6/1/02 I began my fifth year of the journal in the hot tub once again. This time there was no yellow haze surrounding me - only the sights and sounds of a great late spring sunrise in the wilderness. And all of those piles of trash and debris from the guest room bath project surrounding me. The sky above quickly turned from dark blue to bright blue and sunshine flooded the valleys below. We have a busy and crowded weekend ahead, which will include a family picnic in Jasper with Amber's scout troop, an exciting trip with Roy and Norma on ropes to measure Thunder Canyon Falls, and lots of chores around the cabin - including, hopefully, the first actual SHOWER in the new guest bath! The clock is now officially ticking for my new picture book and calender deadline, so this next couple of weeks will be hectic with all of that, plus STILL trying to complete the guest bath and exercise room downstairs. Not to mention all of the time I get to spend with Pam and Amber (I will take Amber down to the river at some point and applaud as she catches her very first fish!). And I will find the time, somehow, to make a few posts to the journal, and perhaps even include a photo or two. So stay tuned - it is going to be a great summer!

6/2/02 We all slept in a little bit this morning - at least until 7am. Then after a quick breakfast Pam and Amber went to work outside, while Roy, Norma and I headed out to go measure the height of the Thunder Canyon waterfall.

It was already 80 degrees by the time we arrived at the trailhead, but it did not seem too humid. The first part of the hike in was really easy  - a level route along an old road that is now a horse and hiking trail. Then we left the road and headed DOWN the steep hillside, fighting our way through thick brush. There was a live spring off in a little ravine to our right, which meant that the waterfall we were heading to would actually be running some - that spring is one of the water sources for Thunder Canyon Falls.

As we got closer to the top of the waterfall, the forest floor opened up and we hiked through a lovely stretch of open woodland that was a pure delight to pass through.

Before too long we were standing at the top of one of the most scenic little gorges that I know of around here. With all of the now-thick-again brush everywhere, and the simple fact that the upper sides of this canyon are nearly vertical, it was tough to actually see down into the canyon. I had an idea of where the waterfall below was, but since we could not see it, we would only be guessing at its location. The plan was for Norma to drop down into the gorge to the creek below, then inch her way along until she came to the top of the waterfall (hopefully it was down there somewhere, and before the end of her rope!), where she would send the measuring tape down. Roy would remain on top to take care of the rope. I would make my way on around and down to the bottom of the canyon and up to the base of the waterfall. All of us radios so that we could talk to each other. I had no idea if this would work or not, or if Norma would have enough rope to make it to the bottom of the falls.

It took me a while to get down to the base of the waterfall, but soon I was standing at the base of what will be a ***** waterfall in the new guidebook. The water wasn't flowing all that much, but it was a nice waterfall anyway, and looking around at where I was standing, I was awe-stuck by the beauty of the rock formations all around me. Part of the bluff actually hangs out over the canyon floor - you can't see any sky from down in this place. And that deep pool of water at the base of the waterfall that I was afraid to get close to when I was here back in April - it was still there, and no way I could tell how deep it was.

I could not see what was happening up with Roy and Norma, but they confirmed it would still be five minutes or so before Norma would be on rope. So what the heck, there was a beautiful and DEEP pool of water right in front of me, and I was hot, so I stripped off and headed for the water.

One thing about this little slot canyon - the surface of the smooth rock that forms the floor is as SLICK as anything you will ever walk across! I was taking my life into my own hand by standing on one foot to take off my blue jeans! I was able to disrobe without any major falls, but by the time I was ready to go swimming Roy came over the radio with "Norma on rope!" Not wanting to get caught in the buff, and needed to be a visual aid to Norma, I put my shorts back on and then waded out near the side of the deep hole.

The water was rather chilly and I probably would have chickened out on the swimming anyway. I was able to find an eight-foot long stick nearby and tried to reach the bottom of the water hole, with no luck. That meant that the hole of water was at least that deep - over my head!

"I have lost visual contact with Norma" The radio crackled. "OK, I will watch for her" I came back. Norma was no where in sight, which meant this little canyon was taller than I had previously thought. And even more concerning to me was the fact that the rope that she had thrown down was not in sight either. But just a minute or two later I could see bushes thrashing around way up above me, and then I spotted Norma. "I got a visual now!"

Norma was making her way down the side of the canyon into an upper part of the gorge, but she was still in thick brush, and her rope had gotten all tangled up. Soon she freed it and tossed the remaining length down, and this time it tumbled right on down the waterfall. The very END of the rope landed on a small ledge at the base of the falls - that meant that she would have enough rope to make the descent, but just barely enough. Her other option would be to ascend back up the rope the way that she came in, a time-consuming process.

Just below where Norma was coming down was the top of the waterfall - or at least the last point where I could see it. Up above that in the gorge the canyon was blocked by several large boulders. I had Norma swing on over to where she came down right in the middle of those boulders, and she confirmed that the top of the waterfall was actually at the upper end of the boulders. So after securing herself on top of one of the boulders, she dug out the measuring tape and tossed one end of it on down the waterfall below her. The first try got all tangled up in her rope, but she was successful the second time. Because the narrow ledge around the water hole at the base of the falls was SO SLICK, and me not wanting to go swimming just then, I was not able to actually get over to the base of the waterfall to catch the end of the tape. But the end came to rest right at the bottom of the falls, and with a little adjustment that was coordinated via radio between Norma and I, she was able to get the tape placed in the necessary spot. I was rather surprised at the total height of this waterfall - 71 feet! Boy, it sure didn't look it, but then the upper part of the waterfall is simply not visible as it pours through that tangle of boulders. OK, mission accomplished!

Norma in the upper part of the gorge

Norma had made several comments about the beauty of where she was standing, and when it came time for her to go ahead and rapel on down to where I was she commented that it was so beautiful that she just might not EVER be able to leave! I kept telling her that "you ain't seen nothing yet!" Poor Roy, he was like Mike Collins on the Apollo 11 moon mission - he was stuck up on top and unable to see any of the great beauty that was just out of sight below him! Of course, I was not privy to what Norma was looking at either - sort of like if Buzz Aldrin was forced to remain INSIDE the lunar module and not go out onto the moon's surface. Yep, Norma was the only one to walk on the moon today. But I had a pretty darn good view from my seat!

Oh yea, I forgot to mention about the snake. Just as Norma began to come down on the rope, and while I was out in the shallow water at the edge of the deep pool, I turned to go over to my daypack to get something and found a copperhead snake coiled up right at the edge of the water. WHAT? It was so COOL down in this canyon - and I mean the temperature kind - that no snake would ever venture up into here! This dude had obviously gotten a little too close to the edge way up above and slid over - what a ride he must have had, and without a rope! I bet he landed right in that deep pool. Wow, could you imagine the look on someone's face if they had just hiked in to view this waterfall (let's say it was someone from a big city and it was their first trip to the woods), and then all of a sudden it was RAINING copperheads from above!!! While Mr. Copperhead was not much of a danger to me, I decided that I had better re-locate him since it was such tight quarters and Norma would need every bit of room along that ledge to get out once she landed. I got a stick and showed him the way out.

The copperhead (in the bottom of the photo) and the waterfall

There must be something about waterfalls that attracts copperheads to them. No telling how many copperheads I have see at the base of waterfalls. One of them is forever immortalized. You may have heard of Copperhead Falls, which is located in Indian Creek in the Ponca Wilderness. I have a big poster of it available, and there are photos of it that have been published by me and others in many places. Here is the Rest of the Story. I was in Indian Creek one day with my big 4/5 camera equipment shooting pictures. It was very early in the morning and quite cold. In fact while setting up a photo where I had to span a narrow slot in the creek I slipped and fell into that water and nearly fell to death. Anyway, I came upon this neat waterfall that is not on the main trail (actually there IS NO OFFICIAL TRAIL, but there is a path that folks have beat out over the years), and spent about 30 minutes setting up my camera gear an shooting the now-famous photo. The entire time I was there shooting there was a large copperhead coiled up right next to my camera bag - within several inches of it. I don't know if he was there to begin with and I simply put my camera bag down next to him without seeing him, or perhaps he crawled on up to watch the show. I made several trips over to the camera bag, and the snake did not seem to mind me being there, and I never bothered him. After that episode I decided to name the waterfall "Copperhead Falls" after that snake, and the name has stuck. I believe that was the very first waterfall that I ever named. It always does my heart good to see that name referenced in another photographer's caption. "Hey, I named that falls!" Of course, once the waterfall guidebook come out, there will be dozens of new names out there! (So many of these waterfalls simply don't have a name, but now they will.)

I wish that I had my video camera to film Norma's descent. I shot a few digital pics, but there is no way they can tell the story - it was a thing of beauty, heck the entire place was a thing of beauty.

Norma makes her way down Thunder Canyon Falls

Norma made it to the bottom of the falls safely, and while I was sure she would have to swim across the pool, she managed to sit down and scoot her way around that narrow ledge - dragging her heavy pack that was filled with extra climbing gear behind her.

