conservation Archives - Steve Jones Great Blue Heron

Winter Dormant Season Wonders in a Wheeler National Wildlife Refuge Bottomland Forest

May 7, 2025/in Updates /by Steve Jones

Note: I am flagging this photo essay as one of a sub-series that introduces the emerging Singing River Trail:

A 200+ mile greenway system that strengthens regional bonds and creates new health and wellness, educational, economic, tourism, and entrepreneurial opportunities for the people and communities of North Alabama.

On the morning of February 8, 2025, as I frequently do, I wandered through the bottomland hardwood forest along HGH Road in the Wheeler National Wildlife Refuge near the border between Limestone and Madison Counties. I desired only to see what of deep dormant season interest might lie hidden in plain sight. Mission accomplished!

Spiraling Oddities

HGH Road is gated during the winter at the gravel parking area along Jolly Bee Road. I walked the one-half mile west to where an old farm lane drops south toward the Tennessee River. Yes, an old farm lane. I believe the bottomland forest was in agricultural production when TVA purchased the land scheduled for Lake Wheeler inundation and the adjoining upland property 90 years ago. I restricted the morning’s sauntering mostly to hardwood-dominated forests. I found this spiraled mid-canopy elm, back-dropped by a stand of loblolly pine, at roadside before I reached the now heavily forested farm lane.

I have never seen a tree that spirals of its own accord absent a directing force, which in this instance is no longer present. Imagine the elm when younger and smaller, wrapped in full spiral embrace with a supplejack vine. The supplejack species spirals upward clockwise as evidenced by the permanently spiraled elm. In effect, the growing tree prevailed, literally crushing life from the vine…a death spiral.

Leonardo da Vinci offered insight to seeing, questioning, and understanding such phenomena:

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

The noblest pleasure is the joy of understanding.

Leonardo would have appreciated my seeming aimless traipsing. Albert Einstein, too, would have approved:

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

Nearby a supplejack co-spiraling with a 3-4″ sweetgum tree offered more direct evidence, the vine still visible at left. The photo at right below shows the same supplejack vine closer to the ground, where it emerged victorious in its embrace of a sapling long since dead and decayed. The clockwise-spiraled vine remains intact. However, I don’t think it will survive its mutual grasp with the sweetgum.

I recorded this 58-second video of entanglement:

Infrequent sylvan visitors believe our forests are stagnant, timeless, never-changing. I recall asking workshop participants their perceived age of the mature hardwood forest we were visiting. Answers ranged from hundreds of years back to the time of Christ. Most of our northern Alabama hardwood forest are 80-100 years old. Nothing in Nature is static, absolutely nothing.

Death and Decay in the Forest

Life and death define the forest. The carbon cycle is the symphony, an elaborate ecological composition. Movements surge and flow across days, months, years, decades, centuries, and millennia. This ancient oak, with its decayed see-through base, rises to a snag. Gravity will soon prevail; decomposers will return its organic matter to the soil, which in turn will cycle its energy to new life, perhaps to an oak tree or a millipede, a rattlesnake, or a woodland spider lilly!

Here is my 58-video tour of the snag:

I prefer short quotes from sage conservationists like da Vinci, Muir, and Leopold. However, the lyrics and music of some timeless poets and musicians shaped my life, Johny Cash among them. Lyrics to his classic The Highwayman stand as a metaphor for the forests I know, whether Alabama, Alaska, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, or any other of the places I’ve lived or roamed:

I was a highway man along the coach roads I did ride
With sword and pistol by my side
Many a young maid lost her baubles to my trade
Many a soldier shed his lifeblood on my blade
The bastards hung me in the spring of twenty-five
But I am still alive

I was a sailor, I was born upon the tide
And with the sea I did abide
I sailed a schooner round the horn to Mexico
I went aloft and furled the mainsail in a blow
And when the yards broke off they said that I got killed
But I am living still

I was a dam builder
Across the river deep and wide
Where steel and water did collide
A place called Boulder on the wild Colorado
I slipped and fell into the wet concrete below
They buried me in that great tomb that knows no sound
But I am still around, I’ll always be around
And around and around and around and around

I fly a starship across the Universe divide
And when I reach the other side
I’ll find a place to rest my spirit if I can
Perhaps I may become a highwayman again
Or I may simply be a single drop of rain
But I will remain
And I’ll be back again, and again
And again and again and again and again

I understand the co-spiraling signature of tree and vine. No mystery there. Explaining the spiral wood grain of individual trees eludes me still. Search “spiral grain” on the blog page of my Great Blue Heron website. You’ll see prior posts where I have probed the subject, all to no avail or conclusion, yet I frequently see dead hardwood trees with sloughed bark, clearly spiral-grained, taunting me to discover their secret!

I recorded this 48-second video of a nearby snag adorned with multiple scars of death and decay, as well as evident spiral grain.

A still photo of the same tree highlights advanced decay that suggests that undefeated gravity will soon triumph.

Commercial television these days offers all manner of cosmetic and pharmaceutical treatments for dry, crepey, warty, sagging, and blotchy skin and flesh. Thank God trees possess no such vainglorious tendencies! I recorded this video of a snag carrying its blemishes beyond death and decay.

Stills from of the same tree memorialize its countenance.

Every tree has a story to tell. These weathered individuals express volumes!

Beauty is Far Moore than Skin-Deep

Fungi infect all the prior dead individual trees I’ve included so far in this photo essay. Let’s now delve into the fruiting bodies (mushrooms) of the organisms whose hyphae are the actual within-wood decomposing fungi. Puffball mushrooms signal hyphae hard at work.

I recorded this 60-second video of a wind-toppled oak heavily infected with Stereum:

Our north Alabama forest breezes, I am sure, are super charged with clouds of fungal spores. I imagine competing species of fungi rushing to the scene of a recent windthrow, armies of spores laying claim to square millimeters of surface on a multi-ton sylvan carcass. Down for less than a full year, this tree already bears thousands of saprophytic fungi mushrooms.

Life, death, decay, and renewal dance in symphonic splendor.

A hefty lumpy bracket mushroom clings to a downed oak trunk.

Its underside is salting the air with countless spores catching the breeze to another multi-ton oak.

Bracket fungi are common throughout our north Alabama forests, especially in these fertile, productive hardwood bottomlands. I pledge to devote more time on future treks to identifying groups and species. So far only the edibles have merited my deeper attention.

I believe this is a latte bracket.

Fungi are biological wonders worthy of their own kingdom.

Thoughts and Reflections

I offer these observations:

The noblest pleasure is the joy of understanding. (da Vinci)
Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better. (Einstein)
Life, death, decay, and renewal dance in symphonic splendor. (Steve Jones)

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

The Nature of the Singing River Trail

The Singing River Trail will pass through significant portions of the 35,000-acre Wheeler National Wildlife Refuge…perhaps not HGH Road per se, yet I know that Rockhouse Bottom Road along the Tennessee River, just two miles from HGH Road, will be a primary SRT route.

The Singing River Trail will be a 200+ mile greenway system that strengthens regional bonds and creates new health and wellness, educational, economic, tourism, and entrepreneurial opportunities for the people and communities of North Alabama.

The SRT will prominently feature the Refuge. As a lifelong devotee of hiking/sauntering, running, biking, and Nature exploration, I envision another Great Blue Heron weekly photo essay series focused on The Nature of the Singing River Trail. I will incorporate individual essays into my routine Posts that total approximately 450 to-date (archived and accessible at: https://stevejonesgbh.com/blog/). I offer these photo essays related to my WNWR wanderings as the beginning of the new component series. Watch for more!

Note: Unless otherwise noted, all blog post images are created & photographed by Stephen B. Jones.

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

A reminder of my Personal and Professional Purpose, Passion, and Cause

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

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

Vision:

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

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

Steve’s Four Books

I wrote my books Nature Based Leadership (2016), Nature-Inspired Learning and Leading (2017), Weaned Seals and Snowy Summits: Stories of Passion for Place and Everyday Nature (2019; co-authored with Dr. Jennifer Wilhoit), and Dutton Land & Cattle: A Land Legacy Story (2025) 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. All four of my books present compilations of personal experiences expressing my deep passion for Nature. All four books offer observations and reflections on my relationship with the natural world… and the broader implications for society. Order any from your local indie bookstore, or find them on IndieBound or other online sources such as Amazon and LifeRich.

