tennessee river Archives - Steve Jones Great Blue Heron

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

Mooresville, Alabama Cemetary: A New Dimension to Life and Death in the Forest! [Volume Two]

May 14, 2025/in Updates /by Steve Jones

Note: I am flagging this photo essay as one of a sub-series that introduces the emerging Singing River Trail:

A 200+ mile greenway system that strengthens regional bonds and creates new health and wellness, educational, economic, tourism, and entrepreneurial opportunities for the people and communities of North Alabama.

On March 8, 2025, at the request of local history buff Gilbert White, I visited the Mooresville, Alabama Cemetery as a group of a dozen friends of the 200-year-old graveyard (Madison History Association) cleared brush and storm debris. I snapped photographs and recorded brief videos to develop a photo essay with observations and reflections. I envisioned a tale of the multi-tiered web of life and death (Nature and Human) interweaving across this hallowed land, a permanent resting place for more than 100 deceased former residents. Volume Two looks deeply into the elements of interaction and overlap.

The story of Mooresville Cemetery encompasses several components:

The overlapping natural environment and human community over time and generations (https://stevejonesgbh.com/2025/04/08/mooresville-alabama-cemetary-a-new-dimension-to-life-and-death-in-the-forest-volume-one/).
A deeper view into the elements of interaction and overlap (This photo essay).
The macabre (and lighter) dimension of an old forested cemetery.
Another story along the fledgling 200+ mile Singing River Trail.

Entrance to the Mooresville Cemetery:

The cemetery adjoins Wheeler National Wildlife Refuge. Its dense forest and the graveyard are nearly indistinguishable except for the monuments and burial depressions.

Richard Martin, for whom the Richard Martin Rails to Trail in Limestone County is named, stands at the gravestone of his paternal great, great grandmother, who died 144 years ago. Richard’s linkage to this hallowed ground is blood-strong. This fine woman entered our Earth-bound domain only 13 years after the cemetery welcomed the remains of its first departing soul. Like the forest, the human community cycle is without end. I doubt whether any of today’s trees on site witnessed Nancy B. Martin’s interment!

During the course of my two hours at the cemetery, Richard’s niece applied a biological cleaning solution, which brought the engravings back to life!

Just as the face of the monument lost its definition and clarity, the forest is changing. Nothing in Nature is static. Forest definition and clarity sufficient to meet the aesthetic standards for a visually attractive generational cemetery demands human attention and ongoing routine and occasionally heavy-duty maintenance. From some angles, the aging hilltop forest hides its cemetery identity!

But still, the story is not entirely nor hopelessly subsumed. A colorfull flag marks the final resting place for a Confederate infantryman, his grave tended by volunteer Cindy Wallace.

I recorded this 58-second video at the tombstone of the Confederate infantryman:

The cycle of life and death plays out across the mammalian/amphibian interface. I wonder whether the green tree frog (Hyla cenerea) visits Mr. Oliver routinely. The Old Folks traded tales of reincarnation. Who are these Old Folks? Am I among them? I admit to appreciating the possibility that the good Confederate infantryman’s soul resides happily on the hallowed hilltop overlooking Limestone Bay and Historic Mooresville.

Some gravesite visiter a century or more ago probably planted lesser periwinkle to add everygreen freshness and growing-season color. The plant still persists on the shady forest floor and amidst the aging tombstones.

Its leafy vines climb into the moss skirt of a large oak.

Clumps of liriope and daylilly evidence loved ones brightening gravesites.

I recorded this 55-second video into the overgrown graveyard from the border with Wheeler National Wildlife Refuge, and showing naturalized gravesite ornamental perennials planted on and escaped from gravesides:

I identified two varieties of narcissus growing several hundred feet from the heart of the cemetery just inside the Refuge.

A multi-flora rose grows at the foot of this monument, hinting at the loving care and respect given the deceased. Mourners laid the occupant to rest in 1901. I wonder who remembers and cares today. Even the youngest of those participating in the service is no longer among us. Certainly not in body. Alfred Hitchcock would create a scenario where they do indeed persist in an alternative dimension among the fading tombstones and towering oaks.

Another decorative planting escapee, several patches of spirea persist, visually echoing memories across the twenty decades here at Mooresville.

The tree frog is not alone among the memories. A squirrel masterfully chewed its way into the rich meat of a cemetery hickory nut. The cycle of life is without end…as long as our sun shines, rains fall, and Earth remains otherwise inhabitable.

