9/1/02 It seemed to be quite late this morning - around 7am is when the sun rose. Or should I say that is when I noticed this giant red ball floating over the eastern horizon. The sun appeared to be in suspended animation, as was the rest of the wilderness - not a thing was stirring, not even a leaf. And there were no sounds at all. Very strange. It was as if everything was holding its collective breaths, or just standing around, waiting. I think the waiting was for summer to end and fall to begin.
    We spent most of the day editing and printing and editing and printing. And it took me nearly an hour to decide on what photo to use in the back of the book on the "About the Author" page. I have gotten away from using a photo of myself in the guidebooks, but wanted to show off my family in this one. Problem is that I could not find a good photo of the three of us that was taken with the digital camera on high resolution - lots of lower resolution ones, but they would not do. I finally narrowed it down to two - one showing the three of us on a backpacking trip, and the other of just Amber and me. Pam finally tipped the scale when she pointed out that not only was she pictured in many of the photos inside the book, but also on the cover, and that I should use the one with Amber because it was so good. For the time being, that is the one I will go with, however the book is not shipped out yet, so there is still more time for me to change my mind!
    The complete text and maps have been edited five times now. There is really no way to get a perfect book, but I am trying to get as close as I can. Today Pam began her final edit, and has been going through every single word and letter and symbol on the maps one more time. I just counted the words in the document - 46,865 words! Once Pam gets finished with her final edit, and I make all the corrections (it is very surprising how many errors she has found, even after five edits!), then I will sit down and do the final edit, reading through each description and hiking the route in my head and making sure all of the turns are correct. Once that is done, then the job will be finished - I will burn the files onto CD's and ship them off!
    In the middle of our long day in the cabin I packed up and headed out the door for a hike - it was almost 4pm and I have not set foot outside since early this morning. I went down the ladder trail to the river, and within a few seconds was breaking a brand new law that the forest service has imposed - no skinny dipping in the wilderness! The old swimming hole was marvelous, just the right temperature, and plenty of water. In fact it was eight feet deep in much of the hole, which is just about normal flow. There was some flow coming into the head of the pool, which caused my heart to skip a beat.
    I was swimming around just under the surface of the water with my mask and snorkel on, exploring every nook and cranny that I could find. I was inspecting the shallow water around where the river flowed into the upstream part of the pool when I saw something that really startled me - a GIANT fish! At first all I could see was his wide tail, and then the rest of the body facing upstream, all of it waving back and forth just like a salmon working its way up a river. After I settled down a little bit I got a better look at the fish - it was no fish at all. There was a plant of some sort growing in the water right there, and several things had gotten tangled up on it, including a sycamore leaf right at the downstream end that was standing on edge - that is what I saw as the tail of this fish. The entire mass of stuff was swaying back and forth in the current, acting just like a fish! I was kind of glad it was not a fish that large, but was a bit miffed at myself for seeing just a creature in my mind in the first place.
    All of the fish nesting activity was over for the summer, but I did examine a number of nesting sites - even more so than normal. There were quite a few less fish in the pool today than I believe I had ever seen before. Lots of small and medium-size smallmouth bass, but no large one. And hardly ANY sunfish! Good grief these things nearly carry you off most of the time there are so many of them. It was sort of eerie swimming through the pool and not seeing all of the fish. I did not see spot, but I did see one of the bass that was totally black last summer - he was more of a dark charcoal gray today.
    The banks were lush with vegetation, including a number of bright yellow and black black-eyed Susans, and a lone but brilliant cardinal flower. There were a couple of trees that had fallen over into the pool - one of them was a large beech tree. Man, I bet it made a noise, even though no body was around to hear it, other than the fish and a raccoon or two.
    There was a kingfisher that kept flying back and forth overhead. He didn't really seem to be agitated, just curious as to what this whale-like creature was floating in the river.
    Aspen and Lucy both had a ball in the water. Well, actually Lucy spent most of her time running around on the bank and exploring the forest nearby, but she did come in for a swim or two.
    Much too soon it was time to get dressed and head back up the steep hill - that was the real reason that I took a break to come down the mountain was so that I could climb back up again and work up a sweat in order to get in a little exercise.
    We had a fine Ceasar salad for dinner. It is twilight outside now. And very quiet. Pam is over in the big over-stuffed leather chair with her pile of papers. The dogs are fast asleep. I have been gathering up the necessary forms and papers and filling them out to send along with the computer files to the printer for the book. It won't be long now...........

9/4/02 Well, we finally got the waterfall book out the door and off to the printers yesterday afternoon. The last couple of days and nights were a lot of fun, and both of us worked nearly around the clock to make sure everything was just right. This was the first completely new guidebook that I had done in ten years, and it was far and away the most difficult and time-consuming one. Heck, we spent hours researching a single letter in a name to see what was correct - Steele or Steel Creek on the Buffalo. Turned out that the USGS topo maps, park service, Trails Illustrated maps (they seem to have many mistakes on them), and even Ken Smith and Neil Compton have had this wrong all of these years. It was an obscure reference to the original pioneer in Ken Smith's book that led us to the correct answer. And by a twist of fate Bob Chester worked with the grandson of this original pioneer, and he was able to call the guy up and verify the correct spelling. It is Steele. I know there will be mistakes in the book, but it won't be for a lack of trying on our part to get everything absolutely correct. Now I am holding my breath until the printers in Michigan do a run through of the computer file to see if it is OK after the near-meltdown that I had with it. If all goes well, we should have the books in hand sometime in October - I'm sure journal readers will get plenty of notice! By the way the final tally of waterfalls that are described in the book is 134, with photos of several others. It turned out to be larger than I had first thought.
     Funny, but now the book project has been completed, many folks think that Pam and I have nothing to do now but lay around and congratulate ourselves. Good grief, we have MONTHS of back work to do before we will even begin to get caught back up! Take a day off - no way. It is going to take me a solid week just to update our price lists, make up new brochures, update web pages, and get a new online store up and running - when I get the time to do all of that. The list of major projects that need to be done at the cabin is as long as my arm, and some of them are immediate. In the middle of all this I have a big trail project that I have been working on and off of for several years that has to be finished and all written up by the end of this month. I still have 20 miles of trail to hike and take photographs of, then will sit down and create a logbook of all the bad spots on the 165-mile Ozark Highlands Trail. Pam has a lot of computer work to do with that as well. Of course, we still have the kids dayhiking trail book to get busy on, plus a dayhiking guidebook, Pam has two kids books to write, and on and on and on. Oh yea, I have a bit of mowing to do with the tractor too, and wood to haul, cut up and split for the winter. Yep, we got nothing to do around here!
     With all of that said, it does feel GREAT to have another project out the door. Especially this one because so many people are yelling for copies. Of course, none of the waterfalls in the guidebook are FLOWING right now, but people still want the book. That subject is dealt with on page one in the guide - when NOT to go waterfall hunting!
     I have been able to get out and take a quick fitness hike just about every day lately. Spiders are still in great abundance, and for those who go out hiking these days I highly recommend taking along a headnet, or someone just a little bit taller than you who will hike in front! LOTS of dust on the trails too - we really are quite dry here now, and in bad need of rain. I have heard of reports of rain elsewhere in the Ozarks the past few days, but we have not had a drop, and it is beginning to show. However, we have had much more rain than in previous summers, and the ground is not cracking open like it normally does, so all is really OK out there, just really dusty.
     Boy, one thing we are going to have this fall is a HUGE crop of GIANT nuts! We already are getting the biggest acorns I've ever seen here falling on the lower deck. And some of the hickory nuts I've picked have been the largest I have ever seen - much larger than golf balls. For some very strange reason anytime that I pass a hickory tree that has branches hanging low enough to the ground that I can grab nuts off of, I have to pick at least three of the nuts to take along with me. I eventually toss them at unsuspecting trees or whatever, and sometimes I even hit them. One of these days a scene from the Wizard of Oz will happen and the trees will pick them up and chunk them back at me!
     It is hot and dusty here today, but the wind is blowing and it is almost tolerable outside. In a few minutes I will suit up in my summer bushwhacking attire (long pants and shirt) and head down the hill to the river. Before I headed out into the sweat box I wanted to post a couple photos of the livestock here:

The Box Cat in his new bed

Aspen wants something, but we are not sure what

The three tired amigos at the end of the book project

.    OK, so I got a little carried away with the camera on my little hike down to the river this afternoon, but that is what happens when you turn me loose out in the wilderness with a camera. Seemed like everywhere I turned there were neat things to take pictures of, and the "film" is free, so what the heck.
    On most every hike that I take, especially lately when there has been so much work waiting for me back at the cabin, I hit the trail and scream through the woods, always in a hurry to get someplace, and then get back again. That is the way that I hike anyway, and always have. Contrary to what others might think, and see themselves, I DO see a great deal when I am hiking this fast - often a lot more than those who hike slower. It is not the speed at which you hike, but rather how well you are tuned into the natural world around you - at least, that is what I think.
    Anyway, as soon as I dropped below the bluffline this afternoon my entire attitude about the day changed - it was like my pulse suddenly dropped from the normal 50-something to 30. Things just slowed down for me. And I must say it was quite a relaxing experience. Almost every time I hike down this steep ladder trail, I basically see how fast I can get down the slope - seems like hopping from rock to rock is safer somehow. And I will admit to not ever being able to see too much on this trail because my attention is tightly focused on my feet, and the next few feet ahead on the ground.
    But today, my pace slowed to a crawl, and I became part of the forest. The hillside was not steep at all, or at least did not seem to be to me. I wrapped my arms around tree after tree, and gazed up into their souls. Lichen-covered boulders along the route were soft and inviting. (Hey, really, I hadn't had a thing to drink or smoke!) It was as if I was floating down the hillside, able to interact with each and every thing along the way. And then I came to these two GIANTS - one a black gum, the other a hickory.
    I had passed right next to them a hundred times, and while I have noted them many times - in fact every single time - today they each had personalities. Both are so much larger than I can reach around, and tower over everything else in the forest. Yet they grow right next to each other - no other trees around. There had to be stiff competition between them for the sunlight high above. Gosh, I wonder how many years these two old friends had been reaching out to breath in the same sun-filled air! 100 years? 200? 300! I plan to keep my eye on them in the years and decades to come and see what happens to them.
    Down, down, down the hillside I went, passing ginseng plants with bright red berries, poison ivy leaves just beginning to show the color of fall, and spider webs - lots and lots of spider webs. I would wave my walking stick in the air ahead of me as I hiked along and that took care of most of the spiders. And I found a way to discourage those darn pecker nats too - sunglasses. Simple sunglasses. And my nat problems were over.
    As I got down to the bottom of the hill I veered over and inspected the old homesite along the bank of Whitaker Creek, and the stone chimney there. It was looking mighty fine today, and while there had been a few campers using it this summer, it looked to be in good shape, and not leaning too much. I worry about these old stone chimneys down here in the wilderness - they are about all that remain of the old homesites that used to dot the valley (along with the old rock walls and a hand-dug well opening or two). As time goes on the elements take their toll - mostly from the ground giving way on one end or the other, which eventually topples them over.
    Whitaker Creek nearby had water in it, but was not flowing. Aspen could not find anything deep enough to swim in, but he did enjoy splashing around a bit and scaring the little minnows half to death. I found the creekbed easy hiking, and so decided to follow it downstream to the Buffalo.
    Just before the two rivers merged, I came to a large sycamore tree that was growing right in the middle of Whitaker Creek - or at least where the creek normally was - nothing but a dry rocky bottom today. About six feet up from the ground, where a branch used to grow, there was a new sprout of the tree beginning to emerge. But it looked rather odd - the leaves were huge, and it was FLOWERING! I had heard recently that saplings and new growth sometimes will have very large leaves in order to produce a maximum amount of chlorophyll and try to compete with all the rest of the established foliage. These leaves had already begun turning red, and with the flower with it, and being backlit by the afternoon sun, it was a lovely sight. (See note later about what this plant actually is.)

A sycamore flower? (actually Arkansas alumroot)

Flowers and the river - upsteam towards my swimming hole (left), and downstream (the cabin is hidden in the trees just below the top of that mountain)

    The sun was warm but not HOT, and I had hardly worked up a sweat making my way down to  the river. I climbed up onto a large boulder and sat down. That sun was illuminating every detail of the bottom of the river, through about two feet of water. This was a wide spot in the river, with a mostly-solid and flat (and slick) rock layer for a floor. There were schools of fish down in there, and Aspen was about to have a hay day playing with them.
    Right down in front of the rock I was perched on there was a school of shiner minnows doing some sort of dance routine - really. They were all grouped around this large sycamore leaf that had fallen into the pool and landed on the bottom. The fish were circling around it. Their underwater wake stirred up the leaf and sent it going round and round too. I don't have a clue what was going on, but it seemed very deliberate on the fish's part.
    Just a few minutes more of this was all I could stand, and soon I was down there in the water with the minnows and Aspen. This was not my normal swimming hole, but rather a shallow pool upstream. The pool extended for perhaps 100 yards or more upstream from my position, and was probably 35 or 40 feet wide. It was a constant two feet deep, except for right around the big boulder where I had been sitting, where the depth was more like three or four feet. I had intended to carefully make my way down into the water from one end of the boulder that sloped down into the water, but once I started heading that direction it was one swoosh and I was in. Ahhhhhh yes, that water felt great! Not too cold, not too hot, just right.
    I rolled over on my belly and sort of half floated, half swam, half crawled along the bottom, and headed upstream into the wide part of the pool. The water was crystal clear, and I was able to see everything in the water ahead of me, including every pebble and leaf and fish along the bottom. I made my way out to a spot where the floor was deeper, almost an oasis of depth right there in the middle of the pool. It was only a foot or two deeper, but just enough to draw me in to lounge around awhile. The bottom was all gravel.
    I sat in my little fox hole and looked all around. My mind drifted with the small leaves on the surface of the water. Sunlight was shimmering on the bottom of the pool, making all sorts of patterns as the wind blew and created tiny waves. I began to count the waves, and the shimmers, and the pebbles. And then it hit me - this was the very first time in a LONG time that my mind had not been filled with business thoughts - I had been released from all of that, at least for a little while. Of course, the more I thought about it, the MORE I thought about it! But soon the surroundings brought me back to where I was at, and I got back into the stream. No telling how long I had lingered there, but it really didn't matter.

The shallow pool, looking upstream

The shallow pool, looking downstream (my big rock up on the left)

    Aspen was having a ball back near the big boulder. He seemed to have a regular route that he took, going from rock to rock - in the water - and poking his nose under all of them, hunting for or chasing the little fishes around. He would never catch any of them, and I 'm sure they knew that, and it was a big game for them all.
    There was a large tree that had fallen into the stream - swept away during a big flood last spring no doubt. The twisted root ball was still intact, and setting out of the water. And the tree lay about half submerged, from the gravel bank on out to the big boulder where my clothes were.

Good dog Aspen!

    When I finally got out of the pool and dried off using a sun towel, I noticed a spot of white on a neighboring boulder - a bit of poop left by a great blue heron no doubt. You would think someone spilled a gallon of white paint on that rock!

Heron "paint" on the rock, Aspen in the background playing

    As I was stepping away from the river I came across this bush that was so full of juicy berries that its limbs had drooped nearly all the way to the ground. I don't know what sort of bush it was, but some flock of birds are going to have a feast in the near future.

The flower & vine on the gravel bar (same flower as below)

    Just as I was stepping away to leave, I took one last glance at the little flower. The sun had moved just a little bit, and had dropped just enough to cast a shadow along the gravel bar - but the flower was still lit by the sun. I knew I would not have but a few seconds to do something, so I grabbed the camera once again, got down on my knees, and fired away. My oh my, it was pure beauty - one of the most incredible things that I had ever seen. And yet it was so simple, just a tiny flower against a dark background and nothing more. The scene was perfect in every way. I quickly shot five images and it was gone. Just that fast. It was the perfect ending to a marvelous visit to the river.

(How perfect can you get! This is all 100% natural light - no digital manipulation either)

9/6/02 Just a couple of quick notes early this morning before I head out the door for a day of work in the woods. First off, we got the advance copies of the new Arkansas Wilderness picture book and 2003 calendar yesterday, and I must say they look TERRIFIC! In fact the printing is so good on this book that it may become my favorite book of all time. I guess that is fitting because it is filled with my most favorite photos of all time. I knew the printing would be good, but they did an extra-good job with this one. One of the things that I like about it is that many of the photos are full-page and bleed all the way to the edges. While the quality inside is the same as for all of my other picture books, it is not hard cover, nor has an individual box, so the price will be a lot less ($29.95). I'll post a shot of the cover of it soon, and also of the calendar, including all of the monthly photos for it, which turned out super great too! Both the book and calendar will arrive sometime later this month or early in October - I'll let you know.