Once she was back on dry land, we dug out the measuring tape once again and got an official measurement of the depth of the pool. Neither of us could believe what the tape was telling us - at the outer edge of the pool it was 13 feet deep! Man, I would love to see this place dry! The pool itself was perhaps 15 feet in diameter, and while the water was somewhat clear, there was no way to see all the way to the bottom. I doubt this hole ever dries completely up, even in the late summer, and I bet it is one fine swimming hole! This little Thunder Canyon Falls is certainly one of the hidden jewels of the Ozarks! And the easy way into it is only about 1/2 mile off of a main hiking trail, and two easy miles from the trailhead.

As we were heading out of the canyon, we found a ton of deer tracks - I bet the deer make trips up into this canyon just to gaze at the beauty too! And not too far from the waterfall, just as we were beginning to make our way up and out of the canyon, we found an ELK BED In the tall weeds! Elk, up in here? That was very strange indeed!

The elk bed in the tall grass, about 5-6 feet in diameter

Before too long we were back with Roy, all packed up, and were heading back out and UP the steep hillside to meet up with the level hiking trail. Even though it was rather warm out and we were all moving at a rapid pace, it was a pretty easy climb out I thought. I leaned into the hillside and gave it my all to get my heart rate up and try to burn off some of the previous night's feast that we all had back at the cabin.

As we were hiking back along the old road towards out trucks, we came across a batch of buckeye trees, all growing low to the ground. The lowest leaves had all turned burnt orange while the upper leaves were still green. While looking at them closely we got into a discussion about the different leaf patterns between these buckeye trees and hickory trees. So we had to go find a hickory tree, which didn't take long. Then the tree of us got into a tree identification seminar, and as we hiked a long we were shouting out "maple, red oak, white oak, hackberry, dogwood, scaly bark hickory, black gum, poison ivy..." What, poison ivy? Good grief there were some "stands" of poison ivy that were much taller than us, with giant leaves - a literal forest of poison ivy. I could not imagine being allergic to this stuff - if that ever happens to me, I do believe that my outdoor careers would be over!

Goodness, what a lot of work it was just to figure out the exact height of that waterfall. But it was worth it to me, and certainly to Norma, who had a big grin on her face the rest of the day. I still have about a dozen waterfalls to measure for the new guidebook, and while I doubt they will equal the beauty and adventure of this one, I look forward to visiting each one in the next few weeks.

We have had an explosion of foxglove wildflowers around here this year, and several of you have even written to me noting that fact and wondering what the deal is. I can put my vast knowledge of wildflowers in a thimble, so I went to the wildflower expert to see what he had to say. Don Kurz wrote what I consider to be the very best ID book on wildflowers - not only is this book filled with the best wildflower photos I've ever seen in any book, but his book is organized so that a lay person such as me can actually FIND the unknown flower that I am looking for. It is called OZARK WILDFLOWERS and I highly recommend that you get a copy if you don't already have one. Anyway, the following is his comment about the explosion of foxglove in the Ozarks this year:

"As for foxglove, I think that it is just its time. Some species just lay
back a year, for one reason or another, and then, bang, they explode. A lot
of orchids are that way. It takes a lot of energy to produce flowers and
fruit and the process exhausts them; often needing a year of  simple foliage
to collect energy to do their thing another year.

It can also be a local thing. I see this as a typical year for foxglove up
this way too."

Speaking of wildflowers, I do believe that we are in the middle of a really great wildflower display in the Ozarks right now - they are EVERYWHERE! Especially along the roadsides and in other open areas where they can get lots of sunlight. Any of you that happen to be driving near Harrison need to go take a look at Baker Prairie Natural Area right there next to the high school in the middle of town - an absolute explosion of wildflowers of all kinds!

I got an e-mail from the producer of the DATELINE NBC program about Haley that was supposed to air next week on June 11th. She said the show had been POSTPONED, and she did not know what a new date would be. Since that date is the 9-month anniversary of 9/11, I suspect they will air some stupid memorial to that even instead. Please don't get me wrong about all of this - I know that was a tragic event in the history of the world, but come on folks, GET ON WITH LIFE and QUIT dwelling on it!!! I am sick and tired of anything related to 9/11. Talk about beating a dead horse. Anyway, we will get a couple of weeks notice before the next air date, and I will post it here.

6/3/02 I was up early before dawn and soaking in the hot tub. Once when I opened my eyes I spotted movement in the sky above - orange movement. Then it went black. Then orange again. Then black. I had to focus my eyes to figure out exactly what it was I had seen. It was a very large hawk soaring and diving and playing way up there in the wind currents. Apparently he was right at the level where the sunshine was, and anytime that he was above that line he would glow orange, but as soon as he dove down below the line, he would go black. He obviously knew this was happening because the sun kept getting in his eyes, but I wonder if he know what a show he was putting on for those of us down on earth?

Very windy this morning. The later in the morning it gets the stronger the wind has blown. I was just sitting at the kitchen table eating my Special K "Red Berry" cereal (actually they are strawberries, and I have no idea why they don't say that on the box!) and watching a momma phoebe sitting on a post. She could hardly stand there without being blown away. Phoebes are rather nervous birds anyway, and if you watch one, they are constantly in motion as they dip their tails up and down up and down - just like a "dipper" that you see all the time out west. Anyway, the trees and the forest in general behind this bird was in constant motion - every single leaf and branch was thrashing about wildly. Man, that breeze sure does feel GREAT!

6/4/02 I hiked up to the office just before first light around 5am today, with the Trail Cat and Fat Cat close behind. Aspen was out there somewhere, chasing a lizard, or a bear. An hour or so later Aspen let out a blood-curdling howl, and shot off into the woods. I went outside to see what was up, and chills ran up and down my spine as I found him in a posture that signaled something like a bear was indeed very close. It has been a while since I had seen a bear out here, so I followed close behind, and then encouraged him to charge on.

And then I realized that what he was barking at was nothing more than the bright sunshine breaking through the forest - the Superdog just treed the sun! While chasing after him I stepped in a hole and sprained my ankle pretty bad, so I was in limp mode the rest of the day.

Pam and Amber went into Jasper to volunteer their day doing inventory at the school library. It seems that the library at the little Jasper school is about the only one in the state that still does everything manually - they do not have a computer and the software to catalog and keep track of all the books. Pam first found out about this a couple of weeks ago when the library announced that the time students get to spend in the library would have to be cut way back next year - the work load on the staff was just too great. Pam took this on as a challenge, and has been trying to figure out a way to fund the purchase of the necessary computer and software. We volunteered to buy them a computer, but it turns out the software is the really big ticket item - it is going to cost $15,000 for software for this little place!!! Man, someone is making a  small pot of gold. Pam has been working on finding grants, but the sad fact is that most government grants are not available for this little library because - because of all things - they do not have enough minority students! I think that is called reverse discrimination! So she is looking for private funding for this very important cause. And in the meantime, she is contributing a great deal of sweat-equity to the cause. They spent the entire day working on just the bibliographies.

I was contributing a bit of sweat myself, but high up on a ladder inside the cabin. One thing about having real logs inside - they tend to gather a bit of dust, especially on the upper parts of the logs. The only way to clean them all off is to reach up and wipe the dust off with a damp cloth, something I try to do twice a year here (I have not done it in MORE than a year though, so the dust was getting quite deep). Doing the lower reaches of the walls is no big deal, but getting up to the tops of those walls can be quite challenging. One of the reasons that I married Pam was because she was a rock climber and I thought she would be able to do all of that in her sleep, and enjoy it! (just kidding, but not really) But since she messed up her back last year she has not been doing much of that. Anyway, I wanted to surprise her with a cabin that had been scrubbed clean while they were away, so as soon as she disappeared into the forest on their way to town I got out the big ladders.

The top of the highest wall is 23 feet off of the ground - goodness the couch looks REALLY small from way up there! This process is somewhat of a personal journey for me each time I do it - I get reacquainted with every single log since you have to touch every inch of every one. It took me nearly all day, but by the time my ladies arrived home the walls had been scrubbed clean.

Since warm air rises the temperature way up there was rather warm, and I was glad to finish the job and return to the cool of the basement to continue with the carpentry/plumbing/electrical work in the new room.

6/5/02 First light was delayed today, as was my hike up to the office to feed the cats. RAIN, thunder, and lightning were the order of the day, and we got plenty of them all. It has been a nice soaking rain for the most part, with hardly any wind blowing it around. For the moment, the birds of the forest are taking refuge under big leaves - I have not heard a single bit of chatter from them all morning. That is typical in a rainstorm like this - for the animals to take cover at first. But eventually they will all come out and go about their business as usual, knowing that the rain is just part of it all.

I had planned to spend yet another day down in the basement, but Pam just called in to say that one of the biggest waterfalls in the state is running full tilt (she is on her way to Harrison). I have a photo of it for the new guidebook, but not a very good one. But I really need a second person to make it look good. And I am WAY behind with my chores and book design here at the cabin. What to do, what to do.

YIKES - it is really coming down outside right now! A regular frog strangler.

Turned out that the rain did not last too much longer, but we did get a good dumping. Within a couple of hours most of it had either run off or been soaked up by the vegetation - the Buffalo River up here just barely came up a little bit, and not until the afternoon. But the day remained rainy looking with lots of black clouds swirling around. I elected to remain at the cabin and continue my chores downstairs in the basement.

