forest succession Archives - Page 2 of 3 - Steve Jones Great Blue Heron

Halloween Forest of Rare Smoketrees (Cotinus obovatus) on Green Mountain Nature Preserve!

December 16, 2024/in Updates /by Steve Jones

I don’t recall ever seeing our north Alabama native smoketree (Continus obovatus) nor learning about it so many years ago when I took Dendrology in 1970. The species does range as far north as West Virginia, much less where I began my undergraduate studies in western Maryland. I didn’t know what to expect when fellow retired forester Brian Bradley offered to introduce me to smoketrees at what he believed to be the largest smoketree stand in America, on the North Alabama Land Trust’s Green Mountain Nature Preserve.

On October 25, 2024, Brian and I met at the Astalot Trailhead and walked the couple of hundred feet to the Green Mountain Trail and then slowly ascended from 800 feet to 1,100. A little more than nine weeks after total right knee replacement surgery, I had achieved perhaps 60 percent strength, stability, and confidence. I intend to return in spring when the species in full flower earns its smoketree moniker. Our October venture took us into the macabre stand that I dubbed the Halloween Forest, timely just a week before the spooky day.

Our trek traversed a portion of the North section of the 818 acre preserve in South Huntsville. We are fortunate to have such an active Land Trust. Although I’ve heard several fellow Madison, Alabama nature enthusiasts express consternation that most of the Trust’s preserves lie east of Huntsville, the reason is painfully obvious. The Cumberland Plateau lifts the local topography from the 555′ elevation of Lake Wheeler through the average valley floor at Huntsville of 800′ to the 1,600′ summit of Monte Sano. Most of Madison, Alabama and points west into Limestone County have been in agricultural production for two centuries. The best we can do in the Tennessee Valley physiographic province is to eke some costly purse from a sow’s ear. Silk purses of natural beauty and forest wildness already exist naturally in the rugged Plateau terrain. The Trust did not need to convert the Green Mountain Nature Preserve from agriculture, an old borrow pit, a prior industrial site, or an abandoned quarry. See my June 2024 photo essay exploring the idea of creating such a silk purse from the abandoned Madison Limestone Quarry (https://stevejonesgbh.com/2024/06/18/perpetual-wasteland-or-future-preserve-madison-alabamas-abandoned-limestone-quarry/).

The two maps track the path we ascended. I believe we made it to about the south end of the grey shaded parcel on the upper map.

The map below depcits greater topographic detail.

Brian assisted with trail construction over the past two years. I consider the design and construction superb. Well-placed large heavy stones assured a smooth surface suitable for an old forester recovering from knee surgery. This wall stands three feet above the ground level beneath it. Those stones were not for the faint of heart.

I relished returning to forest wanderings, appreciating the tremendous Nature-Buoyed Aging and Healing, lifting me in body, mind, heart, soul, and spirit. How can we place value on early autumn sunshine streaming through the yellowing hardwood crowns? Or the signature scaling bark of a shagbark hickory?

Or the fading green leaves of the first smoketrees I have ever knowingly encountered. Who says an old dog (or forester) can’t learn some new tricks!? I felt the thrill of meeting a native tree species new to me, sparking a primal, spiritual nerve deep within my forester heart, mind, and even soul. Einsteing new the feeling and, I imagine, experienced it often:

In every true searcher of Nature there is a kind of religious reverence.

The Halloween Forest moniker rushed into my mind. How could I call it anything else? Early European settlers saw the eastern forests where they landed variously as dark and foreboding, foul and repugnant, and populated by savage beasts. The Legend of Sleepy Hollow surfaces similar sinister apparitions. I can only imagine what a nightime traveler, lubricated by several drams of adult beverage, wandering these sideslopes along a lonely pathway, riding his faithful steed, might encounter erupting from the shadows.

I felt hair rising on the back of my neck even in the bright autumn sun. Okay, I’m fueling my imagination. Einstein encouraged such figmental ministrations:

I am enough of the artist to draw freely upon my imagination. Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world.

Enough of imagination. An online NC State Extension source enlightens us on our spooky smoketree:

American smoketree is native to the southern United States, growing in the rocky mountain soils from Kentucky, Tennessee, and northern Alabama westward to Oklahoma. Growth can also be found in central Texas. Its native habitat includes limestone glades and rocky limestone bluffs on north or east facing slopes. It is a medium-maintenance small tree or upright shrub in the Anacardiaceae family. It prefers a well-drained infertile loam soil in the full sun but does tolerate a wide range of soils including clay and shallow rocky soil. The sap from American Smoketree has a strong odor.

The name smoketree comes not from the 6′-10″ flower clusters (green-yellow, insignificant, dioecious) which bloom in the summer, but from the airy smoky pink to pink-purple hairs on the spent flower clusters that give the tree a hazy, smoke-like puffy appearance. The summer “smoke” display makes this a striking accent plant. It also produces some of the best fall color of the native American trees and shrubs. It looks great massed or planted at the back of a shrub border. It does use a fair amount of water, especially in dry conditions. This plant is resistant to damage by deer.

The wood from this plant was used as fence posts, tool handles and for making yellow dye.

I recorded this 60-second smoketree video along the Green Mountain Trail:

The trunks are convoluted, tortured, gnarly, and appeared weathered.

Often multiple-stemmed, some trunks are covered in flaky bark.

Others are deeply fissured with distinct ridges and valleys. Each element emphasizes the Halloween image.

I found it hard with superficial examination to distinguish snags from living trees. The top on the ground at right doesn’t look much different from standing individuals. I am eager to return when I am more mobile than I was in late October. I will inspect much more cosely.

I had never seen anything like the tree’s yellow wood!

At the risk of you reading words repeated, I loved the beauty, magic, wonder, awe, and inspiration of this unique Halloween Forest of American Smoketree!

Thoughts and Reflections

I offer these observations:

I am enough of the artist to draw freely upon my imagination. Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world. (Albert Einstein)
In every true searcher of Nature there is a kind of religious reverence. (Einstein)
I have no special talent. I am only passionately curious. (Einstein)
Introduced to a native tree species new to me, I am transported back to my forestry youth. (Steve Jones)

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

Note: Unless otherwise noted, all blog post images are created & photographeerved.”

And Third: I am availabd by Stephen B. Jones. Please circulate images with photo credit: “©2024 Steve Jones, Great Blue Heron LLC. All Rights Resle 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

Brief-Form Post #38: Tangles, Loops, and Vines in the Hardwood Canopy on Monte Sano

December 13, 2024/in Updates /by Steve Jones

Brief-Form Post #38: Woodland Delights!

I am pleased to add the 38th 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.

Grapevine Bonanza!

Alabama State Park Northwest District Naturalist Amber Coger and I hiked the Wells Memorial Trail at Monte Sano State Park on December 4, 2024. We found multiple woodland delights: massive grapevines, incredible mature puffball mushrooms, and a landscape of sinks, pits, mounds, hummocks, and hollows. The aggregate would have overwhelmed a single Great Blue Heron photo essay. Instead, I offer three distinct Brief-Form essays, this one focusing on the grapevine marvels.

The maturing second-growth hardwood forest on the upper slopes along the Sinks Trail shares its upper canopy with numerous large native grapevines. The grapevines do not climb the trees; instead, they grow vertically with the trees, clinging and hitching a ride as the tree extends vertically. Imagine grape seeds deposited by birds in the brushy bramble of a recently harvested forest among seedlings of black locust, Eastern red cedar, hickories, oaks, and others. The grapevines wrap their tendrils among the leafy leaders of the trees reaching year-by-year heavenward, ensuring their position high in the forest canopy 90 years hence.

I recorded this 53-second video at the first tangle we encountered on the middle-upper slope a quarter mile below the Bikers Pavillion.

This vine produced a peculiar curlicue, a mirthful expression 40 feet above the ground. The Sinks Trail is well used by hikers, joggers, and bikers, most too consumed by through-passing to notice, much less pay attention to, the wonders around and above them. As Thoreau observed, and I paraphrase, I have no time to be in a hurry. Life is too short to miss the marvels in front of my nose!

