January 31, 2023 I visited Huntsville, Alabama’s Goldsmith-Schiffman Wildlife Sanctuary early afternoon following a night of steady rain. Saturated forest and field, streams and the Flint River running full, and deep overcast gave the Sanctuary an air of solemn spirituality. This Post offers observations, reflections, and photographs relevant to the lichens, mosses, and fungi I encountered.

Some people have no conception of the exquisite beauty, magic, wonder, and awe of the presumed lesser things of Nature, like lichens, fungi, and mosses. Aldo Leopold, mid-20th century conservationist extraordinaire, offered timeless wisdom, to which I turn often:

The last word in ignorance is the man who says of an animal or plant, “What good is it?” If the land mechanism as a whole is good, then every part is good, whether we understand it or not. If the biota, in the course of aeons, has built something we like but do not understand, then who but a fool would discard seemingly useless parts? To keep every cog and wheel is the first precaution of intelligent tinkering.

Who would not be entranced by the pure beauty of a beech trunk, thoroughly wetted by the overnight stem flow, draped with moss and painted with crustose lichen?

Exquisite Mosses

Gray and dessicated in summer dry periods, the exquisite moss luxuriously carpeted both standing live and dead trees.

Life abounds across the seasons…and across every surface above ground. Mosses dominate bark surfaces generally from five feet down, where deep shade and more saturated air prevails in summer. Our native mosses flourish on mild winter days…as well as wet summer periods. I recall hiking the coastal rainforests of the Pacific Northwest and southeast Alaska, where thick moss drapes entire trees, enabled by constant moisture and cooler growing seasons.

The mosses of northern Alabama’s forests prefer elevated media, whether downed woody debris or boulders, rock ledges, or stumps. The leafy forest floor generally discourages moss, my assumption of cause being the rapid and continuous seasonal turnover of leaves and litter. Micro-organisms, insects, grubs, and other critters densely populate this biologically active re-incorporation zone. I believe the mosses prefer a more stable environment. Another factor may be that the decomposers and consumers in the litter find stationary mosses attempting to colonize forest litter quite digestible.

I recorded this 2:29 video to visit in real time with the mosses:

I could go on and on with moss-draped trunks, but I must bring the portfolio to closure. I call the trunk draperies as moss tree skirts. If you have a better term or scientifically accurate descriptor, please let me hear from you. Until then, I shall stick with moss tree skirts.

A final regal skirt carries a train that reaches onto the mineral soil apron surrounding the base.

Hallelujah to the magnificent moss draperies that adorn our north Alabama forests, especially in our moisture-enriched riparian hardwood forests!

Likin’ the Lichens!

Okay, I can’t resist playing with the word lichen. So many people have abused my predilection for proper English by observing that they are really likin’ this organism! Well, truth be told, I am the one most frequently abusing our language via deliberate puns and what I call grandpa humor. So, blame the corny subtitle on me. I do in fact like and appreciate the two horizontal lichen stripes on this yellow poplar along the Flint River.

Mosaics of unfathomable beauty…lichens and mosses patterned intricately on the wet bark of American beeches.

Author Bill Bryson observed this of lichens:

Consider the Lichen. Lichens are just about the hardiest visible organisms on Earth, but the least ambitious.

I deeply admire Bryson’s writing of outdoor adventures in our modern world. However, I can’t accept his lichen wisdom.

Online definition of ambition:

Having or showing a strong desire and determination to succeed

What organism so wildly successful at colonizing such inhospitable surfaces as bare rock and smooth vertical beech bark could be judged to be absent ambition? What does a lichen care about ambition? Unfailingly successful, lichens could conquer virtually any lifeless new surface exposed following a blistering wildfire or volcanic eruption. Who needs ambition when you can eke sustainable life from a seemingly sterile substrate?

Albert Einstein abhorred attributing such human tendencies as ambition to Nature:

I have never imputed to Nature a purpose or a goal, or anything that could be understood as anthropomorphic. What I see in Nature is a magnificent structure that we can comprehend only very imperfectly, and that must fill a thinking person with a feeling of humility. This is a genuinely religious feeling that has nothing to do with mysticism.

I think da Vinci would have commended lichens, having said:

Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.

Artistic simplicity–Nature’s purpose is not to please our eyes, yet she excels at lifting us with her beauty, magic, wonder, awe, and inspiration. I’m really likin’ these lichens…instruments encouraging human fulfillment.

A final frame that requires no weak and feeble narrative.

Lichens alone do not populate the surfaces of trees.

