace from the Gulf to Alabama’s Southern Appalachians and the Tennessee Valley

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 State 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 three observations from my mid-March explorations within the rich sink sites along the Wells and Sinks Trails at Monte Sano State Park:

  • Trees exploit rich, moist, and deep soils 
  • Cathedral forests stir my soul and lift my spirit
  • John Muir observed: “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

Steve's BooksMonte Sano

 

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.

 

 

 

Adding a New Dimension to my Tree Appreciation

/in , , /by

I’ve observed since my undergraduate forestry education that trees grow taller on richer sites, a fact that doesn’t require a bachelors degree to confirm. The central Appalachian forests where I worked undergraduate summers clearly evidenced the correlation. Forests on lower concave slopes facing the northeast quadrant (i.e. cove sites) performed best, with white and red oaks, yellow poplar, cucumber trees, black cherry, white ash, basswood, and sugar maple standing fat and reaching tall. Upper convex positions supported chestnut oak, red maple, Virginia pine, beech, and mixed oaks standing far shorter and with fewer and smaller stems per acre. Upper west and south facing slopes performed poorest of all. Fifteen years later, my doctoral research quantified the relationship between such site factors and forest productivity within the Allegheny Hardwood forests of NW PA and SW NY. The same relationships hold in our southern Appalachians. Cove sites win the mountain tree-height medals. Here in north Alabama, our river bottomlands likewise reign supreme.

Since retirement, I’ve wandered our north Alabama wildlands observing much about soil-site and tree relationships, without aid of an instrument for measuring tree height. Alas, I’ve purchased a clinometer (measures vertical percent and degrees) and a 100-foot tape (below left). I celebrate being able to measure standing tree height. It’s so simple — measure 100 feet from the tree base and read percent down to the tree base (I’ve been using it to-date in relatively flat bottomland forests) and up to the center-top. For example, I measured a sweetgum recently: five percent down to base and 108 to the top. Add the two to reveal the tree’s 113-foot height. I plan to often include tree heights in future blog Posts as I continue to explore north Alabama wildness. Standing 100 feet from the base, Jerry Weisenfeld takes a reading to the tree top.

 

Monte Sano

 

 

 

 

I offer with this Post some of my early measurements from the Wheeler National Wildlife Refuge bottomland hardwood forests (February 24, 2021) and on the Flint River floodplain forests at the Goldsmith-Schiffman Wildlife Sanctuary (February 25, 2021).

Wheeler National Wildlife Refuge

 

This 21.8-inch diameter shagbark hickory stands at 115 feet. Until procuring the clinometer, I could only estimate with eyes long-removed from my active forestry research days. My once reliable estimating skill had faded with the years. Now I can begin to recalibrate!

HGH RoadHGH Road

 

A 20.3-inch diameter chinkapin oak stands at 110 feet. For rough comparison, that’s equivalent to an 11-story building!

HGH RoadHGH Road

 

Yellow poplars are often the tallest trees I encounter. This 32.9-inch diameter specimen stands at 118 feet. As I begin to incorporate height measurements into these Posts, I will reflect more deeply on the relationship between site quality and height, and the ongoing battle among trees for light, water, and nutrients.

HGH RoadHGH Road

 

Across the Refuge’s bottomland forests, loblolly pine intermixes as microsite shifts towards better drained soils. The loblolly (dead center in photo below), 100 feet from where I stood, is 24.7 inches in diameter and reaches 114 feet above the forest floor. These 100-foot-plus heights are impressive enough when viewed from below. However, I imagine standing on the roof of an 11-story building, gazing with head spinning (I am not comfortable with heights) over the edge to the ground way-too-far below!

HGH Road

 

Rich riparian sites along the Tennessee River, combined with our annual rainfall at 55 inches, produce forests worthy of admiration and inspiration!

Goldsmith-Schiffman Wildlife Sanctuary

 

Although not along the Tennessee River, the Sanctuary is similarly riparian-situated along the Flint River. This 22.0-inch diameter sweetgum reaches 113 feet into the canopy. The two photographs immediately below show the 100-foot tape attached to the base (left) and with the view along the tape back to the base (right). I’ve discovered that my trusty iPhone camera does not depict horizontal distances as I wish. The tree 100-feet away appears as tiny and insignificant.

