State Parks Archives - Steve Jones Great Blue Heron

Intergenerational Spring Saunter at Alabama’s Monte Sano State Park!

June 18, 2025/in Updates /by Steve Jones

Alabama grandsons Jack (17 years) and Sam (11) accompanied me on April 19, 2025, as we traversed the Sinks and Wells Memorial Trails at Alabama’s Monte Sano State Park near Huntsville. Seven months beyond my second total knee replacement surgery and 21 months since my triple bypass, there’s little I will not attempt on local trails. I’m relentlessly abiding by the tenets of Nature-Inspired Life and Living and Nature-Buoyed Aging and Healing. Come with us as we discover delights and treasures hiding in plain sight.

On the Trails: Sinks and Wells Memorial

Growing up in the central Appalachians of western Maryland, I feel at home on the Monte Sano trails. The varied terrain and hardwood forests range from the rich and productive concave lower north to east-facing slopes to the rocky low-quality west and south-facing convex slopes. The Sinks and Wells trails transect generally good to excellent sites. On a previous visit, I measured a yellow poplar on the Sinks trail 142 feet tall.

I recorded this 57-second video on the Sinks Trail.

You’ll note that I stated in my narrative, “I would not trade this for anything in the world.”

Albert Einstein made clear that one of the greater joys in approaching our sunset years is knowing that we can live on through subsequent generations:

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 am looking at the sunset from a far and distant dawn. My Dad would have been 100 this year. He passed 29 years ago, yet he walks with me every step of my woodland saunters. He remains alive through me, even as Jack and Sam will carry my spirit through their lives and beyond.

A Sampling of Spring Ephemerals

We saw many spring wildflowers, including a few notable examples. I offer these in form of a brief portfolio. I see no need to include a narrative.

Dwarf larkspur:

Rue anemone and wild geranium:

White baneberry:

Those three species date back to my systematic botany lab days more than a half-century ago.

I recorded this 60-second video of a forest floor carpeted with mayapple umbrellas:

And the same holds for mayapple and systematic botany.

Mayapple holds a little secret — only the plants with two leaves are sexually mature. If one leaf, don’t expect to see a flower. If two leaves, the flower will appear in the dual-leaf axil.

Drooping trillium grows north into the Great Lakes region. So much of what I treasure seeing here in northern Alabama extends up through and beyond where I studied all manner of forestry.

I suppose I will always be a spring ephemeral wildflower enthusiast — it’s in me for life.

And a Fern

I recall Pennsylvania forests with a full ground cover of New York and hay-scented fern. I miss those special places. Here in north Alabama, I’m pleased to encounter individual plants, like this silver glade fern.

Wells Memorial Trail: One of My Favorite Places

I co-taught a UAH OLLI course this past spring: North Alabama Naturalists and Their Special Places. I selected The Wells Memorial Trail as my Special Place. Search my Great Blue Heron website for Wells Memorial Trail to access previous photo essays on the trail and its magic.

I recorded this 59-second video at three-benches, the gateway to the Wells Trail.

A special place indeed!

Odd Tree Forms

I’ve never encountered a tree form curiosity or oddity that failed to pique my interest. I quote Leonardo da Vinci often in my Great Blue Heron posts. He urges me from half a millennium ago to examine oddities and curiosities intent on explaining the cause of these exquisite abnormalities:

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

In fact, I just came to the realization that tree form curiosities and oddities are so common that terming them abnormalities may be a misnomer!

Most of our northern Alabama forests are second-growth, the result of natural regeneration following timber harvesting or suspension of agricultural tillage or pasturing 80-to-100+ years ago. Timber harvesting would have left scarred, injured, and otherwise non-commercial residuals. This massive oak was likely such an invidual. T0day its hollow severely decayed and disfigured bulk is yielding to inevitable forces, its strength to vulnerabilty ratio passing an irresistible threshold.

I recorded a 59-second video of the massive oak.

Its large carcass is scattered across a half-acre. Its once magestic hulk lies broken and disassembling. Decomposers will take over the task of returning its mass to the soil.

Basswood is adept at resprouting from cut stumps. Loggers harvested a large basswood tree here along the upper Sinks Trail many decades prior. These four or five large tall basswoods grew from sprouts around the severed stump — hence, a mature stump cluster!

Here is my 57-second video of the basswood stump cluster, with a couple of grandsons thrown in for good measure…literally for good measure as a scale for judging trunk size.

I stop to admire the cluster each time I venture through these towering trees.

We approached this tree skeleton caricature carefully. It struck a compelling pose, leaning over us, elbows and forearms on the opposite side of the trail supporting its weight. Dare we stand under it, tempting the creature to awaken and snag us from the path? Our hardwood forests may not be the dark and foreboding, foul and repugnant wilderness tracts New England’s European settlers characterized four centuries ago, yet they are still habitated by sylvan ogres and wood spirits. What good would a woodland venture with grands be without seeking and finding such delights?!

