sauntering Archives - Page 2 of 3 - Steve Jones Great Blue Heron

An August Afternoon Stroll along Indian Creek Greenway!

October 16, 2024/in Updates /by Steve Jones

On Friday, August 9, 2024, I stopped by Huntsville, Alabama’s Indian Creek Greenway to trek a couple of miles to capture images of mid-summer flowers, trees, seasonal breezes, and the mood of Indian Creek in the late afternoon shade. I wanted to inhale Nature’s summer essence before my total right knee replacement on August 20. I had my left knee replaced on January 23, 2024. I know what to expect. I will be out of my woodland sauntering mode until mid-October when I hope to be on track for the kind of mobility I’ve missed for years! [Note: I’m putting the final touches on this photo essay just a couple of hours after hiking (slowly and cautiously) the one-half-mile Rainbolt Trail on the Rainbow Mountain Nature Preserve in Madison, Alabama on October 13, 2024!]

I entered the greenway at 2:30 PM and enjoyed a drier airmass and lower temperatures. There was no need to deal with the more typical hot, hazy, and humid days of mid-August!

Like so many of our greenways, this one occupies a sewer line right-of-way running through an active flood plain, the overflow triggered several times a year by drenching thunderstorms and prolonged winter and spring rains. The stream ran at a routine summertime flow as I walked along the trail and occasionally penetrated to creekside. I’ll report on my creek-proximate wanderings in a complementary photo essay.

I recorded this 59-second video a few hundred yards from the southern end of the greenway. I began the video with a magnificent green ash tree rising from the forest edge. I remind readers that these urban flood plains are naturally fertile with deep soils routinely refreshed with sediment- and nutrient-laden flood waters. The ash and other riparian forest neighbors express site quality with their height, this ash reaching at least 100 feet above the forest floor.

Here is a still photograph of the subject green ash tree. Well, I must admit that this a screen shot from the video. At the top edge of the photo, leaning in from the opposite greenway edge, a black walnut crown is attempting to close the aerial tunnel over the pedestrian and biking path.

When an old forester (BS in Forestry, 1973) seeks a woodland saunter as he returns home from an OLLI UAH Board meeting, can anyone deny him the joy of focusing a video or two on special trees! I found the mostly sunny skies mesmerizing above the greenway and its trailside forests. This time, I centered the 57-second video around a large shagbark hickory.

There are things I cannot resist, of which one is the complex bark of shagbark hickory, which like the song of a Carolina chickadee says its name.

I am a relentless fan of the writings of Aldo Leopold, America’s consummate conservationist and father of North American wildlife biology. He observed:

Our ability to perceive quality in nature begins, as in art, with the pretty. It expands through successive stages of the beautiful to values as yet uncaptured by language.

Shagbark hickory is a work of art, a consequence of timeless evolution. It’s the only tree of our southern hardwood forests with overlapping plated bark. To what advantage evolutionarily, I ponder? I’ve heard that various woodland bats find shelter under the plates. Do the bats deter foliar-consuming insects, or gobble stem-boring weevils or nut pests? I don’t know the answer, nor did a quick internet query yield an explanation. Leonardo da Vinci may be one of the top five scientific minds of the past 1,000 years. I base my observation that the tree’s bark owes its peculiar nature to evolution on a simple da Vinci quote:

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

Those in local, state, regional, and national circles of Nature enthusiasts often lament of a species that it is an alien, an invasive, a pest, and other derogatory monikers. Chinese yam is one such interloper growing in profusion at this section of the greenway edge.

An NC State Cooperative Extension online source stated:

Chinese Yam was introduced here as early as the 19th century for culinary and cultural uses and is now considered an invasive plant species in several states. It has spread from Louisiana to Vermont and can form dense masses of vines that cover and kill native vegetation, including trees, within a variety of moist, disturbed habitats. It spreads by seed, tubers and by the small tubers in leaf axils.

I marveled at the small branch tubers, recalling that they are edible. While I do abhor widespread, truly invasive ecosystem-threatening alien plants like Chinese privet and kudzu, I do not get exorcised by Chinese yam. Instead I shall view it as Earth-native and not particularly worthy of calling out the National Guard.