I began writing books and Posts for several reasons:

I love hiking and exploring 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 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

Bottomland Tree Oddities on the Goldsmith-Schiffman Wildlife Sanctuary!

April 30, 2025/in Updates /by Steve Jones

On February 15, 2024, fellow retired forester Chris Stuhlinger and I sauntered through the eastside bottomland hardwood forest at Huntsville, Alabama’s Goldsmith-Schiffman Wildlife Sanctuary. Heavy flooding two days earlier submerged the forest in overflow from the adjacent Flint River. We decided to see whether the river had fallen back within its banks…it had, yet it still flowed swiftly at bankful. Although the trails remained wet, we could transit the bottomland by avoiding still-inundated channels and depressions. As is often the case, my familiar woodlands present a new face…a special character…every time I venture to explore. The recent flooding produced a fresh countenance.

I focus this brief photo essay on the unusual tree forms we encountered. Water remained stranded across the forest where overflow found no immediate outlet. Each tree reflected where the water stood.

Gnarly burls blemished (or accented depending upon my perspective) this mockernut (or pignut?) hickory. My long ago commercial forestry mind would have seen these burls as commercial defects; today I view them as fairyland accents.

I recorded this 59-second video of the burled hickory:

A neighboring hickory sported a single large canker framed by a poison ivy vine. The vine and the tree reached into the upper canopy, nourished by the abundant sunshine powering summertime leaves 90-100 feet above the ground.

This nearby canker-free hickory’s bark is marred by only a few sapsucker drill holes.

A mid-story hickory dares us to explain its tortured form. Leonardo da Vinci opined that all such natural phenomena result from cause:

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

I attribute its collapsed and contorted form to a fallen tree, top, or branch when the hickory stood proudly erect as a sapling. Every tree survives when able…and fights valiantly to reproduce. After all, isn’t that the ultimate objective of every living organism…to sustain its genetic line?!

Its purpose does not include entertaining me and challenging my forest scientist’s curiosity and woodland sauntering contemplation, yet it accomplishes that unintentioned end!

Individual hickory specimens served us well, yet did not constitue the afternoon production’s full cast. Sugar maples reached out to us with full voice and rich attire, painted black with flourishing sooty mold feeding on some nature of seasonal exudate. Sooty mold is a fungus, distantly related to the edible wild mushrooms I cherish. All fungi are neither plants nor animals. They have occupied their own Kingdom since about the time I earned my BS in Forestry. When I studied tree diseases, the offending fungi were deemed plants. Very recent sapsucker drill holes, two of them obviously fresh, are clear of the mold.

The darkened bark distinguished sugar maple from other species during this dark and damp winter afternoon.

I recorded this 55-second video of our sooty friend:

Ironwood or eastern hop-hornbeam (Ostrya virginiana), a common under- and mid-story species ranging from here well into New England, bears distinctively smooth and finely shredded bark. As the common name implies, its wood is unusually hard. Common uses include: wagon axles, tool handles, levers, mallets, canes, woodenware, and novelty doodads. Most individual ironwood trees I encounter are slender. This one insisted upon being noticed for a bulkier body type (a variation of sylvan body positivity in today’s human vanity vernacular), with an open cavity where a branch once extended before yielding to a falling object.

Seldom have I seen an ironwood posing in a manner attracting my camera attention.

I recorded this 56-second video of this special denizen:

Here’s a final blemish-free mug shot of our tool-worthy ironwood.

Ever since my undergraduate three-year summer employment at Savage River and Green Ridge State Forests in Maryland’s Appalachians, I have been a champion of white ash, a high-reaching quality furniture (and baseball bat) hardwood species that grows best on richly fertile cove sites, i.e. concave, lower, north to southest facing slopes. Pileated woodpeckers apparently are likewise fond of its northern Alabama counterpart (this is either white ash or green ash).

I recorded this 54-second video at the heavily peckered ash:

The eager woodpecker deposited a stash of wood chips at the tree’s base!

Two Eastern red cedar trees complete our species cast. The bottomland hardwood forest we explored regenerated naturally 80-90 years ago from an abandoned agricultural field. An aggressive pioneer species, red cedar served proudly in the first wave of advancing tree volunteers, its seeds kindly dispersed and strategically placed by birds. This dead cedar carcass, densely studded with spiky branch stubs, reveals that it grew for a period in full sunlight until the encroahing hardwoods overtopped it. Cedar is decay resistant. Its branches persist long after death, hence the fragrant cedar chests for protecting clothes and dry goods.

I recorded this 56-second video at the stubby-branch leaning dead cedar:

Viewing it as I might a polished wooden pendant, I lowered my camera and walked away somewhat reluctantly.

Another dead cedar stood as a woodland sculpture, as beautiful and irresistably inspiring as any human creation/

My breathless narrative serves no purpose beyond exercising my awkward typing.

I recorded this 58-second video of the final star-of-the-show:

The artwork satisfies my endless search for Nature’s beauty, awe, inspiration, magic and wonder!

A fitting ending to my observation, reflections, photos, and brief videos from an afternoon woodland saunter!

Thoughts and Reflections

I offer these observations:

There is no result in nature without a cause; understand the cause and you will have no need of the experiment. (Leonardo da Vinci)
In retirement I am enriched by the freedom of time without pressures, restrictions, and deadlines. (Steve Jones)
In every walk with nature one receives far more than he seeks. (John Muir)

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

Note: All blog post images created & photographed by Stephen B. Jones unless otherwise noted. Please circulate images with photo credit: “©2025 Steve Jones, Great Blue Heron LLC. All Rights Reserved.”

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

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

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

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

Vision:

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

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

Steve’s Four Books

I wrote my books Nature Based Leadership (2016), Nature-Inspired Learning and Leading (2017), Weaned Seals and Snowy Summits: Stories of Passion for Place and Everyday Nature (2019; co-authored with Dr. Jennifer Wilhoit), and Dutton Land & Cattle: A Land Legacy Story (2023) 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. All four of my books present compilations of personal experiences expressing my deep passion for Nature. All four books offer observations and reflections on my relationship with the natural world… and the broader implications for society. Order any from your local indie bookstore, or find them on IndieBound or other online sources such as Amazon and LifeRich.

I began writing books and Posts for several reasons:

I love hiking and exploring 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 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

Brief-Form Post #44: January Fungi Discoveries along the CCC Trail at Alabama’s Joe Wheeler State Park

April 22, 2025/in Updates /by Steve Jones

Brief-Form Past #44

I am pleased to add the 44th of my GBH Brief-Form Posts (Less than five minutes to read!) to my website. I get wordy with my routine Posts. I don’t want my enthusiasm for thoroughness and detail to discourage readers. So, I will publish these brief Posts regularly.

January Fungi Discoveries

I spent January 23 and 24, 2025, at Joe Wheeler State Park primarily to learn more about the 1930s Wheeler Dam Village (housing construction workers and their families) and the 1930s to early 1950s Recreation Area remains along the CCC Trail on the hillside above Wheeler Dam overlooking Wilson Lake, which lies just downstream of Wheeler Dam. This photo essay reports on mushrooms I photographed as we performed our intended archeological pursuits.

I am not a mycologist. I am simply a fungi hobbyist and edible wild mushroom enthusiast. Lumpy bracket mushrooms densely occupy this fallen hickory. Their nearly luminescent whiteness evidences freshness; algae have not yet darkened their surfaces. They are not edible due to their hard, woody nature. Located within the old Recreation Area, English ivy proliferates as a ground cover. The ivy-mushroom combination (right) presents an aesthetic package.

This is another Trametes species (aesculi), which like lumpy bracket is a saprophyte (consumes dead wood). It is an agent of decomposition, not a parasite that infects and decays living trees.

Pseudoinonotus (dryadeus?) is a bracket fungus with inedible fibrous flesh. The genus commonly grows at the base of oak trees infected by its wood-consuming hyphae. My forest pathology professor would have characterized this genus as a disease when I took the course in 1972…more than a half-century ago. I admit to needing a forest pathology update! Just yesterday (I’m drafting this on April 9, 2025) I wandered through a bottomland hardwood forest on the Wheeler National Wildlife Refuge. Conks, brackets, burls, hollows, catfaces, rusts, scars, and and other disfigurements are ubiquitous. As with so much in Nature, the more I learn, the less I know!

