CLOUDLAND CABIN JOURNAL - SEPTEMBER 2004 Click here to go to Part B - Sept. 16th - 30th All photos in this Journal are available as Fine Art Prints 9/1/04 Very cool and quiet and calm just before dawn this morning. I shot a few photos of the delicate pink color in the southern sky - that is the direction of the Cloudland Deck Cam that I shoot off the back deck most every day, looking due south. That is the Buffalo River Headwaters - looking upstream - and the drainage continues that direction for about another 16 miles before heading up along Hwy. 16 between Redstar and Fallsville (the canyon makes a western turn in there somewhere). Just to make sure that the new Journal format was going to work, I went ahead and posted that cam shot - it seemed to work just fine when I tested it on my browser. Then I put on my hiking shoes and the dogs and I headed on down to the river - the first real hike I'd taken in more than a week. The sun was just beginning to break up over the ridge to the east, and sunshine was spilling into the canyon below. As I said, it was VERY quiet and still this morning, almost like the landscape was holding its breath for something. As I move on down the hillside below the cabin I passed by some new friends that almost went unnoticed because they were not moving - goldenrod. The entire hillside was covered with this beautiful yellow goldenrod flowers, and they were beginning to break out and show the world their true color. Those plants had been there for weeks - funny how you don't really pay any attention to something, and then all of a sudden, boom, there they are, thousands of them. Of course, that brilliant YELLOW they are producing now has something to do with it! I quickly realized that the trail route was laced with spider webs, so I put on my headnet. It was still mostly dim light in the deep forest, and with that headnet on I could not see too well, and I had to go slow. That was fine with me - I had to take my steps gingerly anyway since I had grown so fat and out of shape in this past week of inactivity. A little ways on down the hillside the trail turned towards the east, and BAM, I was blinded by the sunshine splattered all over the front of the headnet - I couldn't see a thing! Turns out that's the way I would hike most of the next 15 minutes - blinded by the light, and having to hold my hand out in front of my face to block it. I could have taken the headnet off, but then I would get covered with spider webs. Leave it on and I was blinded. Such turmoil in the wilderness this morning, how could I take it... It was cool enough down in the bottom of the canyon that I had to put my hands in my pocket - by then I was below the sunshine so could see OK to hike. It was still very calm and quiet out - no critters at all that I could hear. But I began to hear what sounded to me like raindrops. I stopped to look and listen - not a cloud in the sky, nor had there been any fog in the canyon early that would have soaked the leaves above. The humidity seemed low to me, even though I was already sweating - but that was from having to carefully place each step on the way down since I could not see too well. Could it have been bugs falling out of the trees? How about squirrels cutting nuts and dropping the remains? The leaves around me seemed dry, so I wasn't even sure it was water coming down. But it did make a pleasant sound - just like light rainfall. A few steps later I had an answer - got hit square on the top of my head, and sure enough, it was water. I guess the air was just more saturated down in the canyon, and the cool temps were forcing some of that moisture out onto the leaves up high, and when there was enough moisture to form an entire drop of water, and that drop go tired of holding on, it simply let go, to fall to earth, and land where it may. As I stepped out from the woods and onto the gravel bar out in the middle of the main river channel, I removed my head net since there would be no more spider webs. Goodness it was actually LIGHT down there on the river, even though the sun had not reached it yet. Boy, it felt good to have that hot, dark, head net off. I took three steps and ran right smack into a giant spider web - got me all across the face. I think the spider had seen me coming and already run off, but the web was enough for me. Yuk. I took two more steps and ran into another web! After that I made sure to walk carefully with my hands outstretched in front. The dogs splashed around in the shallow water a while - the actual Buffalo River was still running, but not very much. I looked along the river bank for anything of interest, then all of us turned around and headed on back up the trail. Since I had just mowed down all of the spider webs along the way, I did not need to wear it on the way up - much nicer. It was a tough climb for me but I was bound and determined to make it all the way to the top without stopping - and I did, but I had to slow down a few times in order to keep from falling over dead. When I reached Mom's meadow it was aglow with all that goldenrod. I took out my camera and tried for about ten minutes to shoot a good photo that really captured the essence of the glowing plants, but I was not happy with anything. One day soon I will shoot a good goldenrod photo and post it for you here. One little note about yesterday, then I will post this and get on to real work. I spend