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Alabama Master Naturalist Field Days at Monte Sano State Park!

On Monday, June 24, 2024, I assisted Alabama State Parks Northwest District Naturalist Amber Coger in hosting a 9:00 AM to 4:30 PM Field Day at Monte Sano State Park for the Alabama Master Naturalist Program (AMNP). We hosted a second 25-enrollee Field Day on Saturday, June 29. This photo essay captures the essence of the Field Days with my observations, reflections, photos, and brief videos.

I applaud the Program’s Mission: The Alabama Master Naturalist Program strives to promote awareness, understanding, and respect of Alabama’s natural world to the state’s residents and visitors through science-based information and research.

The State Park System Mission is similar: To acquire and preserve natural areas; to develop, furnish, operate, and maintain recreational facilities, and to extend the public’s knowledge of the state’s natural environment.

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

Because of our mission overlap, I accepted an invitation six years ago to become a founding Board member of the Alabama State Parks Foundation, which has led me to publish scores of my great Blue Heron photo essays inspired by visits to our State Parks. Likewise, for reasons of mission concurrence, I enrolled in the Master Naturalist Program, successfully completing its 20 modules with a GPA of ~95, not bad for an old geezer/forester! I admit, too, to a more sentimental reason for enrolling and assisting in program delivery. From 1996 through 2001, I served as Alabama Cooperative Extension System (ACES) Director, the Mother Ship for the AMNP.

I often seek relevant quotes from great historic scientists, philosophers, artists, conservationists, and other wise forebearers. Their wisdom is timeless, as germane today as during their own era. Few would have imagined that Albert Einstein, a once-in-a-century intellect, theoretical physicist, and whimsical purveyor of human insight years ago penned what could be a tagline suited for all three entities:

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

The mountain biker’s pavilion served as a perfect venue as our June 24, classroom.

 

At 1,600-feet elevation, nestled within the plateau-top forest, comforted by a breeze and ceiling fans, we enjoyed learning and sharing, and meeting new friends and fellow Nature-Nerds!

Monte Sano

 

Here is my 58-second video of our group on the North Plateau Trail…not hiking, but sauntering.

 

John Muir abhorred the term hiking:

I don’t like either the word [hike] 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.

Sauntering the deep forest on a summer afternoon super-charges learning.

Monte Sano

 

We paused frequently to identify trees and plants, answer questions, exchange stories, and enjoy scenery.

 

Several of us admired a dense colony of plantain-leaved pusseytoes.

Monte Sano

 

Even at sauntering pace, 25 people stretched along a single-wide path doesn’t permit the entire group to see and discuss every trailside feature, like this buttonbush. One of the common threads I weave into my writing, speaking, and forest ventures is that so much in Nature is hidden in plain sight, this fascinating flower less than ten feet from the trail serves as an example.

Monte Sano

 

Leaves on the mid-story black gum tree nearly brushed us as we passed. I must remind myself that, if not disciplined to time, I could easily stretch a 2.5-hour saunter into 5-6 hours. I want to tell the story of every tree, flower, shrub, and curiosity along the way.

 

We noticed yellow buckeye saplings in several locations on June 29, showing early senescence of unknown cause. I won’t speculate.

MSSP

 

Occasionally, the trail widened to permit the entire entourage to gather, as was the case when we crossed a power line and later at the overlook.

 

Near the Park Lodge we all coalesced to explore several features, including this serene underwing moth that fluttered from a shagbark hickory trunk, where it had blended invisibly with the tree’s bark.

Monte Sano

 

As we re-entered the forest from the overlook, me lagging with two stragglers, I spotted an ancient chestnut oak, deeply scarred by a decades-old lightning strike and worthy of recording this short video.

 

The old oak bore the scar from a searing lightning blast decades earlier. Such strikes can spell instant explosive death or leave a permanent non-fatal wound. Such a wound deadens a strip of the bark vertically, opening an infection court for wood decay organisms that begin their inexorable consumption of the mighty oak from within. The hollow oak will eventually yield to forces of wind and gravity. The rule of thumb is that the tree will topple when the persistent sound wood rind thickness falls below a third of the tree’s diameter at any given point. Can we then attribute the cause of death to lightning? The tree doesn’t care. The cause will be a matter of concern and interest to only a few old foresters and a handful of eager Master Naturalists.