Two very exciting things happened here today. The first one was nearly a year in the making. Things have been disappearing around here - gloves, slippers, MY WALLET, stuff like that. We have always accused Aspen of making off with them, and he is often sighted doing exactly that. Normally he will snatch a glove or water bottle and head for a chosen log or rock out in the woods, but not too far away. There he carefully digs a little hole and buries the item, pushing leaves and dirt over it with his nose to conceal his bounty. Of course, he will do this right in front of us and we often know exactly where he hides stuff.

I had to crawl way back under the front porch to install the front of a fan vent. While I was back there I began to notice a trail of gloves, slippers, balls, and all sorts of things that did not belong under there. Also a pile of leaves and many large hickory nuts too. I've been looking for my wallet since last fall, have always accused Aspen of taking it, and have even gone as far as to get out the powerful backpack blower that I use to clear trail with, and spent an entire afternoon "blowing" out all of the leaves and duff around Aspen's favorite logs and rocks in search of my wallet. I never dreamed that I would find it in the pile of stuff back in there today, but son of a gun, right there with the slippers and gloves and other stuff WAS my wallet!!! EUREKA! It wasn't so much the money that was in there ($102), and the credit cards and driver's license have long since been replaced, but it was mostly just not knowing WHERE it was, or if Aspen had really taken it or not. Finding the stash today did not answer that question. Pam is convinced that it IS the work of Aspen, but I am not so sure. I think it is a pack rat, and not the kind that sells outdoor gear! Poor old Aspen. I guess until I catch an actual Pack Rat in a live trap he will remain the sole suspect.

The other exciting thing that happened today was that after many long hours and days and weeks of hard work, and several dead ends, FINALLY I got to make the first FLUSH in the new toilet!!! And it even worked. I discovered that putting in one of those "up flush" holding tank/sump-pump toilets was not all that easy, especially when you have LOST the directions! Fortunately, I was able to get the company in Kentucky to fax me a copy of them, and I managed to put it all together. Such a simple project, yet so much joy to come! We still have work to do on the shower, finish putting up aspen on the ceiling, adding a few odd pieces of wood, finish the new closet that I just built in the exercise room, and then paint the floors and polyurethane the walls. But AT LEAST we now have a working toilet down there! I will certainly sleep a lot better tonight.

I did get out and made a couple of short hikes this morning - in the driving rain. It was delightful, and I HIGHLY recommend that everyone take a hike through the forest in a summer downpour! Heck, even hike around the block in town. Something very special about all those drops hitting you on the head. The air is clean and energized, everything around you is freshly scrubbed, the greens of the forest are a lot GREENER, and the world just seems a better place when it is raining. If I wouldn't have had so much to do today I would have gladly stopped and taken a good long break on a mossy rock and enjoyed the symphony of the rain and the cinema of the forest. I must get these projects completed and out of the way so that I can spend more time doing nothing!

6/11/02 Sorry for the long delay in posting here, but I have been, well, out of commission much of the time with several different ailments that have all hit me at the same time, plus a heavy work load both at the computer and around the cabin. Most days I have only been able to work for a few hours, then have been so exhausted and sick that I've had to quit. Along with all of the other things afflicting me, my head has been pounding, and I've been running a high fever. Good grief, I need to get out of the cabin and into the woods! And to top it all off, I just got back from a trip to the emergency room in Harrison at 5:30am this morning - thank goodness my dear wife can drive fast and accurate in her sleep. More on that later.

We began this long stretch of days with a family trip to tour some hiking trails to go into the new kids hiking trail guidebook. The directions we found in the state's guidebook to the first trail were rather vague, and I questioned the "map available at the visitor center" note in there because there is no visitor center anywhere near this park. One of the reasons that we do guidebooks is to go through all of the frustratingly and normal BAD directions and information that you find from most resources, and find out the truth. Such was the case with this trail near the dam at Beaver Lake. The actual park where the trail was located did not even have a sign on the road - I thought that was rather strange to begin with. We managed to find the park anyway, but were never able to find a trailhead or a trail of any sort. The description of the trail sounded very nice, unfortunately it must have been made up by someone who had never actually seen this trail. Like I said, that is the exact reason we do guidebooks, and check every single fact personally!

After our misguided trip to the phantom trail, we stopped by the dinosaur park nearby. I have always been curious about this place - you can see these giants creatures from the highway - but obviously would never have gone into it by myself. But now I have a KID, so it is perfectly normal to visit places like this! I was really surprised at what a neat place it really is, not only for the educational value, but also because there is a nice WATERFALL there, a small lake that you can walk right across the middle of on a low-slung swinging bridge, plus the meadows that we drove through were carpeted with TONS OF WILDFLOWERS! That was the biggest surprise of all, the wildflowers. Man they were terrific, and I would pay the entrance fee just to go photograph them.

In fact this has been one of the most spectacular wildflower displays I have ever witnessed in Arkansas, and you can see many millions of them right now simply by driving around. Another incredible display that you can drive right up to is Baker Prairie Natural Area, located right next to the high school in Harrison - it just keeps getting better and better each day.

We ended up not going to a single hiking trail all of that day, but did get many chores done in town. Later that night I was hit with the first of a string of ailments that made life rather miserable for me. Typical days for me have been to get up around 5 or 6am, get a few hours of work done, then crash for a few hours, then struggle through a few more hours of work in the afternoon, then a few more hours of work at night. Then another sleepless night, up at 5 or 6am the next morning to do it all over again. My dear wife and even Amber have been doing so much of the work around here, which has been great. And we have reached a couple of big milestones - yesterday, after what seemed like an eternity, we got the LAST aspen board installed in the exercise room and guest bathroom! Then Pam spent a couple of hours spraying everything down with polyurethane.

And one day I got up and out of the blue announced that I was going to "do" the 2003 wilderness calendar today. (I might have gotten that notion from Pam who had just told me the night before that it might be a good idea if I got to work on it ASAP!). By the end of the day all of the photos had been selected - after looking through more than 20,000 images. It took another day of work to scan them all into the computer, write the captions, size and place the photos, and generally tweak the entire project. By the end of that second day (11pm last night), I had it all finished and put the calendar to bed, along with my aching and exhausted body.

I have not paid all that much attention to the weather this past week, but I think we have had a great deal of rain, wind, and just noise in general outside. We've had a lot of fog too, and it is once again so foggy here right now that I can't see across the valley.

Oh yea, another milestone - last night around 9pm the very FIRST cicada of the season woke up and began to sing!

One other moment that I want to tell you about happened several evenings ago. Amber and I were outside watching the evening turn into darkness. She had been quite disturbed lately about the death of her grandmother several years ago, and she talked about all the good times that she never got to have with her. I have had a number of people close to me die, and we shared some of those feelings that often only come out in the dim light. We also had a good discussion filled with happy thoughts of her grandmother, and of all the loving people around her right now. And then the first star of the night appeared in the southern sky. "Star light, star bright, first star I see tonight..." We both made silent wishes, and smiles returned once again. (My wish was for Amber.) THAN Amber taught me a little something about the great outdoors. "Look around and count how many stars you can see right now." I counted about a dozen. "OK, now close your eyes tight and keep them closed for a full minute." "Now open your eyes and see how many stars you can count that have come out in that single minute." At least DOUBLE! She told me that her mom had told her about that when the two of them and Pam's dad laid out in a high mountain meadow in Colorado one year. I suspect this child of mine will bring me much knowledge as the years go on.

Oops, almost forgot - one other last tidbit. One night while I was up around 2 or 3am just wandering around, I happened to look to the east and saw the TINIEST sliver of a golden moon slowly rising into the black sky. It was the smallest piece of that pie that you could ever cut! Yet this little sliver was as beautiful as any full moon ever was.

OK, back to today. I had this terrible dream that was keeping me awake. In it I was riding a bike and came around a corner and there were hundreds of rattlesnakes crossing the road. What could I do? I certainly could not stop, they would surely bite me. So I kept on peddling, running over and making quite a few of them mad. Then a scorpion began to crawl up my arm. Terrified, I reached over and tried to swipe him off with my hand, but  I missed, and only grazed him. That, of course, only made him mad, and he began to crawl up my neck, and stung me - that is what woke me up. And I never got back to sleep. So I did what I normally do that time of day anyway, and went down for a soak in the hot tub. My mind was fully charged up by the time I had finished my soak, and I was feeling better from all of my ailments, so I stepped out of the tub and headed for what I had hoped would be a productive day.

What happened next was something that I have dreaded all of my adult life, an event that I knew had to happen to me sooner or later.

When I took my next step I felt something hit me in the foot. It was still dusky dark and I could not see real well, but I swear that I saw a snake on the deck, heading off in the opposite direction. What? Surely not. Could I still have been dreaming? I walked over and turned on the porch light, and sure enough, there was a copperhead right there in front of me. I reached over and grabbed a stick of lumber and thumped him on the head.

So there I was, standing out on the deck in the darkness, buck naked, and I had just been bit by a copperhead! My first reaction was one of being pissed off at that snake for coming up on the deck in the first place. AND Lucy, our ace snake dog, had just run back and forth across that part of the deck several times and never said a word. It was indeed my nightmare in real-time.

