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Perfect Autumn Morning Hiking at Hickory Cove Nature Preserve

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On November 23, 2024, fellow retired forester Chris Stuhlinger and I co-led an OLLI (Osher Lifelong Learning Institute, University of Alabama in Huntsville) hike at Hickory Cove Nature Preserve near Huntsville. Owned and managed by the Land Trust of North Alabama, the preserve encompasses 146 acres of second-growth hardwood forest, rocky ledges, wet weather springs and falls, and a historic spring house. I previously visited the preserve in late July 2024 (just before my total right knee replacement surgery) accompanied by my two Alabama grandsons (see my September 10, 2024, Great Blue Heron photo essay: https://stevejonesgbh.com/2024/09/10/trees-of-the-hickory-cove-nature-preserves-legacy-loop-trail/).

Because Chris and I designated this trek as a Hike, our pace did not accommodate the sauntering that John Muir insisted upon and that my photography, videoing, and observations required. As a result, I caught up with the group only occasionally when they paused and at the end! Once in a while, someone would lag with me. I valued their presence but am accustomed to and comfortable with solitary treks. The group hiked (I sauntered) the 1.75-mile Legacy Trail, a delightful forest exploration from 860 feet elevation to 1,010 and return. Come along with me as I offer observations, reflections, 19 photos, and four brief videos.

The deck overlooks an old stone spring house. Justust 100 feet dowstream a stone water trough engineered after decades to still collect and hold water to the brim. Autumn does not barge into north Alabama. Even within a week of December, the crowns are not yet bare. The spring houuse tells part of the land domestication tale. Somewhere nearby, the wooden residence and farm structures served by the spring house lay in ruins (ashes?). Perhaps closer inspection would reveal a long-abandoned and decaying still.

 

A sauntering pace permitted me to seek and spend a little time with tree form curiosities and oddities. This white oak spoke to me, “Slow down old forester. Pay attention. Ponder why I am so large, aged, and of coarse limb.” I heeded his request (was it a demand?). Evidence and hints within the forest suggested former attempted domestication, including roughland tillage and pasturing. The white oak is considerably older than the forest we traversed. It enjoyed many years open grown, its coarse branch stubs indicating that it did not mature within a tightly packed closed forest. Was it a shade tree at the old homestead or within a hillside pasture? On my next visit I will search for clues.

Hickory Cove

Hickory Cove

 

Woody vines, like this supplejack, are a component of the overstory canopy in most of our north Alabama second-growth forests. Birds drop gut-scarified seed among the brush of a new forest, and ride on the growing stems as the eventual tree winners ascended 60, 80, and 100 (or more) feet above. Most commonly I find wild grape (muscadine and scuppernong); supplejack and wisteria also find their way into the canopy by the same route. English ivy (not native) and Virginia creeper may also be present but seldomly reach beyond mid-canopy.

Hickory Cove

 

I like the smooth green bark of supplejack. An online source offers high praise for this native woody vine:

Supplejack is a plant that provides food for wildlife. Its fruits are high in calcium and are eaten by songbirds, wild turkey, northern bobwhite, raccoon, and gray squirrels. The plant supports local ecosystems without disrupting them.

I recorded this 52-second supplejack video:

 

Once in a while the sauntering old forester caught up with the hikers just in time for them, well rested, to resume their faster pace. Some stretches of the preserve’s forest were better stocked, supporting taller mixed upland hardwoods (at right) still holding fall foliage.

 

I recorded this 44-second video of the group resuming its quicker pace, leaving me once again to my business of gathering fodder for a photo essay.

 

Fallen, standing dead, and failing live Eastern red cedar throughout the preserve evidenced past land use. Cedar is a north Alabama pioneer species, one of the first woody plants to colonize abandoned fields and pastures, as well as cutover forestland. You’ve heard the familiar refrain — birds deposit the scarified seeds in emerging brush. The seed sprouts, the seedlings thrive in the sun-rich environment, cedar dominates the stand’s first three to four decades, and then cedar begins to fade as the surrounding longer-lived hardwoods persist.

 

I recorded this 41-second video of the scrubby forest and a handsome ash tree, as a woodpecker tapped nearby:

 

I like the uniformly deeply furrowed pattern of green and white ash bark. Everything about the two species is regimented: the exceptional bark, the straight bole, and the species’ regal bearing and vertical posture. Ash trees remind me of the polished cadet corps at a military academy. In stark contrast, the shagbark trees are akin to a gathering of beach bums, their hair unkempt and their clothes and posture of little self-concern. The ash generates a glance of admiration and respect. The shagbark pulls me close for deep contemplation, whimsical imagination, and curiosity about the relative evolutionary advantages of the two forms.

 

The questions and musings aren’t suited to the hiker; the burden of discovery and investigation falls to the saunterer.

 

The group paused on the other side of a wooden bridge crossing a wet weather spring. Once again well rested, the group accepted my arrival as a trigger to resume their hiking.

Nearby, I recorded this 54-second video of two relicts (white oak and shagbark hickory) from a previous stand:

 

As with the white oak near the traihead, both of these indviduals bear coarse branching, large size, and a high crown ratio.

I discovered another tree form curiosity. A mockernut hickory stands within the grasp of a ground-forked sugar maple.

 

Will they prevail as a threesome? How intense is their competition for crown space (i.e. sunshine), soil moisture and nutrients, and even space for trunk expansion?

 

Although I have read some fanciful scientific recitations expounding on the wonderful and commonplace reciprocity, comensualism, and cooperation of Nature’s lifeforms, I resist such utopian scenarios. The sugar maple and hickory embrace above is not one of love and endearment. It’s one of coping with the unusual circumstance of both seeds germinating within a few inches and the two plants (the sugar maple I believe is a single forked tree) securing enough of life’s requirements to survuve for six to eight decades. They are engaged in fierce competition for those finite life resources. However, all three stems appear healthy; they are producing seed; their immediate future appears bright. I see no competitive advantage to such close proximity. I don’t anticipate out-living their proximal relationship. I can pledge only to spend more time with them on my next visit. Perhaps they will enlighten me in their own way.