Secondly, I wanted to pass on the info that Don Kurz sent me this morning about a couple of the photos from my little trip down to the river. He is always on top of things:

"I couldn't resist responding to your two plant i.d. pictures. The blue-berried shrub is silky dogwood, also called swamp dogwood. It is on p. 90 of my shrub book (Shrubs and Woody Vines of Missouri). The flower is red morning glory, a native of South America. It is on p. 172 of Hunter's Wildflowers of Arkansas book. I enjoy the pics. I finished the manuscript to my Trees of Missouri book last Friday so I know your feeling of satisfaction of completing your waterfalls book."

I had NO IDEA that we had more than one dogwood around here, and certainly not a vine from South America!  And it is great to have such an expert reading the journal and checking in from time to time..

I spent most of yesterday in town. It appeared to have rained just a little bit out here (although you could not tell from the amount of dust on the road). It is not quite light yet, but I can see just a hint of a cloud layer down low in the valley  - it does that after a rain.

I am all packed up and ready to hit the ground running. I've got to drive an hour to get to a trailhead, then hike 20 miles today on the Ozark Highlands Trail. I'll be pushing a measuring wheel, taking pictures of and recording notes about problem areas along the trail. I will not be able to carry a walking stick (since I'll be pushing the wheel), so I'll be eating those pesky spider webs all day long - NOT looking forward to that! Of course, I won't have to carry much food since I'll already be getting all of that protein.

It was 8:30 am before I hit the trail, leaving Fairview Campground. It was still kind of cool out, but muggy. The first half mile of trail was a mess - SOLID vegetation, and I literally had to fight my way through it. Most of the trees in this stretch had been killed recently by the red oak borer that has devastated many parts of the Ozarks. With no leaf cover overhead, the weeds and other underbrush that have been sitting in the ground dormant for many years have a chance to bloom and grow in all of the sunlight that is able to get down to them now. But it was no big deal - I had long pants and shirt on, and as long as I was able to find the trail - which I was able to do because of the white blazes on the trees - I could make it.  Before long the forest canopy overhead returned and the underbrush was cut way back, so the hiking was a lot easier.

Most of the first several miles of the trail are downhill, and before I knew it I had gone six miles. I stopped and sat  down for a drink and granola bar. Soon after my rump hit the ground I discovered a horror that humbles even the biggest and toughest outdoorsman - SEED TICKS! They were covering both of my pant legs - I mean COVERING ALL of the material from the knees down. I jumped up and began to swat at my pants, brushing off dozens of the tiny specks with each swipe. Over and over and over again I swatted. Gradually the brown color of the fabric began to reappear. After about five minutes there were only several hundred of the tiny spots there, instead of thousands.

I cleaned off the bottom several inches of the pants really well, then tucked them into my socks - I always heard that would work to help keep the ticks off of your skin.

The next couple of miles of hiking were a nightmare. I got into a pattern of looking down and checking my pant legs every hundred yards or so, and almost every time there was a new colony of seed ticks that had been deposited on them. I would have to stop and brush them off. While my brushing technique was doing a pretty good job of getting the masses of ticks off, there were still perhaps a hundred or more that I could not get, and either remained on the pant legs, got brushed on down to my socks or shoes, or wound up on my hands. So I spent another bit of time trying to get the seed ticks off of my hand and wrists as well.

Fortunately the seed ticks gathered on low brush and were not up high - good grief if they were up at chest level my entire body would have been covered with them! And let me back up a minute and describe further what I mean by "covering" the fabric of my pants. Each colony of the seed ticks would first be deposited on the pant leg in an area about the size of a silver dollar, sometimes a little larger. The ticks were so packed into that area that the area was actually BLACK! I don't know how many seed ticks it takes to fill up an area the size of a silver dollar, but I expect it would be hundred, probably thousands. Within a minute or two the colony would begin to expand in all directions - that is when the real horror would begin - they were coming to get me! If I ever made a horror movie I think that seed ticks would be the stars! (Even as I am writing this I can feel them crawling all over me.)

I was totally unprepared for seed ticks on this hike - I had no insect repellant or gaiters, both would have helped a great deal.

I pressed on trying to make as much time as I could while still stopping to brush off the seed ticks. By the time I reached a neat little creek that had a solid and smooth rock bottom, my ankles were really itching. I stopped and looked down to discover that my socks were covered with burs, and dozens of them were sharp ones that were poking through my socks and sticking into my skin, causing the pain. I sat down on the rock, pulled my shoes and socks off, and proceeded to clean the socks off.

There was a pool of water there about two feet deep that I was able to stick my poor aching feet into for a bit of relaxation. Oh yea, there were a hundred or more seed ticks on each ankle and foot that had gotten through the socks, but I was able to scrape them off quickly, at least most of them. It took me about fifteen minutes to clean off each sock, and then I was on my way again.

I decided that I would not tuck my pant legs into the socks for this next stretch of trail and continue to brush off the seed ticks - those darn sharp burrs were just too much for me to handle. But I did stop more often to brush off the seed ticks.

All of this stopping and messing with the seed ticks really cut down my hiking pace. I try to keep up a three mile an hour pace, and while I was still doing that, each time I stopped to check for ticks that pace slowed. But I had allotted plenty of time before I was to meet Pam at a certain point so was not concerned.

My next stop was at Richland Creek, near the old Moore CCC camp. Much to my great surprise and delight there was not only water there, but a SWIMMING HOLE! It had grown hot and miserable out there, and I needed a cool dip. The water was four or five feet deep in this little hole, and just right for me, although it was actually a bit chilly, but I didn't mind too much.

When I pulled off my socks I discovered that my ankles and feet were nearly covered with seed ticks - something I kind of expected, although not quite so many of them. It took me another fifteen minutes just to scrape all of them off. No telling how many I had missed, or how many were crawling all over the rest of my body. There are some places on your body that you just can't see! And these darn things are so TINY anyway, it is often difficult to see them anyway.

As I suited back up again for the next five mile leg of the trip, I decided to try one more thing to combat the ticks. I had two large ziplock bags with me, and I used them to put around my feet - with a hole in one end of each back for the front part of my feet to stick through. I put my socks on over the bags, then stuffed the pant legs under the socks but over the bags, thus creating a barrier against the ticks, and against the burrs poking through the socks. That was the only weapon that I had with me, so I crossed my fingers and hoped that my feet did not burn up, and that the ticks did not get in.

Five miles later I peeled all of this off and discovered that my trick WORKED! No ticks had gotten into my feet! And I had decided after I left that swimming hole at Richland Creek that I was not going to worry about the seed ticks any longer, and just hike. Man, what a difference that made! And it was a good thing, because after 15 miles of hiking I was a bit weary and sore all over. I was hot and exhausted, stripped everything off and lay back in the warm waters of Falling Water Creek and waited for my bride to come rescue me.

Pam and Amber and friend Elizabeth Wheeler arrived right on time, and soon we were unpacking our gear to spend the night at Richland Creek Campground. We set up in a campsite right next to the swimming hole - that was mostly for Aspen's benefit. You probably know by now that this dog loves the water, but you would not believe what the next 24 hours were like! He was in the water within 30 seconds of our arrival at the campground, and with the exception of when we FORCED him to get out of the water to sleep, he was in the water, moving, the ENTIRE time without a break! No telling how many miles he swam/sloshed through the water. He was really like that stupid bunny on TV, and just kept going and going and going (that is one effective commercial isn't it - many folks remember it, and the name of the battery).

A couple of things about Pam. First, soon after I had left this morning to head for the woods, she opened up the truck and began to pack it for the camping trip. Aspen took that as a sign that we were all going on a trip, and promptly jumped right in and took his seat in the back. That was about 8am. Pam was not going to leave until mid-afternoon. Aspen refused to leave. I mean REFUSED to give up his seat for anything! Pam tried to be nice, offered him treats, then got serious with him - nothing worked. He would not budge. And then Pam did something that I thought was really smart - she got in the truck and went on a trip, then returned to the cabin, thinking Aspen would think that was it and exit when they got back. No way. He knew he was being duped. The poor guy would not drink anything, eat, or pee. He just sat in the car, waiting.