I am sure that some trekkers would leap to conclude that this is an Indian Marker Tree. No, a falling branch or tree impacted this hickory when it was pole-sized. The concussion bent the more supple younger stem and broke the top, where the rounded stub protrudes. In response, the hickory activated adventitious buds to send new shoots vertically to resecure ascent into the upper canopy and its direct sunlight. The arched original stem supports three elevated trunks reaching heavenward. The tree does indeed point to something. You are free to fashion the mythical object or destination. I am old enough to remember the old weeknight (1965-67) comedy program, F-Troop. I recall the directions given to one of the characters, “Turn left at the rock that resembles a bear; and then turn right at the bear resembling a rock.” This tree’s directional utility may be of equivalent merit!

And yet another marker tree. Same song, different verse. Physical injury and evolved response to live and fluorish another day; seek the light above; produce seed; pass genes forward; all absent the hand of man.

Nothing in Nature is static; nothing in the natural world is new. I can’t imagine anything that hasn’t happened before…a thousand (nay, ten thousand by ten thousand) times before.

Special Mountain Biking Feature

I’m a committed Nature enthusiast…and naturalist purist. I have no desire to catapult through the forest, kamikazi-style on my two-wheeled steed. I limit myself to paved or smoothly-graded gravel greenways. However, I recognize that mountain biking is a popular woodland pursuit. Our route took us past The Sinks Ride Area. I include it only as a sidebar. Some State Park users praise the expanding bike features. Others consider it anathema to the core mission. I leave judgement to others.

Closing at a Perfect Place for Rest and Contemplation

I like the Three Benches trail intersection where the Wells Memorial Trail heads off the Sinks Trail. The three benches sit in deep shade in the cove hardwood site. A massive yellow popular tree nourishes the soul, reminding me what good living, ample resources, and time can provide. When my dear friend and professional colleague (from my Penn State University days) died four years ago in October, I recorded a tribute video to him at this sacred place.

Here is the 59-second video I recorded with the grandsons taking a breather.

My third book, Weaned Seals and Snowy Summits, carries an apt subtitle: Stories of Passion for Place and Everyday Nature. When I reflect on my well over 400 Great Blue Heron posts, I realize that my focus is on Place and Everyday Nature.

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:

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)
There is no result in nature without a cause; understand the cause and you will have no need of the experiment. (Leonardo da Vinci)
I would not trade this (exploring in the woods with my grandsons) for anything in the world. (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

March Coming in Like a Lamb at AL’s Lake Guntersville State Park!

May 21, 2025/in Updates /by Steve Jones

I embrace every chance I have to explore a new trail and to experience the shifting seasonal woodland tides of northern Alabama…or wherever my roamings take me. Compelled to attend the February 28, 2025, dinner affair of the Annual Environmental Education Association of Alabama (EEAA) meeting at Lake Guntersville State Park, I arrived early enough to descend the Dry Falls Trail from the Lodge, returning 2.5 hours later. Come along with me. I promise that no major exertion is required. Expect a leisurely pace for observations, reflections, photographs, and brief video recordings.

Although the rimrock trees remained winter-barren, spring-like warmth and sunshine prevailed over the lake.

I recorded this 43-second video from my room balcony, overlooking Lake Guntersville and the campground at water’s edge.

You Can’t Make a Silk Purse from a Sow’s Ear

I cherish high forests of towering, densely-stocked mixed mesophytic hardwood species, growing spectacularly on deep, moist, nutrient-rich lower slope soils. I should have anticipated another type of ecosystem from the trail’s moniker: Dry Falls Trail. I saw no three-log commercially valuable hardwoods that would spur drool from a sawyer. In fact, this dog-head branch stub (see the snout, smiling mouth, classic canine skull, eye socket, and floppy ear) may be the aesthetic highlight of my venture. In retirement, no longer supplying quality sawlogs to a Virginia lumber mill (granted, that was in the 1970s!), I am a tireless fan of tree form oddities and curiosities. Leonardo da Vinci wisely observed, “There is no result in nature without a cause.” Decades ago, a crashing stem or treetop broke a lower branch of this oak. The resulting stub survived, calloused over with cambium and bark, creating the canine visage.

Whether on an impoverished poor quality site like this or a fertile lower slope, death is a big part of life in all forests. Poor sites can support only some finite living biomass (e.g, some critical mass in measureable tons per acre). The threshold site quality biomass balance is achieved as growth counters mortality. The standing dead oak below is a victim of one of Nature’s fundamental laws (The Law): Forest site productivity (the sum and interplay of soil depth, texture, nutrients, moisture, slope position, slope shape, aspect, climate, and the tree species present) is inherent and fixed. Leonardo da Vinci wisely observed:

Nature never breaks her own laws.

The Reverend Jonathan Swift (1801) is quoted as coining a similar sentiment:

You can’t make a silk purse from a sow’s ear.

I invested three years delving into a like question. My doctoral dissertation, Evaluation of Soil-Site Relationships for Allegheny Hardwoods, gave definition to that basic Law. I just pulled my 426-page tome from the bookshelf, hoping to find a concisely definitve statement of findings. No luck! Instead, I rediscovered why the book was dust-bound:

Discriminant functions correctly classified approximately 80 percent of the observations into broad productivity groups. The predictive strength of regression equations was comparable to values commonly reported in the literature for single species stands. The discriminant functions and regression equations provide managers with tools for predicting site quality independent of current forest cover.

Whew!

