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Part One 175-Year-Old C&O Canal Pawpaw Tunnel: Where Nature Meets Engineering and History

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I once again visited the Pawpaw Tunnel on the Chesapeake and Ohio (C&O) National Historical Park on July 28, 2025. Alabama grandsons, Jack (17) and Sam (11), accompanied me. I grew up 30 miles upstream along the Potomac River in Cumberland, Maryland. I wanted the boys to experience the Nature, history, and engineering marvel of the tunnel and canal. We walked east through the 3,600-foot tunnel, traversed a mile beyond it, and then hiked the Tunnel Hill Trail over the mountain to return to the parking area. Part One (this Post) carries us through the tunnel; Part Two takes us back over the Tunnel Hill Trail.

 

The Tunnel

 

Jack and Sam stand above the west end of the tunnel, completed in 1850 (175 years ago!). The structure has stood the test of time. The east end is a pinprick of distant light. Midway through, the darkness is near total.

 

Here is my 59-second video at the west (upstream) entrance.

 

I’ve been to the tunnel scores of times across my seven decades. Camping with my parents and siblings beside the tunnel-tender’s canal-era house adjacent to the river. Fishing on the bank, often at night for catfish. I recall once Dad and me holding frantically to tent poles during a fierce storm that threatened to tear away our shelter. Cooking chili on a Coleman stove. Breakfasts of sauage, eggs, and hashbrowns. The list of indelible memories reaches endlessly. My experiences from those formative years shaped me, sculpted my lifetime addiction to Nature…propelled me to a forestry degree, a meaningful career committed to natural resources sustainability, and a retirement dedicated to:

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

 

Because I neglected to photograph the tunnel’s interior in July, I borrowed a photo I took in November 2019.

C&O Canal

 

The east (downstream) end of the tunnel is forever etched in my memory. Immigrant laborers with picks and shovels, black powder, wheelbarrows, drag-sleds, and horse/mule carts began construction in 1836; the first boats passed through 14 years later. Crews worked from both ends and from two 360-foot vertical shafts. I’d like to visit in 2036, the centennial anniversary of pickaxes first striking the shale. Eleven years hence takes me to age 85. What are the chances of me retaining life, health, vigor, endurance, and mental acuity for another 4,015 sunrises? There is no guarantee even that I or any one of us will witness tomorrow’s dawning. I take comfort that I will seek the goal one step after another, visiting special places and enjoying everyday Nature as I’m able.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This photo from the National Park Service Pawpaw Tunnel brochure during operations more than 100 years ago shows little difference from today’s image. The tunnel is timeless, except that the decades have moved beyond it. I can’t imagine much change between now and 2036.

 

Interestingly, the brochure notes:

In the span of a lifetime, canals faded from beacons of a dawning age to quaint reminders of a bygone era. From 1828 to 1850 thousands of immigrants found work–and hope for a new life–building a canal. Families worked and lived on the long, narrow boats, and children often tended the mules. 

Nature doesn’t care about the blossoming and disappearance of technologies, the tough life of hopeful humans tending the boats, or the miserable fights among immigrant laborers. Moss grows on the dripping sidewalls at the tunnel exit, shrubs sprout on the shale scree, and spring rains temporarily flow in the long-abandoned channel. Decomposers relentlessly attack the wooden decking. My ken is to follow the process over the fleeting years of my lifetime, when little of the tunnel’s countenance has changed from the quaint reminder I relish.

 

I recorded this 53-second video at the east portal.

 

I ponder whether Jack and Sam will catch the fever enough to visit when I and my Pawpaw Tunnel Blog are little more than their own quaint reminder. I wonder who else will care. From the east end exit, the boardwalk stretches through the cut into the distance. How far into the decades will my passion persist?

 

Those thoughts accompanied me as the boys and I sauntered beyond the tunnel and its deep cut through the shale. Perhaps a better verb suggests that my ruminations haunted me. Lift lock 66, numbered consecutively upstream from the Georgetown terminus, captured our interest and spurred our imagination. Like the tunnel, the lock resonated with faint echoes of the thousands of long-gone souls who worked, lived, played, and prayed along the canal. This was the future…fading to a quaint reminder. Nature lives on, finding and claiming its place. My role in leading our trek, planting seeds for tomorrow in the boys, and probing was to encapsulate our experiences in this weekly photo essay.

 

I recorded a 58-second lift-lock video, chronicling Nature finding and claiming its place.

Nothing in Nature is static, including the works of man. Were the 184.5 miles of the canal not preserved as a National Historical Park, Nature would hve revegetated the towpath, canal, infrastructure, and associated memories to obscurity. I recall celebrating in 1971, when the tireless efforts of Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas prompted Congress and the President to secure protection and preservation for the important recreational and environmental landmark. There was talk of converting the landmark to a Blue Ridge Parkway kind of roadway. Douglas penned a seminally persuasive letter to the Washington Post:

I feel that if your editor did [walk the towpath with Douglas], he would return a new man and use the power of your great editorial page to help keep this sanctuary untouched. … He would see strange islands and promontories through the fantasy of fog; he would discover the glory there is in the first flower of spring, the glory there is even in a blade of grass; the whistling wings of ducks would make silence have new values for him. Certain it is that he could never acquire that understanding going 60, or even 25, miles an hour.

I was 20 years old, a junior in forestry school, and already addicted to the magic of the C&O Canal. My memories run deep and indelibly for this sacred (to me) recreational and environmental landmark!

I will repeat the circuit another time, when I return, preferably during the dormant season. Like so many of my special places and the everyday Nature that defines them, the C&O Canal and Pawpaw tunnel extend tendrils deep into my mind, body, heart, soul, and spirit. Where do those intense feelings and vivid memories go when we are called Home? Perhaps fragments will live on through my children, Matt and Katy, and in Jack and Sam, Katy’s boys. Robert Louis Stevenson nailed the sentiment:

Don’t judge each day by the harvest you reap but by the seeds that you plant.

 

Thoughts and Reflections

 

I offer these observations:

  • Nature is a mosaic of place, time, and use; every landscape reflects the past and portends the future. (Steve Jones)
  • Nature lives on, finding and claiming its place. (Steve Jones)
  • My experiences from those formative years shaped me, sculpted my lifetime addiction to Nature…propelled me to a forestry degree, and a meaningful career committed to natural resources sustainability. (Steve Jones)

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

 

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

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

 

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

 

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

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

Vision:

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

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

 

Steve’s Four Books

 

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

I began writing books and Posts for several reasons:

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

 

 

 

 

 

Observations from the Narrows in Western Maryland: A Step back to My Roots!

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I grew up in Cumberland, Maryland, one of the transportation gateways to and over the Appalachian Mountains, a portal to the Ohio frontier and beyond. The Potomac River Valley rises over 600 feet from Washington, D.C.’s tidewater to Cumberland. I visited my hometown in late July 2025. My two Alabama grandsons, Jack (17) and Sam (11), accompanied us. On July 28, we three sauntered two miles through the Narrows along the Great Allegheny Passage (GAP), a 144-mile Rails-to-Trails that stretches from Cumberland to Pittsburgh, PA. I offer photos, brief videos, reflections, and observations on the intersection of human and natural history, overlain by my personal musings.

This view is downstream from the western terminus of the C&O Canal. Years ago, I biked from this point on the foreground gravel trail, the 184.5-mile towpath to Georgetown. Flood control construction in the 1950s erased the canal and towpath infrastructure at this location, leaving the gravel path along the levee for beginning the trek to Washington. West Virginia, across the river, rises to the right.

 

The Chesapeake and Ohio Canal began as a dream to wealth in the West. Operating for nearly 100 years, it was a lifeline for communities along the Potomac River as coal, lumber, and agricultural products floated down the waterway to market. (National Park Service)

Railroad commerce proved economically superior and better able to withstand river flooding, which in 1924 forced the canal’s closure.

Today the canal (A National Historic Park) endures as a pathway for discovering historical, natural, and recreational treasures.

[Dedication: I dedicate this Post to John Milford Parker, Jr. who passed away September 3, 2025. John was among the three people who accompanied me on the bicycle trip to Georgetown. We also occasionally fished, hunted, and hiked together when I returned to western Maryland to visit family. From his obituary: The hunt is over; the woods are still. May he rest in peace on God’s eternal hill.]

From the same point, Cumberland’s hilltop steeples rise where colonial Fort Cumberland once commanded the frontier transportation hub. Beyond the churches, Haystack (left) and Wills (right) Mountains tower nearly 1,000 feet above the Narrows gorge.