One of my roles as a senior educator, old forester, and mentor to less seasoned Nature interpreters is to open their eyes to the Nature magic that lies hidden in plain sight. I am confident that Amber sees the delights, is intent upon understanding the wonder, and is dedicated to interpreting the mysteries to stir imagination and appreciation among state park visitors, young and old.

This 58-second video presents another cluster of massive vines within a few hundred feet of the first.

Unlike the oak that supports it, this six-inch diameter grapevine serves only as conduit for transporting the stuff of life (water and nutrients) up from the roots and carbohydates down to the roots.

I’ve puzzled for years over the tree/vine relationship. Clearly the vine benefits by positioning its foliar crown in the upper reaches where, for the life of the tree, the vine accesses full sunlight. Is there a commensurate advantage to the tree? I shall continue to explore the question.

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. Henry David Thoreau captured the sentiment I felt as we explored the grapevine tangles:

I have no time to be in a hurry.

First Moderate Hike (Saunter) Since Knee Replacement Surgery: Rainbolt Trail

November 26, 2024/in Updates /by Steve Jones

On Sunday, October 13, 2024, I “co-led” a University of Alabama in Huntsville Osher Lifelong Learning Institute (OLLI) hike on the Rainbow Mountain Nature Preserve in Madison, Alabama. I used the term co-led liberally. I co-chair the OLLI Member Interest Group for hiking and Nature Walks. Just 7.5 weeks past my total right knee replacement surgery, this was my first attempt at a hilly, rocky, and uneven trail designated as moderately difficult. I lagged far behind, returned to the trailhead at the halfway point, and relished this new recovery benchmark!

The fifteen fellow hikers enjoyed the gorgeous weather, wished me well, and hoped I would soon reach the target of again fully participating.

We began at the Rainbolt Trail, a new one-half mile section that meanders approximately 225 feet vertical to the Rainbow Loop Trail atop Rainbow Mountain. I made it nearly to Rainbow Loop. The Rainbolt moniker dates to the original resident, Mr. Rainbolt, his name long since simplified (or bastardized) to Rainbow. Eastern Red Cedar, a common pioneer species, dominates the Preserve’s harsher, drier sites.

The Hardscrabbled Forest

I puzzled over why Mr. Rainbolt found attraction to this rugged 350-foot monadnock of broken limestone, shallow soils, and mixed forest in the midst of an otherwise rich landscape of verdant valley, fertile farmland, and productive forest. Except for the 147-acre Rainbow Mountain Nature Preserve the surrounding landscape has converted to an expanse of residential and commercial development. The southwest-facing hillside that the Rainbolt Trail ascends is particularly harsh, seasonally parched, and covered by scrubby second- and third-growth forest. Don’t look for towering hardwoods, excepting a few big fellows like the leaning oak below left and an occasional respectable shagbark hickory (right).

My 59-second video highlighting the scrubby forest:

The trail wanders along limestone ledges and scattered pole-size hardwoods and cedars. Forget about deep shade, cool hollows, and refreshing breezes. Even with most leaves still clinging to the overstory, ample sunshine penetrates to the forest floor. Tree height is the single best indicator of forest site quality, a surrogate for soil moistire, available nutrients, and microclimate.

High closed canopies typify rich sites. The dead oak snag at left stands under a large opening. In nearby riparian forests such attrited openings fill rapidly. The same snag rises at left from a rock ledge bulwark. Contrast the apparent depth and extent of soil here to the deep expansive soils in the nearby Tennessee River flood plain. The perpetual process of life and death in the respective forest is integral to both sites, but the pace correlates with fertility.

Decay and decomposition perpetuate the carbon cycle, the essentual flow of mass and energy within the forest. Within the Rainbow Mounatain Nature Preserve’s 147 acres, a map of soil site quality, productivity, and the pace of carbon cycling would vary from a low on the W/SW-facing slope where the Rainbolt Trail ascends to the concave lower slope where Rainbow Spring descends to the E/SE. I focused my PhD dissertation on soil-site relationships in the Allegheny hardwood forests of NW PA and SW NY nearly 40 years ago. I am amazed how applicable the findings are across the eastern US mid-lattitudes.

The Rainbolt Trail consistently tells the tale of poor forest productivity.

Here is another 59-second scrub forest video:

The harsh conditions (heat, drought, shallow soils, and westerly wind exposure) do not favor large boles and tall tree growth. A shattered 15-inch-diameter red oak snag and a nearby fallen dead oak of similar size bear testament.

In such a forest, understory stems are often the same age as the main canopy. This three-inch-diameter sapling, deeply hollowed by rot, stood for decades along what a year ago became the new trail. I neglected to examine its wood to identify species. Well, not so much neglected but failed to bring along my pocket knife.

Although I spotted no other evidence of fire history, this charred cedar told the tale of a decades-old event when a westerly wind sent an escaped brush fire upslope, consuming the downed cedar and other brushy debris. When I next traverse the trail I will look for other signs of past burning.

The Preserve has suffered the incidental and intentional abuses of 200 years of human action as the city of Madison slowly encroached what would become the Preserve.

Limestone Mountain Bones

Just as Balance Rock serves as a natural landmark near the Preserve summit, Alligator Rock fulfils the same purpose on Rainbolt Trail, although less prominently and certainly less spectacularly.

See my 49-second video of Alligator Rock:

Perhaps because my recovery-impaired mobility forced me to pay more attention to nuances of my passage, I noticed a stone visage that no one else has mentioned. I see a sphinx-face or a ram’s head with prominent eye sockets and brows, and a strong collar and powerful neck. Was this a fleeting paranormal wisp that took form beyond just my recovery-induced stress of wandering alone on the trail?!

Further below as I descended I saw a bleached catlle skull trailside! Or maybe it’s a piece of weathered limestone. Now that my knees are much better healed, it’s time to retrace the route and test whether the figments (and fragments) remain.

And then there appeared ancient ribbed carcasses. Did Mr. Rainbolt herd poor-site cattle who mineralized on these hardscrabbled, nutrient-poor, moisture-stressed hillside? There are strange tales to be told and relived on the Rainbolt Trail.

I am a natural resource scientist, securing my PhD in 1987. Over the course of my academic career, I competed successfully for a quarter of a billion dollars in grants and contracts. As Chancellor of the University of Alaska Fairbanks, I led America’s Arctic University’s 3,500 faculty and staff. As Chair of the Governing Board of the University of the Arctic, I led a consortium of 90 high-latitude colleges and universities enrolling more that 700,000 students. As I look back across a fulfilling higher education career, I attribute much of my meager success to good humor, vivid imagination, and not taking myself too seriously, hence the ram’s head, bleached skull, and ribbed carcasses!

Einstein nailed it:

I am enough of the artist to draw freely upon my imagination. Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world.

Thoughts and Reflections

I offer these observations:

The Preserve has suffered the incidental and intentional abuses of 200 years of human action as the city of Madison slowly encroached on what would become the Preserve.
Except for the 147-acre Rainbow Mountain Nature Preserve, the surrounding landscape has converted to an expanse of residential and commercial development.
Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world. (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 & photographeerved.”

And Third: I am availabd by Stephen B. Jones. Please circulate images with photo credit: “©2024 Steve Jones, Great Blue Heron LLC. All Rights Resle 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

Reading Signs of Big Winter Winds at Joe Wheeler State Park

October 31, 2024/in Updates /by Steve Jones

I’m drafting this photo essay on Saturday morning, September 28, 2024, just five-and-one-half weeks after my August 20, 2024, total right knee replacement surgery. I ventured into Nature last on August 19, 2024. My backlog of pre-surgery observations, reflections, photos, and brief videos is nearly depleted, and I’m not sure when I can recharge my inventory. My knee recovery is on pace, but questions of timing remain. Therefore, I am returning to a set of photos and brief videos I compiled on a March 2023, trip to Joe Wheeler State Park, where I discovered lots of winter wind damage. [NOTE – I am publishing this photo essay on October 31, 2024. I am now about 85 percent recovered and returning to the woods!]