 

Yet, under it, peering into the crown, the tree stands impressively.

 

I’m fascinated with tree height and the intense competition for available upper-canopy sunlight.

Gazing into the Canopy

 

I am growing fonder and fonder of the vertical forest perspective, gazing directly into the business end of our sylvan citizens. In fact, I vow to spend more time lying on my back looking into the canopy. I’ll make sure the area where I recline is free of snakes, poison ivy, and other distractions!

HGH Road

 

Over the course of my many years in forest practice, I seldom assumed such position. Now, retired, I will do as I please. No worry about appearing to loaf! In fact, I won’t accept the term loafing. Instead, we’ll refer to it as reclined deep contemplation!

HGH Road

 

Contemplation that triggers youthful memories. I recall summer days as a youngster, lying on my back peering skyward, and feeling as though I might fall up into the sky. I feel an echo of those childhood sensations as I now gaze into the canopy, drawing out greater appreciation for the ten-story height, somewhat mimicking a reverse fear of heights, a mirror-version of being on the rooftop looking down. One may think me odd, yet I accept the sensation with glee. Anything I can do mentally to deepen my appreciation for scale assists my embrace of Nature’s beauty, magic, wonder, and awe!

Thoughts and Reflections

 

I offer three observations:

  • Understanding the forest requires gazing into the canopy
  • Good grounding and rich nourishment make all the difference… in tree height, and in people’s character 
  • A scientist, I multiply my admiration and inspiration with measurement

Inhale and absorb Nature’s elixir. May Nature Inspire, Inform, Humble, 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

HGH Road

All Three Books

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.

 

Reflections on Natural Disasters

/in , , /by

 

Reflections on Natural Disasters

 

Today’s instant global news connects us with calamities from Asian tsunamis to California and Australian wildfires to calving Antarctic mega-glaciers to seething volcanoes to European floods to a variety of weather extremes (hurricanes, tornadoes, avalanches, ice storms, severe thunderstorms, tidal surges, and drought). We anthropocentric humans dub such events as natural disasters. Yes, these perturbations are natural. But, in whose eyes are they disasters? Excepting their effect on humans and our lives, structures, and economies, they are simply normal fluxes of atmospheric physics, weather patterns, and our Earth’s dynamic crustal plates. Landslides and earthquakes result from a constant battle for equilibrium. Storms of all sorts occur as the global atmosphere seeks balance. Glaciers work tirelessly to scrape mountains to the sea. Water and gravity likewise sweep soil, rocks, and associated debris seaward.

Bradford Creek

 

Fires have burned California forests, growing happily in a dry-summer/wet-winter Mediterranean climate on steep hillsides, since long before the first humans entered what became the Golden State. Winter rains have generated mudslides on the fire-cleared hillsides for as long as fires have periodically scorched the forests. The cycle of forest/fire/mudslide/forest is natural, and will continue without regard for the foolhardy humans who place homes with little regard to Nature’s ways. Flood plains identify themselves clearly to the hydrologists among us, yet we build homes and cities in harm’s way. We populate beachfronts subject to tropical storms with homes and other infrastructure. We time and again “protect” New Orleans by rebuilding, reinforcing, and elevating levees, yet as the city sinks year after year from the weight of thousands of feet of sediment, the city will one day pay the ultimate price.

November 2020Oak Mountain

 

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.

Joe Wheeler SP

 

The week of February 15, we witnessed a deep-diving polar outbreak reaching to the Texas Gulf coast, bringing record low temperatures, relentless snowfall, and historic ice storms. The death toll in Texas alone reached 86. Property damage across the southern US matched major hurricane levels. The news media spoke of this as an unprecedented natural disaster. Many of the now-broken records go back 100-plus years to 1890. Unprecedented? Okay, in 1890 the US population was one-sixth of today’s. Because home electricity did not appear commonly until 1930, residents in 1890 did not suffer from power outages. Frozen pipes? Likewise not a problem. A disaster? Certainly a disaster for those who lost power, experienced frozen pipes, were unable to secure clean water, suffered carbon monoxide poisoning, and went without food. But, a natural disaster? I think that Nature and her wildness will feel little consequence from such a weather phenomenon, which, while unusual, occurs every few decades or once a century.