a couple of hours yesterday evening on the bushhog, mowing Aspen's meadow and the power line right-of-way. Some of the weeds were 15 feet high and even taller - that's what you get with a lot of rainfall all summer and weeds growing freely out in the sunshine. I would often be driving the tractor into a wall of vegetation that was so thick I had no idea of knowing what was in there - but I had the bucket lowered just in case something was in there that was not supposed to be. One time when I entered a particularly thick stand of vegetation, a giant sticker bush reached out and grabbed ahold of me - I immediately stopped the tractor, but it already had a good hold of me, as its thorns had slashed into me from head to toe - YIKES! I was bleeding all over the place - my head, nose, hands, legs. And the worst part was that I could not MOVE - if I went forward, the ripping would just continue, and when I tried to back out, it ripped in another direction. I didn't have any gloves, but did the best job I could to remove the worst stickers that were still attached to the plant and also embedded in my skin. Gradually I worked myself mostly free, then backed the tractor out. About ten minutes later I broke the shaft on the mower, and then hobbled on back down to the cabin to lick my wounds. I've still got a lot of mowing to do, but have to get that shaft fixed first, and then perhaps get an iron-mesh suit to wear the next time I head into a wall of weeds! Note to self - MOW MORE OFTEN! 9/2/04 There has been a nice yellow/orange glow on the trees in the wilderness for the past half hour as the sun dipped low in the west, then finally disappeared, creating sleeping dark mountain all around, with pink sky above. The blue haze that has been with us all day is very dark blue now. Up in the trees the summer bugs and frogs have taken over the airwaves - lots of crickets signing tonight - more so than normal. The air is very still, and I haven't seen a bird fly in a couple of hours. There should be plenty of bats out, but the sky is empty. Come on guys, there are still plenty of bugs to gobble up! Speaking of bugs, I've never seen so many spider webs across the trail today - hundreds and hundreds of them. I was reluctant to put on the headnet while hiking this afternoon, and paid by getting wrapped up in a new web every three or four steps. Just one after another after another. I finally wised up and held a branch out in front of me, and it too soon got covered with webs. I stumbled along the mostly dry riverbed, both upstream and downstream, for nearly an hour. The water level was quite a bit lower than even yesterday morning - it had dropped by a couple of inches. One thing about is having a nice wet summer is that the forest gets used to having all that water, and it grows rapidly, and wants more and more and more. When the rains stop, the forest continues to grow and needs more water, so it soaks up what is left in a hurry. But the river is still running, a little bit. Kind of like normal September levels. It was hot out in the sun, and the rocks were soaking it up - I bet you could lay out on a big boulder at 2am in the morning and be plenty warm right now. I noticed a distinct lack of wildflowers along the river today. Late summer is not the best time for flowers, but there normally are still quite a few of them. Most of the little flowering plants that grow in the shallows were all closed up, same thing for the flowering bushes along the banks. And I couldn't find any of the yellow flowers that are always present. And then I realized there were not cardinal flowers either - they are a staple of the early fall landscape. I could not recall seeing one at all this year. Such began my mission - I was going to find a cardinal flower! And it took me more than 30 minutes to find a trace of the brilliant red flower - one single stalk hiding deep within what I call a river birch bush. The flower was in good shape with plenty of color, but I was unable to get a good photo of it - and that was my REAL mission - to get a photo for the Journal. So I pressed on. The clear waters may have been shallow, but they were very nice. You could see every grain of sand on the bottom of the river, and all the colorful rocks and small fish darting back and forth. And in the places where some junk had settled on a smooth flat rock, you could see the tracks of some underwater critter, or perhaps even a raccoon or fox or coyote that had splashed on by. On my way back downstream I walked right on by the entrance to the trail, which is covered with layers upon layers of brush and small trees. That was a good thing, because when I finally realized where I was and turned around to head back to the trail, there IT was - right there in the middle of a big empty spot, a beautiful, perfect, cardinal wildflower! There is something about the RED of these flowers - difficult to reproduce in a photograph - certainly one of the most brilliant colors in all of nature. And this one was in the shade and had a dark background, so it was a great photo subject. I sat right on down in the gravel and spent the next 20 minutes firing away.
While I was shooting pictures Aspen was splashing around through every square inch of the river nearby, and Lucy, well she was just being Lucy, and was sitting quietly about five feet away from me, and did not move the entire time I was taking pictures.
