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November 2002 Journal

10/2/02 Today was not a very good day at Cloudland - one of the very few bad days I have ever had here, and even it was not really all that bad, but I have been taking it that way. Most of the grief was caused by ignorant people, and a few workers who do sloppy work and do not care about quality. Of course, in the final analysis my grief was really caused by me letting these idiots get to me - sometime you can only stand so much.

I just spent the past hour writing down the details of all these idiots and what they did, but reading back through it, it all sounded so petty, so I deleted it all. Suffice it to say that I was at the end of my rope when I shut down the computer and headed down the ladder trail to the river to try to sweat some of it out of my system. Little did I know that my real troubles were just beginning!

It was a marvelous day in the Ozarks, although the temp had creeped up into the low 80's and it was actually hot outside. Thank goodness there was a breeze blowing to keep things cooled down. COME ON WINTER, COME ON WINTER!

Aspen and Lucy beat me to the bluffline, and Aspen had already jumped off of the bluff and was exploring down below by the time I got there. I carried Lucy down the ladder and took off down the hillside, trying to leave the thoughts of the work day above the bluff.

The first thing that I noticed was that the ground was almost entirely RED - poison ivy and Virginia creeper plants covered the forest floor, and they were at their peak of fall color. The reds and yellows spread as far down the hillside as I could see. I am probably one of the few people who enjoys poison ivy, but it was hard not to today with all of that brilliant color.

Before I had gotten to the bottom of the first steep bench I slipped on a  loose stone and I could hear my left ankle snap - in an instant I was on the ground, face down, tumbling out of control. It took me probably 20 feet to get control and bring myself to a halt. My ankle began to throb even before the dust had settled. Looked like my hike to the river to shake off my work woes would have to wait. I looked up the nearly -vertical hillside above me and began the process of getting to my feet, then inching my way back up the trail. Thank goodness there were lots of trees along the way for me to hold onto/pull myself up by. I used to snap my ankles a lot while hiking, but lately it has not happened too much - I think in part because I have been paying more attention to how I place my feet on the ground. But today my mind was anyplace but watching my feet, and that got me into trouble. Normally these little "twists" are not all that bad, but this one felt like a serious one.

It was a long struggle to get back up to the base of the bluff, but I made it there all in one piece. My ankle was throbbing even more, especially with the thought of having to not only climb up the wooden ladder to get up and over the bluff, but having to hoist both Lucy and Aspen up the ladder too (Aspen is over 50 pounds now, and quite a handful), and I have to carry them up to the very top wrung of the ladder, then lift them up onto the rock ledge above.

I always haul Aspen up first. It was much more awkward today because I could not use my left foot as a solid point. Pain shot down through my ankle and back up again each time I put any weight on it at all. Aspen began to squirm. As I was nearing the top of the ladder, I was having a great deal of difficulty holding onto Aspen, and then a feeling of total panic and helplessness came over me - I heard an all-to-familiar sound that sent a shock of horror through me - it was a RATTLESNAKE! And he was only inches away from my face, coiled up in a little nook of the bluff just below where the top of the ladder was resting. YIKES!!!

At first I really did not know what to do - I still had Aspen in my hands, and was quickly losing a grip on him. I certainly did not want to drop him, but what about that snake? I ended up giving Aspen one great heave-ho and shoved him on up and onto the ledge. Then I nearly busted my other ankle as I fell backwards off of the ladder. That snake could have easily thumped me in the face good. I owe him a debt of gratitude for not doing so. Perhaps he knew the sort of day I was having and did not want to add to it.

I still had to get Lucy up the ladder, and then myself too. I could have hiked along the base of the bluff to another spot, but the closest one was nearly a mile in either direction. No, I was going to get both me and Lucy up that ladder and past Mr. Snake one way or another. I have seen FEWER snakes this summer than in any I can recall, but they have given me more grief! In case you have not noticed, I am losing my fondness and patience with bears and snakes.

I won't go into the details, but suffice it to say both Lucy and I made it up the ladder OK. Man, that timber rattler was tucked away in a tiny hole in the side of the bluff - how in the world did he get in there? When I finally made it to the top of the bluff both of my dogs had vanished - can you blame them?

One good thing about that snake - made me forget all about my ankle! At least for a few moments. The pain was even worse as I made my way up the last bench towards the cabin.

Pam had asked me to detour through Mom's meadow on the way up and pick a few flowers. When I got there I entered a wonderland of color and motion that I had seldom seen before. I mowed the meadow down a couple of months ago, and now the flowers have come back THICK - there were a dozen or more bright colors present, and huge blooms. And as I walked through the flowers, yellow and green and orange and blue and black jewels rose up all around me, hovered in the air, then glided gently back down again - BUTTERFLIES, hundreds of butterflies!

I was simply awestruck at the beauty of it all. And guess what - all those petty problems of mine simply blew away in the wind. Of course, I did not have my camera with me. But it was not far away, so I hobbled out of the meadow and up to the cabin (carrying a handful of those flowers for my bride!), then quickly returned to the meadow. I spent the next 30 minutes trying to get a monarch to hold open its wings for a photo. If you have ever seen these butterflies feeding you may know that they will often pump their wings, so getting one to open up was not all that big of a deal. But my problem was that with a digital camera there is a lag between when you push the shutter button and when the picture is actually taken - and an even longer lapse if it is trying to auto-focus. So I got dozens of photos of monarchs with their wings folded up. I kept shooting and shooting and shooting, moving around from one flower and butterfly to the next. With all of the flowers and butterflies and color in motion it really didn't seem real. And I knew there was no way I could capture that feeling in a photo, but what the heck, I was having a grand time trying.

Speaking of butterflies, let me back up a moment and show you a couple of shapshots of a white-line sphinx month that Pam found in the front yard yesterday. This little guy would look just like a butterfly when he flew from one patch of flowers to the next - his wings flapped like normal - but then he would hover over an individual flower blossom just like a hummingbird, with his wings going a hundred miles an hour (actually probably even faster than that). And if you look real close in one of these shots, you can see his "tongue" that is all curled up - look at how LONG that thing is! He is able to dig that thing deep down into the flower and get to the sweet nectar.

FALL COLOR REPORT. Seems like things are still a week or two behind here, but the scene is changing every day, which means we could have some major color shifts at any time. If we get a good amount of moisture from one of the hurricanes passing through, that color may slow down even more, but since we need the rain so much I doubt we will get any. I will take it either way. We can see individual trees out there that are in full color, but not much more than that, although the underbrush and understory trees are providing some nice color, especially that poison ivy! No telling when the peak might be. I expect we will see some good color here in another week or two, depending on that rain. I will keep you posted.

Still mostly green in the wilderness, looking up Whitaker Creek

The coyotes have been going wild around here of late, especially the ones that are hanging out just across the way. There must be a den or two of them over there, each with many young pups. It will all start out with a single adult howling. In fact, in the wee hours of this morning I heard a very strange howl - it would begin with a "wooofff, wooooffff" and then the howl. This guy did that over and over. Eventually other members of the pack will call out, and finally the pups will get to squealing and all hell breaks loose. It can go on like this for ten or fifteen minutes, then everyone will quiet down. An hour later I will hear "woooofff, wooooofff, howl" and it will start all over again.

Neither Pam nor I has been sleeping too well lately, partly because the coyotes have been waking us up all night (I seldom sleep more than an hour at a time anyway). A simple solution would be to simply shut the windows. But goodness the night air has been oh so SWEET and cool these past few nights! I hate to lock all of that out.

Another event that adds to the lack of sleep is what happens nearly each time the wind blows. Many of the trees around the cabin are LOADED with acorns, and when the wind blows, those nuts get thrown up against the cabin and down onto the metal roof. Some of those nuts landing sound like gunshots! I just say that I have never seen anything like the nut year we are having right now - I looked around at one point this afternoon and counted more than 50 acorns per square foot on the forest floor! Fat squirrels, we're going to have lots of fat squirrels.

It is well past dark now, and things are mostly quiet at the cabin. Amber had back trouble today at school and had to come home early, but I was able to get both her and Pam down into Mom's meadow to experience the show this afternoon. She is feeling much better now, and I hope is able to make it to school tomorrow - if she has to stay home, she may have to help me split and haul firewood! That is enough to make any kid feel better and go to school! Amber is a tough cookie though, and really enjoys school.

10/3/02 Today was one of the hottest days in the past month - it got up into the low 80's and we had to turn on the AC. The humidity was really high too. I spent much of the day up at the warehouse, clearing out places to stack the new books and calendars.

After a long, hot, sweaty day of working up in the warehouse, I spent an hour down in Mom's meadow with her flowers and butterflies everywhere. This time I had the digital video camera with me, trying to learn how to shoot good quality video. One thing that I learned right away - it is IMPOSSIBLE to follow a butterfly that is flying! I think I got some good footage. I will be using the digital video camera a lot this fall, both learning what it will and won't do, and gathering footage to be used in future scenic videos of Arkansas. That is the next career that I may be attempting, depending on how my video skills develop.

It took Pam and Amber a long time to return from school today - Pam meets the bus out on the main dirt road, about an hour after it has left school. Then Amber burst through the front door, huffing and puffing, and walked over and handed my a bouquet of fresh-picked flowers. "This is for you daddy! I just walked all the way home from the bus!" That is one of the longest hikes that Amber has taken, and after a full day of school to boot! She is a really good kid. (Takes after her momma.)