Fabulous Fungi

I knew the fungi during my undergraduate days as a subset of the plant kingdom. Shortly thereafter (perhaps the year I earned my forestry BS), those who ruled the life classification world awarded fungi a kingdom to call their own. I also learned fungi in courses on tree pathology. Consider Dutch elm disease, chestnut blight, Fomes annosus (root rot) of white pine, beech-bark disease, heart rot of living trees, and others too numerous to list. Fungi were pathogens for those of us learning how to maximize timber value from the forests we would manage. I opened my own eyes to a broader view beyond those days of restricted educational focus, restricting my look then at the perceived malevolent fungal agents of tree diseases. Don’t we all, mercifully, adopt a broader view of all dimensions of life…our own and the organisms sharing planet Earth with us!

Here is a sampling of the ubiquitous fungi hosted by dead and down woody debris. In contrast to the disease organisms, these benevolent fungi are saprophytes consuming dead cellulose and lignin. Hypoxylon canker of oak, a crust fungus commonly found on branches that have fallen to the forest floor, consumes only dead wood. I would have identified it as a lichen had not iNaturalist, backed by Mushrooms of the Gulf Coast States, declared its true identity. I remain a dedicated lifelong learner.

Crowded parchment fungus and brown-toothed crust fungus added color and diversity to the fungi I photographed. Such a rich kingdom of life occupying the forest floor, which even as it is fascinating is also easy to avoid our notice. I have learned to look, see, appreciate, and understand what most people either ignore or simply fail to look.

Jelly fungi are even harder to spot. However, to the wild edible mushroom enthusiast, our local amber jellies are a tasty treat…a culinary delight. I collected a handful in a plastic bag, enjoying them the next morning in a breakfast omelette. Don’t try this at home unless you are 100 percent certain of identity.

I remain a student of traditional forestry, still enamored by tall, fat commercial grade select hardwood species. Having been trained and weaned on timber production, I can’t help myself. However, I’ve grown far beyond the bounds of my original forestry (timber) focus, venturing into dimensions of forestry and natural resources management to encompass all of Nature’s beauty, magic, wonder, awe, and inspiration!

Thoughts and Reflections

I offer these observations:

• If the land mechanism as a whole is good, then every part is good, whether we understand it or not. Aldo Leopold
• Miracles of Nature lie everywhere in plain sight!
• Always a sucker for big, tall, straight trees, I’ve matured to appreciate the endless beauty, magic, wonder, and awe of lichens, mosses, and fungi.

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

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:

Steve’s Three Books

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

I began writing books and Posts for several reasons:

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

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

February 11, 2023, I co-led some 20 Osher Lifelong Learning Institute (OLLI) hikers on the Certain Trail at the Land Trust of North Alabama’s Blevins Gap Nature Preserve. The west flank of the Cumberland Plateau abuts Huntsville, Alabama, rising from the 800-foot city-occupied valley floor to 1600 feet at Monte Sano State Park just north of Blevins Gap. The Plateau, a physiographic region of generally flat sandstone and limestone sedimentary layers uniformly uplifted and now deeply eroded to what appears to be mountainous terrain, stretches far to the east into north Georgia. From Plateau overlooks at the Park and along Certain Trail, other ridge lines to the east are at the same elevation as the respective view-point. Such successive plateau summits describe an accordance of summits. The distant ridges (plateau tops) constitute the same sedimentary rock layer as where the viewer stands. The former continuing plateau from point to point has long since eroded over eons.

Gatherings

We gathered at the 1200-foot elevation trailhead for a group photo before ascending to the ridge at 1500 feet and heading south along the crest.

We anticipated cloudy skies with rain forecast to intrude by mid-afternoon, when we planned to have finished. Always keeping an eye to the heavens, not wary of impending foul weather but keeping alert for photo-worthy firmament, I spotted some unusual cumulus reaching into the overarching altostratus. Perhaps the odd clouds portended the coming torrents that were to drop 1.83-inches the coming evening and night.

Only some light rain fell as we returned to the parking lot.

Ascending Certain Trail

Limestone ledges provided a little variety as we climbed through the northeast facing slope. The direction a slope faces is termed the aspect, thus we ascended a northeast aspect. Here in north Alabama, as well as where I conducted my doctoral field research on soil/site productivity in northwest Pennsylvania and southwest New York, aspect is critically important in determining the quality or richness of a forest site. Aspects of north through east are the most productive. In contrast, south and west facing slopes are least productive. Differences are attributable to solar incidence, heat, and soil moisture…all interrelated. The net result of this discussion of aspect is that we ascended through a relatively vigorous stand of mixed hardwood.

Trees reached 90+ feet, some standing above 100 feet.