 

This 60-second video sets the stage for my trek with Jack and Sam through the Narrows.

 

The historic  railroad station stands less than a quarter mile from the 184.5-mile canal photo point. In my younger years I biked the GAP from Pittsburgh to this endpoint. Sam explored the eastside plaza. Six and one-half decades earlier, at about Sam’s age, I watched my maternal grandfather depart the station for his final B&O Railroad train run to Pittburgh. A World War I veteran, Pap engineered both steam locomotives and diesels. I watched his departure with rapture and deep envy. Rapture because I revered Pap and loved trains. Envy because my teenage brother sat in the cab waving with Pap as they tooted farewell heading to Pittsburgh.

 

 

 

 

 

As the three of us completed our morning walk through the Narrows, the Western Maryland Scenic Line locomotive surprised us departing, like Pap so many decades ago, from the station outbound through the Narrows.

 

I recorded this 60-second video of the mighty engine departing Cumberland.

 

The fading train reminded me that I’m gazing at my own metaphorical sunset from a long and distant dawn, when Mom and Dad brought me to see Pap’s retirement departure. I’ve been blessed to have lived well across the decades, returning repeatedly to these Allegheney Mountains, and their Nature that has nourished and enriched my life and living. So much in my own life, and across Nature, distills to seasons, chapters, and volumes. I’ve enjoyed 74 spring surges in ecosystems and terrains where I’ve resided…from these mountains to the Adirondacks to Alabama’s southern Appalachians to New Hampshire’s Whites to the Alaska Range and more. Different sections in Earth’s physical and life library.

 

So much for my home-woods nostalgia. Let’s head to the Narrows. My recollection is that the Narrows GAP trail is the only paved segment of the 144-mile total length. The shrub-vegetated strip borders the trail on the highway 20-feet below, which hugs Wills Creek another 20-feet below it. The far side at the base of Wills Mountain carries two tracks of the still active Chessie System. The RR sign below signals bikers and pedestrians to carefully cross the rail ahead as the GAP crosses to the tail-slope side of the trail.

 

The Narrows is a natural canyon. Its geologic history is complex. Wills Creek occupies the canyon that separates Wills and Haystack. The Creek did not cut down through the continuous ridge called by the two different names. Instead, the ridge rose up during the Appalachian-building process, and the stream cut its path as the landmass uplifted. I will stop there before I venture even deeper into a science remote from my own.

 

I recorded this 52-second video of the Narrows near our turn-around point two miles from Cumberland.

 

We began our trek 15 minutes before a heavy shower forced us under the eaves of a commercial building near the trail. We dried as the skies cleared and a hot summer sun baked us.

 

I recorded this 57-second video offering commentary on my 74-year personal and professional story that began in these Allegheny Mountains.

 

The Haystack Mountain tailslope forest provides afternoon shade for the trail. Knowing the long period of coal-fired rail traffic, I wondered how many times hot cinders ignited the forest. The current stand has likely not burned since the onset of diesel locomotives.

 

We found a large patch of Japanes knotweed, an aggressive invasive. I reluctantly admit that the plant has particularly attractive shiny foliage.

 

After the shower, the boys stand dripping beside one of the benches, acknowledging a longtime GAP proponent and supporter.

I could not resist posting this snapshot as one of 15-or-so rail pedal-carts trundled toward Cumberland. The recreational vendor boards passengers at Frostburg, about a dozen miles up the GAP from Cumberland. I’ve biked the route, enjoying a nearly pedal-free coast to the Narrows and then a flat ride to the railway station. The occupants pedaled past us. In Cumberland, the passengers return to Frostburg aboard the Western Maryland Scenic Line. The vendor somehow transports the carts back to Frostburg. Perhaps a diesel engine pulled them as a train?

 

An historic frontier transportation and industrial hub, Cumberland now draws sustenance from its Natural beauty and recreational amenities. The place I loved as a youth, that shaped my future direction and life, has deepened and polished its Nature-luster, drawing me to its breast…nurturing me and fanning a nearly latent homing instinct. No, don’t fret…I won’t be vacating my retirement domicile, but I did feel the attraction.

 

Thoughts and Reflections

 

I offer these observations:

  • A historic frontier transportation and industrial hub, my hometown now draws sustenance from its natural beauty and recreational amenities. (Steve Jones)
  • The place I loved as a youth, that shaped my future direction and life, has deepened its Nature-luster. (Steve Jones)
  • 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)

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

 

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

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

 

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

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

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

Vision:

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

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

 

Steve’s Four Books

 

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

I began writing books and Posts for several reasons:

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

 

 

 

 

 

A Return to the Alum Hollow Trail at North Alabama Land Trust’s Green Mountain Nature Preserve

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34 photos and 6 videos

My two Alabama grandsons (Jack Disher, 17, and Sam Disher, 11) accompanied me on June 24, 2025, to the North Alabama Land Trust’s Green Mountain Nature Preserve. We explored the Alum Hollow Trail, where I was scheduled to lead a Land Trust Nature Hike on June 28, 2025. I wanted to scout the trail for features worthy of focus for the planned Land Trust nature venture. Most importantly, I treasure time in Nature with Jack and Sam. I want my passion for the natural world to live in them far beyond my fleeting time on this pale blue orb. Come along with me (and Jack and Sam) through observations, reflections, photos, and brief videos.

Green MountainGreen Mountain

 

Four days later I led the Land Trust Hike with ten eager Nature enthusiasts.

Green MountainGreen Mountain

 

 

The trail is relatively flat along the 1,400 to 1,500 foot plateau top of Green Mountain. Mixed second-growth upland hardwood is the dominant forest cover, yet shortleaf (below) and Virginia pines occupy the WSW-facing ridge rim where the trail took us. I’ll say more about the preserve’s pine, represented here with a trail marker sign.

Green Mountain

 

Every time I saunter along a forest trail I find magic, wonder, beauty, awe, and inspiration hidden in plain sight. The Alum Hollow Trail was no exception.

 

Notable Non-Tree Species

 

Vaccinium aboreum is a species new to me since retiring to Madison, Alabama in 2018. It’s the largest member of the blueberry genus. My fascination may or may not derive from its mirthful common names: farkleberry, sparkleberry, and winter huckleberry. An NC State University online Cooperative Extension publication describes this large vaccinium:

Sparkleberry is a small, deciduous to evergreen shrub or tree that may grow 10 to 20 feet tall. It can be found in rocky woodlands, sandy woodlands, and on cliffs. The leaves are alternate with a smooth or finely toothed margin. The bark is shredded and patchy with reds, browns, and grays present. In early summer, small, white, bell-shaped flowers mature. In the fall, this plant has excellent color. The tall shrub produces a black fruit that matures in the fall and is a good food source for wildlife.

It’s a tough lower-story shrub, seeming to prefer harsh dry sites. I admire it for thriving where more demanding species fear to tread.

Green MountainGreen Mountain

 

We found cedarglade St. John’s wort in flower. Also from an online NC State sourse:

St. John’s Wort is native to SE USA and in NC it is found in the western mountain areas. It is a small, dense shrub that grows 2-4 feet tall and wide with a rounded dense form. It inhabits glades and dry limestone ledges. The foliage may appear slightly bluish-green and is evergreen in its southern range. The showy yellow flowers are bright yellow with numerous stamens on new wood and appear in June-July.

Its foliage and yellow flower drew me in for a closer look.

Green Mountain

 

Greater tickseed is a member of the aster family and is found across Alabama from the Gulf coast to the Tennessee line. I love its whorled leaves.

Green Mountain

 

We feature hydrangea (oakleaf; endless summer; little lime) in our home landscaping. Near the falls the boys and I found wild hydrangea in full flower. Grandson Sam snapped these images.

Green Mountain

 

Although I missed seeing naked-flowered tic-trefoil with the boys, the Land Trust group oohed over its delicate pink blossoms. Note its tri-leaf (i.e. trefoil) foliage. The species is a Legume, a member of the pea family.

Green Mountain

 

I had never asked Jack or Sam to record a brief interpretive video. They have heard me record many, when their role was to be quiet for a moment. I decided to give Sam a try. Without hesitation he recorded this 39-second sassafras identification lesson. He performed as though he’d done it a dozen times! Jack and I walked far enough away not to distract him. He needed only one take. I am grandfather-proud of the result — he may be catching the Nature bug!

 

We’ll hone his and Jack’s video artistry time and time again!