Regardless, the Law is in full affect in the stand I traipsed. This oak yielded its share of site resources to nearby competitors. Their biomass gain; its loss. Net zero sum biomass balance.

Note the dead oak’s spiral wood grain, a feature that fascinates me…one that I’ve pondered in prior Great Blue Heron posts: why do some trees exhibit spiral grain? I don’t know; I will continue seeking a definitive answer.

A Decimated Forest

On April 27, 2011, an EF-2 tornado crossed Guntersville Lake from WSW to ENE striking and decimating the state park campground, several hundred yards from the trail where I made these observation. Perhaps a spin-off from the tornado mowed the pine-dominated stand below. The downed trunk decomposition and residual stand growth jibes with the 14-year gap. All stems are oriented in common direction.

Here is my 58-second video of the blowdown.

Amazingly, this still from the video belies a decimated forest. Sure, lots of downed debris, but regaining the appearance of a forest. Were we to return in 2040, most of the downed pine trees will have decomposed into the forest floor. The residual pine and hardwood will have grown into a closed forest. A casual observer may not recognize even the telltale signs of the 2011 whirlwind decimation!

This sweetgum double sprout is one of the telltale signs. A sapling in 2011, the original stem yielded to the tempest, uprooted to horizontal on the treking pole end, where the ripped roots remain, as does the toppled stem reaching forward to the camera point. The fallen sapling sent two sprouts vertically the next summer. Both reach today into the intermediate canopy.

Arguably among our greatest conservationists, John Muir (1838-1914) offered deep nature insight and timeless wisdom for any occasion and cause, among them a tornado’s decimation:

Earth has no sorrow that earth cannot heal.

Moving Beyond the Blowdown

I recorded this 56-second video on the convex rocky mid slope beyond the blowdown area.

We remain on a low productivity site.

Although the big blow ocurred 14 years ago, routine forest development dynamics continue to drop trees and branches across the trail. Crews cleared the two oak segments below within a few hundred feet. I offer the example of one spiral-grained and the other straight. No explanation available!

Forever fascinated with tree form oddities and curiosities, an oak burl gargoyle caught my eye.

I’m accustomed to seeing mostly limestone and fine-grained sandstone on my north Alabama woodland rambles. I could not resist capturing the face of conglomerate sandstone.

This loblolly pine (among many in this section of the forest) felt the ravages of a tiny insect, the voracious appetite of our episodic southern pine beetle. The summer of 2024 proved a rough one for our native pines. Those are distinctive pitch tubes on the left. The tree exudes sap as a defense mechanism when female adults enter to deposit eggs in the cambium. The larvae girdled and killed the tree; its crown high above is devoid of needles. Beetle outbreaks disrupt the biomass balance; until the forest rebounds, years will pass with a deficit in living biomass.

Sourwood resists growing straight and true, whether on a fertile lower slope or poor quality convex upper slope. I admire it for its unique crooked propensity.

Nearly 4:00 PM, my time growing short for returning to the lodge to shower and change, I spotted this chestnut oak sporting a signature Indian Marker Tree shape, as some would suggest (even insist). I drew my usual conclusion on such matters. The stand likely regenerated naturally 80-90 years ago, long after our Native citizens were no longer living on and with the land. Something severely injured the sapling oak, without supressing its drive to recover and find its way to the upper canopy.

I made my final afternoon observation in a pine-dominated stand that hosted a prescribed fire during 2024 (okay, it could have been 2023). Periodic controlled burns will create a more open, park-like forest, eliminating the dense hardwood and shrub understory.

The Smokey the Bear of my youth said, “Only you can prevent forest fires.” Today’s Smoky Bear insists correctly, “Only you can prevent wild fires.” Fire is an effective tool when applied reverently and responsibly.

A New Day (and New Month) Dawning

Never one to allow daybreak to precede my awakening, I snapped these images from my balcony at 5:48 AM.

Three hundred feet above the impounded Tennessee River , I captured the lake and sunrise at 6:29 AM from Mabrey Overlook.

I recorded this 59-second video from Mabrey Overlook.

The brightening dawn and rising sun elevate my body, heart, mind, soul, and spirit heavenward!

Here’s a symbolic close, a park road leading me directly into a new day, a new month, a fresh season, a bright outlook on all that lies ahead!

Alabama State Parks Foundation

I’ll remind you that although I serve on the Alabama State Parks Foundation Board (Secretary), 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:

My passion for the break of day inspires me never to allow daybreak to precede my daily awakening! (Steve Jones)
Earth has no sorrow that earth cannot heal. (John Muir)
The brightening dawn and rising sun elevate my body, heart, mind, soul, and spirit heavenward! (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

Brief-Form Post #44: January Fungi Discoveries along the CCC Trail at Alabama’s Joe Wheeler State Park

April 22, 2025/in Updates /by Steve Jones

Brief-Form Past #44

I am pleased to add the 44th of my GBH Brief-Form Posts (Less than five minutes to read!) to my website. I get 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.