Ascending Certain Trail, we occasionally paused to rest or examine some facet of Nature.

We passed a large windthrown chestnut oak, whose roots had clung steadfastly to the soil when toppled. The resultant immense soil mound tells me that the tree was then very much alive. Trees that are standing dead do not bring up a soil mound when they fall. This tree is decaying. Already all but its larger branches are gone, incorporated into the soil. Its roots, too, have decayed into the mounded soil. In time, the trunk, too, will decay into duff and become one with the soil. At that point, the pit (where the roots and soil pulled from the ground) and mound (the soil pile) will remain, distinguishable as the very familiar hummock and hollow micro-topographic feature across our north Alabama forests.

Within 150 vertical feet of the ridgetop we encountered a spring emerging from the rocks, its slippery mud slowing our advance. Surfacing for only 30-40 feet of trail, the spring sank back below the surface.

We seniors marched steadily through the now upland forest. The fallen chestnut oak we earlier encountered was not the only stem succumbing to wind or mortality. The ground in this view is littered with dead and down woody debris. A dead hardwood separates the second and third hikers from the rear. Once again, I remind readers that life and death dance continuously in our north Alabama forests. The carbon cycle is never-ending.

Overlook

I neglected to capture a photo from the east-facing powerline overlook. I am forced instead to insert this view to the south, parallel to the ridge, that I snapped January 2021 when I hiked the same route. The February 11, 2023 view would have shown a more leaden sky as the system reached northward.

A few hundred feet beyond the transmission line, we turned around, choosing the parallel West Bluff Trail, which hugs the west rim of the narrow plateau summit. I recorded this 2:49 video at the turnaround.

From the west side of the power line overlook, the views below are to the WSW and W, respectively. Unlike the eastward view, the Cumberland Plateau does not extend westward ridge after ridge.

Rising from Huntsville into this western flank of the Cumberland Plateau reminds me of the central Appalachians where I grew up, departing for college and professional pursuits. My home town lay at the western extent of the Ridge and Valley Province of the ancient Appalachians and, somewhat ironically, at the east flank of the Allegheny Highlands, yet another eroded plateau.

Reveling in What Lay Hidden in Plain Sight

The summit at Blevins Gap, as well as summits across the Cumberland Plateau, consists of a very resistant sandstone cap. While we admired the limestone ledges as we ascended, sandstone lies exposed along the ridge. Lichens don’t seem to differentiate, finding purchase and sustenance on the barren surface of either.

The sandstone derived plateau top soils are less fertile than the slopes we climbed. Trees are shorter on top owing to a combination of exposure to wind, less fertile parent material, seasonal moisture deficits (no moisture draining down from land upslope), and a constant wind that redeposits leaf litter from west to east with the prevailing breezes.

Always enchanted by tree form oddities and curiosities, I photographed the unusual face on the hickory below left. An old branch stub is now growing layer after layer of woody tissue to callous over and partition the old wound and the decay fungus working within. The decay extends all the way to the ground (below right).

I often imagine a bit of fantasy when wandering our forests. I identified (I’m sure no one else paid notice or engaged in the same level of amusement) what I termed an oak tree portal, a two-inch diameter opening where a long ago branch died, decayed, and left an opening into what I thought might be another world…a kingdom of elves, fairies, and ogres residing in a separate dimension of time and space. Why else would a two-inch portal five feet above the ground, on the western flank of the Cumberland Plateau, be shrouded in moss and lichen?

Some would insist that this is an Indian marker tree, shaped by Native American scouts, pointing the way to some special landmark. However, Native Americans have not inhabited our region for 150 years. This stem is likely far less than 80-90 years old. As I’ve described in other Posts, a branch or top from a nearby tree bent and broke a small sapling long ago. The sapling sent a shoot upward from 18 inches beyond the gloved hand. Surely, this is a tree form curiosity, but not an Indian marker tree.

Another curiosity caught my eye. Many of the larger trees gave the impression of having had the leaves raked from around them. I don’t recall having seen this phenomenon before. We were standing at the west bluff, where the prevailing westerly winds lift up the west slope and across the ridge. I deduced that the explanation for the leaf-bare areas around the tree bases is the Venturi Effect. The Venturi effect is named after its discoverer, the 18th-century Italian physicist Giovanni Battista Venturi. In inviscid fluid dynamics, an incompressible fluid’s velocity must increase as it passes through a constriction in accord with the principle of mass continuity. (Wikipedia)

The wind (moving air…an incompressible fluid) must accelerate as it passes a constriction (the tree). The accelerated wind is strong enough (literally a natural leaf blower) to clear the fallen leaves.

