stream Archives - Steve Jones Great Blue Heron

An Early Fall Exploration along Madison, Alabama’s Bradford Creek Greenway!

November 6, 2024/in Updates /by Steve Jones

On October 4, 2024, five and one-half weeks beyond my total right knee replacement surgery, I continued my recovery and reentry to Nature exploration. Judy and our two Alabama grandsons (Sam, 10, and Jack, just shy of 17) accompanied me. My appreciation for the simple pleasures of the Common in Nature grew during my forced Nature Deficit Disorder period! I was eager to absorb a dose of Nature’s elixir along the nearby Bradford Creek Greenway, a flat paved surface appropriate for this stage of my recovery.

Innumerable times, I’ve introduced adults and kids to the compound, fierce-looking thorns of our native honey locust trees. I seldom include Latin names in these photo essays, yet some scientific monikers, like Gledistia triacanthos, are irresistible! Somehow the sweet, sugary resonance of honey locust belies its fanged thorns waiting to prick and puncture the unwary woods-rambler.

Familiarity breeds contempt, an apt adage. Take a closer look, then back away from the forked spikes. Were I inclined to sate my curiosity, I would dive into an internet rabbit hole to determine the one or many evolutionary impetuses for evolving the loathsome appedages. Perhaps on a day when the fall weather is not so perfect as today’s.

I recorded this video at our prickly friend.

This tupelo tree with its gnarly roots is one I visit frequently. Never have I seen it with such little water. I measured just 0.70″ of rain in August; a little over 3.00″ in September; and just 0.72″ in October. Bradford Creek is demonstrating the serious rainfall deficit.

A few deeper channels hold water sufficient to retain all manner of stream life.

Two and one-half miles south of the Heritage School trailhead, some flow, albeit painfully slow, persists.

My brief video from the south-end bridge speaks softly of our persistent drought:

Nothing in Nature is static. Since my prior visit, an easterly wind pushed a trailside 18-inch diameter shagbark hickory past its critical strength threshold. Toppled, the tree reveals its rotted and weakened east-facing trunk. In so many ways, Nature offers rudimentary lessons in applied physics.

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

The species’ bark is uniquely distinctive, whether standing vertical or recently resting supine.

Here is my 53-second fallen shagbark hickory video:

The standing tree evidenced the basal rot. Now fallen, the rotten-to-the-core stump leads me to wonder how it stood at all. The tree was not able to withstand the wind. Trees so close to the disturbances of installing the sewer line and constructing and maintaining the greenway sustain injuries that open infection courts for pathogens and decay fungi. Their days are numbered.

No one in our region could complain about an absence of October sunshine.

I recorded the call of a mockingbird celebrating the fine day in the canopy of a cedar tree between the greenway and Bradford Creek.

I’m sure you’ve heard people complaing about hayfever instigated by goldenrod pollen. They are mistaken. Goldenrod pollen is heavy and sticky, the plant relying on insects for pollination. Ragweed is the principal late summer and early fall hayfever culprit.

This ailanthus webworm moth is one of goldenrod’s many pollinators.

Blue mistflower also provided color along the greenway.

Cardinal flower also brightened my return to Nature.

Straw-colored flatsedge carries an apt moniker.

Walking or biking along Bradford Creek occasionally rewards me with a snake sighting, most often a gray ratsnake. Unfortunately, a passerby decided to crush the head of this small copperhead, and leave it on the pavement. In every matter concerning informed and responsible Earth Stewardship, ignorance can be an overwhelming obstacle.

Until my final breath, I will hold fast to my retirment 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.

Thoughts and Reflections

I offer these observations:

A short return to Nature five weeks following surgery pays dividends, amplifying and accelerating physical and mental healing!
There is no result in nature without a cause; understand the cause and you will have no need of the experiment. (Leonardo da Vinci)
The older I get, the more I don’t know.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Vision:

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

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

Steve’s Four Books

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

I began writing books and Posts for several reasons:

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

An August Afternoon Stroll along Indian Creek Greenway!

October 16, 2024/in Updates /by Steve Jones

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

An NC State Cooperative Extension online source stated:

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

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

I recorded this 57-second Chinese yam video:

Here is a screenshot of two leaf axil tubers.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Here is my brief red mulberry video:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thoughts and Reflections

I offer these observations:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Vision:

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

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

Steve’s Four Books

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

I began writing books and Posts for several reasons:

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

Finding Nature’s Inspiration The Afternoon Prior to my Total Right Knee Replacement

September 17, 2024/in Updates /by Steve Jones

[Note]

I am publishing this photo essay four weeks to the day following my knee replacement surgery. I’m recovering remarkably well. I hope to return to woodland wanderings by mid-October!