Here in northern Alabama, the evening of February 17 brought us six inches of snow. I am sure it triggered many fender-benders and perhaps a few resultant injuries. Schools closed for several days. Yet, I do not consider this generally as more than a minor natural perturbation here on the eastern edge of the more calamitous cold air invasion. In fact, I welcomed the snow as a brief period of winter during a time when spring was locked and loaded, ready to emerge.

 

All of these natural disturbances are part of the grand cycle of life and the ongoing fluxes associated with forces seeking balance. Natural disasters? I beg to differ. Natural, yes. Disaster? Only in human terms. However, I understand how we derived the term. I don’t suggest that we seek an alternate moniker. I simply want to remind readers that our own human impacts on the future may be more of a disaster than anything that Nature throws our way. Consider among others: foul air; abusive agricultural practices; soil erosion; wetland elimination; species extinction; water pollution; paving paradise (and putting up a parking lot; courtesy of Big Yellow Taxi, Joni Mitchell).

So-called natural disasters do not not dim my own maturing love affair with Nature. Instead, the vagaries, mysteries, and power of Nature further inspire me, driving me to seek deeper understanding of this incredible planet and our place within its global ecosystem.

Thoughts and Reflections

 

I offer three observations from my musings on natural disasters:

  • Everything in Nature occurs in accord with her own immutable laws
  • Nature cares not about human impacts
  • We humans can only deal with Nature… not control her

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

Steve's BooksOak Mountain

 

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.

 

On Wilderness and Wildness

/in , /by

Prompted by my Nature-ramblings and wanderings, I muse with this Post on the distinctions and commonalities among the terms wildness, wilderness, and Wilderness, about which Nature itself cares little.

Wildness, wilderness, and Wilderness

Merrian-Webster online defines wilderness as: a tract or region uncultivated and uninhabited by human beings; an area essentially undisturbed by human activity together with its naturally developed life community. M-W online shows little, if any, distinction from wilderness in defining wildness: a sparsely inhabited or uncultivated region or tract: wilderness. The two subtle differences:

  1. Wilderness — uninhabited by humans; wildness — sparsely inhabited
  2. Wilderness — uncultivated and undisturbed by human activity; wildness — uncultivated

The Wilderness Act of 1964 defined statutory Federal Wilderness:

A Wilderness, in contrast with those areas where man and his own works dominate the landscape, is hereby recognized as an area where the earth and its community of life are untrammeled by man, where man himself is a visitor who does not remain. An area of wilderness is further defined to mean in this chapter an area of undeveloped Federal land retaining its primeval character and influence, without permanent improvements or human habitation, which is protected and managed so as to preserve its natural conditions and which (1) generally appears to have been affected primarily by the forces of nature, with the imprint of man’s work substantially unnoticeable; (2) has outstanding opportunities for solitude or a primitive and unconfined type of recreation; (3) has at least five thousand acres of land or is of sufficient size as to make practicable its preservation and use in an unimpaired condition; and (4) may also contain ecological, geological, or other features of scientific, educational, scenic, or historical value.

So, I will comment and reflect on Alabama Wilderness, wilderness (lower case ‘w’), and wildness. We have three federally-designated Alabama Wilderness areas totaling 41,000 acres: Sipsey; Cheaha; Dugger Mountain. I’ve visited the Sipsey Wilderness and gazed out over the Cheaha Wilderness from the summit of Alabama’s highest peak. Here’s a photo from within the Sipsey. Quite frankly, the image is indistinguishable from countless other ledges I’ve seen across the northern half of our state, including wilderness and wildness.

 

Sipsey Wilderness

 

Here’s a spring waterfall along a well-used trail in DeSoto State Park. Many of our Alabama State Parks offer abundant wildness, at a level sufficient to satisfy my own thirst for Nature.

 

And these cathedral spires (white oak left; yellow poplar right) grace deep forest in Joe Wheeler and Monte Sano State Parks, respectively. Had these individuals been in Wilderness or wilderness, my Nature-addiction would be no less slaked.

