Blue Ridge Discovery

2011-09-04T15:06:00.000-04:00

     Well, I haven't posted in a while, and that is just wrong. For those following, sorry!

Just going over my e-mail, and it looks like the Miami Blue Butterfly is going to be added to the Endangered Species List, and it will affect the Cassius Blue and others, as they look so similar. I sent a notice to the list where I received this telling members they better add this one to their collection before they're all gone. I hope to cause a firefight, as, you see, I have no use for collections of insects, and feel the collectors are just plain wrong. I feel the same way about trophy hunting.

      Not that I have anything against hunting, just trophy hunting; you are killing off your breeding stock. No farmer in this world would kill off his prize herd bull, but we do it every season by killing off "record breaking" deer, elk, moose, and what have you. And they wonder why there are so few record breakers in modern times. When you kill bucks with big antlers, you select against that trait, and select for smaller antlers (bucks with smaller antlers live, where the big boys get killed - smaller antlers live to get their genes to the next generation, while the big boys don't. Any other argument has little validity, and is just an excuse for trophy hunting.). Ask any Biologist. Oh, I am a Biologist! People who hunt for food, on the other hand, are hunting for the smaller, younger (and therefore less tough) specimens, and are leaving the bigger ones alone to breed and make healthy youngsters.
   Back to collecting. Same thing here. All the arguments with the notable exception of scientific research have little validity. One prominent group on the Internet (Yahoo Groups) has the motto "We cannot Protect What We Do Not Know". Another argument for collecting of moths and butterflies, and I say "horse apples" With modern photography and the ability to take close up photos of even genitalia, that argument ends in the scrap heap along with oology (collecting of bird's eggs) and plume hunting. And, yes, there are collectors who hunt butterflies commercially, to provide specimens to people who want to "fill out" their collections.

     Now, I figure that some of these folks would be just like the fellows in the early days of our country who collected birds and their eggs, and if it were legal, would happily collect them without a single thought or prick of conscience, and would argue loudly (and these butterfly and moth collectors do, flaming me mightily when I post my views on collecting) if we were to talk about outlawing it, but, alas, birds are protected for the most part by the North American Migratory Bird Treaty Act, and the hunting of game birds and waterfowl are tightly controlled. You see, market hunting (sort of like commercial butterfly and moth collectors) and egg collecting and specimen collection for people's drawing rooms, or even study skins (sort of like people's drawers full of butterflies) had cut many bird populations to almost nothing, forcing the US government in 1918 to step in and stop all of this, forming a treaty with Canada and (later) Mexico. Nothing, however, was ever done about collecting butterflies and their cousins the moths, which goes rolling along without a glitch, and these "responsible" collectors go out and teach young people how to do it, how to set up this once living stamp collection, and how to do it most effectively.

     Now, you see, what bothers me most is that these creatures are living, breathing entities, and people are killing them wantonly to make a pretty collection, in most cases before they even have a chance to breed, as they want "fresh" specimens. Older "worn" ones don't look so pretty, and thus hold less appeal. Of course, if you are good at collection, you will never have to see a worn one, as they won't have a chance to get that way.

     I hope this gives people a reason to think, and I hope they will think a little before attacking me. I do not see why we can't simply enjoy a living creature without the desire to catch it and add it to a collection.

Spring on the Parkway

2011-04-27T12:46:00.001-04:00

I finally managed a small trip North up the Parkway from Asheville. It was spur of the moment after visiting my mom at her temporary residence at a nursing facility. If you start out from US 25 from Biltmore Forest, you might see a few Birdfoot Violet, Viola pedata L. on the east road bank. From 70 north, I was able to see a number of wildflowers, including a few Flame Azalea, Rhododendron calendulaceum (Mich.) Torr. (called Wild Honeysuckle by the natives). A few white blooming shrubs can be seen on the rock face near the Haw Creek overlook, which look like Old Man's Beard, or White Fringe Tree, Chionanthus virginicus L. On the way up, it is easy to see little coves with Trillium carpeting the ground. I didn't get out to see what species, but suspect T. erectum L. or T. catesbaei Ell. Will try to get a better look later this week.

Notice that I use scientific names, and give the author of the name. The name is in italic, and the author of that plant's scientific name is after the italicized name, and is not italicized. When you see "L." as an author, it means that the person who named this plant is Carolus Linnaeus, the fellow who developed this naming system, called "binomial nomenclature", a way to classify living things which mostly avoids the confusion inherent in common names. "Michx." stands for Andre Michaux, a prominent French Botanist who did a lot of exploring around here, and "Torr." is for John Torrey, an American Botanist. Note that these are links, to articles on Wikipedia.

Also along this drive, I saw the Giant Chickweed, Stellaria pubera Michx., also called the Star Chickweed along the roadside and in the woods, and a the tiny Phacelia dubia (L.) Trel. all over the road verge, and seeming to grow right into the road. A look at the rock faces all over here reveals a number of other stress selected plants which I will have to go back to identify, along with a field notebook to keep notes; my 60 yo brain is not so absorptive as in former years.

I terminated my drive at Tanbark Ridge tunnel at BRP mile 374.4 where the Park Service has thoughtfully made some rough parking pullouts, and grabbed my stick from the back of the truck, and started to walk, west across the road and up the little creek there, flowing full and vigorous after all the rain we have had this spring. I was struck first by the Dwarf Crested Iris, Iris cristata Aiton, which lines this trail and stream as far as I could see. A few photos with my cell phone was all I could do, as I left my camera at home. First is a bed of Iris on the trail next to the stream:

Next is a photo of a violet near a fallen log. This one looks like the common violet that is in everybody's lawn, but I think it is another species; will have to take a book next time:

And finally, the stream itself, which I promise, you dear reader and myself, to get a better photo in the future:

The time for these spring flowers is no later than this weekend. I have seen people call these flowers "spring ephemerals", and this is exactly right; in no more than a week they are gone, not to be seen for another year. In fact, the whole cadre of spring flowers is like that, from the Bloodroot, which is one of the first, to the Mayapple, which is one of the last. In a couple of weeks, the hills will be a lush green with just a few things flowering, and you will have to look hard for them.

I will give a further report on this drive, as I hope to have more time and a few nice days. Keep looking, and come back and see us!

Red Maple, or, The Tree that Lives Everywhere.

2011-04-05T20:16:00.000-04:00

The Red Maple isn't my favorite native North Carolina tree, I guess; that distinction is reserved for trees like the Sarvice (Appalachian Serviceberry), the Fraser Magnolia, and the lovely cousin of the mysterious and achingly beautiful "Lost Gordonia" or Franklin's Tree, the Loblolly Bay, which is lovely in its own right. No, the Red Maple might not be my favorite, but it has to be in the top five, since it is the first harbinger of Spring in my home land of the Southern Appalachians, lives throughout this state of my home, North Carolina, and puts on a color show from around St. Valentine's day throughout around May, and then puts on the earliest color of all the trees in the forest, except for the Sourwood and Black Gum, though it is not far behind them at all.

Now, if you look at the year as most of us do, we see the year starting in winter time; here in the West we see it starting shortly after Winter Solstice at New Year; some of us attuned to the Natural World see it as starting at Solstice itself. At any rate, the Red Maple starts its year when most other trees are still asleep, and just after the Groundhog has looked out at his shadowy world, and gone back to sleep. No matter. The Red Maple has a schedule, and no furry rodent with narcolepsy is going to deter it. She starts out with tiny red flowers around February 14 (the "real" Groundhog day according to some "Old Timers", or is the "real" St. Valentine's day on February 2? Ah well...), a tiny pulse of life heralding Spring in an otherwise drab world, a tiny show of color that though lost in the gray of Winter, is still sweet points of ruby light in the sombre surroundings.

This is the female flower; they have both male and female flowers, usually on different trees, though they can both appear on one tree.

This photo of a male flower by Elaine Haug @ USDA-NRCS PLANTS Database and is used with permission.

A Red Maple in bloom in the early part of the year is a very understated and sedate tree. Here is a picture of a pair of Red Maples framing the famous Swannanoa Tunnel near Ridgecrest NC.

The show can come later, when the female flowers have turned to fruit, and are nice and red, though the male trees have turned gray again, as their flowers have dropped. Here is a tree near an old house in the country.

This is a tree getting on into April, and the show has begun with all the other trees now too, so a Red Maple might not stand out, what with the Redbud, Serviceberry and Dogwood, but they hold their own, and in some years, like this one, can really put on a show as can be seen here along the Swannanoa River on the opening day of trout season, a day which should be a National holiday!

As you can see, the one in the foreground is joined by many of her sisters on the other side of the river.

Once the leaves come out, the tree then sheds its seeds, these tiny little helicopters that are wonderfully aerodynamic, floating everywhere, and begin to grow leaves in a big hurry, The leaves are typical Maple leaves, usually with three lobes, but often with five. There is so much variation in the species that it was often described by Botanists as a new species, and many subspecies are described that are probably just representative of great variation in the species. In the Autumn, however, is when the Red Maple gets radical. I don't have a great many ohotos of the colors of Red Maple in Autumn, but I will put them up when I find them.

Now, as for why I say it lives everywhere. This little tree is not a big component of any forest type here in North Carolina, or anywhere, for that matter. You will hear of a typical Southeastern Oak - Hickory forest, a Beech - Maple (Sugar Maple), a Spruce - Fir Forest, a Bottomland Hardwood forest, and all types of forests, but none are specifically Red Maple, but I will just about guarantee that the Red Maple is in all of them. Start out at the coast, with the Maritime forest, with the Live Oak, Bluejack Oak, Yaupon Holly and Wax Myrtle, and somewhere in there is Red Maple. Move inland, to the great Pine Savannahs and their attendant Pocosins. In the middle of both you will find the Red Maple, growing right next to the Longleaf Pine, in the savannahs, and with the Loblolly Bay in the pocosin. Check out the Cypress and Tupelo Gum Swamp. Right there, growing with the great Bald Cypress, with fluted and buttressed trunks, just like the Cypress, you will find the Red Maple, with its feet in the water, just like the Cypress and the Tupelo; I would not be in the least surprised if it made "knees" like the Cypress! Moving on in, to the Piedmont, the great pine forests maintained by the pulp producers, and the Red Maple is there growing amidst the Loblolly Pines, and in the forests that are left to be the typical Piedmont Hardwood forest, they are everywhere, right along with the great White, Red, Post and Black Oaks.

Now for the fun part. Much of our Mountain forest are simply an upland form of the Southern Hardwood forest, and of course, Red Maple is there. In the north facing coves, we have the Cove Association, with a host of different trees, particularly the Fraser and Cucumber Magnolias, Yellow Birch, Buckeye, and of course, Red Maple. Move on up, into the Beech Gaps which can be seen around Craggy Gardens, and you will find Red Maple. Go to the "Flag Forests", forests on the ridges of the Blue Ridge Parkway, as in Craggy Gardens, where the trees, such as Yellow Birch, Mountain Ash and others are flag formed from the pounding of the wind, and there, flag formed with the best of them are the Red Maple. Find yourself a Hemlock grove, something that will become rare in the future due to the Adelgid, and right in there with the understory of Spicebush, Ironwood, and with the occasional TulipTree in the grove is certain to be a Red Maple. And finally, go up to the tallest of our peaks, the more than mile high ones like Clingman's Dome, Mount Mitchell and Waterrock Knob. There you will find the Spruce and Fir association for which these mountains are famous. You will also find the Fire Cherry, maybe a Yellow Birch or two, and of course, the Red Maple.

So, you see, whereever you go in North Carolina, you are likely to see a Red Maple. If you look at a county distribution map for Red Maple in North Carolina, you will see very few counties which do NOT have it, and I would almost bet that if you pokes around in those counties long enough, you could almost certainly find it. It, at least in North Carolina (and I suspect in South Carolina) is truly ubiquitous, thus earning my name of "The Tree That Grows Everywhere (at least in North Carolina)!

The Hillbilly's Thermometer

2011-01-23T16:22:00.000-05:00

I haven't been posting much, and am sorry for that, but this cold weather has reminded me of the Hillbilly's thermometer.
Years ago I was attending NC State University and a fellow from the Coast was griping about the cold weather he was experiencing there in the middle of the state - in his home, south of Wilmington, the weather is moderated somewhat by the Gulf Stream - and made an observation that thermometers told you nothing but a number, which, for him at least, was somewhat abstract. He said "somebody ought to come up with a thermometer that reads 'cool, cold, awful cold, darn cold, mighty darn cold, and cold as heck'". These were not the exact words he used, but you get the drift. After thinking a few minutes, I remarked that we did indeed have such a thermometer in my home in the Western North Carolina Mountains. Upon getting incredulous looks from all involved, I began to explain...

This is the flower of the thermometer, a type of Rhododendron, the Great or Rosebay Rhododendron, taken at the Sunburst Picnic Area, Pisgah National Forest, Haywood County NC. Be careful when you come to the North Carolina Mountains and ask where to see Rhododendron; many of the natives, especially the older ones will send you to the high mountain balds of the Craggies, looking for the Purple or Catawba Rhodendron, which is not as good a thermometer, though it has gorgeous flowers around late May or early June;no, they call this one Mountain Laurel or just Laurel, which is confusing, because there is another shrub with this name, which they call Ivy or Mountain Ivy. Confused yet? These live at all elevations of the Mountains, and often people have them in their back yards. They often live right along their confusing namesake, the Mountain Laurel, which is a very different shrub.

The Great Rhododendron has afforded the Southern Mountaineer a cold weather thermometer for generations, and I will tell you how; you see, the leaves curl when the air gets cold. When it's warm, above 50 degrees, the leaves all are held out at right angles to the twig.

When it gets cool, around 40°F, they start to droop, like this, and when it gets to about 30...

The curl a little. This is cold. When it gets pretty cold, around 25°...

why they curl even more. When it gets darn cold, around 10°F, they will be curled nice and tight to the twig, and as it gets to mighty darn cold and colder than heck, they just curl tighter, until about 0°F, when they won't curl much tighter. I will try to get some photos of this phenomenon this week, just look for an update.

Not only is this tree good for a thermometer, it has lovely blooms on it starting around mid summer, and the leaves have been used to make a gray dye that was used for Confederate uniforms in the American Civil War. The twigs make the best whimmydiddles (Whimmydiddle), and I have seen the limbs used as paper holders and other things in a mountain lodge.
So, if you live in the mountains, or anywhere the Great Rhododendron lives, check it out. You can throw that confusing digital thermometer away!

Evolution, philosophy, and religion.

2010-11-30T15:02:00.002-05:00

I was castigated by a person in several religions yesterday for my vitriolic criticism of a Creationist. How curious. His Scripture was from Matthew 7: 1-5, and mine was from Matthew 7: 16-20. I do indeed see most Creationists as bearing evil fruit, and I will attempt to tell you why. Understand here that I am not a truly erudite person, nor truly an Intellectual, thus have trouble marshaling my thoughts, and difficulty sometimes putting thought to page, but I will do my best.

In this Creation vs. Evolution debate, I am simply stymied. I was teaching a high school class once, and a young girl told me I couldn't teach her Evolution, due to some law of which I had never heard nor was made aware. I told her that as I was not trying to establish a religion with this teaching, which is the core of modern Biology, I didn't see why I couldn't. She told me that her mother told her, and her preacher confirmed it. Well, Reverend, I am sorry, but even a Bush appointed knee jerk right wing activist Supreme Court had to disagree with you and said that teaching Creationism or even Intelligent Design was actually "establishing religion" (see the First Amendment to the United States Constitution).