My recollection of what I wanted to convey with each image is fresh. The theme I intended to explore remains relevant to The Nature of North Alabama and Nature-Inspired Life and Living. I suppose we can blame my failure to follow through earlier on a series of health issues after March 2023: triple bypass surgery; total left knee replacement surgery; bilateral inguinal hernia repair; kidney stone removal; and total right knee replacement surgery. I know…such minor inconveniences may seem a lame excuse!

Two Hardy Senior Forest Denizens

Our forests are ever-changing. Seldom do I enter a forest without seeing a fresh blwodown. However, I frequently encounter senior citizens that have persevered. In an 80-90-year-old stand at Joe Wheeler, this nearly four-feet diameter sugar maple is likely a century older, perhapss formerly standing along an old property line or fence row, withstanding the test of time, wind blasts, lightning strikes, or ice storms.

This massive yellow poplar likewise beat the forces of time. Larger than three feet in diameter and topping 100 feet tall, it may stand another century, or crash to the ground tomorrow. I wonder if Las Vegas oddsmakers will entertain gambling on tree-toppling? I hope not. The only bet I would place is that gravity will remain undefeated!

I am eager to return to the Park this coming dormant season to check on these two denizens.

A Series of Winter 2022-23 Windthrow Casualties

Perched on bluff overlooking the body of Wheeler Lake within sight of the dam, this large hollow red oak yielded to the irresistable force of wind and gravity. An arborist’s rule of thumb states that when the combined thickness of wood rind is less than one-third of the tree’s diameter, the tree is subject to breakage and windthrow. This one failed the hollow tree windthrow threshold test. Interestingly, the trunk shows no externl evidence that it is hollow.

Here’s my 3:16 narrated video of this shattered oak. This giant left a void…one that Nature will fill. Tons of organic woody debris will inexorably recycle to soil and new life.

The now prostrate trunk points east, evidencing the westerly wind that leveraged the tree beyond its strength threshold.

As I’ve incessantly observed in these photo essays, nothing in nature is static. Decay fungi consumed wood fiber across the decades, annually expanding the hollow. The large-canopied crown continued to build mass, compounding the leveraging force of wind and gravity. The oak will live on through the carbon cycle as decomposers reduce wood to soil organic matter and other life forms.

The trunk of this hackberry giant did not fail. Instead, the wind used the tree’s mass to twist and wrench the roots from the soil. Once loosened, the tree acted as the first in a hackberry domino series. Wind combined with the multi-ton mass momentum of the swaying tree served as an irresistible force. Physics is a big part of life…and death…in the forest, whether determining if a tree stands or falls, and regulating fluid transport within the tree.

The hackberry brought several smaller downwind trees to the ground.

As I often note, a short video (this one 3:31) tells the tale better than my feeble prose.

John Muir spoke of the physical and ecological interconnectivity of all elements of an ecosystem:

Tug on anything in nature and you will find it connected to everything else.

The hackberry-toppled stand epitomies the physical interdependence.

This oak tree shattered at the stump. Decay fungi mushrooms signal that decomposers are hard at work.

Again, nothing in Nature is static.

Our State Park trails demand ongoing maintenance attention. A fallen hickory crossed the trail.

My 3:12 video captures the the windthrow jumble and gives a sense of how the wind flows across the lake and buffets the forest, even on a fair weather spring day.

Not all crashing trees knock their neighbors to the ground. The top of a windthrown tree pulled this smaller pole-size tree into a nearly horizontal position just ten feet above the forest floor. I’ve seen such trees survuve for decades. I often photograph the survivors as what I refer to as tree form curiosities and oddities. Let’s come back and visit this one in 20-40 years. Well, perhaps I may not be up to it at ages 93 to 113!

I love contemplating Nature’s forest wonders and mysteries!

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:

Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better. (Albert Einstein)
And into the forest I go, to lose my mind and find my soul. (John Muir)
The calm of a fine spring day belies the brutal winds that can ravage a winter forest.

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: “©2023 Steve Jones, Great Blue Heron LLC. All Rights Reserved.”

Another Note: If you came to this post via a Facebook posting or by an another route, please sign up now (no cost… no obligation) to receive my Blog Post email alerts: http://eepurl.com/cKLJdL

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

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

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

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

Vision:

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

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

Steve’s 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

Fungi and Other Discoveries along the Hickory Cove Nature Preserve’s Legacy Loop Trail

October 8, 2024/in Updates /by Steve Jones

July 30, 2024, my two Alabama grandsons accompanied me on my first visit to the Land Trust of North Alabama’s Hickory Cove Nature Preserve northeast of Huntsville. We sauntered along the 1.75-mile Legacy Loop. I set the slow pace making observations and snapping photographs of mushrooms and other interesting features along the trail. They alternately surged ahead and fell behind, mostly the former.

Every north Alabama trail is rich with human history. Native Americans occupied these lands for 13 millennia, leaving few obvious traces. European settlers left their mark more visibly and indelibly. A few hundred feet into the forest, a side trail directed us to the spring house, a sure indication of prior domestication, and a clear suggestion that Hickory Cove is not wilderness by the untrammled by the hand of man definition. Wildness, certainly; wilderness, no.

Sam stands at the old spring house foundation, likely an early 19th Century refrigeration construct for surviving here in the deep south prior to electricity and modern food preservation. The concrete trough (right) sits 100 feet downhill, still at brimful. I wondered whether our Native antecedents tapped this natural water source.

Trailside Fungi

I repeat often my observation that death is an essential facet of life in the forest. Sometimes an agent of tree death and always a primary decomposer, fungi are ubiquitous in our north Alabama forests. Usually invisible inside wood, among ground-level organic matter, and within forest soils, fungi hyphae are active year-round. They periodically manifest as mushrooms, their reproductive organs, spewing billions of spores to generate new colonies. A curry bolete drew our attention, its red cap waving a banner.

Most boletes are mycorhizal, sprouting from hyphae within the soil adjacent to roots (ectomycorrhizae) or alternatively within tree roots (endomycorrhizae), often symbiotically engaged with fine roots and root hairs of trees. This group of fungi includes neither pathogens or decomposers.

We also identified violet-grey boletes.

Six inches across, wood mushrooms demanded that we stop to examine and photograph.

Pale yellow Amanita had begun to fade and break apart; even decomposing fungi produce mushrooms subject, as are all organisms, to biological breakdown. It’s the common tale of ashes to ashes, dust to dust.

Examining the photo above right, I spotted a rock-critter lurking behind the Amanita. What is this woodland denizen? I asked my immediate family. They saw a bear, dog, bighorn sheep, and turtle. Such it is with clouds, forest limestone rocks, and oddly shaped trees!

I’m reminded once again of Albert Einstein’s delightful fascination with imagination:

Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited to all we now know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world, and all there ever will be to know and understand.

Fairy parachute mushrooms encircle the base of this dead cedar tree. An invasionary airborne fairy battalion dropped in the night prior, now huddled around the cedar awaiting a call to action.

My iNaturalist hesitantly identified these as turkey tail mushrooms (Trametes versicolor), also listing several species from the Stereum genus as possibilities. Rather than declare turkey tail, I will go with genus Stereum. This colony appears to be thriving on a recently fallen red oak.

Toothed crust mushrooms coat this mature hickory. A single deer mushroom stands at the edge. Tree moss clings to the trunk at the far left margin. I recall hiking within the rain forests of southeat Alaska, where nary a forest surface is absent some kind growth. We do not qualify as rain forest, albeit 55 inches annually is a lot of rain.

A closer look at the crust mushroom corroborates its moniker.

We found Trametes cubensis growing among tree moss on the deeply furrowed bark of a chestnut oak.

An edible mushroon, white-pored chicken of the woods visually decried its presence near the trail. The Land Trust prohibits collecting anything on its preserves. The boys and I made our observations, snapped a photograph, and left the mushroom behind.

Many of our native vines (muscadine, scuppernog, Virgina creeper, and poison ivy) ascend into the upper canopy by attaching their air roots to rising tree stems and branches. Supplejack instead climbs by spiraling with companion vines or woody branches of trees and shrubs. I love the weakly striped perennially green stems.

Sam found two whitelips snails flourishing along the trail. We stopped to examine them. They continued along their merry way, at what we assessed as faster than a snail’s pace!