As I said at the outset, the story of Mooresville Cemetery encompasses several components:

The overlapping natural environment and human community across time and generations.
A deeper view into the elements of interaction and overlap.
The macabre dimension of an old forested cemetery (stay tuned).
Another story along the fledgling 200+ mile Singing River Trail.

I developed this Volume Two of my Mooresville Cemetery tale as A deeper view into the elements of interaction and overlap.

Coach Jim Valvano directed the 1983 NC State University mens basketball program to the NCAA National Championship. Several years later, succumbing to terminal cancer, Jim delivered powerful motivational speeches across the country. He extolled three recommended essential elements of every day well lived:

Laugh heartily.
Think deeply.
Feel something to the point of tears.

The green frog delivered an element of mirth, even if not belly-laugh worthy. All else about the morning on-site and since then as I’ve organized my thoughts and reflections demanded deep thought. Misty eyes and a few keyboard drops accompanied my reflections on my own mortality and my regrets for not knowing my antecedents more intentionally. Although I seldom (Never, as I recall!) turn to Janis Joplin for philosophical guidance, she hit the mother lode with a line from Me and Bobby McGee:

I’d trade all my tomorrows for a single yesterday.

Nature reaches far into my heart, soul, body, mind, and spirit.

The Nature of the Singing River Trail

The Singing River Trail will be a 200+ mile greenway system that strengthens regional bonds and creates new health and wellness, educational, economic, tourism, and entrepreneurial opportunities for the people and communities of North Alabama.

The SRT is headquartered just two miles west of the cemetery. The trail will prominently feature Mooresville. As a lifelong devotee of hiking/sauntering, running, biking, and Nature exploration, I envision another Great Blue Heron weekly photo essay series focused on The Nature of the Singing River Trail. I will incorporate individual essays into my routine Posts that total approximately 450 to-date (archived and accessible at: https://stevejonesgbh.com/blog/). I offer these photo essays related to the Mooresville Cemetery as the beginning of the new component series.

Thoughts and Reflections

I offer these observations:

Nature reaches far into my heart, soul, body, mind, and spirit.
The cycle of life is without end…as long as our sun shines, rains fall, and Earth remains otherwise inhabitable.
It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see.

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.

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 (2025) 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

Winter Dormant Season Wonders in a Wheeler National Wildlife Refuge Bottomland Forest

May 7, 2025/in Updates /by Steve Jones

Note: I am flagging this photo essay as one of a sub-series that introduces the emerging Singing River Trail:

A 200+ mile greenway system that strengthens regional bonds and creates new health and wellness, educational, economic, tourism, and entrepreneurial opportunities for the people and communities of North Alabama.

On the morning of February 8, 2025, as I frequently do, I wandered through the bottomland hardwood forest along HGH Road in the Wheeler National Wildlife Refuge near the border between Limestone and Madison Counties. I desired only to see what of deep dormant season interest might lie hidden in plain sight. Mission accomplished!

Spiraling Oddities

HGH Road is gated during the winter at the gravel parking area along Jolly Bee Road. I walked the one-half mile west to where an old farm lane drops south toward the Tennessee River. Yes, an old farm lane. I believe the bottomland forest was in agricultural production when TVA purchased the land scheduled for Lake Wheeler inundation and the adjoining upland property 90 years ago. I restricted the morning’s sauntering mostly to hardwood-dominated forests. I found this spiraled mid-canopy elm, back-dropped by a stand of loblolly pine, at roadside before I reached the now heavily forested farm lane.

I have never seen a tree that spirals of its own accord absent a directing force, which in this instance is no longer present. Imagine the elm when younger and smaller, wrapped in full spiral embrace with a supplejack vine. The supplejack species spirals upward clockwise as evidenced by the permanently spiraled elm. In effect, the growing tree prevailed, literally crushing life from the vine…a death spiral.

Leonardo da Vinci offered insight to seeing, questioning, and understanding such phenomena:

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

The noblest pleasure is the joy of understanding.

Leonardo would have appreciated my seeming aimless traipsing. Albert Einstein, too, would have approved:

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

Nearby a supplejack co-spiraling with a 3-4″ sweetgum tree offered more direct evidence, the vine still visible at left. The photo at right below shows the same supplejack vine closer to the ground, where it emerged victorious in its embrace of a sapling long since dead and decayed. The clockwise-spiraled vine remains intact. However, I don’t think it will survive its mutual grasp with the sweetgum.