The other thing about Pam that I must confess is that I had told her to be sure and pack an Orange Crush in the cooler, and that when she first saw me that afternoon, that I would probably be exhausted and dehydrated, and that I just might go for the ice cold orange crush before I went for her. She took it well, and when she arrived to pick me up, quietly reached into the cooler, opened the crush, handed it to me and walked away, knowing she was not going to get a hug until that bottle was empty! She's a good egg. Nope - an exceptional one!

Now, back to Aspen. The kid was really water crazed, and all night he would pace back and forth inside the tent (we have a big tent), wanting to get out and back to the water.  I hated to keep him locked up, but he needed some rest or he would swim himself to death!

9/7/02 FINALLY it began to get light, and we all got up and out of the tent, and Aspen raced to the water. After breakfast Pam drove me back to the trail where she had picked me up the day before, and I continued with my hike. While she went out to the highway to meet folks for her Otter's Kids Hike that day. My socks, shoes and pants were completely saturated with bug spray today, and I hoped that would take care of the ticks. I tried not to notice the tick colonies that were deposited on my pants, and just kept on hiking. That seemed to work OK, and when I arrived back at the campground at the end of the trail, my feet and ankles were relatively free of ticks.

In my own defense I must say that one reason I was totally unprepared for the seed ticks was that I had been hiking all summer and NEVER seen even a single colony of them! I have no idea where these things came from all of a sudden, or why they are in that one section of the forest and not the ones where I have been hiking. Perhaps none of them hatched out until September, I don't know. But I do know that I have never seen anything like that before, and hope I never do again!

We had a great picnic and swim with the Otters, which included the youngest hiker ever at an OHTA event - Zane "Grey" Wheeler was only a couple of weeks old! Glenn took the little tike out into the water for his first swim. Amber and I had a great time jumping off of rocks, and I think everyone enjoyed the day, and the wonderful water.

As I drove up to the cabin later in the day I knew something was wrong. Neither dog would get out of the truck. Both cats were calm and not screaming for food like they normally are when hungry. I stepped out of the truck, and something just FELT odd. And then I saw it - a brand new storage shed that I had just purchased and was still in the box, had been ripped into. And I mean RIPPED into. It weighs over 200 pounds and had been tossed around. Several other things outside had been tossed around. I knew immediately we had been hit by a bear. Sure enough, upon closer inspection there were the claw marks in the new shed. It was odd the things this bear choose to mess with - NONE of them food related. In fact, there was a 40 gallon trash can full of bird seed sitting on the back deck that was not touched at all (bears love bird seed, and certainly could have smelled this seed even in the trash can). It looked to me like the bear just showed up, tore the place up, and left for no apparent reason. Bears can be like that sometimes. I don't mind having a few bears around out in the wilderness, but they do not belong at the cabin. Looks like I'm going to have to dust off the old Winchester.

Another bit of news from wildflower expert Don Kurz. It seems that the "sycamore flower" that I posted a photo of here a few days ago is not part of that sycamore tree at all. It is a variety of Arkansas alumroot, a wildflower that is listed as a rare plant in Arkansas.  I knew that looked very strange - a flower growing out of the side of a sycamore tree! That shows how little I know about the plant world out there - couldn't even tell a rare flower from a sycamore tree! No problem - I intend to spend the next 40 or 50 years learning about all that stuff.

9/8/02 It was cloudy and cool at first light today, and no bears. The wind is blowing now and it feels like it might rain. I have a ton of work to do at the computer and outside, then have to go into town for a couple of meetings. Aspen is a bit sore this morning, but eager to get out and hike, or run, or SWIM. By the way, he has been very good while at the cabin and has not gotten into the koi pond now for quite a while. He will go sit in the stream after a hike, and spends a lot of time at the edge of the koi pond, but doesn't go in - he likes to save that for wild pools now!

9/11/02 A lot of activity at first light this morning, especially in the air - birds flying here and there all over the place. Mostly  goldfinches and doves, although there was a single hawk out soaring early, even before the sun came up. Well, actually he wasn't soaring because there were no wind currents, and the poor fellow had to flap his wings for every inch of progress.

The overall color of the wilderness was a dark grey, in fact many shades of grey. The closest ridges were the darkest grey, and then each ridge beyond getting a little bit lighter, until finally land met sky, which was a very light shade of grey. The sun first appeared as a muted red ball, then quickly turned orange, and finally, just now, yellow. The higher the sun rose the quicker the pace of the bird activity - and the louder they got! And out there somewhere, there was a lone whip-poor-will calling out. I have not heard one of these guys in a while, and probably won't again until next summer. Perhaps he was saying goodbye. I never know whether to enjoy the gentle sounds of this bird as it echoes across the wilderness, or get irritated by the shrill call that wakes us up in the middle of the night!

Speaking of flying things, I forgot to relate a moment that happened the other night when we were camped next to the river. We were all sitting/standing around the campfire when Amber motioned me out into the darkness. I followed, and we sat down next to the water's edge together and just talked for a while, not about anything in particular, and threw a few stones into the quiet pool. The stars were beginning to come out, and we each made a wish. And then a giant, silent figure appeared in the sky, moving slowly downstream just above the treetops. It was a great blue heron, and his wings took up nearly half of the sky. We both sat there in awe as the bird soared overhead and moved downstream, out of sight. I swear we could hear the air being moved when it flapped its wings. Amber understood how neat this was - she is getting to that age where more and more things in nature like this will hit home - I plan to expose her to more and more things in nature like this that will hit home. It was a beautiful moment out there in the wilderness, for both of us.

Our week has been a very busy one so far, for all of us. Pam spent one entire day writing the local PTA newsletter, then attending their "meet the candidates" meeting in town that night. When Pam started going to PTA meetings, there were only four people there. There were 30 at this most recent meeting, and the group is really getting things done. It is great to see Pam making such a significant impact on the local community so quickly.

I have had a ton of work to do both in and outside. So much so in fact that I have not been able to take a single hike this week, other than up to the office and back. I will report that those spiked-back spiders that have given me so much trouble this summer are gradually being replaced with orb weavers. Any of you who have hiked in the fall know what these dudes are - they are the big, fat, juicy spiders that will often hang out in the middle of their webs - they are often the size of marbles, and taste mighty fine when you happen to walk right into one of them and suck him down (not!). They are also often quite colorful - I will try to get a photo of one.

Speaking of photos, it seems that photo that I had posted of the "sycamore flower" growing out of the side of a sycamore tree last week (that turned out to be an alumroot plant instead) has proven to be significant. One of the main botanists in the state (from the Natural Heritage Commission) has agreed with Don Kurz's ID of it as a rare plant, and has told me that this plant has never been found in Newton County before! It will go down as an official find of the plant in the state's records. That is exciting news, and I am anxious to return to this plant to take a closer look.

I spent most of the day yesterday outside with friend Roy Senyard collecting big logs and hauling them to a pile up near the office. They will be cut up soon and split and will form the basis of our heat this winter. This should have been done last spring, but I was just too busy to get it done. The trees were cut last spring though, so they have a head start in the curing process. In the past I have simply split the wood by hand, often doing it each morning out in the cold, which I often enjoyed. But then uncle Ted let us borrow his gas-powered log splitter, and now the job will never be the same. The splitter went back to him, but after having gotten a taste of the ease and speed of this splitter, now we are going to buy one for ourselves. I may still reserve a few logs to split each morning, just for fun.

I have also been spending a lot of time on the phone and computer dealing with the two different printing companies that are doing our new picture book, waterfall guidebook, and 2003 calendar. Once the files are finished here and sent off to the printers, there is still a great deal of work that has to be done to make sure each job is produced correctly and is of the highest quality. We already had a problem with the picture books, and now they are going to be delayed a full week (they will be available sometime in early to mid October we hope!). The calendars are finished and will be leaving Korea today and heading our way - it takes about three weeks for them to reach us, give or take. And we exchanged faxes, e-mails and phone calls a dozen times yesterday with the waterfall guidebook folks up in Michigan - just making sure every little detail is perfect.