Joe WheelerMonte Sano

 

And, this magnificent cherrybark oak stands in a bottomland hardwood forest on the eastern end of Wheeler National Wildlife Refuge. This land, I am nearly certain, once saw the plow and agricultural production, a far cry from untrammeled by man! Yet, everything about this spot of peace, beauty, and tranquility lifted me. In fact, that it did not meet wildness criteria amplified my appreciation for Nature’s resiliency.

HGH Road

 

Across Alabama’s wildness I find abundant Places of Peace (PoPs)!

Wildness Rebounds from Even Harsh Trammeling

I shift from Alabama to my Land Legacy project site in east-central Ohio. This fully stocked mixed hardwood forest below graces the hill behind the family’s lakeside cottage, surrounded by wildness and beauty. However, the lake is an artifact of strip-mining for coal; the rolling pasture land adjoining the lake is reclaimed from highwall and overburden returned to roughly the original contours. The forest in both images below cover an unconsolidated debris heap abandoned six decades ago. Much of this forest regenerated naturally, including the two red oak stems below right.

Land Legacy

September 2020

 

 

 

 

 

 

I had spent considerable time exploring this stand before I discovered that the sweetgum trees had been planted. Once I noticed the straight planted row of sweetgum below, I paid more attention, seeing clearly then the parallel planted sweetgum rows ascending the debris heap above left. See my November 25, 2020 Post for details: https://stevejonesgbh.com/2020/11/25/late-september-wanderings-and-ramblings-on-my-ohio-land-legacy-project-site/

September 2020

 

My appetite for wildness doesn’t require Jenny Lake and the Tetons (below)…thank God, it’s a long haul to western Wyoming! A reclaimed strip mine provides a full dose of Nature’s elixir, without the expense of time and travel. Okay, I admit that nothing beats hiking the six-mile Jenny Lake trail! It’s just that I refuse to submit to pining for what is not within my immediate reach. When people ask what place where we’ve lived (13 interstate moves) did we like best, our answer is simple and honest: “Wherever we happened to be be living.” My maternal grandmother counseled all of us to “Bloom where you are planted!” For me that translates to, “Find and Scratch your Nature Itch wherever you seek it.”

Tetons

 

Some 85 years ago, during construction of Wheeler Dam along the Tennessee River near Rogersville, Alabama, crews created a then-modern recreation area to provide leisure activities for the 10,000 workers and families living nearby. Abandoned at least 60 years ago, the site has naturalized, surrounded within wildness. My August 2020 Post tells the tale: https://stevejonesgbh.com/2020/08/12/long-abandoned-recreation-area-at-joe-wheeler-state-park/

A concrete picnic table, with wooden benches long since rotted, stands below left. English ivy, planted then as landscape ground cover, fully occupies the forest floor.

Joe WheelerJoe Wheeler

 

Wildness occurs at whatever scale we choose, including the rich diversity of fungi and non-flowering plants occupying dead logs.

DeSoto SP

HGH Road

 

The Great Chain of Being

I subscribe to the Reverend Richard Rohr’s Daily Meditation, an email-delivered Post. Several weeks ago in his series on Nature, Cosmos, and Connection, he offered reflections relevant to my own Post on Wilderness and Wildness:

I would like to reclaim an ancient, evolving, and very Franciscan metaphor: the Great Chain of Being. This image helps us rightly name the nature of the universe, God, and the self, and to direct our future thinking.

Scholastic theologians tried to communicate a linked and coherent world through this image. The essential and unbreakable links in the chain include the Divine Creator, the angelic heaven, the human, the animal, the world of vegetation, all water, and planet Earth itself with its minerals. In themselves, and in their union together, they proclaim the glory of God and the inherent dignity of all things. This became the basis for calling anything and everything sacred.

What some now call creation spirituality, deep ecology, or holistic gospel actually found a much earlier voice in the spirituality of the ancient Celts, the Rhineland mystics, and, most especially, Saints Francis of Assisi (1182–1226) and Bonaventure (1217–1274). 

The Great Chain of Being of the early Middle Ages was a positive intellectual vision…defined the clarity and beauty of form. It was a cosmic egg of meaning, a vision of Creator and a multitude of creatures that excluded nothing.

