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

August 14, 2024/in Updates /by Steve Jones

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

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

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

The Next Forest: When and What

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

Future Subordinate Canopy Components

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

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

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

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

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

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

Future Dominant Canopy Components

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

Red maple may constitute five percent of the present overstory.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Summary and Conclusions

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

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

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

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

Thoughts and Reflections

I offer these observations:

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

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

Note: Unless otherwise noted, all blog post images are created & photographed by Stephen B. Jones. Please circulate images with photo credit: “©2024 Steve Jones, Great Blue Heron LLC. All Rights Reserved.”

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

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

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

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

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

Vision:

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

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

Steve’s Three Books

I wrote my books Nature Based Leadership (2016), Nature-Inspired Learning and Leading (2017), and Weaned Seals and Snowy Summits: Stories of Passion for Place and Everyday Nature (2019; co-authored with Dr. Jennifer Wilhoit) to encourage all citizens to recognize and appreciate that every lesson for living, learning, serving, and leading is either written indelibly in or is powerfully inspired by Nature.

I began writing books and Posts for several reasons:

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

All three of my books (Nature Based Leadership; Nature-Inspired Learning and Leading; Weaned Seals and Snowy Summits) present compilations of personal experiences expressing my (and co-author Dr. Wilhoit for Weaned Seals and Snowy Summits) deep passion for Nature. All three books offer observations and reflections on my relationship with the natural world… and the broader implications for society. Order any from your local indie bookstore, or find them on IndieBound or other online sources such as Amazon and LifeRich.

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

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

August 7, 2024/in Updates /by Steve Jones

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Pondering the Next Forest

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

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

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

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

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

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

I recorded this 58-second video at the spot.

Winter winds wrenched this oak from its anchorage.

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

Tornado Forest Rebirth

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

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

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

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

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

Thoughts and Reflections

I offer these observations:

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

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

Note: Unless otherwise noted, all blog post images are created & photographed by Stephen B. Jones. Please circulate images with photo credit: “©2024 Steve Jones, Great Blue Heron LLC. All Rights Reserved.”

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

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

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

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

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

Vision:

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

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

Steve’s Three Books

I wrote my books Nature Based Leadership (2016), Nature-Inspired Learning and Leading (2017), and Weaned Seals and Snowy Summits: Stories of Passion for Place and Everyday Nature (2019; co-authored with Dr. Jennifer Wilhoit) to encourage all citizens to recognize and appreciate that every lesson for living, learning, serving, and leading is either written indelibly in or is powerfully inspired by Nature.

I began writing books and Posts for several reasons:

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

All three of my books (Nature Based Leadership; Nature-Inspired Learning and Leading; Weaned Seals and Snowy Summits) present compilations of personal experiences expressing my (and co-author Dr. Wilhoit for Weaned Seals and Snowy Summits) deep passion for Nature. All three books offer observations and reflections on my relationship with the natural world… and the broader implications for society. Order any from your local indie bookstore, or find them on IndieBound or other online sources such as Amazon and LifeRich.

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

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

July 24, 2024/in Updates /by Steve Jones

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

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

I recorded this 45-second video on our ascent:

Botanical Panoply

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

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

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

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

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

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

A trumpet vine already with a seed pod greeted us.

Heart-leafed skullcap populated trailside from top to bottom.

Other Delights

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Summit trails are flat.

They strike me as a natural ‘paved’ surface.

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

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

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

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

Thoughts and Reflections

I offer these observations:

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

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

Note: Unless otherwise noted, all blog post images are created & photographed by Stephen B. Jones. Please circulate images with photo credit: “©2024 Steve Jones, Great Blue Heron LLC. All Rights Reserved.”

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

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

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

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

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

Vision:

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

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

Steve’s Three Books

I wrote my books Nature Based Leadership (2016), Nature-Inspired Learning and Leading (2017), and Weaned Seals and Snowy Summits: Stories of Passion for Place and Everyday Nature (2019; co-authored with Dr. Jennifer Wilhoit) to encourage all citizens to recognize and appreciate that every lesson for living, learning, serving, and leading is either written indelibly in or is powerfully inspired by Nature.

I began writing books and Posts for several reasons:

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

All three of my books (Nature Based Leadership; Nature-Inspired Learning and Leading; Weaned Seals and Snowy Summits) present compilations of personal experiences expressing my (and co-author Dr. Wilhoit for Weaned Seals and Snowy Summits) deep passion for Nature. All three books offer observations and reflections on my relationship with the natural world… and the broader implications for society. Order any from your local indie bookstore, or find them on IndieBound or other online sources such as Amazon and LifeRich.

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

Nature’s Delights Along the New Karst Trail at Alabama’s Rickwood Caverns State Park

July 18, 2024/in Updates /by Steve Jones

I sauntered Rickwood Caverns State Park’s new Karst Trail on May 15, 2024 with Park Manager Bridgette Bennett, Northwest District Naturalist Amber Conger, and fellow Alabama State Park Foundation Board member Tom Cosby (and his wife Gail).

