I revisited Hays Nature Preserve November 3, 2022, with Joel Donelan, Director of Education for Huntsville, Alabama’s Green Team. We focused our hike from the Flint River picnic area looping along an old slough then circling back to the parking lot. This photo-essay offers observations, reflections, and photo-highlights from a delightful autumn morning in a slice of wildness within the city limits of Huntsville. I’ve often observed that Nature’s magic, no matter where we live across our state and beyond, lies within reach.

I had issued a Hays Post four years ago in October 2018: https://stevejonesgbh.com/2018/10/24/hays-nature-preserve-and-big-cove-creek-greenway/

A perfect autumn morning along the Flint River greeted my arrival, heralding a pleasant walk well-suited to showcasing what lay hidden in plain sight. Had I brought along reading material and not been scheduled to meet Joel, I could have lazed contentedly at the picnic table. Who am I fooling?! The urge to walk and explore would have spurred me to cover some ground…and reveal some of Nature’s secrets.

Ever on the lookout for tree form curiosities and oddities, I enlisted Joel to provide a frame of reference and scale for this hollow sycamore skeleton. Note its counter-clockwise spiral grain, which I ponder below these two photographs.  The sycamore stands along the old slough. Critters called it home during its latter living years. I suspect that birds, lizards, small mammals, and loads of insects still make use of its vertical shelter.

Now to the spiral grain, a feature evident in conifer and hardwood trees across my wanderings, both domestic and international. The spiral is not discernable in living trees, the wood and its grain hidden beneath the bark. Only in trees dead long enough to shed bark, whether standing or on the ground, does the grain show. I’ve questioned forestry friends and colleagues over the years as to the purpose, explanation, and driving forces for the spiral grain. I have yet to hear a definitive answer, nor have I found a complete and final description in the literature. I’ve heard the following explanations:

• Coriolis effect
• Prevailing wind
• Crown shape and orientation
• Genetics
• Environment
• Weather/climate

The why of wood grain spiral may be simpler. Spiralled wood is stronger and more flexible than straight grained fibers. I suppose a good structural engineer could offer a convincing argument in support. I did find a an internet explanation on TheNativeTreeSociety website that matches my own approximation:

If I were to guess, and it is a guess, I would think the spiraling pattern is a genetic trait and not one developed on the fly in response to average wind direction and the direction of the sun.  Certainly it is not related to the Coriolis effect on something as small as a tree trunk.  My guess as to why the tree grain spirals is that it is to provide additional flexibility in response to wind stress,  I think the twisted grain would be stronger in response to a wind than would a straight grained tree.  The tree tends to twist in response to winds rather than snap.  There is no single direction of weakness as is formed by the structure of the parallel grains, every direction is equally strong with the grain spiraling around the trunk. (May 2009, Edward Frank)

I shall continue to seek the ultimate answer and literature citation. Until then, I will muddle along. See the Post I published on the spiraling of our common forest vines: https://stevejonesgbh.com/2022/05/25/exploring-the-spiral-nature-of-northern-alabamas-tree-vines/

Here is a relevant quote from that May 2022 Post:

The slough, formerly an active channel of the Flint, is an old oxbow and still holds water seasonally. Water tupelo is well-adapted to these saturated riverine soils. The buttressed trunks hint at wood fairies and mythical creatures.

Once again accommodating my request for scale, Joel leaned against one of the resident tupelos. I am confident that he will develop youth educational programs for delivery on-site here at Hays. The tupelo forest is a place of pure magic, perfect for weaving tales of science, fancy, and adventure. We share a deep desire to excite and inspire future generations.

Adjacent better drained sites support numerous upland hardwood species, including this State Champion shellbark hickory. Annual (or more frequent) flooding of the Flint enriches even these upland forest soils.

The trail is made for strolling, relaxation, and discovery. Near this photo point we observed a great blue heron fishing along the far shore (below right). I never tire of seeing these magnificent birds stealthily awaiting an unwary fish, crayfish, frog, or even a small snake. I have heard great blues characterized as the T-Rex of our southern wetlands. The bird tolerated our watching for at least ten minutes.