Sunset at Cloudland today

It was very late at night when I shut the computer down and eased my weary body into the hot tub (my ankle was still swelled up quite a bit and had begun to turn funny colors). As I laid back in the steaming water under a black sky I smelled a funny odor, a smell that was delightful but had almost been so long since I had smelled it I nearly forgot was it was - RAIN!!!!!!! And the hot temps of the day had cooled down more than 20 degrees - it felt SPLENDID outside! And while it actually was more of a drizzle than rain, everything was wet. I could hear the wilderness breathing a big sigh of relief.

10/4/02 There was "noise" all night long outside, but I think it was more from a few drops coming off of the trees than actual rain. It was mostly just a heavy dew, but we'll take any sort of precipitation. By the time I had returned to the hot tub around 5am the middle of the night sky was clear and the stars of Orion's Belt were shining through brightly. There was a cool breeze blowing, and the air was sweet.

Speaking of things dropping out of trees in the night, each time the wind blows around here these days it sounds like a shooting range - those giant acorns make quite a racket when they hit the metal roof!

Today is my friend Keiko's birthday. I can remember her birthday because we have always joked that she was born on "Broderick Crawford day" - 10-4. He was the character in the TV series from way back when HIGHWAY PATROL. This was before CB radios, but he seemed to spend a great deal of time talking on the police radio, and would always get in a couple dozen "10-4's" during each show. A NOTE ABOUT BIRTHDAYS: I am the worst person in the world about not only remembering birthdays, but doing anything about them. Keiko is the FOURTH one of my good friends who has a birthday THIS week, and I missed them all. I can't even keep up with my own relatives' birthdays. (However, I will ALWAYS remember my anniversaty - it is on the first day of spring!) I don't know if it is because birthdays really don't matter to me, if I am simply lazy, or I just don't know what to get people - perhaps a combination of all three. At any rate, if you are a friend or relative of mine it is a good bet that you won't be hearing from me on your birthday or other important event - sorry about that! As far as my own birthday goes, I RELISH the thought of growing old and look forward to each and every new year, but I could care less about the date of my birthday or how old I am, and I certainly never want others to remember it nor give presents. One year I planned a five-month trip out of town just to make sure I avoided all the fuss over my 40th birthday! I spent that birthday day in Antelope Canyon in northern Arizona taking pictures, then drove to Monument Valley for more photos, then on to Arches National Park in Utah for still more photos - I hiked in and stayed up all night to photograph the moonlight on Delicate Arch (photos from all three of these places were published in my WILDERNESS REFLECTIONS picture book). My big birthday dinner to myself was at McDonads in Moab. That's what I call a good birthday! The only thing that would have made it any better would have been if my bride Pam would have been with me (of course, I would not meet her for another five years!).

SO HAPPY BIRTHDAY KEIKO (today), a belated happy birthday to NORMA and GLENN (last Monday), and happy birthday to SARA (this Sunday)! Oops, I wonder how many others I forgot this week!

The eastern horizon is beginning to glow a little pink right now, and I can see the trees outside the window - they are thrashing back and forth in the strong wind, creating visual music to my eyes. I hope the air currents will sweep in a bit of moisture today, although the map is showing the hurricane will miss us as it charges up the Mississippi River Valley. No matter - the splash of "heavy dew" overnight was welcome and will be most appreciated by all today.

I will be making a run into town later today to pick up the new 2003 calendars. That means you will be able to order them now! Since the Pettigrew post office does not process mail on Saturdays, it will be Monday before any orders will actually be postmarked. To place your order you can either go to the new online store, or give us a call at 800-838-HIKE (4453). I will put up a site sometime over the weekend where you can go to view all of the images that are in the calendar.

BY THE WAY, if you are a Netscape user, it appears that we have been having some problems with the new online store when people use Netscape - it doesn't happen all the time, but the problem seems to be with Netscape. That is the browser that I use, so the problem is especially frustrating. If you have any problems with the new online store (which is actually pretty slick and professional looking!), simply use the toll-free number to place your order - all of the info comes to me no matter how you place the order.

For those of you who get the Newton County Times paper, you might notice that CLOUDLAND made the front page! It is an article about the Newton County Home Tour that will take place later this month - we are one of the homes featured on the tour, and it will be only the second time that the cabin has been opened up to the public (although we have probably given a couple thousand tours over the past few years to the "public"!). One note about the web page address given for the Cloudland Journal - it is www.cloudland.NET instead of .COM (as some of you already know the .com site is an experimental dentistry site in North Carolina!).

Oops, I see the very first rays of sunlight hitting the tip-top of the ridges far away - I had better post this journal entry and get to work!

Well, I got a little bit distracted when I stepped out onto the deck to take in some of that wonderful fresh air. I reached in and grabbed my camera and took off into the woods - in my underwear and slippers. The wind was SOOOOO refreshing, I just kept on hiking through the forest, a forest that had been cleansed from the overnight moisture. Before I knew it I was standing in the Faddis meadow at the base of a persimmon tree there. This poor tree is so LOADED with fruit that the limbs can hardly take the weight - in fact one large branch has already been torn off by the weight and went crashing to the ground. I've never seen so MANY persimmons on one tree before! And they are getting ripe too - I had to grab one to munch on for breakfast.

A little bit of sweet breakfast on the limb!

One thing that I noticed was that there were no butterflies in the forest.  Like many critters big and small they prefer the open areas of the meadows out here, and along the edges of where meadow meets forest - that is where all the food is. While I love and adore big trees and vast forests, we really need openings in that forest for the critters. I think we have struck a good balance of both here at Cloudland - our property is mostly undisturbed forest, but we also have Mom's and Aspen's meadows which provide a great deal of food and cover for the critters, and the Faddis and East meadows nearby. Plus the forest provides mast in the form of acorns, hickory nuts, and walnuts, and all sorts of berries.

10/6/02 Cool and cloudy at first light. We had a nice family day yesterday, and went to the big "Pumpkin Festival" at Osage. One of the main things that we wanted to do was buy pumpkins there. Guess what - not a SINGLE pumpkin in sight at the Pumpkin Festival! There was plenty of gospel singing, craft booths, and some good grub, but no pumpkin. Perhaps they should change the name of it next year. We ended up going to Wal Mart in Harrison to get not only pumpkin, but also bales of hay and corn stalks - Pam and Amber love to decorate for the holidays!

A little butterfly that Amber brought home from the Pumpkin Festival

Scott and Carolyn Crook came out today to gather acorns for their eight pet flying squirrels. Man oh man do we have the nuts out here this year! Pam's parents also dropped by - mostly to deliver six goldfish from their pond for safe keeping over the winter. But they also got caught  up in the nut gathering, and before long we had a bunch of folks sitting on the ground in the woods around the cabin, filling up bag after bag with green, yellow, and brown acorns. Amber provided her "mountain wagon" as the main collection point, and would lug it around to each gatherer and collect their nuts. It didn't take too long for the big red wagon to be filled to the top with acorns!

Pam and Amber had to lead an Otters Kids Dayhike for the Ozark Highlands Trail Association so they took off after lunch and headed for Lost Valley. Soon after they left dark clouds began to gather and swirl overhead, and before long there were crashes of thunder, and RAIN!!! YEA, WE WERE GETTING SOME RAIN! In fact we got a great deal of hard rain in just a short time - more than an inch fell. We all enjoyed the sights, sounds, and smells of it all from the safety of the back deck. It was great to see all of that water coming down in sheets, even way across the valley. (The hikers didn't get any rain on their trip at all!)

I spent the rest of the afternoon doing absolutely NOTHING. Sometimes you just got to do that sort of thing.

10/7/02 Chilly and sunshine at first light today - the temp was 42, and it felt GREAT! I spent most of the day indoors though - slaving away at the computer - and didn't get much of a chance to get out and enjoy it all.

10/8/02 Ditto for today - 42 degrees at first light, although today it is cloudy. The air is heavy and it feels like rain. We've been tweaking the main Cloudland.net web page this morning and getting it all ready for the two new books that should arrive in the next couple of weeks. Seems like I've been spending a ton of time answering e-mail too these days, and talking on the phone. I spent a half hour last night listening to an outraged husband whose wife had fallen and hurt herself on one of our club hikes FOUR months ago. He began the conversation saying it was all our fault and that he was going to sue us. It turned out, of course, to have been a simple accident and that his wife just lost her footing and fell. Our hike leader went out of his way to take care of this woman, including driving her to not one, but TWO different hospitals over the course of several hours. And these people had the gall to complain to me that the hike leader had not called to see how she was doing months later. GROW UP! Some people are just not willing to be responsible for their own self - I wish those people would STAY HOME and leave the rest of us alone. Unfortunately, society is filled with these people, and the rest of us have to deal with them. I am afraid that since we DO have to deal with these types of people that our little volunteer hiking club is going to have to change the way we do business from now on - all because of one irresponsible person. By the way, we have had more than 1,000 scheduled outings in our 20-year history, and this is the first serious injury that we have ever sustained - a pretty darn good safety record if you ask me! (We have had a couple of minor ones during work trips.)