Categorizing forests by Wilderness, wilderness, or wildness means nothing to Nature itself. All forests, all creatures, all living organisms, and we humans are all part of the Great Chain of Being. And, as Muir so beautifully stated, we are all part of that “One Great Dewdrop!”

John Muir: When we contemplate the whole globe as one great dewdrop, striped and dotted with continents and islands, flying through space with other stars all singing and shining together as one, the whole universe appears as an infinite storm of beauty.

Thoughts and Reflections

 

I offer three observations from my musings on wildness, wilderness, and Wilderness:

  • The terms mean nothing to Nature itself
  • Nature is a Cosmic Egg of Life
  • We humans are all part of the Great Chain of Being

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

Steve's BooksHGH Road

 

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.

 

Reflections on My Maturing Love Affair with Nature

/in , , /by

Nature-Infatuation

The Weather Channel (TWC) prompted today’s Blog Post, having recently introduced a new tag line, imploring viewers to Get Into… The Out There! The Channel launched Sunday, May 2, 1982. I was then soon-to-celebrate my 31st birthday. I recall as a kid watching Channel 7, WMAL out of Washington D.C. The first on air “weatherman” I remember with clarity from my childhood is Louis Allen. I had long been addicted to weather, watching him on the six o’clock news talking about “the ducks are on the pond,” when conditions promised (threatened) a snowstorm. I vividly remember one winter evening when cameras rolled outside the studio as Mr. Allen shovelled “six inches of partly cloudy,” poking fun at his errant prior day forecast that did not include snow. Allen’s daily five-minute forecast highlighted many school-day evenings for me. What’s that you say? How boring could a boy’s life be! That takes me to another ad currently running on TWC. A calm male voice says, “Some people say talking about the weather is boring; I say not talking about the weather is boring.” I could not agree more.

Big Blue Lake

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Purely and simply, I am addicted to weather… and to all of Nature. John Muir long ago captured my sentiment toward weather and Nature:

When we contemplate the whole globe as one great dewdrop, striped and dotted with continents and islands, flying through space with other stars all singing and shining together as one, the whole universe appears as an infinite storm of beauty.

I love the weather analogy applied to all of Nature… here on Earth and beyond. Muir’s wisdom captivated me from the git-go. How could anyone of my Nature-persuasion not be enveloped by this profound statement:

This grand show is eternal. It is always sunrise somewhere; the dew is never all dried at once; a shower is forever falling; vapor is ever rising. Eternal sunrise, eternal sunset, eternal dawn and gloaming, on sea and continents and islands, each in its turn, as the round earth rolls.

UAF

 

My love for Nature persisted across my five-decade career… and deepened when retirement freed me to focus intently on the object of my lifelong Nature-passion. Wildness lies so easily within reach here in northern Alabama, whether in my own backyard or while exploring the many trails, parks, preserves, refuges, or other protected wildness within 30-60 minutes. No matter where I travel — locally, regionally, across the US, or internationally — I seek ventures into nearby wildness. Pre-retirement, travel usually entailed demanding work-related meetings of one sort or another, tantalizing and torturing me with the wildness in plain sight with no time to explore. I no longer have time to not immerse in nearby wildness wherever I roam. Life is too short for additional regrets.

Local Greenways

 

Late January 2021 through early February 2021 my Nature-inspiration multiplied in a manner I had not anticipated. This past fall (2020) my ophthalmologist informed me that I had developed cataracts. I write this paragraph the day following surgery on the second eye. This afternoon, Judy and I walked through our neighborhood. I observed tree branch geometry and detail I did not know existed. Exquisite patterns and intricate designs… not just a tree in winter silhouette, but a work of art. I hope the thrill of this enhanced vision-appreciation never diminishes. I agree wholeheartedly with Muir’s declaration of amazement. This grand Nature-show is eternal; the whole universe does indeed appear as an infinite storm of beauty!

HGH Road

 

No need to imagine an oak silhouetted against an early March nautical dawn twilight. Just get out there at 5:40am and snap a photo!

 

On Being Not Out of the Woods Yet

My deepening love affair spurs personal umbrage at a common saying. We often hear friends and newscasters comment regarding ailing relatives or celebrities, “He/she is not out of the woods yet,” as though being in the woods is something bad or ominous. I recall reading accounts of early European impressions of the New England forests: dark and foreboding; foul and repugnant; populated by terrifying beasts. Okay, from that perspective, being out of the woods might be a good thing. Instead, I’ll lean toward Muir’s take on the forests through which he roamed:

Going to the woods is going home.