Today Pam and I will be working on the outside of the cabin all day (except for another round of faxes, e-mails and phone calls to the printer!). We are getting the logs and decks ready to be stained later in the week. First we have to move ALL of the deck furniture out of the way - a job I thought might be simple at first, but now realize is a major one - we have a LOT of deck furniture! Then we have to wash and scrub everything down with a power washer (and hope our water lasts). It has been three years since we have done this, and there has been a lot of dust, bird poop, and other stuff accumulate on the logs and deck. Plus, we will have to sand down many of the log rails that have begun to turn grey (and one section that has never been stained before). The stain we are going to use will bring the logs back to what they looked like when new, or close to it. The logs inside the cabin originally got three coats of clear polyurethane, and they are still looking just fine. But the logs outside take a beating with the sun, especially in the winter when the sun is low and hits the logs more direct.

Pam is beginning to plot all of the trails that she is going to put in the kids dayhiking guidebook, and man you should see all of the yellow spots on the state map! Looks like there is going to be a great deal of traveling in the future. Unlike many other guidebook authors, we insist on hiking every single trail that we write about (I simply cannot understand how other authors get away with not doing this, but many of them do - how can their information be accurate???). And I'm afraid that I have ruined Pam for reading other guidebooks. While it is true that none of my guidebooks will be absolutely perfect and typo free (even after five edits!), we strive to eliminate all typos, and Pam has taken the lead in finding and correcting them. But now when she reads through another guidebook, she finds dozens and dozens of typos all the time - they just jump out at you once you are turned into looking for them. I have actually been quite surprised at how many major typos she has found in guidebooks published by some of the best publishers in the business. Just one more reason for our tiny company to work harder to produce a better product! (I just corrected more than a dozen typos in this little entry this morning, and no telling how many remain, but I'm trying!)

As I have been sitting here typing this the light out the window has turned from red to yellow and now to white. I guess that means I had better get out of this seat and off to work! The wilderness seems to be smiling and happy today, and I look forward to stepping out into the cool morning air and joining in.

9/14/02 I must admit that I slept in until after sunrise this morning - it has been a while since that happened. What I discovered was that the sun is no longer shining directly into my face when it first comes up, but rather has moved to the south and now I am able to hide behind a log post of the bed and hang out in the shadow of the sun instead of directly into it. Before too long the sun won't come in the window and hit the bed at all. It is interesting, especially at this time of the year when the sun had been so red at first light, to be able to see "Alpenglow" or "Ozarkglow" on the wall of the cabin - the logs really light up red early in the morning, then turn quickly orange, yellow, and finally, just natural log color.

Speaking of log color, our cabin is back to its normal color outside once again! Man, it was a LOT of work too. While we hired someone to do the actually spraying of the logs, we had to powerwash the entire outside of the cabin, and then Pam and I had to tape up and cover all of the windows and doors - 27 of them! That chore took forever, but we finally got it done. And now everything is "honey brown" once again, including the decks.

While I was walking around admiring the cabin this morning, it came to me that I had never posted any photos of Amber's fort that we finished a while ago. So I took a couple snapshots to show you our handywork. Actually is isn't completely finished yet - I still have to add a log railing across the front, and Amber keeps wanting me to  install a fire pole somewhere, so I guess I will figure that out one of these days. This child is not spoiled, but is well loved.

Amber's Fort, 8 x 12

We have had wonderfully cool nights and mornings of late - fall is definitely on the way. I was in town most of the day yesterday (buying a log splitter) and had to laugh every time they gave the weather forecast - "a high of 82 today." No matter how many times they continued to play this obviously inaccurate forecast, the temp remained in the low 90's most of the day. I never have understood why they put something on the air that is obviously wrong.

We are getting very dry out in the wilderness. Not quite parched yet, but very DRY. And the dirt roads are getting unbearable - inches of dust, no POWDER on top, that billows up into the air as you pass and hangs there, just waiting for something to settle on. That dust gets into everything, no matter how tight the windows are closed. The trails are not quite too powdery yet, although I have been so busy this week I have not been on any trails other than the one between the cabin and office, so I am only guessing on that one. We need some rain, and they are calling for it this weekend. Oops, there I go - actually believing what I am hearing on the radio! Perhaps they will get it right for once this weekend.

Butterflies - we've got lots of butterflies around these days. I mowed Mom's meadow a month or two ago, and the flowers are coming back up strong now. If we get any rain soon it will probably explode with color once again. The goldfinches, doves and butterflies all enjoy the open meadow.

Lucy spotted another copperhead the other day - first one she has found all summer, and only the THIRD snake of any species I have seen all summer. There is something about that dog - she has a certain bark when she spots a snake, quite unlike any of her other barks. I was rather skeptical when Pam called me away from the computer to investigate this time, and sure enough, there was a copperhead in the leaves, just a few yards away from the cabin. Gave me another chance to practice up with Pam's Smith & Wesson.

We have certainly been blessed this summer with a lack of snakes, although after being covered up with them last summer we deserved a break. And bears have not been a problem other than the one the other day. Our biggest pain in the neck this summer has been no-see-ums. They have always been bad here, but nothing like they have been this summer. And we even had one of those expensive "Mosquito magnets" that was supposed to "wipe out the entire population in an acre area," but it proved to be almost useless. There is no doubt that it attracted and killed some bugs, but certainly did not even approach the "entire population." We sent it back for a refund. By the way, I must say that the catalog that we ordered it from - FRONTGATE - really stood behind their refund policy (which is actually 13 months). There was absolutely no hassle (we didn't even have to call and get a return authorization number), and the refund was issued immediately. I will do business with those folks again.

Today is firewood day here. We will spend the day cutting up logs and using the new log splitter to get them all ready for the fireplace. The logs that Roy and I gathered up the other day came from a nearby logging operation - they were left-over scraps that were not quite good enough for the sawmill, but quite perfect for the fireplace. While Roy and I had an easy time of it using the tractor and trailer (as opposed to having to do it all by hand), I wound up breaking three of the four lights on the trailer, plus bending one of the iron railings - I'm hard on trailers! It will be great to be outside all day working with wood, especially if the cool temps hold out.

AT SOME POINT today or tomorrow, I plan to actually quit work for an hour or two and get out and go for a hike. I'll let you know if I find anything...

Pam and I spent a good bit of time getting the log splitter up and running, cutting up some of the logs, and splitting the blocks into firewood. That machine is so neat!  We were chased under cover by a few large raindrops before we were able to get all that much done though. Since the sky looked so dark, we decided to cover it all up and get on with other, indoor chores for the rest of the afternoon.

We did spend a little time out on the back deck watching clouds form down in the valley. It was obvious that one thunderstorm had raced up the valley, leaving a trail of these newly-forming clouds and steam vents behind (plus, we heard the roar as it went past while we were up on the hillside splitting the wood).

I decided it was time for that hike, so I suited up and was just getting ready to head out when we noticed Lucy was limping. In fact she was not using one of her back legs at all. When we got to her she began to shake uncontrollably and could hardly stand up. She had been out on "patrol" down around the meadow below the cabin like she always does, but we did not hear her bark or cry out. Her foot and leg were swelling up big time - it was obvious she had been bitten by a snake, probably another copperhead.

This poor little dog is nothing but skin and bones - no matter how much we feed her! Pam and Amber rescued her from the pound several years ago, and she had obviously been abused by a previous owner. We were concerned about her adapting to wilderness life, but she has taken to it very well, in fact becoming somewhat of a super-wilderness dog herself. This super-sweetheart of a dog is always the one out in front these days, and keeps constant vigil around the cabin for anything unusual. And is, of course, our snake dog - no telling how many snake bites she has saved us from!

And now she had fallen victim to a snake, and was not doing too well. I had always heard that dogs seldom ever die from snakebites, but Lucy is so skinny I was concerned. Pam wrapped her up in a towel and placed her in her lap, and the two of them rocked together for an hour. The swelling progressed up her leg to her hip, and while the pain had to be intense, Lucy never said a word.

Eventually the swelling stopped, but it would be a long while before it actually went down any. Pam put Lucy in her bed, next to her in the basement. All we could do was watch her, and wait. Later in the evening the swelling began to go down some in her foot, but the rest of her was still puffed up. She tried to make it to the door once, but was unable to use that back leg and I stopped her half way. We later carried her outside to see if she needed to water the flowers, but she seemed uninterested so we returned her inside. She seemed to be in good spirits, and that is always a good sign. She is a tough dog, and I had no doubt she would survive.