Although we met to discuss Board business, I focus this photo essay to our Nature discoveries along the trail. As with most of our State Parks, Rickwood welcomes visitors with attractive signage.

Our Board business related to discussing Bridgette’s vision for a modern playground at Rickwood and other parks. Rickwood’s is aging, falling short of visitors’ expectations and demands.

Equipment is functional, but merely adequate.

I recorded this 42-second video at the playground and picnic area:

The pool remains a major crowd pleaser.

Karst Trail

As promised, I will focus this Post on the new Karst Trail, constructed to transit the Park’s recently acquired 57 acres, rich with maturing forest and distinctive karst (limestone) topography.

The trail is gentle, relatively flat, and generally free of toe-stubbing roots and ankle-twisting rocks, important features for a guy still recovering from left knee replacement and anticipating replacement for his ailing right knee.

I recorded this 60-second video along the trail:

We dealt with the other worldly thrum of the 13-year cicadas for the entire trek.

Wildflowers and Special Understory Plants

Because I tallied and photographed an impressive array of natural delights, I won’t burden readers with excessive text. In most cases, I will simply offer an identification.

Striped wintergreen presents speckled, white-striped, deep green leaves and the promise of its pearly white flowers, still enclosed by its tight buds.

Small’s sanicle presented its fully open greenish-yellow flowers.

The much more showy and brilliantly white redring milkcap merits my day’s award for floral excellence!

Even the mournful thyris moth expressed hearty approval and appreciation for the flower’s beauty and nectar!

I award rusty blackhaw my shrub with the glossiest leaves recognition.

I am a tireless fan of resurrection fern, an aerial clinging plant that is deep green and turgid when rains moisten trunks where it grows, and desiccates deathlike when dry weather prevails.

This catalog of interesting plants was not exhaustive.

Mushrooms (and friend), Moss, and Lichens

Likewise, I will present just a few of the fungi we encountered. appropriately named, we spotted several clusters of jellied false coral

I find trooping crumble cap mushrooms fascinating. Appearing as helmeted soldiers in formation, the trooping moniker is apropos.

Poised for assault of the trunk, the mushrooms seem enforced by the white oak tree’s mossy skirt.

One of my favorite edible mushrooms, jelly tree ear mushrooms colonized this downed log.

Closer examinations of the wood ears revealed this button snail (our special friend) enjoying either the mushroom or something growing on it.

We identified another mushroom bearing the term troop in its name: cross-veined troop mushroom, similarly massing in formation on a dead standing hardwood snag.

Nature creates unlimited artwork with lichens and mosses on this sugar maple sapling.

Rock moss in spring-dappled sunshine lighted our way, allowing me to introduce and spotlight the Alabama Park System’s first ever Northwest District Naturalist Amber Coger…responsible for education and interpretation staff and programs at Rickwood Caverns, Cathedral Caverns, Lake Lurleen, Joe Wheeler, and Monte Sano State Parks.

A Very Special Treat

I’ve been traversing our Alabama State Parks for seven years without spotting a timber rattlesnake…until this saunter at Rickwood Caverns!

We stopped when we completed our Karst Trail circuit, reflecting on our saunter. I looked down at just one more cicada corpse and noticed at trailside a magnificent timber rattlesnake, lying still with nary a rattle. We admired its beauty, snapped a few photos, and recorded a video, then hurried along without disturbing it.

Here is that 36-second video:

I have too often heard ignorant and poorly educated outdoor recreationists say, “The only good snake is a dead snake.” I won’t attempt to disabuse those incurable malcontents in this Post. Instead I defer to John Muir’s wisdom:

Nevertheless, again and again, in season and out of season, the question comes up, “What are rattlesnakes good for?” As if nothing that does not obviously make for the benefit of man had any right to exist; as if our ways were Gods’ ways…. Anyhow, they are all, head and tail, good for themselves, and we need not begrudge them their share of life.

I turn also to Aldo Leopold:

The last word in ignorance is the man who says of an animal or plant, “What good is it?” If the land mechanism as a whole is good, then every part is good, whether we understand it or not. If the biota, in the course of aeons, has built something we like but do not understand, then who but a fool would discard seemingly useless parts?

The snake is a permanent resident; we are but visitors and interlopers. We must understand, respect, and revere life that resides within the ecosystems we visit.

Rickwood Cavern

I conclude with two photographs from the cavern…and offer them only with encouragement to visit the Park and experience its underground beauty, magic, wonder, awe, and inspiration!

Alabama State Parks Foundation

I’ll remind you that although I serve on the Alabama State Parks Foundation Board, in part because of my love of Nature and in recognition 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:

We sauntered if for no purpose other than to discover what we did not anticipate.
Sauntering through the forest we discovered treasures sufficient to extend the day and multiply our delight.
I pity those trail travelers busied with their digital device and content only to count their steps.
The last word in ignorance is the man who says of an animal or plant, “What good is it?” (Aldo Leopold)

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.

