Visual Thoughts

Heavy Skies by D L Ennis at Visual Thoughts

 Looks like a painting, right?  But it is a photograph - not mine, of course, but an example of the amazing stuff over at Visual Thoughts, a fellow blog which doesn’t easily mesh with the other resources on my side bar but still belongs and is cherished on my blogroll.  D L Ennis posts about life and art and very much whatever, but if you’re in the mood or have a need to drink in a direct connection with nature, go to this unique blog: nature is there, coming through loud and clear.  Through some very artistic human eyes.

     Here is another image from Visual Thoughts.  The flower had ole D L stumped. Later, when I showed it to Cara she knew exactly what it was and went to look it up.  Meantime, I saw a comment by Jan had identified it as lycoris radiata, or red spider lily.  Cara knew it as outdoor amaryllis, for the single stem’s dramatic (and leafless) emergence.  We didn’t get to have the fun of informing D L , but I found Jan’s blog, which is lovely.  Just one of the wonderful things you may find at D L Ennis’s Visual Thoughts. Check it out!

White Squirrels and the Brevard fault: PFI rules!!

 

    Teachers in the woods!  Climbing rocks and jumpin’ in waterfalls! That’s what I call a workshop! For 5 very full days, two dozen educators traveled the Land of Waterfalls, centered around the Brevard fault, seeing some amazing geology, flora, and fauna with the staff of, and presenters for, the Pisgah Forest Institute.  We got treated like teacher queens for a day (okay, one other guy besides me as kings in this group of elementary school teachers).  We got free stuff, wonderful information and some great hikes.

teachers in the Little River!

   The Pisgah Forest Institute is an initiative of Brevard College - a beautiful campus that is ancient as a 2 year college but only 14 years old as a 4 year.  PFI focuses on “the earth and environmental science needs educators encounter in their classrooms. “  The workshops are funded partly through grants from the USDA Forest Service.  This part of the mountains receives more annual rainfall than anywhere in the continental U.S. except for the Northwest temperate rain forests (or would if there weren’t a severe drought).  There is a unique feel to the wilderness areas and even more so to the farmland, it seemed to me this trip.  Rich, well cultivated fields and not so much the hard scrabble feel you see (disappearing) in the northern section of our mountains.

     The town of Brevard hosts a Music Center, has a nice college/tourist shop and bar scene, and is famous for - did I mention them?, - the white squirrels.  These little guys just blew me away, and set me off on an extended online chase to research white squirrels.  There was a lot to find. The local history traces their origin to an overturned carnival truck in 1949.  There is a research institute devoted to them, a White Squirrel Festival each year in Brevard, and of course a White Squirrel Lover’s blog.  The very best picture I found online is on a realty site, and clearly the white squirrel is a promotion bonanza for the town of Brevard, though their claim to fame is not without controversy (other “homes of the white squirrel”).

on the move

White Squirrel Photo Album

     The PFI would educate and inform us and then take us on a related field trip.  We made 3 major expeditions: Holmes Educational State Forest, Caeser’s Head State Park, and a new amenity, Dupont State Park, which contains several spectacular waterfalls.  We also conducted a stream activity at the trout hatchery on the Davidson River. Each place offered valuable lessons and experiences.  At Holmes, which is open to the public, we practiced tree i.d. and took the “talking tree” walk.  Caeser’s Head offered spectacular views of the Piedmont vista as seen from the edge of the Blue Ridge system.  So many wonderful pictures - I offer an album at the end of the post, and many of the following text images are linked to a picture.

     The park gots its name from a head-shaped rock that protrudes from the highest viewpoint.  Across the chasm, you see Tablerock Mountain, a monolith of intruded younger rock whose side is painted by the staining action of rainwater.

      Dupont, after a decent hike, offered beautiful waterfall views, including some used in The Last of the Mohicans.  Here the Brevard Fault is in full view, fracturing and pushing til some of the huge blocks become square tree planters.  The Little River winds its way down the rock cascades, though it was quite low the day my pictures were taken.

  The young lady below is leaping from Hooker Falls, another fault-block structure in the park.  We learned some background geology at Caeser’s Head and then put it into action at Dupont, locating the folded layers in a piece of gneiss that represent eons of slow bending pressure.

     Kevin, program director for PFI, holds a northern water snake from the Davidson River.  We measured stream quality parameters and took a tour of the trout hatchery, which attracts vultures from miles around.  Back at the Brevard campus, we saw a stream rehabilitation process and surveyed native as well as invasive plant species on campus.  Below is a picture of hemlock infested with wooly adelgid (the small white spots).  Just one of the many ecological challenges faced in the Southern Appalachian mountains.  Thanks, PFI, for such a great trip and for helping me learn so much! 

PFI Brevard Fault Photo Tour

 

Ranging the Piedmont

This post was originally published on June 21, 2008

Haven’t posted, haven’t been on the greenway. Been furiously finishing up my school year, doing some arts writing, and starting a new personal blog. And now I’m off for 5 days to the mountains. Doing a big environmental education workshop at the Pisgah Forest Institute in Brevard. Once I get back, I’ll be posting more often.

On my way to the mountains, I will traverse this widest section of the eastern U.S. Piedmont, which stretches 225 miles from Raleigh to the scarp of the Blue Ridge Mountains. At Morganton, I will travel just north of the South Mountains, which are significant, “real” mountains but not part of the Blue Ridge system at all. They are monadnocks, outcrops of rock even more ancient than the Appalachians, which have withstood the millions of years of erosion and flattening that produced the Piedmont. They look decidedly odd in the midst of the Piedmont’s gentle swells, as I hope you will get some idea of, below.

These are from south of the South Mountains, off the 64 route rather than 40. Below is the development just beginning within sight of this peak. My drive on State Road 10 and 64 reminded me that it is not just near the big cities that Piedmont vistas are filling up with homes and shopping centers.

Below is a scene from South Mountain State Park, which was closed due to being completely filled the Memorial Day Monday I went. Another trip we will explore the unique granite faces associated with these Piedmont mountains.

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The Continental Divide at Interstate 40

After the South Mountains, I will drive through the Piedmont watershed of the Catawba River, then begin the climb up to the valley of the Swannanoah River, which runs from Black Mountain to Asheville. At Ridgecrest, I will cross the Continental Divide. Water falling to the east goes to the Catawba and eventually to the Atlantic Ocean. Water falling west of the crest will go north via the French Broad, find the Little Tennessee, and eventually flow into the Gulf of Mexico. As a child at Camp Ridgecrest, a summer facility of the Baptist Conference there, I learned this fact standing on a mountain ridge, where we were invited to spit in alternate directions and imagine the geographic adventures of our saliva. It was, truly, an unforgettable moment, and one of many that shaped me into a naturalist.

The state-published geological guide to Interstate 40, using mileposts, instructs you to look at this dark rock at the top of the incline, which is part of the Blue Ridge, and compare it to the lighter rockfaces in the roadcuts at the botttom. I tried - safely - but pictures of those lighter rocks will have to wait for a safer scenario than Memorial Day weekend!

I’ll see you again before July 4th! Have a great one!

 

Exotica - outposts & travel

If only this were Raleigh!  I’m a real stick in the mud, but Cara gets me out whenever she can.  This is east of Seattle, where we spent last spring break, and this waterfall has a power generating plant carved into the rock behind it that generates enough electricity for a town or two.  Below are two fully humanized photos that reside best in this section for nifty odds and ends. The Miami-phase corn snake is characterized by white more than yellow background tones and is posed on The Fletcher Academy’s baby grand.  My nine year old common snapper is peering up at the surface of her tank.