In the meantime, I eventually did head on down the hill for my little hike to the river. The forest had gotten a few drops of rain and everything was green and lush. The wilderness was not nearly as parched as the dirt roads up above, and it actually did not look like things were drying up at all. I guess overall it has been much wetter these past few months than a normal summertime period.

When I reached Whitaker Creek it was completely dry, and even Aspen realized this and didn't bother to go down to look for a swimming hole. I returned to the sycamore tree at the mouth of Whitaker Creek where the rare Arkansas alumroot plant was growing, and there had been an addition since I was there last - there were several cardinal flowers around the base of the sycamore tree that were in bloom, and that bright RED really stuck out!

Arkansas alumroot and cardinal flower


Whitaker Creek, covered with sycamore leaves

I spent some time looking around to see if I could find any additional plants, but did not see any. Good grief there were perhaps 30 or 40 different species of plants all crowded around the edge of the dry creekbed there though - no telling how many there were in the entire valley!

Aspen took advantage of this down time and spent every second in the water. The brush was so thick down there that I could not see where he was swimming, but I could hear his splashes. Sounded like he was having a good time!

The trip back up the steep hill was smooth and quick, with only a limited amount of heavy breathing. I stopped along the way to take a photo of those big trees I had talked about last week. While doing so I looked around and noticed that there were a dozen or more of those giants nearby. I'm not sure that I would call this a "virgin" stand of timber, but there certainly are a lot of the big trees on this hillside. The same is true on around the corner and part way down the slope - a forest of towering trees reaching up into the sky and out of sight. I guess maybe the hillside was simply too steep for the loggers to get many of the trees out.

I know there is an argument that big trees like these need to be cut down and utilized for lumber before they get too old and become useless. And if you are managing a tree stand for lumber production that may very well be the case. But I say these trees ARE useful, even in their senior years - they are providing an example of what the Ozarks might have looked like before the white man arrived, as well as showing off the grandness of momma nature. I am the first one to step up and defend logging operations - EVERY SINGLE ONE OF US USES PRODUCTS FROM TREES MANY TIMES EVERY DAY OF OUR LIVES, so we are ALL consumers and supporters of the timber industry. Yet I am also the first one to stand up for the protection of wild areas like the Upper Buffalo Wilderness Area - we need these wild places for our own sanity. There is room for both.

The big black gum and hickory trees along the trail

9/15/02 It is cool and damp this morning at first light, and there are clouds hanging low in the hills. Only a few sprinkles during the night - probably not even enough to settle the dust on the road. But it feels like it could actually rain a little bit, and I sure hope so.

Lucy is doing much better this morning. I took her outside and she went right on down the trail back into the meadow below, sniffing each square foot of the place to see if there were any snakes around. Her leg is still swelled up, but she is able to use it. I think she is going to be OK.

As the earth continues its path through space we will have more mornings and days like this one, and the temp will be cooler - fall will be here in just over a week. I enjoy each season in the Ozarks, but it is that magical time just when the seasons are changing that is especially delightful. Right now most of the forest is still green. But there are a few black gum trees beginning to show their blood-red color, especially the young ones. And the poison ivy and Virginia creeper plants are turning red. Soon other small trees will follow suit, and eventually that color will reach higher into the canopy, and the overall scene in the Ozarks will blaze. No telling when that might happen, but I will keep you posted right here, at least what is going on in the Buffalo River area.

9/17/02 We had a nice, light rain during the night - nothing heavy, just enough to wet things down and create that wonderful rain sound on the tin roof. This morning the clouds and fog hung low over the wilderness, allowing us a peak or two of the distant hills. The temp was cool, and it was a typical fall day in the Ozarks. Oops, I mean LATE summer day since we still have another week of that!

The view from the cabin this morning

A lot of you have been asking about Lucy, and I am happy to report that she is basically recovered from her snakebite and doing just fine. The swelling was still in her leg even yesterday, but today it is gone. She has been running around doing her daily chores (sniffing out snakes all around the area) and getting along just fine. She is a tough little dog.

I have seen a few dogwoods beginning to turn dark red this week, and their berries a BRIGHT red. Still more black gums taking on that blood-red hue. And sumac bushes are turning orange and red. Fall is creeping along here more and more each day.

SPEAKING OF FALL, I have just announced that I will be having a FALL PHOTO TOUR on October 20th. We will be touring around the Ozarks looking for good color to shoot, plus have a couple hours of classroom study the evening before. This is mainly for intermediate photographers - those who already know how to use their cameras but want to get more of them - or for anyone who simply wants to get out with other photographers and take a few pictures. Included in the price will be a lunch at Cloudland, and an autographed copy of the brand new ARKANSAS WILDERNESS picture book. Space is limited - go to the workshop page for all of the details.

And also speaking of fall, Pam and I are going to sneak away later today to spend a few days with the aspens that are blazing away in Colorado. We have not had a break of any kind in a long time, and it will be good to get away, if only for a short time. That means there won't be any more posts until a day or two after we get back, so plan to check back here sometime around Tuesday of next week, the 24th.

9/23/02 I was up at 4am today and outside soaking in the hot tub. The moon was bright and lit up the wilderness. The air was still and quiet, and no bugs or critters were stirring. It was a calm, peaceful place. Then a lone coyote across the way broke the silence - doing what coyotes do - howl at the moon. "I'm with ya too buddy - the moon is a wonderful sight." A moment later he was joined by a dozen cohorts and they began a chorus of yipping and yapping that lasted for ten minutes. We had just returned from a 3,000 mile trip out west, and while the sights and sounds we experienced in Colorado were terrific, it was good to be home, and be welcomed by the coyotes.

I almost never see anything but a single coyote - usually dashing across the road ahead of the truck. Have you ever actually seen a pack of them in real life? Yet most of the time it is a pack that you hear howling and yipping at the moon. They are very secretive critters, and do a good job of remaining that way. Today they were all gathered over across the Buffalo River and up on the hillside near where a new logging operation has been going on for the past couple of weeks. I don't know if the coyotes enjoy being near the buzz saws, or the fresh smell of cut wood, or if the loggers are simply working in an area that is frequented by the coyotes (which is the case since I have heard them over there often). Either way, it was nice to hear them this morning.

Oh yea, and right in the middle of the hairy symphony a brilliant shooting star streaked across the southern sky - it had to be really bright to show up that much since the sky was already quite light from the moon nearby. I have not seen many shooting stars this summer - a failure on my part to take full advantage of the nighttime sky here. As it gets cooler and the bugs and snakes go hide for the winter I plan to make some night hikes and linger out to count stars - they are good luck you know.

When I turned on the computer for the first time in a week I found more than 200 e-mails waiting for me. That was expected since I had stopped in Ouray, Colorado on Friday and checked my account at the local coffee shop/cyber cafe and found 135 e-mails. At $.25 per three minutes I could not afford to look through many of them, especially since there were more hillsides of blazing aspens waiting for us. I would spend the rest of today sifting through all of those e-mails, and most of them were junk, of course. I also spent many hours on the phone and computer dealing with the various problems associated with getting a new online store set up for our web page. This is a continuing process that has gone on for several months now, and we are about to get to the end of it.

It was one incredible day in the Ozarks, and a perfect day for the first day of autumn - it really felt like it outside, with temps in the mid-40's at first light. The 40's, 50's and 60's are pure delight in the wilderness, and even the humidity was low, which helped our tent that was draped over the back railing dry out (it was 25 degrees and the tent was covered with a heavy frost when we packed it up so it needed a lot of drying out). It was PERFECT weather to spend the day in the woods, but I managed only one short hike with all that I had to do inside.

While on that hike I made a remarkable discovery - a four-leaf clover of sorts. The forest floor is beginning to get littered with bright green acorns, many of them in pairs, attached at the crowns. I was delighted when I came across THREE acorns all joined by a common stem - three of them! In all of my years of spending time on the forest floor in the fall I had never seen three acorns together. Like the falling star that had to be good luck. I was rather proud of myself, and carefully tucked them away in my pocket to photograph once I got back to the cabin.