 

Black locust is rapidly exiting the plateau forests of Monte Sano State Park. An early successional species, black locust likely dominated the younger forest of the 1970-1990s. The black-capped polypore pathogen infects most of the remaining locusts, signaling the trees’ demise with its distinctive shelf fruiting body.

MSSP

 

Arthropods

 

A Master Naturalist knows about all manner of life, including the insects and diverse organisms that constitute Nature’s full ecosystem tapestry. Amber directed participants through an exercise intended to discover life forms residing in shrubs and under logs, leaves, and brush.

Monte SanoMonte Sano

 

Here is my 37-second video of the June 29, arthropod bush-beating exercise:

 

Field Day participants undertook their task with relish and enthusiasm.

Forest Bathing

 

Amber introduced participants to the Japanese practice of shinrin-yoku, also known as forest bathing, a form of therapeutic relaxation where one spends time in a forest or natural atmosphere, focusing on sensory engagement to connect with Nature. Each person found a location near the pavilion to seek personal connection. Some chose a bench, leaned against an oak trunk, or chose a grassy spot to lie face-up.

I secured anchorage on an old stone wall (rich with diverse lichen crusting) under the combined shade of a chestnut oak and an adjacent black walnut tree.

Monte Sano

 

The canopies gently swayed under the deep blue firmament. I recorded this 60-second video of the medium in which I soaked…soothing and immersing my body, mind, heart, soul, and spirit.

 

The view directly above me reminded me that all living creatures, whether the trees reaching high or the serene underwing moth we encountered earlier, draw life-energy from the star around which we orbit.

Monte Sano

 

A different kind of forest bathing visited the Monte Sano Lodge on June 29, as Amber lectured indoors. I captured the summer shower with this 60-second video:

 

The brief shower quickly drifted to our south.

MSSP

 

Closing Reflections

 

I thought of the deep revelation that John Muir shared as he contemplated the never-ending cycle of life on Earth:

It is 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.

I offered a closing charge to the participants. Louis Bromfield, mid Twentieth Century novelist, playwright, and conservationist, bought what he called his old worn out Ohio farm in the 1930s and subsequently dedicated his life to rehabilitating the health of its land and soils. He tells the story of his passion-driven land-healing in his non-fiction Pleasant Valley (1945):

The adventure at Malabar is by no means finished. 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 we can hope to do is to leave the mark of our fleeting existence upon it, to die knowing that we have changed some small corner of this Earth for the better, by wisdom, knowledge, and hard work. 

I implored the fledgling Master Naturalists to view their own responsibility to:

promote awareness, understanding, and respect of Alabama’s natural world to the state’s residents and visitors through science-based information and research.

I encouraged them in their own way, to leave the mark of their fleeting existence upon the land and the people they touch…to change some small corner of the Earth for the better, by wisdom, knowledge, and hard work.

As I do with all audiences, I reminded them that people don’t care how much you know…until they know how much you care. Like all worthy conservationists, whether State Park Naturalists, Master Naturalists, or old worn out foresters, we operate most convincingly, effectively, and indelibly when we bring the Power of our Passion to the Service of Reason, in the cause of informed and responsible Earth Stewardship.

 

Alabama State Parks Foundation

Thoughts and Reflections

 

I offer these observations:

  • I don’t like either the word [hike] or the thing. People ought to saunter in the mountains – not ‘hike!’  (John Muir)
  • Look deep into Nature and then you will understand everything better. (Albert Einstein)
  • We can never have enough of Nature. (Henry David Thoreau)

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

 

                                MSSP

 

All three of my books (Nature Based LeadershipNature-Inspired Learning and LeadingWeaned 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.