As I headed up the staircase (after grabbing my robe) I called out to Pam for help. My main concern was to STAY CALM and not get too excited and possibly go into shock. Pam grabbed one of the many "Extractors" that we have here, and proceeded to locate the bite and work the extractor. It was rather difficult to do all of this because the little SOB had nabbed me right on the tip of my longest toe - not much room to work there. Pam managed to "extract" several drops of blood, then moved on to the next fang mark, which produced no blood at all.

I've heard some horror stories about snake bites, especially when on smaller parts of your body. I knew the soonest we could get to the hospital would be an hour, so I braced myself for the pain that would follow. All the while I tried as best I could to remain calm, not only for my own sake, but also to keep from alarming Pam so much, and especially for Amber, who by now was awake and wondering what was going on. My hands and legs were still shaking though, and Pam reported that it was tough to put the tiny end of the extractor right square on the dot that was the fang hole while I was shaking, but she did a great job.

After we felt we had done all that the extractor could do, we called the emergency room at the nearest hospital in Harrison for advice. "Don't elevate it or put ice on it." Hum, I hadn't thought about either of those. The next bit of news from them did not make Pam too happy at all - "We MUST have the snake, so please bring it in with you!" OK, so I was supposed to lie down and remain as motionless as possible, and send my poor wife out into the dark to gather up a poisonous snake that may or may not even be dead? Yikes, I did NOT want to tell her to do that. In fact, I had already started back down the staircase to the lower deck when she stopped me, gathered herself up, and insisted that I go lie down on the couch. She is not only beautiful, she is brave too!

I'm not sure what all went on when Pam confronted the snake, but I do know that it moved when she poked it with a stick. I also know that the snake did not have a head when she arrived - apparently I had pretty good aim when I launched that piece of wood at him, and it cut his head clean off. She put the copperhead in a sack and we all headed for the hospital.

Pam has this theory about her moving out here into the wilderness. She says that good old Momma Nature has been throwing everything at her this first year, just to see if she is tough enough to take it. We've had snow, that terrible ice storm, the cabin flooding, all of the RATTLESNAKES last summer, and the bear, and no telling what all else. Well, her year is up this next Saturday, and she thought that she was in the clear - and now I get snakebit while standing on the back deck!

Pam was making the comment about all of this as we were accelerating towards the hospital, and just then, I swear, a deer jumped right out in front of the truck and we nearly plowed into it! Good grief. All I could do was put on some soothing music, lay the seat back, and try not to think about my toe, or that headless snake that was riding in the back.

I must say that not only has Pam taken on Momma Nature and survived all of her punches, she has done it with a great deal of class and without any whining that I was aware of. Oh yea, and she is also a GREAT driver when you are trying to get to the emergency room.

Once we got to the hospital we found out that they really don't do anything for a snakebite. Apparently there isn't much that can be done other than treat the symptoms, like the swelling, nausea and stuff like that. The "anti-venom" that we have all heard so much about is rarely used, and only on the most severe cases - it often inflicts more pain than the snake bite itself.

I have not talked any here about the pain and swelling that I was having. One reason is that I really didn't have any. My toe did not swell up, nor did I experience the severe pain that I had been expecting. Either one of two things happened, or perhaps a combination of both: One, it was a dry bite, with the snake injecting little or no venom - he has total control over this. And two, we were able to "extract" most of the venom from my body in time - Pam had the Extractor on my toe within five minutes of me being bitten. At one point early on my entire foot went numb and it began to climb up my leg - that is when I started down the staircase after the dead snake. And that got me really concerned. But otherwise, I was never in a great deal of pain. Although as I sit here and type this several hours later my toe is beginning to throb, swell up a little, and seems to be turning darker. Unless something delayed happens, I shall consider myself one lucky dude to not only have escaped with only a minor bite, but to have had my dear wife with me to "extract" and drive (I'm trying really hard not to use the term "suck").

One good thing that came out of this incident is that all of us got to see first-hand that not all snake bites are serious. The nurse said that about 75% of bites are dry. I already knew that few people ever actually die from a bite, but many wish they would before it was all over (like our friend Landon Woods who was bitten twice out here in the wilderness last summer - he was in the hospital for a couple of days in severe pain).

And another good thing that resulted from our quick trip into town was that Pam got to eat a donut. Well, at least she THOUGHT she was going to get to eat a donut. Like me, she absolutely LOVES a hot, fresh glazed donut. Of course, we don't ever get them out here, and most of the time when we are in towns it is too late for them. But today after I was released we headed for the nearest Daylight Donut shop, at last! The darn thing was closed down. Fortunately there are two Daylight Donuts in Harrison, so we raced across town towards the second one, crossing our fingers that it was open. Lots of cars there, so we were thrilled (we are easily pleased). But son of a gun, they were OUT of glazed donuts! Can you believe that!!! Pam settled for an apple fritter which she liked so well that I nearly had to grab ahold of the steering wheel a couple of times while she was eating it.

Stormy skies greeted us on our return to the cabin. Man the plants just LOVE all of this wet stuff, especially at this time of the year. I DO plan to get my business work out of the way - or at least under control - sometime soon so that I can get out into the woods and enjoy it. Until then I will just have to hang around the cabin and enjoy the view from the deck. Good thing snakes never venture up onto the deck.......

Speaking of critters that are feared, you might check out a story a friend of mine who writes for a newspaper near the Smoky Mountains about a mountain lion that he saw on a trail recently. Click HERE for Kevin Myatt's story about meeting a cougar on the trail.

6/12/02 I was up wandering around at 2am this morning - just couldn't get back to sleep. So I took a nice long hot soak in the tub, after promising my wife that I would turn a light on to check for snakes before going out onto the deck. While I was sitting there in the water, looking up at a sky filled with stars and moving clouds, one of the "bear posts" caught my attention. We have several of these out here - they are end or corner posts for the log railing, made from a lodgepole pine log about four feet tall, and have a foot-tall bear carved at the top - each post shows the bear in a different position (you can a photo of one of them at the Cloudland Journal home page). They were all carved by an Amish kid in Montana - he was only 18 at the time - and each is a work of art. (There are several of them at the new Pack Rat store in Fayetteville - all carvings of a "Pack Rat" instead of a bear - this guy can do just about anything.)  Anyway, I got to looking at this one bear post and how it was silhouetted against the starry sky (no moon - we are in the dark phase of it right now, but just enough starlight to make out the bear). And then I nearly fainted - the silhouette MOVED! In fact it turned and walked right on across the top of the railing! Turns out the post I had been looking at was just one of the regular posts - with no bear carving, and the silhouette that I was watching was one of the cats! The other day the same cat climbed up on top of one of the bears, and stood there with all fours on the little bear's head.

It was a good soak, but I never did get back to sleep. I got up around 5am and started working outside. I had big plans for the day - lots of cleanup work to do after all of the construction in the basement, plus scores of other chores. First light was late today, and while the weatherman had predicted clear skies this morning, we had nothing but BLACK skies and lots of north wind. Hum, the wind normally comes from the southwest here.

After a couple of good hours of work I decided that it was time I went for a short hike - the first for me in a while. So I struck out towards the East meadow to do the loop trail, with Aspen in the lead, and The Trail Cat not far behind. It was around 7am and the sun had been up for an hour, but man you should have seen how DARK it was in the forest! I thought I was going to need a flashlight to find my way. Thank goodness for Aspen's white rump.

The woods had a different smell that I recall them having before - sort of musty, very heavy. It felt like hiking through a deep jungle, one where you never see sky above because the canopy is so thick. It was neat to look out into the forest - these woods are very open, and you can see a long way, even when it is nearly dark.

As we broke out into light in the East meadow, I nearly got blown over by the wind. There was a definite smell of rain in the air. My pace quickened.

Most of the daisies that have covered the meadows this summer were dying away, as were the wild roses. As I hiked down the lane I couldn't pick up any sweet smells.

I was feeling mighty good today, with plenty of energy and no pain at all. I guess I needed this hike to put the snake a good distance behind me, and I seemed to gain strength with each step. It was a glorious day, and I was looking forward to spending most of the day doing OUTSIDE chores - I had been cooped up indoors so long.

By the time I reached the cabin, raindrops were already falling. In fact I had been hiking in the rain for about ten minutes, but it was a light rain, and quite refreshing. Just a few minutes after getting inside, the sky opened up with a loud BOOM, and it began to pour bigtime. Yep, nothing but clear blue skies this morning!

The rain didn't last too long, and while it did return a time or two during the day, I was able to fulfill the promise to myself about working outside most of the day, and I know soaking up all of that sunshine that did come out did me a lot of good. Heck, I even got to spend a few quality hours on the tractor - had to spread four truck loads of gravel that arrived during the day. I didn't get all of my chores done, but I was able to keep going at a good pace all day, and never took a break, not even for a quick nap! (Pam and Amber were in town half of the day, so the coast was clear too, but I just had too much to do and was feeling just fine.)

It is well into the night now, and there are a million stars out. I've been up and at it since 2 this morning, so I think I will call it a day. I plan to hit the ground running tomorrow as well, but I HOPE I will be able to wait until at least first light before getting started.

6/13/02 It was another nearly-sleepless night for me, and I was up early, working around the cabin, then up through the dark forest to the office for a couple of hours of work boxing books for the UPS pickup guy. By the time I had returned to the cabin, my ladies were up and in full swing - CLEAN CABIN was the first thing on their agenda, and that is a good, long chore.