I recorded this 57-second Chinese yam video:

Here is a screenshot of two leaf axil tubers.

Giant ragweed is an impressive plant native. The cluster below has already reached eight feet. An online source spoke of it in ways seeming unkind:

This is an annual herb usually growing up to 2 m (6 ft 7 in) tall, but known to reach over 6 m (20 ft) in rich, moist soils. The tough stems have woody bases and are branching or unbranched. Most leaves are oppositely arranged. The blades are variable in shape, sometimes palmate with five lobes, and often with toothed edges. The largest can be over 25 cm (9.8 in) long by 20 cm (7.9 in) wide. They are borne on petioles several centimeters long. They are glandular and rough in texture.

Ragweed pollen is a common offensive allergen. The plant is a serious agricultural nuisance and a tough weed to control. That it is a native doesn’t make the farmer dealing with it more accepting nor less aggravated.

I’ve been a lifetime proponent of spring ephemeral wildflowers, the woodland beauties that populate the forest floor between the onset of warming days and full leaf-out within the forest canopy. Retirement has enabled me to spend more time appreciating the summer wildflowers that seem happiest along forest edge habitat. Wingstem greeted me along the greenway.

A silvery checkerspot butterfly appreciated the wingstem for reasons other than aesthetic.

Ironweed is a summer perennial member of the aster family. I see it commonly on forest edges. I never tire of its rich color.

I recorded this 34-second video of another common forest edge woody species, osage orange. Maclura pomifera bears many common names, among them: mock orange, hedge apple, bow wood, horse apple, monkey ball, monkey brains, and yellow-wood.

European settlers found that a perimeter of osage orange stakes would self-sprout quickly into a dense fence-tangle of growth effective at protecting vegetable gardens and crops from marauding domestic grazers and foraging wildlife. Native Americans prized the wood for bow-making. I urge readers to dig more deeply into web sources to learn more about this curious and valuable small tree or shrub.

Osage orange is a member of the mulberry family. I recorded this 45-second video of our native red mulberry not far from the osage orange:

European settlers arriving along the Virginia coast in 1607 enthusiastically mentioned the abundance of mulberry, common from Florida to Ontario and west to the plains. Birds consume the sweet fruit and distribute the scarified seeds, which establish readily along edges and across meadows.

Here is my brief red mulberry video:

Black walnut prefers rich well-drained sites along streams like Indian Creek. This cluster of three hefty nuts portends a good walnut crop. Unlike the largely inedible osage orange fruits, many wildlife species lust for big meaty walnuts.

River birch’s moniker does more than hint at its preferred creek and riverside growing sites. I like its pendulant branching and exfoliating bark enough that we planted a three-stemmed specimen in our backyard. Our irrigation system meets its requirement for ample soil moisture even in periodic dry stretches.

I could not resist recording another short video of the greenway, its meadow corridor, the stunning sky, and the narrow forest edge, and a rough path heading to creekside.

Here is the 59-second video that transitions from the greenway through a narrow border forest to creekside:

Note the “candy cane” sewer line ventilation pipe along the greenway.

Were I not scheduled for knee surgery 11 days hence, I may have suppressed my videographic eagerness. However, each is brief and every one offers a unique emphasis. I recorded this 57-second video near my turn-around point at 3:02 PM, focusing on the brilliant sunshine and afternoon breeze (listen to it!), and including a short transit across the forest border to the shore of Indian Creek.

I’ll use this same video to begin my subsequent photo essay highlighting Indian Creek!

Thoughts and Reflections

I offer these observations:

There is no result in nature without a cause; understand the cause and you will have no need of the experiment. (Leonardo da Vinci)
Oh, how insulting to something as beautiful as ironweed to include “weed” in its name!
An urban greenway (along a sewer right-of-way) just 4.5 miles from my home supplies an endless stock of Nature’s fine elixir!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Vision:

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

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

Steve’s Four Books

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

I began writing books and Posts for several reasons:

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

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

October 8, 2024/in Updates /by Steve Jones

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

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

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

Trailside Fungi

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

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

We also identified violet-grey boletes.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A closer look at the crust mushroom corroborates its moniker.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thoughts and Reflections