 

 

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

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

 

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

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

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

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Northwest Corner of the National Military Park

 

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

 

 

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

 

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

 

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

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

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

 

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

 

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

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

 

I recorded this 58-second video at the cemetery:

 

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

 

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

 

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

Albert Einstein, I believe would have agreed:

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

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

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

 

Thoughts and Reflections

 

I offer these observations:

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

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

 

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

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

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

 

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

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

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

Vision:

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

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

 

Steve’s Three Books

 

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

I began writing books and Posts for several reasons:

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

 

 

 

 

 

All three of my books (Nature Based LeadershipNature-Inspired Learning and LeadingWeaned 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 #35: Visiting the Old Lilly Pond at Monte Sano State Park

I am pleased to add the 35th of my GBH Brief Form Posts (Less than five minutes to read!) to my website. I 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 Form Posts regularly.

I visited the old lilly pond on Alabama’s 2,140-acre Monte Sano State Park on July 10, 2024, with Amber Coger, Northwest District Park Naturalist. Our primary purpose was to record a short video intended to promote a fall semester Osher Lifelong Learning Institute (University of Alabama in Huntsville) course on Folklore and the Arts at Alabama’s State Parks, to be co-taught by Renee Raney, Chief of Education and Interpretation for the Alabama State Park System, and me. I’ll offer observations, reflections, photographs, and a brief video from our round-trip trek to the pond. I’ll begin at the James O’Shaughnessy 1890 Lilly Lake.

MSSP

 

Mr. O’Shaughnessy and his brother opened the 233-room resort in 1887. The hotel ceased operations in 1890. The glory days associated with the hotel were short-lived. The lilly pond and its manicured environment, long since consumed by the growing forest and apparent wilderness, hints at the good times. Little more than swampy wetland, the pond once expressed the location’s grandeur. Over one and one-third century, Nature has reclaimed the lush pond and home grounds. Without tending and intentional actions to maintain the cultivated grounds and the pond, another century of neglect will allow Nature to erase all evidence of former human domestication. Already, the pond is merely a wet place among the encroaching forest. Trees are colonizing even the old pond center.

MSSP

 

I wonder, how much longer will the pond moniker fit this mucky place in the forest? For the moment, the old lilly pond serves interpreters and educators like Amber telling the tale of the land.

MSSP

 

Amber introduces the fall course in this 58-second video. She and I both recorded a version of the video. Amber’s enthusiasm proved far superior to my dull tired former academic tone and cadence! Here’s Amber!

 

Three years ago I assisted the Park Superintendent secure funds to establish 25 permanent photo points at key locations across the park. The idea is to snap photos in the four cardinal directions at five year intervals to help tell the story of change over time for visitors 10, 25, 50, and deep into the future. If only someone had started such a photo-chronology here in 1890!

MSSPMSSP

 

Woodpeckers or squirrels are keeping this chestnut oak cavity open within sight of the pond, providing another facet of the interpretive story.

MSSP

 

The interpretive tale will change day to day, to week, to month, across the seasons. We found this amanita mushroom brightening the forest floor. It may be gone tomorrow.

MSSP

 

The O’Shaughnessy grounds most certainly included ornamental Chines wisteria plantings, now escaped and growing along the nearby trail.

MSSP

 

We stopped to admire the deep-green venation of southern wood violet. So much lies hidden in plain sight.

MSSP

 

As we neared the parking area, Amber entered a wetland area to demonstrate the height of a stand of woolgrass.

MSSP

 

 

We kept our trek intentionally brief to accommodate Amber’s subsequent appointment, hence this Brief-Form essay. However, even a short trek reveals many secrets and delights.

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. Because the planned fall course on State Parks folklore prompted our short trek, I borrow these relevant words from Albert Einstein:

  • If you want your children to be intelligent, read them fairy tales. If you want them to be more intelligent, read them more fairy tales.

  • When I examine myself and my methods of thought, I come to the conclusion that the gift of fantasy has meant more to me than any talent for abstract, positive thinking.

     

 

 

 

 

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

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.

Rickwood

 

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.

Rickwood

 

Equipment is functional, but merely adequate.

Rickwood

 

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

 

The pool remains a major crowd pleaser.

Rickwood

 

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.

Rickwood

 

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.

Rickwood

 

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.

Rickwood

 

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

Rickwood

 

 

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

Rickwood

 

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

Rickwood

 

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

Rickwood

 

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.

Rickwood CSPRickwood

 

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

Rickwood

 

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

Rickwood

 

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

Rickwood

 

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

RickwoodRickwood

 

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

Rickwood

 

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.