OK, mission accomplished, now where is that big hill I have to climb? Actually I always enjoy the climb out much more so than the steep hike down into the canyon - for one thing, there are almost never any spider webs since I had already cleared them out! I did have to stop once for ten seconds on the way up and blow. After I cooled off a bit I turned on the outdoor shower to wash up - I'm telling ya, this thing is the best feature of this cabin! Sometimes I'll go get dirty just so I can take a shower. I believe it is every bit as wonderful as the outdoor shower in the aspen grove at the old forest service cabin in the mountains in Wyoming. Today, I had a little bit of company. I didn't notice him until his web got splashed and a beam of sunshine hit him just right, but there was a beautiful bright green spider with shimmering gold stripes right next to me. I would seldom use a nice term when describing a spider, but this little guy was quite colorful. He stayed put while I washed up, and I left him there in his diamond-studded web. The pink has gone out of the sky now, the mountains are just one big black blob now, and the evening sky is beginning to get dotted with stars. The girls are in town at b-ball practice, but will be home soon. Think I'll go sit out on the back deck and see if I can start up a conversation with an owl or two. 9/3/04 Pam made me get up out of bed and go shoot elk photos this morning - what a slave driver she is! We immediately saw a group of young boys - about seven or eight of them - right at the base of the big hill where Cave Mtn. Road meets the highway. They all had collars on and were not too photogenic, so we motored on. At this time of the year you can see elk almost every morning and evening in the big hay fields in Boxley Valley, but you normally have to be there right at first light in the morning, and at the very end of the day. We found another herd of elk at the other end of the valley - this is the main herd with a dozen or more cows - some with calves - plus three or four middle-sized bulls - and the big bull of the valley - this is his herd, and he is the one that really puts on a show for everyone. They were pretty far out in the field and in the fog this morning, but I did manage to get a good photo or two. On the way back up the mountain we stopped and took pictures of a few other things - including an incredible wild "garden" of towering cardinal flowers - some of them three and four feet tall; plus a really neat hay field with those giant rolled bales; and finally we stopped right in the middle of the Faddis meadow. I got out and spent most of the next hour shooting photos of vines, or rather the flowers growing on the vines. There is a row of old stumps and other misc. stuff that Bob had piled up along the edge of the meadow years ago, and this year the entire pile is covered with a thick mat of vines - several different species of vines. And this week they all are in bloom. It is really quite remarkable how much color there is there, and so many different colors of flowers. Of course, in order to get into a good position to take photos of them, you really have to be in the MIDDLE of it all, which is not a very easy thing to do. My poor bride had to pay for getting me up so early - I made her wade out into the middle of all this mess with me to act as a shadow for a couple of shots.
The entire time we were there we were bombarded by hummers - no telling how many of them there were, but you can just imagine having a unlimited number of "hummer feeders" all around - the hummers were EVERYWHERE! And they were making quite a racket - I'm not sure if it was because we were there, or just because that is what they do. My goodness, if I were a hummer, how in the world could I choose which flower to feed at? I guess in a way I WAS just like them because I too had to choose which flowers, or flower, to concentrate on - there was so much color everywhere, and the fact that the sun was rising and the light was changing rapidly made matters worse. Oh my, what to do. After I had been there a while, and after Pam finally got tired of the no-see-ums that were attacking us constantly (she left to hike back to the cabin) - I zeroed in on one flower in particular. I spent about 20 minutes shooting just this single flower - it was backlit against the rising sun, and had a silhouette on it of a tiny vine and flowers arching over right behind it. These are all common vines I'm sure, but I'm not exactly sure what this one vine is - I have a call into Don the Almighty to find out (turned out to be a common morning glory).
Speaking of Don Kurz, the wildflower expert, we just got word this morning that we will have his new wildflower book (AND the 2005 Arkansas Wild & Free: Buffalo River Country calendar) in our hands by the end of October! That may seem late - and it is - but the printers have had trouble getting all the colors exactly the way we wanted them, and so it has all been delayed. But I will gladly take them in October - I'll keep you posted, and let you know when they will be available for delivery. Back at the cabin it is another hazy day just like yesterday (it was 59 degrees down in the valley). Looks like a clear day above - a pretty typical day for September. We really need RAIN though as it is getting really dry. I'm sure they are in for another tough run down in Florida, but if they could just spare some of that water and send it up our way? 9/4/04 Really froggy here this morning, and we cannot see the bottom of the canyon. Very still and quiet outside, and the temp is warm. Looks like the sun will burn through it all in a while though. We enjoyed a delightful breakfast at the corner cafe in the drawing room. The little table that my bride put in there makes a perfect breakfast nook - it looks right down into the woods below the cabin, and also out onto Mom's meadow. Any bear strolling through could be easily seen. Speaking of bears, I think we had one roaming around here yesterday - on several occasions both dogs jumped up in tandem and ran out the door, snarling and growling, then chased something off into the woods - they don't do this with squirrels! I'll have to go down soon and look for more piles of bear scat. Yesterday afternoon I made a quick trip to a location many miles downstream known as "the Nars" - I'm sure many of you have been there, either via floating by on the Buffalo River, or hiking by on the Ozark Highlands Trail. I wanted to get there and shoot some infrared photos while the leaves were still on the trees, and with a blue sky filled with puffy white clouds. The sky was just perfect when I left Harrison, but by the time I made it to the Nars there were too many clouds, although the resulting photo is still interesting. For those of you who have not been there, this is a spot where a very narrow slice of bluff remains in between the drainages of the Buffalo River and Richland Creek (Skull Bluff is at the far end of this). A really neat spot, but I must warn anyone attempting to climb up on top, it is a bit dangerous, in fact REALLY dangerous to be standing up there - the bluff is literally only a couple of feet wide in spots, with 75-100+ drop off on either side.
