In concert with the January 19, 2023 Alabama State Park Foundation Board meeting I spent two nights at an Oak Mountain State Park cabin on Tranquility Lake, rewarding me handsomely with two evenings and two mornings of dusk and dawn lakeside.

I shifted this Post from my normal focus on lessons and conclusions that I draw (and communicate) from my observations, reflections, and photographs. Occasionally I like to ask the photos and videos to speak without the clutter and distraction of wordy narrative. I ask that you accept the compilation of photos and videos as a simple sharing of Nature’s beauty, magic, wonder, and awe…so often available with minimum effort and cost within easy reach of where we happen to live.

Double Oak Lake Welcome

After checking in at the park office January 17, I stopped at the larger Double Oak Lake near the headquarters, capturing the fading afternoon sky above the lake at 3:55 and 4:00 PM.

The shoreline forest reflected nicely at 3:57 PM. Calm water encourages visual and spiritual reflection!

First Evening at Tranquility Lake

Once settled into my cabin, I explored my surroundings, collecting photographs and memories from the shore and entering Maggie’s Glen Trail. I’ll report on my several forest ventures in two separate Posts. I snapped the photos below at 4:37 and 4:46 as the sun descended into the forest across Tranquility Lake. Peace, beauty, and serenity abound…intense in their subtlety. An abundance of spiritual and sacred connection…the magic entered me, absorbed by the five portals of acceptance: body, mind, heart, soul, and spirit!

Camera perspective modifies brightness. The two images below appear much brighter than the direct sunset views above. These images emphasize forest and shoreline reflections (4:37 and 4:38 PM).

I recorded this 3:07 video at 4:38, immediately after the four still photos above.

Time progressed as I left the pond (4:52 PM) to explore the first few hundred feet of the Maggie’s Glen Trail, saving deeper exploration for the next morning.  The view left depicts the feeder stream entering the lake; I snapped the photo at right a few hundred feet further from the lake.

I returned from the forest, where darkness was rapidly descending (or was the gloam ascending?), to gather two more images, the western sky and my cabin, both photos at 5:19 PM, nautical twilight.

Just a minute later, Nature gave me one last gift as fog…an evening vapor…began seeping from the outlet stream forest under a still luminescent western sky.

John Muir often captured the essence of Nature’s inspiration and magic:

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.

First Morning on Tranquility Lake

January 18 I arose early to enjoy dawn, a daily gift I seldom miss wherever I am. Tranquility Lake once again presented a serene, calm, dawn image at 6:41 AM.

Because still photos can’t capture all of the dawn magic, here is my 2:09 video:

My cabin at 6:55 AM, a stand of loblolly line rising into the mists behind it.

A quiet gaggle of Canada geese gathered at the inlet stream (6:57 AM).

I caught the geese stirring and a nearby great blue heron in the dawn tranquility with this 2:08 video:

Shifting my lens to the heron (6:57 AM), I managed a profile just before the magnificent bird took flight.

Nearly an hour later, I returned to the lake after emerging from hiking on Maggie’s Glen Trail, to find the lake still misty (7:53 AM).

Second Morning on Tranquility Lake

January 19, I once again exited my cabin, snapping two Tranquility Lake photos at 6:32 and 6:34 AM, with little mist and a higher stratus overcast than the prior morning. My Canada geese friends have not left.

Here’s my 2:41 video of yet another dawn on Tranquility Lake:

Perhaps I would have eventually tired of the superb reflections of cabin and trees (6:34 AM) and the view of the lake from the feeder stream (6:37 AM), but I suspect it would take far longer that just my two night stay!

By 7:10 AM I viewed and photographed Tranquility Lake from the Cabins Loop Trail whose trailhead departed near my cabin. With the sky brightening and hints of blue and pink, the reflections remained intense and rewarding.

The views at 7:14 and 7:20 AM paid great dividends for my investment of rising early and circuiting the Cabins Loop Trail. I shall never abandon my pre-dawn and early morning wanderings!