Education and Interpretation: Adding Value to Experiencing Alabama’s State Parks

July 3, 2024/in Updates /by Steve Jones

A lifetime Nature enthusiast, I retired and we relocated to Madison, Alabama in 2018 to be near our daughter and her two sons. We viewed this relocation as the final of 13 interstate moves across our careers. As I adjusted to retirement, a small group of committed volunteers invited me to join their fledgling efforts to create the Alabama State Parks Foundation. I am a founding member of the ASPF Board. Since our first quarterly meeting, I have championed the cause of increasing the Park System’s capacity to perform the third of its three major functions: First, to acquire and preserve natural areas; second, to develop, furnish, operate, and maintain recreational facilities; and third, to extend the public’s knowledge of the state’s natural environment.

At the outset of my involvement, the System had staff naturalists at only Guntersville, DeSoto, Cheaha, and Gulf State Parks. The System now has dedicated naturalists at eleven parks, some of which have one or more assistant naturalists.

Early Introduction to Alabama State Park Naturalists

I am grateful for the gracious introductions to Guntersville, DeSoto, Gulf, and Cheaha State Parks that Naturalists Mike Ezell (retired), Britney Hughes, Kelly Reetz, and Mandy Pearson (elsewhere employed), respectively, shared with me. Consummate, dedicated, and passionate educators and interpreters one and all. I learned so very much…and continue to learn each time I interact with Alabama’s best and brightest!

Mike Ezell on an early morning above fog-draped Guntersville Lake. Britney Hughes leading us on a rain-enhanced tour of DeSoto rock formations.

Kelly Reetz standing at the gateway to the Gulf State Park Pier. Mandy Pearson welcoming me to the Cheaha Interpretive Center at Cheaha Lake.

My retirement 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.) meshes well with the Park System’s education and interpretation objectives.

On May 7, 2024 I accepted an invitation to join Naturalists Renee Raney (Park System Chief of Education and Interpretation), Amber Coger (Northwest District Naturalist), Jennings Earnest (Joe Wheeler State Park Naturalist), and contracted writer Jeff Emerson to provide Jeff with insight to the practice, philosophy, and substance of State Park education and interpretation.

Here’s my 32-second video of the group under the Day Use Area pavilion at Joe Wheeler State Park:

[Note: Soul Grown published Jeff’s resultant article June 17, 2024: https://soul-grown.com/natures-wonder-book-alabama-state-parks-educate-and-inspire/]

Renee and I connected at Joe Wheeler SP September 19, 2023, to record a brief video promoting a University of Alabama in Huntsville OLLI (Osher Lifelong Learning Institute) course on Alabama State Parks we would be teaching during the 2023 fall term.

We also recorded this 60-second video introducing Renee as the first-ever State Parks Chief of Education and Interpretation.

Renee’s passion for immersing children of all ages in Nature is limitless.

Nature education and interpretation is a contact sport!

Renee leads by example; her methods are contagious!

Words of Wisdom from from Some Epic American Conservationists

I am not alone nor am I the first person addicted to Nature education, interpretation, and study. I take great comfort in knowing that conservation giants long ago clearly stated the themes, constructs, and wisdom that came to me only over a five-decade career. The quotations below are not intended to be exhaustive, but only representative.

Theodore Roosevelt encapsulated the essential and necessary intended purpose of Alabama State Park education and interpretation:

It is an incalculable added pleasure to anyone’s sum of happiness if he or she grows to know, even slightly and imperfectly, how to read and enjoy the wonder-book of nature.

Teddy’s insight could stand alone, yet there are others who helped weave the tapestry of Nature education and interpretation. Every State Park naturalist I have met is familiar with the Nature education and interpretation quilt and these significant conservationists.

Aldo Leopold, a mid-Twentieth Century forester and wildlife biologist, the author of A Sand County Almanac, wrote lyrically and philosophically:

Education (formal), I fear, is learning to see one thing by going blind to another.
Is education (formal) possibly a process of trading awareness for things of lesser worth?
The last word in ignorance is the man who says of an animal or plant, “What good is it?” If the land mechanism as a whole is good, then every part is good, whether we understand it or not. If the biota, in the course of eons, has built something we like but do not understand, then who but a fool would discard seemingly useless parts? To keep every cog and wheel is the first precaution of intelligent tinkering.

John Muir quotes from 150 years ago:

I am learning nothing in this trivial world of men. I must break away and get out into the mountains to learn the news.
The power of imagination makes us infinite.

Einstein, to the dismay of many who know him only for his genius in physics and the philosophy of science, contributed to beautiful weaving that tells the story, wonder, magic, awe, and inspiration of Nature:

Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better.
All religions, arts, and sciences are branches of the same tree.
He who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead; his eyes are closed.
Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world.
The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious.
The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existence.