My aggravation with Creationists is well known to my friends, and I have never quite understood their shrillness, because Evolution is NOT challenging anyone's religion, and if anyone's religion is so fragile that it can't stand up to modern science, well, it might be time to examine that religion. This is the rub, I think; they see it as a challenge to their religion, something that might make their religion not look so true, and they have to fight back tooth and nail, even in some cases with actual physical violence. I don't think this squares with Jesus' teachings.

Folks, Darwin had nothing against religion. Though he did lose much of his faith after his daughter died, he was never an Atheist, and his ideas have nothing to do with being against religion. Unfortunately, some modern scholars are in fact Athiests, and trumpet it loudly; there is no need for this, as Stephen Jay Gould suggested in his idea of Non-overlapping magisteria. Using science to deny the existence of a deity or deities is facile and specious, and there is no need for it. I find it stupid. Taking evolution and trying to say "there is no God" is just totally ridiculous, and shows a lack of reason in my opinion.

Now, for a little of my philosophy, with some of my experiences.

First, "Creation Science" is an oxymoron. There is no science about it. In any scientific investigation, you take observed data and form an hypothesis. If the data fits the hypothesis, and the hypothesis holds up to further exploration, then you have a theory. Note that one of the "Creation Science" arguments is "it's only a theory". Yeah? What is "Creation Science" but a theory, and not a very sound one at that. Next, if everything works out, your theory becomes part of the modern body of science, like Newton's theory (now a "law), Einstein's theory of Relativity, and others. What these people did was take observable phenomena, gather them together, and form an idea of what happened. You find a bunch of fossils of animals that do not live on Earth any more, you see closely related finches on a series of islands that obviously had a common ancestor, what do you do? You say "Hmmm. These dead critters tell me that animals lived that don't any longer, and these finches tell me that a common ancestor must have lived in the past, and no longer does. Thus, a "theory" (later supported by much research and fact) is born.

What does "Creation Science" do? Well, they look at the facts, say "well, this had only 6000 years to have happened, so these finches were created on day 3, (Tuesday?), and these fossils are animals that Noah happened to forget, and were buried in the mud. Oh, and look, I know the arguments; I was raised a Southern (Hard Shell) Baptist. The Colorado River and Grand Canyon were a product of the runoff from The Flood, and happened in only a short time. (Um, what happened to all that water that covered the Earth? Where did it go?)

Now, imagine an episode of CSI, and see Grissom telling his team not to make an hypothesis with incomplete data. The scientific idea is that you take the data, and make your hypothesis. "Creation Science" does this backward. They go from the premise that the Earth was created 6000 years ago (see: Bishop Ussher), and mash the facts to fit that. How is that scientific?

It seems that these Creationists have been infiltrating serious scientific groups, mainly on Yahoo, but all over (I have seen them on the Carnivorous Plants group), and when anything is said about Evolution, they jump on it as a hawk on a chicken, telling why evolution could not have happened, and offering up "facts" that uphold their "theory", and being totally disrespectful to anyone who does not agree with their junk. They hold forth these :facts", say it has nothing to do with religion, but is based in fact (never mind that their "Creation Science is based on Genesis from the Holy Bible, and not from any other creation myth), and there is no religion in it. However, they never fail to tell you how Jesus has made a change in their life, has sent them visions, signs, and prophesies, and start "witnessing" to you, right after they tell you that "Creation Science" is not about religion. Here I direct you to the ninth commandment about bearing false witness. One lady told me her husband was an agnostic, and believed "Creation Science" for years before he "accepted Christ as his savior". Yeah, I rest my case.

I have nothing against Jesus, don't get that idea. I have a lot against people who claim to follow Him. I often wonder if they are really following Him, or following someone else that they think is Him. Much evil has been done in Jesus' name, and people will threaten to kill you for deviating from their idea of Christianity, which is why, though a follower of Christ's teachings, I hesitate to call myself a Christian.Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols were Christians (McVeigh was a lapsed one it seems), as is Eric Rudolph, and the guy that killed Dr. Tiller (Roeder). Bill O'Reilly is also responsible for Tiller's death (his rabble rousing led directly to this killing), as are many "Christians" who consider the killing of abortion doctors "justifiable homicide". (Who are you really following, huh? Matthew 26:52.)

I am a very spiritual person, and have rather strong beliefs, and still can see how majestic the unfolding of our Universe is without having to believe in a creation that happened only 6000 years ago. To envision a Universe that is impossibly old, and a mechanism for the evolution of species that is elegant and messy at the same time, and the laws (gravity etc.) that run it, gives me a sense of awe that I never had when growing up in the Creationist ideas of the Baptist Church.

I will write more on this as I think about it.

Early Autumn Colors

2010-10-14T18:34:00.000-04:00

Early Autumn is that time before the main colors even start, when only a few things have turned, and are often overlooked for the more spectacular displays of later in October. I am sure that there are some spectacular colors further north around Boone and Blowing Rock, especially along the Parkway, at higher elevations, but things have just started here in Asheville at about 2000 feet.

One of my favorites is the Virginia Creeper, a vine often confused with Poison Ivy or Poison Oak. This one is from my mom's back yard in Asheville. I don't, unfortunately, have a back yard to speak of, as the Universe (God, The Goddess, The Cosmos, whatever you call It) has not seen fit to grace me with land, though I ask for it often. After seeing colors out my kitchen window, shown here, of a couple of Black Gun trees showing bright red, below,

I decided to go out in my tiny back yard and see what might seen from it. I discovered a lovely show of Virginia Creeper and Poison Ivy on a neighbor's White Pine, and got a couple of shots of that.

Note that the Virginia Creeper is red, while the Poison Ivy is mostly yellow or orange, with red highlights. Also, Virginia Creeper has five leaflets, and Poison Ivy has three. Both these vines are important food sources for birds, as the Virginia Creeper has tiny grape-like fruit, seen below,

and the Poison Ivy (also called Poison Oak) has white berries that are tasty to birds. Many people are highly sensitive to Poison Ivy; this is not really an allergy, as people seem to think, but a response to the toxic oil, which causes contact dermatitis. Some people are highly sensitive to it, and others, like myself, have no sensitivity whatever. Some claim that Native American blood is a factor, but I cannot say for sure.

This little bit of color seen from my back yard pushed me to get out and see what was going on near my house, so I got in the old Ford (mistake!) and started out, stalling out with a dead battery in mid trip.

I went poking around on the banks of the Swannanoa River at Recreation Park, and I did get some nice flower photos of some favorites, among them the Purple Aster, which I am extraordinarily fond of for some reason.

I also got a few shots of other late bloomers like the Knotweed,

which is a member of the Buckwheat family, and speaking of Buckwheat, I also saw a Climbing Buckwheat intertwined with this Knotweed (also called Smartweed) nearby.

Both these plants have a seed inside the coating that is very like Buckwheat seeds (called groats), that are very similar in taste to Buckwheat, and can be ground into flour.

While poking around on the river bank I found the Seed Box, sometimes called Water Willow (which is a name for another plant found here that blooms in mid summer), and got a not so good photo of it.

I also saw my old friend the Woolgrass. Once upon a time when I was a Botanist, I concentrated my studies on the Sedge family (Cyperaceae), and this is not a grass, but a Bulrush, a relative of the Papyrus Bulrush, which the Jewish leader Moses made famous when his mother hid him in a basket amongst them for the Egyptian princess to find.

Here is a shot of the Woolgrass in front of the outflow of the old Lake Craig dam.

And another favorite, the seed of the "Hearts-a-Bustin' shrub, found weekend before last in Hendersonville on a birding field trip.

So, if you are in the Southern Blue Ridge around Asheville this weekend, absolutely go on the Parkway and see the colors, but don't forget to look around and see the beauty of the late blooming fall flowers and the early turning colors.

NRA and their political agenda

2010-06-20T15:19:00.000-04:00

I actually in some ways like the NRA, but they are just too political, too right wing, and I abhor that. Why do they have to be like that? They are just cutting their own throats by being so hard and reactionary. Plus, many people who would otherwise support them will and can not, due to their pandering to the extreme right wing of our society.
I myself am a gun owner, love to shoot, enjoy hunting on occasion (not a trophy hunter - I disagree with killing your brood stock), but cannot in any sort of conscience vote for any Republican candidate on any ballot today. I have heard "vote for the man (person), not the party, but anyone who runs on the Republican ticket today is a Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Glen Beck clone that has no regard for poor people, the struggling (and disappearing) middle class, the jobless, or any social problems of our day, and have as their goal "stop spending" (get rid of social programs, such as "entitlements", that help the poor), "take our country back" (from people like you and me, and place it in the hands of corporate religious wackos), and "put God back in government (read your First Amendment asshole - it is every bit as important as the Second!). I cannot support any of this, so when the NRA sends me their membership stuff, I promptly recycle it.

Now, for those of you in the NRA who will almost certainly not read any of my thoughts, why can you not reach out to Democrats? Many of us support gun ownership, in fact our President (a Liberal African American OH MY GOD!!!) signed into law a bill allowing us to carry sidearms on National Parks in accordance with state laws. Wow. He also stated that the DC gun law was not constitutional - he is, after all, a Constitutional scholar.

If you could reach out to Democrats, instead of calling them names, talk sense to them instead of yelling at them, make friends of them instead of enemies, you would preserve the Second Amendment essentially forever. Otherwise, as people begin to move away from this far right, religious, corporate, hate filled party, and try to embrace some sort of equality (and, no, we don't have any sort of equality in the US today, no matter what the Declaration says) amongst its citizens, the far right will be seen as the lunatic fringe, who only want guns to hunt down people of color, overthrow the government, and kill anyone who disagrees with them.

I actually found a link to the Liberal Gun Club, a club that is actually for people like me! I urge anyone who is a Liberal, Progressive, Democrat, Social Democrat, Democratic Socialist, or however Liberal you might be. To paraphrase a Woody Guthrie song, 'this gun club was made for you and me!"

Please, gun owners. Do not go into the political arena and scream hatred at people who are afraid of guns. You just scare them more. Educate them, don't scare them. Cite references where a legal and honest gun owner has saved her or himself from certain harm or death by having a gun. Show them how a person can have a gun in their house safely and never hurt another person with it. Show them how ammunition is perfectly safe to store. Show them the story of a man who shot the bear who was charging his companion (I would have done the same), and lived to tell the tale. And then show the stories of the many people who simply did not survive the encounter.

Memorial Day

2010-06-04T16:03:00.000-04:00

I lived during the Vietnam era, and had friends who hated the war and all it stood for (as did I), and friends who served in the US Military in Vietnam. I respected both, and even have respect for people who went to Canada in protest, rather than fight in a war with which they did not agree. I did not serve (asthma, allergies, etc.), but had enormous respect for those who did, and I stood up to my fellow Hippies (I was a wannabe - I never did drugs, didn't engage in free love, and couldn't play a guitar :-P ) who spat on them and called them baby killers. I befriended numerous veterans when I was in college, and listened to their stories of horror.

Even if you don't agree with what they do, respect them for it, and for their duty. I have felt for years that Hanoi Jane should have been prosecuted for treason; the boys in the Hanoi Hilton were NOT treated well Jane - look at John McCain's face (and, no, I don't agree with his politics, but highly respect and admire his sacrifice and service), and think that anyone who went to Hanoi, hobnobbed with Ho Chi Minh, and went on national television in his favor was and is despicable. You might be a Socialist, but by God, you are an American first. Though I cannot agree with the Iraq war, our men and women should know (and should have known in Vietnam!) that we support, love and respect them, and want them home ASAP. Though I disagreed with the Vietnam war, disagree with the Iraq war, agree with the Afghanistan war (I feel the Taleban and Al Qaida should be completely destroyed), whatever my feelings or politics, when I see a member of any service, be it Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corp, or USCG, I salute them (even though I am a civilian - I hope that is OK), and shake their hands, and say "thank you for your service", and ANY AMERICAN SHOULD TOO!!! Whatever your politics, religion, social status, race, creed or color, this is the least you can do for them.

Conservatives

2010-04-23T14:34:00.000-04:00

I have been accused of offending a "Conservative". Oh dear.

I am mightily offended by political conservatives, and quite often. They did not in the least mind Dubyah, Daddy Bush and Ronnie Ray Gun cutting taxes for the wealthiest of Americans (in the hopes that they will trickle down - they, however, did not get rich by trickling money to poor people), and said nothing as the Savings and Loan scandal erupted (a crooked economist's wet dream - give the good debts to the rich folks, and the bad debts, well let the tax payers pay them off!), or when Dubyah did the first bailout before he bailed out of office, and bitching and moaning about "entitlements" ( a right wing code word), and "how our taxes are spent", when people in the richest country in the world people are going hungry and are living on or below the poverty line (including me, but in a bitter racist comment, I am the wrong color and sex, and can speak English, so I can get no help - I am not often racist, but I hate illegal immigration. They can get so much help, and I can get none, and was born here! Dammit!). Too often the Conservatives simply want the poor people to die, and do not in the least want to help them, the people who need help the most. They only want to cut programs, especially "entitlements" (Welfare, Medicaid, Unemployment, even Social Security and Medicare), and anything that helps poor people (especially "niggers and spicks"), and especially "welfare queens".

Oh, and the "Conservatives", a group who should supposedly be looking after our rights, did nothing when their fair haired boy Dubyah passed the Patriot Act, one of the worst abrogations of our rights as Americans ever perpetrated upon an unsuspecting nation, in the guise of "security". I will let you look up what one of our Founders said about liberty and security.

The modern so called "Conservative" is really in fact not at all conservative, but a laissez faire type of economic and political type, that believes (naively, maybe, at least I hope) that big industry and the stock market can regulate itself, that social problems can be cured by taking away funding (oh really? How would you combat poverty then? No answer.), that health care is just fine in the US (give me a break, and don't say the Republicans have a plan. Theirs is to die early, so you don't get too far in debt. Their answer is simply "No".), that all our violence can be cured by having prayer in public schools (you get all hot about the Second Amendment, but conveniently forget the first sort of guaranteed us religious freedom, and that includes freedom *from* it, or having it pushed upon us by a representative of a school that is run by a government body. And, yes, I own guns, and rabidly support the Second Amendment.), and I can go on.

I am also a rural Southerner. I have seen the industry dry up here, not due to "gubmint reg'lation", but to jobs shipped by the truck load (maybe train load) to China. I watched as a surplus under that old devil Clinton was turned into a deficit under the Bush Crime Family, where two wars were started, one righteous, but with no exit strategy, and another wholly illegal, with lingering questions of treason, where deregulation of the financial markets led to a melt down of our economy that has not been seen since the Great Depression (oops! Happened under Hoover, a Republican, and a Democrat, often demonized by the Right, got us out of it), and where unemployment went rampant in part due to jobs shipped to China (our greatest ideological enemy, and should NEVER have been a trading partner, much less "Most Favored Nation").