Repeating from my opening, I shifted this Post from my normal focus on lessons and conclusions that I draw (and communicate) from my observations, reflections, and photographs. Occasionally I like to ask the photos and videos to speak without the clutter and distraction of wordy narrative. I ask that you accept the compilation of photos and videos as a simple sharing of Nature’s beauty, magic, wonder, and awe…so often available with minimum effort and cost within easy reach of where we happen to live.

I shall never tire of rising early enough to chronicle a new day’s dawning, whether from my back patio, in a nearby parcel of wildness, or some far away destination!

Alabama State Parks Foundation

Thoughts and Reflections

I offer these observations:

• I shall never tire of Nature’s dawning and gloaming.
• This grand show is eternal. It is always sunrise somewhere; the dew is never all dried at once (John Muir).
• I shall never abandon my pre-dawn and early morning wanderings!

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.

December 19, 2019 I visited the Tunica River Park along the Mississippi River just 30 miles south of Memphis and immediately across from Arkansas. The Mighty Mississippi stirred my soul. Oh, the stories it could tell.

Okay, I’ll admit that a Tunica casino and the overwhelming human urge to risk wealth to beat the 25-cent slots drew Judy and me to the Big Muddy! We are high rollers — Not! We showed up willing to blow $100. We managed to do just that…yet it took us two full days, allowing lots of enjoyment and excitement. We looked, I am sure, out of place. Married 50 years and still in love, sitting side-by-side at a single slot machine, laughing with glee when we won…and sharing the woe when we didn’t. We reached an alpine high when we reached $125 the first evening. We ended the second day at $75, managing to depart the last morning at a big fat zero!

But that’s the side story. I could not visit the Mississippi River without sampling a taste of Nature. That’s our casino site along the river.

The Tunica County River Park serve as the location for this Post. Note that the Park sits on the outside of one of the river’s broad meanders, a feature that defined the river’s pattern across the millions of years of creating this magnificent delta region. The outside river cuts the deep delta soils; the slower inside flow deposits sediments…the sandbar across the river.

The stone below protects the shoreline, in this case 20-feet above the then current water level. This view is downstream. A typical hardwood forest lies beyond the park’s open ground.

A river cruise boat sits docked upstream at the park’s museum and interpretive center.

My 2:11 video captures the essence of the river several hundred miles above the Gulf of Mexico:

Although at least twenty feet above the current river level, flood debris suggests the far greater volume carried periodically by the Mighty Mississippi! Arkansas sandbars defining the broad inside meander lie perhaps a half-mile from my vantage point (right).

I wonder what Mark Twain would have thought of the modern day river cruise ship docked at the park. Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer’s adventures would have taken a different twist had they been aboard such a ship.

The company’s online site offers this:

Stretching for 2,350 miles down the United States, from Minnesota’s Lake Itasca to the Gulf of Mexico, our new cruises on the “Mighty Mississippi” offer a different type of cross-country journey for the curious explorer—one that allows you to be immersed in American history and culture. Step on board the newest and most modern ship on the Mississippi with all outside staterooms, private verandas, spacious public areas and our signature, clean Scandinavian design, reimagined for the Mississippi River.

Not at the kind of Big Muddy adventure that Huck and Tom experienced!

Here’s the cruise ship view from the north, pausing for tourists to visit the Park and its River Museum.

As is my custom, I paid attention to the firmament, an altostratus overcast, the river mirroring its leaden color, albeit with a strong hint of its sediment burden. This view is downstream, its disturbed water flowing toward the Gulf.

Because I contend more and more with each Post that a brief video enhances my still photos, observations, and reflections, I present this 3:19 video I recorded just upstream from the Visitors Center.

The overcast north and upstream expressed the same mid-winter grey dullness. I do not imply that the tone and effect are without beauty and magic. I find wonder in the South’s varying winter moods.

Judy provides a pleasant foreground to the Mississippi and a tow of barges heading north.