Many trees in our second (or third) growth forests are survivors from the prior generation. Imagine a prior landowner harvesting firewood, fenceposts, pulpwood, and scattered sawlogs around the time of the Second World War. The operation did not remove every tree, leaving hollow snags such as this red oak. It survived until this spring when its thin wood rind could no longer resist the forces of wind and gravity. Sam stands at left beside the hollow shell stump, which half-houses the accumulation of composted organic matter collected over a century or more. Just across the trail, Sam poses at the tree’s top where it leans almost vertically against another tree.

I took delight when Sam discovered the carcas and understood its story. I recorded this 58-second video at the scene. I’ve observed previously in these photo essays that a picture is worth a thousand words, and a brief video is priceless!

Nearly every north Alabama forest I explore dates its origins back 80-90 years. This 12-inch diameter green ash fell across the trail this summer. Crews made a clean chainsaw cut to remove it. Ash rings are very easy to discern and count. This cross-section, just a foot or two above the root collar, reads 86 years!

There are many stories revealed by a walk through the woods with grandsons. Knowing that Pap was scheduled for knee replacement surgery on August 20, the boys tried to stay within sight. My right knee hobbled me, subjecting me to unsteadiness and an inability to recover when and if I stumbled. About halfway, I did lose my balance and go down…it seemed to happen in slow motion. I’ve been stumbling in the woods for 70 years. I was unruffled; they were concerned. It seems just a few turns of the years that I was introducing their Mom (daughter Katy) to woodland wanders, then a few years when I carried these young men as babes when hiking, and now it is they who helped me back on my feet and offered assistence when the footing looked tenuous.

Einstein’s wisdom extended far beyond theoretical physics. Relative to my musings on my relationship to chldren and grandchildren, he observed:

Our death is not an end if we can live on in our children and the younger generation. For they are us; our bodies are only wilted leaves on the tree of life.

Thoughts and Reflections

I offer these observations:

Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited to all we now know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world, and all there ever will be to know and understand. (Albert Einstein)
Our death is not an end if we can live on in our children and the younger generation. For they are us; our bodies are only wilted leaves on the tree of life. (Albert Einstein)
Death and decomposition are a big part of life in the forest.

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. Please circulate images with photo credit: “©2024 Steve Jones, Great Blue Heron LLC. All Rights Reserved.”

And Third: 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

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.

Trees of the Hickory Cove Nature Preserve’s Legacy Loop Trail

September 10, 2024/in Updates /by Steve Jones

On July 30, 2024, my two Alabama grandsons accompanied me on my first visit to the Land Trust of North Alabama’s Hickory Cove Nature Preserve northeast of Huntsville. We trekked along the 1.75-mile Legacy Loop. I set a slow pace making observations and snapping photographs. They alternately surged ahead and fell behind, mostly the former.

So much mystery and magic lie hidden in plain sight. I’ve confirmed from leading dozens of Nature hikes that most people observe little without someone drawing their attention to the unseen. Even Jack and Sam, the frequent objects of my badgering them to look, look, and look, walked past this trailside honey locust and its multiforked thorns until I halted them to LOOK! The compound thorns are unique to this species. I’ve heard from farmers that the spikes can penetrate and flatten a tractor tire. The honey locust’s rigid platy bark is another distinctive feature.

Near the trailhead, this hickory (the trail bears this species’ name) delivered three messages: the diamond trail sign; a fuzzy poison ivy vine, saying ‘stay alert’; and a softball-plus sized burl, encouraging me to look for tree form oddities and peculiarities. I have friends who turn gorgeous bowls from such burls!

We found fallen hickory nuts frequently along the trail. Somehow, in a flash, we’ve gone from spring’s bursting to mature hickory nuts. I’m reminded of my maternal grandmothers’ timeless wisdom, which from my then young perspective seemed absurd, “The older I get, the faster time goes.” Oh, how true…how painfully valid!

Another observation derives from this simple image of the boys (Sam is hidden by Jack’s larger body). I wanted to photograph the trail as they surged ahead. The symbolic meaning is poignant and rich with meaning. The trail and these young men will travel more deeply into the future than I. I am not ready to cease my woods-wanderings, yet I know I am slowing, and in time the boys will trek beyond my final loop. The best I can do is ensure that the memories of these days will accompany them. I’m reminded and comforted by Einstein’s relevant observation:

Our death is not an end if we can live on in our children and the younger generation. For they are us; our bodies are only wilted leaves on the tree of life.

I recorded this 58-second video that begins with the boys trekking along the trail.

The burl did remind me to be ever alert to forest treasures. To the extent time allowed, I thrilled at the ways of glaciers during my four years in Alaska. Few people sauntering the forests of north Alabama would have seen what appeared to me in the forked white oak image below. The green moss glacier is spilling from the gap between the two towering peaks. I imagine a vast green icefield beyond the gap. But then a mosquito whined, jerking me back to latitude 36-degrees North, 1,100 feet above sea level. Shamelessly again borrowing from Albert Einstein:

Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited to all we now know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world, and all there ever will be to know and understand.

I am sure that a nether world lies within this shrinking three-inch diameter hickory portal, not one of evil spirit, but a dimension alive with the timeless entities that have dwelled within the forests of old and will populate future forests until the last leaf drops. Returning to the objective world of science, I am puzzled that no critter, neither bird nor mammal, is laboring to prevent the tree from completing its efforts to callous over the portal.

Neither oddity or curiosity, tree bark is distinctive enough that AI apps like iNaturalist can identify species somewhat reliably. I have spent enough time woods-wandering that I, too, do reasonably well. I love the foolproof pattern of shagbark hickory (left) and green ash. People who do not possess learned woodland savvy marvel at those of us who spout off species names with just a glance at a tree trunk. Seventy-three years can familiarize even a big dummy with species peculiarities. When my car engine light flashes or I hear unusual engine noises, I open the latch and lift the hood, peering into the threatening morass of wires, hoses, and bolts. I am as lost as the engineer in the woods who can’t tell oak from maple.

The Hickory Cove property is dense with cedars, a north Alabama early successional species, that courtesy of birds consuming cedar berries and disseminating the scarified seeds, colonized this site 90 years ago. Below is one of the more handsome cedars we encountered, standing tall and reaching into the main canopy.

Most of its cohorts have long since succumbed to hardwood competitors that now dominate this evolving forest. Resistant to decay, the old cedar stems remain visible, evidencing their place in stand succession.

Other cedars have died more recently, their slowly decaying stems still standing as understory and intermediate canopy snags.

Others are clinging to life, gathering only enough sunlight to hang on with a barely surviving living branch or two.

I recorded this 57-second cedar-centered video, examining a stand surrounding a remnant eastern red cedar sentry along the trail:

I spotted just this one cedar seedling. Unless some catastrophic event (fire, wind, ice, or harvest) brings widespread sunlight to the forest floor, cedar will not succeed itself.

The forest has many stories to tell. This cedar sported a strand of barbed wire, long since grown over by the tree. Its story? Someone used the living tree as a fence post many years ago, perhaps marking a boundary or unimproved pasture. The abundance of cedar suggests that much of this evolving forest succeeded from abandoned pasture. Not all forest stories are easy to read. Were it my land, I would devote more time to reading its forested landscape.

This old cedar and its neighboring hickory grew for decades side by side. A cedar fork reached across the hickory trunk, agitating the hickory, which did what any vibrant and rapidly growing tree would do…grow around the cedar invading its space!

Like a snake attempting to swallow a hapless frog, the hickory, in decades-long slow motion, appears to be consuming the now dead cedar branch. Now this certainly qualifies as a tree form oddity and curiosity!

Gravity is in fact a persistent, powerful, and abiding force. Two natural and oppositional forces help guide the direction of tree growth. Some species, like our common sourwood are predominately positively phototropic. They often adopt a corkscrew posture as they seek sunlight. Most of our forest main canopy species are negatively geotropic, strict adherents to growing opposite the pull of gravity. Regardless of what guides their vertical growth, gravity eventually pulls them down. Like time, gravity is undefeated. In this case, a large adjacent tree halted the oak’s fall at about 30-degrees from vertical.

I consider this a different class of tree form oddity. Its days as a leaner are numbered. As in all elements of Nature, nothing is static. Gravity has never lost a contest.