I seldom compose my reflections and observations from these woodland rambles without generating more questions than answers. Rather than closing these pages with words of deep wisdom, I leave you with an image of pleasant woodland surroundings fitting for a late November midday…an invitation to return seeking insight and understanding from the forest. Every tree, every stand, and every forest have stories to tell. I’m still learning the language.

 

Thoughts and Reflections

 

I offer these observations:

  • Questions and musings aren’t suited to the hiker; the burden of discovery and investigation falls to the saunterer.
  • Every tree, every stand, and every forest have stories to tell. I’m still learning the language.  
  • Ash trees remind me of the polished cadet corps at a military academy. In stark contrast, the shagbark trees are akin to a gathering of beach bums, their hair unkempt and their clothes and posture of little self-concern.

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

 

Note: Unless otherwise noted, all blog post images are created & photographed by Stephen B. Jones.

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

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

 

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

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

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

Vision:

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

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

 

Steve’s Four Books

 

I wrote my books Nature Based Leadership (2016), Nature-Inspired Learning and Leading (2017), Weaned Seals and Snowy Summits: Stories of Passion for Place and Everyday Nature (2019; co-authored with Dr. Jennifer Wilhoit), and Dutton Land & Cattle: A Land Legacy Story (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

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Early December Circuit of Jones Branch Trail at Shoal Creek Nature Preserve

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Fellow retired forester Chris Stuhlinger and I hiked the Jones Branch Trail on December 9, 2024, at the Shoal Creek Nature Preserve near Florence, Alabama. The preserve’s website:

The Shoal Creek Nature Preserve (dedicated by Forever Wild resolution as the Billingsley-McClure Shoal Creek Preserve) allows visitors to explore 298 acres of fallow fields, mature upland hardwood stands, and scenic creek bottoms in Lauderdale County. Waterways on the tract include Indian Camp Creek, Lawson Creek, Jones Branch and Shoal Creek. The tract was purchased in part through a Land and Water Conservation Fund grant awarded by the Alabama Department of Economics and Community Affairs, as well as through financial and in-kind contributions from the City of Florence and Lauderdale County.

 

The preserve encompasses less than one-half square mile, yet we sauntered roughly three miles through what seemed like a far more extensive property, experiencing diverse terrain, varied cover, several small streams, and one stretch overlooking the Shoal Creek arm of Lake Wilson (Tennessee River). I attempt with this Great Blue Heron photo essay to introduce you to the preserve, sharing its story as I read it in the forest, the land, and human artifacts. Come along on this interpretive journey.

I first visited the preserve in August 2023, just eight weeks after my triple bypass. I ventured just a few hundred feet into the property, my photo essay reporting only on the abandoned fields: https://stevejonesgbh.com/2023/11/01/mid-august-2023-first-time-visit-to-forever-wild-shoal-creek-nature-preserve/

I focus this current essay on the forest cover, predominately second growth hardwood naturally regenerated on abandoned pasture or rough tilled cropland. The forest tells the history, even as it hints at the future. Both of these images contain beech saplings, clinging to marcescent leaves, this past summer’s foliage that will hold until spring. Understory beech tolerates shade and can persist there for decades until the overstory gives way to disturbance (e.g., ice, wind, disease, or old age), bringing sunlight to the beech, which will respond to emerge as a major overstory component in the next stand.

 

The trigger for release (whether beech or some other species in the understory or intermediate canopy) may come as a widespread blowdown or the loss of a single tree, like this 30-inch diameter red oak, whose massive crown covered more than a tenth of an acre. The crown opening will trigger a race to fill the void. The competitors? I have observed that the adjoining upper canopy occupants will close the gap faster than any understory or intermediate canopy trees can rush upward to fill the void. Stand replacement will require more than single tree disturbance. Trust me, the beech is in no hurry.

 

The hollow red oak appeared healthy and strong, but it no longer had the structural strength to withstand the undefeated forces of physics and gravity. The second-growth forest stands of northern Alabama bear the torment of widespread decay infested by old wounds from prior logging or farmstead activities.

I recorded this 45-second video at the crash site!

 

Nothing in Nature is static. Within two years the tree top will collapse from decay, beginning with twigs and small branches, and by year ten, only a deeply decayed trunk will remain.

 

We found a species of oak not familiar to either of us: blackjack oak (Quercus marilandica), a shrub to medium-sized tree found in central and eastern USA in fields, woodland edges, and dry ridges. It prefers better drained soils and is often found where other trees will not grow due to poor soils. We vowed to pay closer attention on our next visit to learn more about the species, its abundance and distribution on the preserve, and its site preferences..

 

Eastern red cedar is an early successional species, colonizing abandoned agricultural land, old fields, and cutover forests. They are relatively short-lived, unable to compete effectively long-term with the hardwood neighbors. We found ubiquitous dead and dying cedar as it drops out of these 60-90 year old second growth hardwood stands. The one below is dead and is among the larger individuals we encountered.

 

The cedar confirm my supposition that human disturbance and past use drove the direction of forest succession. Cedar wood is decay-resistent. This standing deceased individual may offer critter cover and nesting sites for decades.

 

As I’ve often observed, death is a big part of life in the forest. This old stump snag caught my attention. Like the toppled red oak, this snag is hollow. The ground beyond is littered with dead and downed woody debris. The carbon cycle is active.

 

Occasionally in my GBH photo essays I ruminate on tree spiral grain. Not all trees have it. This bark-free dead hardwood (species?) spirals clockwise at about 30 degrees. The spiral and staining create an atractive pattern. I have yet to find definitive answers to the spiral mysteries in the literature. A recent online article (The Gymnosperm Database, 2024), Why Do Trees Form Spiral Grain? edited by Christopher J. Earle adds to my own uncertainty:

Spiral grain is the helical form taken by xylem tissues in their growth along a tree trunk or limb. Spiral grain is often conspicuous in snags that have lost their bark, as shown in the photos on this page, and people love to speculate about it… Personally, I am skeptical…  Finally, there doesn’t seem to be much known about how all this happens: what physiological stresses trigger which growth hormones, for instance, or what causes a reversal in the direction of the spiral. On balance, I still have a sense that the field is data-poor, and it’s possible to generate lots of plausible hypotheses.

 

Unless someone directs me to refereed evidence to the contrary, I will stay with my conclusion that spiral-grained wood is stronger, therefore offering a competitive advantage evolutionarily.