I recorded this 58-second video of entanglement:

Infrequent sylvan visitors believe our forests are stagnant, timeless, never-changing. I recall asking workshop participants their perceived age of the mature hardwood forest we were visiting. Answers ranged from hundreds of years back to the time of Christ. Most of our northern Alabama hardwood forest are 80-100 years old. Nothing in Nature is static, absolutely nothing.

Death and Decay in the Forest

Life and death define the forest. The carbon cycle is the symphony, an elaborate ecological composition. Movements surge and flow across days, months, years, decades, centuries, and millennia. This ancient oak, with its decayed see-through base, rises to a snag. Gravity will soon prevail; decomposers will return its organic matter to the soil, which in turn will cycle its energy to new life, perhaps to an oak tree or a millipede, a rattlesnake, or a woodland spider lilly!

Here is my 58-video tour of the snag:

I prefer short quotes from sage conservationists like da Vinci, Muir, and Leopold. However, the lyrics and music of some timeless poets and musicians shaped my life, Johny Cash among them. Lyrics to his classic The Highwayman stand as a metaphor for the forests I know, whether Alabama, Alaska, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, or any other of the places I’ve lived or roamed:

I was a highway man along the coach roads I did ride
With sword and pistol by my side
Many a young maid lost her baubles to my trade
Many a soldier shed his lifeblood on my blade
The bastards hung me in the spring of twenty-five
But I am still alive

I was a sailor, I was born upon the tide
And with the sea I did abide
I sailed a schooner round the horn to Mexico
I went aloft and furled the mainsail in a blow
And when the yards broke off they said that I got killed
But I am living still

I was a dam builder
Across the river deep and wide
Where steel and water did collide
A place called Boulder on the wild Colorado
I slipped and fell into the wet concrete below
They buried me in that great tomb that knows no sound
But I am still around, I’ll always be around
And around and around and around and around

I fly a starship across the Universe divide
And when I reach the other side
I’ll find a place to rest my spirit if I can
Perhaps I may become a highwayman again
Or I may simply be a single drop of rain
But I will remain
And I’ll be back again, and again
And again and again and again and again

I understand the co-spiraling signature of tree and vine. No mystery there. Explaining the spiral wood grain of individual trees eludes me still. Search “spiral grain” on the blog page of my Great Blue Heron website. You’ll see prior posts where I have probed the subject, all to no avail or conclusion, yet I frequently see dead hardwood trees with sloughed bark, clearly spiral-grained, taunting me to discover their secret!

I recorded this 48-second video of a nearby snag adorned with multiple scars of death and decay, as well as evident spiral grain.

A still photo of the same tree highlights advanced decay that suggests that undefeated gravity will soon triumph.

Commercial television these days offers all manner of cosmetic and pharmaceutical treatments for dry, crepey, warty, sagging, and blotchy skin and flesh. Thank God trees possess no such vainglorious tendencies! I recorded this video of a snag carrying its blemishes beyond death and decay.

Stills from of the same tree memorialize its countenance.

Every tree has a story to tell. These weathered individuals express volumes!

Beauty is Far Moore than Skin-Deep

Fungi infect all the prior dead individual trees I’ve included so far in this photo essay. Let’s now delve into the fruiting bodies (mushrooms) of the organisms whose hyphae are the actual within-wood decomposing fungi. Puffball mushrooms signal hyphae hard at work.

I recorded this 60-second video of a wind-toppled oak heavily infected with Stereum:

Our north Alabama forest breezes, I am sure, are super charged with clouds of fungal spores. I imagine competing species of fungi rushing to the scene of a recent windthrow, armies of spores laying claim to square millimeters of surface on a multi-ton sylvan carcass. Down for less than a full year, this tree already bears thousands of saprophytic fungi mushrooms.

Life, death, decay, and renewal dance in symphonic splendor.

A hefty lumpy bracket mushroom clings to a downed oak trunk.

Its underside is salting the air with countless spores catching the breeze to another multi-ton oak.

Bracket fungi are common throughout our north Alabama forests, especially in these fertile, productive hardwood bottomlands. I pledge to devote more time on future treks to identifying groups and species. So far only the edibles have merited my deeper attention.

I believe this is a latte bracket.

Fungi are biological wonders worthy of their own kingdom.

Thoughts and Reflections

I offer these observations:

The noblest pleasure is the joy of understanding. (da Vinci)
Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better. (Einstein)
Life, death, decay, and renewal dance in symphonic splendor. (Steve Jones)

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

The Nature of the Singing River Trail

The Singing River Trail will pass through significant portions of the 35,000-acre Wheeler National Wildlife Refuge…perhaps not HGH Road per se, yet I know that Rockhouse Bottom Road along the Tennessee River, just two miles from HGH Road, will be a primary SRT route.