We had one good hard rainstorm during the night, but mostly it remained clear and calm, although once the sun came up it was rather windy. The air out in the forest was really clean today - something it has not been in a while. I don't really mean "clean," but rather very clear and free of haze, humidity and the like. The air quality in the Upper Buffalo Wilderness Area is considered some of the cleanest air in the country - they have photo monitoring stating stations here that keep track of that.

I spent some of my day back up on the tractor, and the little orange wonder finally was able to prove itself in pulling out a stuck rig, and oh brother did it prove itself! The great big gravel truck got stuck up near the office while it was trying to dump a load in front of the tractor shed. The driver was half way out into the woods, could not back up, so he went forward, heading downhill and deeper into the woods. He eventually dug some pretty deep holes and the front axle was covered up. We hooked up Pam's little tractor and tugged and pulled and pushed from just about every direction, and finally got him out. It was quite a thrill to be at the controls of such a small machine while it freed a monster truck like this one.

I also used the tractor to go out into the forest and collect rocks, a TON of rocks - heck, actually several tons of rocks total. All of these years while wandering around our property I have been spotting rocks for future projects. Pam has a big project going on right now to fix up flower and fern beds at the front of the cabin, and she needs a lot of colorful rock to make it just right. So I have been making trips out into the forest and coming back with the bucket filled with 11 or 12 hundred pounds of rocks at a time. For those of you who don't lift large rocks too often, a thousand pounds of rocks is not really all that much - them dudes is heavy! Especially with all of that lichen on them. I do believe the rocks without lichen are much lighter, but they don't have nearly as much personality, so I prefer the ones with lots of "color."

Just before dusky dark I took a little trip down into "Mom's Meadow" - I guess I am going to call it that now that her ashes are spread out there, and she is producing so many great flowers. I'm sure Mt. Fox won't mind. I have two tomato plants there that have several green ones on them, but no red yet. And the strawberry plants nearby are covered with blooms - we've had a few good snacks from those plants already.

The grass in the meadow has grown very tall, but so have many of the wildflowers. Some species are getting rather dense there these days, and we now have thousands of beautiful flowers in our little meadow. And there are MANY more to come - the two most dominant species have not even begun to bloom yet!

My digital camera has been missing for a week now - ever since I heard this giant bumble-bee hovering over the wilderness. When I finally spotted the giant bee, I ran to get the camera, and a pair of binoculars. The bee was way too far off for me to get a photo of, but I was able to get a good look with the binocs. It was a powered hang glider, and the dude was up there high in the air taking his time and enjoying the view. Looked like a giant buzzard soaring, sounded like a bumble bee. Anyway, when I came back inside the cabin I put the camera on the same hanger as the binocs, and there it remained until this morning, camouflaged while I hunted all over the place for it. So here are a few snapshots of some of the flowers in Mom's Meadow that I took as daylight faded away this evening:

A bit of sunshine and love from my mom to you!

6/16/02 The past couple of days have been filled with many hectic times, tons of people (we had 22 here for dinner last night), and a bunch of outdoor work for me. Somewhere in the middle of it all I found the time to sit back and relax and enjoy just doing nothing. Well, that isn't exactly true - I happened to be driving my tractor at the time.

So many of the things on our to-do list were accomplished and marked off these past few days - that was a great feeling. Of course, so many more on that list remain undone, but what the heck - that's what the rest of life if for!

Amber and the Superdog

Several times of note this past couple of days: Pam's parents became Newton County property owners on Friday as they bought a lot over near Jasper. Not sure if they will ever build a house on it or not, but they are property owners here now. As they were looking at the lot by the guy they bought it from, they found a nice waterfall and saw a big buck. Hum, waterfalls and deer and low taxes, what more could you ask for? Later in the day Pam's mom got to work fixing a ton of food for the weekend, while her dad jumped on the tractor and headed out to mow. I have decided not to let all of the meadows and power line right-of-ways grow up all season before cutting, and Ron was happy to get the first cut started. Later I directed him to a spot in the woods where I had picked out this unique rock several years ago that I have wanted to use as a bridge here at the cabin. It took us several tries, but we finally got the monster into the bucket of the tractor and Ron hauled it back to the cabin. I hope to get you a photo of that rock in use later this week.

PAM led another one of her kid's Otter Hikes, this time to Kings River Falls. They had a great turnout - lots of kids who had never seen anything like that before. Everyone had a great time and got to swim and jump off of rocks into the water. Few things are as joyous as an Ozark swimming hole!

Once Ron finished his part of the mowing, I took over the tractor and headed up the lane. I have been working pretty much non-stop now for many weeks, and finally I was able to give that part of my chores a rest. Getting up on that tractor and driving around in the sunshine was a real treat for me, and I soaked up and enjoyed every single minute of it. I mowed a path through the East meadow, the orchard, along the lane, and across the Faddis meadow - this is part of the main loop walk that we take every chance we get. It had gotten really grown up and uncomfortable to walk with shorts on. Man, I loved sitting up there on the tractor and moving slowly through the meadows - it was really a nice break for me.

When I arrived back at the cabin Roy and Norma were there, and I sent them out to pick a bucket of flowers from Mom's meadow. They brought it back filled with all sorts of colors -  I handed the bucket to Amber and Bethany for a quick snapshot. Fresh-cut flowers always add so much to an old log cabin.

Bethany (Wheeler) and Amber and the bucket of flowers from Mom's meadow

Today, after the dust of the big party had settled, I spent some more time up on the tractor, this time looking for moss and lichen-covered rocks to collect and bring down to the cabin. It is great to have your own 40-acre rock garden! I found one really nice boulder that was just too large for the bucket, but I managed to get it uprooted and pushed down the hill to the side of the road where I hope we can move it later in the week.

Nights have been cool lately - down in the 50's - with very low humidity. It has felt like fall days and night, and just marvelous. And the air has been crystal clear, showing off the deep greens of the wilderness, even in the log views, which often tend to collect haze. And we've had a bit of rain each day, and my tomato plants down in the meadow are happy for that - lots of green ones, but no red yet.

Kaos and long, hectic days will return this week. We will have a work crew here for several days creating a work of art in the middle of the circle drive, and I will be up in the office frantically picking out 100 of my most favorite Arkansas photos of mine of all time to put into the new book (I will have to go through several hundred thousand images, most of them unpublished). Next weekend I will be at the International Butterfly Festival on Mt. Magazine near Paris (Arkansas) giving lectures and leading hikes. Also next weekend a good friend of Pam's will be putting the finishing touches on the new guest bathroom with this really neat tile that looks just like stone (by the way, the new bathroom worked great this weekend!).

A funny thing to report about my stubborn acute bronchitis that has plagued me for the past several weeks. A new case of it had attacked me a couple of weeks ago, along with all of my other ailments. But son of a gun, I have not coughed a SINGLE time since the snake bit me!!! Pam keeps telling me that the next time I get this awful cough she is going to go find a snake and throw it at me. I find that humorous - all of the injections and medicines that the doctors threw at me had absolutely no effect on clearing up my lungs, but all it took was one little snake bite! I don't recommend the cure though!

The wilderness is about as beautiful and peaceful and happy as I have ever seen it - lots of water and sunshine and moderate temps. Sometimes you can tell the "health" of a forest just by walking through it and looking around with your eyes and your ears and your other senses. This wilderness, right now, is having a great time, and it shows in its shiny coat and cheerful laughter. All is well. And certainly the wilderness knows as well as anyone that there will always be good times and bad times, and life will roll on and on and on. The key is to soak up and enjoy the good times as much as you can, then simply endure the bad ones with that silly grin of expectation of the good times to come. A great way to live I think.

6/18/02 Today actually began late last night. Amber wanted to spend the night in the fort, and Aspen and I (and the two cats) went along to keep her company, and to keep the bears away. It was a beautiful night, with cool temps and a nice breeze blowing. I have grown to hate no-see-ums, which we seem to have more and more of each year out here, but the breeze kept all of them at bay. A bright moon was shining down through the trees, and through the clear panels in the middle of the roof of the fort. And a pack of coyotes were howling at the moon, providing a delightful symphony. It didn't take long for Amber to drift off to sleep, and so it was just me and the Super dog, and The Trail Cat and the Fat Cat.

Aspen had no problem settling in, but the cats were just getting geared up for a night of prowling around. I don't really like critters stepping on my head when I am trying to get to sleep, so within a few minutes I had to take some action to deter the persistent cats. The Fat Cat was first - I tossed him down the tube slide. Man, did he make a LOT of noise on the way down! I did not see if he landed on all fours or not. Not wanting any part of that tube slide, the Trail Cat played hard to get, but eventually I did corner her at the edge of the front deck of the fort - over the side she went, and I assume that she did indeed land on all fours.

OK, time for me to doze off as well. But before I got to the 100th sheep, I began to hear noises over in front of the cabin. Noises that were too loud for the cats to be making. Noises like something large was walking across the metal roof, or more likely a section of metal roof that was under the front porch. I sat up and listened intently, hoping the sound would go away. Aspen was rather curious as well, but for some reason he did not bark - only sat there with this puzzled look on his face. I'm sure he realized that he was not able to take chase since he was ten feet up in the air.