The Photo Essay

My scheduled August 20, 2024 total right knee replacement surgery loomed months, then weeks, and then days ahead. Having survived, effortfully rehabilitated, and recovered from my January 2024 left knee replacement surgery, I knew what lay ahead for August 20, and the weeks and months beyond. Knowing that a medical exile from Nature wanderings would extend at least through September, I sauntered two miles (one out; one back) along Madison, Alabama’s Bradford Creek Greenway on the afternoon of August 19. I decided to commemorate my brief traverse with a photo essay highlighting the Nature-Buoyed Aging and Healing elements of this outing.

I’ll begin with this 58-second video near the Heritage School trailhead. I could not have selected a better sky, a more welcoming entrance, and a pleasanter embrace of an old forester seeking fortification for yet another looming major surgery, although not with life and death implications like my June 2023, triple bypass. Without orchestrating the video sequence (perhaps I should have planned the videos more carefully), two tall, large-crowned loblolly pines trees attracted my attention as I panned the camera. Both trees rose to their main canopy dominance by performance. I am reminded that my recovery, while biologically enabled at the cellular level (physiology), is largely paced by my own willingness to perform guided physical therapy.

Nature’s ambience, a simple pleasure, stirred my soul.

I focused dozens of my photo essays on our local greenways, which wisely combine sewer line rights-of-way, otherwise undevelopable wetlands, and an insatiable demand for recreational greenspace in the state’s fastest growing metropolitan area. Here’s my 59-second video capturing the idyllic result of thoughtful community planning:

I wonder how many greenway travelers (pedestrians and bikers) realize that the occasional manholes and sewer-gas-venting candy canes bely the true nature of these very pleasant travel ways?

I seldom allow the sewer reality to distract my appreciation for the beauty, magic, wonder, awe, and inspiration of these arterial natural zones that protect forested flood plains coursing through urban and suburban neighborhoods.

You do not need my feeble narrative to highlight the healing Nature of greenspace. Suffice it to say that I gathered symbolic medication for my pending holistic (body, mind, heart, soul, and spirit) healing and ongoing aging. I carried the elixir with me into the next morning’s pre-dawn appointment for preparation, surgery, and post-op.

The preparatory salve doesn’t require breaking hospital rules about carrying personal medication into the facility!

Nothing in Nature is Static

I’ve visited the greenway during active flooding attributable to prolonged winter/spring rains or following summer frog-stranglers. Runoff from the urbanizing basin flashes Bradford Creek more quickly than just a few decades ago. August 19 revealed a dry streambed punctuated by a few persistent pools and an occasional above ground trickle.

I recorded this 53-second video of one such reflective pool, the otherwise dry bed, and the adjacent greenway:

Madison logs an average of 55 inches of rainfall annually, distributed reliably across the seasons. I’ve measured only 0.29 inches through August 30. The pool below offers hope for eventual rains reviving life in the nearly dormant stream. Averages are the essence of life in any natural system. To prosper over the long haul, any organism must tolerate the extremes, feast and famine…drought and torrent…sauna and freezer. I look ahead to my next saunter on the greenway, when I hope to enjoy cooler temperatures and gurgling waters.

The pool occurrence assured me again and again that stream life will persevere. Water tupelo trees prefer wet feet. The large shoreline trees with gnarled surface roots in the water and buttressed lower trunks are tupelo. Along Bradford Creek, I sense that the tupelo embrace a measure of vanity, appreciating their reflection wherever I see them.

I have visited the 2.6 mile greenway many dozens of times since 2015. Tree reflections (no, not just tupelo) draw my attention, enticing me to absorb the image, no matter the season. Somehow the beautiful image retains fidelity to the substance of what stands above it…leaves, branches, sky, clouds. I have never observed a reflection that leaves a permanent mark. Reflections may be the most ephemeral facet of Nature.

I recorded this 50-second video of limited flow at the base of a tupelo:

Their propensity to grow along these flash-inclined streams subject tupelos to physical punishment from tree debris hurtling downstream. This mid-stream resident bears the scars of abuse, a tree of character.

I’ve admired this American beech near the Heritage School trailhead often. Appearing to stand on stilts, a beech seed germinated 80-90 years ago atop a decaying stump that served as a moist organic-matter-rich nursery soil. The seedling sent roots down the sides of the rotting stump into the welcoming floodplain mineral soil. The old stump has decomposed, leaving only the suggestion of its former shape and purpose in service to the beech seed and seedling at creekside.