What I do know is that a mushroom known as funeral bell is likely not edible!

And I do know that spore-ripe puffballs are fun for those of us who never age beyond finding mystery, joy, and amusement in the natural world. Einstein recognized the magic of wonder:

The most beautiful emotion we can experience is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion that stands at the cradle of all true art and science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer wonder and stand rapt in
awe, is as good as dead, a snuffled-out candle.

Poofing puffballs never grows tiresome…and I refuse to age beyond enjoying such a simple pleasure.

Sure, I understand the biological function of ripening puffballs and the reproductive necessity of spore dissemination. Perhaps most importantly, I also know the basic tenet of foraging and consuming puffballs: The inside of edible puffball mushrooms should be solid and pure white, like a marshmallow, or fresh mozzarella balls (eartheplanet.org). Lord, give me a wet field loaded with giant puffballs at the perfect stage of purity. I will do the rest with sharp knife, a light flour coating, seasoning salt, wide skillet, and sizzling butter. Oh, the wonders of Nature!

Closing

I accept the challenge of distilling these Brief-Form Posts into a single distinct reflection, a task far more elusive than assembling a dozen pithy statements. A single trek along a forested trail discloses only a brief moment in time, obscuring the decades prior and the future ahead, isolating us from the scope and scale of the grand forest cycle of life. Albert Einstein captured the sentiment I felt as we explored the Wonder of decay and renewal:

He who can no longer wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead, a snuffled-out candle.

Alabama State Parks Foundation

I’ll remind you that although I serve on the Alabama State Parks Foundation Board, in part because of my love of Nature and in recognition for my writing many prior Posts about visiting and experiencing the Parks, any positions or opinions expressed in these Posts are mine alone and do not in any manner represent the Foundation or its Board.

I urge you to take a look at the Foundation website and consider ways you might help steward these magical places: https://asparksfoundation.org/ Perhaps you might think about supporting the Parks System education and interpretation imperative: https://asparksfoundation.org/give-today#a444d6c6-371b-47a2-97da-dd15a5b9da76

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

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

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

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

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

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

Mid-February Gulf-Coastal Alabama Delights!

April 15, 2025/in Updates /by Steve Jones

Judy and I visited Alabama’s Gulf Coast on February 21 and 22, 2025, inhaling spring breezes, experiencing hints of the season’s first gentle vernal touches to Alabama’s south shore, and contemplating Hopkins Law tracking vernal progress north at 120 miles per week! I captured still images and brief videos of treasured elements of the season of renewal: Mobile’s live oaks; Fairhope’s Bay gusts and waving Spanish moss; Bellingrath’s lush gardens along the Fowl River; and laughing gulls congregating at the open maw of the Gulf of America.

Join me on this Yellowhammer State visual tour of early spring along both sides of Mobile Bay. In contrast to most of my weekly photo essays, this one incorporates little of my normal Nature interpretation and education.

Mobile (February 21, 2025)

Live oaks merit reverence for their unequalled beauty, awe, inspiration, magic, and wonder. No other tree species can enliven cityscapes like mature live oaks. New England American elms matched their elegance before the 1930 onset of imported Dutch elm disease. Other visitors may marvel at Mobile’s architecture; I see little beyond the majesty of her live oaks.

The Cathedral-Basilica of the Immacualte Conception, flanked by the beckoning arms of magnificent live oaks, literally drew me to her bosom. I felt the spirit of the trees and the blessed cathedral. A higher force engulfed me.

Please don’t permit the sound of city traffic to engulf you on my 33-second video of the nearly 200 year old cathedral:

The photos and video below require no narrative from me.

My 57-second video of the cathedral interior.

Individual live oaks and park squares with live oak groves stirred my soul.

Fairhope (February 21, 2025)

Unlike most visitors to Mobile that weekend, we decided to exit downtown before the afternoon Mardi Gras festivities. We drove east across the Bay to Fair Hope, a city that seems to recognize and amplify that its essential character and identity are Nature-based: its trees and gardens; Mobile Bay; the Gulf of America.

Here is the 58-second video I recorded on that breezy blue-bird afternoon.

Again, who needs my feeble narrative to spur wonder and appreciation? Spanish moss clings, sways, and inspires. Despite its moniker, spanish moss is neither a moss nor a native of Spain. It is an epiphytic flowering plant native to the southeastern USA.

I recorded this 50-second video of a Spanish mossy breeze.

A beutiful afternoon to catch a southern Alabama thrust of spring, catching the season as it surges northward at 120 miles per week (Hopkins Law).

Bellingrath Home and Garden (February 22, 2025)

As we departed our motel a few miles west of Mobile, a great blue heron bid us farewell from its perch atop a live oak.

We had not visited Bellingrath Home and Gardens since I served as Director of the Alabama Cooperative Extension Service (1996-2001). I recorded this 57-second video within the historic gardens. A Carolina wren and a distant shooting range competed for our audio attention. Try to block out the firearm discharges.

A deep South winter favorite, the camelia is an Asia native, adapted to our climate and endeared to southern gardeners..

I recorded this soothing 39-second video of the featured Bellingrath fountain.

Its water-music and nearby spreading live oaks set the Bellingrath mood of peace, traquility, and seasonal magic.

The home speaks the same language of the South.

My 59-second video along Fowl River further deepens the mood and magic.

On this cool mid-February day, I wondered how often Fowl River gators sun along this riverside flagstone path.

I captured the wonder of the estuary circuit with this 57-second video.

I love these extraordinarily productive southern Alabama ecosystems fueled by long warm summers, elevated humidity, and frequent tropical downpours.

A pleasant walkway loops the frshwater lake, offering yet another ecosystem element.

We left Bellingrath with plenty of time to explore Dauphin Island. The Gulf and its Nature treasues awaited!

Dauphin Island (February 22, 2025)

My iPhone navigator places my Madison, Alabama home 385 miles from Dauphin Island, or 3.21 weeks according to Hopkins Law of seasonal latitudinal transition. Hopkins Law also includes an elevation factor: one week per 700 feet. My 805-foot Madison elevation adds another 1.15 weeks to the northward sojourn. I reside 4.36 weeks north of Dauphin Island at sea level!

I felt like Dauphin’s laughing gulls were aiming their raucous hoots of delight at me for my next morning’s drive a month back into winter. I recorded this 43-second video of their mirth.

This individual countenanced a more sober face.

I wondered where the prodigious flocks of gulls seek shelter when the warm Gulf waters ignite tempests of fury. Even 400 miles north of this wild storm nursery, the Huntsville area receives 55 inches of liquid precipitation annually, much of it injected into southerly winds whisking evaporation from the Gulf. Here is my 57-second view of the Gulf from Fort Gaines. Northery breezes gave no hint of the power residing within tranquil waters.

Judy and I are not creatures of the sea shore. Judy claims to love the beach…except for the sand, heat, humidity, traffic, noise, and summer hordes of people. We view Februray as a good time to visit every couple of years.

Thoughts and Reflections

I offer these observations:

I am inspired by Nature’s panoply, her infinite variety of substance and expression. (Steve Jones)
A student of Nature knows enough to appreciate that he knows little. (Steve Jones)
We still do not know one thousandth of one percent of what nature has revealed to us. (Albert Einstein)

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

Note: Unless otherwise noted, all blog post images are created & photographed by Stephen B. Jones.

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

A reminder of my Personal and Professional Purpose, Passion, and Cause

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

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

Vision:

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

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

Steve’s Four Books

I wrote my books Nature Based Leadership (2016), Nature-Inspired Learning and Leading (2017), Weaned Seals and Snowy Summits: Stories of Passion for Place and Everyday Nature (2019; co-authored with Dr. Jennifer Wilhoit), and Dutton Land & Cattle: A Land Legacy Story (2025) 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. All four of my books present compilations of personal experiences expressing my deep passion for Nature. All four books offer observations and reflections on my relationship with the natural world… and the broader implications for society. Order any from your local indie bookstore, or find them on IndieBound or other online sources such as Amazon and LifeRich.