Within a few hundred yards of the champion shellbark hickory, the State Champion water tupelo greeted us. This time, I provided the scale. Its stump (ground line) diameter is a good nine feet. The bottom of its moss skirt marks the common winter water line, about navel level on me. I have previously been guilty of assuming that such champion trees are located in the wilderness or at least deep wildness. That is not the case for this champion. Over my left shoulder beyond the slough, a foursome stands at a green on the Hampton Cove Robert Trent Jones Golf Course bordering Hays Nature Preserve.

The massive base supports a colossal crown that has watched many a flood and witnessed the joy and frustration of thousands of golfers. Note the thick moss carpet near my camera lens on the swollen base.

Here is the 3:17 video I recorded at the champion tupelo:

I often turn to John Muir for appropriate words of reflection:

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

Our souls are well within reach when Nature envelops us with her beauty, magic, wonder, and awe! A tupelo grove, reflected in standing water, backdropped by cerulean fall sky, and magnified by the tranquility of a dazzling morning lifts my spirits and calms my mind.

The leaning tupelos brings to mind two lovers enjoying the solitude and each other’s supporting comfort. And to think that early in my forestry career I saw the hard objective reality of board feet and commercial value! To every thing there is a season…and a time to every purpose under heaven.

These buttressed giants support a robust community of moss and resurrection ferns.

Rising 8-10 feet above the flood level, this limestone outcrop stands in stark contrast to the tupelo slough. The topographic variability expands the Preserve’s biodiversity.

I’ll end with some more from John Muir:

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

I did not have the luxury of spending all day at Hays as Muir urged:

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

Thoughts and Reflections

I offer these observations:

• Nothing surpasses a gorgeous autumn day spent in Nature.
• Muir observed eloquently that “Going out…was really going in.” 
• A tupelo grove, reflected in standing water, backdropped by cerulean fall sky, and magnified by the tranquility of a dazzling morning lifts my spirits and calms my mind.

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.

October 8, 2022, I co-led an OLLI (Osher Lifelong Learning Institute; University of Alabama at Huntsville) hike along the Flint Creek Trail, Wheeler National Wildlife Refuge near Decatur, Alabama. The day proved picture perfect with brilliant blue sky and unseasonably chilly. I enjoy leading these hikes; our OLLI members are mostly retirees, eager to learn and enthusiastic Nature enthusiasts.

The trail begins at a newly rebuilt bridge crossing the Flint Creek arm of Lake Wheeler, the TVA impoundment created behind Wheeler Dam (~1938) at Rogersville, some 30 river miles downstream on the Tennessee River. The group is heading east across the bridge for the riparian forest trail. That’s pond cypress on the left in both images. Most of our north Alabama cypress trees are bald cypress. Both species are deciduous needle-leaf trees.

The boardwalk allows ample room for pausing to observe and enjoy the beauty and wonder of the Refuge. At right the hikers are entering the forest.

Courtesy of an Eagle Scout project, the trail sports a digital interactive tree ID walk. Scan the code at each specimen and learn what otherwise would require expensive and high-maintenance signage.

Now, cross the bridge walkway with me via this 3:09 video that I recorded a week earlier when Chris Stuhlinger and I made a dry run preparing for our OLLI hike:

Riparian hardwood Forest

I don’t intend for this photo-essay to dive deeply into forest ecology, yet I will cover a few themes and highlights. This photo evidences the relaxing outing we enjoyed. The ecological lesson derives from the tree leaning at about 40 degrees from vertical. Our trees are overwhelmingly positively geotropic, that is, they grow in direct opposition to gravity. Some have a tendency to grow directly toward light (positively phototropic), yet that factor generally persuades branch tips to seek light. For example, trees along a woods edge grow toward the opening. There is no reason I can fathom for the subject leaning tree to grow at a 40 degree angle. Instead, some force shoved the tree from its original vertical posture…likely a toppling neighbor or falling branch or tree top. Out of view, the live crown growing shoots are orienting vertically.

The forest we hiked provided ample evidence that nothing in Nature is static. The canopy view below left presents a large opening where a tree has exited within the past two growing seasons…a storm-toppled dominant or codominant occupant. The surrounding trees will expand their crowns to fill the void. Contrast that opening to the fully-occupied canopy below right.

This canopy view shows some crown opening, but surrounding tree in the intervening several years have mostly filled the gap.

Tree canopies tell a compelling tale of competition and survival. Like so much in life and living, a one-dimensional examination reveals an incomplete picture.