 

Selected Curiosities

 

My third book, Weaned Seals and Snowy Summits (co-authored with Dr. Jennifer Wilhoit), highlighted our passion for place and everyday Nature. The term everyday Nature is adequate but falls far short of sufficient. My eyes wander, seeking the unusual, the bizarre, oddities, and curiosities. I say that, yet I must confess that unusual, bizarre, odd, and curious are within the realm of everyday Nature. Nothing in Nature is strange; some things may be unexpected…but strange in Nature is commonplace!

A vividly green vine spiraling a pole-sized hickory tree may strike the uninformed as strange, but its not at all uncommon for a supplejack vine to have hitched a ride to the full sunlight of an upper story hickory.

Green Mountain

 

A large chestnut oak pointed ahead to the left as we progressed. Jack stood atop the tree’s crook. Some would opine confidently that Native Americans modified the then much smaller stem long ago to create an Indian Marker Tree. Sorry to disappoint, but some natural force (branch or fallen tree) clobbered the young erect tree, bending and breaking it about five feet above ground. The bend remains, supporting a new vertical stem that reaches into the main canopy. Nature’s primary life-imperative is to secure a pathway to immortality, whether me through Jack and Sam, or a crushed chestnut oak by way of an adventious bud sprouting a new shoot that reaches skward. The bridge to immortality extends through generations.

Green MountainGreen Mountain

 

John Muir, too, spoke of immortality.

After a whole day in the woods, we are already immortal. 

Nothing in Nature is static. A few weeks prior, this chestnut oak’s crown spread over one-fifth of an acre. One of its progeny may already be feeling the sunshine streaming in from the vacated canopy above. Adjacent trees will extend branches laterally to fill the void. The forest will persist even as individual trees succumb.

But in every walk with Nature one receives far more than he seeks. (John Muir)

I recorded this 59-second video of the fallen chestnut oak and a larger one standing regally nearby.

 

To many trail trekkers, a windthrown oak is merely an obstacle. To the trail maintenance crew…a task. To me, a prompt for mental wandering and contemplation. I wondered whether Native Americans traversed Green Mountain across their 13-15 millennia of occupation. How many times over those 140 centuries did a windblown chestnut oak bar their transit?

 

Southern Pine Beetle Outbreak

 

Summer 2024 was a banner year for southern pine beetle infestations across central and northern Alabama, killing thousands of acres of pine forests. Although upland hardwoods dominate the preserve, the Alum Hollow Trail passes through several hundred linear feet of mostly Virginia pine and, to a lesser extent, shortleaf pine. Beetle-killed pine trees posed a threat to trail users.

Green Mountain

 

Land Trust crews felled dead trees. Jumbles of dead pine debris line the trail. Importantly, the forest persists. Species composition has changed. The piles of pinewood will decompose. Adjacent trees will reach into the crown opening; new stems will grow from the forest floor.

 

Sam found intrigue in a dead pine carcass recently fallen below the trail.

 

Curiosities and oddities are commonplace. Strange encounters are the norm to those sauntering and paying attention.

 

Fungi along the Alum Hollow Trail

 

Beetles belong to the animal kingdom; oak trees represent the plant kingdom; fungi are members of their own kingdom. Mushrooms are the spore producing reprodctive organs of fungi, which variously decay living organic matter, consume dead biomass, or grow symbiotically with living plants. I won’t go beyond that generalization. Go to the Blog page of my website (https://stevejonesgbh.com/blog/) and search for mushrooms, which will direct you to multiple photo essays focusing on my mushroom encounters. I give you below a few photos of fungi we found along the Alum Hollow Trail.

 

Coker’s amanita (Sam’s photos) is a common pure white gilled mushroom.

Green Mountain

 

iNaturalist does a good job identifying mushrooms when given top, side, and underside photo views.

Green Mountain

 

 

 

 

 

Red chanterelle (Sam’s photos) attracted us with their vivid laterns along the trail. A coarsely gilled edible mushroom genus, chanterelles are mycorrhiza fungi with mycelia growing within tree roots, benefitting both the tree and the fungus.

Green Mountain

 

Flaming gold bolete, a member of a polypore (hollow tubes rather than gills) group common in northern Alabama.

Green Mountain

 

Some bolete species are mycorrhizal; other species are parasitic. Some are delectibly edible, while others are not table-worthy; distinguishing among species can be difficult. The boletes are not among the mushrooms I forage!

 

Alum Shelter and Waterfall

 

On both days, we turned at the waterfall and shelter.

I asked Jack to record a brief video at the falls. Like Sam, he performed well, recording this 25-second video.

 

I’ve seen the falls with greater flow, and I’ve visited with far less.

Green Mountain

 

Uncertain of my ability to clamber down to the falls after my two 2024 total knee replacements, I recorded this 59-second video from the trail above the falls.

 

The Alum Cave is a misnomer. It’s a ledge overhang.

Green Mountain

 

Protected from sunlight and rain, the shelter provides a pleasant spot for resting and reflecting.

Green MNPGreen Mountain

 

I recorded this 60-second video at the shelter.

A child of the central Appalachians, I feel at home in the preserve’s rugged terrain. Pausing at the shelter prompted me to step back six decades. Nature has a way of transporting me, physically, mentally, and spiritually!

 

A Final Critter

 

Although the final image in my photo essays, this eastern fence lizard greeted the Land Trust entourage early on our venture. I offer it in closing only because I did not concieve it as a good place to start.

Green Mountain

 

Thoughts and Reflections

 

I offer these observations:

  • He who can no longer wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead, a snuffled-out candle. (Albert Einstein)
  • The cycle of life is without end…as long as our sun shines, rain falls, and Earth remains otherwise inhabitable. (Steve Jones)
  • Nothing in Nature is static, whether a mountain range or a northern Alabama upland forest. (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 & photographed by Stephen B. Jones.

Please circulate images with photo credit: “©2025 Steve Jones, Great Blue Heron. All Rights Reserved.”

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

 

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

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

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

Vision:

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

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

 

Steve’s Four Books

 

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

I began writing books and Posts for several reasons:

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

 

 

Green Mountain

 

 

 

Intergenerational Spring Saunter at Alabama’s Monte Sano State Park!

/in /by

Alabama grandsons Jack (17 years) and Sam (11) accompanied me on April 19, 2025, as we traversed the Sinks and Wells Memorial Trails at Alabama’s Monte Sano State Park near Huntsville. Seven months beyond my second total knee replacement surgery and 21 months since my triple bypass, there’s little I will not attempt on local trails. I’m relentlessly abiding by the tenets of Nature-Inspired Life and Living and Nature-Buoyed Aging and Healing. Come with us as we discover delights and treasures hiding in plain sight.

 

On the Trails: Sinks and Wells Memorial

 

Growing up in the central Appalachians of western Maryland, I feel at home on the Monte Sano trails. The varied terrain and hardwood forests range from the rich and productive concave lower north to east-facing slopes to the rocky low-quality west and south-facing convex slopes. The Sinks and Wells trails transect generally good to excellent sites. On a previous visit, I measured a yellow poplar on the Sinks trail 142 feet tall.

Monte Sano

 

I recorded this 57-second video on the Sinks Trail.

 

You’ll note that I stated in my narrative, “I would not trade this for anything in the world.”

Albert Einstein made clear that one of the greater joys in approaching our sunset years is knowing that we can live on through subsequent generations:

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 am looking at the sunset from a far and distant dawn. My Dad would have been 100 this year. He passed 29 years ago, yet he walks with me every step of my woodland saunters. He remains alive through me, even as Jack and Sam will carry my spirit through their lives and beyond.

 

A Sampling of Spring Ephemerals

 

We saw many spring wildflowers, including a few notable examples. I offer these in form of a brief portfolio. I see no need to include a narrative.

Dwarf larkspur:

 

Rue anemone and wild geranium:

Monte Sano

 

White baneberry:

Monte Sano SP

 

Those three species date back to my systematic botany lab days more than a half-century ago.

I recorded this 60-second video of a forest floor carpeted with mayapple umbrellas:

 

And the same holds for mayapple and systematic botany.

Monte SanoMonte Sano

 

Mayapple holds a little secret — only the plants with two leaves are sexually mature. If one leaf, don’t expect to see a flower. If two leaves, the flower will appear in the dual-leaf axil.

Drooping trillium grows north into the Great Lakes region. So much of what I treasure seeing here in northern Alabama extends up through and beyond where I studied all manner of forestry.

Monte Sano

 

I suppose I will always be a spring ephemeral wildflower enthusiast — it’s in me for life.

 

And a Fern

 

I recall Pennsylvania forests with a full ground cover of New York and hay-scented fern. I miss those special places. Here in north Alabama, I’m pleased to encounter individual plants, like this silver glade fern.