I felt disappointment that I had fallen behind the other hikers and could not make the observation to the crew I was supposed to be co-leading. I suppose that’s the price I pay for photographing curiosities and recording videos.

Even a two-hour woods-stroll can reveal Nature’s beauty, magic, wonder, awe, and inspiration.

Thoughts and Reflections

I offer these observations:

• The young of all ages can enhance any forest venture with a dose of imagination and fancy.
• With eyes wide open, Nature enthusiasts can enjoy secrets hidden in plain sight.
• May Nature always Inspire, Inform, and Reward you!

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

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:

Steve’s Three Books

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

I began writing books and Posts for several reasons:

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

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

I visited the Webb Pond Preserve (Land Trust of North Alabama) March 8, 2023 with retired Natural Resources Conservation Service forester Brian Bradley, who worked on the 60-acre property’s wetland restoration project. Webb Pond is located in Madison County near Harvest, Alabama, just north of Madison. Brian had sparked my interest in the project several months earlier. The Webb Pond website includes an October 3, 2022 article co-authored by Brian, effectively setting the stage for this Post. The excerpt below serves an an abstract:

Land Trust of North Alabama Webb Pond — Conservation in Action

Contributed by Land Trust Land Manager Andy Prewett, NRCS Forester Brian Bradley, and NRCS Wildlife Biologist Jim Schrenkel

In 2004, the Land Trust was donated just over 60 acres of land associated with Webb Pond in north Madison County. The property was composed of a combination of wooded wetlands and farmland. The farmland had been farmed for decades with mixed results. Due to the proximity of the wetlands, the farmland crops more often than not couldn’t be harvested due to localized flooding.

As our very first proactive management project, and in cooperation with the farmer of the property, the Land Trust opted in 2013 to take the property out of rotation and restore it to its lowland hardwood state. 

The property, a conservation property – not open for public recreation, was enrolled in a USDA Natural Resource Conservation Service program known as the Wetland Reserve Program.

Eight-Year Photograph Overview

I shamelessly borrow these photographs from the article. My reason is simple — I cannot travel back in time! These images capture the fields in summer 2013.

Crews machine-planted bare-root seedlings of three species of oak (shumard, willow, and water) and native persimmon.

This paired (2013 and 2022) aerial photos clearly depict the large back field (below left) and shows the young forest eight growing seasons later. The shallow water wildlife pond shows as tawney in the recent photo.

This paired photo show the eight-year transition from raw wound to naturalizing shallow pond.

The front field pair likewise shows drastic change.

Below left image shows the planting furrows and the small seedlings.

I’ve constrained my observations and discussion within the historic photos.

Nine-Year Close Inspection — Front Field

Brian and I closely inspected all of the front field and covered a lot of the back field. My hands showed the scratches of crossing through blackberry brambles, which are beginning to fade as shade deepens in the developing forest, still able to impede penetration! We did not find a single persimmon in either stand. Sweetgum volunteer regeneration (natural seeding) dominated all of the front field. Below Brian is examining the callery pear (spring leaves already emerged) in front of him. A shumard oak stands at his back. All other trees in this image are volunteer sweetgums, still 2-4,000 stems per acre.

Brian is grasping the two-inch diameter oak.

The oak in the image below is about three inches. Although surrounded by vigorous sweetgums, we believe that these healthy oaks will emerge in the main canopy.

Because still photographs and my meager written narrative can only provide some feel for these dense young stands, I recorded this 3:26 video:

The view to the north shows an oak (with clipboard) along the path and several more at roughly 12-foot spacing beyond it.

Brian hacked and sprayed Glyphosate on invasive callery (bradford) pear as we examined the project site. The nine-year-old front field is behind him, fully-stocked, no longed an agricultural field.

I’ve said often that nothing in Nature is static. Cleared for farming, a field will stay a field only so long as continuing cultivation maintains it. Even without planting tree species, this field when abandoned would have converted to forest. Nature does indeed abhor a vacuum!

Nine-Year Close Inspection — Back Field

Brian toured me across the site, standing here grasping a shumard oak along the former field edge. At right a shumard oak stands among blackberry brambles, still an impediment in spots to human passage within the young forest interior. I picture the stand five years hence supporting an open understory as the crown casts deeper shade.

Callery pear (leafing out below left) seeded the abandoned field, some individuals persisting today, occupying the emerging main canopy. Likewise, an occasional loblolly pine germinated, at left a couple of stems within a predominantly sweet gum stand.

As in the photo above right, the spring sky accents the young forest, amplifying the beauty inherent in a vibrant new stand, rich with promise, replacing marginal farmland.