FALL COLOR REPORT: I just took a short hike up to the office. The forest was simply delightful, calm and cool, with a sense and feel of fall. The floor remains covered with the reds, yellows and oranges of poison ivy and Virginia creeper. Above, the black gums are orange and red, blood red. And the sumacs are really beginning to pop with BRIGHT reds and oranges. Not much else has turned just yet, although looking out over the wilderness it looks like something might happen at any time. Seems like everyone is just holding their breaths, until the right moment arrives. We probably have 10% coverage right now, but overall it is still green. I would say that perhaps 50% of the forest is just about to change - within the next week most likely.

Still no rain yet, but the air is heavy and it could come pouring down at any time. The forest is in good shape after the rain that we got on Sunday, but most of the creeks are still dry - although the Buffalo River just down below the cabin is still running - I've never seen it dry up completely here (it goes underground just downstream and remains there for a ways).

10-9-02 We had a very nice long, slow, quiet rain that lasted all night long, and most of the day too. It was really more of a drizzle though - the total was less than 1/4 inch for nearly 24 hours of rain! It was a day that I truly love, with all of the moisture, clouds drifting back and forth, fog engulfing the cabin, then retreating. Both Pam and I had to spend most of the day inside working, and really didn't get to enjoy it much. Turns out that the Newton County Home Tour that will be here a week from Saturday is generating a great deal of work for us to do - we'll be spending most of that next week and a half just trying to get things ready for the tour. No matter - it is all for charity, and it is a good cause.

I did get to slip out once and take a hike around the loop. The forest smelled HEAVENLY! So many delicate fragrances come alive on days like this when there is so much moisture in the air. And every little bit of color JUMPS out at you - little tufts of moss turn BRILLIANT green, sumac leaves FLAMING red, and on and on. Thank goodness most of the forest was still green or I would have been blinded - especially if the maple trees had been turning (which they are not yet).

One of the things that I love about these little digital cameras is that you can take one with you wherever you go and you can shoot and shoot and shoot - whatever you like - and it is all FREE! Plus you get to see the photo instantly, then go home and bring it up on the computer or TV screen to show others. Such a marvelous invention. And while the quality is not up to par with what I need for my serious photography, for the web page images what is available now is just perfect. Everywhere I turned there were colorful things to photograph. My only problem was that these digital cameras also happen to be battery hogs, and so I ran out of juice half way through my little hike. And I was too lazy to go back to the cabin and get another set. No matter - I got to enjoy all of the other photos in my mind.

Sumac and thistle

The Lane between the orchid and the Faddis meadow

It certainly is one incredible year for nuts in the forest (I'm not talking about me), but some species seem to be lacking, especially fruit trees. The persimmon is the only tree that I have seen much fruit on this year - the peach trees didn't even bloom last spring. And I have been concerned about our paw paw patch - I haven't seen or smelled any fruit this year. But as I passed by the patch today I got just the faintest whiff of sweet smell. Since I had a long-sleeved shirt and jeans on I ventured into the thick brush to see what I could find. Right there on the ground in the middle of the patch was a single paw paw fruit - the ONLY one I could find, on the ground or up in the air. If the trees had more fruit this year, the critters had already eaten them. Still, I consider it good luck to find even a single paw paw.

A lonely paw paw

By the time I got back to the cabin my luck had run out. We got word that the new ARKANSAS WILDERNESS picture book had indeed been stranded on a boat off shore in California when the dock lockout began a couple of weeks ago. We had been told by our printers that the books had already cleared customs last week and would be here this week. It is a sad state of affairs when someone has to lie like that, and lead us on all this time. Now I am stuck with a huge hole in my pocket where the money that I paid for the books used to be, and nothing to sell. Looks like it may be a month or even longer before we see any of the new books - it is an awful mess out there. We have a $10,000 order from Barnes & Noble for the books that is set to expire next week if we can't produce the books. Oh well, we still have calendars to sell - have you ordered yours yet?

Oops, I hear a closet downstairs calling my name - need to build a shelf or two tonight.

10/11/02 We had a nice visit in Mountain Home last night with a group of folks who we hope will be forming a new Ozark Highlands Trail Association group - there is a ton of work to do over in that part of the state, and we are going to need a lot of volunteers for many years to come to help out with it. I didn't get home until the wee hours of the night, where I found my bride waiting up for me.

Today brought warmer temps, but continued cloudy skies, and damp outside. Pam and I went out for a hike around the loop early. The forest was beautiful and quiet - especially quiet. If not for the occasional chirping of crickets, there would have been no sound at all - other than the pitter-patter of the little feet of Aspen, Lucy, the Trail Cat, AND the Fat Box Cat! This is the very first hike that the Box Cat had ever gone on with us - we just turned around and he was there. I guess he had begun to wonder what we did when all of us disappeared into the forest together. It was funny to watch him and the Trail Cat romping all over the place, at east and comfortable with their surroundings, only to arch their backs and hiss each time one of the dogs came into view nearby.

The Trail Cat at home in a nest of poison ivy

The Ozark forest is a story of color right now for sure. Still not blazing hillsides of color, but there is lots of color if you look for it, especially out there in the shadows. And not just the fall foliage - we found hundreds of flowers blooming, still showing off their bright yellows, reds, whites, and pinks of summer.

And speaking of blooming, there is this one dogwood tree at the edge of the meadow that I swear is about to bloom - there are what appear to be buds all over it. Wouldn't it be neat if dogwood trees bloomed in the fall, and we had all of these beautiful white blossoms and blood-red leaves? I know the Japanese maple turns red in the spring, but its just not the same.

Dogwood berries and a bud?

It's not always a good idea to put a guy like me out in the woods on a beautiful day like this in the fall with a camera. I got to looking at every leaf, flower, and nut that I could find, and before long my bride had wondered off, leaving me to my camera toy.

One item that I found was that big old white oak tree that I had photographed the TINY acorns from a month or two ago. The nuts are much larger now, of course, and quite colorful. I don't recall seeing this color in a nut before. Come to think of it, the color palette of the acorn crop this year is quite varied and interesting - reds, yellows, browns, blacks, and sometimes more than one color on a single nut. Someone up there has pulled out their paint brushes this fall!

While both cats seemed to enjoy the hike, at some point we lost them - they simply vanished without a trace or meow. That last time we saw them they were in the woods near the East meadow. I really didn't want to spend the day out looking for cats, so returned to the cabin, and hoped that the kitty's would be able to find their way back.

Aspen, the "bur" dog

It was a lovely stroll through the autumn forest this morning. And when we got back all heck broke loose. There were at least 15 phone calls in a row, I had 49 e-mails pop up on my computer screen, and people started showing up from all over the place. All of this while I was trying frantically to get a book shipment boxed up for a UPS pickup (I made it in time), and posters tubed up and out to the mailbox for the postman to pick up (I did not make those in time). Poor Pam - she was working overtime taking orders and answering trail questions while she was trying to get packed up and out the door for a meeting in Jasper and then on up to Missouri. It's funny how sometimes not a single thing will happen for a long time, and then all of a sudden, BOOM, you get it all at once. Something about when it rains, it pours.

At some point later in the afternoon, the Fed-X truck pulled up and delivered something that I have been waiting to see for a long, LONG, time - more than two years - the very first copies of the ARKANSAS WATERFALLS GUIDEBOOK! I had them overnight me a couple advance copies. I held my breath and ripped open the box. I know that some of you who have been reading this journal for a while have some sense of what we have been going through with this waterfall guidebook (although only a small fraction of all that we had done) - what  a GIANT relief to finally see it come to an end. The cover looked good - great in fact. And the photos - YES, they looked great too! I was really worried about them since all were from the little point and shoot digital cameras that I have been using - I don't know of anyone else who would use such "toys" to illustrate an important book like this one. But they turned out just great, even better than I had expected.

The guy who had drawn all of the maps for all of my previous guidebooks over the past 14 years (Ken Eastin) just happened to be standing on the front porch when I opened the box. He had been replaced by my lovely wife for this guidebook, and I was a bit concerned at how Ken would take the news that he had been replaced, and what the maps would look like compared to his, which have always been first rate. The maps look BEAUTIFUL! And even Ken was impressed. WAY TO GO PAM!!!

So I breathed a big sigh of relief. The book is FINALLY finished!!!

The rest of the shipment left Michigan yesterday and is supposed to arrive on Monday in Springdale (two tons of them). That means that we can start to ship out orders on Tuesday - we already have a file folder full of orders. OF COURSE, there aren't ANY waterfalls running right now, but it will probably take you awhile to look and read through all of the different waterfalls anyway - perhaps a month or two - and by then the waterfalls will be running!

I'm not sure if I ever told you before, but there is one waterfall in the book named Fuzzybutt Falls. The actual picture of that falls with the butt UNfuzzy is posted elsewhere in this journal, but I wanted to warn you that the photo does appear in the guidebook, but the butt is fuzzed up a bit. My wife made me put that photo in the book. My daughter doesn't think too much of it, although I think I heard a giggle out of her once.

NOW, if we can just get those poor longshoreman in California who are only making $100,000+ to find our little stack of picture books and get them placed in the correct location, we'll have all of our books here.

I am happy to report that both of our cats found their way back to the cabin this afternoon.