I began writing books and Posts for several reasons:

I love hiking and exploring 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 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

Mooresville, Alabama Cemetary: A New Dimension to Life and Death in the Forest! [Volume One]

April 8, 2025/in Updates /by Steve Jones

On March 8, 2025, at the request of local history buff Gilbert White, I visited the Mooresville, Alabama Cemetery as a group of a dozen friends of the 200-year-old graveyard (Madison History Association) cleared brush and storm debris. I snapped photographs and recorded brief videos to develop a photo essay with observations and reflections. I developed a tale of the multi-tiered web of life and death (Nature and Human) intersecting across this hallowed land, a permanent resting place for more than 100 deceased former residents. Volume One introduces the historic cemetery and sets the stage for the two succeeding volumes.

The story of Mooresville Cemetery encompasses several components:

The overlapping natural environment and human community over time and generations.
A deeper view into the elements of interaction and overlap.
The macabre (and lighter) dimension of an old forested cemetery.
Another story along the fledgling 200+ mile Singing River Trail.

I’d like you to please watch for subsequent Great Blue Heron photo essays (The Nature of the Singing River Trail) I will feature as whistle stops along the fledgling 200+-mile trail.

I viewed the burial ground as a provocative subject. The town is historic:

Historic Mooresville, Alabama is the first town incorporated by the Alabama Territorial Legislature, on November 16, 1818. The entire town is on the National Register of Historic Places, and is one of Alabama’s most important and intact villages. Historic homes and buildings, gracious gardens, and tree-shaded streets make a visit to Mooresville seem like a step back in time.

I beamed myself back to 1822, when the first documented burial took place on the grassy knoll three hundred yards southeast of the town. Young trees grace the heights, still too young to cast shade over memorial services. Albert Einstein granted me the means to travel back two centuries:

Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world.

I often speculate in these posts about the past from reading today’s forests. Borrowered from an online file, this image depicts the Mooresville Cemetery site as I picture its grassy knoll 200 years ago.

This monument welcomes visitors today. The background trees are not leaning to the south (left); I tilted the photograph to righten the leaning stone.

The crew labored for two hours. Their work made a dent in restoring order to a sunny hilltop long ago captured by time and a relentlessly advancing forest.

I often observe in these photo essays that life and death are constant, cyclical companions in our forests. Humans have added an overlapping dimension of life and death to the cemetery hilltop. The forest tells its own story. Each tombstone, every unmarked rectangular depression, and every echo of human memorial service, graveside visit, and fading memory, jubilation, and grief combine to reach across the two centuries. I felt the presence of others as I criss-crossed the knoll.

I wondered whether this fallen shagbark hickory bore witness to teary-eyed ceremonies, grieving loved ones, and soothing spring mornings.

I recorded this 57-second video of the uprooted tree:

I’ve studied our northern Alabama forests enough to know that neither the red oak (left) nor the shagbark hickory (right) witnessed the first 70-90 years of burials. They most likely were no more than seedlings or saplings when Wheeler Dam engineers closed the gates that flooded the adjacent Limestone Bay in the 1930s.

How many interred former Mooresville bones did this crashing oak rattle when it succumbed to undeafeated gravity?

What manner of disturbance did this decades-old hickory tree lightning blast create among the lingering spirits? Resident squirrels and other critters relying upon tree cavities celebrated as fungi infected and enlarged the wound and the tree survived the electrical insult. Life and death hand in hand — the cycle of renewal and demise persisting!

The cavity the critters appreciated served for how long…before the hollow they valued yielded to forces beyond the woody rind’s ability to hold the tree aloft?

Maria Rakoczy, The Madison Record news writer, worked feverishly with loppers across an area dominated by flat monuments.

Imagine the cleared summit view northwest into Mooresville (left) and southwest into Limestone Bay (fed by Limestone Creek, Mooresville Spring, Piney Creek, and Beaverdam Creek) two centuries ago. Mooresville’s checkerboard streets, homes, the brick church belltower, and the 200-acre Bay would have been visible, unobstructed by the invading forest. Today only the deep dormant season allows a glimpse without imagination.

I observe often that every tree and each forest grove has a story to tell. The tales told at the Mooresville Cemetery are overlain by layers of deep memories and generations past.

I recorded this 59-second video of a poignant, heart-rending tombstone message:

Margaret Alice Morris’ engraved tombstone (An angel visited the green earth and took the flower away) occupied a grassy hill (now a closed-canopy forest) above Limestone Bay.

As I said at the outset, the story of Mooresville Cemetery encompasses several components:

The overlapping natural environment and human community over time and generations.
A deeper view into the elements of interaction and overlap.
The macabre dimension of an old forested cemetery.
Another story along the fledgling 200+ mile Singing River Trail.

I’ve taken us through chapters one and part of two. I’ll begin Volume Two where this one ends.

The Nature of the Singing River Trail

The Singing River Trail will be a 200+ mile greenway system that strengthens regional bonds and creates new health and wellness, educational, economic, tourism, and entrepreneurial opportunities for the people and communities of North Alabama.

The SRT is headquartered just two miles west of the cemetery. The trail will prominently feature Mooresville. As a lifelong devotee of hiking/sauntering, running, biking, and Nature exploration, I envision anew Great Blue Heron weekly photo essay series focused on The Nature of the Singing River Trail. I will incorporate individual essays into my routine Posts that total approximately 450 to-date (archived and accessible at: https://stevejonesgbh.com/blog/). I offer this essay as an orientation to the new series.

Thoughts and Reflections

I offer these observations:

Life and death sustain a natural forest over time; a human cemetery within adds deeper complexity and layers of sentiment, emotion, and memories.
Natural processes overtake all traces of human habitation in the absence of intervention and maintenance. Even a north Alabama graveyard yields to forest.
It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see. I saw an aging forest and felt my own mortality, yet embraced the comprehension of both.

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

Note: Unless otherwise noted, all blog post images are created & photographed by Stephen B. Jones.

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

A reminder of my Personal and Professional Purpose, Passion, and Cause

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

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

Vision:

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

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

Steve’s Four Books

I wrote my books Nature Based Leadership (2016), Nature-Inspired Learning and Leading (2017), Weaned Seals and Snowy Summits: Stories of Passion for Place and Everyday Nature (2019; co-authored with Dr. Jennifer Wilhoit), and Dutton Land & Cattle: A Land Legacy Story (2025) 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. All four of my books present compilations of personal experiences expressing my deep passion for Nature. All four books offer observations and reflections on my relationship with the natural world… and the broader implications for society. Order any from your local indie bookstore, or find them on IndieBound or other online sources such as Amazon and LifeRich.

I began writing books and Posts for several reasons:

I love hiking and exploring 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 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

Abandoned TVA Recreation Area and Construction Village along the CCC Trail at Joe Wheeler State Park

April 2, 2025/in Updates /by Steve Jones

I revisited the CCC Historic Trail at Alabama’s Joe Wheeler State Park on January 23 and 24, 2025, to gather additional background on the 1930s Wheeler Dam Village (for construction crews and their families) and the 1930s to 1950 Recreation Area, both located on what is now State Park property along the CCC Trail. Nature is adept at covering her tracks under the debris of 75-90 years of forest growth!

Our north Alabama forests hide delights and mysteries, some natural and others relics of human impact and design. I’ve marveled at the hidden human artifacts along the trail above the Wheeler Dam on Joe Wheeler State Park since first trekking there in 2020: https://stevejonesgbh.com/wp-admin/post.php?post=7284&action=edit&classic-editor=1

Revisiting the Old Recreation Site at Joe Wheeler State Park

David Barr, Joe Wheeler State Park Assistant Superintendent, loaned me his copy of The Wheeler Project (US Government Printing Office 1940 book, The Wheeler Project, A Comprehensive Report on the Planning, Design, and Initial Operations), which describes the Recreation Area:

Within the reservation immediately south of the dam, the Authority [TVA], with the cooperation of the National Park Service and the Emergency Conservation Work program, developed two small areas for intensive recreation use. [The smaller is on the Wheeler Lake side of the primary dam road.] The larger of the two areas is located along the shoreline of Big Nance Creek and its junction with Wilson Lake, and consists of approximately 50 acres of heavily wooded land.