2010-03-26T19:33:00.002-04:00

It seems that there are two sides on this health care thing, and each side wants to "Take Back America" from the other side. Honestly, I think that some of the people who advocate violence against people who voted in favor of what has been done in the name of the poor and underprivileged and are asking for violence, are probably mistaken in who they think they are following.

Does Jesus preach hate? No! Who does? Who are you really following? Matthew 5:43

Did Jesus hate the poor, and tell us to reject them? NO! Luke 4:18-19 Who are you really following?

Did Jesus tell us to reject paying taxes? NO! Matthew 17:24-27 and Matthew 22:15-22, Mark 12:13-17 and Luke 20:20-26. Plus Paul (I have lots of problems with Paul, but lots of people put the same faith in Paul as they do in Jesus, so here goes) said in Romans 13:1 "Everyone must submit himself to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been *established by God*." and in Romans 13:2 he says "Consequently, he who rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves." and then in Romans 13:5-7 goes on to say "Therefore, it is necessary to submit to the authorities, not only because of possible punishment but also because of conscience. This is also why you pay taxes, for the authorities are God's servants, who give their full time to governing. Give everyone what you owe him: If you owe taxes, pay taxes; if revenue, then revenue; if respect, then respect; if honor, then honor.

Looks like the Book has something to say about this. I just wonder who some of these people are following. From Biblical reference, they CAN'T be following Jesus or God Almighty, so who does that leave...?

Check out II Corinthians 11:13

Who quoted the Psalm to Jesus in Luke 4? You need to look around, for it looks like this being knows Scripture, and can twist them to his ways. People too.

I think I will pray for these people. The lawfully governed United States, long may she live, does not need my prayers. Looks like from reading Scripture, God is on her side.

Guns in the National Parks

2010-02-24T13:41:00.000-05:00

OH NO!! GUNS IN THE NATIONAL PARKS! THE BLOODSHED, THE HORROR!!!

Can you see the headlines? They're already out there. They are absolutely without basis, and are frankly stupid. I think our President, a good Liberal, thought long and hard before signing this into law.

I too am a Liberal, though maybe a little to the Left of the President. I believe firmly in health care for all; I think it is something that should be a part of the rights of a citizen. I believe in most of the agenda of the Liberal wing of the Democcratic party except gun control, and I feel that a true Liberal needs to understand that this right, placed in The Bill of Rights, is part of the Liberty (notice the similarity between Liberal and Liberty) fought for by the Founding Fathers (and Mothers, for that matter), and guaranteed to us by the Constitution of the United States, is fundamental to who we are, and the concept of Liberty, particularly that a person has the right to protect themselves, their homes and family.

Now, I remember when Newt Gingrich took over the House of Representatives in 1995. A good bit of that was because Congress passed the Assault Weapons Ban and the Brady act in 1993 and 1994. Both acts had some common sense provisions, particularly the Brady Bill's background check, but both went over the top to assuage the unreasoning hate some "Liberals" had for guns in general. Both lost us the House in the '94 election, and we did not get it back until Mr. Obama brought sweeping change (supposedly; I have yet to see any, particularly on health care) in 2009.

Folks, a gun is not some evil thing that will automagically change an honest citizen into a rampaging bloodthirsty sociopath when he or she touches one!!! It is a tool, same as the tools people find in old fallow fields around here when they go out looking for arrow heads and spear points, and have the same functions. They are used for hunting, target shooting, plinking, killing vermin (wharf rats are a good target), personal protection, and unfortunately, all of our children in the Military are issued one with which to kill the enemies of our land. They are NOT inherently evil, nor will they make the holder so. If you believe this, you have been badly misinformed, and are thinking with emotions, not your brain. An honest, mild-mannered person is not going to change when they are carrying a gun; they are not going to go rabid and shoot you. They are liable to be more mild-mannered; pulling a gun on someone is a life changing experience, and you don't want to do it unless under extreme provocation, and your life is threatened. Once you do that, there is no way back, even if you are exonerated. The responsibility tends to make one cautious; i know many people who have permits and do not carry, because of the responsibility.

Now, in this state, a person carrying a gun in a park, especially a public area is not going to be obvious, due to the concealed carry law. The gun must be concealed from the public. Carrying a gun in the open in public can (but not always) open you up to an obscure law, "carrying a gun to the terror of the public", and you can be arrested for openly carrying. It is up to the law enforcement officer and the judge who hears the case.

Anyway, I feel that that poor couple who were killed by Gary Michael Hilton may have been able to repel him and get the law on him if either of them were armed. This predatory behavior of sociopaths and ruffians has been going on for some time in our National Parks - I remember when a female hiker on the Appalachian Trail was held by a psychopath and abused after he killed her boyfriend with a gun he was carrying illegally!!

So, am I worried about people being given a pass to carry a weapon on the National Parks? No. Not as long as I have the right also.

Note; though I am a Liberal, and somewhere between a Social Democrat and a Democratic Socialist (and no, I am not a Communist), I do own guns, I do shoot occasionally, and sometimes hunt (with indifferent success).

Banned from Carolina Rails Yahoo List

2010-02-14T10:51:00.000-05:00

Ah yes, I got myself banned from the Carolina Rails group for speaking my mind. Yes, I was feeding a troll, and yes, I was trading abuse for abuse. These last three years have been difficult, and I get emotional easily. Really no excuse, but...

One of the group members posted a news story about some students at UNC Chapel Hill marching against the use of coal in their physical plant, since coal is a significant polluter of our air. I realize that many of our railroads haul coal for most of their revenues, especially Norfolk Southern, which runs right through my home town. I also know that this coal gives many of a railroad man, including my dad, when he was working for NS,, and in now, retirement, my mom since my dad is gone, a good living. But, coal is dirty, it ruins mountains when strip mined, and ruins mountains when the acid rain and fog comes through.

An aside here; there is really no such thing as "clean Coal" technology, as much as the President wants to believe in it. Coal throws tons of CO2 into the atmosphere, furthering global warming. And if you don't "believe in" global warming, I feel terribly sorry for you. They're having to haul snow into Vancouver, for God's sake!

Well, some blowhard came on talking about how we shouldn't worry about that, that people did horrible things to each other, crimes, rape, murder, child abuse, and the damned Liberals are worried about a few trees, that we were all a bunch of crybabies, and should be lined up and shot, or some such. (Maybe not shot, but the feeling was there.) He apologized in advance for "letting his fingers get away from him", saying he hoped nobody was offended, but he felt it "had to be said". Well, I was offended, and I told him so, and since he wrote the message to the whole group, I wrote my reply to the whole group, feeling it "had to be said", and a nice little flame war erupted between me and a right wing knee-jerk jackass. (Or two maybe, I don't know.) Anyway, it went on until I replied that he shouldn't ought to say such nasty things (he had resorted to cussing here), and I was an ordained minister and didn't appreciate it; actually, I did say a few nasty things, and did put in a few bad words, just leaving out letters. Ah well. Anyway, I was summarily banned from this group and this jackass wasn't!!!

If this wasn't a real humdinger already, I got a very sanctimonious letter from a preacher who said I shouldn't post bad words, even if I left letters out (he is right I shouldn't, and I stand corrected), and I should apologize to the moderator (I did), and this Glenn Beck/Rush Limbaugh clone who was abusive and actually threatening (I'll be Damned, and I won't leave any letters out!!), and proceeded to quote me something from Thessalonians, one of Paul's letters to one of his fractious churches. I wrote him back a nice letter, saying how I understood his concern (though it really wasn't any of his business), and would take it under advisement, but please don't quote Paul at me, as, in my book, Paul was a zealot and a firebrand, and wasn't in any way a Messiah, and a lot of his writing directly contradicted Jesus' teachings, who Christians ought to be following and quoting anyway. I actually quoted a few of Jesus' sayings back to him. When he got into Original Sin, I told him I wasn't too sure of that, and he hasn't written me back. Obviously, this minister is one of those people who believe in the total inerrancy of Scripture, which I cannot(including Adam and Eve, and Adam's sin), for a number of reasons. (One of them is that I am a Scientist...) Curiously, he hasn't written me back.

Ah well, I just wanted to share this with people. This moderator, in my not so humble opinion, was simply not doing his job, and still isn't. If anybody writes to him on my behalf, please be nice, and please do NOT be abusive, threatening, or preachy, just tell him that you support me in my rebuttal to this troll, and to please do a better job of fairly moderating a group.

I have taken my ball and bat and gone home, and doubt I will ever be a member of this group again. I went and started my own called Rails of the Southeast, and will do the same thing, only will be firmly moderated. If somebody wants to start a flame war, I will just moderate their posts. If they keep it up, I will cut off their posting privileges until they get over it. I won't ban anyone unless they directly threaten me.

I just had to say this, it "just had to be said".

Golfed out

2009-12-02T19:41:00.001-05:00

I am about out of patience with the young golfer (who shall remain nameless) who is having family troubles. I am about tired of a country that can make its sports figures multimillionaires, and its teachers and professors paupers.

I used to respect this young man for his supposedly mixed heritage, his determination and seeming wholesomeness, but it looks like fame and riches have corrupted him.

The first thing I was disturbed about was his support and involvement in a golf course and country club that has been tearing the hell out of mountainsides near Swannanoa NC, and making a nasty scar on formerly pristine mountains. Posters of him looking out over mountains and asking rich folks to look at what inspired him sprung up on roadsides here, and made me mad.

Son, we don't need another d___ed golf course!!!!! We simply don't. Golf courses are nothing but an ecological wasteland, with monoculture fairways and greens, and trees that are "sick" or "dying" taken out, leaving no habitat for many hole nesting birds. These greens are poisoned to keep out Japanese Beetles (and thus moles), fertilized with stuff that artificially increases growth, liberally laced with herbicide to keep out any "unwanted" plants, and planted with plants and trees that have never grown in this place, and often escape to become weeds. We just don't need another one. Oh, and you rich Yankees and Floridiots, go back to New York. We just won't do things the way you like it done here, and we are an independent people, and make rotten servants. Which is what you will want when you get this gated, exclusive "community" built. Servants. You certainly don't want these Hillbillies playing golf next to you, or (GASP!!!) living next to you.

Son, from a person of moderate background, you have gotten into the stratosphere because of golf. These whitebread golf types you are pandering this ecological disaster to would not give you the sweat off their... uh necks if you weren't stinking rich, and wouldn't pee on your "Cablinasian" butt if it were on fire except for your millions. They will only use you as long as you make them money, and they will drop you.

I would like to make a suggestion to you. Why don't you use some of these millions you have to help environmental causes, help the homeless, help hungry people in your own country. We just don't need another ecological disaster playground for the stinking rich here in Western North Carolina, though I am sure we are going to get one.

Just my two cents.
End of rant.
Off of soap box.

My Views on Food and Animals

2009-09-23T17:28:00.000-04:00

I see so much these days about people boycotting this and that, and people trying to pass laws that adhere to their (sometimes narrow) views about ethical animal treatment. Some of these I agree with, like the brave people who are shown on "Whale Wars". Others I am ambivalent about, like the people who march in front of furrier shops. And still others make me absolutely mad enough to bite nails and spit Rebar, like Vegans and Veggie Nazis telling me how and what I should eat. There are a couple of these who post to a local free newspaper, and their growling, whining and mumbling about forcing our school children to eat a Vegan diet in school finally got to me, and I wrote in. Of course, I got flamed, and one person held these idiots up as saints, for all the stuff they had done to promote Vegetarianism in our area, and the "sacrifices" they had made in this cause. Never mind that I have been promoting the love of Nature for years. Never mind that I have spent a majority of my life teaching Environmental Education, and teaching people of all ages to love Nature, and protect Her in any way possible.
Many of the people the New Age people claim to love are the so called "Native Americans", who actually, if you don't know their Tribal or National affiliation, prefer to be called Indians. Many of these groups produced men and women of great Spiritual acuity, and they ate many kinds of animals, including Bison and deer. All these wannabe veggies and vegans go nuts over "Native Americans", but sort of slide right over the facts that they ate (and still for the most part eat) many species of wild game that these people hold in absolute reverence. If pressed, they will say "well, that is their tradition". Bull feathers. It is my tradition too. My grandfather fed his family during the Great Depression with a shotgun, and I was taught to hunt by my mother's brother. These people will say "we are more conscious than that". Than what? Is the Cougar any less conscious than we when she drops out of the tree and breaks the deer's neck with one great paw? Do we have the hubris to say we are more conscious than she? Do we need to divorce ourselves from Natur Herself in order to be "conscious"? I think not.

You may have gathered that I am what Veggie Nazis call a "meat eater". Oh, I eat all kinds of things, potatoes, squash, beans, corn, other vegetables, but they focus on the meat, and say it is WRONG WRONG WRONG!!!

I have a few questions. If a wolf goes out and pulls down an elk or deer, what do you say? Some of these people will cheer the wolf on. What? What's that you say? "It is the wolf's nature!" Really? And it isn't mine? How dare you tell me what is my nature! Wanna turn the wolf vegetarian? You might be able to manage it, but not with Cougar. Cougar requires meat, and the fresher the better. Once again, do NOT tell me that my nature is different from theirs. That is a type of hubris that has separated humans from their nature for thousands of years, the idea that we are somehow outside the natural process. It has also been instrumental in destruction of Nature, the thinking that we are outside Her laws.

A human eating meat is no different from a bear or raccoon eating meat. We are all omnivores, made to eat almost anything, from vegetable matter to raw meat. Not me. I think that fire was probably an adaptation to eating a variety of stuff and not have it kill us. Fire can purify a lot of things

Golden days

2009-09-22T21:58:00.000-04:00

The days of late summer are golden, with maybe just a tinge of brass. The sun is following a southward path every day toward the Equinox, and the days turn from a sultry heat to a pleasant mildness. A flush of flowering has begun, following the doldrums of summer, that time when the Mountains are just an unrelieved green with but few spots of color. Late summer is a golden time here with all the yellow composites abloom. Of course, those are not all that is blooming, not by a long shot, but in many places, they are in the majority, and Goldenrod can cover whole fields.

Late summer and early Fall flowers!!!

2009-09-18T18:50:00.001-04:00

I am struck by the flowers this year. For once we have had something approaching normal rainfall here in the Southern Appalachians around Asheville, Land of the Weird. Normal rainfall here is something approaching 50 plus inches a year, making some scientists call our forests a "temperate rain forest, but not for the last few years. For the last several grueling years, we have been afflicted with an unrelieved drought. Flowers that normally burgeoned with color were scraggly, or did not bloom at all. Whole sections of forest, rooted on thin soil over rock simply dried up and died.

This year, every field, hedgerow, roadside and wet pasture is lush with growth that just a few weeks ago was a deep hunter green, but now has burst into a myriad of colors, many of them some shade of yellow, but of course, not all. Goldenrod covers many a field and roadside, turning them into burnished gold.

Bill Hilton at Hilton Pond http://hiltonpond.org has written several articles about Goldenrod, and if you go to his site, you can enter "goldenrod" (without the quotes) into the search box, and get lots more info. Bill is a top notch Naturalist, and writes great articles. (He writes in the third person with the "editorial we" which I find mildly annoying, but everything he writes is solid.)

I have heard so many people say "oh, I'm allergic to Goldenrod". My first response is to say "no you're not". Of course, I often get the "are you callin' me a liar?!" of ignorant folk. My usual reply is "no, I am saying you are an ignorant so and so". I hate it when people do that, just so you know.