I remain a big fan of forest bridges…for two reasons. First, my bum right knee prefers that I not scramble down and back up this steep and stony gully. Second, I admire the aesthetic of a wooden crossing.

I recorded this 40-second video at the bridge, beginning with the boys crossing it.

At age 73, I find reward in where my forest wanderings take me. Decades ago, I demanded thrill, rugged terrain, spectacular vistas, and special features. I recall trails I will never again venture. Among them, ascending Mount Verstovia above Sitka, Alaska; circuiting Jenny Lake at the east base of Grand Teton; and attempting Mount Washington mid-winter. Approaching midway into my eighth decade, I find beauty, magic, wonder, awe, inspiration, and reward in a 1.75-mile loop close to home.

Thoughts and Reflections

I offer these observations:

My criteria for hiking adventure, daring, and reward relax with my age.
Our death is not an end if we can live on in our children and the younger generation. For they are us; our bodies are only wilted leaves on the tree of life. (Albert Einstein)
Every tree and forest has a story to tell; my goal is to read every forested landscape.

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. Please circulate images with photo credit: “©2024 Steve Jones, Great Blue Heron LLC. All Rights Reserved.”

Another Note: If you came to this post via a Facebook posting or by another route, please sign up now (no cost… no obligation) to receive my Blog Post email alerts: http://eepurl.com/cKLJdL

And Third: 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

What’s Happening in the Old Riparian Hardwood Forests that I Wander (and Wonder): Part Two

August 14, 2024/in Updates /by Steve Jones

I offer Part Two of my examination of What’s Happening in the Old Riparian Forests, which I frequently explore at the nearby Wheeler National Wildlife Refuge. These forests date back to the 1930s when the TVA and Corps of Engineers acquired acreage destined for Wheeler Lake inundation and adjoining buffer lands associated with those properties. I set the stage for this essay last week with Part One: https://stevejonesgbh.com/2024/08/07/whats-happening-in-the-old-riparian-hardwood-forests-that-i-wander-and-wonder-part-one/

I have mentally labored on this Next Forest topic for several years as I’ve repeatedly bushwhacked through the riparian hardwood forests of the Wheeler National Wildlife Refuge, publishing a series of more than two dozen photo essays of my observations, reflections, photographs, and short videos beginning in January 2018. I begin this photo essay with several questions:

Are these 90-year-old forests actively transitioning? Last week I answered, no.
What factors will trigger a transition? What are the threshold criteria?
When can we expect it to occur?
How will we recognize it?

The Next Forest: When and What

I won’t speculate on when Nature will pressure the forest to cross the threshold. Without excess verbiage, I will chronicle the understory tree regeneration I recorded on July 6. Consider each individual as part of the next generation forest in reserve, banked and awaiting a threshold disturbance.

Future Subordinate Canopy Components

Redbud and sassafras are present in abundance. Redbud is a pioneer species, effectively occupying roadside edges, brushy meadows transitioning to forest, and newly disturbed forestland (storm or harvest). I’ve seen redbud emerge into the intermediate canopy but never into the upper reaches. Sassafras is another pioneer species. It occasionally reaches into the upper canopy, but I have never seen it rise to a dominant position. In sum, I would characterize redbud as a forest understory species and sassafras as an intermediate. Neither will be a major constituent of the next forest.

Muscadine awaits a major disturbance, full sunlight, and new tree transport into the next canopy. As peculiar as it may sound, muscadine will likely occupy the eventual emergent forest. Unlike the mighty oak that relies on its own devices to ascend to a dominant position, muscadine grasps oaks and other main-canopy-destined tree species, and gets a direct vertical transport. As the tree grows, the vine tags along into the ever-available full sunlight.

I found only a few individuals of parsley hawthorn and Atlantic poison oak. The parsley hawthorn is a small tree or shrub; the poison oak will seldom exceed 3-4 feet. Both will be present in the understory of the next forest.

Red buckeye and paw paw appeared sporadically. They both are normally present in the understory, although I have seen paw pay in the mid-story.

Ironwood (Ostrya virginiana) stands ready to assume a mid-canopy position in a new forest. I have never observed it in a main canopy.

I am certain that I missed many other woody species; don’t view my listing as exhaustive.

Future Dominant Canopy Components

With the exception of muscadine, the above documented species will not occupy the main canopy of the next Refuge bottomland hardwood forest. I’ll now review some species I photographed on July 6 that will dominate the overstory. Yellow poplar and sweetgum are poised to mine sunshine post-disturbance. I estimate that together sweetgum and yellow poplar account for 10-15 percent of the current main canopy stocking. I base my estimates on observations and not measurements, a luxury afforded old geezers who are not authoring refereed scientific journal articles!

Red maple may constitute five percent of the present overstory.

Green ash seedlings cover the forest floor in a few areas, but the species represents perhaps five percent of the main canopy.

I saw little advanced regeneration on the forest floor in much of the seasonally-inundated soils.

Willow oak and water oak seedlings less than two-feet tall dotted these wet sites; the seedlings below are willow oaks. I will not attempt to separate the existing main canopy distribution by individual oak species. Instead, I estimate that all oak species combined (principally northern and southern red; willow and water; cherry bark; chinkapin; white) constitute 50 percent.

This is chinkapin oak. I found no red, white, or cherry bark oak seedlings. Allow me to repeat a qualification to these observations and reflections. Were I still a practicing forest scientist seeking refereed journals to publish my results, I would conduct rigorous field surveys to quantify current stand composition and systematically inventory advanced regeneration. However, I am a retired, 73-year-old Nature enthusiast, who seeks to ponder questions of his own design, and proffer answers and speculations to share with others.

Hickory species account for 20 percent of the current stocking, predominantly shagbark. This is one of the few hickories I found.

Although the overstory has a few American beech, black cherry, and sugarberry trees, my July 6, trek encountered no individuals on the forest floor. A single loblolly pine seedling appeared within my sight. Together, I estimate that these four species represent no more than five percent of the bottomland forest overstory.

I am certain that when I next visit this forest I will see a main canopy species or two that I failed to include in this discussion. I don’t believe that such omission will discredit any of the reflections and conclusion I am about to share with you.

Summary and Conclusions

First and foremost, the forest is changing. Individual main canopy tree are succumbing to wind, lightning, and the associated effects of decay and weakening. Not a single one of these individual trees dying or toppling, even those that occupied large aerial spaces (up to one-fifth acre), is encouraging colonization of the affected forest floor by tree regeneration. Nearby trees expand their crowns rapidly into the resultant canopy void, effectively limiting sunlight reaching the forest floor to a time period insufficient to permit regeneration to establish and develop. Simply the level of disturbance and rate of attrition are not triggering an obvious transition to a new forest.

What will it take to trigger the transition to a new forest? I know from my work in northern hardwood forests that an essential transition factor is not apparent in our Refuge bottomland forests. There is no shade tolerant intermediate vertical tier of trees (in the north: American beech; yellow birch; sugar maple; and eastern hemlock) positioned to emerge into the upper canopy when large individual and clusters of main canopy trees die or fall. As I observed in Part One, these stands have an understory of subordinate woody trees, but no intermediate structure of future main canopy emergent species.

I am convinced that without a major disturbance (to include: tropical systems transporting wind north from the Gulf; derechos; microbursts; tornados; severe ice storms), the forest will continue to lose individual trees. Remaining trees will capitalize on the crown voids and add girth. We’ll observe fewer trees per acre. The average diameter of the residuals…the survivors…will increase rapidly on these extraordinarily fertile moist soils. Keep in mind that, like all living organisms, trees have finite life spans.

Eventually, a force will trigger renewal. Nature abhors a vacuum. Full sunlight on the forest floor will stimulate all of the species chronicled above. Other bird-disseminated and windblown seed species will find purchase and germinate. A new forest will emerge. Time and intense competition will sort the winners and losers. Nature won’t allocate space by some artificial construct like diversity, equity, and inclusion. Performance will determine the nature, structure, and composition of the new forest. My guess is that ninety years from that critical trigger event, the forest will look a lot like the one where I wonder and wander.