And then I made an even more amazing discovery - I found ANOTHER three-acorn group! What were that chances of finding TWO? The more I looked around, the more groups of three I found. Was I accumulating a treasure trobe of good luck this fall? Or was this simply a common thing this year? There was another group, and another, and another. There were also lots of pairs of acorns, and in fact I realized that nearly every acorn that had fallen to the ground was attached to at least one other acorn - the rare find was a SINGLE acorn!

I have no idea why so many acorns are grouped together year, or if it means anything. Perhaps it is a true sign of a hard winter to come - the acorns want to huddle together for warmth? Or maybe they simply want to make it easier for the squirrels to gather them. I haven't a clue. I will continue to watch the ground and see if the trend continues.

My stash of four-leaf clovers - it's going to be a good year to be a squirrel!

Since this journal is mostly about our life in the wilderness here, I won't get into a long description of our little jaunt to Colorado, nor post dozens of photos. But I will tell you it was a great trip, and the aspens were simply amazing. After going to Amber's soccer game on Tuesday night we left and drove all night and into the next day and arrived at the place where I first got the name Cloudland - the Cloudland picnic area just west of Evergreen on the highway that goes up to Mt. Evans. The aspens were already blazing away by then, and the temp had dropped into the upper 30's. We jumped out and took a quick photo to mark the event - the first time that both Pam and I had been there together. That night we camped in a grove of quaking aspens that were yellow and gold and orange. By morning they were mostly white - it had snowed several inches, and the temp had dropped into the mid-20's - WELCOME to Colorado! Many of the aspens had not turned yet, but we managed to find a spectacular display just about everywhere we went, despite what we were being told. I was quite surprised to learn from the forest service that one main area we wanted to visit had "so much snow that all of the leaves had frozen and dropped off - no color remained." Yet when we went to that very spot we found hillsides blazing away and as colorful as any we had seen - turned out the forest service didn't even have a clue what was going on in their own back yard, which was surprising to me. It got chilly on our last night's camp - down to 25 degree, but the sky was clear and no snow. It was the night before the full moon though, and it was really BRIGHT outside all night. We only took a couple of short hikes - one along a wilderness trail to one of Pam's favorite spots in Colorado (Lily Pad Lake near Dillon). The trail there was covered in places with yellow aspen leaves, and we got snowed on. The other hike was more of an exploration trip where we simply headed out from our campsite and followed a small creek upstream. That lead us to an amazing little canyon, and guess what - to a pair of WATERFALLS! This was totally unexpected and turned out to be a highlight of the trip. I guess once waterfalls get into your blood, you seek them out wherever you are. One other note about the trip - even though we have all seen the forests out there on fire all summer, we only saw evidence of fire ONCE during the entire trip! It was a wonderful trip, and a break that both of us needed, even though we spent most of it in the truck. It was good to be home though.

9/24/02 Another early start this morning - Pam and Amber get up at 5:30am to go catch the bus each day, which right now is well before daylight. It is nearly 7am now and the sky is just beginning to turn pink. I do believe it is going to be another spectacular fall day in the Ozarks.

Just one note about fall color in the Ozarks. Since we have had so much water this summer (it rained 1.5 inches last week while we were gone too), I believe that the color will be late here this year. At least not quite as early as it has been the past several years. And the more rain we get now, the later the color will be. I think it will be a great fall season no matter when it hits.

9/25/02 Another spectacular fall day in the Ozarks today! It was chilly at first light, calm and quiet outside. A yellow ball rose slowly in the east, and the golden glow of sunshine gradually spilled into the valleys. Pam and I had a long day ahead of us, but we found time for a quick hike around the loop.

The deep forest seemed to be in suspended animation, just waiting and watching and listening for a big change to happen. It is actually the forest itself that will create that change, but it is still not quite ready for it yet. Some of the underbrush species are changing already, and producing reds and yellows that dot the landscape. The sumac bushes are a couple of weeks behind in turning color, as are the dogwoods. Both are quite nice right now. It is turning out to be a grand year for nuts and berries of all kinds, and the dogwoods are leading the way.

Sumac and dogwood showing off

Goldenrod has been "blooming" for several weeks now in other areas of the Ozarks but is just now beginning to turn its telltale gold here at Cloudland. These little wonders grow up and are mostly undetectable until they begin to turn color. I rather like to see them come on.

Goldenrod

As we hiked along, my lovely bride picked a bouquet of colorful and interesting weeds - there is so much beauty at this time of the year, even in the "weeds" that normally are a pain the rest of the time.

The Trail Cat came along with us on this hike, always darting ahead and trying to keep up with the dogs (no chance of that). We took a detour or two today to get a closer look at various things along the way, which added perhaps a half mile to the length of the hike. By the time we got back close to the cabin, the Trail Cat had had enough, plopped down on what we call the "hugging" rock, and let us know she was tired. (The hugging rock is a spot where the trail passes between two large boulders - Pam and I and Amber always come together for a hug there (that means that I am guaranteed at least one hug on each hike with them!). The Fat/Box Cat never comes along for these hikes - he stays back at the cabin in case of a bear attack.

"Are we there YET?"

We picked up a little hitchhiker on my daypack somewhere along the way - is it a moth or butterfly that will emerge from this ball of fur? And speaking of butterflies, their numbers are increasing at Cloudland. They are mostly cloudless sulphurs, and they first appear out of no where up in the sky - brilliant splashes of fluorescent green that drop out of the sky and tumble down to just above the ground in the meadow below the cabin, then they spread their wings and stop their fall, gliding over to a juicy morsel to snack on. Early fall is indeed a favorite time of the year here. So is autumn itself. Come to think of it, I enjoy early winter too. And deep winter. And early spring. And, well, I think you get the picture.

Is it a moth, or butterfly?

And can anyone identify this critter below that was hiding in one of our down sleeping bags? I really felt sorry for Amber when we left for the Colorado trip - she wanted to go with us SO BAD. She has been there a couple of times in the summer, but never to see the fall color display. (She really just wants to go with us, no matter where we go.) And when we got home and I started a slide show on the computer of all the photos, she broke down and began to cry - "It is all SO beautiful!" This is one terrific kid, and she and I are in the right place at the right time to be together for the next ten years - we're going to have a great deal of fun in the wilderness as time goes on! Pam and I hope to be able to take her with us next year when we make a fall trip out west. I'm not sure what her teacher will say about that, but I think sometimes experience is just a great a teacher, and the blend of it along with classroom makes a perfect combination.

Pam spent the rest of the day slaving away both inside and outside of the cabin - first working on a long list of chores inside, then spending an hour or two wading in the creek and pond in front, cleaning out some of the leaves, acorns and branches that have been falling into the water - this will become a daily ritual for the next month or two - we have to keep the water garden as free of this organic stuff as possible.

I spent the rest of the day buried deep in the computer, working on the new storefront for Cloudland.net. This thing has really been a royal pain in the behind to get set up - and at a cost of several thousand dollars to us - but I think in the long run it will be better for our customers. It was nearly midnight when I finally gave up and shut down the computer, leaving behind a storefront that was not working. While I lay there in the darkness I had a vision of what might be wrong with it, so I jumped up and turned the computer back on again, then spent the next 45 minutes working through several things that I thought might be causing a problem - I had to shut it all down once again and return to bed having no luck. We'll get it all fixed, perhaps in the next day or two.

9/26/02 I was up well before dawn to track a package with the proofs of the waterfall guidebook that are heading our way today. You know that "absolutely, positively, overnight" slogan of Federal Express? Well, that really doesn't work out here - it normally takes at least two days for an overnight package to get here. And it is really important that we see these proofs as soon as possible, so we are going to make a trip into Fayetteville today to pick up the package (it left Tulsa at 5:21 this morning!). We are also going into town to celebrate Amber getting 100% on a spelling test, and will have lunch at her favorite eating establishment - Chuckie Cheeses. Jasper does not have school today, so that all worked out very well. Actually I love Chuckie Cheeses too - not the pizza, which is rather dull - but the skee-ball game! In fact we will be meeting Roy and Norma there and Roy and I will try to win a big batch of tickets for Amber (Roy is pretty good at this game too - Norma spends much of her time crawling around up high in the tube).