Dogwood

FALL COLOR REPORT. Man, it looks like the wilderness could pop out any day now, although it will probably be another week before the color really pops here in the Buffalo area - another week after that for other parts of the Ozarks. That will all depend on the weather - temperature and rainfall. But from the cabin we can see perhaps a 20% color coverage right now, and you can tell the rest of the forest is getting ready. Next weekend should be super in the Buffalo River area.

10/15/02 I was up at 3am today - just too much to do and no way that I could sleep. The hike up to the office in the dark was very nice. It was quiet, the dogs were still back at the cabin all snuggled up with Pam, and the forest had an eerie stillness to it. Crisp, cold, dark. But my mood was bright and warm and cheery - I had BOOKS to ship out! The waterfall guidebook is the first brand new guidebook that I have produced in nearly ten years. It felt great to load all of them up into the warehouse yesterday (I went to town and collected nearly two tons of them at the truck terminal), and I was looking forward to filling all of the orders that had been piling up for the past several months, including a very large order from Barnes & Noble. I realize that you all probably get to hear way more of the book business than you want to, but that is what I do, so that is what I write about.

I had made my way through about half of the packing when it was time to return to the cabin and kiss my wife good morning and my daughter goodbye and see her off to school. It was still pitch black, and the stars above were shining like they were trying to light my way - these days I normally carry a flashlight though, after all of the snake encounters of late. Although now that those critters are making their way down into the ground, I will be free once again to wonder the nighttime wilderness by the light of the moon and stars.

The rest of my day was hectic, and I didn't get much time to sit back and enjoy the nice color show and was going on outside. We had pure blue skies and plenty of sunshine, which really lit up the trees and underbrush that are in "bloom." We are still a ways away from peak color, but the maples finally started to turn a day or two ago - at least some of them did. The office is surrounded by pure yellow maples, and there are a number of yellow and red ones at the cabin. We live right in the middle of a long band of maple trees - that band wraps around us in both directions where we are located on a level bench near the top of the ridgetop. The band goes back to the west  for more than a mile, all the way to Cave Mountain Road. I had never thought about this before, but it is possible to hike for nearly TWO MILES here all in a maple forest - man, that is really a special TREAT in the fall! In fact, the cover of the 2003 calendar is of a scene not far from the cabin along that very route - maple trees everywhere!

Every minute of this week will be hectic - we have so much on our plates, and so much to do both inside and out. Once we get through the week and weekend, we will be able, FINALLY, to sit back and enjoy some time to breathe. Oh yea, after Monday that is - I've got to go lead a hike for folks who are coming in from other parts of the country for a Trail of Tears convention in Ft. Smith. Darn, I'll have to get out and HIKE up on White Rock Mountain in the fall!

10/16/02 I slept in today until Pam got up at 5:30am to get Amber off to school. Orion is positioned directly out in front of the hot tub these days - or should I say these mornings. There are trees to the right, and trees to the left, but nothing but open sky down the middle, and that is where old Orion like to sit in the early morning hours. I have been quite surprised to have seen so many shooting stars this past couple of weeks - most of them streaking right on across Orion's belt. The sky has been pitch black the last couple of days and those stars show up really well.

I made about 15 or 20 trips between the cabin and office today, so I got to spend a little bit of time in the woods (it's about a quarter mile hike). More than once I stopped, leaned up against a hickory tree, and just let the world come get me for a minute or two. Mostly cloudy today - in fact it was down right DARK in the afternoon. There were a number of individual leaves floating down from up above - gently swaying from side to side, sometimes taking off when a burst of wind would come through, only to resume their downward trip once the breeze blew out. It was a tranquil, relaxing scene, one that will be repeated hundreds of thousands of times just in our little area this fall.

Towards the end of the day we got a little bit of rain - well, actually more like heavy drizzle. But the drops were large enough to make noise on the metal roof. I had been working outside until the wet stuff began to come down, but still had plenty of work to do inside. I find that these days it takes me three or more hours EACH DAY just to answer e-mail - man, they are really piling up!

I am also spending a lot more time dealing with the U.S. Postal Service because of destroyed packages. I continue to be shocked at how bad they tear up things sometimes, and then pass the package right onto the customer without saying a word. I got an e-mail from a guy in Fayetteville this morning that said the large, triangle PRIORITY MAIL tube (furnished by the post office) containing a Buffalo River poster from me was not only smashed, but nearly torn in two, with the contents spilling out. This package was hand delivered to the post office, and it only went through ONE processing facility between my hands and his front door.

(Late tonight I got a call from the manager of that mail facility - I was stunned that he was working so late, and that he returned my call. He actually seemed concerned about the situation of my packages being damaged so often, but basically said that was just par for the course, and that priority mail packages get destroyed all the time - they are not responsible for any damage. Huh? I do not insure these priority mail packages because not only do I have to make two trips in person to the post office if I file a claim, but the customer also has to go to their post office in person, with the damaged package, and prove what their loss is. While UPS also smashes a high percentage of these poster tubes, at least they are automatically insured and it only takes a single phone call for a claim. "Why don't you just double-package them?" people ask. That would probably help out a lot, but would also cost me a couple bucks more for each package - I'm already nearly giving these posters away right now - they are on special at half price - and can't really afford the additional expense.)

We had a visitor the other day - a gentleman that had grown up in a log cabin down near the mouth of Whitaker Creek along the Buffalo River. He lives in California now - like many Ozark natives do. He almost immediately started talking about the trip up the ladder trail to school each day. I wanted to make SURE that Amber got to hear this first-hand. He said that in the winter the kids had to stop part way and warm up at the Faddis cabin. It was a trip of several miles each way, and a climb of about 800 feet UP! He said they had moved up out of the valley around 1938, which is about when the last folks lived down in there.

10/17/02 36 degrees when our cabin woke up this morning. Pam and Amber are off to the bus, Aspen and Lucy are curled up tight in their beds next to my computer, and I am FINALLY going to finish this update and get it posted to the web site. Seems like forever since I made a post, but sometimes I simply don't have the time to get the job done, nor anything much that I think will be of interest to you guys. But at least now you will know that we are still alive and kicking. It seems like I thrive on they days when we have to cram about 48 hours worth of work into each day, and since that will be the case the next four days, I should be in heaven!

For those of you coming out on Saturday for the home tour please note that there may be a parking problem. At first they had it all set up that a school bus would shuttle folks up from Boxley Valley, where they would collect at the church. Then something got messed up with the school administration and their offer of the bus was retracted. Next someone with a smaller shuttle vehicle was all set up to move folks from the Faddis meadow down to the cabin. We just found out last night that person is sick and won't be able to make it. So even though we won't have all 200-300 folks here at the same time, I suspect there will be a few traffic jams along the way. Like everything else out here in the wilderness, we will find a way to make it all work out. For any of you wanting to make it out to Cloudland, this is your best opportunity and is only the second time that our cabin has been open to the public. All of the proceeds go to the Newton County Single Parent Scholarship Fund. The folks who put on this tour each year have really done a splendid job, and the amount of time and effort they have to put in is considerable. Just another fine example of the great folks of Newton County!

Oh yea, besides all of the folks who will be here for the Home Tour, we will also have three different sets of guests at Cloudland this weekend (some spending two nights here), including 15 folks here for lunch on Sunday! People often ask me about being lonely and isolated way out here, but the fact of the matter is that ever since I moved out here I see a LOT more people then I ever used to when I lived in town. And I don't have to put up with that awful traffic and noise of the city.

It is beginning to break day outside right now - the sky to the south is getting pink, and I can see a bank of clouds down below completely covering up the Buffalo River, and working its way up into Whitaker Creek. I suspect that about the time the sun decides to make an appearance that cloud bank will have moved up just a little bit and we will be in a total whiteout. While that is usually a pretty neat sight anyway - especially if you happen to be out wondering in the forest - it will be especially wonderful today because there is color in the trees, and the combination of color and fog is really something special!  I will try to force myself to get out and hike around a little bit this morning - it's a tough job but I am just the guy to do it.

FALL COLOR REPORT. We have about 30% color here in the Upper Buffalo River region right now. Boxley Valley is looking very good. The maples are beginning to turn some, and the sweet gums too. I don't see much color in the oaks/hickories yet. While the overall views are still mostly green, there is some spectacular color in individual trees and in the underbrush - especially the dogwoods, sumacs, black gums, and sassafras. Looks to me to be about a week late this year for peak color - that should happen by next weekend in the Buffalo area. Other parts of the Ozarks will be later, if at all, maybe even going into early November, although things could change rapidly. There will be good color this weekend in the Buffalo area for sure - drive TOWARDS the sun for best color - trees always look much better when backlit.

Just as soon as I posted the above I looked out the window and saw the sun about to break up over the hill. I grabbed the camera and headed out the door, hoping to catch an interesting scene from the little rock outcrop that overlooks the river just below the cabin.

When I reached Mom's meadow the sun appeared, beaming through the fog, and lighting up the sea of colorful flowers that are now quite thick. And then something overcame me, and for a few moments, I lost it, and was hopelessly blinded by tears. They were not tears of sorrow, but of joy, with thoughts of my mom. It had suddenly occurred to me that the pattern of the flowers in her meadow matched where I had spread her ashes - she was literally providing life to these beautiful wonders of nature. They were an extension of all the great beauty that this wonderful woman had shared with the world for 83 years. And now she continued to bloom and provide color and joy.