No, the real culprit is Ragweed, a rather camouflaged and cryptic member of the same family that is wind pollinated. Notice the wasp on the Goldenrod in the last picture. It is transferring pollen. The pollen of Goldenrod is heavy, and must be transported by insect. On the other hand, pollen of Ragweed is light, and is carried by wind, often miles from the parent plant.

This one blended in so well with its background, I put it on the hood of the car to photograph it. Notice the green flowers all along the top.

Another that was made famous by a book and a movie is a purple flowered plant made famous by a book and movie of the same name, namely Ironweed.

Ironweed is found in low pastures near a stream where it usually stays rather damp. This one was found on a stream bank.

Speaking of stream banks. The Swannanoa River near Asheville, particularly the Azalea area is hopping with flowers this year. Goldenrod is everywhere, painting whole areas of the riverbank gold, and in other places the Joe Pye Weed is king.

Remembering

2009-09-11T16:43:00.000-04:00

Check the political and social blog of Blue Ridge Discovery at http://alexnetherton.wordpress.com/2009/09/11/.

Revisited

2009-09-11T16:27:00.001-04:00

Mid Summer and Morning Glories

2009-08-04T08:46:00.007-04:00

I was driving somewhere the other day, and a puff of warm air blew into the car carrying the scent of clover blossoms and other fragrances, and it took me back to the days of my youth in western Buncombe County where my grandmother lived. The sense of smell, they tell me, is one sense most closely tied to memory. I just sat and remembered.

One of the things I remember most about those days, and one of my favorite flowers, is Morning Glory. Though most of our Morning Glories are introduced, and can become rather weedy, I still think they are an icon of summer, and will always be part of the summers of my youth.

Purple form

I remember the corn growing high at this time in my grandmother's garden, the bean vines growing up around the corn, the old time bean called by Mountain people "Cornfield Beans", a bean probably gotten from the Cherokee, and in a riotous confusion of vines and purple and pink blossoms, the Morning Glory vines. We would pick beans, break corn from the stalks, and I would admire the Morning Glory as we got our food for supper. I remember the sights, sounds and smells of the corn fields, and the way the Morning Glory would close up before noon. I remember that my favorite color of Morning Glory was (and still is) the pink.

Pink Form

The cornfield was not the only place for Morning Glory though, and it could be seen in almost any disturbed ground, lawn edges, fallow fields, and flower gardens meant for other flowers. As I said, it can get a bit weedy. At first frost though, it was all gone, to fold up for another year.

Also along the roadsides, in the awfulest clay soil of the road cut was another member of the Morning Glory clan, the Wild Sweet Potato or Man Root. It has a white flower, and is actually native to our area, while the Common Morning Glory is thought to have originated in Mexico.

Wild Sweet Potato or Man Root near my home

The root is said to be medicinal (thought to regulate hormones, having a chemical related to Estrogen and Testosterone), and is huge - I tried to dig one once to move it into my yard at home. It was already partially exposed from the activities of a road gang, but it was as big around as my arm, and easily six feet long, and that was when I gave up digging. I just admire them on the roadside now.

Wild Sweet Potato at Cradle of Forestry

There are others found in other parts of the country, and there are beach Morning Glories, one of them called Railroad Vine because it sprawls out along the beach and makes lines in the sand like railroad lines, very straight. Another I found year before last on a trip to the beach (and brought home seeds) is the Ivy Leafed Morning Glory, with sky blue flowers.

Ivy Leaf Morning Glory

Though native to Puerto Rico, it is introduced to our area, and is generally found in the Piedmont and Coastal Plain. I found the parent to this plant in a rest area in South Carolina and managed to find some seed pods. A couple of the seeds came up, and the plant climbed up a 6 foot bamboo pole and onto the house. The plants this year have done the same. Though not as prolific a bloomer as the Common, nor are the flowers as big, it is still lovely, and worth having.

The old home place is gone now, and most of the area around my grandmother's house has transmogrified into a sort of country suburb with cracker box houses and tract developments. In my mind it will always be country, with fields and pastures. I still yearn to live in a place like that.

Trout, oh yeah

2009-07-21T14:41:00.008-04:00

As a Western North Carolina Native, I have always had a weakness for trout fishing in all its forms. I have done fly fishing, but most of my fishing is done on what we call "Hatchery Supported" streams. Let me explain.

Many streams in Western NC cannot support a naturally reproducing population of trout for a variety of reasons. The water might get too warm in summer for most species of trout, there may not be enough prey species in the stream, the bottom might be too silty to allow nesting, or it just might get too much fishing pressure to allow trout to effectively reproduce. However, trout can live in the streams just fine, so the state takes a hand. Our state has three trout hatcheries that produce a half a million fish a year, and I for one think we need more, as the fisherman population has grown, and the hatcheries have not grown to keep up. These hatcheries stock the Hatchery Supported waters of the state with catchable sized trout all summer, giving fishermen (and women) the chance to catch pan sized trout all summer. Unfortunately, there are people I call "game hogs" who follow hatchery trucks and fish every fish out as soon as they are placed. I have heard these people bragging of catching 40, 50, up to 100 fish as soon as the truck has moved. I only wish there were a Game Warden nearby. The limit on Hatchery Supported water is 7 per day.

There are other types of water, particularly the "Wild Trout" water, that has naturally reproducing trout, and generally has a smaller limit. There is also what is called "Catch and Release" water, where no trout can be kept. But enough of regulations. They can be found at the Nc Wildlife Fishing Page, which will tell you all aboout the hatcheries, seasons, regulations and all that. I want to talk about the trout!

We have three species of trout here in Western NC, only one of which is a true Trout, and only one of which is a native of this area. The true trout is the Brown Trout, Salmo trutta, and is from Europe. It is, as are all trout, a member of the Salmon family (Salmonidae), and in the right waters can grow quite large. It breeds quite well here in our waters, and can take over a stream, pushing the native Brook Trout out and up into the headwaters. They are also tolerant to higher water temperatures than are the Brook Trout and Rainbow Trout, and can exist in streams where these others would be stressed.

A small Brown Trout, Swannanoa River, probably "native"

Browns are very wary, even the newly stocked ones, and can be spooked very easily. On a stream containing stream raised (called "native", simply meaning hatched in the stream) Browns, any motion of the fisherman will cause the fish to go into hiding. I worked a whole summer to catch one on a small stream near Boone NC one year. This caused them to be called "more sporting" than the native Brook, thus causing anglers to import them.

Another small Brown from the Swannanoa. Pretty. Also likely a "Native"

Browns eat a variety of food in the streams, insects being one of the most common foods. This allows them to be caught by fly fishermen using a variety of dry and wet flies. They also are known to eat small fish such as dace, sculpins and darters, and crayfish, making them susceptible to streamer flies. Of course they will eat earthworms, making them prey for the "country boy" fisherman using live or natural bait. They are also known to take bits of bread balled up on a hook, small balls of cheese, and even whole kernel yellow corn, a very popular bait on Hatchery Supported streams.

Browns breed in fall and early winter, laying eggs in scooped out areas called "redds" in gravel pools. They, as do all trout, require gravel runs and pools to breed, so in many of our streams they have limited areas for breeding due to farm runoff and construction.

Browns are a close relative of the Atlantic Salmon, sharing many characteristics with them, and Brown Trout in coastal areas can be anadromous, spawning in the fresh water and living in the sea as adults, just like Salmon.

Another famous trout that seems to get a lot of attention in local restaurants is the Rainbow (Onchorynchus mykiss), where you will see advertised on the menus "Mountain Rainbow Trout". Interesting, in that they are not native to this area, being from west of the Rockies, and are not really a trout at all, but a Pacific Salmon. Also a member of the Salmonidae, they are common in our streams, being in the middle of the tolerance range as far as water temperature goes, being less tolerant than the Brown, but more so than the Brook.

A young Rainbow from the Swannanoa. Note the "parr marks"

Rainbows are a colorful introduction from California, and are sought after by many anglers due to their tendency to jump when hooked - Browns head for the bottom and Brooks head downstream - so were also considered more "sporting" than the native Brooks, and were in demand by anglers. Rainbows eat much the same foods as Browns, though may not eat so many fish or crustaceans. They also push out Brook Trout, and can take over streams that historically held native Brook Trout. They can grow rather large, and are generally colorful (see photo), especially when small. Rainbows are also wary, but are not in a league with Browns; moderate skill will get a Rainbow to bite, and a few mistakes can be made without spooking them.

Brook Trout (Salvelinus fontinalis) are my favorite. They are considered by many to be the Jewel of the Southern Appalachians. An item of controversy for many, the Southern Appalachian form is called by many Mountaineers "Speckled Trout", and held as a different creature from other trout; many fights have erupted over whether the "Speck" is a separate species. The current wisdom is that it is a separate subspecies of the Brook Trout, though I had a friend growing up that would get angry enough to fight when told this.

Brooks are the only "trout" native to the Southern Appalachians, though they are not a trout at all, but a Char, genus Salvelinus, related to the Arctic Char, the Lake Trout, and the Dolly Varden of the West. They require clear cold streams, and cannot tolerate warm temperatures as well as Browns and rainbows, limiting them to higher elevations and colder water.

A Brook Trout, hatchery origin, probably Miane variety. Swannanoa River

The Southern Appalachian Brook Trout, or "Speck" is designated as the State Freshwater Fish of North Carolina. They are more colorful than their stocked brethren, and are called the "Jewel of the Southern Appalachians" as shown here in the Land o' Sky Trout Unlimited page.

Brooks here in Western NC are of two different origins. The hatchery strains were taken from Maine in the 1800's and transported here, as the Maine strains seemed to do well in hatcheries. The Appalachian strains did not do well at all. Maine Brooks were transplanted into almost all the streams here, and soon became the prevalent type in almost all the local streams. The Appalachian types, the only native trout to this area, were pushed by all these introductions into the tiny headwaters of streams, and almost all of them have some growth stunting because of this. They hang on except where the local authorities take out all the introductions and provide some way to protect the natives from them.

Brooks in general are not as wary as Rainbows or Browns, allowing the fisherman to make some mistakes and still catch them, and do not feed quite so discriminately (eating just one kind of fly at a time) as do Browns and Rainbows, allowing the fisherman to throw in most any kind of fly and catch Brooks. This led the "purists" of the last century and the one before to look down on brooks and want something more "challenging", thus the call for Brown Trout and Rainbows.

Catching trout can be easy as baiting a hook and tossing it in a Hatchery Supported stream the day after the hatching truck has passed, or as difficult as a multi mile hike into a high mountain "Catch and Release" stream and "matching the hatch" in order to catch the wary fish of these remote waters. Of course there are places in between, where you can drive up Davidson River, park, and be on a famous NC catch and Release stream with very wary fish (due to fishing pressure, these guys are smart), or go up a nice small stream and fish in Wild Trout waters with natural bait. Fly fishing is a subject in itself, one which I am not terribly familiar with, but I have done the "country boy" fishing for years. I usually use red worms or night crawlers from the bait store or that I have dug myself, and fished without sinkers, just drifted. I have discovered that hook size can make a difference in whether a fish can swallow the hook or not; smaller hooks lead to gut or gill hooking, and I do not like that, as I like to be able to release the fish if I am not wanting a fish fry. Many trout fishermen recommend a size 8 or 10 hook, but a trout's mouth is bigger than that; I use a 6 or even a 4.

Bait that is often used for trout include:

Corn, particularly Green Giant "niblets". This is the most popular bait on the Cherokee Indian Reservation.
Bread, moistened slightly and rolled up into balls and placed on the hook.
Cheese. Go figure.
Berkeley's Powerbait. I do not endorse it, but a lot is sold. Some swear by it, some at it.
Worms, both "Red Worms" and "Night Crawlers", which are simply types of Earthworm.
"Stick Bait", the larvae of the Caddis Fly taken out of their shell and placed on the hook. Just remember when collecting them that it is illegal to collect fish bait or bait fish from a designated trout stream.
Minnows can work, especially on Brown Trout, as can crayfish.
Though not a bait, many brands and variety of spinner and other artificial lures are used.

So go trout fishing. You are sure to enjoy it!

Mid Summer, Garter Snake, Flowers and stuff.

2009-07-16T15:03:00.007-04:00

I went shooting yesterday. Right. I am a Liberal, a Conservationist, and Environmentalist, and I love to shoot. I am not averse to hunting either, legal hunting of a plentiful animal. I am not against gun ownership by honest people who have no trouble with the law. Oh, and are not crazy or have a history of domestic violence. You have a problem with gun ownership? Then don't own one. Simple. Don't believe in gay marriage? Don't marry one. Don't believe in abortion? Don't get one. Just don't try to take my rights away because you believe another way.

Okay. Soapbox out of the way. While digging for brass that other shooters had kindly left in some trash bins, and brass others had left where it fell, I espied a Garter Snake, whom I proceeded to grab. I had steeled myself for a bite, as many Garters will certainly nip when handled, but she didn't, and did what I did not expect (though I should have, really), which is a Garter's main line of defense anyway, and musked me.
Now, think of your garbage can on a hot July day. It hasn't been cleaned in weeks, not since winter, and the smell coming off is almost visible. That is what Garter Snake musk smells like. They will start their tail to whirling like a helicopter, and spray it all over you, then try to rub it in by wiping their tail all over your hand. Then, as she did, they will also poop on you. Smells wonderful... Of course, think of yourself being picked up by a much larger animal like an Elephant - you might poop too. Anyway, I grabbed out my camera and started taking photos. I did not realize until looking at the photos that she had only one eye, but otherwise she looked healthy. I suspect a crow or jay of trying to kill her for this disability. Here are some pictures.
This is after she calmed down, though she still was sort of tied in knots (I couldn't resist). I also got a couple of nice ones of her on a rock, where I managed to get her to calm down enough to be still a few seconds.
When I started home, I felt the need to stop somewhere to wash my hands, as the smell was driving me crazy. The shooting range is near a place called Sunburst, a former sawmill town that once cut spruce for US warplanes in WW I. There is now a cozy little campground and a small picnic area there, and it fortunately has a bathroom. After getting the smell off my hands, I noticed that the Rhodendron, called Mountain Laurel by the locals, was blooming, and I got a couple of shots. They are just about gone at this elevation (around 2700 feet), though may be in full bloom at higher elevations.

The photo is a bit blurry, as I could not get the camera to focus on the flowers. Oh to have an SLR!

While going to a drug store to get some alcohol to make a tincture (external, so it can be Isopropyl) of Yarrow for a friend's Poison Oak, I saw a Sourwood blooming where I could get to it, and got a couple of shots of it too.

Thankfully, these are not too blurry, and you can see the tiny flowers that make some nurseries try to sell this as "Lily of the Valley Tree", though it is not related to any Lilies at all, but to Blueberries, Rhododendrons and others (Heath Family). More on Sourwood in a later blog.

Next I saw a Sumac, probably a Smooth Sumac (Rhus glabra L.) growing nearby, a pretty plant that also has an edible component, the "berries", which can be steeped in water to make a "pink lemonade". My aunt, my mom's sister, was told by a doctor back in the 1930's to eat these for a kidney infection; antibiotics were unheard of in that day. She lived well into her 80's.