The Singing River Trail will be a 200+ mile greenway system that strengthens regional bonds and creates new health and wellness, educational, economic, tourism, and entrepreneurial opportunities for the people and communities of North Alabama.

The SRT will prominently feature the Refuge. As a lifelong devotee of hiking/sauntering, running, biking, and Nature exploration, I envision another Great Blue Heron weekly photo essay series focused on The Nature of the Singing River Trail. I will incorporate individual essays into my routine Posts that total approximately 450 to-date (archived and accessible at: https://stevejonesgbh.com/blog/). I offer these photo essays related to my WNWR wanderings as the beginning of the new component series. Watch for more!

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

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 (2025) 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.

Mooresville, Alabama Cemetary: A New Dimension to Life and Death in the Forest! [Volume One]

April 8, 2025/in Updates /by Steve Jones

On March 8, 2025, at the request of local history buff Gilbert White, I visited the Mooresville, Alabama Cemetery as a group of a dozen friends of the 200-year-old graveyard (Madison History Association) cleared brush and storm debris. I snapped photographs and recorded brief videos to develop a photo essay with observations and reflections. I developed a tale of the multi-tiered web of life and death (Nature and Human) intersecting across this hallowed land, a permanent resting place for more than 100 deceased former residents. Volume One introduces the historic cemetery and sets the stage for the two succeeding volumes.

The story of Mooresville Cemetery encompasses several components:

The overlapping natural environment and human community over time and generations.
A deeper view into the elements of interaction and overlap.
The macabre (and lighter) dimension of an old forested cemetery.
Another story along the fledgling 200+ mile Singing River Trail.

I’d like you to please watch for subsequent Great Blue Heron photo essays (The Nature of the Singing River Trail) I will feature as whistle stops along the fledgling 200+-mile trail.

I viewed the burial ground as a provocative subject. The town is historic:

Historic Mooresville, Alabama is the first town incorporated by the Alabama Territorial Legislature, on November 16, 1818. The entire town is on the National Register of Historic Places, and is one of Alabama’s most important and intact villages. Historic homes and buildings, gracious gardens, and tree-shaded streets make a visit to Mooresville seem like a step back in time.

I beamed myself back to 1822, when the first documented burial took place on the grassy knoll three hundred yards southeast of the town. Young trees grace the heights, still too young to cast shade over memorial services. Albert Einstein granted me the means to travel back two centuries:

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

I often speculate in these posts about the past from reading today’s forests. Borrowered from an online file, this image depicts the Mooresville Cemetery site as I picture its grassy knoll 200 years ago.

This monument welcomes visitors today. The background trees are not leaning to the south (left); I tilted the photograph to righten the leaning stone.

The crew labored for two hours. Their work made a dent in restoring order to a sunny hilltop long ago captured by time and a relentlessly advancing forest.

I often observe in these photo essays that life and death are constant, cyclical companions in our forests. Humans have added an overlapping dimension of life and death to the cemetery hilltop. The forest tells its own story. Each tombstone, every unmarked rectangular depression, and every echo of human memorial service, graveside visit, and fading memory, jubilation, and grief combine to reach across the two centuries. I felt the presence of others as I criss-crossed the knoll.

I wondered whether this fallen shagbark hickory bore witness to teary-eyed ceremonies, grieving loved ones, and soothing spring mornings.

I recorded this 57-second video of the uprooted tree:

I’ve studied our northern Alabama forests enough to know that neither the red oak (left) nor the shagbark hickory (right) witnessed the first 70-90 years of burials. They most likely were no more than seedlings or saplings when Wheeler Dam engineers closed the gates that flooded the adjacent Limestone Bay in the 1930s.

How many interred former Mooresville bones did this crashing oak rattle when it succumbed to undeafeated gravity?

What manner of disturbance did this decades-old hickory tree lightning blast create among the lingering spirits? Resident squirrels and other critters relying upon tree cavities celebrated as fungi infected and enlarged the wound and the tree survived the electrical insult. Life and death hand in hand — the cycle of renewal and demise persisting!

The cavity the critters appreciated served for how long…before the hollow they valued yielded to forces beyond the woody rind’s ability to hold the tree aloft?

Maria Rakoczy, The Madison Record news writer, worked feverishly with loppers across an area dominated by flat monuments.