Regardless, spiraled clockwise or counter or straight grained, all trees will succumb, decay, and return to the forest soil. These colorful turkey tail mushrooms are the reproductive, spore-producing orgams of a decomposing fungus whose mycelia are feeding within the log.

 

Another fungus, this one a pathogen growing on live wood, black knot disease, infects black cherry, a native tree species across the eastern US. The tree seems to tolerate this particularly large knot.

 

If we had not read in the forest obvious indications of past disturbance and human influences, this long-abandoned ~1960 Ford station wagon would have told the tale. Left decades ago at the edge of a spent agricultural field or pasture, the carcass (pardon the pun) now is located in the forest interior.

 

We crossed many old farm paths and road beds. I imagine the preserve’s character 70-80 years ago, a failing farm with a few acres still tilled, large marginally productive pasture acreage, visible soil erosion, and extensive abandoned fields naturally regenerating to herbs, shrubs, and early successional tree species.

 

Water Features

 

Several streams pass peacefully through the reserve. Fittingly, I’m standing at the sign for Jones Branch Trail. Behind me a massive white oak fell across the trail this past summer.

 

I recorded this 54-second video at this pleasant location:

 

We walked along other stretches that rewarded us with gurgling water and a soothing setting.

 

I recorded this 57-second video of another stream section:

 

We enjoyed the views of the Shoal Creek arm of Wilson Lake (Tennessee River impounded by Wilson Dam) from the bluff 150-feet above lake level. The view is restricted to dormant season.

 

My predilection favors woodland exploration during the November through early April period when understory and main canopy foliage is absent, heat and humidity are memories, and nuiscance insects are inactive. I admit, however, that when spring wildflowers are abundant, I will gleefully embrace that season of renewal. And I will enthusiastically relish summer mornings and welcome the coming autumn. I simply love immersion in Nature’s wildness. Life is too short not to flourish in her beauty, magic, wonder, awe, and inspiration, whatever the season.

 

Thoughts and Reflections

 

I offer these observations:

  • Every forest (or Nature Preserve) tells its tale to those able to read its language. (Steve Jones)
  • In every true searcher of Nature there is a kind of religious reverence. (Albert Einstein)
  • I have no special talent. I am only passionately curious. (Einstein)
  • Death is a big part of life in the forest (Steve Jones)

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

 

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 (2024) 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

 

 

 

 

Note: Unless otherwise noted, all blog post images are created & photographed by Stephen B. Jones.

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

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

 

Brief-Form Post #42: A Short Afternoon Trek to Maggie’s Glen at Oak Mountain State Park!

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I am pleased to add the 42nd 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 November 7, 2024, a fellow retired forester Chris Stuhlinger and I trekked the short Maggie’s Glen Trail at Oak Mountain State Park in Pelham, Alabama located just south of Birmingham. We were already at the park, having been there for two other ventures, so I thought I would introduce Chris to Maggie’s Glen, one of my favorite spots at Oak Mountain. The Glen is a protected streamside cove in deep forest at the base of a north-facing slope.

Several trails diverge from the covered marquis.Oak MSP

 

Autumn’s thinning crowns brought sunshine to the ground amid the bench-welcoming and resting site, reminding me of William Wordsworth’s observation:

Come forth into the light of things, let Nature be your teacher.

Oak MSPOak MSP

 

A massive ancient beech, greeted me once again to this cherished site that reminds me of where I grew up wandering the central Appalachians hills of western Maryland. Oh, would I love to hear the tales this tortured and convoluted sentinel could tell from it 150-200 years along the creek!

 

 

 

I recorded this 59-second video at the old beech:

 

I bestow the significant designation of character tree for such grizzled veterans that I’ve encountered over my seven decades of woods-wandering. Age, size, perseverence, distress, hollows, and contortions aggregate to earn the title. Sunlight hitting leaves within the hollow trunk warrant points. The gnarled roots contribute.

Oak MSP

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A view from within the hollow trunk that finds sky far above scores high, as does the open crotch at right that allows the sky portal 30 feet from the gound.

Oak MSPOak MSP

 

 

The beech stands guard at the wooden foot bridge that during our extended late summer and early fall drought carries little surface water. Only a reflective pool evidences the lively stream flowing during wetter seasons when I’ve enjoyed visiting the Glen. I felt as though I was peering into another world, one that embodies the essence of the spectacular Glen to which I am accustomed.

 

The Glen includes an odd tree-couple growing side by side…a fat loblolly pine growing straight and tall…and a diminutive sourwood with its species-distinctive corkscrew reach into the intermediate canopy.

 

I imagined how underwheleming a rapid hike through the forest might be if the wonders I discovered in plain sight were unseen. As Henry David Thoreau observed:

I have no time to be in a hurry.

The older I get, the stronger my feelings about not wanting to miss anything. Fourteen months with five surgeries (July 2023-August 2024) reminded me that time…my time…is finite!

Although still early afternoon (2:38 PM), the sun was alreadt setting deep in the Glen, representing the special Nature of one of my favorite places at Oak Mountain State Park.

 

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. William Wordsworth captured Nature’s magic in simple beautiful verse:

Come forth into the light of things, let Nature be your teacher.

Feeling the Glow of an overdue return to Nature!

Monte Sano

 

 

Intergenerational Woodland Venture at Wade Mountain Nature Preserve

/in /by

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

Wade Mountain

 

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

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

Wade MNPWade MNP

 

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

Wade MNPWade MNP

 

 

 

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

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

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

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

Wade MNP

 

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

Wade MNP

 

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

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

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

The Magic and Wonder of Trees

 

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

Wade MNP

 

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

Wade MNP

 

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

Wade MNP

 

 

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

Wade MNP

 

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

Wade MNP

 

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

Wade MNPWade MNP

 

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

 

Emerging at the Racetrack Summit

 

 

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

Wade MNPWade MNP

 

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

Wade MNP

 

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

 

I find the stark beauty and literal harshness attractive.