Sauntering as a Technique for Experiencing and Learning from Nature

John Muir stands tall as an American conservationist and contemporary of Teddy Roosevelt. He echoed the sentiment I have expressed frequently in these Great Blue Heron photo essays: I hike the forest immersed in its essence, rather than rush through the forest intent upon reaching a destination.

Hiking…I don’t like either the word or the thing. People ought to saunter in the mountains – not hike! Do you know the origin of that word ‘saunter?’ It’s a beautiful word. Away back in the Middle Ages people used to go on pilgrimages to the Holy Land, and when people in the villages through which they passed asked where they were going, they would reply, “A la sainte terre,’ ‘To the Holy Land.’ And so they became known as sainte-terre-ers or saunterers. Now these mountains are our Holy Land, and we ought to saunter through them reverently, not ‘hike’ through them.

Henry David Thoreau (1817 – 1862), an American naturalist, essayist, poet, and philosopher, likewise embraced sauntering.

It is a great art to saunter!
In his essay “Walking,” Thoreau emphasized the importance of sauntering and connecting with nature. For him, walking was a way to discover oneself, break free from societal constraints, and experience the world more authentically.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

A contemporary of Thoreau, Emerson had a fascinating perspective on sauntering. In his essay “Literary Ethics,” he discussed the concept of sauntering, which he also refers to as “sauntering of the afternoon.”

Emerson believed that proper walking, or sauntering, goes beyond mere physical movement. It requires leaving everything behind and fully immersing oneself in the experience of the walk. Sauntering means forgetting the town, avoiding the well-defined road, and embracing the moment. It’s about being present and receptive to the world around us, rather than following a predetermined path.

So, I suggest next time you take a leisurely stroll, consider sauntering—let go of expectations, embrace spontaneity, and allow the experience to unfold naturally.

Jack Phillips, a naturalist, nature writer, and practicing arboricultural consultant, wrote in A Pocket Guide to Sauntering:

On May 1st, 1857, Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau went for a walk in the woods. Each of them mentioned that walk in their journals but described completely different experiences. Thoreau wrote about his cleverness in fashioning a specimen box from birch bark and didn’t have much to say about his companion. Emerson, on the other hand, praised Thoreau for his cleverness in his journal entry and hoped that their walk together would heal a rift in their friendship. He envisioned a new collaboration: “We will make a book on walking, ’tis certain, & have easy lessons for beginners. Walking in Ten Lessons.” Ralph and Henry never wrote such a book. So the task fell to me. A Pocket Guide to Sauntering draws on the journals and essays of Emerson and Thoreau. Sauntering as a way of walking originates with Thoreau; New Tree School has clarified and adapted his philosophy. The Pocket Guide states that: “A saunter, properly undertaken, explores inner landscapes as well as the terrain being traversed. It is introspective while being shaped by the lay of the land.”

New Naturalists’ Enthusiasm and Passion

I recorded brief videos to introduce Jennings Earnest and Amber Coger. Video of Jennings:

Fun is an essential element of learning!

Video of Amber:

Amber carries her passion for environmental education and interpretation on her sleeve:

The reason why I still pursue this dream (environmental education and interpretation as a career) so fervently is because I truly feel like I am making a difference with our future generations. If one student that I have taught goes on to become a scientist or an environmental educator, I will feel that my life’s work is truly worth something. We spend so much of our time trudging away at our jobs, and I feel so incredibly lucky that I get to have a career that makes an impact for the better. Environmental Educators can truly make a difference. We aren’t in this field for the money, but the rewards we get from our work daily make us so much richer than those in the most financially lucrative of careers.

Sharing knowledge with kindred souls adds value to learning!

I met with then new naturalist Dylan Ogle last November at Wind Creek State Park. This brief video captures Dylan’s enthusiasm and love for the park and his new assignment:

Dylan, Jennings, Amber, and Renee remind me of the unfathomable joy I felt for each career step along my 50-year professional journey. I never held a job I didn’t love, even the tough ones and the stressful times. I never experienced a job-related misery that a trip into Nature could not dissipate.

I have said often to educators across my career, “People don’t care how much you know…until they know how much you care.” I asked an accompanying graduate student her impression of a lecture I had just given on Timber Taxation during my Penn State University tenure. She responded honestly, “Dull and uninspiring.” I decided then that dull and uninspiring does little to promote learning. Renee, Amber, Jennings, and Dylan bring excitement, passion, and enthusiasm to education and interpretation!

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:

Nature education and interpretation are best performed at a sauntering pace.
We sauntered if for no purpose other than to discover what we did not anticipate.
Sauntering through the forest we discovered treasures sufficient to extend the day and multiply our delight.
I pity those trail travelers busied with digital devices and content only to count their steps.

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.