Brian is holding the largest oak we encountered, this one about four inches dbh, and reaching (right) commandingly into the canopy, standing 25 feet tall.

Some portions of the new stand, within seed-fall range of loblolly mother trees nearby, are dominated by pine.

Although not one of the planted species, loblolly pine is certainly native and will account for a significant element in the emerging forest.

Fusiform Rust

The pine are heavily infected with fusiform rust, a fungal disease agent. The Alabama Forestry Commission considers it a major pest:

Fusiform rust (Cronartium quercuum f. sp.fusiforme) is one of the most damaging forest tree diseases in Alabama. While this rust was an obscure and unimportant problem sixty years ago, it has now increased to epidemic proportions and is still increasing.

Economic damage caused by fusiform rust is from mortality, lost product value, and disruption of management plans. A single tree can have rust galls or cankers on the main stem,branches, or both. Branch cankers within 12-18″ of the stem may grow into stem cankers. Main stem cankers can girdle and kill the tree. This is likely on smaller trees and almost assured on nursery trees infected with fusiform rust.

We saw numerous galls on branches (left) and several on mains stems (right).

Nothing in Nature is static, whether on an individual tree or among the community of trees constituting the stand and forest.

Half-Acre Shallow Water Pond

The shallow water impoundment is fully naturalized, occupied with native wetland grasses and sedges, bordered on the far side by volunteer loblolly pine, and on the near side by sweetgum. Again, the spring sky accents the natural beauty and wonder. Who would imagine that this pond replaced a farm field just ten years ago?

The two photos below need no narrative, speaking volumes through their image alone.

Habitat diversity and attractiveness to wildlife have increased orders of magnitude in just a decade across the Webb Pond Preserve. I wonder what I would have seen and concluded had I visited the property without explanation. Quite simply, far less. The old photographs, Brian’s published report, and the evidence of time tell the tale. The result is why I encourage managers of all such public and semi-public properties to establish permanent photo points and begin to compile a photo record now, so that years and decades hence, future visitors can step back in time to see Nature’s work progress to the then current time.

Culling Invasive Callery (Bradford) Pear

Allow me a side-journey from this story of wetland restoration, to examine the invasive callery pear, which is a regional nuisance in our wild habitats. Some people, perhaps they are among my readers, object to ridding any plants from our forests and fields, especially when the agent of attack is a chemical. In fact, I’ve been banned by administrators of an unnamed FaceBook group from posting images and text related to chemical treatments. However, callery pear is impairing the desired restoration outcome: populating the restored wetland site with native species. It is not my place to second guess a landowner’s management imperative. The callery pear below does not belong here. Therefore, Brian is hacking and spraying to eliminate it.

Removing the invasive is a long term task that will take repeated treatments. Every tree is a future seed source.

I recorded this 0:50 video of Brian in action.

I could go on and on about the 12 years I worked for a major forest products company in the southeastern US intensively managing company owned land. We used all manner of forestry tools: herbicides; fertilizer; mechanical; genetic improvement; fire; insect and disease treatments; stream and wetland safeguarding; threatened and endangered species protection; species selection; and stand density control. I wrote the company’s Forest Management Practices Handbook, guiding forest operations across the firm’s 2.2 million acres. I remain convinced that we were resolute in holding to informed and responsible Earth Stewardship.

Other Webb Pond Features

The Land Trust marks boundaries well, identifying the conservation easement edge below left. Having traversed the young old field forest, I asked Brian to capture the three large sweetgum trees and the nearby 3-foot southern red oak, all within sight of the regenerated fields.

We puzzled over what we could only imagine as an old well adjacent to what must have been a long-since fallen residence.

The supplejack vine entwined with a wisteria (left) caught my attention, as did the oak tree “urinal” below right.

I’m grateful for Brian introducing me to the Webb Pond Preserve. I will place spring 2028 on my calendar. I want to see whether my vision of a bramble-free understory will prove accurate. I sure don’t want to force my way through a skin-scarring bramble thicket at age 76!

Thoughts and Reflections

I offer these observations:

• Nothing in Nature is static; consider nine years from plowed field to closed-canopy young forest.
• Nature abhors a vacuum; Nature insists upon replacing field with forest! 
• Understanding Nature requires close observation, deep inquiry, and keen insight.

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

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:

Steve’s Three Books

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

I began writing books and Posts for several reasons:

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

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

January 19, 2023, I awoke early to enjoy dawn on the lake, then hike the Cabins Loop Trail at Oak Mountain State Park, an 11,360-acre wildland gem near Birmingham, Alabama. This short trail runs through diverse habitat along the south shore and peninsula of Tranquility Lake. I introduce the trail and some fascinating natural features through these observations, photographs, and reflections.