Monte Sano

 

Wells Memorial Trail: One of My Favorite Places

 

I co-taught a UAH OLLI course this past spring: North Alabama Naturalists and Their Special Places. I selected The Wells Memorial Trail as my Special Place. Search my Great Blue Heron website for Wells Memorial Trail to access previous photo essays on the trail and its magic.

I recorded this 59-second video at three-benches, the gateway to the Wells Trail.

 

A special place indeed!

 

Odd Tree Forms

 

I’ve never encountered a tree form curiosity or oddity that failed to pique my interest. I quote Leonardo da Vinci often in my Great Blue Heron posts. He urges me from half a millennium ago to examine oddities and curiosities intent on explaining the cause of these exquisite abnormalities:

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

In fact, I just came to the realization that tree form curiosities and oddities are so common that terming them abnormalities may be a misnomer!

Most of our northern Alabama forests are second-growth, the result of natural regeneration following timber harvesting or suspension of agricultural tillage or pasturing 80-to-100+ years ago. Timber harvesting would have left scarred, injured, and otherwise non-commercial residuals. This massive oak was likely such an invidual. T0day its hollow severely decayed and disfigured bulk is yielding to inevitable forces, its strength to vulnerabilty ratio passing an irresistible threshold.

 

I recorded a 59-second video of the massive oak.

 

Its large carcass is scattered across a half-acre. Its once magestic hulk lies broken and disassembling. Decomposers will take over the task of returning its mass to the soil.

 

Basswood is adept at resprouting from cut stumps. Loggers harvested a large basswood tree here along the upper Sinks Trail many decades prior. These four or five large tall basswoods grew from sprouts around the severed stump — hence, a mature stump cluster!

Monte SanoMonte Sano

 

Here is my 57-second video of the basswood stump cluster, with a couple of grandsons thrown in for good measure…literally for good measure as a scale for judging trunk size.

 

I stop to admire the cluster each time I venture through these towering trees.

Monte SanoMonte Sano

 

We approached this tree skeleton caricature carefully. It struck a compelling pose, leaning over us, elbows and forearms on the opposite side of the trail supporting its weight. Dare we stand under it, tempting the creature to awaken and snag us from the path? Our hardwood forests may not be the dark and foreboding, foul and repugnant wilderness tracts New England’s European settlers characterized four centuries ago, yet they are still habitated by sylvan ogres and wood spirits. What good would a woodland venture with grands be without seeking and finding such delights?!

 

 

 

I am sure that some trekkers would leap to conclude that this is an Indian Marker Tree. No, a falling branch or tree impacted this hickory when it was pole-sized. The concussion bent the more supple younger stem and broke the top, where the rounded stub protrudes. In response, the hickory activated adventitious buds to send new shoots vertically to resecure ascent into the upper canopy and its direct sunlight. The arched original stem supports three elevated trunks reaching heavenward. The tree does indeed point to something. You are free to fashion the mythical object or destination. I am old enough to remember the old weeknight (1965-67) comedy program, F-Troop. I recall the directions given to one of the characters, “Turn left at the rock that resembles a bear; and then turn right at the bear resembling a rock.” This tree’s directional utility may be of equivalent merit!

 

And yet another marker tree. Same song, different verse. Physical injury and evolved response to live and fluorish another day; seek the light above; produce seed; pass genes forward; all absent the hand of man.

Monte Sano

 

Nothing in Nature is static; nothing in the natural world is new. I can’t imagine anything that hasn’t happened before…a thousand (nay, ten thousand by ten thousand) times before.

 

Special Mountain Biking Feature

 

I’m a committed Nature enthusiast…and naturalist purist. I have no desire to catapult through the forest, kamikazi-style on my two-wheeled steed. I limit myself to paved or smoothly-graded gravel greenways. However, I recognize that mountain biking is a popular woodland pursuit. Our route took us past The Sinks Ride Area. I include it only as a sidebar. Some State Park users praise the expanding bike features. Others consider it anathema to the core mission. I leave judgement to others.

Monte Sano

 

Closing at a Perfect Place for Rest and Contemplation

 

I like the Three Benches trail intersection where the Wells Memorial Trail heads off the Sinks Trail. The three benches sit in deep shade in the cove hardwood site. A massive yellow popular tree nourishes the soul, reminding me what good living, ample resources, and time can provide. When my dear friend and professional colleague (from my Penn State University days) died four years ago in October, I recorded a tribute video to him at this sacred place.

Here is the 59-second video I recorded with the grandsons taking a breather.

 

My third book, Weaned Seals and Snowy Summits, carries an apt subtitle: Stories of Passion for Place and Everyday Nature. When I reflect on my well over 400 Great Blue Heron posts, I realize that my focus is on Place and Everyday Nature.

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:

  • 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)
  • There is no result in nature without a cause; understand the cause and you will have no need of the experiment. (Leonardo da Vinci)
  • I would not trade this (exploring in the woods with my grandsons) for anything in the world. (Steve Jones)

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

 

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

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

 

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

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

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

Vision:

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

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

 

Steve’s Four Books

 

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

I began writing books and Posts for several reasons:

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

 

 

 

 

Spring Morning Nature-Delights along Madison’s Bradford Creek Greenway!

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I sauntered 2.5 miles with family on March 29, 2025, on an out and back from Heritage Elementary School along the Bradford Creek Greenway. I spent most of my time wandering hither and yon within the bottomland forest, exploring what might lie hidden in plain sight.

Bradford Creek carried a full flow, flush in response to the nearly 15 inches of rain I had measured since January 1. The creek is a great place to reflect…a mirror to the dormant forest and a soothing calmness to assist an old forester reflecting on the 73 vernal woodland seasons he has celebrated across many states and several nations.

 

Life Can Be A Struggle

 

I cling to those memories, drawing strength and comfort from those experiences, while supplejack and grape vines twine and embrace in what for at leasst one will be a death spiral. Competition is part of an ecosystem-wide conflict among participants (plants, animals, fungi, invertebrates, and other life forms) for scarce resources, among the stakes are light, water, nutrition, and space. Life in the woods is not easy nor without strife.

 

Decay and Decomposition

 

This tree, like all living organisms, yielded to superior forces (old age, disease, competition, etc.) and now stands as Nature’s life cycle artistry owing to decomposition, insects, bird scavaging, and untold other elements.

 

A decay-hollowed sweetgum, with an open portal from side-to-side, suggests a history of physical abuse allowing fungi to infect and decompose the wounded trunk across decades. Disease and decomposition do their work. Abuse in the forest is common…not of the deliberate malevant variety, but incidental to human interaction with tools, equipment, or vehicles. The Bradford Creek bottomland forest is not untouched wildland. It is a riparian zone preserved as a sewer line right-of-way and protected as a wetland, located in the heart of Alabama’s fastest growing urban population center, Madison, Alabama and Huntsville.

 

Most trees along the greenway forest evidence old injuries. A look inside reveals structural weakness that will yield to gravity’s persistent and undefeated power. Fallen trunks litter the forest. Nothing in Nature is static.

 

Grnadson Sam stands by a snag on its last legs. I give it less than a year.

 

Life and Renewal

 

Even as death is a big part of life in the forest, it is all manner of life in these rich riparian forests that draws me back, again and again. I recorded this 57-second video of Sam, fawn lillies, and dwarf trillium in celebration of spring life returning.

 

Shagbark hickory is among the larger trees in the stand. This one appears healthy, its fruit (hickory nuts) a gift to the ubiquitous squirrels that scamper along the trail. I see no wound scars on this specimen.

 

This box elder, common along the forest edge on both sides of the greenway, is in flower. Spring in the northland where we’ve resided from time to time (PA, NY, NH, OH, and western MD), arrives with a perceived sense of urgency, seeming eager to enter the much shorter growing season. Here in northern Alabama, autumn slowly evolves to spring with a few days of winter interrupting. This box elder is sporting new leaves and is in full flower.

 

Butterweed is an early spring showoff at forest edge and in meadow habitats.

 

Canadian lousewort’s intricate leaves and lavendaer bloom merited a photograph.

 

Sweet Betsy trillium was within a day or two of opening its display to proclaim the new season.

 

I recorded this 55-second video of the floral celebration underway.

 

Not to be outdone by sweet Betsy, the smaller, more delicate dwarf trillium claimed nearby forest floor.

 

 

 

 

 

Yellow fawn lilly (trout lilly) has held a place in my heart since I took systematic botany (the study dealing with the classification and evolutionary relationships of plant species, integrating taxonomy and phylogenetics) in spring 1970. Weekly field trips focused on spring ephemeral wildflowers.