A Dynamic Forest Where Life and Death Dance without End

The forest floor provides a second critical perspective in understanding forest dynamics. In both cases below a dominant living oak toppled within the past year, wrenching large mounds of root-held soil. Each will leave a micro-topography signature…pit and mound or hummock and hollow. Long after the fallen tree decays into the soil, the pit or hollow will remain as a clear depression; the mound or hummock will sustain, only sloughing into the terrain over centuries.

We found other examples of wind-toppled main canopy trees from a summer 2022 storm. Such is the continuing dance of life and death in our north Alabama forests. These maturing hardwood forests are gradually transitioning to a patchwork of dense forest and small openings, some large enough to encourage and enable regeneration of somewhat shade tolerant species. Of note, all three of these uprooted trees were living. Dead standing trees no longer cling to the soil when toppled. The roots are brittle and simply break of, without accompanying mound creation, when the tree falls.

Here’s an oak tree that died while upright. Rather than break at the base and fall, this one rotted standing in place until its mass exceeded its strength, failing at about ten feet above the stump, dropping its upper trunk and top.

Based upon the degree of decomposition I estimate that death came 4-7 years ago. One of the only fresh mushrooms we encountered, this Ganaderma sessile, a lacquered shelf fungus, adorned the fallen trunk. The upper surface resembles varnished wood.

We enjoyed finding surprises everywhere we looked!

Tree Form Curiosities

I reminded the participants that Nature’s magic and mysteries lie hidden in plain sight. I have collected a photograph portfolio of tree form oddities and curiosities from my wanderings, locally, nationally, and internationally. This main canopy oak suffered physical injuries decades ago, opening infection courts for decay fungi. It’s tried valiantly to callous the wounds, successfully enough to permits wood increment sufficient to hold the tree upright. Eventually, the tree will lose its battle with gravity. Deep heart rot will continue its inexorable hollowing…and weakening.

Meantime, the oak reaches solidly into full sunlight high overhead, and its vigor over the years has enable it to produce acorns, perhaps fulfilling its primary function to create a next generation of progeny.

I shall continue to pursue my search for tree form oddities and curiosities.

Poison Ivy, Hearts-a-Bustin, and Happy Farewells

Even the most unpleasant forest denizens, poison ivy for those of us sensitive to its sap, convey an image of beauty and wonder, its air roots holding fast to the trunk.

One of the most spectacular shrub seed heads greeted us as we entered the forest. From the online Nature Journal:

One scarcely notices hearts-a-bustin’ (Euonymus americanus), which is also known as strawberry bush, from late April to early June, when its inconspicuous, small, greenish-purple flowers appear.

I personally celebrate that such an inconspicuous flower presents a truly mind-bustin seed display!

Chris and I celebrated that our hikers departed with happy farewells, fond memories, and a heightened sense of Nature appreciation!

And Nature likewise sent us on our way with a gift of her beauty, magic, wonder, and awe!

Leading a group of life-stage contemporaries lifts my spirit and satisfies my compulsion to sow the seeds of informed and responsible Earth stewardship.

Thoughts and Reflections

I offer these observations:

• I find Nature’s beauty, magic, wonder, and awe wherever I seek it.
• I want to feel Nature’s essence and taste and inhale her elixir…and share the magic with others!
• Leading a group of life-stage contemporaries lifts my spirit and satisfies my compulsion to sow the seeds of informed and responsible Earth stewardship.

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 my October exploration of Alabama’s Lakepoint State Park and the Eufaula National Wildlife Refuge, I slipped over to Georgia’s Providence Canyon State Park October 14, 2022. I found a paradoxically attractive consequence of man’s irresponsible and poorly informed treatment of fragile soils for crop production. Scarred by agriculture in the mid-19th century, erosion canyons now reach 150 feet deep. The landscape bears testament to Nature’s unforgiving response to abusive land use.

Vulnerability to Nature’s Forces

Interpretive signage describe the chronology of land use history and unforeseen consequences.

The canyon and this single sign capture the consequence of ignorant land use practice.

Leaving the visitors center I hiked the canyon loop trail counter clockwise, descending toward the outlet stream. Immediately, the erodible tendency of the soils expressed clearly with severe trail gullying. I pondered whether a park established to remind visitors of Nature’s harsh reaction to man’s torment can manage its own trails through season after season of southwest Georgia rains. These photos suggest a losing battle.