Facilities include a cherted access road [County Road 411], a parking area, a frame picnic shelter with twin fireplaces, a rustic overlook building, a latrine building, drinking fountains, tables, benches, and outdoor ovens, together with foot trails leading to various points of interest.

A National Park Service CCC camp constructed the facilities in these areas between April 1934 and November 1935. The areas are used extensively by individuals and local groups from the nearby and cities within a radius of 75 miles.

This excerpt warrants a few clarifying comments. What is now Joe Wheeler State Park remained in federal ownership until 1949, hence the narrative about the 1930s mentioning the National Park Service, CCC, and other federal agencies. The 1940 book narrative indicates that the recreation areas continued to operate through the date of publication. I’ve found no indication of a closure date. I assume that the responsible federal agency ceased operations before the state acquired the property in 1949, suggesting abandonment and subsequent neglect over three-quarters of a century.

TVA Recreation Area

When I first explored this area with Alabama State Parks Naturalist Emeritus Mike Ezell in 2020, this pathway carried the name Multi-Use Trail. Today, recognizing the significance of the Dam-era remains, it bears the Historic CCC Trail designation.

David strolls past the bathhouse (restrooms for male and female flanking the breezeway). Its days are rushing into full decay and collapse, a condition already achieved by the picnic pavillion (right), excepting its exquisite CCC stone masonry chimneys on both ends.

Pole lights once illuminated the Recreation Area (known as Big Nance Park), evidenced by the fixture we found buried in forest debris several hundred feet downhill.

Sewage and water utilities serviced Big Nance Park. Imagine WW II families refreshing at the stone drinking fountain

Wandering the CCC Trail flashes mental images of Mayan remains peering from tropical jungle growth. I wonder how long beyond some catostrophic end to human habitation would it take for Manhattan’s infrastructure to crumble to obscurity?

I recorded this 59-second video at the water fountain:

The bath house and pavillion connect to the observation overlook above Nance Creek Inlet via a flagstone pathway.

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This view of the overlook dates back to my May 11, 2023 (https://stevejonesgbh.com/2023/08/31/revisiting-the-old-recreation-site-at-joe-wheeler-state-park/) photo essay.

Joe WSP Naturlist Jennings Earnest provided the foreground above Wilson Lake. Although I failed to capture the image, we counted two dozen great blue herons fishing along the inlet (right).

The collapsing gazebo image hints at the exquisite workmanship of the CCC masons. Their work stands undiminished 90 years later. Time rushes on at precisely 24 hours per day. I am determined to assist the Alabama State Park System to retore these magnificent underlying structures to functionality. Their tale and heritage should reach generations into the future, and not be merely a photographic memory and a footnote to a forgotten chapter, today remembered by a few and eventually lost to dusty volumes.

I recorded this 58-second video of the once magnificent gazebo:

No trees obstructed the Wilson Lake 1940 view. No shade sheltered the picnic diners who sat on the sturdy wooden seats, long-since decayed.

Park caretakers see the possibilities…as do I. The stonework at right contained how many thousands of afternoon and evening firepalce meals, warming fires, and s’more roastings? Memories lay silently and wistfully at rest, only briefly stirred when we rare visitors stop by to ruminate on a winter afternoon.

We make no claim that our two-day exploration represented a serious, systematic archeological endeavor. We recognize that at heart we are naturalists and curious technicians hoping to pursue vigorously enough to see the tip of the iceberg (we know that much of the Camp Village and Recreation Area lies hidden beneath the surface), spur interest among Park staff, elected officials, groups and organizations, interested entities, foundations, allied agencies, philanthropers, and others, and ultimately see the vision of restoring the Village and Recreation Area.

Wheeler Dam Village

I had previously photographed the huge village outdoor barbeque double-pit, abandoned long enough that a three-foot diameter yellow poplar stands within the firepit!

We knew where to find it. We searched extensively around it knowing we would locate extensive nearby evidence of use and occupation. We found nothing.

I recorded this 59-second video as we began our Janurary 23-24 explorations:

As was the case near the cooking pits, we spent a lot more time looking than we did finding!

What we did find came in dribs and drabs: sheet metal, one-half steel drum, and concrete blocks. Teasers that more is there, but unfortunately in the complete book of the Village and Recreation Area, these are unconsolidated words, phrases, and shattered paragraphs. We sought complete sentences, full paragraphs, and even a chapter or two.

Okay, not all proved futile

I recorded this 36-second video as we unearthed the remains of a lower slope series of terraced bunk houses reportedly consumed by fire. Surely, somewhere there are newspaper, agency, or individual archival records of the fire? Might there be a University of North Alabama (or elsewhere) faculty or graduate student willing to pursue the tale? Can we secure funding to support such an effort?

Again, our results were varied and piecemeal: a shovel with handle long decayed and a rectangle of sheet metal.

Even a discarded pocelain toilet!

And an old pole light (shown below for the second time in this photo essay) hinting that the Village and Recreation Area enjoyed the conveniences of water, sewer, and electricity. We hurt to imagine the complex’s story remaining untold. Where are the records, volumes, and photographs stored? The Village housed thousands of residents over the years of dam construction. The Recreation Area served untold regional citizens from dam construction until about 1950…thousands of people across 12-17 years.

What more can a bunch of Nature enthusiasts discover? Are our efforts frozen like the Wilson Lake shoreside ice below Jennings?

I don’t want to give up. However, I know my limits. An observant man of his day (Mark Twain?) once observed:

A wise man knows the limit of his knowledge; a fool has no idea.

Albert Einstein spoke often of wisdom, knowledge, and stupidity:

The difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits.

Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I’m not sure about the former.

There is no vaccine against stupidity.

Don’t be too hard on me. Everyone has to sacrifice at the altar of stupidity from time to time.

David Barr, the senior Park staff member of our January team, offered some closing comments several weeks later:

TVA did operate or was over this area until the state purchased it. The Recreation Area was known as” Big Nance Park” in its heyday by locals. I’m not sure that was the official name or if it had one? Wheeler Dam Village was used by TVA after the completion of the dam to operate and house workers until 1949, to my knowledge. I’m not sure when TVA stopped utilities to the Recreation Area. I think there are a lot more secrets in the woods and surrounding fields that can give us more answers. I suggest we do some extensive map studies before our next venture. I hope maybe a metal detector will help us locate more village remains and utilities. I will notify you when I make some contacts.

We may yet find answers to our pressing questions.

Alabama State Parks Foundation

I’ll remind you that although I serve on the Alabama State Parks Foundation Board, in part because of my love of Nature and in recognition for my writing many prior Posts about visiting and experiencing the Parks, any positions or opinions expressed in these Posts are mine alone and do not in any manner represent the Foundation or its Board.

I urge you to take a look at the Foundation website and consider ways you might help steward these magical places: https://asparksfoundation.org/ Perhaps you might think about supporting the Parks System education and interpretation imperative: https://asparksfoundation.org/give-today#a444d6c6-371b-47a2-97da-dd15a5b9da76

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thoughts and Reflections

I offer these observations:

I think there are a lot more secrets in the woods and surrounding fields that can give us more answers. (David Barr)
More than we will ever know is hidden in plain sight, whether of human or Nature’s affairs. (Steve Jones)
As I continue to explore Nature, the more I learn, the less I know. (Steve Jones)
Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better. (Albert Einstein)

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

Note: All blog post images created & photographed by Stephen B. Jones unless otherwise noted. Please circulate images with photo credit: “©2025 Steve Jones, Great Blue Heron LLC. All Rights Reserved.”

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

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

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

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

Vision:

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

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

Steve’s Four Books

I wrote my books Nature Based Leadership (2016), Nature-Inspired Learning and Leading (2017), Weaned Seals and Snowy Summits: Stories of Passion for Place and Everyday Nature (2019; co-authored with Dr. Jennifer Wilhoit), and Dutton Land & Cattle: A Land Legacy Story (2023) 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. All four of my books present compilations of personal experiences expressing my deep passion for Nature. All four books offer observations and reflections on my relationship with the natural world… and the broader implications for society. Order any from your local indie bookstore, or find them on IndieBound or other online sources such as Amazon and LifeRich.