Sycamore had been planted in straight rows near where I recorded the second video. Forty years ago I established and managed plantations of four species of hardwood to supply high quality fiber to my employer’s (Union Camp Corporation) Franklin, Virginia mill. Sycamore grew rapidly with wood fibers (short, smooth, and dense) perfectly suited for manufacturing fine writing paper. At the time, our Franklin mill was the world’s largest fine paper producer. The ornamental planting reminded me that I had revelled in pursuit of my chosen profession on behalf of a Fortune 500 paper and allied products manufacturing concern. I still have high regard for those who manage forests to sustainably and renewably meet the manifold wood and fiber needs and demands of society.

Now, far removed from my younger practicing industrial forestry days, I retain that deep respect for utilitarian forestry. I watch sawlog and pulpwood trucks along our roads and byways with a degree of longing for those good old years. Some of my fellow Nature enthusiasts don’t view the raw product harvest, transport, and manufacturing sectors with respect and affection. I, in contrast, thank God for the 12 years I spent practicing forestry for a company that owned and responsibly and sustainably managed 2.2 million acres of forestland from Virginia through the Carolinas, Georgia, Florida, and Alabama. I am blessed to have done the real work and experience of informed and responsible forestry.

Although I regret not finding a rich delta site to hike through some of the most productive forests on the planet, I snapped these two photos of a old bottomland forest that is feeling and showing its age. Like our north Alabama forests, the delta hardwood forests do not live unchanged forever. Nothing in Nature is static. The photo below left shows coarse-topped crowns beginning to break apart. A closer look revealed considerable dead and down woody debris on the ground. A large dead tree stands left of center at right.

The trail-closed sign kept me from exploring the younger stand beyond the open park grounds below. For another day!

I leave you with a broad aerial view of the region we visited….and urge you to consider that individual trees and forests do not live forever, nor does Old Muddy pick a channel and stay within it, unchanging over time. The casino and resort where we stayed is just above and to the left of the red pin. The large Arkansas sand flats that lie across the river from the Park are WNW of the pin, downstream from our casino. The aerial photograph evidences that the river is ever-changing. Horseshoe Lake is clearly an old meander oxbow lake. Other ancient meanders and oxbow remnants pepper the landscape, defining the river and delta’s past and portending its future.

The Mighty Mississippi River has transported rainfall and melted snow uninterrupted since the continental ice sheet melted 13,000 years ago…and during interglacial periods before, from Lake Itasca to the Gulf of Mexico. Itasca annually receives 30 inches of liquid precipitation (includes 50 inches of snow). Across 13,000 years, Itasca contributed 32,500 feet of rain (and melted snow) to Big Muddy. Every Itasca acre contributed 1.4 billion cubic feet of water over the period. The aggregate numbers are staggering. Nature itself is similarly mind-blowing. Nature one day at a time can be overwhelming. Expand her beauty, magic, wonder, and awe by a month, a year, a decade, or 13,000 years…her essence is beyond our imagination. Stand back if we reach beyond the arbitrary 13 millennia, an insignificant blink of an eye…just 1/7692 of a billion years.

I close with those sobering reminders of our own human insignificance.

Thoughts and Reflections

I offer these observations:

• The Mighty Mississippi is truly a force of Nature.
• Nature is within reach even on a trip to enjoy a nice hotel, good food and drink, and some low-stakes slots!
• A taste of Nature along the Big Muddy inspires a future deeper dive into the Delta Bottomland Forests.

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.

Winter is racing past. I’m completing this Post narrative February 24, 2023, a full two months beyond the deep winter episode that is the subject of this photo-essay. Yesterday (February 23) Madison recorded a high of 83! I have a backlog of these Posts ready for publishing. I thought it is approaching past-time to issue this one!

A Personal Fascination with Weather

December 22, 2022, our local forecast alerted us in north Alabama to an epic Arctic air mass plunging our way, anticipated to enter from the northwest that evening, ushered by showers before midnight. I’ll focus this Nature-Inspired Life and Living Post on the six-day period from the frontal passage to the return flow of warmer air.