Loop Trail from Cabins

Because I had only minimum time before heading to a breakfast session of the Alabama State Parks Foundation Board, the trail suited me perfectly. An alert Nature enthusiast can see, feel, and absorb a lot of beauty, magic, wonder, and awe in just a mile of trail-trekking. So much lies hidden in plain sight…awaiting discovery!

I spent four years (1975-78) conducting tree nutrition and forest fertilization research across the southeastern US (VA, NC, SC, GA, FL, and AL), where my forest products industry employer owned and intensively managed two million acres of forestland. I learned to recognize soil features (texture, color, drainage, depth, etc.) that revealed fertility and quality. Not far into the loop, I hiked through a ridge-crest (convex slope), barren, infertile forest with a shaly trail surface, a telltale sign of poor soil wherever I’ve wandered in the southeast.

Most shale-derived soils in these southern Appalachians are nutrient poor, excessively-drained, and erodible. This ridge-spine dipping to the lake supported a stand of upland hardwoods, poorly-stocked (low stand density), short, and with low biomass per acre. During my research field days my tool kit included a sharp-shooter spade, allowing me to dig deeper (literally and intellectually) into the forest soil-site quality dimension than I could assess from shale exposed along a forest trail!

I soon escaped from my forest-soil-scientist-nostalgia, focusing instead on the magic of the morning’s saunter. The ever-accompanying Tranquility Lake prompted reflections…the forest on her surface as well as thoughts deep in my head, heart, and soul. I’m reminded, as I often am, of a relevant John Muir quote:

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.

I take great comfort and find inspired joy knowing that this delicious time of day is racing away westward (at this latitude) at roughly 800 miles an hour, at the same time departing…and promising to return 24 hours later! Ah, who can long concentrate on a little trail-shale when the poetry of Nature reveals herself?!

Our southern winter’s stark beauty is a constant and welcome companion. This same view in July may reveal a peek of lake through the leaves. During the dormant season, the view is unobstructed. Even the distant sky appears through the hilltop canopy beyond the lake. I love our winter-naked hardwood forests! Sure, I will embrace spring in her splendor, yet eventually I will embrace October’s cooling days and November’s shedding leaves. The cycle remains unbroken.

Reflections on a Beaver Colony

A bit further, the trail passed through an area frequented by beavers. They’ve kept the predominantly sweetgum saplings and brush neatly cropped. Sweetgum bark and leaves are apparently tasty and nutritious, and the species conveniently resprouts, assuring a continuing food source. Note that sunlight adequate to support grasses reaches the forest floor. Beaver are exceptionally talented engineers, even as, in this case, modifying their habitat to suit their needs.

A recently chewed sweetgum sapling stump alongside a sprout cluster (below left) evidences the gardening skills the beavers employ. Below right is a prior year’s chew, in this case showing the sprouts regrown after last year’s harvest.

Beavers are not limited to direct harvest of saplings to collect food and modify habitat. The adroit engineers had in prior years attempted to kill or down this two-foot-diameter oak. Downing it (a formidable task) would have brought a veritable treasure of twig cambium and leaves to the family.More importantly, simply killing this main canopy occupant would open a wide hole for sunlight to penetrate to the forest floor, encouraging an explosion…an irruption…of edible woody trees and brush. I’m ceaselessly amazed by the wonders inherent in Nature, “learned” through the intricate process of natural succession. Perhaps some curious beaver girdled a large oak creating a prolific abundance of yummy seedlings. She may or may not have correlated cause and effect, but she did, as a result, produce more progeny that she otherwise would have. In technical terms, she and her tribe showed greater fecundity. Without diving more deeply into the realm of learned and inherited behaviors, suffice it to say that evolution favors the strong, creative, and fecund.

Some Unanticipated Wonders

Another mature tree within the colony’s range, now deceased, caught my attention, draped with resurrection fern. I appreciated its cloaked silhouette. Time will soon draw the tree to the ground. Already, all of its fine twigs and branches have sloughed earthward. I give the remaining coarse structure no more than 2-3 years erect.

Just as the beavers encouraged new life through their harvests, this smooth alder was already demonstrating an act of seasonal renewal. These are male flowers (catkins) fully emerged from a native shrub species that grows along streams or lakeside.

Lichen artistry decorated this sugar maple trunk. Nature does indeed abhor a vacuum. Thank God for helping me see beauty in a life form content to flourish on a vertical bark surface.