 

My 40-second video brings yellow fawn lillies to life.

 

Virginia spring beauty also resides with absolute clarity in that 55-year memory bank. I can still see us students racing through the central Appalachian hills to keep up (physically and intellectually) with Dr. Glenn O. Workman. He became a lifetime mentor and friend (https://stevejonesgbh.com/2017/11/28/sowing-seeds-tomorrow/) across my career.

 

Mayapple is yet another ephemeral staple of my undergraduate education, professional pursuit, and retirement avocation and passion.

 

Woodland spider lilly foliage hints at the spectacular flowers that will blossom in June!

 

Each time I venture into wooland Nature, I encounter the incredible treasures that lie hidden in plain sight. Along with the revelations come vivid and cherished memories, all the sweeter because I can occasionally share all with young Sam, one of my two Alabama grandsons!

Albert Einstein knew the value in having Sam along to share these treasures:

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:

  • A drab spring day reveals the promise of the coming season to those who seek it. (Steve Jones)
  • In retirement I am enriched by the freedom of time without pressures, restrictions, and deadlines. (Steve Jones)
  • 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)

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

 

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

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

 

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

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

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

Vision:

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

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

 

Steve’s Four Books

 

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

I began writing books and Posts for several reasons:

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

 

Sam’s older brother, Jack!

 

 

 

Intergenerational Woodland Venture at Wade Mountain Nature Preserve

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On Monday, November 25, 2024, Alabama grandsons Jack (17) and Sam (11) hiked the Devil’s Racetrack Trail with me at the Wade Mountain Nature Preserve near Huntsville, Alabama. The 935-acre preserve includes the 1,453′ elevation Wade Mountain summit. The racetrack loop circles a lesser peak at 1,050′. We covered just under four miles…not bad for an old forester recovering from two total knee replacements in 2024 (left in January; and right in August).

I posted two photo essays from my 2022 visit to Wade Mountain:

  • https://stevejonesgbh.com/2022/09/21/mid-august-hike-my-first-visit-to-wade-mountain-nature-preserve/
  • https://stevejonesgbh.com/2022/10/05/mid-august-hike-circuiting-a-summit-glade-racetrack/

Those two posts focused on the Nature of Wade Mountain. I chose a different theme for this one: the magic of sharing Nature with grandkids. I frequently turn to Albert Einstein, the 20th Century’s greatest intellect, for wisdom far beyond theoretical physics:

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.

Do not grow old, no matter how long you live.

Look deep into Nature and then you will understand everything better.

 

We arrived mid-morning (8:30) at the trailhead. Three months after total right knee replacement surgery I felt confident in my strength, stability, and endurance to cover the distance and navigate the trail. The boys knew I would not maintain the pace they might prefer to keep. I was surprised and pleased that I managed a full-saunter rate. Jack climbed into the basket of a three-stemmed white oak while Sam posed on the trail. I will recall moments like this until my final breaths. My hope is that they will remember the essence of our outdoor ventures deep into adulthood.

Wade Mountain

 

Wooden benches offered resting opportunites; fallen trees provided bridges into toppled crowns, and imagination portals to other worlds. Albert Einstein would have approved:

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

Wade MNPWade MNP

 

Boulders and rock ledges beckoned climbers. I was content to capture images of their ventures, knowing they would have offered helping hands if I asked to join them. With no small measure of melancholy I recall Sam enjoying hikes perched on my shoulders.

Wade MNPWade MNP

 

 

 

My trek with the boys brought to mind a quote of John Muir’s:

I care to live only to entice people to look at Nature’s loveliness.

I had not realized until now that he struck clearly on one of the pricipal themes of my retirement wiriting, teaching, speaking, and contemplating.

The rounded portal in the trailside limestone ledge invites all passersby to peek through for a photo-op (Jack at left; Sam to right)!

Wade MNP

 

I posted myself on the trail and passed my camera to one of them on the far side. A clearer perspective, don’t you think? A lesson for life and living — perspective changes with where you find yourself in a landscape…or on an issue…or along life’s journey.

Wade MNP

 

I viewed the boys through their sunrise portal, they in the bright light of youth. Retrospectively from my 15-month five surgeries period (June 2023 through August 2024), I saw their view of me as their Pap approaching a sunset. Perhaps a bit too macabre, I again quote John Muir:

Let children walk with Nature, let them see the beautiful blendings and communions of death and life, their joyous inseparable unity, as taught in woods and meadows, plains and mountains and streams of our blessed star, and they will learn that death is stingless indeed, and as beautiful as life.

I enlightened them, as we walked, about the cycle of life and death in the forest.

The Magic and Wonder of Trees

 

Grape vines reach into the main canopy of many of our north Alabama hardwood forests These two individuals ascended simultaneously with the twin-boled hickory.

Wade MNP

 

I love finding and catologuing tree form oddities and curiosities. This persistent Eastern red cedar was decades ago slammed to the ground by a fallen branch from above. It recovered with a new stem reaching vertically (more or less) into the intermediate canopy. Like many of the remaining cedar trees, it is fading, outcompeted by the overtopping hardwoods.

Wade MNP

 

Most other cedars have already succumbed, leaving their decay-resistant carcasses behind to haunt the scrub forest near the summit sandstone glade.

Wade MNP

 

 

Most trees (all in my previous experience) consume the normal tree diet of nutrients, moisture, and sunlight. However, this old hickory seemed well prepared and tooled to consume unwary trekkers. The boys chose to stay clear of the gaping maw!

Wade MNP

 

Perhaps I will keep a distance from this spooky forest at evening’s gloaming. A long ago gale tore the crown from this ridgetop tree. The decapitated denizen recovered with fresh branches, appearing now as zombie-like, reaching blindly to our left.

Wade MNP

 

Even without a gaping maw, this hickory (left) and oak are openly devouring trail signs.

Wade MNPWade MNP

 

The forest (all forests) holds tightly to their secret doings. This one made no effort to hide its mischievous secrets, and I felt the better for it.

 

Emerging at the Racetrack Summit

 

 

The racetrack encircles an ecotype previously unfamiliar to me — a limestone glade, which I defined and described in one of the previous photo essays referenced earlier. The boys and I welcomed escaping into sunshine beyong the closed forest.

Wade MNPWade MNP

 

The baldness is of edaphic (soil and site factors) origin.

Wade MNP

 

My 59-second video tells the barren’s tale far better than an old forester’s prose:

 

I find the stark beauty and literal harshness attractive.

Wade MNP

 

Cedars persist in distressed form, holding true to the halloween mood.

Wade MNP

 

It’s a rough life on these infertile, shallow, and xeric glade soils.

Wade MNPWade MNP

 

 

A major power line at the ridgetop provides a refreshing vista to the north, and furnishes enough openess to support a colony of prickly pear cactus.

Wade MNP

 

I recorded this 32-second video at the transmission line.

 

Thoughts and Reflections

 

I offer these observations:

  • Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world. (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. (Einstein)
  • I will recall moments like this until my final breaths. My hope is that they will remember the essence of our outdoor ventures deep into adulthood. (Steve Jones)

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

 

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

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

 

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

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

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

Vision:

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

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

 

Steve’s Four Books

 

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

I began writing books and Posts for several reasons:

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

 

 

Wade MNP

 

Time and Nature Healing Landscape and Spiritual Wounds at Vicksburg, MS

/in /by

Judy and I visited the Vicksburg, Mississippi National Military Park July 15-17, 2024, with our two Alabama grandsons. I focus this photo essay on Time and Nature healing the landscape and spiritual wounds along the Mighty Mississippi. First and foremost, Nature selected the site for this epic battle. Topographic features along the river proved favorable for highways and railroads crossing the river. The river was and remains one of the nation’s most crucial commerce routes. The intersection of river and ground transportation spurred the birth and growth of the city. Vicksburg is situated on the dryland bluffs overlooking the rich flat delta country. The loess hills on the river’s east side provided a superior location for the city’s fortifications to protect the South’s ground and especially the river lifelines. Rich farmland and bottomland hardwood forests surrounded the city.

 

Here is my 59-second video of today’s barge, rail, and highway avenues of commerce.

 

Jefferson Davis and Abe Lincoln agreed that “Vicksburg was vital to victory” for both sides of the conflict. The armies converged here in the early summer of 1863.  I won’t retell the battle. National Military Park literature and countless articles and books are available for historians and interested laymen. The pamphlet I picked up at the visitors center is a good start.