Brief-Form Post # 33: Mid-April Tree Form Oddities and Curiosities at Alabama’s Joe Wheeler State Park!

June 26, 2024/in Updates /by Steve Jones

I am pleased to add the 33rd of my GBH Brief Form Posts (Less than five minutes to read!) to my website. I tend to get a bit wordy with my routine Posts. I don’t want my enthusiasm for thoroughness and detail to discourage readers. So I will publish these brief Posts regularly.

On April 17 and 18, 2024, I visited Joe Wheeler State Park for the quarterly meeting of the Alabama State Parks Foundation. Rather than present a single long Post from my wanderings during my free time, please look for four separate photo essays:

Reading evidence of past land use in the current 80-90-year-old forests
Tree form oddities and related curiosities — this Post
Lakeside forest panoply
Dawn from the Lodge docks

Tree Form Curiosities and Oddities

I arrived early enough on April 17, to saunter three miles on the Awesome Trail, departing from and returning to the boat landing parking lot. I employ the term saunter to emphasize the deliberate, observant pace I choose, electing to walk in Nature rather than dashing through her wildness. My intent is to look, see, and feel her beauty, magic, awe, and inspiration.

The coarse, tortured crown of the white oak near a bird blind caught my eye, drawing me closer.

A long-ago snapped branch on the right fork left a gaping mouth, where the tree is attempting and failing to callous over the old wound. Pursed lips seem to speak to those who saunter with eyes wide open, finding the visual gifts in plain sight. A hiker hellbent on covering the distance from the boat landing to the marina will certainly miss the tree shouting to be seen and heard.

A trailside hickory likewise sported an old branch scar, its “O” mouth callousing in feeble effort to close the wound, which beckons squirrels, birds, and other critters seeking shelter and dens.

This much smaller hickory peephole appears to be closing, and likely will unless a squirrel or woodpecker can hold the callousing at bay.

The sugar maple sapling, which is the same age as the oak and hickory overstory, supported a spiraled vine for decades, leaving the permanent imprint of its grasp. The vine is long since deceased and decayed. Sugar maple is shade tolerant and can persist in the under- and mid-story for decades, awaiting a major disturbance to blow down and lay flat the main canopy, exposing the maple to full sunlight and opening a portal to its evolutionarily response and emergence into the upper canopy of the next forest..

I encountered this mossy mid-canopy hickory, a headless silhouette ready to wrap its branch-arms around some hapless and careless woods-wanderer. I had stayed alert during my saunter and was not startled by its sudden trailside appearance. Pity the poor through-hiker who may have fared less well…but then that person would not have been startled by the unseen mossy forest denizen!

As a former practicing forester in south central Alabama (early to mid 1980s), I used prescribed fire as a forest management tool across thousands of acres. Ever on the alert for signs, I spotted charred bark on the loblolly pine (left) and the hickory. I know our State Park personnel occasionally employ fire, explaining why the Awesome Trail stands are free of extensive ground cover and jungle-like understory.

The graffiti-riddled American beech is not a tree form curiosity. Instead, it is an eyesore, a not-so-subtle reminder that human vanity is a powerful and disturbing force, one that brings some visitors to deface a feature of natural beauty that attracts the vast majority of us to Nature. The same can be said of those who discard candy wrappers, drink bottles, and cigarette butts!

Respectable saunterers and Nature enthusiasts Leave No Trace Behind beyond a footprint or two!

I accept the challenge of distilling these Brief-Form Posts into a single distinct reflection, a task far more elusive than assembling a dozen pithy statements. Today, I borrow a relevant reflection from Henry David Thoreau:

It is a great art to saunter!

Mid-April Lakeside Forest Panoply at Alabama’s Joe Wheeler State Park

June 12, 2024/in Updates /by Steve Jones

Lakeside Forest Panoply

On April 17 and 18, 2024, I visited Joe Wheeler State Park for the quarterly meeting of the Alabama State Parks Foundation. Rather than present a single long Post from my wanderings during my free time, please look for four separate photo essays:

Reading evidence of past land use in the current 80-90-year-old forests
Tree form oddities and related curiosities
Lakeside forest panoply — this Post
Dawn from the lodge docks

I sauntered for nearly three hours (April 17) along the lakeside Awesome Trail, enjoying diverse attractions, many of them hidden in plain sight. Although the bird blind was in no way hidden, I felt compelled to look closely, which beckoned me to spend more time than I could devote, given the time-certain deadline to attend the late afternoon Foundation gathering at the Park Lodge. I often find in Nature that I want to linger longer than I’m able.

I concur with those autumn forest enthusiasts who are smitten with fall’s color palette. However, I am equally attracted to the seeming infinite shades of green that enrich spring forest ventures. I’m reminded of the title of yet another banal Hollywood blockbuster that I missed (or refused to see) on the big screen: Fifty Shades of Grey. Give me spring’s fifty shades of green and I will see the reel time after time!