I began writing books and Posts for several reasons:

I love hiking and exploring 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 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

January Natural Delights along the CCC Trail at Joe Wheeler State Park

March 27, 2025/in Updates /by Steve Jones

I spent January 23 and 24, 2025 at Joe Wheeler State Park primarily to learn more about the 1930s Wheeler Dam Construction Village and 1930s to early 1950s Recreation Area remains along the CCC Trail on the hillside above Wheeler Dam overlooking Wilson Lake, which lies just downstream of Wheeler Dam. This photo essay reports on the natural delights my colleagues and I discovered and chronicled as we performed our intended archeological pursuits.

We found some of what we were seeking, and as Henry David Thoreau observed, so much more…and that in itself is a delight:

The question is not what you look at, but what you see.

We unintentionally scheduled a cold day, locating an intact frost flower as we began our CCC Trail exploration a little after noon. Fascination propagates from every find; magic lies hidden in plain sight to all woodland saunterers!

Waves rippled Wislon Lake as northwest winds fueled the clear winter day. I imagined a similar day 90 years prior as workmen labored to build the dam. The forest is approximately the same age as the dam.

Individual trees, like these oaks above the Nance Creek Bay, provided shade for a concrete picnic table, its wooden seats long since decayed:

We identified several specimens of Kentucky yellowwood (Cladrastic kentuckea), which according to an online source is one of the rarest trees of eastern North America, found principally on the limestone cliffs of Kentucky, Tennessee, and North Carolina. The source indicated that yellowood native to Alabama have leaves more densely hairy underneath than those from furth north, distinguished as f. tomentosa. The species is new to me, at leaste as far as I recall.

Woodland delights come in nearly endless variety. Leonardo da Vinci observed simply that:

There is no result in nature without a cause.

I refuse to attribute such tree form oddities and curiosities to will or reason. The sugar maple sapling had no purpose other than to survive and propagate beyond the injury (a falling branch…a strangling vine?) that triggered the main stem and a spurred branch to reach vertically toward the sun and its sustaining rays.

Muscadine grape vines rely on their flexibility, strength, and suppleness to stay aloft in the high wind-swaying tree canopy. Their cause is to adapt to their motion-dominated environment, retaining a tree-provided full sunlight perch, and thrive for succeeding generations.

A higher power may have considered the aesthetic appeal to human woodland saunterers. Grape vines are among my forest delights.

I consider my doctoral discipline as an amalgam of applied ecology, soil science, and forestry (An Evaluation of Soil-Site Relationshps in Allegheny Hardwoods — Ph.D. Dissertation). Not surprisingly, I find soil and its nature and processes delightful! The sites I studied in the 70-90-year-old-second-growth forests of southwest New York and northwest Pennsylvania evidenced the pit-and-mound, hummock-and-hollow, and pillow-and-cradle microtopography that is likewise common across our northern Alabama forests. A maturing tree grasping its root ball yields to windthrow, lifting its soil mass from the excavated basin, as in the two exapmles below, where Alabama State Parks Northwest District Naturalist Amber Coger crouches in a pit/hollow/cradle (left) or stands triumphantly on a mound/hummock/pillow (right).

So long as I wander our woods I will not tire of seeing quality (high commerciel value) standing timber. Josh Kennum, technician at Joe Wheeler State Park, serves as a reference scale to a magnificent cherrybark oak. The old industrial forester within me resurfaces at will.

Yes, I still find delight with straight bole, three 16-foot logs to the first branch, sound wood, and hefty girth — a timeless delight!

What is not timeless is the old forester (me) standing with a magnificent yellow poplar (left) and a handsome cherrybark oak (right).

Age adds its own special delight factor to the ancient American beech within 100 feet of the 200-foot wide power line transmitting hydro-power from Wheeler Dam.

Fellow retired forester Chris Stuhlinger and I struggled to identify the tree species for this large dead standing tree-delight. Its three-foot plus diameter and large collapsed crown drew us closer. We concurred that the outer bark resembled American elm. The inner bark confused us…brittle with a rough cured leather appearance.

Because we needed to focus on our focused pursuit of the abandoned Village and Recreation Area, we decided the tree warrants deeper examination in the coming spring.

No doubt, the elm is an object of delight.

I recorded this 43-second video of Chris at the elm:

This laurel cherry met my delight criteria, a relative rarity and foreign to my previous woodland discoveries.

I gathered this gouty oak gall for examining and photographing at home. How could one not find delight in a small wasp ovipositing in an oak twig, triggering woody growth to shelter and feed the wasp’s larvae as they grow and transition to wasp adulthood? Nature is truly amazing and delightful.

I discovered this menagerie in just two days when we focused our direct attention on our primary objective. This photo essay reports on the natural delights my colleagues and I discovered and chronicled as we performed our intended archeological pursuits.

We found some of what we were seeking, and as Henry David Thoreau observed, so much more…and that in itself is a delight:

The question is not what you look at, but what you see.

I delighted in seeing all that open exploration afforded trained eyes, curious minds, and shared passion for Nature’s beauty, magic, wonder, awe, and inspiration!

Alabama State Parks Foundation

I’ll remind you that although I serve on the Alabama State Parks Foundation Board, in part because of my love of Nature and in recognition for my writing many prior Posts about visiting and experiencing the Parks, any positions or opinions expressed in these Posts are mine alone and do not in any manner represent the Foundation or its Board.

I urge you to take a look at the Foundation website and consider ways you might help steward these magical places: https://asparksfoundation.org/ Perhaps you might think about supporting the Parks System education and interpretation imperative: https://asparksfoundation.org/give-today#a444d6c6-371b-47a2-97da-dd15a5b9da76

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thoughts and Reflections

I offer these observations:

I delighted in seeing all that open exploration afforded trained eyes, curious minds, and shared passion for Nature’s beauty, magic, wonder, awe, and inspiration!
The question is not what you look at, but what you see. (Henry David Thoreau)
There is no result in nature without a cause. (Leonardo da Vinci)
In retirement I am enriched by the freedom of time without pressures, restrictions, and deadlines. (Steve Jones)

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

Note: All blog post images created & photographed by Stephen B. Jones unless otherwise noted. Please circulate images with photo credit: “©2025 Steve Jones, Great Blue Heron LLC. All Rights Reserved.”

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

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

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

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

Vision:

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

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

Steve’s Four Books

I wrote my books Nature Based Leadership (2016), Nature-Inspired Learning and Leading (2017), Weaned Seals and Snowy Summits: Stories of Passion for Place and Everyday Nature (2019; co-authored with Dr. Jennifer Wilhoit), and Dutton Land & Cattle: A Land Legacy Story (2023) 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. All four of my books present compilations of personal experiences expressing my deep passion for Nature. All four books offer observations and reflections on my relationship with the natural world… and the broader implications for society. Order any from your local indie bookstore, or find them on IndieBound or other online sources such as Amazon and LifeRich.

I began writing books and Posts for several reasons:

I love hiking and exploring 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 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

Brief Form Post #43 — January Afternoon Saunter along the Beaverdam Creek Boardwalk

March 18, 2025/in Updates /by Steve Jones

Brief-Form Post #43

I am pleased to add the 43rd of my GBH Brief-Form Posts (Less than five minutes to read!) to my website. I get wordy with my routine Posts. I don’t want my enthusiasm for thoroughness and detail to discourage readers. So, I will publish these brief Posts regularly.

On January 17, 2025, fellow retired forester Chris Stuhlinger and I visited Beaverdam Creek Boardwalk, a National Natural Landmark at Wheeler National Wildlife Refuge near Huntsville, Alabama. Accept this Post as a visual photo essay, rich with dormant season imagery and light on science-based interpretation. Take a relaxing saunter through the forest with us. Flow with our boardwalk pace; view our stroll as a forest bathing. I offer this brief-form post with 16 photos and five less-than-one-minute videos, keeping my narrative intentionally abbreviated.

The tupelo stand pulls us in…and up!

I recorded this 58-second video tour among crowded stems, slanted sunrays, and mesmerizing crowns.

The boardwalk ends at Beaverdam Creek flowing toward Limestone Bay and Lake Wheeler.

I never tire of the endless reflections afforded the patient viewer and the soulful thinker. The placid water surficial images reward me visually and fill me with spiritual and emotional fuel.

I recorded this 58-second video of sunshine filling the tupelo forest.