After twenty minutes of this noise, it was time for me to go investigate first-hand, so I crawled out of my sleeping bag and climbed down from the fort. Naturally the noise stopped as soon as I hit the ground. The moonlight was bright enough that I could easily see to walk through the woods and over to the carport, where I turned on my flashlight to hunt for a pair of glowing eyes. On my way over I confirmed that the noise was not being made by the cats - they had taken up residence in the swing beneath the fort, and had followed me over towards the carport.

I never did see any glowing eyes, nor heard the noise again. No telling what it was - could have been one of the coyotes, or a raccoon, or, well, just no telling.

I got up around 5am to get to work, and woke Amber. "Do you want to go down the slide, or do you want for me to carry you down the ladder?" I asked her. Now mind you this is a nine-year old child who was just shaken out of a dead sleep. Without hesitation she said "I will meet you on the ground." OK, whatever. So I gathered my stuff up and climbed on down the ladder, hauling Aspen on my back with me. And then ...swoosh, swoosh, bang, bang, clunk. Amber emerged from the tube slide with a big grin on her face! I carried her on into the cabin and placed her into the bed in the loft next to Pam, then I quietly snuck out the front door.

One more picture - that's all I wanted to get for the new picture book. Just one more picture. The prairie natural area in Harrison has just been exploding with wildflowers these past couple of weeks, and I determined that I wanted to shoot it just after first light, when the sun is low in the sky, and backlighting all of the flowers. As I pulled up next to the prairie, I found another photographer had already beaten me to the punch!

It was very wet out, with lots of dew covering everything. Two steps into the knee-to-waist-high weeds and flowers and I was soaked.

Not wanting to disturb the lady photographer that was setting her camera up on a tripod, I tried to be as quiet as I could, but I wanted to go see what she was taking a photo of. I got within about 15 feet of her before I made some comment about the flowers - she nearly jumped out of her skin. Seems that she lived nearby, and had been admiring this wildflower meadow for a while now, but had always been afraid to actually walk out into the field for fear that it was off-limits. "Heck no" I told her - "this is an Arkansas Natural Area and foot traffic is invited, especially if those feet are attached to cameras!"

WOW, what an incredible field of wildflowers. The main stars were coneflowers for sure, but mixed in with them were a number of other species of flowers of different colors and shaped. Each one was covered with a fine coating of dew, and the sunshine hitting them created a fairyland of jewels.

I only had a single roll of film in my camera bag (I normally would take hundreds of photos to get one good one), so I wanted to wait to shoot pictures until I found the one perfect scene. One of the problems with this early hour - which is the golden hour for nature photographers - was the fact that the other main star of this meadow were the thousands of bright red poppies scattered all over the place. Problem with them was that they all close up overnight, and require a bit of sunshine before they will wake up and face the world. I really wanted those poppies, so decided to keep the camera in the bag until they came out.

I was a bit surprised to discover that the lady was shooting BLACK AND WHITE film - what, with SO much COLOR all around?! Turns out that her speciality is colorizing the printed photos - hand coloring or painting in only what she wanted to be in color, and leaving the rest black and white. She described some images to me that she had done in the past and they sounded really interesting. Come on sunshine, come on out poppies! That became my mantra for the next hour as I wandered around enjoying the incredible scene before me.

Besides a very special light at often glows just after dawn, another great reason to shoot photos this early is because the wind is normally at rest, something I MUST  have for great wildflower photos. You may be getting my point that I was in some sort of a Catch-22 - beautiful light and no wind, but the poppies were not open yet! And by not taking pictures, I risked the possibility that by the time the poppies did come out, the light would be flat and harsh and the wind would come up. But I was after that one great photo, and only had one roll of film, so I waited, and wandered, and soaked it all up.

I found one really special composition that required me to lay down in the tall grass and shoot up at these four towering wild sunflowers that were surrounded by coneflowers and half-open poppies and other flowers - all situated against a brilliant blue sky behind them. This scene would work just great - only problem was that there were about a dozen heavy power lines crossing that blue sky, and there was no way to eliminate them from the scene! Foiled again! I kept on looking, going deeper and deeper into the meadow.

Finally I found the perfect scene, a hillside with thousands of coneflowers and poppies that sloped up and away from me, all backlit by the rising sun, and NO powerlines! In fact I could compose a photo with no sky at all in the frame - just flowers. The poppies were beginning to open up now, so I found my spot, set up my tripod, and began to take my picture.

Just about the time I had come to the end of the single roll of film that I had, the scene got even better - the poppies were more open, and golden sunshine flooded the meadow. I was not really satisfied with the scene that I had shoot all of my film on, but shot it because the day was growing long and it was the best that I could find. But now that scene was really looking nice, and I was out of film. A very large part of being a successful nature photographer is possessing a great deal of LUCK, and I have always had much more than my share of that (a lot of the bad kind lately though!). I saw a figure making his way across the meadow - with camera bag and tripod in hand - and son of a gun, it turned out to be my photo buddy Glenn Wheeler. It just so happened that a roll of film or two had been handed from my camera bag to his in the past, so I was not bashful about immediately inquiring about his film supply - EUREKA, I was back in business!

We spent the next hour shooting roll after roll after roll of film of the wildflowers. The longer the sun was out the more the poppies opened up. Only problem was that the wind opened up too, and things began to blow around quite a bit. We waited and waited and waited for dead still calm, but it never would return. I ended up shooting all of that film on "blowing" wildflowers in hopes that at least one of them would turn out interesting. There is really no way of telling if the blowing flowers will "paint" a neat photo or not until the film is processed. I fired off a few frames with the digital camera - just to give you some idea of how concentrated the coneflowers in this meadow were.

Cone flowers and poppies at Baker Prairie

I ended up spending three and a half hours in that meadow - man, what a spectacular place! And YES, you are allowed to walk out into it. It is called Baker Prairie Natural Area, and it is located right next to the Harrison high school. I've been told this is the best wildflower display there in many years, and it certainly can't last forever, so I suggest once again if you are passing through the Harrison area that you stop and have a look!

A couple of notes: Several people have told me about the crazy things that Amazon.com is doing with my books on their web page. First off let me tell you that along with many other publishers around the globe I have BOYCOTTED them and refuse to sell them books any longer. I won't go into the details but suffice it to say that they are bad business for book publishers and their customers, and I highly recommend that you STAY AWAY from Amazon.com when buying books! Anyway, they show several USED copies of my guidebooks and picture books for sale at absolutely outrages prices - more than $50 for a guidebook, and up to $190 for a picture book! Someone there has indeed gone insane, and I really doubt that such books actually exist for sale at these prices - I won't actually accuse them of fraud, but it sure does look that way. ALL of these books are still in print and can be ordered direct from me at their regular list prices (or from other online retailers, and, of course, from most of the book and outdoor stores in the region - I deal direct with more than 150 stores, plus several national distributors). Once again, DON'T BUY BOOKS FROM AMAZON.COM!!!

The other note is that I still continue to be swamped with work here and I have had little time to write in this journal, and quite frankly have had little to write about - it has mostly been indoor work around here for a while, with no break in sight. I was planning to announce a two-week vacation for the journal - hopefully by the end of that time I will have completed my new picture book and would be able to spend a little bit of time hiking around and writing about it. But I just found out today that the Ozarks Mountaineer magazine has published the Journal as an online resource, so now I feel obligated to keep the journal updated as much as I can. I appreciate the mention in the magazine, and hope to be able to expand the journal family. SO, I will TRY to write as much as I can this summer, but do keep in mind that I will be putting in many 18-20 hour days cramming for this new book project (which is coming along just fine by the way).

And speaking of the new book project, I have now gone through more than a MILLION images that I have shot during my nearly 30-year career. It has been quite a trip looking at all of those scenes once again. I found many nice images, and even some that I had NEVER seen before myself! (Sometimes I will shoot several rolls of film of a subject, then hurriedly select one image for a particular project and never even go through the rest of the images - often surprises lurk in there!). Looks like about half of the photos in the new book will have been published before - and are my all-time favorites - and the other half will be brand new images that have not seen the light of day. Some of these new ones are quite old, while others were just shot in the past year. I have selected most of the images, but have not paired them up or done any of the layout work yet - that is where the REAL fun begins! Once I get all of that done, then I will have to write the captions and stories about each photo, plus the introduction and all of the other stuff that will go into the book - still LOTS of work to do for sure. But it is all work that I look forward to. I'll keep you posted.

In the middle of all this there is yet another construction project going on at Cloudland, a project that I actually have little or nothing to do with. I want to wait to tell and show you all about it until the project is completed - in another week or two. It will be a great addition to the place.

It is getting late now and time to sign off. Think I'll go slip into the hot tub and soak up some of that moonlight (I wonder if the critter from last night will come join me?). Each night brings the moon closer and closer to full, and few things in life are as wonderful as talking a walk through wildflower meadows under a full moon in the summertime! And these days I have someone to hold hands with! "Pam, be sure to bring that snake bite kit!"

6/20/02 Another early start for me today, although when I stepped out the front door around 5am I found a new critter there. A little dog had appeared out of no where, and was sleeping on our front porch. He is a jolly little fellow, full of life with a big smile. And his short legs can sure fool ya - he does get around pretty good. Amber decided to call him "Speedy" until we can get him back home again.