Wade MNP

 

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

Wade MNP

 

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

Wade MNPWade MNP

 

 

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

Wade MNP

 

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

 

Thoughts and Reflections

 

I offer these observations:

  • Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world. (Albert Einstein)
  • Our death is not an end if we can live on in our children and the younger generation. For they are us; our bodies are only wilted leaves on the tree of life. (Einstein)
  • I will recall moments like this until my final breaths. My hope is that they will remember the essence of our outdoor ventures deep into adulthood. (Steve Jones)

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

 

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

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

 

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

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

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

Vision:

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

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

 

Steve’s Four Books

 

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

I began writing books and Posts for several reasons:

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

 

 

Wade MNP

 

At the Cross Section of Nature and Holiday Festivity

/in /by

I know the date is January 31, 2025! Thirty-six days after Christmas. Why am I posting a Christmas-themed Great Blue Heron photo essay?

  • I published a full essay earlier this week focussed around a typical Nature-Inspired Life and Living theme.
  • This essay has a mood that I want to persist year-round.
  • Although this one presents 17 photos and three videos, it has little prose and is a quick read.

On November 16, 2024, Judy and I accompanied our daughter and her family on the Huntsville Botanical Gardens’ walking tour of the Annual Holiday Festival of the Lights. I did not anticipate that the evening would inspire one of my Great Blue Heron photo essays. Lo and behold, the Spirit of Christmas, the magic of lights, music, and Nature, and the emotion of being with family stimulated me to capture the overwhelming sense of Nature-Inspired Life and Living.

The photos and videos stand alone with little need for my prose. Just three months beyond the fifth of five surgeries since July of 2023, I felt deep seasonal gratitude for life, mobility, family, and healing. Evening darkness shielded my misty eyes from passersby!

 

I will not burden you with botanical narrative. These crepe myrtles glow with underlighting.

 

My 23-second video only feebly captures the moment.

 

My compliments to the spectacle along the walkways.

 

This 49-second video gives you an idea, even if not complete, of the beauty, magic, wonder, and awe.

 

My essay would not be complete without glimpses of our family.

 

Oakleaf hydrangea is my favorite native woodland shrub. Add a bit of red lighting and the foliage leaps from the dark understory.

 

A forester by training and experience, I wanted to levitate into the canopy.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I marveled at the creativity and effort necessary to brighten entire trees!

 

Such an enchanted forest!

 

As the story on my Great Blue Heron website makes clear, the magestic bird is my deceased Dad’s avatar…his totem. Great blue herons frequently visit our neighborhood pond. Our home sits on the north shore. Dad visits often in form of this magnificent gangly bird.  These two heron images place an exclamation ending to this brief post.

 

The magic and wonder of this special Holiday-infused evening at the nexus of Nature and Christian Celebration will inspire me for all of my days. NC State University national basketball champion coach Jim Valvanao, on the speaking circuit after diagnosed with terminal incurable cancer, encouraged audiences to incorporate three necessary daily elements to assure a life well lived:

To me there are three things everyone should do every day. Number one is laugh. Number two is think — spend some time in thought. Number three, you should have your emotions move you to tears. If you laugh, think and cry, that’s a heck of a day.

The Festival of the Lights walk encouraged me to laugh with family, stimulated me to think about the blessings of recovering from multiple surgeries, and brought me to tears of relief for my good fortune, returning health, and precious family.

Thoughts and Reflections

 

I offer these observations:

  • The magic and wonder of this special Holiday-infused evening at the nexus of Nature and Christian Celebration will inspire me for all of my days.
  • To me there are three things everyone should do every day. Number one is laugh. Number two is think — spend some time in thought. Number three, you should have your emotions move you to tears. If you laugh, think and cry, that’s a heck of a day. (Coach Jim Valvano)

 

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

 

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

Another Note: 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

 

 

 

 

 

Mild Fall Afternoon at the Woodland Flint Creek Trail on Wheeler National Wildlife Refuge!

/in /by

Fellow retired forester Chris Stuhlinger and I co-led a group of 22 OLLI (Osher Lifelong Learning Institute, University of Alabama in Huntsville) members on a Nature Walk along Flint Creek Trail (Wheeler National Wildlife Refuge) on Sunday afternoon, November 10, 2024. Two days earlier the Sunday forecast predicted an 80 percent probability of rain. Nary a drop dampened us on a grand afternoon.

A Nature walk differs from what we term a hike. I insist that our walks be saunters, where we wander in the habitat, carefully discovering and examining what mysteries and wonders lie hidden in plain sight. Our hikes hurry through the ecosystem at a pace that limits revealing the wonder beyond a superficial glance. Like John Muir, who disdained hiking, I quickly lose contact with the hardcore hikers. I stop to probe, take photos, and record a brief video, or two. A fellow inquisitive hiker may lag with me to find what we may. I am a saunterer, dedicated to the end. I find it amusing that when my time stretched endlessly ahead in my youth, I rushed to destination after destination. Today when time rushes ahead, I’m in no hurry. I don’t want to miss anything.

 

Flint Creek Bay

 

Flint Creek flows from the south into Wheeler Lake, a TVA impoundment…the dam 40 miles downstream on the Tenessee River. Entering the extended dormant season, The Corps of Engineers has already lowered the water level to allow greater flood control storage capacity for seasonal winter and spring rains. Mud flats are present where summer water stood.

Flint Creek

 

A great blue heron hunts the shallow water bordering the mud flats.

Flint Creek

Flint Creek

 

I recorded this 24-second video as the heron took flight:

 

A pond cypress at the mudflat edge shows the summer water level stains. Knees also evidence the summer level.

Flint Creek

 

I recorded this 58-second video encompassing the bay, the mud flat, and the cypress.

 

The riparian forest envelops Flint Creek Trail as our group exited the boardwalk. I’ve always enjoyed both the openess of boardwalks and closed forest trails — the best of both worlds at the Flint Creek Trail!

Flint Dreek

 

I recorded this 57-second video as we crossed the boardwalk to the wooded Flint Creek Trail:

 

Something about the boardwalk held us in place, urging us to enjoy the ironic attraction that holds people transfixed by an extensive mudflat, bird and woodland mammal tracks, and even human footprints.

 

Flint Creek Trail’s Riparian Forest

 

Allow your mind to reject the false impression that forests are forever. Picture this moist fertile field in corn and soybeans during the early 1930s, soon to be abandoned, seeding to windblown and bird-scattered germinants of annuals, perennials, shrubs, and trees. A near jungle of vegetation yielded to forest, the most aggressive and faster growing trees prevailing. The winners in this stand are 100 feet tall.