I was forced to make a short detour before getting to the Nars, and continued on down Hwy. 65 to the Courseys Smoked Meats store, which is located at the turnoff to Gilbert, and just before you cross the Buffalo River on Hwy. 65. The "official" reason for my visit was to check on how they were displaying their new stock of our guidebooks, but the real reason was that I wanted a smoked turkey sandwich pretty bad - I do believe their smoked meats are the very best in the land! Mission accomplished. It was kind of hot when I reached the top of the Nars, even with the wind blowing. Part of my sweating had to do with the fact I was a little scared while up there trying to negotiate that narrow fin of rock while the wind caught the wide and heavy camera pack on my back. My legs got a little bit wobbly. Just for fun I took up a cell phone to see if there was any coverage. Of course there was none. But then just as I got back down to the truck after the shoot and was putting my gear away the phone rang - it was Pam on the other end, but no way we could carry on a conversation - in fact I only heard her voice once and then nothing. There were zero bars on the screen. Not knowing if it was just a "hi honey, I miss you" sort of call, or "HONEY, THERE IS A BEAR ATTACKING" call, I decided to hustle back up on top of the bluff to see if I could get a better signal - or any at all. So I did, and then did not. About 30 minutes later I was able to call in and discovered there was no bear attacking. By the way, the river below Woolum is bone dry for a good long ways, but I had to drive across about a foot of water at Woolum to get to the Nars, and I'm sure the swimming hold just downstream is still full of water and a great place to cool off (it is in Glenn's book) - the river goes underground in the summer below that swimming hole. I will return to the Nars at some point in the near future, I hope, with better clouds. What can I say - I'm a perfectionist. When I got home there was a emergency of sorts. Pam has some nice butterfly weed in the front yard that did really well this summer. The plants have produced their big seed pods, which are now curing on the plant and soon will be ready to spread seeds all around the cabin. But the seed pods have become infested with aphids, and we learned from the flower master Don that these aphids will eat up the plants. Luckily, we also had some nice lady bugs that had come to the rescue - Dons says they love to eat aphids! While I was trying to take these photos I wanted to get the lady bug right in the thick of the swarm of aphids, but she was too far out of the frame. I kept pushing her on down the stalk, but she kept resisting and then turning around and going back out of the frame. Since Don told us lady bugs eat aphids, we figured she had already been feasting on them and was simply too full and didn't want to see another aphid until dinner time! Anyway, the little lady was kind enough to pose long enough for one good photo. By the way, the close up shot of the bugs looks REALLY neat when blown up across the full screen on my 23" monitor!
I guess it is Labor Day weekend all across the land, but at Cloudland, it is just another work day. We got a shipment in yesterday of new publications that we will be selling on our store - these are from the Ozark Society Foundation and National Geographic Trails Illustrated. I'll spend a good part of today scanning the covers of these books and maps, then adding them to the online store. By the end of the day you will be able to order all of them online. We will also soon be adding some Falcon Guides, and a few other things as well. We want to become your one-stop shop for all publications outdoor related in Arkansas! Is it time for lunch yet? I can smell some of that smoked turkey in the fridge... 9/6/04 Well heck, all of that great turkey is gone now. Good while it lasted. Mental note - buy more turkey. Today began well before daylight when we were awakened by a strange sound down in the main cabin level. When I got up to investigate, I found a little mouse in the kitchen - "I'm going to make breakfast in bed for Mommy!" We spent the next 20 minutes creating some blueberry pancakes, and then snuck upstairs into the loft for their presentation. Unfortunately the bed was empty - Mommy was in the bathroom getting ready for the day! But she soon returned, and enjoyed breakfast in bed courtesy of the noisy kitchen mouse. On the subject of noises, yesterday, just before sunset, my bride and I were sitting out on the back deck enjoying the cool evening breezes and the great light show of the setting sun. Then a really odd sound came echoing from somewhere out in the wilderness. Both dogs jumped up and ran off into the woods barking. I could not quite put my finger on what it was - man or beast. This morning I heard the exact same sound, coming from someplace up the Whitaker Creek drainage - it was sort of a high-pitched "whelp, whelp," sounding like an off-pitch owl call. Still don't know if it was a bird, other critter, or a person yelling out. These days there are lots of sounds coming from up in the trees - mostly cicadas and crickets, not so many frogs. We had a DELIGHTFUL rain shower pass through during the night. Sounded like at least an inch or two of rain, but that must have just been in my dreams - the weather station showed less than 1/4 inch this morning. But I'm sure everything out there loved the drink though. The roads have been getting really dusty this past week, so that should help them out a little too. Two business items of note. First, if you have not already done so, you can now go to our online store and order several publications that were just posted over the weekend (written and published by other folks), including maps of the Buffalo River and Richland Creek Wilderness, a really neat black and white picture book by