A little while later as I was hiking up to the office, the dark woods began to fill with red light. First, just a spot or two here and there, then a branch would be lit up, an finally entire trees would begin to glow with the light of the rising sun. There was hardly any sound in the forest at all - just a few birds waking up, and the leaves crunching under my slippers. And, oh yea, Speedy was in hot pursuit and breathing hard. It was cool and just wonderful out - I could have hiked on and on all day, but I had work to do, and a lot of it.

Glenn Wheeler came out and brought with him a large light table to match up with the one I already have here, along with his daughter Bethany (Beth) for Amber to play with. We set up our "little" editing station in the living room, and sort of took over the main level of the cabin. Pam is getting used to this sort of thing. And today she even got right in the middle of it. The main chore was to pair up images that would be placed on facing pages in the new picture book. (These were all original transparencies/slides either 35mm, 645, 6/7, or 4/5 format.) To me that is one of the most important aspects of the book design process - after all you always view two pages at once, each facing one another. What photos appear on those two pages, their colors and composition and makeup, as well as which direction they point, all are extremely important to the success of the project. You want to keep the pairs exciting, and not the same thing all the time. So many books are filled with pages and pages of the same season or subject - I like to mix them up. The three of us spent several intense hours hovering around the three light tables that we had set up, picking out pairs - nearly 50 of them. Plus we had to pick out the 11 photos that will be used as two-page spreads in the book, and each of these has to meet certain criteria as well.

Glenn and Pam working on the final pairs for the new picture book

When all of the dust settled we had successfully paired everyone up that wasn't being used as a single image. Then the really hard part came up - I had intentionally picked out more than the 105 photos that will be used in the book, and now we had to go through all of them and take OUT eight or ten images. During the pairing process you tend to get attached to certain images, and especially pairs of images - some things just go together! And now we had to break up some of those pairs, and all three of us had to agree on which ones were out. That process took us another hour at least, but we finally managed to get it all figured out. I still have a ton of work to do with this book project, making the final selections and doing the parings was a really big hump to get over.

Just before dark I put all of the images away (after spending several more hours at the light tables, the scanner, and the computer working on exactly placement of the images) - my eyes were weary, and in need of a break. So I laced up my shoes and headed out the door for a hike around the loop. Pam tried to hold Speedy back - not wanting to wear the poor little fellow out on his first day at Cloudland - but he insisted in following us.

Man, the woods were DARK, and I could hardly see to walk through them. This time of the year, when the overstory is so dense with many layers of LEAVES, what little light there is left at the end of the day has difficulty making it down to the forest floor. I hurried on through this dark jungle, but then emerged into bright light at the East meadow. The sun had already gone down, but the sky was quite bright, and filled with pink clouds and a 3/4 full moon that was climbing high. Before I knew it good old Speedy was way out ahead of all of us - I think he liked the open meadow too!

There was a nice breeze blowing all the way around the loop - it was just a perfect time to be out hiking. I guess I was book-ending my hectic day at the light tables with twilight hikes. Did I say twilight? Heck, by the time we had plunged back into the deep woods once again it was just about DARK! As I felt my way along the overgrown trail, I remembered that I did not have an extractor with me. I have tried to think about snakes a lot more lately, but I also try NOT to think about them much - having visions of fangs tearing at your foot tends to put a damper on your enjoyment of the great outdoors. I do believe my pace quickened just a little bit, but not all that much - I had this beautiful forest to enjoy while on my way back to the cabin.

Just a note - not a single summer bug out tonight. I guess they are waiting for the official beginning of summer tomorrow before striking up the band.

6/23/02 I got to spend a delightful weekend in Paris, high up on nearby Mt. Magazine at the International Butterfly Festival. For those of you who don't know, Paris is just down the road from London, both in Arkansas. It was a great deal of fun getting to hob knob with some really talented and famous folks - like Carl Hunter (wildflower guru), Dr. Bob Pyle (world-renown butterfly expert who wrote the Audubon guide to butterflies), Lori Spencer (Arkansas butterfly guru), and Don Simons (author and naturalist).

A highlight of the weekend for me was being able to spend a bit of quality time with this lady named Diana. She is a rare and beautiful butterfly, and one that I had never seen before. She is only found in a few locations around the world, and the largest population of them is up on Mt. Magazine. Actually the three of them that I did see were all males, but beautiful none the less (the ladies have not arrived on the mountain yet).

A male Diana butterfly on a butterfly bush

I led hikes and taught mini-photo workshops and gave slide programs, and got to meet a lot of nice folks from all over the place, including several Cloudland Journal readers. There were a couple of TV crews on one of the hikes, and I hate to say it, but we lost one of the crews. Really. They were with us for most of the hike, running up ahead and setting up shots of our group hiking by. But when we arrived at the end of the hike, the crew was no where in sight. Normally I wouldn't worry too much about them, except that I had one of their expensive microphones strapped to me! They eventually showed up later. Turns out they thought that we were going to loop back and return via the same trail, and they had set up for another shot of us walking up to their cameras. Only problem was that we did not loop back - I don't know how long they stayed there all alone in the woods before they realized we were not coming back.

Last Friday was a very long day for me, but I was able to do all of the layout for the new picture book. It actually was a lot of fun and didn't really take me all that long. We had all of the pairs of photos laid out on the light tables, and I had only to put them in a sequence that I liked. This is the point where the book really begins to comes together and I get an idea of what the final product will look like. Pam had to make a quick trip up to Missouri, so I had the place to myself. I put on a batch of New Age music and used it to help me visualize what photos would flow well from the beginning to the end of the book.

Later in the evening Pam's friend Sarah from back home arrived for the weekend. She had come to install this really neat tile in the new guest bathroom. Her and Pam would spend many long hours that night, then ALL day Saturday and still many hours today, and got the job completed. MAN you should see how wonderful it all is! Once Pam get the final sealer on it and everything polished up I will post a snapshot here.

It is quite dark outside now and the nearly-full moon is not contributing much light - there is heavy cloud cover, and we are expecting a bit of rain here the next few days. Whippoorwills are singing loudly, but still not much in the way of summer bugs. And HEY, it IS summertime now! Speaking of which, I had the BEST glass of fresh-squeezed cherry lemonade up at the butterfly festival today...

6/24/02 I was up early and raced down to the lower deck, camera in hand. Today was the full moon, and this incredible ORANGE ball of magic was setting in the western sky. I mean pumpkin orange! It looked so odd over there in a sea of black and white (the mountains below were all silhouetted and the sky was white). I knew that my 200mm lens on the digital camera would not be long enough to reach out and capture this scene, but I wanted to try the "digital" zoom on this camera. "Digital" zooms are basically worthless most of the time because the quality of the image you get is very poor quality. But I wanted to see what it would do with this incredible moon right out there. Only problem was that I had no idea how to enable the digital zoom feature on this camera, and while I was messing with it trying to figure it all out, the moon dropped below the horizon and I never got a single photo of it (I know how to do it now!). Oh well, the vision of that moon will live inside my head for many moons to come.

Both Pam and I spent a lot of time outside working today, as did the contract crew that we have building our next project out in the circle drive/Amber's Fort/Pam's Park area. I'll post some pictures of all that once they are finished. Pam planted 8 or 10 cinnamon ferns along the front edge of the cabin. This area never gets any sunshine and I think those ferns will do well and look really nice. Out in front of that Pam has been building up a couple of large flower beds, rimmed with native stone that I have been gathering around the place. Once all of that blooms, I'll post a photo here to give you some idea how talented my bride is!

I had to cut down a couple of trees that were dying and also in the way of the new building project. This opened up more areas of sunshine to help the new plants grow in the "park." You have probably guessed that I am big on names around here, but we have not figure out exactly what to call this area out in front of the cabin yet. No matter, it is quickly becoming a second focal point at Cloudland, the first one being the wonderful view off of the back deck.

It was sunny most of the day, with large dark thunderheads floating around and rolling thunderballs at us. We never did get more than a drop or two of rain, along with a cool breeze now and then. It wasn't too hot working outside, but the humidity was high - I went through three t-shirts in a hurry.

While I continued to work outside on several projects, Pam spent the rest of the day indoors at the computer, scanning the 105 images that are going into the new picture book. She really has taken on quite a bit of the load of producing this book, what has been great for me.

Towards the evening hours I had to load up our big 550 gallon water tank and head down into the spring at the head of Boxley Valley to get some water for the building project. This spring has long served the people of this part of the county, especially during the summer months when many individual water systems go dry. I spent a great deal of time last summer hauling water and filling up our holding tank. The new well up here has been working just fine, but this building project is taking several thousand gallons of water, so I needed to add a bit from the spring to keep from draining our well completely.

There was a lot of activity down at the spring - several truckloads of folks with large water tanks were all lined up to get water. The rigid plastic hoses there were all messed up, and I had trouble getting much water into my tank. A couple of folks behind me were kind enough to spend 45 minutes helping me out - I could have never done it without them. Funny how you run into the friendliest people out in the middle of nowhere. I did not know they guys and the did not know me, yet they spent nearly an hour of their day doing what ended up being some pretty physical work to help me out. That's just the sort of folks you'll  find in these here hills!