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

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

The clearest way into the Universe is through a forest wilderness.

Henry David Thoreau expressed a similar attitude toward forest wildness:

I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.

And, today’s Weather Channel tag line concurs:

Get Into… The Out There!

Lake LurleenJoe Wheeler

 

I hope never to be out of the woods. Nature’s woodland elixir salves my body, mind, heart, soul, and spirit.

Monte Sano

 

Every time I venture into the forest I find more than I sought!

The Soul of Nature — My sacred Connection

 

My love affair with Nature runs deeper than the aesthetic and scientific. I have strong sacred and spiritual connections to wildness, symbolized by the Chapel of the Transfiguration within Grand Teton National Park.

Tetons

 

And what Nature-enthusiast could not sense the presence of God in such a glorious dawning!

Big Blue Lake

 

Or embrace the awe of sitting atop even one of our minor southern Appalachian ridge tops at Oak Mountain State Park. Not rivaling even the least of our Rocky Mountain peaks, King’s Chair (below) is what I have here in Alabama. I seek to unveil Nature’s beauty, magic, wonder, and Awe wherever I am.

Oak Mountain

 

And, no matter where I am, I glory in big trees. This white oak stands in a cathedral grove within Monte Sano State Park.

Monte Sano

 

Nature delivers so much more than I seek. May you find whatever you seek… wherever you look. John Muir made no bones about it:

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

Thoughts and Reflections

 

I offer three observations relevant to my maturing love affair with Nature:

  • Get Into… The Out There!
  • In every walk with Nature one receives far more than he seeks.
  • Muir — the whole universe appears as an infinite storm of beauty.

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

Steve's BooksOak Mountain

 

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.

 

A Magnificent Cherrybark Oak on the Wheeler National Wildlife Refuge

/in , , /by

I revisited the bottomland hardwood forests on the eastern end of Wheeler National Wildlife Refuge (near Huntsville, Alabama) January 29, 2021. I wandered this time through a stand I had not previously entered. I characterize this stand as two-aged, a 70-90 year-old matrix punctuated with much older individuals, perhaps 120-plus years. I stood in amazement admiring this 52-inch-diameter (4.5 feet above the ground) cherrybark oak (Quercus pagoda), standing tall, straight, and occupying at least a quarter of an acre of main canopy area. This species is one of the most highly valued red oaks in the southern United States. It commonly grows on moist, rich sites, such as this terrace above the seasonally water-logged lower bottomlands, which in late January supported ankle-deep standing water. Its strong wood and straight form make it an excellent timber tree. Many wildlife species use its acorns as food.

HGH Road

 

Drawing from my years in the forest products industry, I saw two sixteen-foot veneer quality logs and a third high quality timber log up to the base of the spreading crown. The tree is at least 100 feet tall.

HGH Road

 

It stands regally among surrounding individuals within the younger forest. Its wide-reaching crown evidences that it did not face overwhelming competition from individuals growing alongside it. Even the larger trees beyond it do not express the dominating crown features of this object of my deep admiration. I do not limit my appreciation to this specimen’s timber value. In fact, now, 40 years since I left the Paper and Allied Products Manufacturing sector,  I pay little heed to commercial timber value. Instead, I see a magnificent living organism, one standing (literally) the test of time. Whether hugging its girth to extend my diameter tape or standing back to snap these two lower images, my heart soared with delight. In retrospect, I should have sat awhile nearby… as one would sit in a cathedral, intent on resonating with its spiritual aura, and making sacred connection.

HGH RoadHGH Road

 

My cherrybark oak was not the only member of its age class. I found two white oaks (Quercus alba) measuring 40- and 45-inches in diameter, respectively. Again, these individuals stand unique from the younger stand in which they are embedded. These two appear vibrant and healthy. Note, however, below right that a large neighboring red oak (Quercus rubra) has fallen directly toward the camera alongside the white oak, and lies decaying at the white oak’s base. The prostrate tree stood dead prior to falling, tumbling long after its roots lost firm grip on the soil. The distant base (at least 60 feet beyond the white oak) toppled with only coarse roots breaking, lifting no soil.