January Fungi Discoveries

I spent January 23 and 24, 2025, at Joe Wheeler State Park primarily to learn more about the 1930s Wheeler Dam Village (housing construction workers and their families) and the 1930s to early 1950s Recreation Area remains along the CCC Trail on the hillside above Wheeler Dam overlooking Wilson Lake, which lies just downstream of Wheeler Dam. This photo essay reports on mushrooms I photographed as we performed our intended archeological pursuits.

I am not a mycologist. I am simply a fungi hobbyist and edible wild mushroom enthusiast. Lumpy bracket mushrooms densely occupy this fallen hickory. Their nearly luminescent whiteness evidences freshness; algae have not yet darkened their surfaces. They are not edible due to their hard, woody nature. Located within the old Recreation Area, English ivy proliferates as a ground cover. The ivy-mushroom combination (right) presents an aesthetic package.

This is another Trametes species (aesculi), which like lumpy bracket is a saprophyte (consumes dead wood). It is an agent of decomposition, not a parasite that infects and decays living trees.

Pseudoinonotus (dryadeus?) is a bracket fungus with inedible fibrous flesh. The genus commonly grows at the base of oak trees infected by its wood-consuming hyphae. My forest pathology professor would have characterized this genus as a disease when I took the course in 1972…more than a half-century ago. I admit to needing a forest pathology update! Just yesterday (I’m drafting this on April 9, 2025) I wandered through a bottomland hardwood forest on the Wheeler National Wildlife Refuge. Conks, brackets, burls, hollows, catfaces, rusts, scars, and and other disfigurements are ubiquitous. As with so much in Nature, the more I learn, the less I know!

What I do know is that a mushroom known as funeral bell is likely not edible!

And I do know that spore-ripe puffballs are fun for those of us who never age beyond finding mystery, joy, and amusement in the natural world. Einstein recognized the magic of wonder:

The most beautiful emotion we can experience is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion that stands at the cradle of all true art and science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer wonder and stand rapt in
awe, is as good as dead, a snuffled-out candle.

Poofing puffballs never grows tiresome…and I refuse to age beyond enjoying such a simple pleasure.

Sure, I understand the biological function of ripening puffballs and the reproductive necessity of spore dissemination. Perhaps most importantly, I also know the basic tenet of foraging and consuming puffballs: The inside of edible puffball mushrooms should be solid and pure white, like a marshmallow, or fresh mozzarella balls (eartheplanet.org). Lord, give me a wet field loaded with giant puffballs at the perfect stage of purity. I will do the rest with sharp knife, a light flour coating, seasoning salt, wide skillet, and sizzling butter. Oh, the wonders of Nature!

Closing

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. A single trek along a forested trail discloses only a brief moment in time, obscuring the decades prior and the future ahead, isolating us from the scope and scale of the grand forest cycle of life. Albert Einstein captured the sentiment I felt as we explored the Wonder of decay and renewal:

He who can no longer wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead, a snuffled-out candle.

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.

Abandoned TVA Recreation Area and Construction Village along the CCC Trail at Joe Wheeler State Park

April 2, 2025/in Updates /by Steve Jones

I revisited the CCC Historic Trail at Alabama’s Joe Wheeler State Park on January 23 and 24, 2025, to gather additional background on the 1930s Wheeler Dam Village (for construction crews and their families) and the 1930s to 1950 Recreation Area, both located on what is now State Park property along the CCC Trail. Nature is adept at covering her tracks under the debris of 75-90 years of forest growth!

Our north Alabama forests hide delights and mysteries, some natural and others relics of human impact and design. I’ve marveled at the hidden human artifacts along the trail above the Wheeler Dam on Joe Wheeler State Park since first trekking there in 2020: https://stevejonesgbh.com/wp-admin/post.php?post=7284&action=edit&classic-editor=1

Revisiting the Old Recreation Site at Joe Wheeler State Park

David Barr, Joe Wheeler State Park Assistant Superintendent, loaned me his copy of The Wheeler Project (US Government Printing Office 1940 book, The Wheeler Project, A Comprehensive Report on the Planning, Design, and Initial Operations), which describes the Recreation Area:

Within the reservation immediately south of the dam, the Authority [TVA], with the cooperation of the National Park Service and the Emergency Conservation Work program, developed two small areas for intensive recreation use. [The smaller is on the Wheeler Lake side of the primary dam road.] The larger of the two areas is located along the shoreline of Big Nance Creek and its junction with Wilson Lake, and consists of approximately 50 acres of heavily wooded land.

Facilities include a cherted access road [County Road 411], a parking area, a frame picnic shelter with twin fireplaces, a rustic overlook building, a latrine building, drinking fountains, tables, benches, and outdoor ovens, together with foot trails leading to various points of interest.

A National Park Service CCC camp constructed the facilities in these areas between April 1934 and November 1935. The areas are used extensively by individuals and local groups from the nearby and cities within a radius of 75 miles.

This excerpt warrants a few clarifying comments. What is now Joe Wheeler State Park remained in federal ownership until 1949, hence the narrative about the 1930s mentioning the National Park Service, CCC, and other federal agencies. The 1940 book narrative indicates that the recreation areas continued to operate through the date of publication. I’ve found no indication of a closure date. I assume that the responsible federal agency ceased operations before the state acquired the property in 1949, suggesting abandonment and subsequent neglect over three-quarters of a century.