I admit to being a complete weather geek! I still follow the weather at locations where we’ve lived across our 50 years of marriage and career. I normally chronicle my Nature wanderings in forest and field environs. I’ll focus this Post, instead, on the weather right here in my backyard. I’ll preface my observations, reflections, and photographs with a simple declarative statement. I use the term epic because the media, obsessed with the ubiquitous hysteria of climate change as an existential threat to our very existence, adopted the epic characterization from the moment the deep cold air in the Far North began building and threatening to move our way.

As a weather addict, scientist, and passionate observer of Nature, I’ll confess to being an unabashed sceptic of the widely-held belief (yes, belief is the operative word) that human influences are the primary (or even a major) cause of any changes to our climate. I do not buy the existential climate threat scenario painting doom and gloom. I contend that sceptic differs profoundly from the pejorative term denier.  I trust the judgment of those whose intellect ran far deeper than my own, and whose wisdom has stood the test of time:

His insistence that the book of nature was written in the language of  mathematics changed natural philosophy from a verbal, qualitative account to a mathematical one in which experimentation became a recognized method for discovering the facts of nature. Finally, his discoveries with the telescope revolutionized astronomy and paved the way for the acceptance of the Copernican heliocentric system, but his advocacy of that system eventually resulted in an inquisition process against him. (Galileo Galilei By Albert Van Helden)

Approaching Cold Front

The period December 22-27 is emblematic of our changeable weather here in north Alabama at 34.72 degrees North Latitude. One swing of the winter temperature pendulum does not constitute climate change. Instead, it is within the normal fluxes of north Alabama winter. December 22, 2022 offered a southerly breeze and 50 degrees at 4:25 and 4:32 PM (photos below). The view westward, however, portended the approaching front, clouds thickening as they advanced.

Overhead at 4:37, the sky remained broken as the front glowered, darkening.

The 4:33 and 4:39 sky directly above us hinted at little…unless we glanced westward. These two images stand as metaphor for life and living in general. Too often, unless we look deeply and see clearly, the truth lies hidden in plain sight. We miss the obvious when blinded by the superficial.

Informed repeatedly by the media that we were about to experience an air mass portending catastrophic climate change, one might believe that the event would be unprecedented. I do not imply that the coming weather would be benign…only that it’s been cold in northern Alabama before…and will be again.

A Mount Washington (New Hampshire) Side Trip

Over the years of my weather addiction, a fragment of my psyche has taken residence atop Mount Washington in New Hampshire. I’ve visited the summit-located (6,288 feet) Mount Washington Observatory several times, summer and winter. I once failed notably in a winter ascent at 5,000 feet when a hurricane force ground blizzard repeatedly knocked our party to the ground, forcing retreat to the base. So that you are reminded of the relative severity of our north Alabama cold air intrusion, here is the Observatory’s account of the recent Christmas weekend episode:

Drastic Overnight Change

The front did indeed penetrate the South, plunging our prior afternoon’s 50 degrees to two degrees with strong wind by 7:34 AM the next morning!

Don’t be fooled by the bright sunshine, open water, and snow-free ground. At 7:35, this transplanted former Alaskan found the bitter wind formidable. Living on-campus at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, I did not hesitate to walk to my office, wearing appropriate gear, at 30 degrees below zero. My cold tolerance has long since waned.

I believe this 1:15 video captures the morning better than my observations, reflections, and photographs:

December 23 reached an afternoon high of only 16 degrees. I ventured outside only twice: driving to the gym and refilling the backyard bird feeders!

Continuing our southern deep freeze, here’s Christmas Eve at 3:28 PM with the high temperature at 26 degrees, and ice covering this end of our pond.

The Deep Freeze

That evening at 8:26 PM, ice covered nearly the entire pond, the temperature at 17 degrees after the wind had stopped.