Well, enough for that. Just wanted to share some photos. I will probably do a blog on each of the pictures, but enough for now.

Trout fishing in North Carolina

2009-07-07T22:53:00.002-04:00

Trout fishing is one of my favorite activities in this world. My dad and I started trout fishing together almost a half century ago. Though I know how to fly fish, I generally don't; most of the fly fishing water is too far away, and I can (most of the time) keep from injuring the fish too much when I catch them, so I can release them back where I caught them. If I in fact do injure them, I can just take them home and eat them!

Orange Flowered Beauties

2009-07-05T14:19:00.012-04:00

One of my passions in this world are the orange flowers of some plants, flowers that vary in color from one individual to the next. These are the beauties of the flower world, at least to me, and are a sort of a triplet, three totally unrelated species that have a sort of similarity, orange flowers that range from yellow with a hint of orange, to red, also with a hint of orange. I wish I had some of the photos I took in the past, but many of them I forgot to back up when I did a destructive reinstall of Windows.

One of these that grows profusely in my postage stamp front yard is the Trumpet Creeper, or Cow Itch Vine, Campsis radicans L. Seem. ex Bureau. (That L. and Seem. ex. Bureau is just the name of the author(s) of the scientific name. No need to worry about unless you are a Botanist.) We have all three colors here, buttery yellow
true Orange

and almost red.

We are truly fortunate to have these in our front yard, and they are here due to the love Suzanne, my wife, has for these vines.

Another one that does this is the Flame Azalea, a sort of icon of the Southern Appalachians, and a gorgeous sight on the Blue Ridge Parkway in Spring. I have only an orange one in this photo, but they range the same as the Cow Itch, from nearly yellow to nearly red.

This one shows the contrast to the brown of the forest floor.

Another of my three favorites is the Butterfly Weed. Lori at Reflections on the Catawba has some nice photos of Butterfly weed. The one in our yard is pretty much middle of the scale orange,

but they also range from butter yellow to almost red. You can see a small bee in the Butterfly weed, maybe the same kind Lori talks about. It has come to the attention of many in agriculture that wild bees are a significant pollinator of many types of crops, and are often more effective than Honeybees.

In your travels through the Mountains and Piedmont, look for the variable orange flowers of the Trumpet Vine (also found in the Coastal Plain), and the Butterfly Weed; the Flame Azalea has pretty much finished blooming. You will be amazed at the range of colors, and if you have the color sense to see it, you can see the many hues from near yellow to near red, always with a hint of orange.

A day out in the Mountains

2009-05-18T21:30:00.003-04:00

I had a day out today, something I haven't done in a while. I decided to combine Geocaching with Trout fishing and general sightseeing. I loaded a bunch of waypoints on my GPS receiver, bought some nightcrawlers, and headed out. I don't have a fly rod, so I do "country boy" fishing, though I do my best to not injure them, and toss them back, keeping them only if I hook them too deep for survival.

I brought my cache stats to 101 found - that makes it just over 100 for the year I have been in Geocaching.Geocaching Web Site And, I caught 3 trout, a Rainbow first, a little "native" (one hatched in the stream - Rainbows aren't native here), a Brook Trout of fair size, and a Brown Trout. The Brown might have been native, but I doubt the Brookie was; they don't do well when the water heats up in the summer.

Here's a photo of the Brown Trout I got. By color and size, I would say he was hatched in the stream. He was the third one I caught; I went back to the van and got a camera.

The Brook Trout is not a Trout at all, but a Char, a genus that circles the arctic (Salvelinus if you're interested). The Brook is a fish of the Eastern America from Canada to the higher mountains of the Southern Appalachians. It requires clear cold streams to thrive, but is in danger from its relative the Rainbow Trout, which is also not really a Trout, but a Pacific Salmon (genus Onchorynchus), and is from the Pacific drainages, probably from Alaska to southern California. Brookies are also in danger from Brown Trout, which are in fact the only true Trout in these waters. Browns are from Europe, where they are widespread.

Rainbows and browns were brought into this area over 100 years ago to provide sport; the Brooks were not considered "sporting" enough. They are not terribly wary, like the Brown, and are not given to aerial displays like the Rainbow. They are, however, a jewel of the Southern Appalachians, and are by far, when breeding, the most beautiful of the three species found here.

If you are interested, more information can be found by going to NC Wildlife, and go to the fishing section. Another fun thing is to Google "Southern Appalachian Brook Trout", and see what you come up with.
See you later!

Alex

Colors of Spring

2009-05-05T12:39:00.002-04:00

Spring has so many colors here in the Southern Appalachians; more so it seems than in the fall, and just as ephemeral. I was struck by the colors of the Spanish Oak (Quercus falcata. Spanish Oak this year was a yellow green that defies description.

When you look at a hillside here in the early Spring, when the leaves are just coming out, you will see a palette of colors that simply cannot be described, and which boggles the mind. Each individual tree seems to have its own shade of some pastel color, and all the colors which can be seen in the Fall are muted. There are pinks, yellows, purples, reddish browns, and of course the greens, from emerald to pale yellow green.

You only see this sort of color show for a short time, so I will keep this post short. The colors have lasted about a week, and have been the prettiest I have seen in many a year, probably due to having plenty of rain.

If you live in Western NC, and want to see them, you need to get out. Travel the Parkway from Brevard Road to the Folk Art Center. When you are nearing US 74A, look on the eastern road bank for a small patch of blue which is Birdfoot Violet (Viola pedata), and a large shrub with orange flowers which is the Flame Azalea (Rhododendron calendulaceum).

And, of course, enjoy Nature!

More Progression of Spring

2009-04-11T16:31:00.003-04:00

Well, I left you with the Spotted Salamanders, Wood Frogs, Spring Peepers and Pickerel Frogs (among others) who are out and breeding in early Spring. As Spring progresses into early April, you will hear a new voice in the marshes, and even along lake shores, a sweet trill that seems to magically arise from the ambient sounds and freeze you, or at least it freezes me. It is like some trill from an Elven flute, a magical sound that makes me lose my breath for a second until I recognize it. I never recognize it at first; it always catches me by surprise, arising from the sound of rushing water, of a light breeze, or from a near silence of the woodland. It takes me a magical second the identify this sound, even if I heard it a day before, and I never fail to blurt out "American Toad!".
I know that most people think the Toad is ugly, but I love them.

Here you can see the eye, one of the prettiest in the Animal Kingdom (my daughter likely has the prettiest, but I am prejudiced), looking like gold filigree. The American Toad can be told from his cousin (really a double first cousin, because they are capable of interbreeding and do on occasion) the Fowler's Toad by several characteristics, a good subject for another blog post.

At this time, the first week or so in April, the native flowers and trees begin to bloom. One that is totally mystical to me is the Appalachian Serviceberry, called Sarvice by the older locals. It is a stark white to occasionally white with a very subtle pink tinge, and is usually found in young woodlands and along woodland borders. It seems to appear magically out of the browns and grays of the late Spring woodland. Shortly after, in lower areas with more neutral soil, you will see Redbud trees making a pinkish purple haze. (Jimmy Hendrix would be proud...). Bloodroot and Trout Lily are also blooming, Bloodroot in more dry locations in more mature woods, and Trout Lily along the streams and trickles. Bloodroot will knock your eye out, but Trout Lily has to be looked for. At the Kephart Trail head on US 441 between Cherokee and Gatlinburg is a colony of Hepatica that is simply outstanding, showing several colors as the flowers mature. They are out in mid April.

Next are the Dogwood, with a white that is chalk to bone white, often a pure shining white, and occasionally with a hint of pink. The Sarvice are now gone, and most of the trees, especially Tulip Tree, or Yellow Poplar, are leafing out. Oaks will be out and pollinating, and people who search for Morel Mushrooms will be out too. The Fraser Magnolia, a native deciduous Magnolia, will bloom in late April, and a little later, the Tulip Tree, making a very pretty flower that can be lost amongst the leaves, and looking very like a tulip.

Late April is a fertile time here, with the trees now leafing out, and the mountains being a lush emerald green that almost makes you hungry. It is difficult to feel old at this time of year, with the streams running high, wild flowers blooming in every cove, hollow, and stream bank.

In May the trees mature their leaves and begin to take on a darker green, more of a hunter green, and many of the wild flowers have finished up.

So much goes on in Spring here, and I think of Spring as covering a span from early February to late May. It is a season to enjoy, as all the other seasons are to be enjoyed. Please come and enjoy, but also, PLEASE leave the Mountains as you found them. Too much of our Mountain land is being destroyed by people who "love" the Mountains and want to live here...

Progression of Spring

2009-04-08T15:52:00.009-04:00

I can't believe I haven't published anything since late February. Gosh. Spring is cruising along, and it is fascinating to watch. In the years I worked in the Southeast Georgia area, I was treated to a very different Spring. It seemed the weather went from the relative cool of Winter, to the sweet comfort of Spring to the hard heat of Summer in a little over a month, maybe not even that long. It's different here.

Spring here is a progression, something that can be watched from day to day, especially if you live out of doors as I did in the late 1980's and early '90's. I worked for an Environmental Ed. center here, and was outside every day from early April to the last of May. Spring here covers more territory than that, though, and all of it is lovely.

In February, right around St. Valentine's Day, the Red Maples start to bud out in the forests, fence rows, wood edges, and thickets, with a light reddish blush that is hardly noticeable unless you are right on top of them, but there, they are quite striking.

At around the same time, Tag Alder and Hazel of both species (American and Leafy) are doing the same thing, but they are filling the air with pollen, causing horrible sinus problems with allergy sufferers.

This is Alder with my hand as a support. The long yellow things are the male catkins, which make pollen. The female catkins can be seen at the tips of the branch, and will make seed in the summer.

In the next photo of a Hazel colony near the French Broad, you can see how many of these things can be pollinating at once. Imagine every stream, pond, lake shore, brook, trickle, and marsh has some Alders, plus most river and stream flood plain woods has some Hazel, and you get the idea how many tons (yes, I said tons) of pollen are floating around in Western NC during February.

Now you have to remember that we are still in Winter's grip. The Equinox is still a ways off. But things are happening. Wood Frogs are to be found near the vernal pools, pools and ponds that are only filled with the Spring rains, and are empty by late summer. Their funny quacking song doesn't carry, but their cousins the Peepers, who are out at the same time, can be heard for miles.

This Wood Frog was kind enough to sit in my hand while I got a rather bad shot of him. He was found crossing the road on a rainy night in early March last year. I also found a Pickerel Frog on the road at the same time.

As you can see, Pickerel Frogs have square spots or blotches on their backs which blend in well with the forest floor.

This one was found this Spring on a rainy night in late March.

Someone else is out too in March during warm night rains. (By warm I mean above 40 degrees F.) The Spotted Salamanders are out seeking temporary pools and ponds which contain no fish that will eat their babies.

This is the first one I ever saw in the wild, one night in late March. I also saw a rare sight, also a first for me, a Mole Salamander, not quite so showy, but considered threatened over much of its range.

This one was nice enough to sit in the pine needles at the side of the road and let me take pictures (I moved him from the middle of the road). I was as high as a kite after finding these two, both firsts for me, and sights rarely seen by most people, since they are out on rainy nights at a time of year when most people don't go out. I am certainly glad I do.

I will write more on the progression of Spring. Have to let the pot bubble for a bit...

Early allergies

2009-02-23T17:07:00.004-05:00

For those of us who have allergies, no, you don't have a cold. Early pollinators are out, and they are going to town. Most folks don't even know it's happening. If you live in the Northeast, like New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, or you live in the Southern Appalachians, it looks like Winter is still with us, but there are a few hardy shrubs who are always ready to jump the gun. They are the Hazels (both species) and the Tag Alder, Alder and the American, or Leafy Hazelnut are both found near streams and creeks, and both shedding pollen right now. The Beaked Hazelnut will not be far behind. Since they are wind pollinated, they don't have to worry about any hardy insects being out in what seems the dead of Winter.

Both are in the same family, called Betulaceae (or Corylaceae) by Botanists, and just plain old Birch (or sometimes Hazel) family by the layman. All of them, Birches, Hazels, Alders and relatives have similar floral parts and seeds, and all are pretty much wind pollinated.

This family has flowers called catkins, a type of aggregated flowers all in a bunch. The male catkins are pendulous, and the female ones, the ones that make the seed, are small and generally upright. In the Hazel, there is only one female flower, a tiny red one, generally on the end of the twigs. I am linking to a couple of pictures on the USDA Plants Database, as I don't have any good pictures. They are at USDA Alder, and USDA Hazel. Note that following these links will take you away from this page unless you open them in new tabs.

I will place a couple of my own that are not quite as nice to display the density of them. First a couple of Hazel photos taken along Hominy Creek near Asheville, and then some Alder photos taken along Gashes Creek near the Blue Ridge Parkway where is crosses US 74-A. The USDA photos show the red catkins of the female flowers both on Alder, and the single tiny flower of the female catkin of Hazel. The last photo is of Hazel taken near the Swannanoa River in Asheville.

If you look closely at the photos I present, though not technically very good, they illustrate the sheer mass of pollen being shed at this time of year. Think of these photos, and then think of every little creek, stream, branch, rill or trickle which is absolutely certain to have these lovely little shrubs along them, at least Alders, and you can figure that there are probably tons of Alder pollen (hazel is not quite so common) blowing around in the air right now in the Southern Appalachians. It is no wonder that people have "colds" they cannot seem to get rid of.

Frogwatch in the suburbs.

2009-02-11T19:37:00.003-05:00

Yeah, I live in the suburbs. A sorry state for a Naturalist, I know. Maybe one day I will win the Lottery (never play it), have a rich great aunt leave me a bundle (all my great aunts are poor), or find a rich benefactor (yeah, right...), but until one of these things come to pass, I am stuck here in the suburbs where I have lived for most of 50 years. *Sigh*.

Anyway, I signed up for Frogwatch USA last year, and tonight I decided to go out and look for, or really, listen for, frogs. I got in my old van, started out through a rather stiff rain, and ran down to a local Wal-Mart shopping center. Frogs at Wally World? Well, yeah. See, they usually build ponds around the stores in order to cut down drainage from their parking lots, and to stop the drainage from blasting into the nearest river or stream. This is a perfect home for a number of species of frog. Nobody was home, though I thought I heard a Wood frog; the ambient noise was too great for these half century plus ears. I was undaunted, and took myself to a local soccer complex.

This soccer complex has a nice depression that was obviously planned as a drainage pond, but as it is on a bed of river sand and silt, it never holds water, and I bypassed it completely. As I was driving, I saw a frog shaped blob in the road. I stopped, backed up, and got out, right next to a fine little Wood Frog, Rana sylvatica. I missed catching him, and drove on to an old beaver pond along the river, where I heard Spring Peepers, Hyla (or Pseudacris) crucifer. Getting out, I spied another Wood Frog shaped blob in the headlight beams, and managed to catch this one, who gave an explosive bellow worthy of a Bullfrog - I have never heard a Wood Frog do this in the dozens (possibly hundreds) I have handled. I looked at him and crooned to him (I always talk to them - folks think I am silly, but since I am 6'3" and 250#, they rarely say anything about it). I of course let him go, and walked off a quarter mile or so to listen to the Peepers across the river, who were in full chorus.