Tree Form Oddities and Curiosities

I entered the forest without any alert that hazards awaited. However, I soon discovered that all was not safe, serene, and mellow. There are oak trees capable of devouring metal signs on the loose! This hapless sign lost its way, relaxed its danger-awareness, and fell prey to a large-mouthed red oak.

Viral, bacterial, or fungal infection spurred this large circumferential burl on a beech tree. Generally, such burls are non-fatal, akin to a benign tumor. The agent triggers the tree to produce tissue growth, often gorgeously textured and coveted by ornamental bowl-turners.

Lightning hits often here in the Southeast. Sometimes it kills tree; other times it scars them. This maple survived, but bears the scar of a blast decades ago that nearly blew it to pieces. It appears to be structurally on its last legs.

Unsurpassed Beauty of Forest, Water, and Sky — A Visual Morning Symphony

I don’t see the need to add a lot of narrative to the following five photographs. A picture speaks a thousand word, saying all that I feel is necessary. The sun officially rose at Oak Mountain January 19 at 6:50 AM. I snapped these photos just 20 minutes later. The sun had not lifted high enough to cast its rays on Lake Tranquility or its surrounding hills and forests.

I seldom enter Nature without appreciating the total package of land, life, terrain, and the firmament above…the combination both inspiring and exhilarating!

Sunrise has touched the puffy morning cumulus, even as it has warmed my heart, soul, mind, body, and spirit.

Nature’s revelations are available whether we spend a day or squeeze an hour stroll into a busy morning. I encourage you to invest whatever time is available wherever you happen to be. The rewards from an abbreviated woodland trek can return dividends beyond your imagination, especially when dawn and dusk enters the equation.

I’ll close with another Muir quote:

All the wild world is beautiful, and it matters but little where we go, to highlands or lowlands, woods or plains, on the sea or land or down among the crystals of waves or high in a balloon in the sky; through all the climates, hot or cold, storms and calms, everywhere and always we are in God’s eternal beauty and love. So universally true is this, the spot where we chance to be always seems the best.

Henry David Thoreau added his own wisdom in advice to those who enter the forest:

It’s not what you look at that matters; it is what you see!

Alabama State Parks Foundation

Thoughts and Reflections

I offer these observations:

• All the wild world is beautiful, and it matters but little where we go…the spot where we chance to be always seems the best.
• The rewards from an abbreviated woodland trek can return dividends beyond your imagination, especially when dawn and dusk enter the equation.
• I seldom enter Nature without appreciating the total package of land, life, terrain, and the firmament above.

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

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:

Steve’s Three Books

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

I began writing books and Posts for several reasons:

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

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

In concert with the January 19, 2023 Alabama State Park Foundation Board meeting I spent two nights at a Park cabin on Tranquility Lake (Oak Mountain State Park), rewarding me handsomely with one evening and two mornings of short saunters along the Maggie’s Glen Trail. I want to share a compendium of observations, reflections, photographs, and one short video from my saunters. I use saunter purposefully, borrowing John Muir’s wisdom:

I don’t like either the word [hike] or the thing. People ought to saunter in the mountains – not ‘hike!’ Do you know the origin of that word saunter? It’s a beautiful word. Away back in the middle ages people used to go on pilgrimages to the Holy Land, and when people in the villages through which they passed asked where they were going they would reply, ‘A la sainte terre’, ‘To the Holy Land.’ And so they became known as sainte-terre-ers or saunterers. Now these mountains are our Holy Land, and we ought to saunter through them reverently, not ‘hike’ through them.I

I’ve found Muir’s wisdom to be timeless. Although he is clearly a great conservationist and tireless Nature observer and philosopher…and I am but a tired old forester addicted to Nature and sharing a simpatico relationship with Muir’s spirit.

Maggie’s Glen Trail Wanderings: The Quiet Inspiration of Sylvan Streams and Morning Solitude

I sauntered into the glen the evening of January 17 and the following two mornings, each time finding peace, solace, and inspiration.

The marscenent, clinging bronze leaves of lower-canopy American beech brightened the understory gloom, and stimulated my musing and contemplation. I wondered, what is the evolutionary advantage to holding spent leaves over the dormant season? I’m grateful for the winter splash of color, yet it brings me no closer to an explanation. Leonardo da Vinci opined that all effects in Nature are born of cause:

In nature there is no effect without cause; once the cause is understood there is no need to test it by experience.

I shall continue to seek identifying the cause for a sapling beech retaining its spent leaves.

Contemplating or not, I liked the early morning combination of clinging beech leaves, a silent trail, a gurgling stream, and a deep-woods jogger who surprised me on the trail. I still miss my own morning runs from many years ago…when knees knew no limits and I trained enthusiastically for 10 Ks, half-marathons, and the full 26.2-milers! Those memories live within the young man who still resides in my mind.