 

Federal officials established the Vicksburg NMP in 1899, when the land bore fresh battle scars. Nature was reclaiming gullies and canyons with naturally regenerating hardwood forests, a process that early park caretakers encouraged. At the time of the battle and siege, only a few individual trees and isolated groves dotted the hills.

 

Cannons and marksmen fired across open fields and denuded gorges. Today the ridgelines bordering the maintained meadows and the gorges separating them are forested, masking the killing fields of 1863.

 

 

The pleasant aesthetic of pastoral fields and bordering forests is Nature’s healing handiwork, belying the utter starkness and terrifying reality of thousands of enemy combatants face-to-face across open terrain pitted with craters, abandoned and burning materiel, and carcasses of soldiers and horses. Nature began her healing immediately. As John Muir observed so eloquently about Nature broadly:

Nature is always lovely, invincible, glad, whatever is done and suffered by her creatures. All scars she heals, whether in rocks or water or sky or hearts.

He hinted that Nature heals both Earth-scars and injuries of the heart and spirit, which ran deep at Vicksburg and across the perilously divided nation. Twenty thousand dead and wounded during the campaign, and their affected families, exacted a tremendous toll that extended for generations. Many survivors and loved ones attended the 1899 dedication. Tear-filled eyes and yet-aching hearts observed the ceremony.

In contrast, Nature shed no tears on that 36th year following the battle and siege. None of her wounds proved lasting. What permanent harm results from a few hundred tons of lead and explosives? In May of 1980 Mount Saint Helens blew 0.6 cubic miles from her side and reduced tens of thousands of acres of forests to wasteland…land that now supports vigorous regrowing forests. Nature knows calamity, viewing it as a trigger to renewal. Again, what lasting harm results from a few hundred tons of lead and explosives?

 

Over 1,400 National Military Park markers and memorials commemorate the engaged individuals and units. Cannons mark the battle lines, hinting at the fiery, deafening, and terrifying fury that prevailed during the extended engagement. I wondered whether any of the combatants gazed into the pastoral future that Park visitors now experience. Perhaps a deep prayer yielded a vision that included warm sun, blue sky, marble monuments, and perpetual peace. As I walked these fields, I felt the presence of the disembodied 20,ooo souls who lost life or limb. I heard them whispering in the treetop breeze.

 

Near those cannons, I recorded this 57-second wide sweep battlefield video:

 

The iconic Illinois memorial commands a hilltop Union position, providing a sweeping view of a section of still wide open meadow.

 

I recorded this 59-second video from the Illinois Memorial:

 

The ridgeline trees and the forest beyond now frame the memorial. Nature abhors a vacuum; the forest regenerated naturally from the raw abused battlefield.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Northwest Corner of the National Military Park

 

The Mighty Mississippi meanders across its wide delta. Fort Hill, a key Confederate fortress in 1863, stood directly above a broad curve of the river (see the light blue marking its 1863 course). The river now meanders into the eastside bluffs three miles to the south just above the I-20 and rail bridges. Nothing in Nature is static, not even the delta course of the Mississippi River. Were it occupying its current bed in 1863, Fort Hill would have been constructed above the bridge site.

 

 

The view at left shows the Yazoo River Diversion Canal from my observation perch near the old Confederate Fort Hill. The canal and adjoining water basin at right occupy the abandoned Mississippi channel. Features of Nature brought the city, its transportation routes, and the two armies to this location. Its ironic that since the epic siege…an encounter that altered the course of US history…the river, without comment or concern, chose an alternate channel on its endless journey to the Gulf of Mexico. Nature, I am certain, cares little for human causes or the passage of time.

 

A lonely Confederate cannon reminds us of events here 16 decades ago, long-forgotten by the meandering river.

 

The USS Cairo, a Union wooden-hulled ironclad sunk by two Confederate mines eight miles upriver in December 1862, sits on a concrete platform near its associated museum. Crews lifted the sunken vessel from its 36-feet-deep watery grave in 1964. A National Park Service online reference tells the recovery and display story:

In 1972, the United States Congress enacted legislation authorizing the National Park Service to accept title to the Cairo and reassemble the remnants for display and preservation in Vicksburg National Military Park. Delays in funding halted progress until June of 1977, when the Cairo was returned to the park and partially reconstructed on a concrete foundation near the Vicksburg National Cemetery. The recovery of artifacts from the Cairo revealed a treasure trove of weapons, munitions, naval stores, and personal property that help tell the story of the sailors that once called the ship home. Many of these artifacts are now on display in the USS Cairo Museum.

I find it ironic that the river drawing the combatants to Vicksburg preserved a massive relevant artifact nearby for a century. The river never intended to be an architect or instrument of warfare, a repository for artifacts, or a convener of armies. It’s mission is singular — provide a conduit for the basin’s excess precipitation to reach sea level.

 

I’ve observed often in these posts that death is a big part of life in the forests where I wander (and wonder). So, too, is death an unfortunate and intentional outcome of warfare. Honoring and memorializing the fallen is an essential component a National Military Park. The Vicksburg National Cemetery serves as a resting place for 17,000 Federal soldiers, of which 13,000 are unknown. Nothing about the Civil War was civil. Many Confederate soldiers are buried in nearby Cedar Hill Cemetery.

 

I reflect in my routine photo essays that every tree, every stand, and every forest has a story to tell. Sometimes the secrets are revealed upon examination, stories written in the forested landscape and translated by the astute Nature enthusiast and forensic forest scientist. This cemetery has at least 22,000 stories. I’m reminded of John McCrae’s In Flanders Fields:

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row
That mark our place and in the sky
The larks still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below
We are the dead, short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields, in Flanders fields
Take up our quarrel with the foe
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch be yours to hold it high
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields

 

I recorded this 58-second video at the cemetery:

 

The solemnity of the entire Military Park resounds in the cemetery’s quiet beauty and the poet’s voice.

 

Alabama grandson Sam (10), Jack (16), and Judy pose at our state’s memorial.

 

I’ve offered our tour of the Vicksburg National Military Park as one of my photo essays. When I captured on-site images and began writing, I had no clear end destination in mind. However the journey charted its course with just a little navigation by me. Like rain on a hillside, I followed gravity, allowing the essay to seek its sea level.

Albert Einstein, I believe would have agreed:

We still do not know one thousandth of one percent of what nature has revealed to us.

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

I don’t claim to comprehend the elements of human and political nature that led to this war, but I contend that understanding the Nature of the location and environs helped me better understand and appreciate the historical moment and the healing consequent to it, both in terms of landscape and spiritual wounds.

 

Thoughts and Reflections

 

I offer these observations:

  • Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better. (Albert Einstein)
  • The river never intended to be an architect or instrument of warfare, a repository for artifacts, or a convener of armies.
  • Nature is always lovely, invincible, glad, whatever is done and suffered by her creatures. All scars she heals, whether in rocks or water or sky or hearts. (John Muir)

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.

 

Near-Solstice Sunset Over Huntsville, from Blevins Gap Nature Preserve

/in /by

I assist fellow retired forester Chris Stuhlinger who leads the OLLI (Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at the University of Alabama in Huntsville) Outdoor Member Interest Group (OMIG). Friday evening June 21, 2024, approximately 15 of the 100 OMIG members participated in a two-mile hike along the Blevins Gap Nature Preserve’s Varnedoe Trail, returning us to the trailhead parking lot to view sunset over Huntsville, Alabama, and the Tennessee Valley.

I offer observations, reflections, photos, and two short videos on what caught my eye along the trail and the special sights and inspirations of a Solstice sunset.

Gathering

 

Chris (blue shirt and arm gesture) welcomed us at the trailhead.

Blevins Gap

 

Chris and I lead two types of walks for OLLI: hikes and Nature walks. This one is dubbed a hike. Knowing that, I am sure to fall behind because I stop frequently to explore, examine, and photograph. And so it developed, yet I made it to the sunset viewing with time to spare!

Two-Mile Evening Hike

 

We spent most of our hike along the Varnedoe Trail.

Blevins Gap

 

Because most OLLI members are retirees we represent an age cohort that I would have considered ancient when I was 30! Today from my viewpoint of 73 (nearly three-quarters of a century), the photo below shows a couple of hardy “young” men coursing along the trail! See the smiles; ignore the grunts and heavy breathing!

Blevins Gap

 

I recorded this 55-second video to capture the mood and character of the forest and the seasoned saunterers trekking toward the sunset:

 

No, I mean the literal sunset…not some oblique symbolic intimation that we are approaching our life’s sunset from a long-ago and distant dawn. However, I must admit to pondering that coming final sunset that we all must face. I see irony in writing these words above a photo of my four hiking companions rounding a fallen hickory tree. Every day wandering forests I am reminded that father time and gravity are undefeated.