Thoughts and Reflections

I offer these observations:

Nature sleuthing involves seeing, understanding, and appreciating what lies hidden in plain sight.
First and foremost, the subject forest is changing…but not yet transitioning to a new forest.
It is difficult to make predictions, especially about the future. (Attributed to Yogi Berra)
My observations, reflections, and predictions are science-informed…and far from clairvoyant!

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. Please circulate images with photo credit: “©2024 Steve Jones, Great Blue Heron LLC. All Rights Reserved.”

Another Note: If you came to this post via a Facebook posting or by another route, please sign up now (no cost… no obligation) to receive my Blog Post email alerts: http://eepurl.com/cKLJdL

And Third: 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 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 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

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 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 now have a fourth book, published by Dutton Land and Cattle Company, Dutton Land & Cattle: A Land Legacy Story. Available for purchase directly from me. Watch for details in a future Post.

What’s Happening in the Old Riparian Hardwood Forests that I Wander (and Wonder): Part One

August 7, 2024/in Updates /by Steve Jones

I have mentally labored on this topic for several years as I’ve repeatedly bushwhacked through the riparian hardwood forests of the Wheeler National Wildlife Refuge, publishing a series of more than two dozen photo essays of my observations, reflections, photographs, and short videos beginning in January 2018. Musing on how these forests will develop 25, 50, and 100 years hence and beyond, I often include photos depicting disturbance. I focus on the changing face of these rich alluvial bottomlands and their majestic forests. I reported three epic oak blowdowns in my June 13, 2023 photo essay chronicling storm damage to big oaks during the winter of 2022-23: https://stevejonesgbh.com/2023/06/13/winter-2022-23-wind-demise-of-multiple-big-oaks-on-the-wheeler-national-wildlife-refuge/

These riparian forest soils are seasonally wet. Strong winds can break these mighty oak trunks, as above, or topple the tree by wrenching roots from their soil grip.

Do these individual tree occurrences signal a major forest renewal shift? I answer simply, “Not yet.” I will present a more complete response in this photo essay.

I published another photo essay on the January 2022, tornado that cut a swath across the northern end of Blackwell Swamp at the Refuge: https://stevejonesgbh.com/2022/05/04/aftermath-of-january-1-2022-tornado-at-wheeler-national-wildlife-refuge/

The storm shattered this bur oak that when I photographed it a few weeks after, I thought spelled its certain demise. However, when I returned on July 6, 2024, the tree (center right) showed vigorous regrowth shrouding the splintered trunk.

These forests date back to the 1930s when the TVA and Corps of Engineers acquired acreage destined for Wheeler Lake inundation and adjoining buffer lands associated with those properties. The approximate 35,000-acre Refuge’s hardwood forests regenerated naturally; pine forests include hand-planted agricultural fields and natural mixed pine.

The forests have reached an age when forces of Nature are removing scattered large dominant trees like the windthrow at left and the standing large dead (lightning or fungal pathogen killed) tree at right.

I’m estimating that the dominant (upper crown class) oak below died 2-4 years ago, enough time elapsing that all but its three largest branches have weakened and yielded to gravity. Only a relatively small canopy opening surrounds the deceased crown. Adjoining trees are aggressively closing the gap. The tree’s demise did not bring sustained sunlight to the forest floor, a necessity for encouraging a replacement forest to respond.

A powerful September 2023 lightning bolt killed this 30-inch diameter red oak. The surrounding trees are already snuffing the temporarily opened canopy (right).

In time, the forest will change, even with the periodic random death of individual and small groups of dominant trees. What will the new forest look like; how will it evolve? I begin this discussion with comments on these two distorted individuals.

Physical injury earlier in their lives created the disfigurement. Fifty years from now the forest where the tornado touched down will be dense with trees scarred and misshapen by the storm’s fury. I attribute these two tree form oddities to the logging that accompanied acquiring buffer lands along the 1930s soon-to-be lake bed. Loggers cut and transported only merchantable timber (meeting size and market criteria). They left trees too small and of insufficient quality. Many of the nonmerchantable trees suffered physical damage, ensuring that the new forest harbored relics of odd and curious shapes.

This December 21, 2023 photo essay from my September 2023 saunter in the same forest provides more detail: https://stevejonesgbh.com/2023/12/21/an-aging-riparian-hardwood-forest-on-the-wheeler-national-wildlife-refuge/

Pondering the Next Forest

I returned to the forest along HGH Road on Saturday July 6, 2024. A 30-inch white oak demonstrates the fertility and capability of this bottomland site to produce high quality timber.

It stands firmly and stoutly, while this neighboring oak yielded to disease agents within the past five years. However, its story is complex. It stood for several years after succumbing, while a brown rot decay fungus consumed its whiter cellulose “carbohydrates, leaving the brownish, oxidized lignin. There is no fibrous texture because the cellulose is broken up early. The wood shrinks on drying and cross-checking is seen in later stages. It is often called cubical brown rot for that reason” (online forest pathology reference). The standing dead tree collapsed within the past several months.

I recorded this 58-second video at the tree’s stump:

The trunk lies where it recently fell, not yet recycling into the forest floor. Five years after the tree died there is still not a surge in understory response from the assumed large canopy opening. The void quickly refilled from the adjoining tree canopy expansion. I have characterized these nearly century-old riparian forests as old growth. However, while they express some features of an old growth forest (large individuals and lots of dead and down woody debris), other criteria are absent: vertically tiered canopy; uneven age; large openings. Old age forests are constantly renewing through attrition and replacement. There is no replacement in these forests.

Dominant trees are leaving the stand, usually one tree at a time, creating large canopy voids that quickly refill. The forest is changing, but it is not yet renewing. More radical change (i.e. replacement) will require a higher level of disturbance. This dominant canopy tree toppled within the past three years; its trunk and much of its crown extends one hundred feet beyond.

Only an uprooted heavily decayed stump remains in place from this fallen giant. Its remnant pit and mound mark the spot where it stood.

I recorded this 58-second video at the spot.

Winter winds wrenched this oak from its anchorage.

Examples abound of a forest approaching a transition threshold, when renewal (replacement) will initiate.

Tornado Forest Rebirth

Only two miles away, a January 1, 2022, F-0 or F-1 tornado triggered an immediate transition from closed forest to overstory collapse.

I recorded this 48-second video on my July 2024 visit:

The forest is renewing. Snags are welcoming birds of all manner, including the perching redtail hawk at right.

So, the tornado triggered forest renewal. The persistent individual main canopy attrition has not.

I’ll issue Part Two of this tale next week, when I chronicle the woody understory species I photographed July 6, 2024, and offer my tentative look ahead 25, 50, and 100 years hence.

Thoughts and Reflections

I offer these observations:

Nothing in Nature is static.
Every tree, every stand, and every forest has a story to tell; I love to read the forested landscape.
I practice forensic forestry, my retirement craft of interpreting the stories and retelling their tale in simple layman’s language.
Albert Einstein advised, “Look deep into Nature, and then you will understand everything better.

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. Please circulate images with photo credit: “©2024 Steve Jones, Great Blue Heron LLC. All Rights Reserved.”

Another Note: If you came to this post via a Facebook posting or by another route, please sign up now (no cost… no obligation) to receive my Blog Post email alerts: http://eepurl.com/cKLJdL

And Third: 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 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 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

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 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 now have a fourth book, published by Dutton Land and Cattle Company, Dutton Land & Cattle: A Land Legacy Story.

Exploring Madison, Alabama’s New Rainbolt Trail in the Rainbow Mountain Nature Preserve

July 24, 2024/in Updates /by Steve Jones

On May 16, 2024, I explored the newly constructed Rainbolt Trail on Madison, Alabama’s Rainbow Mountain Nature Preserve. Four months following my left knee replacement surgery, I felt ready to tackle the 350-foot vertical ascent without slowing my colleagues. I trailed the group, but mostly to take photographs along the trail’s two-thirds of a mile length, connecting on top to the existing trail network.

Incessant cicada thrumming accompanied us from bottom to top and on return, yet as I type these observations and reflections on June 8, the insects’ 13-year burst of life has quieted.