HGH RoadHGH Road

 

When large living trees are blown over and uprooted, they lift a large volume of soil. I snapped this photograph of a wind-felled red oak February 9, 2021, as I bushwhacked a nearby bottomland within a half-mile of the two white oaks. This nearby site evidenced a higher water table, and shallower rooting zone than where the cherrybark and two white oaks grew. Still, this individual lifted 8-10 inches of soil, holding tightly to the roots standing 15 feet tall.

HGH Road

 

Just a hundred yards from the white oaks, this 48-inch diameter red oak stands dead, its top decaying and dropping, branch by branch. At some point the remaining top will fall earthward or, like the red oak that had fallen alongside the white oak, it will let loose from its roothold. One might ponder what agent or cause is weakening or killing these forest giants. Absent seeing direct evidence of disease and rot, lightning strike, or other physical injury, I pose a simple answer: Old Age and Natural Causes. I’ve said often that life and death dance an ongoing forest waltz. Nothing in Nature is static. Although individual trees die, the forest goes on. The forest will not mourn the loss of any one tree. Instead, it recycles the fiber and nutrients that composed the regal old soldier.

HGH Road

 

Our bottomland forest systems are closed. The progression of life and death recycles and reuses, demonstrated convincingly in this stand, where dead and down woody biomass may exceed the volume standing.

 

I never tire of the stories our forests tell to the patient and persistent observer. Dynamism is the predominant theme. The cycle of life and death defines the forest.

Thoughts and Reflections

 

I offer three observations from my late January trek through the riparian forest:

  • Dynamism is a recurring forest theme
  • The cycle of life and death defines the forest
  • Each tree tells a story, demanding forest sleuthing 

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

Steve's Books

 

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.

 

Early February Spectacular Frosty Morning Sky at the Goldsmith-Schiffman Wildlife Sanctuary

/in , , /by

February 6, 2021, I met a small group of fellow Nature enthusiasts at Huntsville, Alabama’s Goldsmith-Schiffman Wildlife Sanctuary (G-SWS). Marian Moore-Lewis, author of Southern Sanctuary (a 12-month journey through the seasons at G-SWS), led my colleagues and me through the Sanctuary. This was their first visit to this exquisite wildness right in our backyard. I shared my prior Posts about the property with them in advance:

  • https://stevejonesgbh.com/2020/06/23/visiting-a-southern-sanctuary-my-orientation-visit/
  • https://stevejonesgbh.com/2020/06/30/visiting-a-southern-sanctuary-natures-insistence-upon-renewal/
  • https://stevejonesgbh.com/2020/12/23/late-fall-at-goldsmith-schiffman-wildlife-sanctuary/

I decided to draft yet another Post, spurred by the incredibly photogenic frosty morning and unmatched sky! We gathered at 27 degrees Fahrenheit, the air rich with moisture and all surfaces coated with delicate fingers and frostings of ice. A stalled cold front lay to our south, its associated cloud deck clearly visible in both photos below.

Sky and Nature as Art

I will never forget my love for a fresh snowy landscape showcased by a rising winter sun, wherever we lived further north. I can’t expect such mornings but rarely here in the deeper south. So, instead, I will delight in the magic of a sunlit heavy frost. The view is nearly as stunning as a snowy field and woodland, without the bother of shoveling my driveway, driving 30 miles on packed snow roadways, and anticipating and dealing with slush, dirtying snow piles, and then the black ice of refreezing. Mornings such as this one stir my soul and lift my spirits.

 

Of mornings such as this, Leonardo da Vinci observed simply:

Once you have tasted the sky, you will forever look up.

Could an artist paint a more lovely scene than this view (below) of absolute peace, tranquility, and contentment? A winter-dormant, fallow field; a barren treeline of leafless hardwoods; the sun backlighting thin, fair-weather clouds. Such an image stirs twin competing (or, complementing?) feelings. The first is deep humility… for, standing there in frosted awe, I realize that I am nothing more than an average human intellect within its fragile vessel for a brief moment in time. A human lifespan is nothing across the vast heartbeat of time. Consider my soon-to-be-seventy-years on planet Earth contrasted to the ultra-deep space, 13-billion-year-old-galaxy images that Hubble is now collecting. However, even with the deep humility, the same photograph below creates a sense of overwhelming inspiration, countering the brief sense of woe and insignificance. I remind myself that this lifetime is all I have, my only window for embracing the humility and reveling in Nature’s inspiration. Imagine how empty and bereft a life could be without deeply inhaling the glory of mornings in the wildness that lies all around us.