Several hundred feet down the trail (below left) an erosion finger reached above the trail into the forested hillside. The active gully continued below the trail, where a wooden handrail protects hikers from slipping into the growing ravine.

The stream outlet (below left) leads up into the canyon. Water flowed across a firm sandy bottom. The flow continued downstream (below left).

Trail signs alert hikers to hazards and warn of dangerous consequences.

Power of Erosion at the Hand of Man: Beauty and Beast

As I hiked along the canyon rim, I stood spellbound by the strange beauty. I often thrill to Nature’s beauty, magic, wonder, and awe. I overheard many fellow hikers remarking, “Isn’t it beautiful!” or like exclamations of appreciation. I could not bring myself to that level of exaltation. After all, I could not distance myself entirely from the cause. Sure, the canyon resulted from natural processes…yet the trigger was man’s. I shuffled between revulsion and inspiration. Were this a canyon known to Native Americans, accorded tales of spirits and generational escapes and adventures, I would have embraced without reservation. Admittedly, however, there is palpable, undeniable beauty in these two images.

My 2:17 video captures the remarkably harsh elegance of the place: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9TMQYXOvRdE

The layers of sand, silt, and clay paint the canyon sides.  However, I observed evidence of still-active expansion. At a number of places along the rim, fence posts stood right at the edge, evidencing that a former rail had been consumed by the advancing cliff face (below left). I felt a bit unnerved as I exposed the image below right from behind the current rail, looking nearly vertically into the abyss.

The canyon edge is raw…obviously active (below left). The close up (below right) shows a fissure opening, portending a three-foot slab that will soon yield to gravity. How long: day; a week; a month; a year? The canyon is not expanding on a geologic time scale. This is happening in real time.

Here is what was once an overlook that is failing, eroding at the surface even as the canyon expands into the rim.

Fascinating Sidebars along the Way

The 20-inch diameter sweet gum tree stood trailside near the canyon rim picnic area, where I paused to eat a granola bar snack. I wondered how many other hikers noticed its old lightning scar running from its base well into the crown. The sweet gum surely has a story to tell…the afternoon that a thunderstorm tossed a lightning bolt at the tree, heating the inner bark cambium to surface-of-the-sun level. The tree survived; the seared cambium did not. The stalwart tree battles on, effectively callusing over the wound in place. Yet, heart rot will continue to weaken the sweet gum. I wonder about its fate. Will gravity exceed the strength of the weakened tree before the canyon reaches laterally to deposit the sweet gum into its gaping maw. Either way, the sweetgum eventually loses.

Also nearby, a walnut tree graced the picnic area, its branches sill heavy with walnuts and the ground under it rich with the fallen nuts in their green husks.

On the far side of the canyon, interpretive signs explained the deep forest presence of long-abandoned cars, field equipment, and building residue. From the canyon to the old homestead, the prior land use and failed domestication created a multi-faceted wasteland, land abused the the point of no economic value and only severely limited natural productivity and utility. I’m pleased that the State left the old human debris, helping to tell the tale of domestication, abuse, and abandonment.

I’m always on the lookout for tree form oddities and curiosities. On the far canyon rim, near the old homestead, a cedar pointed the way toward the canyon outlet. The pointing is only a matter of chance, occurring when a tree crown or stem crushed the then younger, smaller, and more supple cedar. The impact killed the top, fifteen feet from its stump, yet the tree survived to send stems vertically. There are some who would call this an Indian marker tree. Native Americans had long since departed southwestern Georgia when this cedar suffered its injury and recovery.

These two oaks (actually one oak forked at the stump) embraced warmly, grafting their intertwining and intersecting branches. Yet another tree form oddity.

This yucca marked my way, standing green and bright in an otherwise drab upland oak forest.

The photos below show the top (left) and bottom (right) of a single sign. This canyon and others in the Stewart County cotton production area drew the attention of Franklin D. Roosevelt and other New Dealers to create and sign the 1935 Soil Conservation Act.