Flint Creek Trail

Flint Creek

 

Our group looks skyward. Chris redirects their attention to an understory paw paw tree below right.

 

The yellow poplar commands the dominant canopy and strikes an impressive pose below left. A Southern-region emblematic flowering magnolia seems content growing in full shade.

Flint CreekFlint Creek

 

Special Woodland Treats

 

I’m a big fan of what I call tree form curiosities. We found a yellow poplar that had fallen horizontally decades ago, yet had retained vascular connection to its roots. Remaining viable, the prostrate stem produced several vertical shoots that developed as individual trees rising from the still-growing horizontal base. Enjoy these images of nine OLLI bumps on a log!
Flint Creek Flint Creek

 

 

 

A special moment at a place of magic and wonder! Had we been hiking, strung out as the faster among us surged ahead, we might not have noticed and lingered at the natural living bench. By universal acclaim and smiling faces, this was a worthy and enjoyable stop.

Flint Creek

 

Trees are not alone in partaking of full sunshine in the upper crown. Supple jack vines hitched a ride vertically as the trees began ascending 90 years ago from the fallow fields. Our major southern forest vines are the same age as the trees, and grow upward with the trees. Wrap and hold on tightly. Let the trees do the heavy lifting.

Flint Creek

Flint Creek

 

Sasafras roots are worthy of an inquisitive inhale — oh, the fragrance of root beer!

Flint Creek

 

Again, a Nature Walk provides unlimited opportunities for learning and appreciating natural wonders.

 

Glimpses of the Fungi Kingdom

 

I’ve repeated in these Great Blue Heron photo essays that death and decomposition are a major element of life in our forests. We spotted  several individuals of Coker’s Amanita, its bright white caps announcing its presence.

Flint Creek

 

 

Steve Stewart snapped a nice shot of this pair and their beautifully gilled underside.

 

 

 

 

 

We discovered three edible species of wild mushrooms: honey mushroom, the beige individual at left; oyster mushroom held in the same hand; amber jelly mushroom at right.

Flint CreekFlint Creek

 

Don’t take my word regarding edibility. Always do your own homework. I consume only species about which my knowledge is 100 percent certain, and then only when cooked.

Flint Creek

 

We exited the trail via a return trek across the boardwalk. The clouds had broken, removing all hope that drought relief would bless our Sunday evening. We lingered, enjoying  the evening and each other’s companny. Had our walk been a hike, I would have emerged from the forest after most had departed for home. John Muir abhored the word “hike”:

I don’t like either the word [hike] or the thing. People ought to saunter in the mountains – not ‘hike’!

Flint CreekFlint Creek

 

 

 

Muir, as he so often did, nailed the sentiment we all shared:

I only went out for a walk and finally concluded to stay out till sundown, for going out, I found, was really going in.

 

This 50-second video captures our group recrossing the boardwalk to the parking lot as the sky cleared, erasing any hope that the promised drought-abating rain would bless our Sunday evening:

 

 

Thoughts and Reflections

 

I offer these observations:

  • When my time stretched endlessly ahead in my youth, I rushed to destination after destination. Today when time rushes ahead, I’m in no hurry, content to saunter.
  • I love the trees reaching heavenward and the fungi intent on decomposing them.
  • So much in Nature lies hidden in plain sight, awaiting discovery by curious minds and searching eyes.

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

 

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

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

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

 

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

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

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

Vision:

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

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

 

Steve’s Four Books

 

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

I began writing books and Posts for several reasons:

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

 

[Me with my hand on a sapling in group photo — courtesy of Chris Stuhlinger]

Flint Creek

 

 

 

 

 

A First Circuit of the Lunker Lake Trail at Oak Mountain State Park!

/in /by

I often wander forest trails alone, content to saunter leisurely absorbing the sights, sounds, and feel of Nature. I relished having friends to share a November 7, 2024 hike with fellow retired forester Chris Stuhlinger, Tom Cosby, fellow former Alabama State Parks Foundation board member, and Dennis McMillian, an old friend from Fairbanks, Alaska now retired to his native Birmingham, AL. We explored the 2.8 mile Lunker Lake Trail at Oak Mountain State Park in Pelham, AL.

Dennis, Chris, and Tom left to right below left. That’s me in the vest below right. I’m ten weeks beyond my August 20, 2024, total right knee replacement. I maintained a pace that kept me within sight of the others! Lunker Lake and the trail stretch to the northeast behind us.

Oak MSP

 

Three years earlier an EF-1 tornado ripped along the lake’s northwest shore.

Oak MSP

 

Dennis and Tom grew up together and shared old stories with Chris and me as we walked. I believe many (some) of them were true! We paused at a tremensous upturned root ball, testament to the ferocity of the storm that spun off the tornado.

Oak MSP

 

I am a student of tree form and bark patterns. Chris and I concluded that this hawthorne sported a particularly unusual and attractive bark, a design reminding both of us of Chinese elm. We wondered whether it is unique enough to propogate vegetatively as ornamental stock.

Oak MSP

 

The old commercial industry forester within me never tires of seeing a fat loblolly pine with three clear 16-foot logs.

Oak MSP

 

The trail leg leading us back to the parking lot ran along an old embedded farm road, entrenched through repeated dragging (scraping) to remove mud to three feet below the original ground level. Microtopography tells the story of past use to the inquiring eye.

Oak MSP

 

Coral tooth fungus mushroom brightened our passage, clinging ornately to a dead branch trailside. This tasty edible enticed the forager in me, but I resisted the temptation given its presence along a well traveled route.

Oak MSP

 

The open hardwood stand welcoed the early afternoon sun and the trekkers passing beneath. It would have been a glorious time and place to lean against a tall oak reflecting on the pleasure delivered by healing knees and a day of retirement releasing me from faculty issues, budget difficulties, enrollemt shortfalls, and miscellaneous nuiscances associated with leading a university. I labored with love over a rewarding career in higher education administration, yet I am enriched by the freedom of time without pressures, restrictions, and deadlines.

Oak MSP

 

Henry David Thoreau captured the essence I felt:

Our life is frittered away by detail… simplify, simplify.