Rickwood

 

 

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

Rickwood

 

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.

Rickwood

 

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!

Rickwood

 

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!

Rickwood

 

Alabama State Parks Foundation

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

 

Rickwood

 

 

 

All three of my books (Nature Based LeadershipNature-Inspired Learning and LeadingWeaned 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 #34: Late April Birding Exploration at Madison, Alabama’s Creekwood Park and Indian Creek Greenway!

I am pleased to add the 34th 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.

 

I am a wanna-be birder, a lifelong Nature enthusiast with a Forestry BS and a PhD in Applied Ecology, and a woodland wanderer wherever my life and travels have taken me. I’ve lived in Maryland, New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Georgia, Ohio, New Hampshire, North Carolina, West Virginia, and Alaska. I’ve journeyed to and through every state except Hawaii. International travels included Canada, Finland, Sweden, Norway, Kazakhstan, China, Japan, Germany, the Czech Republic, and Yugoslavia. I’ve heard and seen birds everywhere and wished to know their identity and story.

Finally, five years into retirement, I stepped toward learning more about the avian world. I enrolled in a University of Alabama in Huntsville OLLI (Osher Lifelong Learning Institute) North Alabama Birding course taught by Alabama A&M Professor Emeritus of Ornithology, Dr. Ken Ward. Our capstone field lab on April 25, 2024, took us to Madison Alabama’s Creekwood Park and adjacent Indian Creek Greenway, an area Ken described as a spring migration hotspot.

And so right he was! We (he) tallied 68 bird species seen, both seen and heard, or heard. You can review his comprehensive list at the end of this Post. I admit to deferring to his lifetime-trained ears for identifying species by call. He also spotted and identified fleeting images of treetop and brush inhabitants. I have a long way to go to become even an amateur birder. My knowledge and skills can go only in one direction. Ken and my classmates opened me to better ways of looking, hearing, and seeing.

I knew coming into the course that diverse habitats enrich species diversity, whether plants or all manner of living creatures. The Park and Greenway offered such diversity. Open meadows, mowed grass, woods edge, forest, stream, bog, and swamp comprised the areas we observed.

 

Our spirits soared on a perfect weather morning. Smiles and enthusiasm prevailed, along with a sense of wonder and awe for the avian variety we encountered.

 

Indian Creek had overflowed its banks more than once over the winter and spring. The forest below retained flood water not yet absorbed or drained, just one of the diverse habitats.

 

Indian Creek provided fresh flowing water. A mallard drake paddled contentedly at right.

 

I recorded this 60-second video of the stream at Creekwood Park

 

A willow thicket at the Park attracted throngs of cedar waxwings foraging willow seeds.

 

A small feeder freshet surged past butterweed blooms before emptying into Indian Creek.

 

I recorded this 30-second video of Indian Creek along the Greenway.

 

Beavers keep the wetland and swamp habitat intact south of the park along the Greenway.

 

The forester and tree enthusiast within me could not resist this park eastern red cedar, its roots tracing a comprehensive highway map.

 

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 the words of John James Audubon:

  • If only the bird with the loveliest song sang, the forest would be a lonely place. Never give up listening to the sounds of birds.

 

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!

 

Appendix

Ken Ward’s tally for our excursion to Creekwood Park and Indian Creek Greenway, Madison, Alabama, US Apr 25, 2024 7:07 AM – 11:37 AM

Protocol: Traveling

4.5 mile(s)

68 species

 

Canada Goose  10 (species followed by number of individuals observed)