The sun never rose this morning, and it is a grey and hazy day outside. The wind is blowing just a little bit, and it is cool, but not as chilly as the past few mornings. I absolutely LOVE days like this. Come to think of it, I think I love just about every sort of day around here, especially at this time of the year. My only hike this morning will be up to the office to pack up a book order to take with us into town. Pretty soon we will be spending much of our time doing just that - packing up books to send out. In fact, the second half of October will really be crazy around here - we will have TWO new books arriving, plus the 2003 calendar, we will be on the Newton County Home Tour (which will bring out a couple hundred folks to the cabin), a photo workshop that is going to be here, plus Bob's bluegrass festival, several programs that I have to give, and, of course, FALL will be in full swing! There won't be much time for sleep, but we will enjoy and cherish all of our days.

9/28/02 Amber was off to Missouri for the weekend, so it was just me and my lovely bride. We slept in until at least daylight, which came quickly as a bright yellow sun rose into a pure blue sky. I decided that I had been working my eyes and brain too much at the computer, so wanted to take the day "off" so to speak. I was up until midnight last night trying to figure out if I could produce a digital slide program and have it be as good (or close to) as the normal film slide programs that we do. After several days and many long hours of tweaking everything (the good folks at Bedford Camera & Video loaned me an expensive digital projector to try), I came to the conclusion that a digital slide program is simply not good enough for me. That is too bad because you have so much more control over a digital production than you do a regular film one. But for me the most important part is the quality of the images that goes up onto the screen, and the digital ones just don't cut it right now. That means I probably won't be able to have a waterfall show this year, but will produce one from the new Arkansas Wilderness picture book that I will be showing around later this fall season.

Another project that I spent a great deal of time on and finally got up and running was the new Retail Storefront on our web page. IT IS OPEN FOR BUSINESS! All of the pages on our regular web sites are still there, but to place an order using your credit card you can now go to the new store site (http://store.cloudland.net) and use its secure server (you can also still call us at 800-838-HIKE too, or fax or mail in your order). It actually works pretty well - just like the big boys on the web - and we don't have to mess with the credit card stuff anymore - in fact we don't even get to see your card number, we just get an authorization code and all of the info about your order. Then we pack up your order and ship it out, while the credit card gods sweep the payments into our account once a day automatically. I will still be working on this site in the days and weeks to come, but for now you can use it, or just go there and take a look around. While I have a LOT less control over the layout and content of this site then I do my normal web pages, please let me know if you have any suggestions or comments about it (I may or may not be able to change it).

OK, now for our day "off." A day off here normally means simply shifting the work load from one thing to another, which was the case today. We have so many chores to do at the cabin that it would take us years to get all of them done, even if we worked fulltime just on them. But one of the more pressing chores today was the powerline right-of-way - it needed to be mowed. The last few hundred feet of the powerline coming to the cabin is buried but we still have about a quarter mile of overhead lines, and a 40-foot wide open corridor below it, which gets grown up with weeds in a hurry. Pam's dad Ron mowed some of it a couple of months ago, but that has grown back up again, and the rest of it was really a mess. I like to keep this corridor mowed down a little bit because it is a great place to see bears and other wildlife. So today I decided it was time for a trim.

Working on the tractor may be a chore for some, but to me it is simply recreation - I LOVE to drive the tractor! And thank goodness Pam lets me do it! So that is where most of my day was spent - up on the tractor, out in the sunshine (which got pretty hot), mowing down weeds that were sometimes higher than the tractor itself.

There were several interesting sights to observe along the way. First off, there were literally hundreds of butterflies of all colors flying around. At times I was engulfed with several dozen of them, and once I simply shut down the tractor and let them all play around in the wind current for a few minutes. I always leave a bit of weeds and brush along the sides of where I am mowing for the butterflies and other critters, plus they have all of Aspen's meadow nearby to use.

Several times during the day I would look out into the forest and see a bare-breasted wood nymph, stepping out from behind a tree and flashing me. Pam had her own chores to do all day, but she would find the time every now and then to sneak up into the woods and give me a little show. My wife is the greatest!

And once I looked up and there was a man standing right there in front of me in the tall weeds, just about to get run over with the tractor! It was a guy who owns a piece of land nearby. He was just out wandering around and wanted to see what I was up to. I enjoy conversing with other folks around here to get their perspective on things. And much to my surprise, this guy was asking me questions about my tractor - HIS tractor is much larger than mine and he knows how to use it (while I am still just playing on mine).

As the shadows began to grow a little bit in the afternoon I finished up the mowing, put the tractor away, and went down to the cabin to see if I could find that wood nymph. We had decided to have Cloudland Tuna for dinner, so I made up the marinade, got all cleaned up, mixed up a big glass of bourbon and coke, and sat down in the big leather chair next to the fireplace to read a book. HUH - read a book? Funny as it sounds, I typically WRITE more books than I read. But in my aging years I am getting to like reading more than I used to.

One of our Canadian journal readers sent us a book that she had written ("Pigtails and Mud Pies"). She is not a professional writer, but wanted to record her thoughts about her early years growing up on the Canadian prairie and pass that info onto her kids and grandkids. She only had five copies of the book printed, and we were lucky enough to get to see one for a few weeks (THANKS Jeannette!). I sat down in the easy chair, turned on Garrison Keeler (A Prairie Home Companion was just the perfect background for Jeannette's book!), and began to read. This is one book that I did not put down until I was finished - a real rarity for me! What a great idea Jeannette had - to record your early life for those that will follow in your footsteps. It is something I think every grandparent should do - a real treasure to pass on to your grandkids. One of the things that was most interesting to me was the fact that while Jeannette grew up on a farm on a far-away Canadian prairie, her life was pretty similar to the folks growing up right here in Newton county at the same time (1940's). It was also neat to see the many photos that she included of her and her twin sister. (I hope she doesn't mind but I wanted to post one of those here for you to see.) She lost her dad when she was five, and times were hard on her family as they struggled to make ends meet. But as she noted in the book, they did just fine, and never really did "without" anything important (they made their own toys, clothes, etc.). Such a great lesson for today's kids - it doesn't have to be an expensive, store-bought item to be enjoyed! In fact, just like in my own childhood where we often made do with what we had, those things you create yourself (if only in your mind) can be much more valuable than anything.

Jeannette and her sister Frances (Jeannette is the one in the blue dress with the ribbon in her hair)
From the book PIGTAILS AND MUD PIES

After I finished this great book we had a lovely dinner of grilled Cloudland Tuna, and THEN, I got to do something I had been looking forward to for a very long time - we watched the Beatles A HARD DAY'S NIGHT on the big screen downstairs! I had seen this movie when it first came out when I was nine, and anxiously awaited its release on DVD, which they finally just did. This is the film that set the stage for the music video industry that we have today, and it really captured "Beatlemania" at it height. No other band will ever produce the music nor the excitement that the Beatles did. It's funny though, that while most of my top-50 greatest tunes of all time are Beatles songs, and I have all of their albums on CD, Amber listens to them more often than I do. Just another measure of how great their music is - it will stand the test of time. Pam got a kick out of me during the movie - every time they started to play a song, I tweaked the soundtrack to get it just right, and cranked the volume UP - hey, it was the BEATLES! By the end of the film I was exhausted.

9/30/02 One thing I have learned these past few months of working at the cabin - I much prefer my office AT THE CABIN instead of up in the woods at the office. Today is a perfect example of that. Pam and Amber got up really early - just like they do every day to go catch the bus. While they were away I got up and got to work on the computer - it is right here downstairs. While I have been working Pam returned and crawled back into bed. I got to go join her for a few extra minutes of quiet snuggling - something I would not have done if I had already gone off to work. And I am back at the computer now, and outside the wilderness before me is slowly changing from a dark grey faceless world to one of color and detail. I have a much better view from my computer at the cabin than I had up at the office. Of course, sometimes that is not a good thing, because I have to jump up from what I am doing and run outside to look at a hawk soaring nearby or other wonderful scene that takes me away from work. Come to think of it, I guess that is a good thing! I think we'll keep the office computer here at the cabin for a while longer and see if Pam can put up with me being underfoot.

Good grief I guess today is the last day of September already! It has been a good month here in the wilderness, but I am looking forward to October. The black gums and dogwoods are beginning to show some good color now, as are the sweetgums - one of those nearby has BRIGHT yellow leaves on it already. Each day in October will bring on more and more color, and cooler temps. I will try to keep plenty of film in the camera!

October 2002 Journal
 

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