 

Nothing in our forests is static. People unfamiliar with the ways of forests believe that our forests are unchanging. Yet recently fallen trees (left) relate a different tale. Below right, Bob paused to photograph the large tree’s moss skirt while standing in a hollow…a depression…created by a large tree that tumbled many decades ago, lifting its root ball forming the pit. That fallen tree has long since decomposed, leaving only the pit and mound from its wind-driven demise.

Blevins Gap

 

I’ve observed often that every tree in every forest has a story to tell. This oak retains the scar of a lightning strike that traveled down (or up) the tree’s spiral grain years ago, long enough to permit the tree to callous over the open wound created by the searing blast.

Blevins Gap

 

Earlier this spring trail maintenance crews removed a section from this black locust tree that fell across the trail. The fresh cut reveals the story of this tree’s life. The cut face is about three feet from the trunk’s base. An old sapling-aged wound (a buck rub?) served as an infection court for a decay fungus. The vigorous young locust successfully calloused over the wound. I rough-counted 70-80 annual rings. Because black locust is a pioneer species requiring full sunlight to establish and prosper, I deduce that the entire stand is 70-90 years old, established following timber harvesting mid Twentieth Century.

Blevins GapBlevins Gap

 

The trail by-passed another fallen oak, this one wrenched violently from the ground as evidenced by the roots that made a valiant effort to resist the overwhelming pull of gravity. Some of my forestry student colleagues wondered all those many years ago why we were required to take Physics. One only ponder the forces at work in this photograph to yield a partial answer.

Blevins Gap

 

Taking those few photographs and pondering the meaning is the reason I (and John Muir among others) insist upon sauntering within the forest…eschewing hell-bent hiking through the forest.

 

Noteworthy Plants Encountered

 

Although my forester’s eye is drawn to trees, I do not limit my gaze and interest to the overstory denizens. Indian plantain welcomed us along the trail. There is a time to every season and apparently summer solstice is the time for this species to flower.

Blevins Gap

 

Head high in places, we walked through an understory garden. I don’t recall previously seeing such a robust colony.

Blevins Gap

 

Black cohosh, also is full flower, intermixed where the plantain flourished, suggesting that both species share a soil-site preference. I focused my doctoral research on the soil-site relationships of Allegheny Hardwoods in NW Pennsylvania and SW New York. An ancient ember from that three-year intensive field and literature investigation still smolders within, imploring me to learn more about why the plantain and cohosh thrive along this limited mountainside stretch.

Blevins GapBlevins Gap

 

My curiosity spurs from the same entreaty that stirred Albert Einstein when he observed, “Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better.” He also said, “I have no special talents. I am only passionately curious.”

Just a few weeks ago I encountered a rusty blackhaw in full flower at Joe Wheeler State Park. Now, the season has raced forward to this rusty blackhaw with fully developed (not yet ripe) fruit. I appreciate its glossy, somewhat waxy leaves.

Blevins Gap

 

 

 

I am certain that I missed many other features worthy of examination, but sunset would not be delayed by further exploration!

 

Milk-white Toothed Polypore

 

Well, I could not resist a brief sauntering interruption. How could even the most ardent through-hiker not delay to photograph the trailside milk-white toothed polypore? Like the locust, this red oak had fallen across the trail. Wikipedia described this species: “Irpex lacteus is a white rot fungus that inhabits mainly angiosperm (hardwoods) branches and trunks. It is one of the most common wood-rotting fungi for instance in urban North America. It is inedible.”

Blevins Gap

 

At first, iNaturalist identified this specimen as the very delightfully-named dog vomit slime mold, which I questioned at home with reference books. The slime mold (not a fungus) is more amorphous, appearing as an unconsolidated mass. The polypore has distinctive fungal characteristics.

The pending sunset, not at all amorphous, awaited us.

Sunset

 

I asked several people watching the sunset to point west. Without fail, everyone confidently directed me toward the setting sun. However, only the equinox sunsets would drop the sun due west. At our latitude, the summer solstice sun sets 30 north of due west. During our four years residing in Fairbanks, Alaska, the summer solstice sun set at 80 degrees north of west!

Blevins Gap

 

As I’ve mentioned many times previously, a still photograph is worth a thousand words; a brief video offers another order of magnitude increase in the strength of story told. I captured the essence in this 54-second video:

 

The image tells a tale that my words cannot enrich.

 

My two Alabama grandsons (Jack, the taller 16 years, and Sam 10 years) accompanied me.

Blevins Gap

 

Albert Einstein encapsulated my delight in sharing Nature’s magic with Sam and Jack:

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.

The sunset progressed rhythmically: 7:55 and 8:00 PM.

Blevins GapBlevins Gap

 

At 8:02 the sun kissed the horizon. My tree of life will live on through many future sunsets…long after my wilted leaves drop.

Blevins Gap

 

Thoughts and Reflections

 

I offer these observations:

  • Every sunset brings the promise of a new dawn. (Ralph Waldo Emerson)
  • Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better. I have no special talents; I am only passionately curious. (Albert Einstein)
  • The world is big and I want to have a good look at it before it gets dark. (John Muir)

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

 

 

Blevins Gap

 

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.

 

Post-Surgery Return to Nature Wanderings: Dawn and OLLI Birding Nature Walk at Alabama’s Joe Wheeler State Park

/in /by

It’s been 91 days (13 weeks — one-quarter of a year) since my left knee replacement surgery. My operative knee is much stronger and more stable than the one that awaits the same replacement surgery. I’m optimistic about the net result that will come with two new ones! No, I am far from a return to normal mobility, which I hope comes by 91 days after the right knee surgery. In the meantime, these photo essays will track my ventures across time. Without hesitation, I can state with conviction that Nature exposure and immersion are aiding my recovery and healing.

Daily Awakening

 

My total left knee replacement progress (January 23, 2024) permitted me to return to limited Nature wanderings on March 12 and 13 (50 days since surgery). I co-taught a Huntsville LearningQuest spring course with Renee Raney, Chief of Interpretation and Education, at the Alabama State Parks System. We appended an affiliated State Park bird-oriented half-day field interpretive walk at Joe Wheeler State Park, graciously led by Jennings Earnest, JWSP Naturalist. Jennings assisted the group in finding, identifying, and observing 43 bird species over the half-day venture.

Judy, our two Alabama grandsons, and I wandered within the Park the evening prior and enjoyed a night in one of the great Lakeside Cottages: https://stevejonesgbh.com/2024/03/20/post-surgery-return-to-nature-wanderings-afternoon-and-sunset-at-alabamas-joe-wheeler-state-park/

As is my routine, I arose early enough to welcome sunrise, this time from the Park Lodge docks along Lake Wheeler’s First Creek inlet. A great blue heron, my long-deceased Dad’s totem and avatar, seemed to have awaited me on the docks in the pre-dawn mist. We made brief eye contact before he arose to begin his day on the Lake.

Joe Wheeler

 

The encounter reminded me that in February of 1995, Dad’s spirit-bird visited me as I ran along a frost-steaming creek on a bitter cold sunrise the day of his memorial service. Since then, I have shared many special moments with great blue herons, each incident representing a cross-boundary contact from Dad. If nothing more, I know that he lives within me…and perhaps that is sufficient.

Ten minutes before sunrise, I relished the dawn sky-view from the docks, looking deeply into the First Creek inlet (left) and southeast to the Lodge. Except for an outbound bass boat or two, I enjoyed the solitude that often rewards the early riser. I cherish alone time. Early adult personality tests labeled me a hardcore introvert, an attribute that, along with my love for the outdoors, steered me to a bachelors degree in forestry. Only with career advancement into supervisory roles and eventually to 20 years of higher education senior administration did I learn how to act like an extrovert. Yes, “act” is the operative word. Truth is, I never escaped my natural tendency. Such a dawn as this one corroborated my permanent nature.

Joe WSP

 

Five minutes later (7:06 AM), the sun kissed the horizon beyond the shoreline edge.

Joe WSP

 

Another six minutes brought sharpening sunglow into the forest.

Joe WSP

 

 

By 7:46 AM, sunlight graced the forests along Wheeler Lake, and highlighted the forest of masts at the State Park Marina.