I’ve often repeated that over the course of my career I’ve seldom learned by doing things right. Stated differently, experience is that thing we get right after we needed it. The nation learned through its agricultural mis-practices and land use mistakes and abuses. I view it as sad that the Act was necessary 73 years after Congress passed the Morrill Land Grant Act of 1862, which established a Land Grant University (LGU) in each of our states. The LGU mission included advancing the science and practice of agriculture. The Soil Conservation Act passed 21 years after Congress passed the 1914 Smith-Lever Act, which enabled the Land Grant Colleges to create statewide Cooperative Extension Services to extend the science and knowledge of LGUs to rural communities, including agricultural practices. Successive legislative actions created a system for encouraging informed and responsible Earth stewardship. So much of what is right and appropriate in the way we treat our land seems to entail common sense, but that kind of sense has seldom been common!

Thoughts and Reflections

I offer these observations:

• Common sense in our treatment of Nature and land is seldom common.
• Too often our past land use has tracked from domestication to abuse to ruin and then to abandonment.
• Observing the man-triggered canyon, I shuffled between revulsion and inspiration.

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.

Wednesday afternoon August 24, 2022, fellow mushroom forager Dr. Bernie Kerecki (MD) and I bushwhacked through a riparian hardwood forest just north of the Tennessee River in Madison, Alabama. We stayed alert for chanterelles, oysters, chicken of the woods, hen of the woods, black-staining polypores, cauliflower mushrooms, wood ear jelly, and lions mane, all of which we have previously collected in prior outings. We exited the closed-canopy forest when declining light limited our ability to discern edibles on the forest floor. We left with empty collecting baskets. Here’s a typical view of the forest floor we scoured for 90-minutes, seeking more than seedlings, herbaceous plants, and early leaf-falls.

In contrast, here is a photo of the chanterelle-rich forest floor from summer 2021, just twelve months ago. Last year, my first as a semi-serious wild edible mushroom forager, did not prepare me well for this recent empty-basket venture, nor for the several prior trips this season that yielded only sparse harvests. The 2021 calendar year served as a real spoiler. I’m convinced that, like all else in Nature, mushroom production is cyclical. I hope that 2022 is an off-year…an unusually poor season of production that will be followed by seasons more typical of 2021.

I recorded this 90-second video capturing what I call A Chanterelle Forager’s Woe:

Nature’s Revelations and Rewards

Now, lest you surmise that I viewed this woodland ramble as a waste of time, let me share with you the bounty of Nature revelations and rewards I did, in fact, gather. I am a sucker for big trees. Although I have visited the US forests of true giants: coastal redwoods, Sierra Nevada sequoias, and Douglas fir, I have learned, with each return to our eastern forests, to recalibrate so that I can once again marvel at and appreciate the simple grandeur of a 40-inch southern red oak standing 110 feet tall. I refused to let my empty basket diminish my appreciation of such a forest beauty. Modifying a turn of phrase from Aldo Leopold, I love trees, yet I am in love with oaks. For Leopold, the object of his sylvan affection was white pine.

A Mighty Oak

I recorded this 3:40 video to paint a clearer picture of this riparian forest and the mighty oak within it.

Toppled Crown Segment from Another Mighty Oak

The three-foot-plus diameter (breast high; dbh) southern red oak below marks the spot where on dozens of prior occasions I turned west from a long-abandoned lane through the 70-90 year old natural hardwood forest. This tree predates the current forest, a relic that persisted from logging when the Corps of Engineers acquired and cleared the lands adjacent to the future Lake Wheeler. The tree bears evidence that at some point long ago it sustained mechanical injury, opening a court of infection for decay fungi.

I included the two photographs below on this same oak in my September 1, 2020 Post, offering this paragraph:

Other trees evidenced signs (not just symptoms) of certain degradation and reduced vigor, vitality, and value. This 30-plus-inch diameter oak still has a vibrant crown, yet is clearly hollow, likely home to critters of various sorts. Fungal fruiting bodies (to the right of the trekking pole below right) evidence dead wood along a vertical seam. I pondered why this large diameter oak appears to be long-hollowed. My forensic forestry yielded an answer. This oak is a residual from the mid 1930s logging, perhaps too small to harvest, damaged by that operation, and left to populate the new forest. The scarred trunk served as an infection court for decay fungi. It has lived with the decay for nine decades, inconvenienced but not fatally limited. As a surviving remnant in the new stand, it likely stood 30-40 feet above the regenerating stems, and had advantageous access to sunlight as well as soil nutrient and moisture resources. I have no idea how many more years it will withstand the stresses of decay, wind, ice, and gravity.