Christmas morning dawned at 12 degrees (6:30 AM), the pond icy from shore to shore. The thin covering perhaps would have supported a mallard…but little more.

My 1:20 video shows the third-day extent of our winter blast:

I love the combined impression of Christmas spirit, frozen pond, pristine air, and dawn light!

Only the immediate vicinity of the aerators remained open or slushy. I enjoy the magic of such cold snaps, even as I remind myself that during my Fairbanks, Alaska winters, similar ponds would be frozen at least a foot thick by mid-December, despite a thick blanket of insulating snow.

Third grade grandson Sam stood along the shore at 9:44 AM, the temperature had warmed to 18 degrees Fahrenheit.

Sam requested that I pose with the icy background at 9:45.

Sam and I discovered soil frost pillars in our backyard perennial beds. Nature’s pure magic, generated by simple physics, often lies hidden in plain sight.

I snapped this final pond photograph from the  flower beds at 9:50.

Leaving the Cold Behind

We departed Madison December 26 at 4:57 AM (21 degrees F) for the first leg of the trip to visit our son and his family in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. We photographed sunrise over Nick-a-Jack Lake at 6:32 and 6:36 AM as we passed through northeast Alabama.

Our Madison forecast hinted at snow showers late that afternoon. We learned from our daughter that driving conditions in the Huntsville area deteriorated to impassable with an inch or so of snow late afternoon. Those of us who have lived many years in snow country too often scoff at a little snow bringing travel to a standstill in the South. However, snow removal and deicing are non-existent here…and many residents have, at best, limited experience in slippery-road-driving. I say, get off (or stay off) the roads during periodic winter weather crises in our locale. North Alabama, for patient drivers, has the world’s best snow and ice removal. It’s called solar power. Wait a day or so and the snow and ice disappear!

Epic? Record? Portent of Climate Doom?

December 27 mid-morning a friend, Angie Fedele, snapped this image of the remaining snow and ice cover from my backyard flower beds. The temperature that day rose to 50 degrees, marking the abrupt end to our epic Christmas 2022 deep freeze.

Just how cold was it? Here are the National Weather Service temperature data for Huntsville over the Christmas epic cold front period:

Date                                 High Temp      Low Temp      Record Low

December 22                           51                    21                    -3

December 23                           16                    3                      -3

December 24                           26                    9                      1

December 25                           32                    17                    -1

December 26                           33                    18                    4

December 27                           50                    24                    12

Cold, yes; record cold, no! However, in today’s world of mainstream weather media coverage, we are deluged (pardon the weather pun) with reports of epic this and epic that. Many events are termed unprecedented. So many outlets starved for viewers or hits, The Weather Channel among them, attribute every storm, drought, Arctic outbreak, heat wave, flood, and other events to Climate Change. As I scientist, I don’t buy it. I look to observation, fact, and data. I abhor the vast predominance of perception and sensationalism. Our Christmas 2022 cold spell certainly hit us southerners hard, but it was not an episode that drove me into despair over an imminent climate catastrophe. It’s been cold before (note the record cold low temperatures above)…and it will be cold again. It’s called climate…not climate change! The entire six-day period fell within the range of our climate normal. Below average, yes, yet still within the bounds of normal.

Galileo nailed it: [T]he book of nature was written in the language of  mathematics. 

Facts and data matter. Observation (facts and data) rules the day in the realm of science. Perception, emotion, and speculation persist and control the world of mainstream media, politics, and much of public opinion…who dare with blind ignorance to judge Truth and Knowledge.