Mallard  6

Mourning Dove  8

Chimney Swift  4

Solitary Sandpiper  2

Great Egret  1

Great Blue Heron  5

Turkey Vulture  1

Bald Eagle  1

Red-shouldered Hawk  2

Belted Kingfisher  3

Red-bellied Woodpecker  14

Downy Woodpecker  10

Pileated Woodpecker  2

Northern Flicker  3

Eastern Wood-Pewee  4

Eastern Phoebe  5

Great Crested Flycatcher  1

Eastern Kingbird  2

White-eyed Vireo  8

Yellow-throated Vireo  1

Red-eyed Vireo  2

Blue Jay  10

American Crow  5

Carolina Chickadee  2

Tufted Titmouse  14

Northern Rough-winged Swallow  4

Barn Swallow  8

White-breasted Nuthatch  2

Blue-gray Gnatcatcher  5

House Wren  1

Carolina Wren  20

European Starling  10

Gray Catbird  4

Brown Thrasher  1

Northern Mockingbird  6

Eastern Bluebird  6

Wood Thrush  2

American Robin  30

Cedar Waxwing  35

House Finch  6

American Goldfinch  14

Chipping Sparrow  2

Field Sparrow  6

Song Sparrow  4

Eastern Towhee  1

Yellow-breasted Chat  1

Eastern Meadowlark  1

Orchard Oriole  1

Baltimore Oriole  1

Red-winged Blackbird  15

Brown-headed Cowbird  14

Common Grackle  27

Northern Waterthrush  2

Prothonotary Warbler  2

Tennessee Warbler  12

Nashville Warbler  1

Common Yellowthroat  2

Northern Parula  4

Yellow Warbler  2

Palm Warbler  1

Yellow-rumped Warbler  16

Yellow-throated Warbler  1

Summer Tanager  8

Scarlet Tanager  1

Northern Cardinal  25

Rose-breasted Grosbeak  1

Indigo Bunting  14

 

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

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:

  1. Reading evidence of past land use in the current 80-90-year-old forests
  2. Tree form oddities and related curiosities — this Post
  3. Lakeside forest panoply
  4. 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.

Joe WSP

 

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.

Joe WSP

 

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..

Joe WSP

 

 

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!

Joe WSP

 

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.

Joe WSPJoe WSP

 

 

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!

Joe WSP

 

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

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:

  1. Reading evidence of past land use in the current 80-90-year-old forests
  2. Tree form oddities and related curiosities
  3. Lakeside forest panoply — this Post
  4. 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.

Joe WSP

 

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!

Joe WSPJoe WSP

 

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

Joe WSP

 

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?!

Joe WSP

Joe WSP

 

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

Joe WSPJoe WSP

 

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.

Joe WSPJoe WSP

 

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

Joe WSP

 

 

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.

Joe WSP

 

 

 

 

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.

Joe WSP

 

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

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

 

Joe WSP

 

All three of my books (Nature Based LeadershipNature-Inspired Learning and LeadingWeaned 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.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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

 

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:

  1. Reading evidence of past land use in the current 80-90-year-old forests
  2. Tree form oddities and related curiosities
  3. Lakeside forest panoply
  4. 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.

Joe WSP

 

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).

Joe WSPJoe WSP

 

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.

Joe WSP

 

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.

Joe WSP

 

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.

Joe WSP

 

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.

Joe WSPJoe WSP

 

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

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

 

Joe WSP

 

All three of my books (Nature Based LeadershipNature-Inspired Learning and LeadingWeaned 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!

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:

  1. Reading evidence of past land use in the current 80-90-year-old forests — this Post
  2. Tree form oddities and related curiosities
  3. Lakeside forest panoply
  4. 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:

Boy with eroded farmland during the Dust Bowl by Arthur Rothstein on artnet

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.

Joe WSP

 

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.

Joe WSP

 

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.

Joe WSP

 

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.

Joe WSP

 

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!

 

 

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

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

Daily Awakening

 

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

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

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

Joe Wheeler

 

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

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

Joe WSP

 

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

Joe WSP

 

Another six minutes brought sharpening sunglow into the forest.

Joe WSP

 

 

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

Joe WSP

 

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

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

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

 

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

 

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

Joe WSP

 

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

 

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

Joe WSPJoe WSP

 

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

Joe WSP

 

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

Joe WSPJoe WSP

 

My Personal Commitment to Perseverance

 

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

Joe WSP

 

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

Joe WSPJoe WSP

 

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

Alabama State Parks Foundation

Thoughts and Reflections

 

I offer these observations:

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

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

 

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

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

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

 

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

 

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

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

Vision:

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

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

 

Steve’s Three Books

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

I began writing books and Posts for several reasons:

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

 

Joe WSP

 

All three of my books (Nature Based LeadershipNature-Inspired Learning and LeadingWeaned 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.