The blind’s portals frame whatever fine image you select…each one unique and worthy of photo-capture.

The full Awesome Trail runs from the Park’s Boat Launch parking lot 4.1 miles to the Marina near the Lodge. I recorded this 37-second video to convey the mood, spirit, and nature of this soothing lakeside path, ideal for this woods-wanderer still recovering from the past ten months headlined by my June 19, 2013 triple bypass surgery, October bi-lateral inguinal hernia repair, and January 23, 2024 total left knee replacement!

I recorded the video at 1:37 PM:

The trail passes by this copse of yellow poplar trees, which features the most impressive timbers in this 80-90-year-old forest. When the TVA acquired this property in the early 1930s, the land was severely eroded, deeply-gullied, worn-out pasture, an affliction common across Alabama and the southeast in those Great Depression years. How much larger would this copse have presented had the original soil been protected from abusive agricultural practices?!

A patch of native rusty blackhaw enriched the trek with its profusion of large, showy flower heads!

Fungal Friends

Plants were not the sole features. This white-pored chicken of the woods cluster sprouted within twenty feet of the trail. I resisted the temptation to harvest this edible mushroom.

I spotted this five-inch pale oyster mushroom, another edible.

This foot-wide deer-colored Trametes mushroom (non-edible), has a rather dull beige upper surface, yet compensates with its fascinating underside of distinct open pores.

Two three-inch worms (I am note sure whether they are in fact “worms” — iNaturalist did not identify) found refuge and nourishment in the darkness beneath the bracket.

This ear-like mushroom covered a fallen decaying tree in a thicket too dense for me to capture a clear image. Instead, I gathered a small handful to show wood ear fungus, yet another edible.

I am committed to learning more about the wonderful Fungi Kingdom, which when I was an undergraduate was still part of the Plant Kingdom — oh, how things change over a mere fifty years! Who says lifelong learning isn’t necessary for an old forester who insists upon better understanding the secrets of Nature hidden in plain sight?

Oh, the Gall of This Wasp!

The new leaves on this white oak seedling opened just a week or two before I discovered and photographed them (below left). Already, the seedling stem bears a fresh wool sower gall (below right). During that short time, a wool sower gall wasp had oviposited its eggs into the stem. An NC State University Cooperative Extension bulletin tells the rest of the story:

The wool sower gall is a distinct and unusual plant growth induced by the secretions of the grubs of a tiny gall wasp, Callirhytis seminator. These wasps are about ¹/₈ inch long, dark brown, and their abdomens are noticeably flattened from side to side. The grubs are translucent to white, plump, and legless. Their heads are more or less shapeless blobs. The wool sower gall is specific to white oaks and only occurs in the spring. When the gall is pulled apart, inside are small seed-like structures inside of which the gall wasp grubs develop (the wool sower gall is also called the oak seed gall).

Nature never disappoints the curious naturalist. I offer most every audience, whether classroom or field trip, my five verbs for truly enjoying Nature:

Five Essential Verbs: Believe, Look, See, Feel, and Act.

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

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:

It is an incalculable added pleasure to any one’s sum of happiness if he or she grows to know, even slightly and imperfectly, how to read and enjoy the wonder-book of nature. (Theodore Roosevelt)
Vitality and beauty are gifts of Nature, for those who live according to its laws. (da Vinci)
Nature never disappoints the curious naturalist.

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.

September 2023 Red Oak Lightning Strike Revisited May 2024!

June 5, 2024/in Updates /by Steve Jones

Discovering A Lightning-Struck Mighty Oak

I often discover evidence of Nature’s fury when I wander the forests of northern Alabama. I conduct forensic forestry, mentally recreating the time and nature of the circumstances and events leading to what lies before me. This photo essay reports a situation I encountered on September 16, 2023, offers my reflections and follows with my subsequent observations and photographs from my return visit on May 28, 2024.

On September 16, 2023, I visited the riparian forest along HGH Road in Madison County’s central reaches of Alabama’s Wheeler National Wildlife Refuge. Always on the alert for signs of Nature’s forces at work, I found this 30-inch diameter red oak struck by lightning in the prior week’s thunderstorms. Bark stripped from ground to canopy top, spears of trunk surface wood shattered, the tree expresses the unfathomable power of a single lightning bolt.

The oak’s foliage high above me showed no sign of wilting, suggesting that the tree could survive. Time would tell. I’ve seen trees scarred from base to crown that survived a powerful strike decades ago. How will this one fare?

This 31-second video hints at the violent underside of Nature’s incredible magic, wonder, awe, and inspiration. I am convinced that to fully appreciate Nature’s beauty, we must sense, comprehend, understand, and witness the beast. Two sides of the same coin: Beauty and the Beast! I believe the strike will prove fatal. I’ve noted its location so that I may return to confirm its fate…or survival.