Whoever undertakes to set himself up as a judge of Truth and Knowledge is shipwrecked by the laughter of the Gods. Albert Einstein (1879-1955)

I remember with admiration Carl Sagan’s (1934-96) view of our Earth as a pale blue orb in the vast darkness of space. He, too, urged human adherence to science and its experimental basis in objective observations and reasoning. Although he wasn’t speaking of climate change per se, he expressed my own concerns about today’s existential threat adherents demanding immediate and wholesale action to reduce (no, eliminate) our reliance on all fossil fuels:

Finding the occasional straw of truth awash in a great ocean of confusion and bamboozle requires intelligence, vigilance, dedication and courage. But if we don’t practice these tough habits of thought, we cannot hope to solve the truly serious problems that face us — and we risk becoming a nation of suckers, up for grabs by the next charlatan who comes along.

I’ll end with a nearly one-thousand-year-old quote that in this context is relevant:

Now there are four chief obstacles in grasping truth, which hinder every man, however learned, and scarcely allow anyone to win a clear title to learning, namely, submission to faulty and unworthy authority, influence of custom, popular prejudice, and concealment of our own ignorance accompanied by an ostentatious display of our knowledge.
The Opus Majus of Roger Bacon (1220-1292)

Thoughts and Reflections

I offer these observations:

• Weather-addiction is just one facet of my Nature-affliction!
• Shifting weather moods confirm that nothing in nature is static.
• Deep cold spells, like our 2022 Christmas season chill, have occurred before…and will again and again and again.

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 normally write about The Nature of a specific wild place either here in Alabama or wherever travel may take me. View this Post as a compendium of observations, reflections, and photographs (ond one video) assembled from my forest ventures in diverse wildland settings around a contemporary theme. I have devoted my life as a forest scientist to forest systems study and observation. I focus this post on my observations revealing the absence of equity in Nature. Instead, Nature is a tireless meritocracy; Nature is ruthlessly competitive.

Role of Equity in Forests

We hear so much today about a term that seems to overwhelm politics, media, higher education, and even dinnertime conversation: equity. We hear the theme emerge as some reflect that we humans are not separate from Nature…but instead are one with our natural environment. Some stretch that connection to conclude that our human relationships…social, economic, and political…can be modeled after natural interactions (including equity) among life forms, and which define natural ecology and ecosystem function. Some people view equity as a construct derived from Nature and ubiquitous within natural systems. Merriam-Webster defines equity as: justice according to natural law or right; freedom from bias or favoritism. A common simple meaning I’ve heard for equity in human society, business, and organizations is equal outcome.

I see no evidence in Nature that equity (equal outcome) is central to forest systems (or, for that matter, any natural system). I have devoted my life as a forest scientist to forest systems study and observation. I focus this post on my observations revealing the absence of equity in Nature. Instead, Nature is a tireless meritocracy. Nature is ruthlessly competitive. Leonardo da Vinci recognized 500 years ago Nature’s brutal reliance on the strong surviving:

Nature appears to have been the cruel stepmother rather than the mother of many animals.

My September 2021 Post posited Nature as a meritocracy: https://stevejonesgbh.com/2021/09/21/lessons-from-nature-nature-is-a-meritocracy/

I offer a series of examples in this Post drawing primarily from my relevant prior photo-essays. I excerpted this first example from my October 14, 2021 photo-essay: Heart’s Content in NW Pennsylvania (Part One): https://stevejonesgbh.com/2021/10/14/hearts-content-in-nw-pennsylvania-part-one/

Ninety Years of Allegheny Hardwood Forest Renewal: An Absolute Refutation of Equity

Wisely, US Forest Service researchers began a long-term monitoring study on the Tionesta Scenic and Research Natural Area, Allegheny National Forest, in 1928. Note: the entire photo sequence is courtesy of the US Forest Service (Copyright USFS). The forest scientists arranged and oversaw timber harvesting on an old growth forest that year. Cutting was in progress below left. The image below right (1929), taken from the same photo point at exactly the same angle, shows the site at the end of the first growing season post-harvest. Note the proliferation of young seedlings and sprouts.