I’m pleased that my story has changed little. The view to the left is to the south; to the east at right, with the old lane just beyond.

Here’s the current view from the old lane looking west. The massive crown segment lies across the old lane, extending another 40-plus feet across the lane to the east.

The fork broke loose from the crown forty feet above the ground (see magnified view at right).

I estimate that the crown occupied one-fifth of an acre, calculated by its stretch of 55 feet in all directions from the tree’s base. Half of the fork reaches to the east (left); the other major portion stretches at least fifty feet westward (right). Note that each stub shows that the heart rot extended forty feet above that long-ago basal wound that welcomed decay fungal spores. The decay organism has been hard at work for many decades. How long will the decay organism live? Until the standing tree’s strength to weakness threshold reaches a point of inflection, toppling the entire structure. Nothing in Nature is static.

Here is the current view of the tree’s north side, the massive fork at nearly 30-inches in diameter lying where it dropped at the tree’s hollow base. In the short period (less than a month) since the top fell, wood-boring beetles have already infested the wood. See the telltale wood dust signatures at each point of entry. I am in uncomfortable territory here, some five decades after my undergraduate entomology courses. I believe that female adults intent upon depositing eggs within the inner bark are responsible for the dust. Having done their duty, I think that the resultant larvae will consume the cambium and sapwood. Each entry point will allow fungal spores to enter. Fungi will begin their feeding. Eventually the massive top will return to the soil. Nothing in Nature is static!

Here’s the 3:31 video I recorded:

From a Mighty Oak to an Understory Red Buckeye

My hometown (Cumberland, Maryland) neighborhood had a few yellow buckeyes. I loved collecting their distinct nuts in autumn. I don’t recall their special utility; I simply found them attractive…worthy of collection. Our northern Alabama woods have a few main canopy yellow buckeye trees. The red buckeye, a shrub to lower-canopy tree (less than 15 feet), is much more common. Its fruit is very similar to its yellow buckeye kin. Many decades removed from my childhood buckeye collecting, I still enjoy finding its special fruit. These weren’t yet ripe.

A Early Evening Farewell

The dense riparian forest shade deepened early, limiting our foraging vision. We exited the woods well before the sun crossed the horizon, and lucky for us we departed in time to catch the grand evening firmament show.  We departed the forest at the edge of a soybean field, presenting a sky-view to the west. A few dying cumulus against a cerulean sky above the darkening field and wood edge more than compensated for our hapless foraging efforts.

I found breathless fulfillment in this gift of heavenly elegance.

As he so often did, Muir captured my feelings a near-rapture:

The world’s big and I want to have a good look at it before it gets dark.

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

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

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

The sun shines not on us but in us.

An empty basket? Not even close! No, we brought no mushrooms home, yet our harvest was ample. Allow me to modify another Muir quote:

Everybody needs beauty as well as mushrooms, places to play in and pray in, where nature may heal and give strength to body and soul.

Another outing in Nature — another harvest necessary to sustain body, heart, mind, soul, and spirit!

Thoughts and Reflections

I offer these thoughts:

• Even with an empty mushroom foraging basket, a forest harvest can be in soul-form!
• The world’s big and I want to have a good look at it before it gets dark. (Muir)
• Inhale and absorb Nature’s elixir!

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.

July 9, 2022, the State Champion shingle oak at Joe Wheeler State Park succumbed to the forces of age, decay, and gravity…gently in its sleep. This Post serves as a reflective obituary and memorial.

Nothing in Nature is static. Permanent is a human construct. Across my career I’ve held several interim or acting positions, wherein I assumed the duties and responsibilities while the organization bridged the temporal gap to appointing someone to fill the void on a longer term basis. If you will, a permanent appointment. I’ve held a number of such permanent positions. An odd turn of phrase as I sit here in retirement with other people occupying every one of those permanent posts that I held! Nothing in the world of business, government, and not-for-profits is permanent.

As I’ve said often in these Posts, the same is true in Nature. I recently offered photos, observations, and reflection from a July 2022 visit to DeSoto State Park, examining some of the changes since a prior visit:

This fall I am teaching a course I’ve titled Turn, Turn, Turn, presenting the constant changes in Nature over the passage of time, whether diurnal, weekly, seasonal, or far into the distant future. As a literal time traveler, I am captivated by time and its effect on everything. A time traveler you wonder? Sure, to date I have traveled across a little over 71 years! How about you? The changes are apparent in my surroundings…and most vividly in the mirror! Ah, if my knees could talk, they would share with you what they protest loudly to me as I hike rocky trails downhill!