Assessing the Oak’s Fate Eight Months Hence

After the intervening dormant season, I returned to the once mighty oak May 28, 2024. I approaches the tree with baited breath. The tree stands as tall as it did in September. At first glance it remains a monarch, its 30-inch diameter larger than any of its neighbors.

Its scarred and stripped bark reaches, as it did in September, from its base to the crown.

However, the crown is barren. I feel a sense of loss that the tree did not survive the fatal blast. A weak counter to my feeling of loss is the faint satisfaction that my September prediction of demise bore true. I hope I am not projecting a sense of disciplinary (forestry) smugness in the photograph at right.

Forestry is a science. Forestry practice (forest management) involves both art and science. The art involves seeing what is objectively and quantitatively unknowable. I brought a lifetime of forestry science and practice to my September assessment, yet I visited the oak in May absolutely uncertain of what I would find. What I do know is that Nature operates according to laws established by forces existing long before man walked on Earth. Leonardo da Vinci observed that obvious truth 500 years ago:

Nature never breaks her own laws.

The oak could not counter Nature’s own laws. All of us who practice forestry and applied ecology (my disciplinary fields; BS and PhD) must remember that Nature rules. Our education and knowledge are limited; we can never know all. Although I got this one correct (i.e. the tree died), I am far from all-knowing. Regardless, I will continue to play the forestry forensics game. I will win some; I will lose many. As a consequence of engaging, I will learn and perhaps improve my batting average.

Albert Einstein echoed the advice I have self-adopted:

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

I focused my first book, Nature Based Leadership, on the lessons Nature offers for leading. My second book, Nature Inspired Learning and Leading, suggests applying her wisdom to both leading and learning. I believe that every lesson for living, learning, serving, and leading is written indelibly in and is inspired compellingly by Nature.

Thoughts and Reflections

I offer these observations:

Nature never breaks her own laws. (Leonardo da Vinci)
Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better. (Albert Einstein)
Our education and knowledge are limited; we can never know all. (Yours truly)

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 sauntering 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

My first three 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. The three books offer observations and reflections on my relationship with the natural world…and the broader implications for society. Order any of the three from your local indie bookstore, or find them on IndieBound or other online sources such as Amazon and LifeRich.

My fourth book, published by Dutton Land and Cattle Company, Dutton Land & Cattle: A Land Legacy Story, is available for purchase directly from me.

Mid-April Dawn at Alabama’s Joe Wheeler State Park!

May 29, 2024/in Updates /by Steve Jones

Dockside Dawn

On April 17 and 18, 2024, I visited Joe Wheeler State Park for the quarterly meeting of the Alabama State Parks Foundation. Rather than present a single long Post from my wanderings during my free time, please look for four separate photo essays:

Reading evidence of past land use in the current 80-90-year-old forests
Tree form oddities and related curiosities
Lakeside forest panoply
Dawn from the Lodge docks — This Post

Going Gently Into That Good Night

Although I titled this photo essay Mid April Dawn, I found no better place to insert two photographs from late afternoon before joining the Foundation social and dinner. I never tire of placid water, lakeside forests, and evening clouds.

I snapped the images from the Lodge docks at 4:47 and 48 PM.

I reluctantly left the docks for the 5:00 PM Foundation session, knowing that the affair and dinner would allow no time for wandering outside before sunset.

Mid-April Dawn

I rarely miss dawn and sunrise. I wonder what could possibly keep me awake so late at night that I miss darkness retreating to the west and the new day breaching the eastern horizon. I made it to the docks during civil twilight at 6:07 AM, ten minutes ahead of sunrise. Overcast dimmed the scene.

By 6:13 (left) the sun had broken the horizon, shielded by trees and shrouded in the low overcast. Little had changed by 6:20 AM. Broken stratus clouds dulled the firmament, holding a bright day at bay. Note the bird on the water (photo at right).

The 6:20 AM bird on the water revealed itself as a common loon, who treated me to a tremolo greeting, a call that stirs me to the core, reminding me of lakeside summer mornings and evenings in the great northland. Loons have normally migrated from northern Alabama to their higher latitude breeding grounds by mid-April.

Contrary to clear-sky mornings when daylight explodes when the sun rises, little change in light level appeared by 6:21 and 6:23 AM.

I embraced the cloud-dulled new day and the mood, character, and serenity it suggested. I recorded this 43-second video at 6:23 AM:

I reemerged between our group breakfast and the start of our business meeting. The clouds lingered at 8:14 AM, yet a few breaks revealed blue above.

Two final morning views completed my morning reconnaissance at 8:38 and 8:42 AM, the first of a fully-leafed-out yellow popular behind the Lodge and the second a last view of the marina.

I realize that this series of dawn through early morning photographs depict only modest shifts in light, mood, and insight. In contrast I’ve experienced other mornings when change happened in leaps and bounds…when the sun burst from the horizon, twilight collapsed without delay, and the morning dispersed in the blink of an eye. Nature is like that. Sometimes predictable…other times surprising. Nothing in Nature is static, whatever the pace.