I’ve observed often that every tree, every stand, and every forest has a compelling tale to tell. The beech, the tupelos, the stream cycles, and the greenway forest whisper their stories across the seasons. I’m grateful that I can sample their revealing volumes on short notice whenever I need a dose of their endless elixir.

Summer Color, 13-Year Cicada Postscript, and Future Promise

A lifelong fan of spring wildflowers, a spectacular late summer cardinal flower caught my eye trailside, encouraging me to record this 58-second video, focusing first on the cardinal flower, the greenway forest edge, a lone fallen hickory nut, and another look at the sky and the canopy overarching the greenway:

I have a lifelong bias for spring ephemeral wildflowers, a passion fomented where I spent my formative years in the central Appalachians, where the beauties seemed to appear before snow completely melted, and even preceeded the arrival of one or more of what I termed robin snows. I admit that I viewed summer bloomers, which eschewed the dark summer forests where I wandered, as meadow and roadside weeds. Age broadened my appreciation beyond that narrow window between the onset of spring’s early warmth and canopy closure abbreviating forest floor flowering. The cardinal flower grew luxuriately at the forest edge along the greenway. How could I possibly denigrate this exquisite exhibit by declaring it a weed?

Nothing in Nature is static. Just five month earlier, this greenway would have displayed chickweed, violet, spring beauty, henbit, and other species. Hickory trees may have been bursting vegetative and flower buds high above within the still open canopy. I’ve time traveled inexorably through spring into late summer, when a mature hickory nut lies on the same shoulder, visually signaling a new season. I wonder, perhaps feeling a little sorry for myself, how far beyond me do news and concern for my knee replacement extend. Immediate family, yes; a few friends and associates, yes; beyond that, no. Does the hickory nut care, no…absolutely not! I’m reminded, therefore, that while the greenway and its environs are my holistic elixir, there is no reciprocity. Hickory nuts have matured, fallen, and faced whatever fate for untold millennia prior to European settlement and even indigenous arrival. And they will do so for as many generations hence.

We human residents earlier this summer talked incessantly for weeks about the persistent grating hum of male 13-year cicadas, now long since gone for yet another extened period of subsurface renewal. What did they leave? Some frazzled nerves of people far too easily bothered by an inevitable reality of sharing a few weeks every 1.3 decades with a regional co-inhabitant life form. Thousands…no, millions…of 4-to-10-inch dead oak (not exclusively, but mostly oak) branchlets killed by cicada larvae hatched from eggs oviposited by freshly fertilized female adults. Life cycles are more compex for cicadas than for humans, yet I am sure far less drama is involved. The larvae feed on the twig cambium. The twig dies, leaving the small flagged branchlets. The nymphs (a next life stage) drop unhurt to the ground, dig deep, feed, grow, and emerge via new exit holes (this year’s still evident below in the dry floodplain soils).

Near the trailhead, this passion flower, another summer favorite, beckoned me. A weed? No way!

My August 19, 2024, journey covered only 90 minutes, far less than the time I’ve enjoyed translating the venture, its 18 photographs, and five brief videos into a semi-cogent photo essay. Although I have completed my tale for now, the Bradford Creek Greenway story is by no means finished. The Madison Greenways and Trails group is partnering with the City of Madison to extend the Greenway another 0ne-half mile north. Here is my 59-second video recorded where the extension will continue northward from where the current paved greenway veers west to the Heritage School parking lot and trailhead:

The sewer line right-of-way extends northward from the Heritage trailhead, promising mystery and hidden treasures.

Picture the paved extension passing through the deep floodplain forest. I am eager to track progress and to decide on a subsequent visit whether to saunter north or south. Nothing in Nature is static. So, too, should our human connections to Nature be ever-evolving. I applaud and thank those among us who are striving to make some small corner of the Earth better through wisdom, knowledge, and hard work.

Thoughts and Reflections

I offer these observations:

Visiting the Greenway the day before joint surgery afforded symbolic medication for my pending holistic (body, mind, heart, soul, and spirit) healing and ongoing aging.
I have never observed a water reflection that leaves a permanent mark. Reflections may be the most ephemeral facet of Nature.
Nothing in Nature, including the flow of our individual fleeting lives, is static.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Vision:

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

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

Steve’s Four Books

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

I began writing books and Posts for several reasons:

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

Brief Form Post #29: Mid-March Attempt to Enter the Flint River-Flooded Goldsmith-Schiffman Wildlife Sanctuary

April 2, 2024/in Updates /by Steve Jones

I am pleased to add the 29th of my GBH Brief Form Posts (Less than three minutes to read!) to my website. I tend to get a bit long-winded 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.