Joe WSP

 

I thought of Otis Redding’s The Dock of the Bay, wishing I could sit a spell longer:

Sittin’ in the mornin’ sun
I’ll be sittin’ when the evenin’ come

However, my purpose in visiting Joe Wheeler State Park called for co-leading a morning hike. I reluctantly returned to the cottage.

 

Venturing into the Forest: Progressing from Walker to Cane to Trekking Pole

 

I’m making final edits to this photo essay on April 8, 2024, ten weeks from surgery. I graduated from physical therapy on April 5. No more cajoling, guided pain, and oversight by therapists (sometimes I referred to them as physical terrorists!). Additional strengthening and persistent toning is up to me. As long-ago recreational athlete, I feel confident in training through full recovery. I set out March 13 determined to keep the group in sight for as long as I could. Over the seven weeks from surgery to the March 13 trek, I had progressed from roller-walker to cane to trekking pole.

Joe WSP

 

I found the mild spring day exhilarating, escaping the doldrums of confinement to my home and its backyard. Open forest, partly cloudy sky, similarly attuned Nature enthusiasts, and the freedom of returning to the outdoors at one of my favorite state parks lifted me to post-surgery heights. My wife captured my return-to-Nature celebratory mood with this 18-second video. I felt a bit foolish, yet viewing it three weeks later, I could not have better expressed my sense of joy and escape:

 

I lagged far enough behind that I missed most of Jennings’ bird identification (43 species tallied!) and interpretation. Occasionally I would catch up to snap an image, like Bob Carroll examining the trailside maw of an eight-inch diameter black cherry tree.

Joe WSPJoe WSP

 

A retired educator (Clemson forestry degree), Bob paused to capture the still-standing carcass of a very large sassafras tree. Like me, Bob admires what I term tree form oddities and curiosities.

Joe WSP

 

Our two Alabama grandsons (Jack left and Sam right) accompanied us, taking advantage of their spring break week. Jack couldn’t resist risking a black cherry mauling; Sam stood within a large looping wild grape vine.

Joe WSPJoe WSP

 

My Personal Commitment to Perseverance

 

My tiring legs made it to the Day Use Area at 10:39 AM, some 90 minutes from departing the Lodge. Even now, I fall short of target strength and endurance. I remind readers that since June of 2023, I have endured triple bypass surgery, bilateral inguinal hernia surgery (October 2023), and the January knee replacement. The physical impact has been cumulative. Recovery will take time. Patience is not one of my virtues, yet I intend to persevere.

Joe WSP

 

I will not accept the series of health issues as crushing and debilitating. This two-foot diameter black cherry tree  along the Cottage access road fell victim to a winter wind storm. Its wrenching, twisting demise symbolizes an unanticipated fate…a coup de gras. I am fortunate to retain my structural integrity and mental strength sufficient to push through recovery.

Joe WSPJoe WSP

 

I shall treat my recovery with dogged determination, relying on the relentless support of my soul mate Judy and the power I draw from Nature-Buoyed Aging and Healing!

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 of 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 to provide 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:

  • The sun shines not on us but in us! (John Muir)
  • A day without witnessing dawn and sunrise is hardly a day at all. (Steve Jones)
  • Those who contemplate the beauty of the earth find reserves of strength that will endure as long as life lasts. There is something infinitely healing in the repeated refrains of nature — the assurance that dawn comes after night, and spring after winter. (Rachel Carson)

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

 

Joe WSP

 

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.

 

 

Post-Surgery Return to Nature Wanderings: Afternoon and Sunset at Alabama’s Joe Wheeler State Park

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The Healing Power of Nature

 

I offer this Great Blue Heron photo essay to symbolize celebration, perseverance, and progress. This is my initial first-hand Nature wandering since my January 23, 2024 total left knee replacement surgery. I’m officially no longer on the injured reserve roster! Judy and I stayed overnight on March 12, 2024, in one of the Lakeside Cottages at Alabama’s Joe Wheeler State Park. Let me share reflections, observations, photographs, and one brief video from my Nature (and family) immersion that evening!

We checked in to the cottage by 3:00 PM. The deck stood 50 feet from the water’s edge. We quickly adjusted to the waterside tranquility. Long ago I realized that my taste in art preferred paintings that looked like photographs…and photographs that reminded me of paintings. The photograph at right met my criterion.

Joe WSP

 

The setting and mood brought John Muir’s wisdom to mind: “Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where nature may heal and give strength to body and soul.”

Accompanied by my soulmate and our two Alabama grandsons (Jack, 16, and Sam, almost 10), I felt the healing essence of The Nature of This Place coursing through all five portals: body, mind, heart, soul, and spirit. My mental, emotional, intellectual, physical, and spiritual well-being soared!

A small dock provided a shoreline perch for recording this 32-second video at 4:14 PM, serving my intention of capturing at least one supplement to my routine still photos.

 

Joe Wheeler State Park encompasses approximately 2,500 acres bordering Lake Wheeler. The entire forested shoreline in these photos (4:18 PM) and in the video lies within the park. These photos represent Earth, Life, and Time, in combination imploring our obligation to practice informed and responsible Nature-Stewardship. This renewal visit to the Park, less than an hour’s drive from my home, corroborated my retirement mission and vision:

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.

JOE WSPJoe WSP

 

I recall the days (was it just weeks ago?!) when Judy and I would visit the Alabama grandsons from afar (we lived in Alaska when Jack was born). He and I would explore Nature, Jack clinging to my index finger as we strolled, or with him perched on my shoulders. I was then the larger, stronger, and more sure-footed of the two. Now, who leans upon and draws strength and stability from whom? Like everything else in Nature, the cycle of life spins. To everything there is a season and a time to every purpose under heaven.

Joe WSP

 

The cottages sit at the base of a forested hillside. Deer thrive throughout the Park, predictably emerging as the sun sinks (4:54 and 4:58 PM below) to feed on new spring greenery along the roads.

Joe WSP

 

The Park’s roads have a new surface, a macadam pavement composed of fifty percent traditional asphalt mixed with fifty percent shredded used tires. Funded by the Alabama Department of Environmental Management, the project exemplifies more responsible resource consumption and renewal, and cost reduction.

Joe WSP

 

Touring the Park, we counted 17 deer and spotted an immature bald eagle above the Day Use Area, we returned to our cottage to chronicle the waning day (6:23 PM) and witness the setting sun (6:43 PM).

Joe WSP

 

I’ve tapped the written wisdom of historic conservationists as I’ve progressed along my healing and recovery journey. Rachel Carson observed: Those who contemplate the beauty of the earth find reserves of strength that will endure as long as life lasts. There is something infinitely healing in the repeated refrains of nature — the assurance that dawn comes after night, and spring after winter.

Joe WSP

 

The photo below (7:05 PM), taken from the cottage’s gathering room, showcases the westward sunset-facing orientation. Weather permitting, occupants are assured a spectacular evening year-round, whether winter or summer solstice, irrespective of the 60-degree shift across the two extreme points of sunset (winter sinking 30 degrees south of due west: summer setting 30 degrees north of due west).

Joe WSP

 

I often turn to the extraordinary Nature wisdom that Leonardo da Vinci beautifully expressed more than 500 years ago: Vitality and beauty are gifts of Nature, for those who live according to its laws.

After sunset, we relocated to the grill, where we roasted marshmallows. I’ve learned that my iPhone camera harvests far more light than my naked eyes. Judy and the boys were quite difficult to see before snapping the image. The image translates nearly total darkness to evening’s gloaming.

Joe WSP

 

Friends visited us when we exited one final time to the deck. Two raccoons appeared, obviously demonstrating that they anticipated goodies from cottage occupants!

Joe WSP

 

As we settled into our comfortable beds, my mind roamed to an anonymous prayer I recently saw…a revised, Nature-oriented version of the “If I should die before I wake” recitation familiar to my youth.

If I should die before I wake
Is a certain prayer to make
But one should not make the mistake
To believe it is the only.


For if I should wake before I die
I would finally, truly, see the sky,
With stars, birds, leaves all wheeling by
And I would know completely:
All is holy

 

Its words and sentiment rang true during my re-emergence into the realm of recovery and renewed Nature wanderings.

 

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 of 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 to provide 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:

  • For if I should wake before I die; I would finally, truly, see the sky; With stars, birds, leaves all wheeling by; And I would know completely: All is holy
  • Vitality and beauty are gifts of Nature, for those who live according to its laws. (da Vinci)
  • Those who contemplate the beauty of the earth find reserves of strength that will endure as long as life lasts. There is something infinitely healing in the repeated refrains of nature — the assurance that dawn comes after night, and spring after winter. (Rachel Carson)

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

 

Joe WSP

 

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.