 

I refuse to miss any such mornings. I accept and embrace each day as a gift… for that is exactly what every dawning is. John Muir said it all:

The grand show is eternal. It is always sunrise somewhere.

And my friend (a fellow Earth-traveler who reaches across 500 years to show and teach) Leonardo da Vinci, observed so eloquently:

Principles for the Development of a Complete Mind: Study the science of art. Study the art of science. Develop your senses- especially learn how to see. Realize that everything connects to everything else.

I appreciate Nature’s aesthetic, in large measure, because I understand it… through my own deep scientific study (PhD in applied ecology), and practice of the art of my scientific discipline. And, I understand from observing relentlessly and passionately across seven decades of Nature-absorbed life and living. Some say that beauty is only skin deep. The scene below is indeed beautiful in its two-dimensional glory. Yet, I see the ecological significance of its multidimensional tale of atmospheric physics, seasonal fluxes, ecotonal implications, and diurnal fluxes. I have said frequently that every place in Nature has a compelling story to tell. The story implied below could fill a volume… no, many volumes. I have finally, after all these years, learned how to see… after first learning how to look.

 

As the frost begins to melt in the quickening sun, the now-stationary front lies visibly across the southern horizon. When it passed south over us two days prior, the system dropped a third of an inch of rain. I knew that it had stalled, and was forecast to retreat northward, returning rain to us within 24 hours. Overnight and the next day, I measured another one-half inch. Would I have enjoyed the image below as much had I no clue of its weather implications? I think not. Peel away enough layers of the onion, and the onion is gone. Each layer of science within Nature strengthens the story, deepens the plot, and multiplies my appreciation.

 

Again, da Vinci nailed it:

Nothing can be loved or hated unless it is first understood.

The noblest pleasure is the joy of understanding.

I thrill and revel in understanding the nuances, layers, and lessons embedded in all things of Nature. I have said time and again that every lesson for living, learning, leading, and serving is either written indelibly in or is compellingly inspired by Nature.

Additional Observations

For those willing to look and eager to see, the sky resides above… and below, here reflected flawlessly in the placid water of Jobala Pond, a now-naturalized 70-year-old gravel and sand pit mined for a nearby public road. Although early-February is still winter, even this far south, the alder leaning over the water and reflected on the pond’s surface is bursting in three-inch catkins, its male spring flowers. Seasons here do not rush into action… they slow transition one into another.

 

A side note: eleven days later (February 17) we measured six inches of snow; a week after that (February 24) I hiked the nearby Wheeler National Wildlife Refuge at 70 degrees!

HGH Road

 

We walked along a secondary arm of the Flint River, this segment embracing the island across from my colleagues, and rejoining the primary channel another 100 yards downstream, just beyond sight. I include these photos simply to evidence the diversity of habitats and ecotones on the Sanctuary. The photo below right signals the dynamic environment along a river that flushes in rapid torrents several times a year, scouring sandy banks, exposing tree roots, and shifting channels. Life along the river is never static. So, too, nothing in Nature is static.

 

And, finally, I leave you with a significant Eastern red cedar burl (a tree tumor, if you will), one that would make a beautiful bowl in the hands of the right wood-turner.

 

I’ve yet to enter Nature without discovering something unexpected… and, even the expected yields immeasurable reward, satisfaction, and fulfillment. Yes, the grand show is eternal. It is always sunrise somewhere.

Thoughts and Reflections

 

I offer three observations borrowed from Muir and da Vinci:

  • Once you have tasted the sky, you will forever look up
  • The grand show is eternal. It is always sunrise somewhere
  • The noblest pleasure is the joy of understanding Nature

Inhale and absorb Nature’s elixir. May Nature Inspire, Inform, Humble, 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

Steve's Books

 

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.