Looking up to the cabin from Mom's meadow

By the time I made it down to the rock outcrop the sun was trying to peak through the cloudbank, but the clouds were rising at about the same speed that the sun was, so I did not get a clear shot of the sunrise. It was an incredible sight though, standing there at the edge of the sea of clouds, knowing there was an entire wilderness world just down below. I was careful not to step out onto that sea - it's about a 100 foot drop!

Sunrise over Mossville

Pam just reminded me of a wildlife incident that happened up in the loft last night, after we both had gone to bed. Aspen has taken a liking to the foot of the bed, and spends most of the night there (no matter how many times he is kicked off). Not only does Aspen help keep Pam's feet warm, but we allow him to stay there because he no doubt would protect us in the event of a bear attack. Somehow the security system broke down and an intruder arrived, ending up literally on top of Pam's face. It was totally dark and she had no idea what was going on, only that someTHING was on her - YIKES! Turned out to the be Trail Cat. She had gotten into the cabin before I closed off the dog door, then snuck upstairs and onto the bed. So much for our superdog security system!

10/18/02 It is another day and I find myself once again up in the middle of the night trying to get enough work done before dawn finds me. It is heavy overcast outside right now, and they are calling for heavy rain today and tomorrow. That won't help the fall colors any, but we sure do need it. Speaking of the fall colors, I must say that the best place to see them right now is Boxley Valley, at least one side of it. We drove through there yesterday afternoon on our way to a soccer game in Harrison - the hillside on the east side of the valley was quite nice, with 50% or more color. But the west side really didn't show too much color for some reason. And a lot of the surrounding hills look rather drab. Heavy rains will certainly knock what color we have back a few days if not longer. I would say that as of right now, it will be next weekend before the color is really nice in the Upper Buffalo River area, except for Boxley Valley. There IS color elsewhere, but more individual trees than overall scenes.

Speaking of the soccer game, I must tell you that I was thrilled to be recognized by one of the other soccer dads after the game. Most people in Jasper and Harrison don't have a clue who I am, which is fine with me (although I am gaining a reputation as Pam's husband and Amber's dad - just the way I want it!). So I was pleased when this guy looked at me with that look on his face and that age old line "Don't I know you?" And when he asked my name a broad smile came across his face. "YES, you are that guy who delivers the paper!" I thought Pam was going to fall onto the turf laughing. Yep, that's me, I'm the paper guy. My feet are now firmly planted back in the ground were they should be.

Speaking of other people, I wanted to share with you a couple of notes that have been sent to me this week that I though you might enjoy. The first is a poem by friend Cindy Prince - she wrote it after reading about my mom and her flowers:

And also this little bit of wisdom that my brother Terry sent to me (which is now posted on the wall at Cloudland):

And finally this note from a journal reader who had placed an order last week:

It's hard to imagine just how excited I was when I got a note in my post office box notifying me of a large package in the mail.  I was expecting my calendar and books that I had ordered.  The only problem was is that it was Friday afternoon and the post office was closed.  I couldn't hardly stand it but I knew I would have to wait until Monday.  Boy, was I surprised and even more frustrated when Monday came and I found out it was Columbus Day.  What is this world coming too?  I was about to explode with anticipation.  I was worse than a kid the night before Christmas.  Yes, I said, it is Tuesday and I am on my way to the post office for my package.  I arrived early and rushed inside to the Postmaster waiving my little slip, only to find out that my wife had stopped by a few minutes earlier and picked up my package.  I spent the next 7 hours reeling with excitement knowing my package would be at home when I returned this evening.  Man, was I ever excited to see my wife standing at the door with a smile on her face and she was holding something behind her.  It was my package from you with only one slight challenge.  It was wrapped up with a bow on it and my wife informed me that my birthday gift had arrived and I could open it in two weeks on my birthday.  Do you think maybe you could fax me few pages of the waterfall book to hold me over for the next couple of weeks?  (hah)  I'm looking forward to seeing Cloudland this weekend.  Maybe I can introduce myself and family.  I've been reading your journal for a long while and look forward to the daily fix.  ---Chris H.

I know exactly how Chris feels - I'm just like that kid on the night before Christmas, only my wrapped gift is fall in the Ozarks. And perhaps my situation is even worse because I get to see the present unwrapped a little bit at a time as the colors slowly develop. I am looking forward to this fall even more so than any other I think. The main reason is that I will not have to WORK! Normally I am out every single day chasing the color with camera in hand, searching for the perfect photographs. That may not seem like work to some of you, but believe me it is some of the toughest work that I have ever done. And while you do get to spend your day right in the middle of one of the greatest shows on earth, you seldom actually get to enjoy it all that much because your concentration is on the JOB., finding the right scenes, stopping the WIND. And then when you do get that perfect shot, you've got to pack everything up and sped off to find another one. There is a great sense of anticipation and excitement, but also a bucket load of frustration and disappointment, not to mention the long hours and physical exercise. And by the end of the day, if there is one, you are mentally and physically exhausted. The only problem is that you can't seem to sleep much because you are worried about what the next day will bring - "Will I be able to find the best color!?" (Have I convinced you that my job is tough yet? I didn't think so.) Anyway, THIS YEAR I do not have a photo project in line (and that is the only time that I take "serious" pictures), and so will not be "working" at all, and that is a great relief to me. For once I will actually be able to simply enjoy the spectacular beauty of an Arkansas autumn. Wow, what a concept!

I do have one bit of fall-related work to do before I can really sit back and enjoy. I will be spending most of today driving around like crazy, trying to find the best fall color locations, and at what time of day they are at their peak. It will be doubly tough because if we get the heavy rains that are predicted today and tomorrow, that color will be different! On top of the Newton County Home Tour and our other guests at the cabin this weekend, I am teaching a photo workshop. Come on color, COME ON COLOR!

10/22/02 Sorry for the delay in posting - I have simply been too busy to write anything. I tried going without any sleep at all to make up for lost time, but that didn't work - I really need 3 or 4 hours of sleep a night or I turn into a real zombie. First off, let me get to the important thing:

FALL COLOR REPORT. Right now the upper Buffalo River area is peaking and is BLAZING about as good as I have ever seen it. We have probably 70-80% coverage in spots, some places even more. And one of the great things about this fall color is that even the early bloomers like the underbrush and understory trees are blazing away right now - a full month late. The maples are absolutely peak, and man there are thousands of maples around here. Looks like they are more YELLOW then normal, but also some incredible RED trees - leaves as pure red as you can get. Hwy. 16 between Pettigrew and Red Star, and Hwy. 43 from Boxley to Compton are simply incredible - I mean you risk an accident just because you can't take your eyes off of the beauty at every twist and turn of the highway. Simply amazing. The rain they predicted all weekend never really hit here, so that didn't hurt any. They are now calling for rain the next two days, but there is no telling if it will happen or not. Regardless, there will be color around here the rest of this week and this weekend. I was at White Rock Mountain yesterday and there is good color there too, although only 25-35% coverage - still lots of green. But the trees that had turned are really nice, and lots of underbrush. The forest along the Pig Trail is wonderful already, and with another few days it should be very nice as well - this coming weekend will be good, and even on into the next week, maybe even longer. I have been hearing over and over again from folks that this was going to be a DULL year for color - seems like the more people say that, the more fantastic the color is! I have been absolutely stunned at some of the intensity of the color this year.

OK, now for the past several days. On Friday, while I was running around trying to find the best color and doing business in town, Amber found a rattlesnake just a few yards from the cabin. She calmly came into the cabin and got Pam - aren't snakes supposed to be under ground now?! Pam showed how well she has gotten into the groove of this place and promptly chopped off the snake's head with a tomato hoe. My wife's first rattlesnake kill!

To celebrate the kill, we had quite a feast later that night with our good friends Carrie and Sara from Springfield. They both came down to get away from it all, and to help us out with the big weekend ahead. Pam, Sara, and Carrie used to be climbing buddies before Pam made the move into the wilderness. They forced me to open and nearly drain a fine bottle of Marilyn Merlot (it was actually pretty good), although none of them had a thing to drink themselves.  I really needed the fuel the grapes provided because I still had so much to do before things got hectic here. Poor Pam - she had worked herself to the bone all week trying to get the cabin in shape - adding so many special touches that only she could create. I did a good job - no a GREAT job - when I went looking for and found her!

While the forecast was for "100% chance of heavy rain all day," we hardly got anything but light drizzle. Same thing for all day Saturday - the air was wet, but it never really "rained," despite all of the gloom and doom warnings. That was fine with me - I just wish they would get it right once in a while.

We got up early on Saturday and hit the ground running. We were supposed to begin receiving guests on the Newton County Home Tour and had several car loads by 11:30. The folks who set this charity event up sure did a great job - there were five or six "tour guides" at our house by noon to help show everyone around (a second wave of volunteers would arrive later in the afternoon), and signs up all over the place for folks to find their way here. We had to set up a shuttle service between the Faddis cabin and our place to handle all of the traffic. At one time we had three different shuttle vehicles working (plus a person in the parking area to direct traffic), with radios for communication.