From the perspective of a rise that I mounted, the forest stream seems to emerge from the base of the hill, yet it is simply snaking along the base from out of sight to the right of the frame.

The omnipresent marscencent beech leaves grace every Maggi’s Glen Trail photograph. I may be overdoing the forest, stream, hillside, and special place magic photographs, but I never tire of the quiet, serene, mystical sense of the place. Well over a century ago, Muir observed:

Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where Nature may heal and cheer and give strength to body and soul alike.

Maggie’s Glen is surely one of those places.

Here are two more images — I can’t help myself!

Recognizing once more than my still photos can never tell the whole story nor depict the beauty, magic, wonder, and awe, I recorded this 1:51 video:

Mystery and Fascination along the Trail

Mosses, Fungi, Algae, and Lichens

Park crews clear the trail of downed trees; Nature does the remaining work, decomposing and returning the felled trunk to the soil. Hyphae of the lumpy bracket mushroom are decomposing the cellulose hidden within. Moss carpets the bark that hasn’t yet sloughed to the ground. The carbon cycle is at play, hidden in plain sight.

A close up reveals the algae-coated bracket upper surface, and its distinctly poly-pored underside (right).

Another nearby stump support gilled polypore mushrooms, whose hyphae are likewise decomposing the wood. As I’ve frequently observed, all life dances in continuing harmony with death. The rhythm never ceases…one does not exist without the other.

I wonder, when does one distinguish between deadwood and humus (the organic component of soil, formed by the decomposition of leaves and other plant material by soil microorganisms)? The outer surface of these two downed logs can already be termed humus. The inner woody remains will soon be fully incorporated into the litter and soil. Nothing in Nature is static. The same holds for we mere humans during our own fleeting existence. Recall the old funeral words, “ashes to ashes; dust to dust.” Solomon declared in Ecclesiastes, All go to the same place; all come from dust, and to dust all return.

American beech commonly hosts lichens and mosses on its smooth bark, like a canvas is home to human artistry. Recent rains sufficient to draw stem flow from the intercepting crown, wetted the entire trunk, accenting the lichen and moss displays. Who needs human art when Nature is the master of design?!

Likewise, who needs my words to interpret Nature’s absolute magic and inspiration!

Pine bark furrows can be rich microsites for lichens, mosses, and algae. I suppose one could find doctoral dissertations identifying the abundance of life in the bark furrows of loblolly pine. I will remain content to marvel at the beauty of such features and appreciate that life on Earth knows few bounds. The bark furrows are well-watered (stem flow and blowing rain); they trap organic matter and dust from the stemflow; and their shady domain protected from scorching sun and drying winds.

I found this decaying pine stump worthy of mention. Its bark remains intact. The stumps outer wood, known as juvenile, has decomposed, while its inner core of more resin-soaked heartwood stands firm, more resistant to decay.

Algae and lichen line these furrows. I include it not because it differs from the prior bark furrow photos. Instead, it signals avian life to the astute observer. Woodpeckers have searched its bark for sub-bark insects, leaving the distinctive wood-peck signature of yellow-bellied sapsuckers.

Forests are treasure troves for discovering all that lies hidden in plain sight, especially when one saunters through a special place like Oak Mountain’s Maggie’s Glen.

Spiral Wood Grain

Even as I strive to unveil the mystery behind marcescent beech leaves, I have not yet found scientific rationale behind spiral wood grain, evident on these dead (and debarked by decay) oak logs. Both are spiraling clockwise (when viewed from above). I’ve pointed out the tendency in prior Posts. I suspect trees with spiral grain are structurally stronger.

This one has a gentler spiral, still clockwise.

Albert Einstein was a consummate student of Nature; his timeless wisdom and deep contemplations fuel my own observations and reflections on Nature:

Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better.

It is not the fruits of scientific research that elevate man and enrich his nature, but the urge to understand, the intellectual work, creative or receptive.

In every true searcher of Nature there is a kind of religious reverence, for he finds it impossible to imagine that he is the first to have thought out the exceedingly delicate threads that connect his perceptions.

Alabama State Parks Foundation

Thoughts and Reflections

I offer these observations:

• Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better. (Albert Einstein)
• And into the forest I go, to lose my mind and find my soul. (John Muir)
• Nothing exceeds the magic, inspiration, and sacred spirit of a quiet morning forest and a gurgling stream amid the mists of a new day.

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

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:

Steve’s Three Books

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

I began writing books and Posts for several reasons:

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

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