Now let’s turn to the topic at hand. I published an August 6, 2020 Post on the four Alabama State Champion trees on Joe Wheeler State Park: https://stevejonesgbh.com/2020/08/06/state-champion-trees-at-joe-wheeler-state-park/

Sadly, today’s count is three. Here’s an apt excerpt from that August 2020 Post:

The fourth of Joe Wheeler’s champions is an open-growing shingle oak (Quercus imbricaria) near the cabins at Wheeler Dam. As one might expect from a tree not engaging in fierce site resource competition from adjacent forest trees, this champion has little need to fast-forward vertically (height only 68 feet); instead, it gathers additional sunlight by reaching outward (crown spread at 102-feet). Its 2004 diameter has increased from 48.36-inches to today’s 51.22-inches. Were the tree vigorous and in good health the growth would have been far greater. Instead, the crown shows clear evidence of decline; branch dieback appears across the crown. Many decades of soil compaction take a toll on vigor. Eventually, like all living organisms, this tree will succumb to age and other factors. Another shingle oak will assume the champion mantle.

Photo Credit — Mike Ezell (Summer 2020)

Park manager David Barr, Assistant Superintendent at Joe Wheeler State Park, captured these photos of the living tree.

I suppose my August 2020 observations proved prescient: Eventually, like all living organisms, this tree will succumb to age and other factors. However, I erroneously assumed that some force of violence (gusty spring winds, strong thunderstorm, or winter ice) would be the final straw. David and Park Naturalist Sam Roof gave me the sad truth. The tree fell July 9, 2022, a relatively calm night with a little light rain. David remarked, “The tree was hollow at the trunk and very rotten inside. Sam and I believe the tree collapsed of its own weight.”

How inglorious an end for a champion! I had hoped for a bit of rage, not a gentle passage into the good night.

David Barr

Dylan Thomas had given me hope that a true champion would yield only to weather-fury:

Do not go gentle into that good night
Old age should burn and rage at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light

David Barr

Yet, I recognize that trees do not bend to the minds of sentimental old foresters, wanna-be poets, and amateur philosophers. In reality, this old sentinel had fought the good fight for decades. My 2020 Post said as much. We who had reached these golden years of senior citizenship often comment, with a sigh of contentment, that he or she went calmy in his or her sleep. I believe the old shingle oak did the same.

Alabama State Parks naturalist emeritus, Mike Ezell, memorialized the tree that he had known for decades, “This tree saw the infamous Muscle Shoals. It saw the floods, the logjams, the flatboats, steamboats and rapids that characterized this section of a wild and wooly historic river. The creation of Wheeler Lake in 1937 buried this landmark (the Shoals) beneath 50 ft of the calm, placid waters that drain the lower Appalachians.”

Mike believes that the old oak served as a witness tree referenced to this nearby property placard. The oak is no more, except in old photos, deep memories, and a photo-essay issued by an old forester. Even the property marker concrete is pitted and is crumbling, the brass placard is also aging. Such is the fate all things. The once alpine Appalachians are now echoes of those early days of snow-capped jagged peaks rising heavenward.

Reflecting upon the demise of this single tree, Mike offered these parting words of wisdom, “Since the settlement of our continent by our European ancestors, natural landscapes have disappeared quickly, and with them large populations of wild flora and fauna have become victims of the reduced carrying capacity of our land. Everyone should do their part to ensure future generations get to enjoy our natural resources by installing native plants in every nook and cranny of every yard, roadside, park, and subdivision we build. Our own species survival will eventually depend on this.”

Mike is a consummate naturalist, interpreting Nature for kids of all ages and promoting Earth stewardship through related understanding and action. I thank him for introducing me to the fallen champion…and for lighting the fire of Alabama State Park Nature-passion within me.

Alabama State Parks Foundation

Thoughts and Reflections

I offer these observations:

• Nothing in Nature is static.
• Even state champion trees are subject to Nature’s forces of time, gravity, and decay.
• Like the old shingle oak, Queen Elizabeth recently passed gently into the good night, leaving deep memories and touching countless lives.

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.