I recall during my career retirees telling me that they are busier in retirement than ever before. I can’t say that I am as pressed for time as during my two decades of executive university leadership (VP at two institutions and CEO at four others), however, I am more engaged than I imagined I would be. Importantly, my busy days focus on Nature! Secondly, the pace and direction of effort are mine; stress is generally absent.

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:

Nothing in Nature is static, whatever the pace of change.
It’s always sunrise somewhere; the dew is never all dried at once; a shower is forever falling; vapor is ever rising. Eternal sunrise, eternal sunset, eternal dawn and gloaming, on sea and continents and islands, each in its turn, as the round earth rolls. (John Muir)
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

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.

Brief-Form Post # 32: Evidence of Past Land History at Alabama’s Joe Wheeler State Park!

May 23, 2024/in Updates /by Steve Jones

10 photos and two videos

I am pleased to add the 32nd of my GBH Brief Form Posts (Less than five minutes to read!) to my website. I tend to get a bit wordy with my routine Posts. I don’t want my enthusiasm for thoroughness and detail to discourage readers. So I will publish these brief Posts regularly.

On April 17 and 18, 2024 I visited Joe Wheeler State Park for the quarterly meeting of the Alabama State Parks Foundation. Rather than present a single long Post from my wanderings during my on-site free time, please look for four separate photo essays:

Reading evidence of past land use in the current 80-90-year-old forests — this Post
Tree form oddities and related curiosities
Lakeside forest panoply
Dawn from the lodge docks

Scars from a Previous Century of Careless Land Stewardship

I arrived early enough on the 17th to spend time on the Awesome Trail. When the US Army Corps of Engineers acquired land scheduled for Wheeler Dam inundation and adjoining buffer acreage, severely eroded pastured and tilled acreage dominated. Such abused and devalued agricultural lands were typical in the 1930s across Alabama and elsewhere. It was a time of widespread farm foreclosures. My internet search for images of ruined agricultural lands in depression-era Alabama yielded hundreds of photographs like this one:

Online Image of Alabama Depression-Era

That image represents conditions that I am certain prevailed adjacent to the future Lake Wheeler. I stayed alert for confirming evidence as I sauntered along the trail. Forested land seldom erodes. Intact forest litter and organic layers, permeable soils, and a protective overstory ensures rainfall infiltration and discourages overland flow. Still-evident (yet not active) erosion gullies leading down to the lakeshore (below) are relics from past practice. The current forest cover discourages further degradation.

I recorded this 33-second video depicting an old gully scar:

The trail crosses several old gullies over newly installed wooden bridges. The views (left, up; right, down) show the depth and extent of the erosion scars.

The wooden structures are sufficient to protect the trail and hikers from wet season crossings. The image at right shows the severity of now healing and healed washing. Large trees reach into the chasms of abusive land treatment.

Another gully required a more substantial bridge spanning a gully reaching to water’s edge (right).

I wonder how may cubic miles of topsoil emptied into our rivers from 1850 to the 1930s. Too, too, too many!

Louis Bromfield, a 20th Century novelist and playwright, dedicated his life to rehabilitating the old worn-out Ohio farm he bought in the 1930s. He wrote:

The Land came to us out of eternity, and when the youngest of us associated with it dies, it will still be here. The best any of us can do is to change some small corner of this Earth for the better, through wisdom, knowledge, and hard work.

Such is one facet of our Alabama State Parks.

Long Term Implications of Eroded Topsoil

The Awesome Trail passes through a stand of loblolly pine that recently suffered extensive windthrow. Even trees growing in undisturbed, deep natural soils yield to high winds, either uprooting or breaking. I saw no evidence of widespread breakage; the wind toppled the root mass. Although I cannot be certain, I conclude that these deeply-gullied hillsides also lost 1-3 feet of topsoil, a condition chronicled across much of the piedmont and foothills of the eastern US.

I recorded this 55-second video within the blowdown area:

The evidence of uninformed and irresponsible land treatment is evident wherever my travels take me across Alabama. I believe wisdom, knowledge, and hard work constitute the answer to preserving future land and forest productivity. John Muir gave hope to Earth’s capacity to overcome such abuse:

Earth has no sorrow that earth can not heal.

I accept the challenge of distilling these Brief-Form Posts into a single distinct reflection, a task far more elusive than assembling a dozen pithy statements. Today, I borrow a relevant reflection from Franklin Roosevelt about soil:

The nation that destroys its soil destroys itself.

NOTE: I place 3-5 short videos (15 seconds to three minutes) on my Steve Jones Great Blue Heron YouTube channel weekly. All relate to Nature-Inspired Life and Living. I encourage you to SUBSCRIBE! It’s FREE. Having more subscribers helps me spread my message of Informed and Responsible Earth Stewardship…locally and globally!