Imagine the cleared summit view northwest into Mooresville (left) and southwest into Limestone Bay (fed by Limestone Creek, Mooresville Spring, Piney Creek, and Beaverdam Creek) two centuries ago. Mooresville’s checkerboard streets, homes, the brick church belltower, and the 200-acre Bay would have been visible, unobstructed by the invading forest. Today only the deep dormant season allows a glimpse without imagination.

I observe often that every tree and each forest grove has a story to tell. The tales told at the Mooresville Cemetery are overlain by layers of deep memories and generations past.

I recorded this 59-second video of a poignant, heart-rending tombstone message:

Margaret Alice Morris’ engraved tombstone (An angel visited the green earth and took the flower away) occupied a grassy hill (now a closed-canopy forest) above Limestone Bay.

As I said at the outset, the story of Mooresville Cemetery encompasses several components:

The overlapping natural environment and human community over time and generations.
A deeper view into the elements of interaction and overlap.
The macabre dimension of an old forested cemetery.
Another story along the fledgling 200+ mile Singing River Trail.

I’ve taken us through chapters one and part of two. I’ll begin Volume Two where this one ends.

The Nature of the Singing River Trail

The Singing River Trail will be a 200+ mile greenway system that strengthens regional bonds and creates new health and wellness, educational, economic, tourism, and entrepreneurial opportunities for the people and communities of North Alabama.

The SRT is headquartered just two miles west of the cemetery. The trail will prominently feature Mooresville. As a lifelong devotee of hiking/sauntering, running, biking, and Nature exploration, I envision anew Great Blue Heron weekly photo essay series focused on The Nature of the Singing River Trail. I will incorporate individual essays into my routine Posts that total approximately 450 to-date (archived and accessible at: https://stevejonesgbh.com/blog/). I offer this essay as an orientation to the new series.

Thoughts and Reflections

I offer these observations:

Life and death sustain a natural forest over time; a human cemetery within adds deeper complexity and layers of sentiment, emotion, and memories.
Natural processes overtake all traces of human habitation in the absence of intervention and maintenance. Even a north Alabama graveyard yields to forest.
It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see. I saw an aging forest and felt my own mortality, yet embraced the comprehension of both.

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.

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 (2025) 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

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

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

February 26, 2025/in Updates /by Steve Jones

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Water Features

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thoughts and Reflections

I offer these observations:

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

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

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

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

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

Vision:

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

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

Steve’s Four Books

I wrote my books Nature Based Leadership (2016), Nature-Inspired Learning and Leading (2017), Weaned Seals and Snowy Summits: Stories of Passion for Place and Everyday Nature (2019; co-authored with Dr. Jennifer Wilhoit), and Dutton Land & Cattle: A Land Legacy Story (2024) to encourage all citizens to recognize and appreciate that every lesson for living, learning, serving, and leading is either written indelibly in or is powerfully inspired by Nature. All four of my books present compilations of personal experiences expressing my deep passion for Nature. All four books offer observations and reflections on my relationship with the natural world… and the broader implications for society. Order any from your local indie bookstore, or find them on IndieBound or other online sources such as Amazon and LifeRich.

I began writing books and Posts for several reasons:

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

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

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

Blackwell Swamp and Rockhouse Bottom in Early October on the Wheeler National Wildlife Refuge (Part Two)

January 28, 2025/in Updates /by Steve Jones

On October 6, 2024, a little longer than six weeks since my total right knee replacement surgery, I ventured to Wheeler National Wildlife Refuge to gently explore Buckeye Impoundment, Blackwell Swamp, and Rockhouse Bottom by automobile and dirt road strolling. Not yet ready for woodland trail wandering, I welcomed the fresh air, seasonal transition signs, and diverse habitats of meadow, swamp, and Tennessee River.

Because the three ecological units are too much to stuff into a single photo essay, Blackwell Swamp and Rockhouse Bottom will serve as Part Two of my October 6 exploration.

Blackwell Swamp

A friend toured me in August 20, 2023 in his Cessna over the Wheeler National Wildlife Refuge. Here’s Blackwell Swamp from its south end looking into the hazy north. Until drafting this narrative I had not noticed that the swamp looks a lot like Florida’s penninsula.

A rough canoe launch on the southwest corner offers a viewpoint for the swamp’s southern extent. I can’t recall what manner of life I saw on this visit, but seldom have my viewings come up empty. Prior observations have included: bald eagle, osprey, barred owl, water snakes, turtles, lots of ducks, Canada geese, great blue herons, great egrets, green herons, and many songbirds.