Neil Compton, and other books, including the Wildflowers of Arkansas guidebook by Carl Hunter. Carl's book has been the standard wildflower book around here for many years, although I actually prefer the photos and organization of Don's Ozark Wildflowers book a lot better. We will be stocking Don's wildflower book too soon (along with his Scenic Driving The Ozarks book), so if you want the best wildflowers book for Arkansas and the Ozarks, wait until we post that one, which will probably be in early October. (I'm sure this may get a little bit confusing, but the Ozark Wildflowers book is not the one we are publishing for Don - that one is Illinois Wildflowers.) But if you want Carl's book, it is available now in the store. There is also a new "Buffalo River Stuff" link and section within the new store that lists all of the publications that are just about the Buffalo area that we stock. Always trying to make things easier, faster, and BETTER in the store! And the second item is that we now have the 2005 Arkansas Wild & Free: Buffalo River Country calendar available for pre-order. The calendars won't ship until late October, but if you are one of those who needs to place your order now so as not to forget later, you can now do so. You can also view all of the photos from the calendar in the online gallery. The rains during the night really cleaned up the atmosphere - we've had hazy air here for quite a while, but this morning I can see details in trees over on the distant mountains that have been muted. And that air seems to go deeper into my lungs when I take a deep breath too, more like high-altitude air instead of lowlands air. From the looks of the oaks and hickory trees around here, we are going to have another great mast crop this fall - that means fat squirrels, deer, and other critters that eat them. It also is often one of the signs of a hard winter approaching, but the last few times they've done this the trees have been wrong, so no telling. We could sure us an actual winter this year - it has been a very long time since we had one. Ticks. The subject of ticks came up the other day, and I recalled that I had not even seen a single tick in weeks, perhaps for more than a month. Wouldn't you know it, I pulled three of them off me the very next day! It has been a very good tick year (that means not many ticks), I suspect because we've had so much rain. Speaking of rain and healthy trees, unless something happens to alter all of this, I think we will be in for one terrific fall color season this year. Rain in the summer produces healthy trees, and then if we get some dry weeks in the fall - like we are having now - those colors will be intense and really pop. I've got several photo workshops scheduled this fall - one of them is almost full. And I just added a special second day to all of them - the first day is mostly classroom/computer work and we really only get to shoot photos for a little bit in the morning. But the second day will be out shooting all day long, from early to late. If you are interested, or know of someone who is, see the info here and then send me an e-mail soon. Pam and I hiked around a little bit yesterday in between all of our chores. One thing I noticed is that the ground cover in the forest is taking on an overall yellow-orange-red tinge to it - the creeper and ivy vines are turning color. Also some sumac is beginning to turn, along with black gums higher up in the canopy. The dogwood that shields the outdoor shower here continues to turn dark red, although I have not noticed any of the bright red berries yet. Remember that service berry tree that started to bloom last month? Well now many of the leaves on that tree are dying off/turning color/just getting drab, and I noticed yesterday a BRAND NEW and bright white blossom once again! Still don't know what is going on with that - I guess this tree is having an identity crisis, or needs a calendar for Christmas so it can learn to tell the season. Hum, how about a new Ernst calendar! OK, ok, enough rambling for now. I'm going to head out for a hike a little later on. For now I hope you have/had a great holiday weekend - HAPPY MONDAY TO YOU! LATE EVENING UPDATE. It is just after sunset now, and what an incredible evening it is outside! Cool and dry with a slight breeze from the west, lots of bugs singing in the trees, and the sunset colors were quite dramatic. The feel of fall is definitely in the air. Oh how we LOVE fall around here! After slaving away at the computer for most of the day, I ditched it all and hiked on down to the river late afternoon. Sunny, but cool, and almost NO spider webs across the trail! When I reached the river - well actually just before I reached the river - I headed upstream and followed an opening in the dense brush along the river bank. What I was really after were berries - there were all sorts of berries out today! I wound up spending the next hour or so photographing berries and other things along the river bank as I tromped on around up one side and then back down the other. It was just one of those afternoons where my feet and my mind were allowed to wander where they may, and the camera followed. Or was it the other way around? Do I look around all over the place, carefully examining everything, and discover things to photograph, or do the images call out to me "I'm over here, come look!"? At any rate, I had just a wonderful time down there in the canyon taking photos - and just for you digital camera geeks like me, I almost filled up an entire 1gig card, and was only shooting my little point and shoot! I should start taking my tripod with me these days - I think I'm getting to the limit of the image stabilization of this neat little camera I'm using now. And, of course, the scenes are getting more important too! So here is my little photo essay of the jaunt down to the river today. Enjoy!