I recorded this 45-second video on our ascent:

Botanical Panoply

I refuse to burden you with detailed botanicals on every plant species we encountered. My point in listing them is to empathize that a simple saunter can reveal variety and mystery for those not intent upon counting steps and rushing along the trail. I did not recognize coral berry. iNaturalist serves me well. I no longer carry a back pack with reference books and field guides!

Often confused with poison oak, fragrant sumac lined the lower slopes in places. Summer grape was another I could not immediately recognize. I admit that identifying plants I once knew on sight comes with ever increasing effort. One month from my 73rd birthday (AKA the 43rd anniversary of my 30th birthday), I worry that the long journey of life, vigor, and mental acuity (shall I say acrobatics!?), has summited and the descent is at hand.

Nestled in a limestone ledge crevice, a blunt woodsia fern flourishes.

Carolina climbing milkweed is another hillside resident I did not recognize. What a flawless great green leaf!

And with the showy leaf, the vine presented a flower cluster, which I failed to capture clearly with my iPhone (left). So, I shamelessly borrowed an internet image (right).

I am not distinguishing the Rainbolt trail images from photographs I took on top as we trekked along the existing trail to Balance Rock, prickly pear cactus among them.

A trumpet vine already with a seed pod greeted us.

Heart-leafed skullcap populated trailside from top to bottom.

Other Delights

A mighty oak is no match for a limestone ledge. When an immovable object (the ledge) meets with an unstoppable force (the growing oak) , we found that the mighty oak is not entirely up to the challenge. Nature’s persistence, however does reward the oak as it grows valiantly around the immovable ledge, continuing to reach its leaves into the main canopy, adding annual diameter growth, and producing seeds to retain a foothold in the forest that will follow this one. Procreation is life’s ultimate objective. This oak is literally clinging to that goal.

Always alert for tree form curiosities and oddities, I spotted these oak and cedar branch burls.

I like fresh late autumn persimmon fruit, but I love the unique, blocky, nearly black bark of the persimmon tree.

I can’t resist snapping a photo. I asked my self whether it is my favorite tree bark, a fair question. Without elaborating and boring you to tears, I will respond, yes, but….I have deep affection for black cherry in northwest Pennsylvania, red oak in the Smokies, shagbark hickory right here where I reside, white pine in New England, and loblolly pine where I practiced industrial forestry across the southeastern US. Aldo Leopold observed some 80 years ago:

I love all trees, but I am in love with pines.

I still ponder, do I have a true tree love? Perhaps there will come a day when I make a selection and reveal to you in a subsequent Post.

After wondering the forests of northern Alabama for nearly a decade, I have concluded, based on historical accounts and direct observation that most of our forest stands are 80-100 years old. The Rainbolt Trail construction crew removed several trees obstructing the desired route. Conveniently, one was this green ash, a ring-porous species that is among the easiest to count annual rings. The cut (left) is a foot above the stump. The rings number 90! My 80-100 year conclusion holds.

I recorded this 49-second video where Rainbolt reaches the summit and the network of existing trails:

Summit trails are flat.

They strike me as a natural ‘paved’ surface.

We wound our way to the Balance Rock, a natural feature I have visited dozens of times.

I enjoyed exploring the new trail with fellow retired friends Randy Boyette, Jim Chamberlain, Chris Stuhlinger, and Jim Chamberlain.

Like the 13-year cicadas that provided the background thrumming, every lesson for living, learning, serving, and leading is either written indelibly in or powerfully inspired by Nature. There is a time for every season (Ecclesiastes):

To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:
A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted;
A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up;
A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance;
A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together;
A time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;
A time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away;
A time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace.

Thoughts and Reflections

I offer these observations:

The cicadas remind us — there is a time for every season.
Procreation is life’s ultimate objective.
A new trail is a gateway to discovering old secrets.

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. Please circulate images with photo credit: “©2024 Steve Jones, Great Blue Heron LLC. All Rights Reserved.”

Another Note: If you came to this post via a Facebook posting or by another route, please sign up now (no cost… no obligation) to receive my Blog Post email alerts: http://eepurl.com/cKLJdL

And Third: 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 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 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

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 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 now have a fourth book, published by Dutton Land and Cattle Company, Dutton Land & Cattle: A Land Legacy Story. Available for purchase directly from me. Watch for details in a future Post.

Perpetual Wasteland or Future Preserve: Madison, Alabama’s Abandoned Limestone Quarry

June 18, 2024/in Updates /by Steve Jones

My total left knee replacement (January 23, 2024) healed enough by April 26, to allow me to comfortably explore old access roads on Madison, Alabama’s long abandoned limestone quarry, a site proposed by Madison Trails and Greenways (MTG) as a potential Nature Preserve. I snapped photographs and recorded a 60-second video of the old quarry. When I returned home I found excellent photos depicting Nature’s tireless revegetation of the abused and savaged land at the quarry’s periphery. I also discovered that my iPhone had recorded the 60-second video in a 5-minute slow-motion format! I returned on May 28 to record another quarry video, snap a few photos of additional wildflowers, and record a second video of a stripped and vacant operational area on the outlet’s lower slope below the quarry.

Some of my MTG colleagues view the site’s preserve potential through rose-colored glasses. I visited the property prepared to assess it objectively and dispassionately. Once in my younger professional years, I was directly responsible for my employer’s (Union Camp Corporation) 500 square miles (320,000 acres) of south-central Alabama forestland, a majority untouched by attempted domestication as pasture or cropland, much less stripped of overburden, deeply scarred by quarrying, and with roads, dozing, and cement-dumping across much of the area we traversed. I tried to see the property without bias, yet I admit skepticism regarding categorizing a savaged abused land as a Nature Preserve.

I will attempt to reflect on the quarry in light of a potential refuge in a county rapidly developing with residential, commercial, and industrial expansion. Perhaps a 66 acre property, severely disturbed as it is, can serve a useful role in recreation, conservation, and Nature education and interpretation.

I divided this photo essay into presenting the actual quarry and reflecting on Nature’s attempt to revegetate the abused land, which prior to the quarry cutting and lifting the first block of limestone was a Madison County forested hilltop. Questions I have not answered include:

Who operated the quarry?
Beginning when?
Ending when?
Quality of the limestone removed?

Fascinating and Colorful Background

My efforts to uncover historic information on the quarry’s operations fell far short of my target.

Instead, I found this undated text from a website on Alabama diving:

Once closed to diving, Madison Quarry, which is best known for its sunken Minuteman Missile, is a fantastic place to visit. Located Southwest of Huntsville and maintained by a shop called Better Divers, this beautiful quarry is surrounded by soaring cliffs and has lots to see underwater, including an F-4 Phantom jet, a titan missile nose cone, houseboats and other boats, a pickup truck, a fire truck, and more. There are lines installed for controlled swimming ascents, plus there is a shallow confined water area for training. Maximum depth is 55 feet, but average depth is just 40 feet. Visibility is normally between 20 and 30 feet, and temperatures are normally in the 70’s during the summer months. You’ll find catfish and grass carp, brim, koi, and bass here, along with the occasional harmless freshwater jellyfish. Topside amenities are numerous, including a snack shop with hot food, changing rooms and restrooms, air fills, and more. Madison Quarry is open on weekends between May 1 through October 31st; if you have a group that wants to dive on a weekday, you can make an appointment to do so.

And from another website:

Rock Divers Madison Quarry is a shore accessible fresh water dive site, located in Madison, AL. This dive site has an average rating of 3.67 out of 5 from 9 scuba divers. The maximum depth is 31-35ft/9-11m. The average visibility is 11-15ft/3-5m. This dive site provides bathrooms and airfills. Training platforms are available.

Madison Alabama – The city owns it and there’s a guy who leases it and charges to dive there.

Water visibility varies from 20 to 40 feet depending upon “new” divers in the water and rainfall. Water temperature is usually hovers between mid 60’s and 70’s year round with a normal low in winter of 50 to a high of 85 in the summer. The Park has a Full Service Dive Shop offering SCUBA classes, equipment rental, air, and equipment sales. Facilities include underwater training platforms, a 30-foot houseboat, 36 foot-long steel bridge, 30 foot NASA Space Station Module, and other sunken relics such as various NASA hardware, a City of Madison Truck, numerous smaller boats and a U. S. Air Force F4 Fighter.