I offer these observations:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Vision:

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

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

Steve’s Four Books

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

I began writing books and Posts for several reasons:

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

Steve’s Four Books

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

Brief Form Post # 36: Late August Afternoon along Indian Creek

October 2, 2024/in Updates /by Steve Jones

I am pleased to add the 36th 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 Friday, August 9, 2024, I stopped by Huntsville, Alabama’s Indian Creek Greenway to trek a couple of miles to capture images of mid-summer flowers, trees, seasonal breezes, and the mood of Indian Creek in the late afternoon shade. I focus this brief form Post on my creekside wanderings off of the greenway.

Here is the 59-second video that takes us from the greenway to Indian Creek:

I’ve seen the creek at this placid mid-summer level and I’ve visited the southern trailhead when flood water lapped at the signpost. An urban stream, Indian Creek flashes quickly with summer thunderstorm downpours and drenching winter and spring rains. On this August afternoon, the creek flowed placidly within its forest-sheltered bed and trickled to the right at a diversion deposited by a spring flood.

I recorded this 60-second video creekside:

I saw a short video recently. Its brief caption read, “A picture paints a thousanad words; a video is priceless.” I believe that by including these brief videos, I leave you with a deeper understanding of and appreciation for the beauty, magic, awe, inspiration, and wonder of the special places I visit here in my northern Alabama region. I remind readers that nothing in Nature is static. For example, Indian Creek is moody, showing this placid demeanor during the low flow of dry summer periods, and contrarily expressing flooding ferocity in response to summer downpurs and dormant season monsoonal spells.

I wondered when I spotted this 30-inch-diamter streambank sweetgum whether its scarred base evidenced floodwater debris battering, which would have made a convincing segue from the floodwater narrative. However, the tortured base is at 90 degrees to the stream flow. Instead, I have seen similar scarring on trees gnawed by beavers many years earlier. The chewing opens an infection court to decay fungi. Long after the guilty rodent fails to fell the tree and departs the scene, the scar persists and the wound deepens.

I return to the peaceful waters with this 40-second video:

This late summer creeping lilyturf in full flower caught my eye with its deep green grass-like foliage and sparkling white spikes. Even its name attracts and retains attention.

I leave you with this final 56-second video of streamside trees and the creek, a gnarled old easern red cedar, and a view back to the greenway:

While soothing and peaceful on this late summer afternoon, this is a harsh environment. Streambank scouring exposes roots. Flood-borne debris punishes trees and shrubs, and torrents power stream channel meanders that alter the creek’s passage across its wide floodplain. Again, nothing in Nature is static.

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. John Muir captured Nature sentiments far better than I, hence I borrow his reflection on flowing waters:

The rivers flow not past, but through us, thrilling, tingling, vibrating every fiber and cell of the substance of our bodies, making them glide and sing.

[Note] I’m publishing this Post six weeks following my August 20, 2024 total right knee replacement surgery. Progressing rapidly, I will soon be surpassing the strength, endurance, and stability afforded me on August 9, when I plodded along Indian Creek to capture images and videos for the photo essay.

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

September 10, 2024/in Updates /by Steve Jones

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thoughts and Reflections

I offer these observations:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Vision:

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

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

Steve’s Four Books

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

I began writing books and Posts for several reasons:

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

Alabama Master Naturalist Field Days at Monte Sano State Park!

September 4, 2024/in Updates /by Steve Jones

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!

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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:

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

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 #35: Visiting the Old Lilly Pond at Monte Sano State Park

August 19, 2024/in Updates /by Steve Jones

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.

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.

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.

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!

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

July 31, 2024/in Updates /by Steve Jones

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

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

Gathering

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

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

Two-Mile Evening Hike

We spent most of our hike along the Varnedoe Trail.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Noteworthy Plants Encountered

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

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

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

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

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

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

Milk-white Toothed Polypore

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

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

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

Sunset

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

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

The image tells a tale that my words cannot enrich.

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

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

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

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

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

Thoughts and Reflections

I offer these observations:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Vision:

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

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

Steve’s Three Books

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

I began writing books and Posts for several reasons:

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

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.

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.