9/8/04 Nice and cool at first light today - 51 degrees with a slight breeze. I've started hiking early in the day, just around the top of the mountain, leaving the dogs at home. That first golden hour of daylight is so special, and especially this time of the year when the landscape is beginning to change just about every day, sometimes even more often. It is cool and refreshing and makes a perfect start to the day to get out and hike before breakfast. Today I headed off through the deep woods, but they weren't so deep because the sun was up and sending shafts of bright sunshine everywhere - I could hardly look over to the east it was so bright. As I eased out into the edge of a meadow I saw a deer feeding - or should I say she had been feeding, but was actually staring right at me. It didn't take but one more step from me and she went bounding off into the woods. I would end up seeing this deer three more times on my little hike this morning - she just seemed to be making the loop hike with me, a few hundred yards ahead. One thing that I have REALLY come to look forward to and enjoy on these morning hikes right now is the paw paw patch. Seems that a few of the paw paws are getting ripe, and if I look around, I can find one that has fallen to the ground - makes a perfect sweet breakfast! I had to look a little harder than normal to find the one that I just knew had made it down to my breakfast plate, but sure enough I found it, and it was just at the peak of ripeness. We have this little grove of paw paw trees over near the orchard that almost always produces some very find fruit. Probably are 15-20 trees, not too big, and not too small. It is really thick in the grove - thick with wild rose and other sticker bushes - so I bush hogged out some of the underbrush to give me an aisle where I can go in and look around with ease.
For some reason the ground under the paw paw trees was covered with large green leaves - those of the paw paw trees. We've had some nice breezes of late, but I guess there must have been some really strong winds over on that side of the hill since I visited the grove yesterday. Or perhaps it is just their time to drop off. One thing I noticed about these leaves - the bottom of the leaves were about the same exact shade of green as the fruit, with the top of the leaves being a darker, richer shade of green. I LOVE the sweetness of this fruit, and it just seems to go quite well with the coolness in the air - fall air is always sweet to me, and add some ripe paw paws, and you're in heaven. As I hiked along I found a few things to take photos of, including this one dead weed (bottle brush grass) that the sun was lighting up, and this tiny green spider that I found on a thistle blossom. And later on I crawled back into thick brush under a small black gum tree - man the colors on this little tree really lit up the sky!
I never did get a photo of the little deer, but she made her way on around the mountain just like I did, and the last time I saw her was just a couple hundred yards from the cabin. Good thing the dogs were fast asleep up in the loft - as much as I enjoy hiking around with the dogs, you don't see nearly as much wildlife when they are around. So I leave them behind now and then so that it is just me and the wilderness, and whatever critters happen to allow me to visit with them. We got home late last night from Amber's first basketball game of the season (that's right, b-ball in the fall again for us). With the crazy new school situation in Arkansas this year the girls b-ball coach (full time employee of the school) is not allowed to coach the team this year - sounds kind of nuts, but that is just the way the government is. So two parents have volunteered to coach, and I must say they did a tremendous job with not only coaching the girls but also managing the entire game. (we got beat, but I was really proud of our girls and the volunteer coaches) Anyway, it was pitch black when we were approaching the cabin, so we stopped the truck at the last big opening and opened the windows and gazed out and up at what must have been a billion stars (actually only about 6,000 visible at one time, but who was counting). The Milky Way was shining bright, and it all nearly took our breath away - such a cool and crisp and clear night, with no moon in sight. I think I'll go wander around tonight and see if any of the stars are still up there. 9/9/04 Another terrific morning here in the wilderness today - temps right at 50 degrees, clear skies and no wind. I had my usual paw paw breakfast. One thing that happens when you first bite into one of these guys is that you are really taken back by how SWEET they are! And I've never tasted such sweetness before in any other fruit. And they have really large seeds for a fruit their size, in fact perhaps larger than any other fruit I can think of. I hiked merrily along the morning, munching on the paw paw and spitting out the seeds, I got to thinking about those giant seeds. I do believe that I am helping to propagate paw paw trees up here on Cave Mountain with my morning breakfast ritual, and soon there will be paw paw trees everywhere! Just call me Timmy Paw Paw. The rest of the morning and day were not so nice. When I got back to the cabin I took off on a quick trip down to the river. Right off the bat I messed up my knee, the one that I mess up several times a year. Can't quite explain what it is I do to it, but it is quite painful. However, it didn't seem as bad as normal today, so I continued on with my hike. Once I got down to the bottom of the canyon it was SO STILL I could actually hear my own footsteps echo down in there - really, really quiet, and the air had a special quality to it this morning. We stopped at Whitaker Creek while the dogs plunged into the now shallow waters. The sun was just hitting the far end of the little