Although early October, the swamp ecosystem was transitioning from summer to autumn. The entire period from September through April gradually shifts from early fall to spring. Winter is hardly a confirmed season of its own! After many years living in Upstate New York, New Hampshire, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Alaska, my winter frame of reference includes persistent cold periods, occasional snow, and deep dormancy. Early October in Fairbanks, AK begins its earnest winter; by mid-October the daily high seldom, then rarely, reaches freezing until after mid-March. Our winters in southeastern Virginia, Savannah, Georgia, and Auburn and Prattville, Alabama likewise delivered only a few days of real winter.

I recorded this 52-second video mid-morning on October 6, on a day that merely hinted at autumn temperatures, yet the summer sharpness is gone.

The Corps of Engineers, as it does across much of the refuge, maintains waterfowl habitat in Blackwell across all seasons. Otherwise, the swamp would be dry during this current period of drought. I have no expertise in wetland and pond ecology. I am a keen enough observer to notice that the swamp is increasingly vegetation bound. Is the condition terminal, eventually clogging, reducing open water, and shifting toward a marshland ecotype? Will the COE implement selective dredging to maintain open water? I see mystery and intrigue. I want to learn more.

Winter memories visiting bogs, fens, muskeg, beaver ponds, and wetland forests remain deeply embedded in my psyche. I loved the crunch, bitter cold, deep snows, and far away promise of spring. Harsh winters in those higher latitudes deterred travel, kept me near the fireplace, and disuaded me from venturing into wildness. Here in northern Alabama, our wildland winters beckon me, embrace me, and council me to offer reflections, make observations, snap photographs, and record videos, sharing the experience with other Nature enthusiasts.

Rockhouse Bottom

This view from Auguct 20, 2023 looks downstream on the Tennessee River toward Wheeler Dam. The gravel road meeting the river is the one dropping from Blackwell Swamp.

I stood at the river’s edge just 10 days after Helene’s ravaging floods devastated the Asheville, NC area. On October 1, 2024, I co-taught a section of a course on the Tennessee Valley, observing that the Tennessee River Basin encompassed the vast bulk of the area receiving 15-30-inches from Helene and its associated frontal deluge. One person “corrected” me, wrongly observing that Asheville was on the other side of the divide. Allow me a moment to state a truth that has stayed with me across my career in science…and beyond: A wise man knows the limit of his knowledge; a fool knows not his bounds. I know what I know. I employ these special zones of knowledge-certainty as my BS filters. If someone speaks in absolute terms (and is absolutely wrong) in an arena of my particular expertise, I judge all that they say with skepticism. Skepticism with evident repetition by the individual can develop to earn a designation as fool. Excuse my personal-irritant sidebar.

The river carried a heavy sediment load, the tremendous floodwaters already working their way to Huntsville, the peak modulated by the series of dams above us. I wonder what affect an equivalent storm would have had here 250 years ago.

I recorded this 60-second video of the Helene-laden Tennessee River:

This gentle stretch (upstream left) suggests none of the fury that altered landscapes, took lives, wrecked tomorrow just a few hundred miles upstream. However, even a fool can comprehend Nature’s supreme power. Yet, such events are not new. Judy and I celebrated our 50th wedding anniversary two summer’s ago in Asheville, NC. I recall gawking at the high water marks of an epic July 1916 flood resulting from remnants of a tropical storm. Perhaps we will someday learn that Nature seldom (if ever) loses, just as time and gravity are undefeated.

The same flooding that has rushed down this valley since the first raindrops fell on the rising Appalachians has blessed and replenished fields and floodplains like this one at Rockhouse Bottom bordering the river.

I enjoyed the dose of Nature’s Elixir delivered by my early October trip to Buckeye Impoundment, Blackwell Swamp, and Rockhouse Bottom!

Thoughts and Reflections

I offer these observations:

A wise man knows the limit of his knowledge; a fool knows not his bounds. (Steve Jones)
When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the Universe. (John Muir)
Oh, the magic, inspiration, awe, beauty, and wonder in having a 35,000-acre National Wildlife Refuge so close to home! (SJ, again)

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

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

Another Note: 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

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

January 21, 2025/in Updates /by Steve Jones

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

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

Flint Creek Bay

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Flint Creek Trail’s Riparian Forest

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

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

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

Special Woodland Treats

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

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

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

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

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

Glimpses of the Fungi Kingdom

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thoughts and Reflections

I offer these observations:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Vision:

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

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

Steve’s Four Books

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

I began writing books and Posts for several reasons:

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

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