Inside the cabin it was a real zoo - there were people everywhere, and tour guides on every level and outside in the front and in the back showing folks around. I roamed around wherever I was needed, talking with folks and showing off the view. Pam landed out in front and spent most of the day showing folks the water garden. Amber took up residence in the library behind a table that was piled high with books and calendars - she was the "high-pressure" sales lady, and did a great job of explaining the big sale we were having, and taking people's money. This kid is going to do well! Sara and Carrie ran shuttles and helped out in many other ways. Once the traffic began none of us had a moment to slow down and take a breath - it was quite a crowd. I don't know for sure how many guests we had, but I do know that there were many times we had 25, 35, 40 or more people here at the same time - and they kept coming in a steady stream from noon until 5pm.

Just about the time the last guests arrived it was time for me to head into Fayetteville to begin my photo workshop. Good friend and fellow National Geographic photographer Ray Scott who was spending the night at the cabin came along with me - he worked as my assistant for the workshop. It would be late in the night before we returned to the cabin after a couple of hours of discussions in town with the workshop folks. I didn't realize it at the time, but I had left Aspen alone with FIVE women - he would have to endure this most of the next day too. I do believe all of them had a nice time, and only wish that I could have been there to partake in the fun. But by the time Ray and I got home I was exhausted, so I crawled up the stairs into the loft and crashed for a few hours of sleep.

I was wide awake at 3am trying to figure out where to take the workshop participants in the morning. Not knowing whether to believe the weather forecast I really didn't know which one of several different spots to go - they were calling for clearing skies in the morning, and bright sunshine the rest of the day. Hum, as Ray and I drove away from the cabin around 5am the windshield wipers were working, and we encountered heavy rain once we arrived in Fayetteville.

A dozen of us photographers spent the day touring around the Ozarks, seeking out the best color and light. As luck would have it we never saw the sun all day long - normally great conditions for photos, but we would liked to have seen some sunshine in the afternoon to really bring out the fall color. Since that had been predicted there really was little chance of it happening anyway. We found some fine scenes to shoot though, and had a wonderful stop at Cloudland for lunch - the four lovely ladies had lunch all spread out for us when we arrived. Aspen just sat in the corner and grinned, waiting for me to leave so that he could have the girls all to himself once again.

Once again it was late at night when I got back to the cabin - doubly exhausted this time, but able to sit back and take a deep breath at last. Well, one deep breath anyway - I had a lot of chores to do before I could get to bed. It would turn out to be another long and late night for me, trying to process the e-mails, snail mail and phone calls that had been piling up all weekend.

I was up again bright and early Monday morning - well, actually it wasn't all that bright - it about 4am when I rolled out of the sack and got to work at the computer. I had a mountain of work to do before I left for the day to venture over to White Rock Mountain to meet with folks who were attending the National Trails Convention in Ft. Smith. The drive over was nice - LOTS OF GREAT COLOR all along the highways! Even White Rock Mountain had some great color, which was a surprise to me because I had been told by the Forest Service that the oaks in that area had a "100% mortality" rate from the red oak borer this past year - that means that all of the oaks should have been dead. While there is no questions many oaks have been and will be killed by this terrible bug, certainly the forest looked healthy now and there was plenty of green. I would give that area another week and the color should really be something. I will say that if you go over in that area be on the lookout for log trucks - they are cutting down hundreds of trees along the roadways, and many in the campgrounds and parking areas - some of the trees are dead, but most are still green and may have been infected by the bugs - they want to keep the trees from falling and killing someone who is driving along or camping. It is a huge job that will go on for a while.

It was nice to spend a few hours with folks from all over the country as we hiked the Rim Trail around the top of White Rock - one of the very best short hikes in the state. One guy that I hiked with lived in a cabin in Alaska. He ran a trap line nearly every day, had helped his three teenage daughters each kill a moose last month (plus a moose for himself), and while he didn't really say if he had filled all of his bear tags for this year or not, he did say that he was allowed to hunt and kill FIVE black bears and one grizzly bear this year - he said that his "freezer was full for the winter!" They have some bear problem in his area.

It was another several hours of work back at the cabin before I could call it a night.

Pam and I had both been working half of the morning today when I yelled out "Let's go!" We jumped into the truck and headed for the Hawksbill Crag Trailhead. The color in the Whitaker Creek Valley is really nice right now, and I wanted to go take a few pictures if the sun ever came out - it looked like things were beginning to get lighter after a morning of heavy cloud cover, so I wanted to be in place if the sun came out.

Pam at the Crag

We took a quick hike and made it down to the Crag before the sunshine hit, set everything up and were ready to go. Then we waited, and waited, and waited. The sun never did really come out, but it did break through a spot here and there and I shot a few pictures. We were probably there an hour. That was the first time that either one of us had actually stood still for more than just a few moments in the past couple of weeks, and it felt really good. It was sort of strange though because Pam was standing out on the Crag and I was back on the bluffline - we had to yell out to each other to communicate. But no matter, we both enjoyed just being there and watching the wonderful show of color happening before our eyes. Man, it was beautiful out there today! (I never did get the photo that I wanted, but there will be another day.)

We raced back to the cabin to try and get as much work done as we could before we had to drive into Harrison with Amber for a soccer game. On the way home we put our favorite CD in and sang all the way. What a great feeling it is to be able to share a love of music with my girls. What were listening to and singing was a CD by Lynn Miles, a folk singer from Canada. I have been in love with her music for several years, and the first CD of hers that I bought is definitely on my top-10 lifetime list of favorites. Pam too fell in love with her music as soon as she heard it. We just got two of Lynn's CD's a week ago, and Pam and I have listened to nothing else since. And now Amber is taking a liking to this music as well, and loves to sing along. While Lynn is classified as a folk singer, the music is really something else - I'm not sure what, but I know that I absolutely love it and can't seem to get away from it. I am not stretching this number a bit, but I have listened to one of her CD's more than 1,000 times. I put it into the 6-CD cassettes in my truck back in April of 1999 and it has remained there EVER SINCE!  And best of all, while looking at Lynn's web site the other day I discovered much to my great joy and delight that she is going to be in Little Rock on November 14th. I've been watching her site for a while now and she mostly tours in Europe, Canada and in the northeast United States. So I was stunned when I saw her going to be in Little Rock. It took me a lot of digging to find the exact location, time and get ticket info, but now we have it and you can bet we will be first in line at the door. (I first wrote about Lynn in my April 30, 1999 journal post - that was the last day of the first year of this journal. The song that brought me to tears that night continues to do so to this day, and I am unable to listen to it whenever there is anyone else around.)

I still have four or five major projects that I have to get done soon that I will be working on, plus the every day chores of processing book orders and answering e-mails (I've still got over 100 to get to). I don't have a clue when I will be able to take a nap again, nor head out the front door whenever I choose and wander in no particular direction for hours, but I DO plan to get back to that schedule, and when I do, you will have to listen to all of my stories once again. In the meantime, I hope that many of you will be able to get into the Ozarks this week, weekend, or next, and soak up the great beauty of this classic autumn we are in the middle of right now.  There is no way that I can even begin to capture the essence of it on film, so I am not going to try - some things can only be painted by Momma Nature herself.

10/23/02 It was supposed to rain last night and today - nothing but moonlight and stars all night and blue skies this morning. I hit the ground running once again, trying to get enough chores done before I had to get into town to spend the day running errands. But before I made it out to the main dirt road, I just had to stop the truck - the colors were so darn INCREDIBLE that I was forced out into the woods - I just headed down the hillside and into the blaze of color.

In all of my life I have never seen such color, so many different colors, and so many shades of the same colors. Maple trees ran the gammet from bright yellow to blood red, hickory trees were pure yellow, sweetgum trees were all colors, including purple, and the oaks had begun to turn orange. I was in a wonderland, inside a kaleidoscope of blazing glory. No way that film or digital media could ever capture it, so I left my cameras behind. Instead I allowed my eyes to take it all in, without having to deal with the connections to my brain that were required to photograph things. I was in saturated color overload.

There were breezes in the air, which tossed limbs here and there. And then the magic began - LEAF FALL was happening! This is a rare time when many of the colorful leaves turn loose and float to the ground. Indeed some of them take off on a journey of their own, wanting to prolong the fall to earth as much as possible, swinging back and forth, stretching out to grasp a wisp of wind to send them off in a another direction - perhaps even back skyward, where they could dance on the wind for a few moments longer. The sunshine that was filtering through the trees seemed to catch each leaf that was floating by, lighting them up even more.

I had taken up residence on the forest floor, my back laid down on a carpet of yellows, oranges and reds. Above me the symphony of light and motion was doing its thing, and this spectator enjoying the front row seat. There were actually three layers to see - a lower layer of leaves in motion, a middle layer of branches filled with leaves on deck, and finally the pure blue sky above it all. I don't know a thing about complementary colors, but today that blue went perfectly well with yellow and red!