pool, and with the dogs stirring things up and the sun coming through the leaves and the blue sky above, the disturbed surface of the water turned into quite a magical patterned canvas. I sat down on a big rock in the middle of the creek and just watched the light show for a while, then we all headed on back up the mountain. I was a bit tired out for some reason and had to stop and blow for a few seconds on the last big climb. A little bit later, once we got back up to the cabin and had all cooled off and washed off, Pam noticed some blood on Aspen's right shoulder. Upon close inspection we realized that he had ripped open his shoulder, all the way down into the muscle. We applied anti-biotic cream and then a giant bandage, but that was of no use - it was JUST within reach of his tongue, and you know what happens then! So we called the vet and soon Aspen and I were headed into town to get him all sewn up (this must have hurt him pretty bad because he would snap at us while trying to doctor him - something he NEVER did during either of his recent snake bite episodes, even though I had to pry his swollen mouth open to administer drugs). I didn't realize until later that my knee was actually in pretty bad shape, and so I spent the rest of the day hobbling. Thanks goodness the girls at Cloudland are all in better shape! Aspen and I didn't get home until after dark tonight, and since he was put under general anaesthesia, it took him a while to get his solid legs under him - looked like a drunk for a while, but he did have a smile on his face. Now there is a large shaved patch on his front shoulder, with a two-inch sew job right in the middle. Oh yea, I forgot to tell ya - WE MOVED! We now live in Ponca. Actually we just have two addresses now, one in Pettigrew, and one in Ponca. It seems that after battling Fed-X Ground for years and years - they will NOT deliver to us out here (although Fed-X air, UPS, and all the rest have no problems) - we decided to go ahead and get a Ponca address, which will route the packages that we are forced to have shipped via Fed-X Ground through Harrison so they will be delivered to us. Fed-X Ground is a terrible company (not the same company as Fex-X Air by the way), and their terminal manager in Lowell told me last night he uses contract drivers and they simply will not come out here - they just leave the packages on their truck for weeks at a time, gathering dust. He told me that was a big problem with their company, and that he couldn't do anything about it. So we will put up a mail box down at the bottom of the hill in the Ponca service area, and they will get our packages to us. All of our normal mail will continue to come to us through the most wonderful post office in the world at Pettigrew. How in the world could anyone ever ask for better service from any company than we get from them! The only problem with a Pettigrew address is the fact that we live quite a ways away from the greater Pettigrew metroplex, and folks often go there looking for us (we are about 30 minutes away, and includes nine miles of gravel road). Oh yea, I almost forgot #2 - one more bodily injury story. While hiking this morning - just before the knee injury - I was doing some trail maintenance, and was trying to roll a very large tree out of the trail. In fact, a bear had come down the trail recently and rolled this tree right into the trail, looking for ants and grubs under it. Well, the tree and I had a little bit of a disagreement, and it came rolling right back at me, and I got tangles up in the branches as it did. One of the branches scraped right across my left eye, just barely missing my eyeball by less than 1/4 inch. Now there is a large scratch across my face just below the bottom of my eye, and the entire area is getting a little dark blue tonight - looks real attractive. Pam is afraid to take me anywhere in Jasper for fear folks will think she has been abusing me. OK, no more injury stories today! I'm going to go sit and soak in the hot tub, and hope Aspen's shoulder feels better in the morning. 9/11/04 Just a quick update this morning before I go sit on the tractor and try to fix a few pot holes in the road. It is sunny, hazy, and breezy this morning, and looks like it will be a rather warm day. The dust on the roads around here have turned to powder, getting into everything through the vehicle no matter how tight it is sealed. When you walk down the road little puffs of smoke churn up - it is DRY, DRY, DRY, and we really need for Ivan to swing a little to the west and head up into Arkansas after it comes through the Gulf - we need some rain, and a lot of it. Of course, unlike you will hear from others, I fee like the very best fall colors happen when we have a very dry September and October, so on one hand I also don't want to see any rain just yet! Some wildlife notes from the past day. I was sitting in the drawing room (well, OK, actually I was napping in there), and looked up and saw the window feeder filled with goldfinches. One of them was feeding another one, just like it was a little chick. Don't they do that in the springtime, and in the nest? The "chick" seemed to me to be full grown, and when the flock got disturbed, it flew off into the nearby service berry tree just like the rest of them. I watched this going on for several minutes before they flew off, and it was just strange to see one bird feeding another one out of the feeder. Pam found some monarch butterfly caterpillars on her butterfly weed in the front yard. They were very small, and also seemed out of place at this time of the year. Lots of butterflies in the air of late - especially cloudless sulphurs, that just seem to appear from no where, spilling over the roof of the cabin and down into Mom's meadow. They float around for a little while down there and then disappear, off to someplace else.