Brief-Form Post on a Flooded-Out Tour of the Goldsmith-Schiffman Wildlife Sanctuary

Fellow Nature enthusiast Jim Chamberlain and I taught a spring term Huntsville, Alabama LearningQuest course on the Streams of Madison County. After the term ended, we hosted an unofficial field trip to the nearby Goldsmith-Schiffman Wildlife Sanctuary along the Flint River, on Saturday morning, March 16, 2024. The flooding Flint River secured the sanctity and solitude coveted by all Sanctuary wildlife residents, protecting them from our planned educational intrusion.

Among other topics we incorporated in our course, we spoke often of the tendency of our streams to flash with the heavy rains that treat our Cumberland Plateau region with 55-inches of rainfall annually. Wouldn’t you know it, a persistent front loaded with Gulf moisture dumped 2.34-inches the day before our outing. The flooding Flint River blocked our west-side entrance less that a quarter-mile from the Taylor Road parking lot.

The group posed in the photos above just in front of the red iron gate (see grandson Sam below during a far drier visit) where the trail takes visitors into the 400-acre floodplain Sanctuary.

Refusing to be deterred, we caravanned to the east entrance, where the Flint greeted us within sight of where we parked!

The still-rising River provided a clear signal that our Sanctuary sauntering would of necessity await a different stage in the life of the flashy Flint River.

I recorded this 31-second video before we departed for a substitute ramble along nearby Big Cove Creek Greenway:

I returned to the Sanctuary March 23, 2024, exploring a much more forgiving Sanctuary environment. I would have been at least knee deep looking northwest on the east entrance greenway 200 yards from where the group stood with the muddy floodwaters beyond, evidencing again the flashy nature of the Streams of Madison County.

I accept the challenge of distilling these Brief-Form Posts into a single distinct reflection, a task far more elusive than assembling a dozen pithy statements. Today, I borrow a relevant reflection from Aldo Leopold’s A Sand County Almanac, a book I rank as a premier collection of conservation and Nature-philosophy essays:

There are degrees and kinds of solitude. I know of no solitude so secure as one guarded by a spring flood; nor do the geese, who have seen more kinds and degrees of aloneness than I have.

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

Hidden Spring: Flowing Strong During Extreme Drought!

March 28, 2024/in Updates /by Steve Jones

I visited Huntsville, Alabama’s Goldsmith-Schiffman Wildlife Sanctuary on November 14, 2023, with Dr. Marian Moore Lewis, author of Southern Sanctuary. We sauntered through the western side of the Sanctuary, observing and reflecting upon all manner of seasonal life we encountered from Hidden Spring to Jobala Pond to the wetland mitigation project underway in the mid-property meadows and fields. This Post focuses on Hidden Spring, still flowing strongly after an extended drought!

The Spring emerges from a dispersed upwelling near the Taylor Road entrance to the Sanctuary, at the foot of a 20-30 foot rise beyond which the highway runs. A wooden observation deck looks out over the thick vegetation blanketing the wetland head and obscuring a clear view of a clear point of emergence. The hillside is visible and then gradually the upland transitions to a wetland with marshy vegetation.

I was not expecting a full flow. I had measured just an inch and one-half of rain since mid-August. Already, the wetland vegetation is dormant, in spite of persistent late summer weather.

I recorded this 32-second video of Hidden Spring, capturing the lush dry-season saturation and the sounds of abundant bird activity:

Two sets of three mallards, both with two drakes and a hen, entertained us.

I keep hoping to spot a wood duck at the Sanctuary. Although I have visited repeatedly over the past five years, I have seen just one. Hidden Springs slowly reshapes with distance, shifting from an ill-defined wetland to marsh and then to a stream channel and eventually to open water at Jobala Pond.

We could not have wished for a better sky to accent the spring-head, marsh, stream, and pond images.

There are times when I feel compelled to offer observation and reflection narrative to these photo essays. I am content with this one to say little. My theme is simple. Nature is anything but static…across time and space. The Spring emerges, gains definition and volume, attracts vegetation and critters, creates a defined stream channel, occupies the Jobala Pond basin, and eventually finds its way to the Sanctuary-adjacent Flint River.

I am impressed that the Spring seems oblivious to a sustained drought, one the National Weather Service characterizes as Extreme. Drought or not, the emergent stream is perfectly capable of its own reflecting, working Nature-magic with the firmament above.

I recorded this 32-second video where the Spring occupies the old borrow pit basin, excavated when road engineers found rich deposits of clay, sand, and gravel suitable for mid-20th Century road construction nearby.