TVA Recreation Area

When I first explored this area with Alabama State Parks Naturalist Emeritus Mike Ezell in 2020, this pathway carried the name Multi-Use Trail. Today, recognizing the significance of the Dam-era remains, it bears the Historic CCC Trail designation.

David strolls past the bathhouse (restrooms for male and female flanking the breezeway). Its days are rushing into full decay and collapse, a condition already achieved by the picnic pavillion (right), excepting its exquisite CCC stone masonry chimneys on both ends.

Pole lights once illuminated the Recreation Area (known as Big Nance Park), evidenced by the fixture we found buried in forest debris several hundred feet downhill.

Sewage and water utilities serviced Big Nance Park. Imagine WW II families refreshing at the stone drinking fountain

Wandering the CCC Trail flashes mental images of Mayan remains peering from tropical jungle growth. I wonder how long beyond some catostrophic end to human habitation would it take for Manhattan’s infrastructure to crumble to obscurity?

I recorded this 59-second video at the water fountain:

The bath house and pavillion connect to the observation overlook above Nance Creek Inlet via a flagstone pathway.

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This view of the overlook dates back to my May 11, 2023 (https://stevejonesgbh.com/2023/08/31/revisiting-the-old-recreation-site-at-joe-wheeler-state-park/) photo essay.

Joe WSP Naturlist Jennings Earnest provided the foreground above Wilson Lake. Although I failed to capture the image, we counted two dozen great blue herons fishing along the inlet (right).

The collapsing gazebo image hints at the exquisite workmanship of the CCC masons. Their work stands undiminished 90 years later. Time rushes on at precisely 24 hours per day. I am determined to assist the Alabama State Park System to retore these magnificent underlying structures to functionality. Their tale and heritage should reach generations into the future, and not be merely a photographic memory and a footnote to a forgotten chapter, today remembered by a few and eventually lost to dusty volumes.

I recorded this 58-second video of the once magnificent gazebo:

No trees obstructed the Wilson Lake 1940 view. No shade sheltered the picnic diners who sat on the sturdy wooden seats, long-since decayed.

Park caretakers see the possibilities…as do I. The stonework at right contained how many thousands of afternoon and evening firepalce meals, warming fires, and s’more roastings? Memories lay silently and wistfully at rest, only briefly stirred when we rare visitors stop by to ruminate on a winter afternoon.

We make no claim that our two-day exploration represented a serious, systematic archeological endeavor. We recognize that at heart we are naturalists and curious technicians hoping to pursue vigorously enough to see the tip of the iceberg (we know that much of the Camp Village and Recreation Area lies hidden beneath the surface), spur interest among Park staff, elected officials, groups and organizations, interested entities, foundations, allied agencies, philanthropers, and others, and ultimately see the vision of restoring the Village and Recreation Area.

Wheeler Dam Village

I had previously photographed the huge village outdoor barbeque double-pit, abandoned long enough that a three-foot diameter yellow poplar stands within the firepit!

We knew where to find it. We searched extensively around it knowing we would locate extensive nearby evidence of use and occupation. We found nothing.

I recorded this 59-second video as we began our Janurary 23-24 explorations:

As was the case near the cooking pits, we spent a lot more time looking than we did finding!

What we did find came in dribs and drabs: sheet metal, one-half steel drum, and concrete blocks. Teasers that more is there, but unfortunately in the complete book of the Village and Recreation Area, these are unconsolidated words, phrases, and shattered paragraphs. We sought complete sentences, full paragraphs, and even a chapter or two.

Okay, not all proved futile

I recorded this 36-second video as we unearthed the remains of a lower slope series of terraced bunk houses reportedly consumed by fire. Surely, somewhere there are newspaper, agency, or individual archival records of the fire? Might there be a University of North Alabama (or elsewhere) faculty or graduate student willing to pursue the tale? Can we secure funding to support such an effort?

Again, our results were varied and piecemeal: a shovel with handle long decayed and a rectangle of sheet metal.

Even a discarded pocelain toilet!

And an old pole light (shown below for the second time in this photo essay) hinting that the Village and Recreation Area enjoyed the conveniences of water, sewer, and electricity. We hurt to imagine the complex’s story remaining untold. Where are the records, volumes, and photographs stored? The Village housed thousands of residents over the years of dam construction. The Recreation Area served untold regional citizens from dam construction until about 1950…thousands of people across 12-17 years.

What more can a bunch of Nature enthusiasts discover? Are our efforts frozen like the Wilson Lake shoreside ice below Jennings?

I don’t want to give up. However, I know my limits. An observant man of his day (Mark Twain?) once observed:

A wise man knows the limit of his knowledge; a fool has no idea.

Albert Einstein spoke often of wisdom, knowledge, and stupidity:

The difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits.

Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I’m not sure about the former.

There is no vaccine against stupidity.

Don’t be too hard on me. Everyone has to sacrifice at the altar of stupidity from time to time.