And yesterday afternoon when I left the cabin to head up to the office, I felt like I was being watched - you get that feeling a lot out here. I stopped and looked around and saw an eight-point buck standing at the base of Amber's fort, right out in front of the cabin! He really looked out of place right there with the swing set and toys. Didn't stick around too long, and within a few seconds he bounded off up the hillside in a cloud of dust. Speaking of Amber, I am happy to report that she scored her first ever points in an athletic event last night - sunk one from the corner of the court, a swish all the way. She picked up a basketball for the first time in her life just a year ago, and has turned into a pretty good defensive player. She has been hitting quite a few shots on our court out here this year, but does tend to get nervous when in a real game. Last night was a very big game for the girls - against one of the biggest and baddest teams in their conference, Bergman. This same team wiped up the court with our girls last year, but last night our girls were in the game the entire time, and it went down to the very last play - we lost, but it was a close, exciting game. Our volunteer coaches are doing a great job! And so are the girls on the team. After the game you would have thought they won the game - they knew they played well, and could have won, and it was great to see smiles on their faces. It was a long day, and we did not get home from the game until 11:30pm - two of the previous games before Amber's went into overtime, and one went to TRIPLE overtime! Now that the first one is in the bag, I suspect Amber will find the bottom of the net a lot more. Aspen is doing well, and really he doesn't even know he shoulder has been sewed up - in fact as much as I hate to, I have had to lock him inside the cabin most of the day because otherwise he tears off into the woods as usual, and I am worried that he will rip open the stitches. He is a pretty tough customer. One business item. You can now order 8x10 prints of any photos that are posted here in the Journal, beginning with the August 2004 Journal. Many of the photos in the previous six years of the Journal can also be purchased, but you need to e-mail me before ordering to see if the photos you want are available - some of them were taken specifically for the Journal and are only low-res files (won't make good prints), while others were shot in higher-res and can be printed. This smaller size is not available for my normal Fine Art Prints - it is a special just for Journal readers! You can go to the prints section of the online store to order, then scroll down to the Journal section. To let me know which photos you want, just type in the date and title/caption or whatever info you can give me.
9/13/04 HAPPY MONDAY MORNING TO YA! I just love Mondays - give me the rest of the week to get stuff done, and I don't feel quite as far behind, although I seem to be slipping farther and farther that direction with each passing hour. Kind of warm and on the hazy side this morning. When I stepped out the front door to go on a hike early I knew there was something out there - squirrels were all screaming at each other with their "alert" voice. The dogs were inside, so it wasn't them. As soon as I stepped into the dark woods it all felt sort of eerie. It was quite colorful though, with the sun just rising, and shining in through all the leaves, lighting everything up (kind of sounds odd since I just said "dark" forest, but it was a lot darken in there than out in the open). If you swung your head from side to side really fast you would see a blur of greens and reds and yellows - lots of colors all mixed in. And man the squirrels were going nuts, and I don't mean eating them! I bet I counted a dozen of them in the first 100 yards of hiking, running all over the place up there in the treetops and screaming like crazy. I walked carefully, straining to look at every detail in the forest for any sign of movement from some critter other than a squirrel. I'm really good at this after 30+ years of training during hunting seasons. Only problem when you first step into the forest is deciding what zones to cover first - do you look around up close, or concentrate on the far away parts that you can see? Impossible to do both at the same time, so you have to choose one, then do the next zone. I try to make a really quick scan of the entire scene to catch any large animals or movement, then start working on just one zone. I looked and squinted and looked some more, moving ever so slowly, with squirrels overhead and all around, but saw nothing, except for the squirrels. I wandered on through the East meadow, shot a few photos here and there, then continued on around the lane. I could hear SOMETHING out there in the woods next to the meadow, but couldn't quite figure out what it was. Hum, perhaps more squirrels, some shy deer, a roaming bear? Or most likely just my imagination.
When I arrived at the paw paw patch I decided to start collecting any that I found - I normally only eat one for breakfast. I discovered that I had missed several that had fallen last week and had already turned black. I will add to this pile each day and see how big it gets. I've never really gotten the impression that any animals ever eat this fruit - only bugs. One year when I collected and piled up 40 or 50 of them next to the lane I never found a single one of them missing, and a pile of seeds remained after the bugs got through with them. I plan to pick up that pile of seeds this year and spread them around even more.
As I hiked on beyond the paw paw patch, I could still hear something out there in the deep, dark forest near me... The rest of this month's Journal is continued on Part B - link is below. Go to Part B - Sept. 16th - 30th Top Of Page | |||||||||
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Cicada shell on a hickory tree | |||||||||
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