Jobala Pond has naturalized from its origin as a borrow pit, a raw dirt-sided basin filled with runoff and the year-round spring. I’ve seen photographs of the property’s 2007 donor in the pond as a three-year-old, surrounded by the vegetation-bare pit. Nature is, if nothing else, resilient.

Perhaps there were those who observed 70 years ago that the borrow pit was a blight on the landscape, a permanent scar from which no redemption could be found. Look at the marsh today. John Muir so eloquently captured Nature’s resilience…her insistence upon healing wounds, of the land and her creatures:

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

I recorded this 36-second video of Jobala Pond, viewing north, swinging to the east along the trail, and then back to north.

I’ve learned that while I enjoy providing narrative (and have some pride in my own words), the brief videos express far more with only the accompanying gentle sounds of Nature.

Hidden Spring, and its gradual transition to marshland, pond, and stream, is a Sanctuary gift steeped in mystery, rich with ecosystem wonder, and blessed with a soul-soothing aura of life and living.

The mystery begs pondering and resolution. Where do the raindrops fall that the aquifer retains? How can this underground store enable the Spring to yield apparent full flow after three months of extreme drought?

The ecosystem wonder draws from Nature transforming a surface mine (the term is a bit more truthful than referring to the depression as a borrow pit, a softer, less permanent term). Nature’s healing has naturalized the landscape blemish.

I feel blessed every time I visit the Sanctuary, my mind schooled in reading the landscape…my spirit elevated by the gentle hand of Nature. As a young Nature enthusiast, I would have rejected the notion that a city-operated “sanctuary” could scratch my Nature wildness itch. I would have seen the term city wildlife sanctuary as a paradox, an anomaly, a self-contradiction. Today, I embrace the idea, accept the term, and celebrate that the City of Huntsville, Alabama manages these 400 acres as a prized wildlife sanctuary!

Thoughts and Reflections

I offer these observations:

Nature is always lovely, invincible, glad, whatever is done and suffered by her creatures. All scars she heals, whether in rocks or water or sky or hearts. (John Muir)
I feel blessed every time I visit the Sanctuary, my mind schooled in reading the landscape…my spirit elevated by the gentle hand of Nature.
Nature is anything but static…across time and space.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Vision:

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

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

Steve’s Three Books

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

I began writing books and Posts for several reasons:

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

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

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

Brief-Form Post #26: Beaver Dam Serenity at Goldsmith-Schiffman Wildlife Sanctuary!

January 17, 2024/in Updates /by Steve Jones

I am pleased to add the 26th of my GBH Brief Form Posts (Less than three minutes to read!) to my website. I tend to get a bit long-winded 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.

Brief-Form Post on my November 14, 2023, Visit to the Beaver Dam along Hidden Spring Creek at Huntsville’s Goldsmith-Schiffman Wildlife Sanctuary!

I visited Huntsville, Alabama’s Goldsmith-Schiffman Wildlife Sanctuary on November 14, 2023, with Dr. Marian Moore Lewis, author of Southern Sanctuary. We paused for a few minutes to enjoy the sights and sounds at the beaver dam along Hidden Spring Creek at the iron and concrete bridge just downstream of Jobala Pond. I focus this photo essay on the beaver dam.

I learned long ago that there is grandeur in Nature’s seemingly small wonders and that many items of Nature’s magic lie hidden in plain sight.

Here is the 0:34 video I recorded at 10:32 AM.

Still photographs capture single elements of Nature’s beauty, magic, wonder, and awe. Yet even as a picture is worth a thousands words, a video may exceed the power of a photo by the same magnitude. A thousand is to one as a million is to a thousand. I will continue to supplement my photo essays with short videos!

Amazingly, observers had recorded only one and one-half inches of rain over the prior nine weeks, yet Hidden Spring Creek seemed to carry a normal late summer flow. That evidence suggests that a rich and ample aquifer supplies Hidden Spring and its outflow creek.

Had I not chosen to visit the Sanctuary during the trailing end of an extended drought I would not have appreciated how robust Hidden Spring is.

I cherish the special Nature of the entire Sanctuary…and I anticipate tossing a bag chair over my shoulder so that I can sit quietly at the beaver dam, luxuriating in its gurgling, observing bird and other life nearby, and watching clouds and shadows slip across the cerulean firmament.

I accept the challenge of distilling these Brief-Form Posts into a single distinct reflection, a task far more elusive than assembling a dozen pithy statements. Today, I borrow a relevant reflection from John Muir, one of the truly great minds of conservation and environmental antiquity:

A river is water in its loveliest form; rivers have life and sound and movement and infinity of variation, rivers are veins of the earth through which the lifeblood returns to the heart.

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

Nature-Inspired Life and Living; Nature-Buoyed Aging and healing!