Some tree seeds (like maple) are wind-blown. Oak trees rely upon squirrels for seed dispersal. Birds scatter cherry seeds. Tupelo seeds lie thick on the forest floor, awaiting winter rains filling the swamp to lift them into floating mats, transporting them downstream.

I recorded this 58-second video of Beaverdam Creek at the boardwalk’s terminus.

Leonardo da Vinci recognized the true Nature of water 500 years ago:

Water is the driving force of all nature.

Tree Oddities and Curioisities

Persimmon trees occupy a wide range of site types, from well-drained uplands to the bottomland forests adjacent to the tupelo swamp. Their dark blocky bark, complemented by the regimented horizontal yellow-bellied sapsucker drill holes, fascinates me, pleasing my eyes and warming my heart. Visual delicacy made all the more sweet by fall persimmon fruit suitable for all manner of wildlife as well as human wanderers.

Shouting a subtle do-not-touch alert, this thick mane of poison ivy air roots suffices even absent the “shiny leaves of three” growing season warning.

The ancient tupelo trees populating the swamp are declining, decay advancing at pace (perhaps faster) than the annual rate of stem diameter increment. Life and death spar, advance, and retreat in our north Alabama forests. This magnificent tupelo forest will one day yield to the inevitable undefeated forces of Nature.

However, there will be no end…only a new beginning…a cycle without completion.

Fungal Friends

Decay and decomposition carry the burden of cleanup, recycling organic matter from carbon residue to the stuff of new life. Stinking orange oyster fungus is just one species of fungus performing the forest floor heavy lifting!

This 47-second video captures its magic.

I can’t resist more photos of stinking oyster mushrooms, its moniker worthy of repeated exposure.

These standard white/pearl oyster mushrooms are one of my culinary favorites. Collection of any sort within the protected National Natural Landmark is prohibited. Taking photos is permissible!

Here is my 23-second video of the edible oyster mushrooms.

The towering tupelo trees throughout our forests, the hollowing aging trunks, the seed mats, and the vibrant decomposing fungi remind us that life and death are at play

Closing

I accept the challenge of distilling these Brief-Form Posts into a single distinct reflection, a task far more elusive than assembling a dozen pithy statements. A single trek along a forested trail discloses only a brief moment in time, obscuring the decades prior and the future ahead, isolating us from the scope and scale of the grand forest cycle of life. Henry David Thoreau captured the sentiment I felt as we explored the Wonder of decay and renewal:

Not until we are lost do we begin to understand ourselves.

A Unique Forest at Prattville, Alabama’s Wilderness (Bamboo) Park

March 12, 2025/in Updates /by Steve Jones

On December 17, 2024, Judy and I visited Pratville’s Alabama’s Wilderness Park. We resided in Prattville from 1981 to early 1985, when our two children were still under ten. We visited the park occasionally during that period and decided that while in the Montgomery area, we should stop by the 30-acre preserve. Our kids are now a few weeks shy of 46 and 48. We were 40 years younger the last time we walked the trails.

A welcoming sign at the trailhead reads:

Plant life unfamiliar to most Southerners flourishes in this now protected environment. The bamboo reaches dramatic heights much like the magnificent bamboo habitats of the Panda of China… In 1940 the land was passed to Floyd Smith…the owner who placed the bamboo plants in the area. He had a love of exotic plants and acquired the bamboo shoots from a Washington Import firm.

When I lived in Prattville, I was Land Manager for Union Camp Corporation, responsible for 320,000 acres of company-owned forestland located loosely along a line from Clanton to Brewton. I loved those intensively managed forests that in part supplied wood and fiber to company mills. I recall viewing Wilderness Park as little more than a curiosity…a neat place to take the kids. I see it now as a trial…a test of transplanting a foreign biome to Alabama. The bamboo stands as a nearly impenetrable wall along the path.

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I have referred to this as a bamboo forest, but bamboo is not a tree. Instead, it is technicallya perennial evergreen grass. I’ll leave the description there, urging the curious reader to dig more deeply online.

I recorded this 59-second video within the bamboo forest:

Native tree species intermix within the dense bamboo thicket, rising 20+ feet above the tallest bamboo, which are clearly not reducing sunlight available to the super dominant loblolly pine (left) and yellow poplar (right). The battle for soil nutrients and moisture is likely intense.

Sections of the preserve are pure bamboo.

The 80 year-old mixed bamboo and native tree species plant cover effectively blocks any penetrating sunlight from the forest floor.

My 59-second video presents the bamboo forest from the trail as we approached the pond:

I admit fascination with the segmented stems, smooth surface, and straight poles. Fascinated yes, but not enthralled as I am with the myriad bark patterns and color of a diverse stand of native hardwoods.

Almost invisible to my naked eye as I walked past, this white-banded fishing spider tolerated me coming close enough for a clear photo.

The path circuiting the bamboo pond is worn smooth and vegetation-free, exposing the adjoining hardwwod roots. Bamboo stems reflect clearly in the satin water, among the tumbled hardwood branches.

Bamboo shoots crowd the pond-berm pathway.

The pond welcomes full sunlight to an otherwise deeply shaded preserve. Turtles embrace the mid-December warmth

Just like the grapevines reaching into our native hardwood canopies, these hefty stalwarts extend well above the Asian bamboo.

Wisteria (the bare vine at left) also reaches into the main canopy. Green English ivy leaves adorn the smaller vines that carry thick air roots (especially in the image at right).

I recorded this 59-second video of a massive cord of wisteria vines lifting through the hardwood tree above the bamboo.

Another sylvan curiosity, each species of wisteria always coils in the same direction, these two spiraling upward clockwise (from the perspective of looking up from the base).

Does its spiral in Pratville reveal anything about its species identity? The answer is, yes! I devoted a May 2022 photo essay (https://stevejonesgbh.com/2022/05/25/exploring-the-spiral-nature-of-northern-alabamas-tree-vines/) to exploring the spiral nature of our northern Alabama vines. These Pratville wisteria vines are American wisteria.

Upon returning home, I learned that a diagnostic character of Japanese wisteria (Wisteria floribunda) is its counterclockwise spiraling. American wisteria spirals clockwise.

Alan S. Weakley, North Carolina based expert on southern flora, wrote this about the direction of spiral: Twining direction can be determined by looking at (or imagining) the vine twining around a branch or pole. Look at the pole or branch from the base (from the direction from which the vine is growing). If the vine is circling the branch or pole in a clockwise direction, that is dextrorse; if counterclockwise, that is sinistrorse.

So, the direction of spiral is not owing to an environmental factor; it’s genetically determined. Now the question is why the direction is hard-wired. Is there some evolutionary advantage in one way or the other deep in the genetic footprint? If so, why do Wisteria americana and frutescens twine in the opposite direction from their Asian cousin?

I hope that my waning mind can cling to the terms dextrorse (clockwise) and sinistrorse (counter clockwise).

I enter Nature embracing what I consider five essential verbs: Believe, Look, See, Feel, and Act.

- Believe: I find Nature’s Lessons because I know they lie hidden within view — belief enables me to look and see
- Look: Really look, with eyes open to your surroundings, external to electronic devices and the distractions of meaningless noise and data
- See: Be alert to see deeply, beyond the superficial
- Feel: See clearly, with comprehension, to find meaning and evoke feelings
- Act: Feel emphatically enough to spur action

Most hikers and recreational trekkers walk through Nature, rather than within it. I’ve seen far too many people walking blindly, focused on whatever is blaring through their earbuds, or engrossed in banal iPone conversation. Henry David Thoreau offered similar wisdom:

It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see.

I am certain that Thoreau would have noticed the direction of spiral. Leonardo da Vinci would have concluded that Nature has a purpose for every subtle distinction. Life is rich with mystery, and yet for every cause, Nature steers exclusively with impetus and basis.

Thoughts and Reflections

I offer these observations:

Although foreign species may alter our place impression, the underlying land is unchanged.
The large intermixed native hardwoods evidence a fertile soil-site, nutrient-rich and moisture-blessed in a favorable southern clime.
It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see.

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

Note: Unless otherwise noted, all blog post images are created & photographed by Stephen B. Jones.