Our path returned us to Lunker Lake, reopening our vista to placid waters and a cerulean sky adorned with scattered cumulus.

Oak MSP

 

When I retired from my fourth university presidency, I worried about how I would handle retirement. Would I find challenge and reward. Would I stay busy in useful pursuits. I admit that shifting gears required adjustment. Yes, I missed the urgency, high-level engagement, and even the sense of imporatance and attention associated with being in charge. However, I adapted…learning in time to relish the freedom and luxury to focus on what is most important to me and the mission I have embraced:

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

Once again, I turn to Thoreau:

As you simplify your life, the laws of the universe will be simpler; solitude will not be solitude, poverty will not be poverty, nor weakness weakness.

Alabama State Parks Foundation

I’ll remind you that although I serve on the Alabama State Parks Foundation Board, in part because of my love of Nature and in recognition for my writing many prior Posts about visiting and experiencing the Parks, any positions or opinions expressed in these Posts are mine alone and do not in any manner represent the Foundation or its Board.
I urge you to take a look at the Foundation website and consider ways you might help steward these magical places: https://asparksfoundation.org/ Perhaps you might think about supporting the Parks System education and interpretation imperative: https://asparksfoundation.org/give-today#a444d6c6-371b-47a2-97da-dd15a5b9da76

The Foundation exists for the sole purpose of providing incremental operating and capital support for enhancing our State parks… and your enjoyment of them.

We are blessed in Alabama to have our Park System. Watch for future Great Blue Heron Posts as I continue to explore and enjoy these treasures that belong to us. I urge you to discover the Alabama State Parks near you. Follow the advice of John Muir:

And into the forest I go, to lose my mind and find my soul.

In every walk with Nature one receives far more than he seeks.

I only went out for a walk and finally concluded to stay out till sundown, for going out, I found, was really going in.

Between every two pines is a doorway to a new world.

 

Thoughts and Reflections

 

I offer these observations:

  • As you simplify your life, the laws of the universe will be simpler; solitude will not be solitude, poverty will not be poverty, nor weakness weakness. (Henry David Thoreau)
  • Our life is frittered away by detail… simplify, simplify. (Thoreau)
  • In retirement I am enriched by the freedom of time without pressures, restrictions, and deadlines. (Steve Jones)

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

 

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

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

 

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

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

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

Vision:

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

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

 

Steve’s Four Books

 

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

I began writing books and Posts for several reasons:

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

 

 

Oak MSP

 

 

 

Autumn Stroll at Huntsville Alabama’s Goldsmith-Schiffman Wildlife Sanctuary!

/in /by

On November 1, 2024, 72 days since my total right knee replacement surgery, I sauntered within Huntsville’s Goldsmith-Schiffman Wildlife Sanctuary with dear friends Marian Moore Lewis, Chris Stuhlinger, Bill and Becky Heslip, and Judy (my bride of 52 years)! I felt the lift of a new month, the freshness of an early fall day, and the joy of knowing that both knees (left replacement in January 2024) are far better than in late 2023. My recovery epitomizes the power of Nature-Buoyed Aging and Healing!

Where do I begin with my 26th Great Blue Heron photo essay dedicated to the Goldsmith-Schiffman Wildlife Sanctuary? I skimmed the list of the first 25 topics and foci. I found no reason for concern about repeating prior themes, photos, observations, and reflections. Nothing in Nature is static. Every parcel of the 400-acre sanctuary is unique. Change is constant across the hours of a day, the days of a week, the weeks of a month, the months, the seasons, the years…the decades…the centuries. Were I to live the years of Methuselah, I might publish a thousand GSWS photo essays without repetition.

Let’s start at the westside entrance on Taylor Road. The observation shelter 100 feet from the parking lot looks over Hidden Spring, where mountain water lifts from the ground, fills Hidden Spring Creek, flows into Jobala Pond, and then empties into the Flint River bordering the sanctuary.

Here’s my 60-second video from above Hidden Spring:

 

The rain-moistened, lichen-coated water oak trunk stands near the shelter. Even an overnight autumn rain transforms a single tree trunk, highlighting its lichen tint, which will once again dry during the day. The light will shift from dull morning stratus to peaks of bright sunshine. I could have stationed myself at the prior evening’s gloaming near this lone oak. I recorded 0.77″ of rain overnight. The stem at dusk was dry and remained unaffected by the rain until stemflow whetted it before dawn. Occasional photographs would have chronicled the process. Daylight came in form of easing rain, lots of canopy dripping, and wispy fog under thick stratus. Nothing in Nature is static; every moment has a story to tell. The world is like that, whether a natural tale or a human narrative.

 

The deck faces north into the wetland forest canopy 40 feet above the spring surface. Dripping, limited birdsong, lingering overcast and disruptive road noise gave little identity to the time of day (1:00 PM). Had I been beamed into the moment, all signals would have directed me mid-morning.

 

As we entered the Sanctuary, the persistent stratus lifted, the day brightened, and we accepted the reality that the day had moved beyond noon. Observations and reflections, both literal and philosophical, stimulate musings. Seventy-five years ago, Jobala Pond was a raw borrow pit where road engineers had mined gravel, sand, and clay for nearby road constructiion. Archival photos show a barren shoreline, a scar upon the land. Nature’s healing powers are nearly without limit. During my lifetime, Mount Saint Helens “destroyed” hundreds of square miles of blasted forest; today the acreage is green with vibrant young forest. Savage 2016 wildefires blackened 70,285 acres in Yellowsone National Park. When I toured the park just five years later, burned forests stood as blackened skeletons underlain by green carpets of new growth. John Muir aptly observed:

Earth has no sorrow that earth cannot heal.

Nature knows disturbance, for disturbance is the way of life and the architect of adaptation and evolution. And so it is with Jobala Pond, now a naturalized stream/pond ecosystem.

 

Here is the brief video I recorded along Hidden Spring Creek as it entered Jobala Pond.

 

Beavers are primary influencers of stream flow, function, and structure. Their 18-inch-high dam diagonally crosses the stream at left. A bark-stripped beaver-chew stem segment floats streamside at right.