I just really can't explain in words how wonderful it was to lay there and be a part of it all, to witness one of the most incredible fall color displays we have ever had here. It was/is every bit as colorful as anything I have seen in Colorado. And the fact that this was in my own back yard made it all the more special. I could have spent the entire day there, watching, enjoying, conversing with the forest. But I had a real world to get back to, so I got up and headed back towards the truck. But before I left the trees, I took off, sprinting up the hillside, running and trying to catch as many falling leaves as I could - that is good luck you know. One, two, three, four, five.......I decided to continue until I had caught 33 leaves - my lucky number. And it didn't take long, although that very last one proved to be tough. I wonder if the forest knew my plan and wanted me to stick around a little while longer? No doubt anyone who had witnessed this event would have laughed out loud at my silliness - or would have been jealous and just waiting for me to leave so that they could do the same thing!

10/26/02 The last couple of days have been a blur - a very BRIGHT blur. The colors continue to blaze on here in the Ozarks, right outside our windows, and as far as we can see up the valley. We did have a bit of rain the other night - the first actual RAIN that we have had in a long time (despite what the weather people have been saying). It only amounted to about 1/4 inch, but was certainly welcome. It was heavy enough to knock leaves off of the trees, so now the forest floor is really carpeted with brilliant colors. But not so heavy as to make the trees bare. In fact, I can hardly tell where the leaves fell off of. It is just one of those perfect falls all around.

I have spent most of these past days either at the cabin, or driving back and forth to town (I made 17 stops while in town the other day - there is always so much to do!). The drives have been quite spectacular, as the trees along the way have continued to shine. This is not only one of the most brilliant falls that I have ever seen, but the color is also striking around a long while too.

One afternoon while I was in the warehouse up at the office making room for the new picture books, I got a sudden urge. I thought - what the heck am I doing INSIDE when I could be OUTSIDE in all of this glory? As I raced out the door I actually grabbed my camera bag and large tripod, then headed down through the woods towards the top of the bluffline. The forest was so beautiful, and peaceful, and it was like walking through a dream, one of the dreams that you never want to wake up from. It had been so long since I had spent time working with my camera that I was able to simply enjoy the stroll and even forgot all about taking pictures.

The bench just above the bluffline is home to the mile-long stretch of maples - thousands of maple trees as far as you can see in all directions. Many of these trees were still a bit green down low, but the canopies were all blazing yellow and orange.  The forest here is wide open, with hardly any underbrush at all. Looking through the dark trunks out towards the top of the bluffline there were dozens of bright RED maple trees, smaller in size, and hugging boulders along the top of the bluff. And beyond them bright air (the bluff drops off 100 feet), and then way out in the background a kaleidoscope of color, mostly blurred out, from the multicolored hillside in the distance a half mile away. Way too much to take in all at once - you had to stop and focus on each layer, sweeping back and forth, then move out to the next layer, each one bringing on a new rush of color and excitement.

The wind was perfectly still, and everything was quiet, except for a symphony of crickets that seemed to harmonize with the colors.

I hiked along the top edge of the bluff past all of the red maples, and stopped at one of a hundred great viewpoints - I had remembered my camera after all, and set up the big tripod legs in just the right spot. Normally I am in a great rush to take a picture - I want to get the perfect shot then quickly move on to find another one. But that was not the case today. I was slow and deliberate, spending more time LOOKING at the world around me instead of worrying about the camera. I guess by now I know my camera stuff so well that I really don't need to really pay too much attention to it as I set everything up. Just about the time I got the camera into position, it began to rain lightly. Man, that came out of nowhere! Although it seemed to match the mood of the forest - a soft and gentle rain, more of a heavy mist than anything. The view in front of my camera changed instantly, and the scene I was after had vanished. Plus my camera was getting wet. I didn't have any rain gear with me, so I packed it back into the camera bag without taking a single frame. No matter - I absolutely loved being out in the rain.

I hiked back up the hillside and around to another spot where the maple trees were really blazing. The spring-like shower had ceased, and while it probably was not possible to have any more intense colors (as is usually the case once everything is wet), the leaves were a notch brighter, richer, more inviting.

I was drawn into a particular scene - just one of a thousand scenes in this forest. Looking at the overall scene was quite pleasant, but when I put my camera up to my eye a bolt of excitement shot through me - it was a SPECTACULAR scene, and I HAD to get it on film! I guess that is one of the reason why I take pictures in the first place - some things simply move me so much that I am compelled to photograph them. Few things in life are as rewarding for me as being able to get out and do that. I don't know why - I guess most folks feel the same way about their jobs at certain times.

So I set up the tripod and this time did not mess around and before long had shot about 50 photos of the scene. Then I took a few steps to the right and found an even better scene - another 40 or 50 shots were taken. Just when I thought I had made the perfect shot, I caught myself wandering still further along the hillside and finding yet another great view - click, whirr, click, whirr, click, whirr. I shot another couple of rolls of film. And then the heavy mist began again. But I was not ready to leave this spot yet, so I covered up the camera with my hat and waited for the mist to stop, which it did a few minutes later. Guess what - while it was misting I looked around a bit more and found ANOTHER great scene! Now mind you all of these were basically the same scene, just a little bit different. By the time I was through I had shot about 250 pictures. I may use one or two of them in the future, but probably never any more than that. I guess sometimes I go through a process of refining the scene, always trying to get better and better, the absolute PERFECT shot. And then once I do, if I see it even better, I won't hesitate to shoot it again. I hope that this process comes through when you look at some of my work - I only want to show you the very best that Momma Nature has to offer.

By the way, the scene that I kept photographing is a classic fall scene, with several tall BLACK tree trunks extending from the bottom to top of the frame, with layer upon layer of yellow, orange, red, and green foliage spread out behind the trunks. The scene has a great deal of depth, and the color seems to go on forever, anchored by those coal black tree trunks. I took a few digital snapshots of the scene too, but they don't even begin to do it justice, so they will remain in the garbage.

That one scene - a single image from one of the most glorious autumns we have ever had in the Ozarks - will be enough for me this year. A friend stopped by the other day and greeted me with "I can't believe you are not out taking pictures!" I told him that for the most part, I was taking pictures this year in my mind, and they would last a lifetime. Of course, I had already taken that one shot! (If it will turn out half as good on film as I saw it in my mind, I will be a happy camper.)

Last night I took a hike up to the office in the dark. Pam and Amber were back at the cabin processing the OHTA newsletter. The forest was still damp from the rain the night before, but most of the wetness had soaked up. Still, the air was moist and carried a great deal of scent as wet air does. I could smell the leaves on the forest floor that I was crunching through - nothing has that aroma, and you know you are in the midst of FALL when you smell it. Aspen was plowing through the earth, after a mole or vole or something, and I could even smell the fresh from twenty feet away. The night air was saturated with the wilderness.

I was up and soaking in the hot tub early this morning, well before first light. It was still and quiet out. Then a flock of geese broke the silence - the first of many on their annual trip south. Quite often when you hear a flock of geese this time of the year you have to strain to try to locate them up high in the blue sky. But since it was dark, I could never see them, and I was able to sit back and simply listen to their music. It echoed a hardy "hello" down and across the wilderness to all.

A little while later I went back upstairs and woke my bride. It is her 33rd birthday today. You might recall that 33 is my favorite number, and I plan to make this year a favorite of hers. We are going on a hike later today to meet up with hikers from all over the region on the Ozark Highlands Trail. Looks like a splendid day for a hike - cool temps, a slight breeze, overcast skies, and the Ozarks peaking. It will be a grand weekend.

Speaking of the weekend, if you are within range (or want to listen on the internet - KUAF.com) you might listen to the Ozarks At Large radio show on Sunday morning (I think it is around 9am central time - remember the time change).  They did a short interview with me over the phone a couple of days ago. I was sitting out on the back deck and Kyle Kellams asked me to describe the view - ya right! They probably won't air the entire ten-minute description! (In fact the entire interview may only be a minute or so long, combined with other folks.) I am pretty much a ham when it comes to radio and TV things like that, although I look much better on radio...

FALL COLOR UPDATE: It is peaking right now in the Ozarks, and NOW is the time to get out and see it all!!! The Buffalo River area continues to blaze, and that color is spreading to the rest of the Ozarks. If you really want to see as much as you can, spend the day driving - Hwy. 16 between Pettigrew and Deer, Hwy. 7 between Harrison and Russellville, Hwy. 21 from Clarksville to Kingston, Hwy. 43 from Harrison to Ponca, Hwy. 74 from Jasper to Ponca, Hwy. 23 from Ozark to Huntsville - really just about any drive that you make this weekend and in the next few days will be quite spectacular. The western part of the forest seems to change the last, so I suspect the colors will still be great next weekend there, although they are changing rapidly. And as far as hiking goes - heck, park and hike ON ANY TRAIL in the Ozarks this weekend and you will be rewarded!

For those of you who have been keeping up, we got word that our shipment of the new ARKANSAS WILDERNESS picture books are sitting in a truck terminal in Little Rock. If they are telling us the truth this time, that means we will have the books on Monday (I will have to go into town and haul them all back - several tons of them). I will let you know if that really happens. You can go ahead and place your order right now on our new secure online store, or call our toll-free order line anytime - 800-838-HIKE (4453). This new book is smaller than my previous coffee table picture books, but has just as many great photos inside, and the quality is super. It is a paperback book with no individual box, so the price is a lot cheaper ($29.95 and worth every cent!). The quality of the images and printing inside is so good that you can easily tear out photos and frame them (same thing with the new calendars). Any time that you buy one of our books or calendars you are helping to support this online journal - I am only able to spend the thousands of hours here writing and posting for free because I sell enough books to make a living. If I had to go flip burgers for a living you probably would never get to visit Cloudland. So buy a book or three and THANKS for your support!