My April 26 and May 28, 2024 Visits

The green-shaded area below my perch 70 feet above is shallow water tinted with algae and sediment. The 30-35-foot deeper water appears nearly black in the image at right. The immediate foreground and at least an acre on this side of the rim area, including portions of the access roads, seems to have served as a dumping area for cement trucks left at the end of a shift with cement not distributed on a delivery site. The site reminds me of hardened lava overflow near a volcano, Nature’s example of severe disturbance. Importantly, Nature has limitless time; she’s in no hurry to develop a Nature Preserve in a north Alabama urbanizing environment.

I see safety hazards wherever my eyes roam. Granted, the Grand Canyon presents precipitous overlooks where visitors could tumble thousands of feet. The chain link fence along the quarry perimeter is there for a reason. What is the cost of protecting visitors and indemnifying the City or MGT?

I must admit that the quarry is oddly hypnotizing with its diving days halcyon history and its exotic beauty.

Here is my May 28, 60-second video:

I found a better overlook viewpoint during our May perimeter circuit. You may think I crossed over a damaged part of the perimeter fence to get an unobstructed perspective. Those of you who know me would not accuse me of such ill-advised behavior!

Nor would you expect such a thing from Brian Conway, a fellow MGT Board member.

The north rim access road leads to a communication tower. Power lines service the tower. Picture this road as one of the hiking trails. See the perimeter fence to the right. Yes, that’s the perimeter fence that Brian and I did not violate!

The microwave tower lends a space age dimension to the ancient quarry.

Nature’s Healing Ways

Although the quarry struck me as a curiosity, a relic of man’s dependence on Nature and her diverse natural resources, I focused both excursions on Nature’s efforts to heal wounds. Nature does abhor a vacuum, her relentless attempt to revegetate abused land as an example.

Decades ago quarry operators lined the access road with a levy of boulders opposite the quarry edge. Eastern red cedar, a classic pioneer species, colonized the berm above the road. Birds consume the cedar fruits; their digestive juices scarify the seed coat; the birds dutifully deposits the seeds during their rounds, in this case in brush along the road.

Princess tree, Paulownia tomentosa, is a pioneer invasive (Asian), adept at colonizing edge habitat. The species showcased its blue flowers during the April visit.

The April Flowers had transformed to green seed pods by the end of May. I discovered a discarded stem of last year’s seed pods (right). Pioneer species are adept at prodigious seed production, effective seed dispersal, and a demand for germination and growth dependent upon full sunshine.

Tree of heaven is yet another invasive early stage successional tree species, an exceptionally fast grower that colonizes readily, grows rapidly, and eventually yields occupied sites to longer lived forest species, i.e. later stage successional tree species such as oak and hickory.

I found lots of smooth sumac securing purchase on these bruised and battered quarry-proximate sites. This is yet another early successional species specializing in invading disturbed sites, living robustly over their relatively short life, and passing the forest gavel to the next successional cohort. Like other such species, smooth sumac produces large quantities of fleshy seeds, attracting birds that consume the fruit, digestively scarify tough seedcoats, and distribute the seeds to other disturbed sites within their range.

Anyone who roams northern Alabama during early spring can attest to the widely distributed species (with red blossoms) that flourishes at the forest edge along our byways and across abandoned pastures and meadows. Redbud and service berry (white flowers) may be the most recognized spring wildflowers across the eastern US.

Trumpet vine is another first-rank colonizer common along the perimeter road.

The lovely trumpet flowers greeted me during my May return visit.

Virginia creeper vine clung to a section of the perimeter fence.

Box elder and green ash likewise joined in reclaiming a sense of wildness among the ruins.

Elderberry flower clusters enhanced the natural beauty of its own accord without the intentional assistance of man, who merely ravaged the formal hilltop, operated the quarry, and walked away, abandoning the site and allowing Nature to do her thing. Eons of evolution have prepared Nature to remediate, recolonize, and reforest areas savaged by fire, wind, volcano, landslide, meteoric blasts, and other acts of God (and man).

Winged elm is among the woody species playing a role in reclamation.

Mimosa, another Asian plant invasive, welcomed me in May with delicate flowers.

Fragrant sumac, a species that looks enough like poison oak to ward off many humans, presents fresh leaves and a few residual berries from last summer’s crop.

My old friend (NOT!), Chinese privet, found a foothold, grew aggressively, flowered prodigiously, and will produce heavy seed crops to attract birds and ensure seed dispersal and distribution.

On a much brighter note, lespedeza (a native genus) is growing along the perimeter road. Lespedeza’s roots sport nitrogen fixing bacteria which draw nitrogen from the atmosphere and enrich the soil where they are rooted, just another natural mechanism for remediating barren, scarred, and abused land.

A Relevant Sidebar on DEI

I want to add a time-relevant reflection. We hear so much today about DEI — Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, a social construct that has no parallel in Nature. Nature is a strict meritocracy that is reclaiming Madison Quarry without regard to DEI. The plant community colonizing the area will be diverse based upon species and individual’s merit in taking root and competing effectively on the wide range of environmental conditions. Equity does not exist…only equal opportunity pervades Nature. Merit and performance matter. No one is taking attendance, keeping track, and counting heads. If fragrant sumac and smooth sumac perform, compete, and persevere, they proceed forward in time and succession. Inclusion is determined strictly by performance. Nature doesn’t check a box, keep a tally, or guarantee a role. Again, merit and performance matter.

See my 2021 photo essay elaborating on the theme of Nature As a Meritocracy: https://stevejonesgbh.com/2021/09/21/lessons-from-nature-nature-is-a-meritocracy/

June 15, 2024, Scale AI CEO Aledandr Wang announced that his company will hire not for DEI, but for MEI: Merit, Excellence, and Intelligence.

Like Nature, America’s founding was based on merit and performance, serving us well for 250 years. Capitalism likewise is performance-based. Nature rewards merit, weeds out non-performers, and succeeds according to her own rules. I can only imagine how pitifully and imperfectly a governmental “task force” would revegetate the Madison Quarry.

Harsh Ruins of Stark Beauty and Haunting Promise

Muir: Earth has no sorrow that Earth cannot heal.

I contemplate the quarry with mixed feelings. I’m taken with its stark and haunting beauty and mystery. Its story is rich with lessons:

Man’s absolute dependence on natural resources
Our careless disregard for the consequences of our actions
Nature’s inherent skill in healing wounds through natural processes
The relentless and seeming disjointed regional development that leads us through desperation to reclaiming a savaged relic of abused wasteland as a Nature Preserve

I contrast this fenced harsh landscape (moonscape) to the 500 square miles of fertile, undisturbed forest I managed in south-central Alabama from 1981-85, and wonder how 40 years later in a relatively wealthy region of north Alabama we are contemplating salvaging a savaged hilltop as a Nature Preserve.

I have not given much focus to a lower elevation corner of the property, leveled decades ago, perhaps employed as a staging area for quarry-related operations. Discarded materiels lie about the clearing. Developed commercial, residential, and industrial development reach beyond the property.

I recorded this 44-second video during my May return visit:

I remain torn about my assessment of the quarry’s future as wasteland or preserve. A lifelong Nature enthusiast, I can see virtue in both possibilities. I need more information. Please view this history-starved assessment as stage one.

Thoughts and Reflections

I offer these observations:

Earth has no sorrow that Earth cannot heal. (John Muir)
Often magic lies within Nature’s every nook and cranny; in this case, battered wildness lies crumpled in plain sight.
Is resurrecting wildness from savage brutality worth the price?

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. Please circulate images with photo credit: “©2024 Steve Jones, Great Blue Heron LLC. All Rights Reserved.”

Another Note: If you came to this post via a Facebook posting or by another route, please sign up now (no cost… no obligation) to receive my Blog Post email alerts: http://eepurl.com/cKLJdL

And Third: 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 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 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

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 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 now have a fourth book, published by Dutton Land and Cattle Company, Dutton Land & Cattle: A Land Legacy Story. Available for purchase directly from me. Watch for details in a future Post.