 

A red swamp crayfish strenguously demanded some kind of passage toll, posing defensively as we approached. The crawdad, like the beaver, has no idea his habitat was once a destroyed landscape, transformed from an ugly worthless borrow pit to a vibrantly functioning natural ecosystem.

 

In the prime of my outdoor adventure life (say the 1980s), I would have scoffed at the notion of six (four in the photo and two others of us) ancient grandparents wandering and wondering in emerging wildness, once ignominously carved from pre-Columbian wilderness. Our shared vision is the guarantee of re-emergent wilderness in decades hence. My hope is that these photo essays will serve one small step toward ensuring that eventuality. Ninety years ago Louis Bromfield said of his efforts to restore his beloved Ohio Malabar Farm:

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 a small corner of this earth for the better by wisdom, knowledge and hard work.

 

As we reached the point where the creek broadens to Jobala Pond, the thick stratus began to break.

 

The serpentine water oak branch extending over the pond reflects perfectly on the still water.

 

The old iron gate adds a touch of nostalgia, harkening back to decades of agricultural production combatting seasonally saturated soils, periodic Flint River flooding, and marauding deer, raccoons, and other crop-consuming critters.

 

Roundleaf greenbrier produced a bumper crop of deep blue berries.

 

Similar in habit and appearance to greenbrier, Carolina snailseed (also known as Carolina moonseed and corbead) is a deciduous, woody vine that climbs with thin twining stems or scrambles along the ground, and primarily occurs in rocky open woods, wood margins, glades, fence rows, roadsides and stream/pond margin. Attractive features are its foliage and its autumn red berries!

 

Before departing the sanctuary, we drove to the east entrance.

 

To The Sanctuary’s East Side as Sunset Nears

 

The riparian forest comprises diverse species, straight boles, and stems reaching 100 feet. The Flint River floods much of the forest at least several times annually. Once farmed 70-80 years ago, the mixed forest regenerated naturally.

 

A stemflow-wetted beach trunk presented a parting lichen-painted visual gift.

 

Wildness is returning to the several hundred acre sanctuary. Preserved in perpetuity, wildness will transition in decades to an old growth forest condition. I won’t see that long-term result, yet I can take satisfaction knowing the process is underway.

Thoughts and Reflections

 

I offer these observations:

  • 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 a small corner of this earth for the better by wisdom, knowledge and hard work. (Louis Bromfield)
  • Nothing in Nature is static; every moment has a story to tell. The world is like that, whether a natural tale or a human narrative.
  • Nature knows disturbance, for disturbance is the way of life and the architect of adaptation and evolution.

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

 

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

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

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

 

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

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

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

Vision:

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

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

 

Steve’s Four Books

 

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

I began writing books and Posts for several reasons:

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

 

 

 

 

Halloween Forest of Rare Smoketrees (Cotinus obovatus) on Green Mountain Nature Preserve!

/in /by

I don’t recall ever seeing our north Alabama native smoketree (Continus obovatus) nor learning about it so many years ago when I took Dendrology in 1970. The species does range as far north as West Virginia, much less where I began my undergraduate studies in western Maryland. I didn’t know what to expect when fellow retired forester Brian Bradley offered to introduce me to smoketrees at what he believed to be the largest smoketree stand in America, on the North Alabama Land Trust’s Green Mountain Nature Preserve.

Green Mountain

 

On October 25, 2024, Brian and I met at the Astalot Trailhead and walked the couple of hundred feet to the Green Mountain Trail and then slowly ascended from 800 feet to 1,100. A little more than nine weeks after total right knee replacement surgery, I had achieved perhaps 60 percent strength, stability, and confidence. I intend to return in spring when the species in full flower earns its smoketree moniker. Our October venture took us into the macabre stand that I dubbed the Halloween Forest, timely just a week before the spooky day.

Our trek traversed a portion of the North section of the 818 acre preserve in South Huntsville.  We are fortunate to have such an active Land Trust. Although I’ve heard several fellow Madison, Alabama nature enthusiasts express consternation that most of the Trust’s preserves lie east of Huntsville, the reason is painfully obvious. The Cumberland Plateau lifts the local topography from the 555′ elevation of Lake Wheeler through the average valley floor at Huntsville of 800′ to the 1,600′ summit of Monte Sano. Most of Madison, Alabama and points west into Limestone County have been in agricultural production for two centuries. The best we can do in the Tennessee Valley physiographic province is to eke some costly purse from a sow’s ear. Silk purses of natural beauty and forest wildness already exist naturally in the rugged Plateau terrain. The Trust did not need to convert the Green Mountain Nature Preserve from agriculture, an old borrow pit, a prior industrial site, or an abandoned quarry. See my June 2024 photo essay exploring the idea of creating succ a silk purse from the abandoned Madison Limestone Quarry (https://stevejonesgbh.com/2024/06/18/perpetual-wasteland-or-future-preserve-madison-alabamas-abandoned-limestone-quarry/).

The two maps track the path we ascended. I believe we made it to about the south end of the grey shaded parcel on the upper map.

Green Mountain

 

 

The map below depcits greater topographic detail.

Brian assisted with trail construction over the past two years. I consider the design and construction superb. Well-placed large heavy stones assured a smooth surface suitable for an old forester recovering from knee surgery. This wall stands three feet above the ground level beneath it. Those stones were not for the faint of heart.

Green Mountain

 

I relished returning to forest wanderings, appreciating the tremendous Nature-Buoyed Aging and Healing, lifting me in body, mind, heart, soul, and spirit. How can we place value on early autumn sunshine streaming through the yellowing hardwood crowns? Or the signature scaling bark of a shagbark hickory?

Green MountainGreen Mountain

 

Or the fading green leaves of the first smoketrees I have ever knowingly encountered. Who says an old dog (or forester) can’t learn some new tricks!? I felt the thrill of meeting a native tree species new to me, sparking a primal, spiritual nerve deep within my forester heart, mind, and even soul. Einsteing new the feeling and, I imagine, experienced it often:

In every true searcher of Nature there is a kind of religious reverence. 

Green Mountain

 

The Halloween Forest moniker rushed into my mind. How could I call it anything else? Early European settlers saw the eastern forests where they landed variously as dark and foreboding, foul and repugnant, and populated by savage beasts. The Legend of Sleepy Hollow surfaces similar sinister apparitions. I can only imagine what a nightime traveler, lubricated by several drams of adult beverage, wandering these sideslopes along a lonely pathway, riding his faithful steed, might encounter erupting from the shadows.