At ages ten and twenty (1937 and 1947) the tens of thousands of stems per acre is transitioning from a nearly impenetrable thicket to a stand of saplings with spacing sufficient for a forester to walk through and measure individuals. I have said in prior Blog Posts that Nature is a meritocracy. The 1937 and 1947 survivors (I am estimating that less than five percent of the tree seedlings/sprouts in the 1929 stand remain at age 20) are stronger, faster growing individuals that simply outperformed those no longer extant. To the victors go the spoils. The competition occurs both within and between species. Affirmative action does not operate in natural systems. There are no offices of ecosystem equity to set quotas nor monitor diversity, inclusion, and equity. Species by species, Nature simply performs her relentless pursuit of sustainable growth and reproduction, generation to generation, among all living creatures…as she has operated for 3.7 billion years.

By ages 30 and 40 (1958 and 1968), the forest has changed remarkably, reaching a stage allowing us to more easily follow individual trees from one period to the next. Note the man standing to the left in the 1958 image. The large black cherry tree is reigning over its neighbors, capturing more and more site resources. There are those who today claim in pseudo-scientific mainstream publications that the forest is a community of interconnected, caring, and collaborating trees and associated organisms. I encourage readers to carefully study specific stems in this sequence over time. I see no evidence that the survivors give a rip about the stems falling behind, weakening, dying, and tipping to the forest floor.

We are now at ages 56 and 60 (1984 and 1988). Our large black cherry continues to thrive; fewer and fewer stems remain. Our seedling thicket has reached a condition such that most casual hikers might think it an undisturbed forest.

By ages 70 and 80 (1998 and 2008), our dominant cherry is a regal denizen, a magnificent leader of this second growth forest. Dead and down woody debris signals that competition remains fierce. Note that even the distant forest now reveals fewer and fewer stems per acre.

The most recent image (2018) shows a 90-year-old forest, one most observers would term mature. Striking a chord with me, these photos are a reminder that I conducted my doctoral research in 80-90-year-old second growth Allegheny hardwood stands, similar to this one, just 40-50 miles from Tionesta.

I add the following observation as postscript to my October 2021 narrative: Survivors after 90 years are the strong; to the victors go the spoils. Nature is a meritocracy.

Birch Regeneration at Maryland’s New Germany State Park

Excerpted from my November 29, 2021 photo-essay, Maryland’s New Germany State Park: Returning after 51 Years: (https://stevejonesgbh.com/2021/11/29/marylands-new-germany-state-park-returning-after-51-years/):

Below left a cluster of windthrown trees create a crown opening sufficient to allow sunlight to reach the ground, stimulating a thicket of birch regeneration. Below right a more recent windthrow opening will spark another patch of reproduction. The germinated birch seedlings, after just 3-5 years, are evidencing differential height. Only the strong will constitute the stand emerging from the opening. Over time, the forest will shift to a mosaic of small stands growing in scattered openings.

Today’s postscript to the prior photo-essay: Nature abhors a vacuum. In the case of these openings, the species and individuals best able to exploit the sunshine and newly available soil resources will prevail, prosper, and fill the void. Again, to the victors go the spoils.

Regenerating White Pine at Hickory Creek Wilderness

November 17, 2021 photo-essay, Pennsylvania’s Hickory Creek Wilderness: https://stevejonesgbh.com/2021/11/17/pennsylvanias-hickory-creek-wilderness/

I found an occasional white pine overstory tree. This individual stands as a dominant member of the main canopy. Unlike the barren (fern-covered) understory elsewhere, white pine regeneration (10-15-year-old saplings) offer promise within seed-fall radius of the mother tree. The regeneration, like the sweet birch in openings at New Germany, are developing at differential height growth rates. The strong will survive. Each individual has more or less equivalent opportunity. Equal outcomes (equity) are not guaranteed in the forest.

Nearby a small grove of hemlock likewise supports advanced hemlock regeneration. White pine and hemlock are shade tolerant when young, enabling advanced regeneration to patiently await crown openings or major forest disturbance.

Postscript: Once again, only the strong survive in the natural world.