This is a sign that Spring is poised to strike. Actually, the seasons here are a progression and never a discrete occurrence.

HTML Mail

2009-02-05T12:42:00.003-05:00

OK. I have had it with technical old fogies. I mean, it is here in the year 2009, and people are still afraid of HTML mail? Give me a break!

A few days ago I was warned about HTML mail when I sent a message to a birding group here in the Carolinas. It was a second warning. I did not wait for a third warning (whereupon I would have been banned), but sent a nasty flame message to the whole group, and unsubscribed myself. Why, you ask, did I do this? After receiving a number of messages from people who told me they will not post to that group because their e-mail program doesn't send in plain text (oh, yeah, it does, but they don't know that), and are relegated to only receiving mail and not able to participate, I decided to say something about this, and hopefully refute the pervasive current "wisdom" about this. You see, I had added a little picture of a view from Mount Mitchell to my signature file, and in order for this picture to go through, the mail had to be in HTML. I also had a few links, one to a page where I can accept (much needed) donations to keep my blogs (like this one) and lists and web pages going. I even had a message bounced from a Yahoo group for birds in North Carolina. Well, I did not and do not see the problem. I will tell you why.

First off, it is 2009 for God's sake! Most e-mail proggies worth being called that can format and receive HTML with no problems. Let me refute a few things from a popular web site with some of my own opinions. Taken from Georgedillon.com's "7 reasons why HTML email is evil"

1. HTML e-mail is dangerous

So is breathing, swimming, horseback riding, sailing, skydiving, smoking, driving a car, and crosing the road. Most of us do many of those things, and many do all of them. We use safety equipment when we do many of them - some of even wear seat belts. A good virus program and some common sense can go a long way.

2. HTML e-mail always wastes bandwidth

Yep. Most of us these days are on some form of high speed, so the point is moot. Even dial-up is now at 56K.

3. HTML e-mail doesn't always work

Does if you want it to. If you use a modern e-mail program like Thunderbird or Windows Mail. This is an argument for 1998. I can't buy into it.

4. HTML e-mail can connect to the internet by itself

Once again, only if you want it to. Mozilla Thunderbird will not unless I tell it to. Plus, so what? I have a firewall and an antivirus. It's like whitewater canoeing. You wear the necessary safety equipment and the risks go way down.

5. HTML e-mail renders slowly

What year did I say this was? My computer, a low end desktop has a dual core processor and 2 gigs of memory. This might have applied 10 years ago. HTML mail comes up in the same time as plain text on mine, and did the same on my 8 year old computer (633Mhz with 192mb memory). This just doesn't apply any more.

6. HTML usually looks like it has been designed by stoned amateur chimpanzees using Front Page Express with their feet

What??? I get HTML mail from dozens of web sites, including my ISP. They all look good. What year did I say this was?

7. Digested lists hate HTML mail

Oh yeah, so they do. So they just rip out the formatting, as does Yahoo! No biggie.

So there. I just do not see what the fuss is about. I own several Yahoo lists, and moderate another. All are set to accept HTML. Yahoo kindly checks each message for viruses. My antivirus kindly checks each one as it is downloaded. My list clients can use whatever formatting they fancy or is the default on their e-mail program. And I don't have to worry about it.

Alex Netherton
Blue Ridge Discovery

Sandy Mush

2009-01-15T12:04:00.002-05:00

I got to feeling an old timey urge to go hunting on Monday, so I grabbed a shotgun and went to Sandy Mush. Some people are going to get all bent out of shape at me being a Nature lover, tree hugger and environmentalist and actually HUNTING (GASP!), but I will beg you to remember that Aldo Leopold was a waterfowler, and had this to say: “That he is already overfed in no way dampens his avidity for gathering his meat from God.” Not that I gathered any meat - I am really an indifferent hunter, especially since my "accident", but if I went out only to hunt, I would certainly be poor specimen. I was also birding (Red Shouldered Hawk, Turkey Vulture, among others), botanizing, and sightseeing. Plus, I did some Geocaching, a game where people place a cache, or "hide", posts it on the Internet at Geocaching.com and people use their GPS receiver to find it. Sometimes it is not all that easy...

Sandy Mush is an area of old fields, woodlots, and farmland that the state of North Carolina bought up and began managing as game habitat, particularly dove. Most of it is very pretty (except the Bear Creek section, which is ugly), and has some of the most stunning views I can think of in Buncombe County. The elevation is just enough, at anywhere from 2200 to 3000 feet, that when you are on some of the ridges there, you have a near 360 degree view of the surrounding mountains. Monday they were covered in a light coat of snow or a heavy coat of rime (hoarfrost). They gave one of the most heartstopping views I have ever seen of the mountains. I urge everyone to go out there and check it out, even if they don't hunt. As it is only a 3 day a week area for hunting (Monday, Wednesday, Saturday), and is pretty much managed as "multiple use", it is ideal for a day hike. I plan to be out there in the spring and summer, to look for wildflowers. Hope to see you there

Old Time music

2009-01-01T14:10:00.003-05:00

I have been trying to look up some song lyrics today, and it set me to thinking about Southern Appalachian music in general. The song I was looking for is "Whoa Mule", a song my banjo teacher, 3rd cousin, and world famous Mountain Fiddler Byard Ray taught me about 25 years ago. It was the first song he taught me on the banjo, though he didn't teach me the lyrics. He was a very good banjo teacher, and while learning from him, we discovered we were related by blood (his grandmother and my great-grandmother were sisters), so a friendship emerged that lasted until his death in the late 1980's.

Most people, when thinking about Appalachian music, think about Bluegrass, such as Flatt and Scruggs, Bill Monroe and so on, but that sort of music was pretty much contrived from minstrel and show music, speeded up 'way faster than Mountain music, and played in such a way as to appeal to a post World War II crowd, and bacame for a while a part of the Country Music scene, what with Flatt and Scruggs on TV on Saturday nights in the 1960's. It has now become a phenomenon at Blue Grass conventions throughout the South. Byard would never entertain the idea that it was anything like Traditional Appalachian music, saying it was sort of like Mountain music, but played "too darned loud and too darned fast". Darned was not the word he used (nor do I use it when describing Bluegrass).

So, you ask, what, then, is Mountain music? It is music from the Mountains of West Virginia, Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, North and South Carolina, and North Georgia. Some people include other areas - Ozarks might be part of it, I don't know - but I pretty much see this area of the Southern Appalachians as the home of Mountain Music. Many will agree with me. Many will disagree.

When European people first started settling this area, they brought their music with them, a combination of English ballads, jigs, reels, and dance tunes, plus Scottish and Irish tunes of the same types. French and German pioneers added something in the stew, and a unique music was developed over centuries of isolation. This was a difficult area to get to from the first European settlements of the 1700's until the post WW II era of road building. When the area was opened up, the people were still rather insular (we still occasionally are), and held onto their traditions, though Thomas Wolfe would write eloquently about the destruction of a culture and a folkway by first the logging companies, the coal mines, and lastly the textile mills, all wresting people from their lands, and sending many into the cities where they didn't belong.

What does the music sound like? Not like Bluegrass, though there are similarities. Instead of the banjo taking the lead as in Bluegrass, the banjo and fiddle play in a sort of duet, playing off each other in a lively way. If a guitar is in there, it will be background, as will also be the mandolin and bass fiddle if they are there. The fiddle will be played in a bouncy fashion, the banjo will be played "clawhammer", or in a thumb and index finger picking style (sorry, no "three finger roll") that blends right in with the fiddle, and the guitar plays rythm, occasionally taking the lead in parts of the song. The banjo is not usually a "resonator" type, but an "open back" type, making more of a "thump" sound than the loud "clang" of the Bluegrass banjo.

If you are beginning to think that I am not too fond of Bluegrass, you are correct; I am not, though I am not alone. Many Old Time musicians feel the same as I, and will get all grumpy when accused of playing "Bluegrass". No, ours is a traditional music. Bluegrass is a "made up" music. Sorry. There it is.

Good Old Time musicians are Byard Ray (of course), Tommy Jarrell and Fred Cockerham (fiddle and banjo), Wade Ward and Kyle Creed (fiddle and banjo), Doc Boggs (an odd three finger style banjo), Pete Steele (banjo), and several others. Look these up for some of the great music you would have heard about 100 years ago here in the Mountains.

The style I play is from Western North Carolina. It has no name, but is a type of "frailing", where the finger picks up on the string, followed by the rest of the hand strumming down, in a percussive, rythmic way. I also play a thumb and index style. Both were taught me by Byard, and are similar to banjo styles from Western North Carolina (Madison County) and Eastern Tennessee. Many other styles are found all over the south. They are:

Clawhammer, which uses the back of the index or middle fingernail to pluck the melody string, followed by the rest of the fingers hitting all the strings in a strum, then the thumb hitting the "little string" as a sort of high pitched drone. Played by Tommy Jarrell and others and called "Galax" style, after Galax Virginia, this is likely the most popular style and is learned by many modern old time players all over the US.
"Two finger", a thumb and index style. In Western NC it was usually an index finger lead. I play this and another taught to me by Byard.
"Two finger", also a thumb and index style with a thumb lead, found in eastern Kentucky.
Rapping, a style using the backs of the fingernails to "rap" the banjo. Similar to Clawhammer, but often only one finger used on the strings. Also called framming, knocking and flying hand.
The style I mostly use is called by some "basic strum", but is a good deal more complicated than that. It replaces the down beat of the fingernail with an up pluck with the index finger. Very similar to Clawhammer, but often strings that were not plucked are hammered to create a syncopation that is difficult to reproduce otherwise. Played by Byard Ray and said to be from his uncle Dedrick Harris from just over the line in Tennessee, it is a style I have heard nowhere else. Shortly before he died he told me "Alex, you're the only other person in this world that plays the banjo thisaway, and when I'm gone, you'll be the only one. I just ask you to teach it to somebody before you go". I have been so far unable to keep this promise, since everybody who wants to play the banjo wants to "play that Bluegrass!". Maybe someday...

So called "three finger" styles, actually thumb with index and middle finger, played by Doc Boggs of southern Virginia, and Charlie Poole of north central North Carolina, these styles are probably more properly called a Piedmont style, as these styles are what Bluegrass banjo grew out of, and most of the practitioners of these styles were from the Piedmont of North and South Carolina, like Junie Scruggs (Earl Scruggs's brother and mentor), Snuffy Jenkins, George Pegram and others from that area. Some seem to think these styles are more closely allied to minstrel styles of the post-civil war south, and some examples can be heard on recordings of Uncle Dave Macon, who was indeed a minstrel and medicine show man.

OK. Enough. I will climb down off the soap box and get ready for another blog entry.

Good night. Happy New Year

Goldfinch and Evening Primrose

2008-12-14T23:41:00.000-05:00

Hi folks; I saw the first Pine Siskin in my yard, and my first on a feeder in over 20 years. Had to get Sibley out to check. This was the first I have seen outside of the one on territory on Waterrock Knob (last summer) since graduate studies at Boone in 1986.

On another track, I saw a Goldfinch on the seed head of the lone Evening Primrose that managed to flower last summer. Like many "biennial" plants, they actually flower, not the second year after the seed sprouts (this is under optimum conditions), but after the plant manages to gather enough resources to make flowering a possibility. Many species are also perennials. The past few years of drought has held them back, but a couple of years ago, the ones in my driveway managed a bumper crop of blooms, and thus seeds. In the winter, the Goldfinch covered them up, hanging sideways on the heads, and ignoring black oil seed and "Nyjer" until the Primrose seeds were all gone.

Evening Primrose would likely be a good plant for the bird and butterfly garden, plus, it looks like the host plant for at least one Lep. It is a member of the family Onagraceae, and the genus Oenothera. The one I have in my driveway is probably O. biennis, and is found all over the states of NC and SC in fields and scruffy places. It is probably pulled up by most gardeners as weeds, but if left and allowed to bloom, they grow to almost 6 feet, and make lovely blooms that start blooming late in the evening, and stay blooming until well into the next morning, probably to be pollinated by some giant Sphinx moths. After blooming, they make little cylindrical shaped seed pods about an inch or so long that split into four segments when ripe, releasing a horde of seeds, many of which stay on the seed head well into winter. If the seeds escape the Goldfinches, they fall to the ground and sprout, making a ground hugging rosette the first year, and doing the same thing in subsequent year until they gather up enough steam to flower, then one year, up comes a stem, and flowers that only show for a day, though there are over a months worth of them, sometimes more.

I would imagine that if anybody wants them in a hurry, a wildflower nursery might have them, though you can likely find them somewhere and get a bunch of seeds to take back home to plant. They are really a nice tall plant, often with red veined leaves, tall straight stems, and golden colored flowers in the early morning hours. Their only horticultural drawback is that they often get a nasty case of powdery mildew in the late summer, though it doesn't seem to slow them down any.

I know I ran on a bit, but I think these delightful plants are a perfect addition to the bird and butterfly garden, and the Goldfinch love them!

Alex

Winter reflections

2008-12-09T09:48:00.004-05:00

Early Winter, and it is cloudy outside, giving the Mountains a misty, mysterious, brooding look. Fog hangs in the lowlands and hollows, and flights of small birds work the wood edges and hedgerows, gleaning things we don't ordinarily see. Temperature today is low 40's, and not much wind yet.

We have a new president in this country, and our sweet world may have a chance to recover from years of excesses and downright attacks. You know whose side I am on, don't you? I actually am glad, however, that the Dems don't have a filibuster proof majority; really crazy stuff will be harder to pass without a fight, like repealing the Second Amendment. That's right. I will address that later, probably losing a few more radical readers. Too bad.

Days are getting shorter here, and I try to spend more time in the field, and sometimes try to get Jake (Pug youngster) out with me. He is a great hiking companion, and really tries to help our drought stricken world by watering every tree, bush, vertical blade of grass, or even sticks that stick up... He is a precious little boy, and I love him.

I have discovered a new place to wander, near one of my old stomping grounds, not far from my grandmother's old home, a place in western Buncombe County called Sandy Mush Gameland. It is not far from the Madison County line, and is a great place to hunt if you are so inclined, as it is managed for Mourning Dove hunting, plus having a booming deer population. If you just like to go out and look, hike, or just have a day in the woods, go out on Sunday, Tuesday, Thursday or Friday from September to the end of February (hunting seasons). It is a wonderful place, and has lots of breathtaking views. It has an old timey feel, and is wild, though close to town.

This photo shows one of the many views at Sandy Mush out over a dove field, and also shows the cloudy weather of mid winter that is common here.

I have gotten into a new hobby, geocaching, which is sort of an Internet treasure hunt. In this game, people hide something in a cache somewhere, post the coordinates online, and people hunt for it using a Global Positioning System receiver, which can get you within a very few feet of the cache. I have two in Sandy Mush, and hope to have more soon. You can find out more at http://geocaching.com. It is a fun hobby, and can be gotten into with any GPS receiver, some of which are getting rather affordable. Most of my caches feature something to do with tree identification before you can find the cache, and contain at least one piece of my handmade wire jewelry or a semiprecious stone.

Get outside, folks, and enjoy Nature!

Alex

A bad dream... or reality?