Oh yea, one another announcement. It looks like that while the quality of digital projection is not quite good enough for my taste (I had planned to produce a digital slide program of the waterfall book), I have been doing some testing and discovered that it is possible to produce regular SLIDES from my digital files that are good enough for projection. What that means is that I will have two new slide programs to show later this fall - the ARKANSAS WILDERNESS show (scenes from the new book) and the ARKANSAS WATERFALLS show, which will contain all of the images from the new guidebook, most of them in color. It will be a very time-consuming process though, since I have to mess with every single digital file (including adding a name for each waterfall as text on the slide) before sending it off to the lab for processing. And the cost is going to be very high - nearly $1,000 just for the slides alone. But it will be fun to create and show two new programs. I'll keep you posted as to the progress, and where you can go to see them this fall.

10/27/02 Another busy weekend is about to close. We started off with the arrival of Pam's parents Saturday morning - and a dozen donuts from this donut place in Springfield as part of Pam's birthday. Seems like everyone is getting into the act with these donuts (they even showed up on our hike - TWO different sets of hikers arrived with them in tow). Soon after the last donut disappeared a couple dozen hikers appeared on the back deck. They were the TAKAHIK group from Russellville, out for one of their many hikes this fall season. One of the reasons that I built our decks super-strong here is so that groups like this one would not fall through!

Then Pam, Amber, Aspen, Lucy, and I all loaded up in the truck and headed out for the Ozark Highlands Trail Association's annual fall Hare Mountain Hike-In on the highest part of the OHT. The sky cleared off and it turned into one spectacular fall day in the Ozarks. We had a nice, slow hike UP to the top of Hare Mountain, where we met with 40 hikers from several different states. We all had a giant feast around the campfire.

You can tell from the following pics that I tried to spread the weight around to as many of our little family hiking group as I could - only Lucy was without a pack, and we intended to get her one of her own in the near future.

My pack horses

Aspen trying to grin and bear it

OHTA members at the Hike-In

On the way back home we stopped and had breakfast at a little country restaurant with several other hiking friends. I'm not sure if the SPAM factor had already kicked in, or they indeed had great food at this place (the County Line Cafe on Hwy. 23 near Brashears), but all of the food was TERRIFIC! My standard fare is a Denver Omelette - it is funny to see how this dish is served so many different ways around the country. Theirs was stuffed with the usual items, plus chopped olives, which added some extra flavor.

The fall colors continue to blaze on, and I had to stop at an old one-room school house on Cave Mountain Road at Robert's Gap (no relation to Robert Chester). Amber and I ventured inside a few feet - the floor is in very bad shape and already falling in. She noted that there was still a partial assignment written on the wall. I have passed this building hundreds of times, but today was the first time I have ever stopped - drawn by the maple trees surrounding it.

The one-room school house at Robert's Gap

When we got home the heavy clouds began to drop some of their load, and we had a delightful couple of hours of wonderful rain. I guess I should have wrapped up and went on a hike, but I elected to sit around in the cabin, build a roaring fire, and put on a big pot of veggie soup.

It is well after dark now, and Pam and I are beginning the log job of picking out music for the two new slide programs. Out of the five songs I selected we still have to find two of them somewhere - I'll be making the rounds of the CD racks in town later this week. Some of these songs are old favorites of mine - just like the images in the new ARKANSAS WILDERNESS book.  I try to select music by what visual appeal the sounds create inside my head. This week will be filled with music, lots more COLOR, and hopefully - new books! I'll keep you posted.

10/28/02 One of those cold, drizzly days all day today - the sort of day that I just LOVE! The colors were rich and full outside. Only problem was that I was forced to remain indoors and close to the phone/computer all day long while we all searched for the lost shipment of new picture books. Turns out that the union folks at the docks on the west coast did their best to screw up the shipment completely - I had heard they were going to continue that practice as long as they could. They have been quite successful.

By the end of the day I was fed up with the union non-workers and headed out the door, out someplace away from the insanity of the real world (still no word on the books). Pam was working in town so it was just me and the dogs. It was near dark, and the forest was engulfed in a thick layer of fog. It all smelled so wonderful - nothing like a wet forest to awaken your senses. It looked a lot like Halloween out there - so many rich oranges everywhere. The ground was covered with orange and yellow and red leaves - a thick carpet of them now.

Yellow or red - take your pick!

I took a few pictures then let my mind wander deeper into the forest, and my feet followed. I don't do this very often, but it seemed like the right place and time to do it today - I purged my head of everything and simply floated out there into the fog (and not a thing to drink!). I did not try to calculate my route, or where I was at any given moment. No need for details or facts. It was just me and the fog and the color and the wind. And the silence of the wilderness. I probably could have continued on with my eyes closed, but there was so much to see and enjoy. My feet followed the contours of the land, feeling my way up and over moss-covered rocks, down into small ravines, across wide and flat benches. One time I fell, and I rolled and rolled and came to rest against  an ancient oak - an oak that had long ago proved that big trees do make noise when they fall in the forest, even if no one was there to hear. I was not hurt, for the carpet of newly-fallen leaves took good care of me.  I looked skyward and a cool mist refreshed my face. It is really nice being out in the woods on a day like this.

In the fog and the mist and the dimness of twilight the forest all looks the same. I had been wandering around for a half hour, perhaps longer, didn't know exactly where I was, nor cared all that much. But soon I caught a whiff of something very familiar, and quite soothing. A smell that brought me back into the present - woodsmoke. It was coming from our cabin, a fire that I had been tending all day. With a nose like mine you tend to pick up a lot of smells, and learn to rely on them sometimes for direction. The smell was stronger from one direction than others, so that had to be where home was. I gradually worked my way back up the slope towards the smoke, through the fog and the wonderland of brilliant colors. Soon I began to recognize the shape of the land, individual trees and boulders, and the path back to the cabin. A few minutes later I saw a small figure dancing in the fog - it was my lovely daughter, Amber, just home from school. "Doesn't that smoke smell just WONDERFUL!" she said. Yes young lady, it certainly does.

It is late at night now, the fire has burned down but the cabin remains warm. We got word that the shipment of books was finally located - they think - and will arrive in Fayetteville tomorrow. I won't hold my breath too long on that one, but will load up my trailer and head into town at the appointed time. My brain has been scrubbed clean now, and I will be able to face the traffic and the noise, and write a very large check to the union - they win...

10/31/02 HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!! No question that orange is the #1 color at this time of the year - the maples are still blazing away here, and have been joined by the oaks. The peak is on the way out in the Buffalo River area, but it is still just marvelous outdoors anyplace in the Ozarks today. Unquestionably one of the very best color seasons we have ever had here, and it has lasted a very long time.

Just a short post today - I continue to be swamped with work and don't have much time to write. The big story of the week is that the new ARKANSAS WILDERNESS picture books did finally arrive on Tuesday. It will still be a while before the big chain stores get them on their shelves, but many of the smaller bookstores are getting them today and tomorrow (plus the Pack Rat and Colliers Photo in Fayetteville). This is a new type of picture book for me - the inside is basically the same, filled with 105 premium-quality printed images (you can tear any of them out of the book and frame and they will look as good as any expensive photograph). But the outside is different - the physical size is smaller than my previous books (the new book is 9.5" x 10"), it is a paperback in stead of hard cover, and there is no individual box. Oh yea, and the price tag is HALF of what the other picture books are ($29.95). I think you will like it, and is in the price range for gift giving without breaking the bank. As always, you can order through our secure online store (there is a place to spell out who you want it autographed to), or you can call our toll-free line anytime at 800-838-HIKE.

Pam and I snuck off for a short hike this morning - just the two of us, and my camera bag. I felt the need to produce one more photo from the season. We hiked beneath countless maple trees, all glowing yellow and gold and red and orange. And then found one spot where the forest floor was carped with fresh-fallen leaves (actually, MOST of the forest floor was that way!), and had a hiking trail going right through the middle of it. "This is THE place!" I cried out. Pam waited patiently over on a log while I did my thing.

The whole time I was setting up and taking the photo leaves were raining down all around us. I have not seen a long, steady "leaf-fall" yet this year like we sometimes get, but there have been many shorter periods, like the one today, where you could run around and catch a handful of leaves before they touched the ground if you wanted to. Pam opted to lay back on the log, simply reaching out her hand to haul in these jewels from the sky.

It has been one terrific - no STUNNING October in Arkansas this year. And while I have not been able to spend as much time outdoors as I would have liked to (that goes without saying for each season around here), I will look back on this remarkable month with great fondness. And I even got a couple of photos of it all! Our plates are still filled with major projects to complete (and some we have not even started yet), and we are hoping for a busy month ahead with book orders and slide show production, but are looking forward to November and all the new things we will get to do and people we'll meet. But for now, I'm going to shut down the computer this afternoon, leave the large pile on my desk behind, and go with my bride into town to take our daughter (who is dressed as a wildcat today) in search of candy. Thank you so very much for spending some time with us this month at Cloudland.

November 2002 Journal