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

A reminder of my Personal and Professional Purpose, Passion, and Cause

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

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

Vision:

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

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

Steve’s Four Books

I wrote my books Nature Based Leadership (2016), Nature-Inspired Learning and Leading (2017), Weaned Seals and Snowy Summits: Stories of Passion for Place and Everyday Nature (2019; co-authored with Dr. Jennifer Wilhoit), and Dutton Land & Cattle: A Land Legacy Story (2025) 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. All four of my books present compilations of personal experiences expressing my deep passion for Nature. All four books offer observations and reflections on my relationship with the natural world… and the broader implications for society. Order any from your local indie bookstore, or find them on IndieBound or other online sources such as Amazon and LifeRich.

I began writing books and Posts for several reasons:

I love hiking and exploring 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 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

Perfect Autumn Morning Hiking at Hickory Cove Nature Preserve

March 6, 2025/in Updates /by Steve Jones

On November 23, 2024, fellow retired forester Chris Stuhlinger and I co-led an OLLI (Osher Lifelong Learning Institute, University of Alabama in Huntsville) hike at Hickory Cove Nature Preserve near Huntsville. Owned and managed by the Land Trust of North Alabama, the preserve encompasses 146 acres of second-growth hardwood forest, rocky ledges, wet weather springs and falls, and a historic spring house. I previously visited the preserve in late July 2024 (just before my total right knee replacement surgery) accompanied by my two Alabama grandsons (see my September 10, 2024, Great Blue Heron photo essay: https://stevejonesgbh.com/2024/09/10/trees-of-the-hickory-cove-nature-preserves-legacy-loop-trail/).

Because Chris and I designated this trek as a Hike, our pace did not accommodate the sauntering that John Muir insisted upon and that my photography, videoing, and observations required. As a result, I caught up with the group only occasionally when they paused and at the end! Once in a while, someone would lag with me. I valued their presence but am accustomed to and comfortable with solitary treks. The group hiked (I sauntered) the 1.75-mile Legacy Trail, a delightful forest exploration from 860 feet elevation to 1,010 and return. Come along with me as I offer observations, reflections, 19 photos, and four brief videos.

The deck overlooks an old stone spring house. Justust 100 feet dowstream a stone water trough engineered after decades to still collect and hold water to the brim. Autumn does not barge into north Alabama. Even within a week of December, the crowns are not yet bare. The spring houuse tells part of the land domestication tale. Somewhere nearby, the wooden residence and farm structures served by the spring house lay in ruins (ashes?). Perhaps closer inspection would reveal a long-abandoned and decaying still.

A sauntering pace permitted me to seek and spend a little time with tree form curiosities and oddities. This white oak spoke to me, “Slow down old forester. Pay attention. Ponder why I am so large, aged, and of coarse limb.” I heeded his request (was it a demand?). Evidence and hints within the forest suggested former attempted domestication, including roughland tillage and pasturing. The white oak is considerably older than the forest we traversed. It enjoyed many years open grown, its coarse branch stubs indicating that it did not mature within a tightly packed closed forest. Was it a shade tree at the old homestead or within a hillside pasture? On my next visit I will search for clues.

Woody vines, like this supplejack, are a component of the overstory canopy in most of our north Alabama second-growth forests. Birds drop gut-scarified seed among the brush of a new forest, and ride on the growing stems as the eventual tree winners ascended 60, 80, and 100 (or more) feet above. Most commonly I find wild grape (muscadine and scuppernong); supplejack and wisteria also find their way into the canopy by the same route. English ivy (not native) and Virginia creeper may also be present but seldomly reach beyond mid-canopy.

I like the smooth green bark of supplejack. An online source offers high praise for this native woody vine:

Supplejack is a plant that provides food for wildlife. Its fruits are high in calcium and are eaten by songbirds, wild turkey, northern bobwhite, raccoon, and gray squirrels. The plant supports local ecosystems without disrupting them.

I recorded this 52-second supplejack video:

Once in a while the sauntering old forester caught up with the hikers just in time for them, well rested, to resume their faster pace. Some stretches of the preserve’s forest were better stocked, supporting taller mixed upland hardwoods (at right) still holding fall foliage.

I recorded this 44-second video of the group resuming its quicker pace, leaving me once again to my business of gathering fodder for a photo essay.

Fallen, standing dead, and failing live Eastern red cedar throughout the preserve evidenced past land use. Cedar is a north Alabama pioneer species, one of the first woody plants to colonize abandoned fields and pastures, as well as cutover forestland. You’ve heard the familiar refrain — birds deposit the scarified seeds in emerging brush. The seed sprouts, the seedlings thrive in the sun-rich environment, cedar dominates the stand’s first three to four decades, and then cedar begins to fade as the surrounding longer-lived hardwoods persist.

I recorded this 41-second video of the scrubby forest and a handsome ash tree, as a woodpecker tapped nearby:

I like the uniformly deeply furrowed pattern of green and white ash bark. Everything about the two species is regimented: the exceptional bark, the straight bole, and the species’ regal bearing and vertical posture. Ash trees remind me of the polished cadet corps at a military academy. In stark contrast, the shagbark trees are akin to a gathering of beach bums, their hair unkempt and their clothes and posture of little self-concern. The ash generates a glance of admiration and respect. The shagbark pulls me close for deep contemplation, whimsical imagination, and curiosity about the relative evolutionary advantages of the two forms.

The questions and musings aren’t suited to the hiker; the burden of discovery and investigation falls to the saunterer.

The group paused on the other side of a wooden bridge crossing a wet weather spring. Once again well rested, the group accepted my arrival as a trigger to resume their hiking.

Nearby, I recorded this 54-second video of two relicts (white oak and shagbark hickory) from a previous stand:

As with the white oak near the traihead, both of these indviduals bear coarse branching, large size, and a high crown ratio.

I discovered another tree form curiosity. A mockernut hickory stands within the grasp of a ground-forked sugar maple.

Will they prevail as a threesome? How intense is their competition for crown space (i.e. sunshine), soil moisture and nutrients, and even space for trunk expansion?

Although I have read some fanciful scientific recitations expounding on the wonderful and commonplace reciprocity, comensualism, and cooperation of Nature’s lifeforms, I resist such utopian scenarios. The sugar maple and hickory embrace above is not one of love and endearment. It’s one of coping with the unusual circumstance of both seeds germinating within a few inches and the two plants (the sugar maple I believe is a single forked tree) securing enough of life’s requirements to survuve for six to eight decades. They are engaged in fierce competition for those finite life resources. However, all three stems appear healthy; they are producing seed; their immediate future appears bright. I see no competitive advantage to such close proximity. I don’t anticipate out-living their proximal relationship. I can pledge only to spend more time with them on my next visit. Perhaps they will enlighten me in their own way.

I seldom compose my reflections and observations from these woodland rambles without generating more questions than answers. Rather than closing these pages with words of deep wisdom, I leave you with an image of pleasant woodland surroundings fitting for a late November midday…an invitation to return seeking insight and understanding from the forest. Every tree, every stand, and every forest have stories to tell. I’m still learning the language.

Thoughts and Reflections

I offer these observations:

Questions and musings aren’t suited to the hiker; the burden of discovery and investigation falls to the saunterer.
Every tree, every stand, and every forest have stories to tell. I’m still learning the language.
Ash trees remind me of the polished cadet corps at a military academy. In stark contrast, the shagbark trees are akin to a gathering of beach bums, their hair unkempt and their clothes and posture of little self-concern.

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

Note: Unless otherwise noted, all blog post images are created & photographed by Stephen B. Jones.

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

A reminder of my Personal and Professional Purpose, Passion, and Cause

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

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

Vision:

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

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

Steve’s Four Books

I wrote my books Nature Based Leadership (2016), Nature-Inspired Learning and Leading (2017), Weaned Seals and Snowy Summits: Stories of Passion for Place and Everyday Nature (2019; co-authored with Dr. Jennifer Wilhoit), and Dutton Land & Cattle: A Land Legacy Story (2023) 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. All four of my books present compilations of personal experiences expressing my deep passion for Nature. All four books offer observations and reflections on my relationship with the natural world… and the broader implications for society. Order any from your local indie bookstore, or find them on IndieBound or other online sources such as Amazon and LifeRich.

I began writing books and Posts for several reasons:

I love hiking and exploring 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 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