2008-07-09T08:01:00.002-04:00

Last week I had a bad dream. I dreamed I was in a local mall parking lot, and talking to someone, trying to give directions. When I turned to point at a local mountain, I saw that it was completely shorn of trees, and a nasty swirl of smoke and red clay dust was ascending to the sky. Noise of heavy equipment was pounding the air, and men were swarming over the landscape, cutting any tree left vertical, or bulldozing them under. One of my favorite mountains was cloven in two, and was being destroyed before my eyes. As I looked around, I saw a panoramic view of the hills around me, and all of them were the same way, all trees gone, and the sweet lovely mountain soil gouged down to the hard, dusty red clay. Condominiums, gated communities, golf courses, malls, and other eyesores were being built over these formerly green clad mountains I have called home for more than half a century. No bird was flying but for a few crows, black against the red of the clay and the hazy gray sky.

I awoke from this dream with a sense of foreboding, but when I went out that day, most of the mountains still had green on them. However, unfortunately, many did not. There is a mountainside near Swannanoa that is being systematically raped in the name of an "exclusive community with a golf course", rumored to be built by a famous young golfer - I used to respect him, but now have little use for him. That is, if it is true. I will attempt to reserve judgment.
Almost every day I see an TV ad by an disgusting little man with a grin of evil on his face telling how he had a whole mountain top cut to improve a view in his gated community near Hendersonville. Where you used to see mountain tops, you now see big expensive housing monstrosities. Big ugly expensive housing monstrosities.

At one time, I could look out on the mountains and see only the lovely green hills, and blank out of my vision the strip malls, gated scabs of "communities", golf courses, and raw hillsides left after building yet another rich persons whim, but after that dream I can't. It hurts, but now when I look out at the hills I see the approach of backhoes, bulldozers and earth movers. Maybe I needed that dream.

I am a poor man, and have never had much money or influence in this world. If I walked into a planning or zoning meeting and spoke, people would say "who are you?", and I would be brushed aside. I just hope someone out there who has some influence will read this blog entry and come here and help us work to stop the rapacious slaughter of the lovely Blue Ridge hills before it is too late.

Thank you;
Alex

Waterrock Knob

2008-06-15T21:18:00.003-04:00

Suzanne, Jake (the Fawn Pug) and I went to Waterrock Knob on the Blue Ridge Parkway today. It is to my shame and chagrin that I have never been there, just passed by it when going somewhere else. We took I-40 to US 19 through Maggie Valley, up to Soco Gap, where we got on the Parkway. We then went about 8 miles north to the Waterrock Knob parking area and Visitor Center, a nice little place to learn local lore and shop for cute gifts and guide books.
On this short trip to the Knob, we were treated to a spectacle of Flame Azalea, Mountain Laurel (called "Ivy" or "Mountain Ivy" by the old folks), and Catawba Rhododendron all along the road, and in absolute full bloom. In the parking area we also saw up close the Rhododendron, something I have managed to miss the last few years.
After going into the Visitor Center, and using the facilities outside (don't go IN there!), we took off up the trail. Though the trail is only about a half mile, it is a steep half mile, and requires some stamina. I lost a good bit of stamina when I suffered an aortic dissection, a dangerous splitting of the inner aortic wall. As mine was abdominal (type B), it was not really in my best interest to have surgery, so I am a bit handicapped. We got a hundred or so yards up the trail and sat down on a well placed bench, and I started to make a "pssht" sound to attract birds. Suzanne is much better at this than I, so when she started, birds were everywhere. We saw Juncoes (of course), a Black Capped Chickadee with his ragged bib, a Chestnut Sided Warbler who sounded more like a Hooded, and what could only have been a Pine Siskin, a bird that should be on its breeding grounds in Canada, but what do I know?
Moving on up to the "pedestrian overlook", we were treated to a view that is only like the view from an airplane. The vegetation here is classic "canadian zone" or "Spruce/Fir zone", with the addition of the ever present Red Maple. It is a lovely walk, a lovely place, and a wonderful escape from the heat and humidity of the valley. Since it is over 6000 feet, it has a good many Fraser Fir, and I suspect it normally has a great deal more water; however, in our drought stricken condition, there is little water to be found. I swear I heard the maple tree sigh when Jake um, "visited" it.
On the way down, the most striking view was just downhill from the "pedestrian overlook". Suzanne, who does not do heights to well, said "we look on the same level with that peak over there". As we were looking out into the Shining Rock Wilderness (I think), and may have been looking at Cold Mountain, I said that the peak was likely about a thousand feet below us. Such is the view from there.
We didn't make it to the top. When we got to the pedestrian overlook, I was a bit worn down, Suzanne was also, and Jake, who is a good bit brachycephalic, what with being a Pug and all, was doing a rather rough kind of breathing that can scare a Pug person, so we all agreed to head back down. I have heard the view is 360 degrees from the top, and when we are all in better shape, and maybe the weather is cooler, we will all three make it there. Until then, we all enjoyed it tremendously, and I would suggest that anyone wishing to see the flowers in bloom needs to do it this week, as they will probably start fading by next weekend.

Enjoy Nature folks:
Alex

Late Spring

2008-06-11T16:10:00.003-04:00

Well, it is technically late Spring. I view it as early Summer. As this is the "Summer of Locusts", it is a bit different, what with the hordes of Cicadas still around. Still, it is much the same as has ever been in the Southern Blue Ridge. The Mountains look sweet and inviting. You see a mountainside from a distance, and you want to be under the tall trees there, near a small mountain brook, with the coolness of the water right out of the mountain. You can probably drink with impunity, especially if the spring is near, as no pollutants or diseases can be introduced to water right out of the mountain. You can poke around the stream bank or around the spring, and possibly find Box Turtles, holed up here to escape the heat and the dry, dug in under the wet leaves and boggy soil, staying cool while the world bakes in the unseasonable heat.
Or, maybe you gaze on a high elevation meadow in the Pisgah range, and want to be there, in the tall grass, with the butterflies and bees, and maybe a small stream flowing through. Elk, who have lately been re-introduced, can maybe be seen here, especially at Cataloochie. Maybe someday they will get into the Pisgahs.
All kinds of things can be done in the world of Nature, much can be explored, and there are many places that can help you, particularly two of my favorite places in the Blue Ridge, the WNC Nature Center in Asheville, and the Pisgah Center for Wildlife Education, both wonderful places to go to learn about our Mountains. Check them out.
It is certainly time to get out, but with this crazy hot weather we have been having, I am for the high country. Let me tell you, it is nice and cool above 5000 feet!
See you later!
Alex
http://blueridgediscovery.com

Tree Tops

2008-06-04T14:09:00.003-04:00

The twigs in the tree tops are beginning to droop, many are brown. The female Periodical Cicadas are beginning to deposit eggs. The mating is beginning to take on a fever pitch, and the sound of the males singing is almost overpowering. In a few weeks, many trees will have dead twigs drooping where the females have placed eggs. Males are starting to show up on the ground dead, their job of fertilizing a female's eggs done. The mating dance is starting to take on a extreme fervor now, with many individuals flying around trying to get mated, both male and female.
Their cousins, the Annual Cicadas will come out later, in July, during Dog Days. Here, they are called "Dry Flies", due to the dry, rasping sounds they make. Watch for them in a couple of months. You will be able to hear them, trust me. They have some of the loudest songs in the Animal Kingdom, some as loud as a jet plane taking off. They have the same sort of life cycle, just shorter, and some of them like pines and other evergreens; the Periodicals mostly like hardwoods, though I have seen a lot of them emerging under Spruce.
When the Periodical Cicadas are finally gone, and some people will be quite happy (not me!), it will be mid-summer; they will mostly be gone before the end of July. Then, of course, listen for the "Dry Flies".

Cicadas everywhere

2008-05-24T18:00:00.006-04:00

They really are everywhere, or so it seems. In the Asheville area, the constant trill is almost mind numbing, especially around noon.
We are experiencing a phenomenon that has had people in awe for hundreds (and probably thousands) of years. The old folks, and here I mean the people who were my grandparents' age when I was growing up, called them Locusts, and said that they were the locusts of the Bible that plagued Pharaoh, when Moses was asking him to release the Jews (Children of Israel). They did not know, due to the insularity of the Mountains, that a locust is a different creature altogether; a grasshopper.
These creatures have an extraordinary life, one that extends for 17 (or 13 in some cases) years underground, and emerge all at once in a horde that totally swamps any predators, allowing most of them to feed (some say they do feed), mate, and deposit eggs in relative peace.
What makes them so terribly special to me, and almost magical (indeed, their Genus is Magicicada), is this hidden life, and I have always celebrated the emergence as a special event. I know that some folks do not (including my wife Suzanne), but I rejoice in them.
They are in all the trees here, and can be seen flitting around from tree to tree. I have heard two different songs, the "Pharaoh" trill of the species M. septendecim, and the odd ratcheting sound of what was likely a M. cassini.

My first experience of these insects was when I was 6 years old, in 1957, as I wrote in a previous post. I was unable to handle them then, as the old folks said they were "poisonous". In 1974, I handled them, and photographed them, and again in 1991. I am playing with them this year too, and even brought one in the house, and photographed it emerging, a pretty little male. You can see him in his white coloration before he turned to the orange color of full adulthood.

I am glad to have seen this emergence, and this is likely to be my last or next to last of this brood number 14 (XIV), as I am 57 years old, and have a dissected aorta. (Uh oh! ) However, I might see another in 17 years, if I am a good boy!

Enjoy, and come see them before they are gone, and the babies take another 17 years!

Blackberry Winter and "Locusts"

2008-05-13T13:42:00.004-04:00

Blackberry Winter has been here, and thankfully, there was no frost. What is Blackberry Winter, you ask? It is that cold spell in the early part of May when the Blackberries are blooming in this part of the country. The Jet Stream is still writhing like a big old snake on hot ground due to the change over to Spring, and cold fronts march across our country like invading armies, only to be repulsed by the Summer to come. These cold fronts don't do much in most of the country, but here, in the Southern Appalachians, we feel it. The old folks said that if there were no cold and rain when the Blackberries were blooming, Blackberries would not bear. I have to agree, from observation. Curious.

On quite another note, a rather rare occurrence is taking place here, and it has me terribly excited. It has had me excited since I was a small child, and i have only seen it three times in my life, and this year makes four. A low trill fills the air, not really loud, but certainly noticeable, a trill that oddly resembles the trill of an American Toad, but only heard every seventeen years instead of every Spring. It will become a background to life for about two months, and then fade away. It is the song of the Seventeen Year Cicada, called Locusts by the old people. It is one of the largest broods, brood # XIV, and has quite a widespread occurrence. The old Mountaineers like my grandparents would tell me they are the Locust of the Bible, and even call "Phaaaraoh" (their trill is uncannily like the word Pharaoh, curiously) and since they have a synergistic emergence, they truly seem to be here in plague proportions. Since they only come out every seventeen years, and the nymphs live underground for seventeen years, they would seem something mythical, or perhaps, Biblical. There are so many of them, and the egg laying activities of the females make such an evident mark on trees, leaving dead twigs hanging everywhere, that it is understandable why folks think it is a "plague". Actually, the tree damage does no harm, and few if any die from the "damage". You can see a picture of a representative of one of the species (there are three actually) at the top of this blog; I do not have the technical expertise or the patience to move it to the middle of the page.
Older people, when I try to tell them these are NOT Locusts, will disagree, and will go into that response common to many Southerners "are you callin' me a LIAR?!". No, I am saying you are ignorant. Sorry, but that response brings out the worst in me.
It has been said that inside every tall tale is a hard kernel of fact. I have found that in some cases, it is a hard kernel of ignorance. The old people had never seen a Locust, a type of grasshopper (see Locust Photos and Wiki Locust), so obviously called them a Locust. The fact that the call, a trill that rises slightly and then falls quickly, sounding very like a trilled "Pharaoh" is the final nail. This call can be heard on the site www.magicicada.org, where they have calls of all three species liable to be out.
Another thing I was told when I was seven years old was that they are poisonous, and if they sting you, you will die, probably because the females "sting" trees, and the twigs die. Not. They are harmless, and even edible, if you are so inclined (Man vs. Wild, anyone?). I prefer to observe them, and listen to the chorus. Matter of fact, I think I will go listen to the chorus of "Phaaaroah", and see if I can handle a few.
Bye now!

Spring Climbs the Mountains

2008-04-17T16:06:00.004-04:00

Spring indeed does climb the Mountains. You can see it happen, as I have when I was traveling weekly between Asheville at 2000 ft. and Morganton at a little over 1000 a few years ago. In the Piedmont, Spring would already be in full swing while only a few signs were showing here. At around 3000 feet, there was nothing.
Today, Spring is in full swing here. Sarvice (Serviceberry), has bloomed, and Dogwood is blooming. We even had Dogwood Winter. There are Spring wildflowers out everywhere like the Spring Beauty, Trilliums, and Fire Pink. Pansy Violets are also out. Tadpoles are in the pools and seeps where a few weeks ago there were only eggs. Leaves are out on many of the trees, and the hills are greening up.
However, if you look at the surrounding hills, you will see that the green goes only part way up the slopes. Past a certain line on the mountains, at probably 2500 feet, the woods are still gray. Spring hasn't gotten there yet. Go up the Parkway to Mt. Pisgah, and you will discover it is still the tail end of Winter there. So, Spring is indeed climbing the hills, as it has done for millennia.
Now is a great time to see wild flowers in the Smokies. A nice place is the Kephart Prong parking area.
Hope to see you out there!
Alex

Dogwood, wildflowers, and cold weather

2008-04-15T11:55:00.002-04:00

Dogwoods are just starting to bloom, and the weather is turning cold. It has always been that way, or so I have been told. My grandparents called it "Dogwood Winter", and believed that we would always have a cold spell when the dogwood bloomed. In my 57 years, it has always seemed so. I could be all scientific and make some reference to weather patterns and coincidence, but generally, I just accept Dogwood Winter as part of my heritage. Perhaps this seems superstitious, and I guess in a way it is. However, I have seen it happen in almost every year of my 57, so there is some empirical data there. I do not believe in the "hoop snake", or a myriad of other myths and legends, and no, Copperheads and "Black Snakes" do not interbreed. However, "Dogwood Winter" seems to happen every year, as does "Blackberry Winter". So there.
There are a host of wildflowers out. Spring Beauty makes silver carpets where it grows thick, but if you get up close, it is white tinged with pink. So it is with the Pansy Violet, which is called "Johnny Jumpup", except they make a blue or yellow carpet, and the flowers are those colors. Appalachian Serviceberry, called "Sarvice" by the Mountaineers (including me) has made its snow white mist against the unrelieved grays and browns of the early Spring woods, and now is making leaves, and the sweet and tart berries that will be ripening about the middle of June. Bloodroot and Trout Lily have both bloomed, and are making seed pods; the Bloodroot is growing ever bigger leaves too. If you poke through the richer coves and bottomlands, you just might see the Little Sweet Betsy, a type of Trillium with dark mottled leaves and red upright flowers that has the odd odor reminiscent of over ripe apples. Other Trilliums will be blooming soon if they aren't already.
So, if you live near the Mountains, come visit. Start out at Asheville, or another place at about 2000 feet, and go up, maybe on the Parkway. You will see many phases of Spring, until you get high enough, and only the Sarvice (Serviceberry) are blooming. Beyond that and it is still Winter.
Shoot me an e-mail if you are going, and I will help you plan your route. Heck, I might even go with you if you invite me!
Enjoy!