It was getting dark when I pulled up to the front of the cabin and began to empty the water tank. Pam and I sat out in the middle of the "park" and admired the evening sky, which was filled with billowing thunderheads turning purple and pink and grey and black.

The last rays of sunshine light up the clouds

We also ventured down into Mom's meadow to admire the new wildflowers that had popped up this past week. Man you should see the SIZE of some of these blooms! I don't know exactly what these flowers are, but they certainly are showy. And Pam found this tiny flower blooming way down low, next to the ground, and the bloom was alternating pink and purple - very unique. I had my camera, but the light was too dim for any good photos. It is an amazing place to walk through - my mom is doing a great job of producing flowers!

One of the new flowers in Mom's meadow

Just after sunset one of the most bizarre scenes I ever witnessed out here took place. The full moon rose into one of those thunderheads - a thunderhead that was filled with lightning. It was so strange to see that big, bright moon surrounded by all that lightning! Looked like something they created on a computer for a horror movie.

6/25/02 I was up early again today and back down on the lower deck, camera and tripod in hand, and this time I knew how to do the "digital" zoom on the camera. The sky was mostly filled with clouds, but they were kind enough to offer a clear view of the setting moon. It was not orange today like it was yesterday, but it was a neat scene anyway. I took a few snapshots of it with the camera zoomed out all the way - 400mm for those of you who know. The picture did not turn out too well - especially because there was a great deal of haze in front of the moon. But one thing that is important to note is that the moon set to the left or SOUTH of the Buffalo Fire Tower. This is farther to the south than the sun ever gets on December 21st - it gets very close to, but never actually quite makes it to the fire tower. I thought it would make a great picture to have the moon setting directly behind the fire tower, but it will never be. Since the moon has such an irregular pattern of flight, I'm not sure if it ever does set behind the tower in lighting conditions that would make a good picture. I will spend as much time as is needed watching the moon set so that I can get a photo go post here if that ever does happen. Just one of the many tough jobs I have out here.

moonset

It is quite cool this morning, which feels just great. Lots of birds out singing, including hoot owls and mourning doves and whippoorwills. If you stop and think about it for a moment, those three calls heard together sound sort of odd as they echo across the wilderness. I wonder if they hear each other, and if they pay any attention to the others' calls?

Today will be another long work day here - we are coming down to the wire on the picture book project. Pam will be busy on her computer placing images and calculating their percent enlargements, and I will be next to her on my computer, cropping those images and then beginning the long process of writing the captions - that's what I will be up to the next couple of days, writing, lots of writing. I have mixed emotions about writing. Used to be that I would rather go to the dentist than write anything, but these days it seems to be a little less painful and more natural. No doubt keeping this journal has helped all of that out a great deal. It will be fun getting to relive each of the photographs in this book as I study them and tell a story about each. Some of these were taken 20 or more years ago - what fun I have had in my life since then!

Oh yea, I almost forgot. One other odd thing took place in the sky this morning. Right out there in the middle of all the cloud banks, a rainbow appeared out of nowhere - just part of a rainbow. There was all of this mono-tone hazy dark gray matter below, and mostly light gray above, and then a bright splash of color!

6/30/02 The book is FINISHED at last! It has been a very long week - days normally lasting from 4am to midnight or beyond - but I put the wraps on the new picture book today and it feels wonderful to not have that hanging over my head. On the other hand, it was a lot of fun putting it all together. I think it will be a great book, filled with my favorite photos of our great state. One funny note about my editors. They were, of course, a great help to me, and were able to weed out a lot of mistakes. One word, or group of words, still has me puzzled though. Three different dictionaries and people spelled it three different ways - love making/lovemaking/love-making. I'm not exactly sure how I ended up spelling it, but I guess I couldn't go wrong, and then I could not be right either!

Several folks have said now that the book is done and off to the printers I can sit back and relax and take some time off. Yea right. Getting the book project completed has only put me back to where I was in May, which was several months behind on several key projects, not to mention my own to-do list of more than 20 major things I need to do around here. I doubt that I will ever get caught up, which I guess makes me just like most people. I am going to take a couple of days off from book writing this week to get to work on some of those other projects, but by the end of the week Pam and I will be working full blast once again, this time on the waterfall guidebook. I hope to be able to spend a little bit more time enjoying the wilderness though, and typing about it here.

We've had some great weather this past week - rain showers on and off, cloudy weather, and COOL temps, or at least they have felt cool. Gosh, last night it felt just like October outside - I mean down right chilly. Yet the temp was only 73. I guess a nice wind added to the cool effect. There was something else in the air though too, but I can't quite put my finger on it.

There has been a lot of fog around, drifting in and out during the day, allowing the sun to break through and burn it off. I simply love to wander around in the woods when the fog is here, but have only been able to enjoy it while running back and forth between the office and cabin.

Aspen and Lucy on the trail up to the office, and sunlight fills the forest as it burns off the fog

A few clouds in the valley out back

Yesterday morning around 4-ish in the morning I was sitting in the hot tub looking right across and just above Beagle Point at the 3/4 moon that was shining brightly. Seems like the moon was in the exact same location each morning, even though I was always sitting there between 4 and 4:30. Anyway, yesterday morning I was sitting there enjoying the moonlight and a moment of non-work before I hit the ground running, and all of a sudden it began to rain. The sound was really soft at first, but soon it got louder, and before long it sounded like it was almost pouring. But there were no clouds in sight, and I was not being rained on at all. Then I realized it was just raining in the forest. I guess the dew point had been reached, and the leaves and branches were saturated with water, and the excess moisture had no place to go but to rain down. I don't recall having such heavy "dew" before!

This morning we had cloudy skies, and there was no moon. In fact it was rather dark at 4am. I heard the sound of a jet airplane approaching back behind me. It sounded pretty low, yet still up there in the clouds. And then I sat the light moving across the sky - a yellow light blinking on and off. Not sure if I was still half-asleep or what, but it took me several seconds to realize that the light I was looking at was not the jet, but rather a lightning bug! There was a jet up there alright that was producing the sound, and this bug was flying the same pattern. Then the lightning bug made a wide turn and came back towards me. I half expected for the jet noise to do the same, but it continued on away from me and out of hearing range. I wonder if that little bug knew he was being mistaken for a 747?

I got to spend a couple of hours this evening up on the tractor, driving around through the woods looking for rocks. The folks who owned this land and cleared it many moon ago did not build those neat rock walls with the stones they removed from the new fields. Instead they just piled them up wherever they could out of the way. (Nearly all of this mountain was cleared at one time or another and used for farming or livestock.) Some of those piles of stone have melted down into the earth, but there are a number of them still around, and they have good numbers of lichen and moss covered rocks. We've been "borrowing" from these piles for several years now to build the fireplace, the walls around the base of the cabin, and for many different landscaping projects. One thing we don't have a shortage of around here is rocks. But still it takes me about an hour to go find a bucket load of rocks and bring them back in the tractor. It is nice to set way up there in the driver's seat - I rather enjoy the view, and the time to vegetate.

I got one exciting piece of mail this week - the bill for my snakebite. I realize that going to the doctor costs a lot of money, and I would not mind this bill at all if the doctor had actually spend any time with me, or the hospital did something for me. But the fact of the matter is that all they did for me was give me a tetanus shot, and that was it. No one even looked closely at my wound, nor even bothered to wash it. The doctor was in the room for less than a minute - all three of us were stunned. I was not allowed to ask a single question of the doctor, and boom, she was gone, never to be seen again. The bill - $194 for a tetanus shot, nothing more. That's a crime, and those people should be ashamed that they milk the public like that, and the doctor needs to be taught a few manners. I would also understand if they had other real emergencies going on at the time, but the ER was quiet. The nurse on duty did spend some time with us (I knew him), and tried to answer our questions.

On the other side of the coin I was impressed with the staff at the Mediquick Clinic in Harrison that I went to just a week before for another ailment, and the drugs they prescribed for my condition actually worked! And shock of all shocks, when I paid the bill for the two medications at the drug store, it was only $14! I haven't paid that little for two bottles of pills in 20 or 30 years!

Pam and I have been able to spend a few moments each day outside, just sitting there together quietly and enjoying the evening light fading. There is still almost a total absence of summer bugs, but we have been enjoying the tree frogs that are beginning to sound off each day. At first the frogs were over there across the road, high in the trees, keeping their distance. But they are making their way closer to our sitting position. One of these days I expect to be able to spot one of them on a nearby limb. Man those guys are LOUD! Of course, if you are a frog way out here in the wilderness looking for a lady frog like they are, I guess you would want to cover as much ground as you could. The dogs and cats seem to get a kick out of the calls - one of the cats went half-way up a tree after one of the frogs this evening. I think the frogs are safe.

So now we have come to the end of June. It was a month for me that was mostly spent indoors and at the computer, but also one where a lot of good work was accomplished around the cabin, both inside and out. I'll be posting a few snapshots of that work sometime in the next week or two. In the meantime, I'll try to strap on my hiking shoes and get out and take a hike or two, maybe even a swim to go visit my old friend Spot the smallmouth bass. His deep-water home is just down below the hill from the cabin - a 700 vertical hike. The river has gone silent this past week, but we can still see lots of water down there. I look forward to many visits this summer!

Be sure to watch the Haley broadcast on DATELINE NBC this coming Tuesday...

July 2002 Journal

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