David Barr, the senior Park staff member of our January team, offered some closing comments several weeks later:

TVA did operate or was over this area until the state purchased it. The Recreation Area was known as” Big Nance Park” in its heyday by locals. I’m not sure that was the official name or if it had one? Wheeler Dam Village was used by TVA after the completion of the dam to operate and house workers until 1949, to my knowledge. I’m not sure when TVA stopped utilities to the Recreation Area. I think there are a lot more secrets in the woods and surrounding fields that can give us more answers. I suggest we do some extensive map studies before our next venture. I hope maybe a metal detector will help us locate more village remains and utilities. I will notify you when I make some contacts.

We may yet find answers to our pressing questions.

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:

I think there are a lot more secrets in the woods and surrounding fields that can give us more answers. (David Barr)
More than we will ever know is hidden in plain sight, whether of human or Nature’s affairs. (Steve Jones)
As I continue to explore Nature, the more I learn, the less I know. (Steve Jones)
Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better. (Albert Einstein)

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

January Natural Delights along the CCC Trail at Joe Wheeler State Park

March 27, 2025/in Updates /by Steve Jones

I spent January 23 and 24, 2025 at Joe Wheeler State Park primarily to learn more about the 1930s Wheeler Dam Construction Village and 1930s to early 1950s Recreation Area remains along the CCC Trail on the hillside above Wheeler Dam overlooking Wilson Lake, which lies just downstream of Wheeler Dam. This photo essay reports on the natural delights my colleagues and I discovered and chronicled as we performed our intended archeological pursuits.

We found some of what we were seeking, and as Henry David Thoreau observed, so much more…and that in itself is a delight:

The question is not what you look at, but what you see.

We unintentionally scheduled a cold day, locating an intact frost flower as we began our CCC Trail exploration a little after noon. Fascination propagates from every find; magic lies hidden in plain sight to all woodland saunterers!

Waves rippled Wislon Lake as northwest winds fueled the clear winter day. I imagined a similar day 90 years prior as workmen labored to build the dam. The forest is approximately the same age as the dam.

Individual trees, like these oaks above the Nance Creek Bay, provided shade for a concrete picnic table, its wooden seats long since decayed:

We identified several specimens of Kentucky yellowwood (Cladrastic kentuckea), which according to an online source is one of the rarest trees of eastern North America, found principally on the limestone cliffs of Kentucky, Tennessee, and North Carolina. The source indicated that yellowood native to Alabama have leaves more densely hairy underneath than those from furth north, distinguished as f. tomentosa. The species is new to me, at leaste as far as I recall.

Woodland delights come in nearly endless variety. Leonardo da Vinci observed simply that:

There is no result in nature without a cause.

I refuse to attribute such tree form oddities and curiosities to will or reason. The sugar maple sapling had no purpose other than to survive and propagate beyond the injury (a falling branch…a strangling vine?) that triggered the main stem and a spurred branch to reach vertically toward the sun and its sustaining rays.

Muscadine grape vines rely on their flexibility, strength, and suppleness to stay aloft in the high wind-swaying tree canopy. Their cause is to adapt to their motion-dominated environment, retaining a tree-provided full sunlight perch, and thrive for succeeding generations.

A higher power may have considered the aesthetic appeal to human woodland saunterers. Grape vines are among my forest delights.

I consider my doctoral discipline as an amalgam of applied ecology, soil science, and forestry (An Evaluation of Soil-Site Relationshps in Allegheny Hardwoods — Ph.D. Dissertation). Not surprisingly, I find soil and its nature and processes delightful! The sites I studied in the 70-90-year-old-second-growth forests of southwest New York and northwest Pennsylvania evidenced the pit-and-mound, hummock-and-hollow, and pillow-and-cradle microtopography that is likewise common across our northern Alabama forests. A maturing tree grasping its root ball yields to windthrow, lifting its soil mass from the excavated basin, as in the two exapmles below, where Alabama State Parks Northwest District Naturalist Amber Coger crouches in a pit/hollow/cradle (left) or stands triumphantly on a mound/hummock/pillow (right).

So long as I wander our woods I will not tire of seeing quality (high commerciel value) standing timber. Josh Kennum, technician at Joe Wheeler State Park, serves as a reference scale to a magnificent cherrybark oak. The old industrial forester within me resurfaces at will.

Yes, I still find delight with straight bole, three 16-foot logs to the first branch, sound wood, and hefty girth — a timeless delight!

What is not timeless is the old forester (me) standing with a magnificent yellow poplar (left) and a handsome cherrybark oak (right).

Age adds its own special delight factor to the ancient American beech within 100 feet of the 200-foot wide power line transmitting hydro-power from Wheeler Dam.

Fellow retired forester Chris Stuhlinger and I struggled to identify the tree species for this large dead standing tree-delight. Its three-foot plus diameter and large collapsed crown drew us closer. We concurred that the outer bark resembled American elm. The inner bark confused us…brittle with a rough cured leather appearance.

Because we needed to focus on our focused pursuit of the abandoned Village and Recreation Area, we decided the tree warrants deeper examination in the coming spring.

No doubt, the elm is an object of delight.

I recorded this 43-second video of Chris at the elm:

This laurel cherry met my delight criteria, a relative rarity and foreign to my previous woodland discoveries.

I gathered this gouty oak gall for examining and photographing at home. How could one not find delight in a small wasp ovipositing in an oak twig, triggering woody growth to shelter and feed the wasp’s larvae as they grow and transition to wasp adulthood? Nature is truly amazing and delightful.