Peepers at night and Wood Frogs

2008-03-12T15:14:00.003-04:00

The Spring Peepers are out again. You can visit a wetland almost anywhere in the eastern US on a warm spring night, especially when it is raining or has just rained, and hear them. They are said to sound like baby chickens, and I guess they do, but a chorus is a jingling mess, with thousands of tiny songsters vying for females.

I went to a couple of sites near where I live to hear them, and record my observations for Frogwatch USA. They can be found at http://www.nwf.org/frogwatchUSA/ . Just copy this link and paste it into your browser. I'm too lazy to code out the HTML.

Unfortunately, I do not live in the country, but in the suburb, but even there, there are plenty of frog sites, and I have three very near the Western NC Nature Center. Two of them have Wood and Pickerel Frogs too, all three species are reputed to have antifreeze in their blood, so they won't freeze on those early spring nights that dip into the 20's.

At the top of this entry, you can see an egg mass left by at least two Wood Frog pairs. Woodies tend to aggregate their eggs for a number of reasons, the two top reasons said to be to hoard heat in the middle of the mass (for those sub freezing nights) and to swamp any egg predators - anybody eating from a mass would get full before eating the whole mass, so if you are a Wood Frog pair, you have a higher chance of producing babies if you deposit along with others.

Late Winter or Early Spring?

2008-02-22T18:34:00.003-05:00

Late winter, or for that matter early spring, in the Southern Appalachians has two faces. Some days are honey colored, soft, and carry the feeling of spring, that silken feeling on the skin of warm spring air. The next day, there's nothing between you and the North Pole but a barb wire fence. It can catch you out. You go out in the morning, and it is so sweet, birds singing, the sun giving everything a pre-spring glow, and by mid afternoon the skies have clouded over, a raw wind that seems to carry a straight razor has sprung up, and there is a fine snow spitting out of a leaden sky. You, of course, are in a short sleeve shirt, light trousers, and no hat. You really deserve it, though, if you are over 20; you should have seen it enough times to know. If I go out for the day at this time of year, I carry a warm coat with me just in case. Of course, I have seen this for over a half century.

The Creasy Greens are coming out, those famous greens that Mountaineers pick every winter. If you want to look them up, they are Barbarea verna or Barbarea vulgaris. My uncle called the former "Sweet Creases" and the latter "Boar Creases", the idea being that they were only fit for boars to eat. He actually called them something else, alluding to having unmarried parents, but this is, after all, a family blog, and Uncle Carl was rather free with Ancient Anglo Saxon Expletives. We won't go there.

Creases, called Early Yellow Rocket (B. verna) and Garden Yellow Rocket (B. vulgaris) on the USDA pages (http://plants.usda.gov/java/profile?symbol=BAVU for Boar Creases) are a member of the Mustard family, and have the fiery mustard oil common to the family. Boar Creases have a bit more of the bitter oil, making them taste bad to some. In the words of Uncle Carl "Some folks like 'em. Them folks over on Sodom (Sodom Laurel Creek, Madison County NC) love 'em, but I cain't stand 'em". I have to agree with Uncle Carl; I cain't stand 'em neither.

Another cress that is coming out is the Bitter or Pepper Cress (Cardamine hirsuta). It is a tiny cress, and like Creases, is a winter annual, a plant that sprouts in the winter, makes a rosette of leaves, and in spring throws up a stem that bears the flowers, and finally seed pods. This one already has flowers, tiny white ones that are often hidden in the grass. Both these Mustards are introduced from Europe years ago, the settlers not knowing what native plants to eat, and have become a part of our flora and also our local culture.

A number of other small things are out now, including the Ivy Leaved Speedwell. It too is an introduction; seems that our locals are a little more timid. Wise, more likely; frost can happen here up to May 15, so they are probably very wise.

It is cold tonight, and will likely be freezing tomorrow. It will get warmer though. Spring is more a progression than a discrete date.

Bye now. Look for these winter annuals to see if you can find them in your neck of the woods.

Alex

Early Signs of Spring

2008-02-08T14:18:00.000-05:00

I have heard and seen signs of Spring here the last few days. Jake the Fawn Pug, a good trail companion, and I were walking at the Asheville soccer fields on Azalea Road this week, and as we got to the far end we heard the bright sweet calls of the Spring Peepers. They, along with some other amphibians, produce an antifreeze in their body fluids, so there is no real fear that they will freeze to death when the cold returns. Oh, it will. It certainly will. Their mating assemblies can be hears on any rainy night and some wet days any time between early February and April as long as the temperatures are in the mid 50's or so.

We saw the bright blue flowers of Ivy Leaf Speedwell yesterday, like tiny fragments of Turquoise thrown on the lawn, so blue they sing to the sense of sight.

Yesterday morning, I woke to the short drumming of a Downy Woodpecker - hope they nest somewhere near.

I have heard the Song Sparrow too. Every one of them has a different song, and many of them have two or more songs, so listening to them is a joy. They have been all my life a sign Spring is coming. The sweet buzzing and trills are somehow comforting, joyful, relaxing, and just gives you a feeling of indescribable joy deep down inside. He holds territory all winter, but gets real poetic about now.

The Carolina Wren with his eardrum thumping song is also holding forth. If you are standing too close when he lets go, it can actually deafen you for a few seconds. He is LOUD! He too stays around all winter, but he and Mrs. Wren are starting to feel the effects of longer hours of sun light, swelling gonads, and rampant hormones. Just wait. They will be looking for a garage, utility building, mail box, hanging basket, or even a glove left outside to build a nest in and raise a brood. They don't need much.

These early warm spells are nothing new, and many critters take advantage. Wood Frogs have probably been out already. However, having been here half a century, I warn you;
Don't trust it. Spring is not really here until you can say with confidence that frost will not happen any more, and that is mid May. Really. Don't plant corn, and don't put indoor plants outside until then, or you'll lose them.

So though the signs are here, spring is still a ways off.

Get outside, folks, and look for the signs!

Snow on the Mountain

2008-01-17T18:01:00.000-05:00

We had snow last night. Large wet flakes fell from a sky the color of old lead. There is something about a Southern Appalachian snow that touches me deeply. The hard blue sky slowly begins to fill in with smooth gray clouds that John Parris called a "Gray Goose Sky". As the clouds coalesce, the air begins to get colder and sharper, and it seems to wrap around you with a sort of pleasant cold that speaks of thousands of years of Mountain snows.
My mom called me as the clouds got thicker last evening, telling me of a time in her early life when she saw just such a day and cloud cover. She said she and her father were walking back from the barn after handing tobacco (another story for another time), and her father looked up and said "we're going to have a big snow tonight", and he was right. Of course, when you live near the land, get your livelihood from it, know every aspect of it, it will talk to you.

The snow obscures roads and paths, making the world new, or perhaps old. Perhaps the power goes out, and the twentieth and twenty first centuries retreat in the purity of white, and perhaps an older time is mutely glimpsed as a shade behind the snow, a time of working tobacco in a cold barn, gathering eggs at daybreak, feeding grain to the milk cow, of meat taken from the smoke house to be eaten with breakfast, of rabbits hunted in the snow because tracking was easier, and huddling around a fire in the evening, listening to an elder tell stories of days older still, how hard it was after The War (Between the States, perhaps), how the river froze so hard that a wagon and team of horses could be safely driven across, of people lost in winters past in a land still wild, and of their discovery in spring, when people were able to get out and about. Some of that wildness may still exist when the snow is on the ground, when it forms a mystic portal to ages past, and gives glimpses of a way of life now gone. At least it is for me.

The snow melts, showing the road, the Twenty First Century intrudes, a car horn sounds, a sand truck roars by, and it is gone. Until the next snow.

Rime on the Ridge Tops

2007-12-20T13:17:00.000-05:00

I saw rime on the ridge tops the other day. It finally got cold enough, and conditions were perfect for it. Hoarfrost, my grandmother called it. That is from the Old English, meaning white or gray.

On a cold and sunny winters day with a hard blue sky, a lone cloud floats onto the top of a mountain or ridge line, and seems to become attached to it, as though alive, and with some purpose. The ridge top is closed from view, as the cloud seems to slowly move and boil, lifting an edge from time to time to reveal pure white below. It stays, as though communing with the mountain top, and finally begins to float away, ragged now, with wisps and streamers departing from the main cloud, which slowly moves off to reveal a shining white mountain top or ridge line, a white so pure and glowing above the gray winter woods that it hurts the eyes, reflecting the sun so perfectly.

I was caught in one of these clouds more than once, or might I say, I was graced to be within them. The sun is hidden, and the world is gray, gray woods and a gray mist that moves like something alive, depositing ice on everything, trees, limbs, twigs, Rhododendron leaves, grass blades. Even my beard was turned white; it was red back then. It now looks as if I had been standing in one of these clouds. Time is like a hoarfrost cloud for me, I guess. Ice is deposited heavily on the side of the twigs that the air is moving from, making a wedge shaped ice shroud on the upwind side. This greater accumulation of ice on places like Craggy Gardens and Mount Mitchell will kill the buds on the upwind side of the trees, giving them a lopsided shape, called "flag formed". To be on a mountaintop while this is going on makes one feel magical, as though some mystical creature is going to appear out of the mists; indeed, shapes appear in the mists and seem almost to turn corporeal, and then dissipate, sending shivers up your back, though it is only the cold.
And the mountaintop is pure gleaming white in the light of the winter sun.

This phenomenon is a form of sublimation, where ice forms directly from supercooled water vapor, without the intermediate phase of liquid water. Mostly, you will only see it on the higher ridges and peaks in the middle of the winter, when the odd clouds turn the mountain tops white.

Winter, finally

2007-12-16T16:06:00.000-05:00

Well, winter is finally here, or at least, sort of. Cold today, with a brisk wind, gusts are supposed to be 50 mph. The weather is still a bit warmer than normal; above freezing at night. Birds are all over the feeders, and are fun to watch.

Mid Winter Warm

2007-12-13T13:30:00.000-05:00

It is warm here in mid winter. Mid Winter day is almost upon us, the shortest day of the year, and it is very warm here, in the 70's yesterday. Whew!
Midwinter was important to my remote ancestors, the people of the British Isles. It is a time of celebration, as the Sun, upon its travels, having traveled to the south, turns north again. Obviously, in the British Isles, in some of the more northern areas, it looked as if the sun were going to disappear from the sky on Mid Winter. The fact that it did not was cause for celebration. Mistletoe was used for purification of the house, to bring peace to all who entered. It was also a symbol of life and fertility, being one of the few plants that managed to stay green all winter.

Winter arrival

2007-12-03T13:42:00.000-05:00

Winter has arrived. A few days ago we had snow. Today it is chilly and windy. A hard blue sky, and the limbs of the great Oaks sway to a great rhythm. The wind moans and howls around corners, making your bones chill, even in a warm house. You just have to shiver.
Squirrels are wearing their winter coats, with pretty white spots on the backs of their ears. Slate Colored Juncoes forage under feeders, and if my grandmother were still here, she would call them "Snowbirds", and claim their presence presages snow. The leaves of the woods Orchids, Cranefly and Putty Root, have popped into being, and are collecting sun light while the great deciduous forest sleeps. Turkey Brush, a type of Club Moss, covers road banks and forest floor, hopefully dreaming of its glory days, when its ancestors were taller than the mighty Oaks, about sixty or so million years ago. How the mighty have fallen...
Though the woods look dead, they are not. Squirrels forage in the dead leaves that fell mere weeks ago, and deer pick at the buds of shrubs that sleep in the winter as they quietly avoid the puny efforts of human hunters who seem to fill the woods at this time. Of course, humans are not the only hunters...
The Red Tailed Hawk floats above the fields, and suddenly falls to pin the rabbit to the ground. Ah, a full day's meal - she won't have to scuffle for voles and mice today. The Coopers Hawk darts through the woods and the brush on the woods edge, popping the occasional song bird that fails to be aware of threats. Life needs constant vigilance out here in the winter woods.
As we go deeper into winter and the days finally get longer, life will get even more difficult, but the days will get longer, and the sun will finally start its journey back up in the sky. But, today, winter is upon us.

Colors Peaking

2007-11-13T12:55:00.000-05:00

The colors here in the Asheville area are just about peaking. We are about 2000 feet here, and the colors are outstanding. If I were out "leaf peeping" here, I would get on the Parkway on US 70 and go south to NC 191, and take that to NC 280 to Brevard, or actually, Pisgah Forest. Turn right at the Wal Mart and go into the Pisgah National Forest. Have fun.
Alex

Late Autumn

2007-11-10T21:20:00.000-05:00

I went out hunting this past week. Have no fear; no animals were harmed in this hunting foray. I am not the best hunter in the land. Mostly I was looking at the colors of the Blue Ridge. Some of the trees were spectacular, primarily the Scarlet Oak and many of the Hickories. Last week, I got some photos of Sassafras. The drought seems to have brought out the color in this species.

Not the best picture, but the color is OK. I would like to have a better camera, but oh well...

Here you can see the different leaf forms of Sassafras; three lobes, two lobes, like a mitten, and a single leaf. Below are some I collected.

There are others in our area that have these leaf shapes. Mulberry comes to mind.

Now, about the hunting trip. It was to the Sandy Mush Gameland, a new bit of property bought and managed by the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission near Asheville NC. Some wonderful trails through several different forest types, plus some fields and successional communities. Saw a nice beaver pond on Turkey Creek, and it looks like a place to go fishing next summer.
Oh well. Winter is coming in a month, and we will pass through to Spring. See you all next week.
Alex

First day

2007-10-16T23:01:00.001-04:00

A Garden Spider of the genus Argiope, probably A. aurantia. They are found on fencerows, in gardens, and my front yard. They are rather large and intimidating, but are wholly harmless, and add a little drama to the fall of the year. Most of them have made their egg cases and passed on, but a few are maybe still out. Best time to see them is from July to October.
Northern Water Snake. These can be seen right now, though they will soon be looking for a denning place.

I just opened this account with the idea of sharing some of what I do here in the Blue Ridge. I have had some experience in writing, and plan on doing a good bit of it in the future.
Since the Mountains are in the Autumn cycle, I thought I would go through my photos and share a few of Autumn. Once I get used to this, I will probably be able to label them, but the one above is a blue Aster from last year. Davidson River near Brevard. These are all over the place now, though rather small due to drought.

Autumn heat

2007-10-16T13:10:00.000-04:00

It is dry this year. Terribly dry. I can think of all the jokes I have heard about how dry it is, and none of them are funny. All along the roadsides here in the Blue Ridge, the plants show signs of stress, even the Goldenrod.
Amazingly, most of the fall flowers are present: Goldenrod, Blue Aster and White Aster, Ironweed, and a few others. I have heard that colors are pretty north of here, near Burnsville on the Parkway. Even with the dry, the Parkway is pretty. Craggy Gardens shows how it got that name. If you go off into the picnic grounds, the road up will show you many flowers.
South on the Parkway, I have been to Black Balsam and Ivestor Gap, and it is very pretty. You can see extremely rare Closed Gentian here, and a few other fall specialties. Good luck - your luck will be better at high elevations of over 4000 feet.
Enjoy!