Green Mountain

Green Mountain

 

I felt  hair rising on the back of my neck even in the bright autumn sun. Okay, I’m fueling my imagination. Einstein encouraged such figmental ministrations:

I am enough of the artist to draw freely upon my imagination. Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world.

Enough of imagination. An online NC State Extension source enlightens us on our spooky smoketree:

American smoketree is native to the southern United States, growing in the rocky mountain soils from Kentucky, Tennessee, and northern Alabama westward to Oklahoma.  Growth can also be found in central Texas. Its native habitat includes limestone glades and rocky limestone bluffs on north or east facing slopes.   It is a medium-maintenance small tree or upright shrub in the Anacardiaceae family.  It prefers a well-drained infertile loam soil in the full sun but does tolerate a wide range of soils including clay and shallow rocky soil. The sap from American Smoketree has a strong odor.

The name smoketree comes not from the  6′-10″ flower clusters (green-yellow, insignificant, dioecious) which bloom in the summer, but from the airy smoky pink to pink-purple hairs on the spent flower clusters that give the tree a  hazy, smoke-like puffy appearance.  The summer “smoke” display makes this a striking accent plant. It also produces some of the best fall color of the native American trees and shrubs.  It looks great massed or planted at the back of a shrub border.  It does use a fair amount of water, especially in dry conditions. This plant is resistant to damage by deer.

The wood from this plant was used as fence posts, tool handles and for making yellow dye.

 

I recorded this 60-second smoketree video along the Green Mountain Trail:

 

The trunks are convoluted, tortured, gnarly, and appeared weathered.

Green Mountain

 

Often multiple-stemmed, some trunks are covered in flaky bark.

 

Others are deeply fissured with distinct ridges and valleys. Each element emphasizes the Halloween image.

Green MountainGreen Mountain

 

I found it hard with superficial examination to distinguish snags from living trees. The top on the ground at right doesn’t look much different from standing individuals. I am eager to return when I am more mobile than I was in late October. I will inspect much more cosely.

Green MountainGreen Mountain

 

I had never seen anything like the tree’s yellow wood!

Green Mountain

 

At the risk of you reading words repeated, I loved the beauty, magic, wonder, awe, and inspiration of this unique Halloween Forest of American SMoketree!

Thoughts and Reflections

 

I offer these observations:

  • I am enough of the artist to draw freely upon my imagination. Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world. (Albert Einstein)
  • In every true searcher of Nature there is a kind of religious reverence. (Einstein)
  • I have no special talent. I am only passionately curious. (Einstein)
  • Introduced to a native tree species new to me, I am transported back to my forestry youth. (Steve Jones)

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

 

Note: Unless otherwise noted, all blog post images are created & photographeerved.”

And Third: I am availabd by Stephen B. Jones. Please circulate images with photo credit: “©2024 Steve Jones, Great Blue Heron LLC. All Rights Resle 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

 

 

Green mountain

 

 

Brief-Form Post #37: Autumn Mid-Day Descent to Monte Sano’s Wells Memorial Trail!

/in /by

I am pleased to add the 37th 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 October 30, 2024, 69 days since my total right knee replacement surgery, I ventured solo to the Wells Memorial Trail at Alabama’s Monte Sano State Park. The difficulty is only moderate, yet following five surgeries (including triple bypass) in 16 months, my strength, endurace, and confidence are not up to par. The magnificence of the Well Memorial cove hardwood forest beckoned. I accepted…and subsequently celebrated…the test. I offer these observations, reflections, photos, and brief videos from my afternoon sauntering.

The trailhead is located at Three Benches, a confluence of several trails.

Monte Sano

 

Parked at the bicycle pavillion, I descended toward Wells via the Sinks Trail. The upper slope forest carries thick ropes of grape vine; their leafy vegetation rides the tree canopy, enjoying full sunlight. People assume the grape vines climb the trees. No, the vines originate from seed or vegetative sprouts when the forest begins anew following natural disturbance, agricultural abandonment, or timber harvesting. The young vines reach skyward as the trees grow. The vine on the yellow poplar tree at right did not need to grow a stout trunk to support its wieght; the poplar did the grunt work…the heavy lifting.

Monte SanoMonte Sano

 

My heart soared as I entered the cathedral forest. The trees tower. The changing autumn foliage presented a stained glass backdrop.

Monte Sano

 

My meager words add little…and maybe even detract from…the somber grandeur of this special place.

Monte Sano

 

I recorded this 59-second video along the trail through some hefty, heaven-reaching oaks and hickories:

 

Conservationist Aldo Leopold once said that he loves trees, then added that he is in love with pine tree. I am in love with northern red oak, the headliner in the Appalachian forests that shaped my life-passion and vocation.

Monte Sano

 

The images of forest and wandering trail need no narrative.

Monte Sano

 

The bird-pecked yellow poplar  and its ascent to the heavens asks nothing from me, and in return gives far more than I ask.

Monte Sano

Monte Sano

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

One of the three benches and the Wells sign are the surgery-recovery benchmark I sought. I recalled my recreational competetive distance running days (competed against my prior best times) when I crossed the finish line for a marathon. In its special way, reaching the benches was a crossing of equal weight and significance.

Monte Sano

Monte Sano

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I recorded this brief video lying on my back near the trailhead, gazing into the high canopy above me:

 

Ah, who could ask for more! A large yellow poplar, stunning oaks and hickories, leafy path, and autumn-yellow forest glow.

Monte Sano

 

 

Here is my 58-second video showing the beckoning trail:

 

A fallen hollow oak branch served as a hickory nut snackbar.

Monte Sano

 

I ascended back through the upper slope natural grape arbor, completing a notably rewarding hike, a Nature-Buoyed Aging and Healing venture.

Monte Sano

 

I’m grateful that such pleasures are within reach and that I am able to once again thoroughly and delightfully experience them.

 

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. William Wordsworth captured Nature’s magic in simple beautiful verse:

Come forth into the light of things, let Nature be your teacher.

Feeling the Glow of an overdue return to Nature!

Monte Sano