I discovered this menagerie in just two days when we focused our direct attention on our primary objective. This photo essay reports on the natural delights my colleagues and I discovered and chronicled as we performed our intended archeological pursuits.

We found some of what we were seeking, and as Henry David Thoreau observed, so much more…and that in itself is a delight:

The question is not what you look at, but what you see.

I delighted in seeing all that open exploration afforded trained eyes, curious minds, and shared passion for Nature’s beauty, magic, wonder, awe, and inspiration!

Alabama State Parks Foundation

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

I delighted in seeing all that open exploration afforded trained eyes, curious minds, and shared passion for Nature’s beauty, magic, wonder, awe, and inspiration!
The question is not what you look at, but what you see. (Henry David Thoreau)
There is no result in nature without a cause. (Leonardo da Vinci)
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

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

February 18, 2025/in Updates /by Steve Jones

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Brief-Form Post #41: Outdoor Alabama Adventure Elementary School Field Trip at Oak Mountain State Park!

February 7, 2025/in Updates /by Steve Jones

I am pleased to add the 41st 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.

As a member of the Alabama State Parks Foundation, I assisted Chief of Interpretation and Education Renee Raney in envisioning the 2024 Outdoor Alabama Adventure k-12 program to orient school children to the Nature of Alabama. On November 7, 2024, I observed three busloads of Clanton, Alabama first graders participate in an Alabama Outdoor Adventure field workshop at Oak Mountain State Park near Pelham, AL. Conducted by Naturalists with the Alabama State Park System, the Blue Cross and Blue Shield of AL’s The Caring Foundation funded this partnership effort that reached 4,000 AL K-12 students by the end of the 2024 calendar year. The buses arrived at 9:00 AM, and dislodged the eager students. State Park Naturalists Lauren Massey and AnnaRuth Davis led them to pavillions for the day’s hands-on instruction.

They could not have selected a day more conducive to learning about the Nature of Alabama.

Richard Louv is an American non-fiction author and journalist. He is best known for his seventh book, Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children From Nature-Deficit Disorder (first published in 2005 by Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill), which investigates the relationship of children and the natural world in current and historical contexts. Louv created the term “nature deficit disorder” to describe possible negative consequences to individual health and the social fabric as children move indoors and away from physical contact with the natural world – particularly unstructured, solitary experience. Louv cites research pointing to attention disorders, obesity, a dampening of creativity, and depression as problems associated with a nature-deficient childhood. He amassed information on the subject from practitioners of many disciplines to make his case and is commonly credited with helping to inspire an international movement to reintroduce children to nature.

Louv’s philosophy guided our creating the program:

Every child needs nature. Not just the ones with parents who appreciate nature. Not only those of a certain economic class or culture or set of abilities. Every child.

Reconnection to the natural world is fundamental to human health, well-being, spirit, and survival.

Nature is imperfectly perfect, filled with loose parts and possibilities, with mud and dust, nettles and sky, transcendent hands-on moments and skinned knees.

I recorded this 59-second with AnnaRuth:

Albert Einstein, perhaps the greatest thinker of the 20th Century likewise saw the wisdom of connecting to Nature:

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

Imagine if all classrooms encouraged such absolute joy in discovery and learning!

Here is my 58-second video as Lauren led her group:

Dr. David Sobel, a renowned American educator and academic, responsible for developing the philosophy of place-based education has written extensively about the broad benifit of children learning in Nature:

You can’t bounce off the walls If there are no walls: outdoor schools make kids happier—and smarter.

We tiptoed the tops of beaver dams, hopped hummocks, went wading, looked at spring flowers, tried to catcha snake, got lost and found. How fine it was to move at a meandery, child’s pace.

Here is my 58-second video of the Oak MSP lakeside setting with the sounds of kids joyfully learning in the background:

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 magical embrace of children in a simple beautiful verse:

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

Brief-Form Post #40: Active Decay in Monte Sano State Park Wells Memorial Forest

January 15, 2025/in Updates /by Steve Jones

Brief-Form Post #40

I am pleased to add the 40th of my GBH Brief-Form Posts (Less than five minutes to read!) to my website. I get 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.

Active Decay and Poofing Puffballs

Alabama State Park Northwest District Naturalist Amber Coger and I hiked the Wells Memorial Trail at Monte Sano State Park on December 4, 2024. We found multiple woodland delights: massive grapevines, active decay (and incredible mature puffball mushrooms), and a landscape of sinks, pits, mounds, hummocks, and hollows. The aggregate would have overwhelmed a single Great Blue Heron photo essay. Instead, I offer three distinct Brief-Form essays, this one focusing on active decay and fanciful poofing puffballs.

I photographed this image several year ago. It’s the best photo representation of the magnificent Wells Memorial Forest.

This massive hickory tree toppled across the Wells Trail during the late summer of 2019, five years before my December 4, 2024 venture. I snapped the photo at left on November 16, 2019, before crews cleared a trunk section to provide passage. The April 22, 2020, view is from the stump side of the downed tree taken at the cleared trail. The tree shows no sign of decay; its wood is solid; the bark is intact; the root ball still holds its soil mass.