Natural Pine Stand along the Hiking and Biking Trail at WNWR

Here are photos and narrative from a draft photo-essay that I will publish during the first quarter of 2023:

Some former agricultural lands have regenerated to forest. This upland pine stand appears to be 12-15 years old. I saw no evidence of planting (trees in rows), yet all stems seemed to be the same age. Therefore, I believe the stand either regenerated naturally, yet I did not see an evident seed source, or perhaps originated from aerial- or tractor-dispensed seed? Converting some acreage from marginal cropland to native loblolly falls within the Refuge mission to provide diverse habitat for wildlife.

Postscript: The lesson that Darwin revealed operates across the temperate terrestrial plant communities of my familiarity, whether Allegheny Hardwoods or southern pines.

Chapman Mountain Nature Preserve Loblolly Pine

Excerpted from my September 22, 2022 photo-essay, Special Post for October 2022 PLT Training: https://stevejonesgbh.com/2022/09/22/special-post-for-october-2022-plt-training/

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

Rather than add a postscript, I revisited the trails nearby and through the old field pine stand January 24, 2023 to bring closure to this photo-essay.

A one-half mile trail passes north of the pine stand through a highway-edge forest, variously disturbed by construction activities. The 12-15 loblolly pine in the two photos below dropped seed to an acre of cleared land under the trees, in effect serving as a seed tree harvest for the disturbed soil. The seedlings appear to be 4-7 years old, the tallest of them exceeding head high. Height is variable, indicating intense competition and differential performance. Stronger individuals are racing ahead to capture an ever-greater share of sunlight and site resources.

Stocking is dense, averaging two stems per square foot. That stocking equates to 86K stems per acre…extremely dense. Attrition through mortality is rapidly reducing stand density. This regenerating acre suggests the adjoining old field condition three decades ago, an agricultural site rapidly progressing from dense seedling cover to the forest now sheltering the disc golf course.

The untrained forestry eye may have difficulty visualizing the conversion and transformation. Remember, the journey has seen two thinning and at least one effective prescribed fire.

Evidence of thinning appears as cut stumps, visibly decaying, in both images. The stem at left shows a trunk charred from the prescribed fire. Loblolly is well adapted to a ground fire intense enough to scorch the bark to 6-8 feet.

Trimmed tops lie adjacent to the tree at left. Below right, the ground near the stump is supporting seedlings sprouting within the thick pine straw.

At the stand’s edge near the parking lot, residual from the prior thinning operation’s gathering yard (for loading logs onto trucks for transport), a small area that had seeded 2-3 years and escaped the most recent fire, is supporting 3-4 seedlings per square foot…perhaps 200,000 seedlings per acre. Nature relies heavily on the power of numbers. The greater the initial density, the more effectively competition enables the best to survive to dominance, ensuring reproductive supremacy and natural selection.

Within the stand I discovered a several-hundred-square-foot zone that the prescribed fire missed completely. Hardwood brush, some ten-feet-plus high, is capturing the area. Black locust a north Alabama pioneer species extraordinaire, is dominant and thriving (below right).

Nature is a master of regenerating our forests, especially when trained and educated foresters guide her direction. Foresters in this case manipulated species composition, stand density, and competing vegetation to achieve the park-like loblolly pine stand, perfectly suited to shelter a disc golf course. Foresters are ever mindful that equity does not operate in nature systems.

I recorded this 3:03 video within the pine stand to supplement the limited power of my words and still photos:

Einstein understood far more than merely quantum mechanics and mass energy equivalence. Of Nature, he observed:

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

Summary: Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in Natural Systems

Seminal Conclusion

Thoughts and Reflections

I offer these observations:

• Nature is a tireless meritocracy; to the victor go the spoils.
• Nature appears to have been the cruel stepmother rather than the mother of many animals. Leonardo da Vinci
• Performance, perseverance, and persistence matter in natural systems.

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 grandkids, 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

Below right is the sasquatch disc golf practice target from the Chapman Mountain NP course.

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.