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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thoughts and Reflections

I offer these observations:

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

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

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:

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