By December 2024, the root ball had begun to subside as the roots internal to it are decaying; the process of transforming the root ball to a mound or hummock is underway. The bark is sloughing from the trunk. The cut end of the overturned stump is fraying from decay.

I recorded this 58-video depicting the obvious state of decay:

I’ve watched time mark the decay process season after season. I noticed few indications of decay during the first summer. I witnessed an extraordinary blossom of oyster mushrooms in the second…bushel basketsful if foraging were allowed on our state parks. The oysters were few and far between the third year. Since then non edible leathery Trametes and other decomposers have prevailed. Most of the bark no longer remains. The surface sapwood is punky. Ashes to ashes; dust to dust.

Over the past several years of drafting these photo essays I’ve strived to hone my skills at estimating the passage of time since a live tree fell based on degree of decay. I am surprised by the rapid pace of decomposition for this grand old hickory. Abundant rainfall, mild climate, and favorable understory moisture environment encourage rapid decay.

Poofing Puffballs

We discovered another hickory, this one on the ground for less than a year. Mature biege puffball mushrooms sprouted from bark fissures. I believe their mycelia are growing surficially on the bark, and not penetrating into the wood. Other deeper decay fungi will colonize to begin the greater task of wood consumption.

I am a lifelong sucker for poofing mature puffballs, as the 32-second video attests:

After our puffball volcano venture, I recalled that in 2009, I suffered a severe case of Hispoplasmosis, a fungal infection common to the Miami River Valley where we lived during that period. I believe our common puffballs are innocent!

Who could resist the urge to puff these magic mushroom dragons!

Fungi are indeed fun in our incredible north Alabama woodlands. We covered enough ground that I considered our trek a good test of my August knee replacement recovery. However, we enjoyed a pace that allowed full exploration and discovery.

Closing

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. A single trek along a forested trail discloses only a brief moment in time, obscuring the decades prior and the future ahead, isolating us from the scope and scale of the grand forest cycle of life. Henry David Thoreau captured the sentiment I felt as we explored the Wonder of decay and renewal:

Not until we are lost do we begin to understand ourselves.

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

January 9, 2025/in Updates /by Steve Jones

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

Brief-Form Post #39: Pits, Mounds, and Sinkholes in the Wells Memorial Forest at Monte Sano State Park!

December 19, 2024/in Updates /by Steve Jones

Brief-Form Post #39

I am pleased to add the 38th of my GBH Brief-Form Posts (Less than five minutes to read!) to my website. I get 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.

Sinkholes, Pits, Mounds, Hummocks, and Hollows

Alabama State Park Northwest District Naturalist Amber Coger and I hiked the Wells Memorial Trail at Monte Sano State Park on December 4, 2024. We found multiple woodland delights: massive grapevines, active decay (and incredible mature puffball mushrooms), and a landscape of sinks, pits, mounds, hummocks, and hollows. The aggregate would have overwhelmed a single Great Blue Heron photo essay. Instead, I offer three distinct Brief-Form essays, this one focusing on sinkholes, pits, mounds, hummocks, and hollows.

I previously snapped the photos below at other locations to demonstrate the natural processes creating pit and mound…humoock and hollow… microtopography. A large living tree uproots, lifting a mass of roots and soil vertically as the trees slams to the ground. The pit or hollow is immediately evident. Imagine the root matrix decomposing and the rootball soil and organic matter settling adjacent to and aligned at 90-degrees to the toppled trunk.

I recorded this 56-second video of Amber exploring this very distinct pit on the uphill side of a long-ago fallen tree. The tree’s roots and trunk have long since decomposed.

This tree and the vast majority of the trees creating the distinctive hummock and hollow microtopography fell downhill.

This area is riddled with prominant pits and mounds.

Limestone Sinkholes

Unlike the tree fall microtopography, sinkholes are an artifact of parent material. The US Geologic Society defines a sinkhole as

A depression in the ground that has no natural external surface drainage. Basically, this means that when it rains, all of the water stays inside the sinkhole and typically drains into the subsurface.

Sinkholes are most common where water soluble limestone is the underlying parent material, which is the case along the lower Sinks Trail and throughout the Wells Memorial Forest. Over time, water dissolves the limestone, creating underground spaces that occasionally collapse leaving the conical depressions (dimples) on the forest floor. The entire Memorial Forest is a broad depression, where there is no surface exit. Individual sinkholes dimple the broader hollow.

Amber walked into this sinkhole (dimple) that is 25-feet across and 10 feet deep.

I recorded this 58-second video of Amber dropping into and ascending from the sinkhole.

Again, the entire Memorial Forest occupies an extensive bowl, providing rich limestone derived soil, abundant soil moisture year-round, and a micro-environment protected from the harsh effects of wind and sun exposure. Trees luxuriate, growing rapidly to large girth and exceptional heights.

Closing

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. I am educated, holding multiple degrees, yet I secured by far the greatest knowledge from an elective graduate course, geomorphology (taught by the late Dr. Ernie Muller), the study of the form of the earth. Because I can find no relevant wise quotation in the literature, I give you my own:

Learn the microgeography and you will understand the forest, appreciate its function, and interpret its mysteries, all at a higher level.