Heavy Heart

Visited two of my favorite places yesterday, and while I came away with some nice finds that I will discuss in a different post, I also came away with a heavy heart.  My heavy heart was in response to the land management techniques that I am seeing employed with greater and greater frequency.  I debated titling this post "The Sterilization of Appalachia", and in the following paragraphs I hope you will understand why.

We have come to a point in our culture where the best response to anything we do not like is to kill it.  Humans are doing this to each other, and we are doing this to the land we have called home since the dawn of Creation.  If you don't like that person, don't like that plant under the powerline or along the side of the road, don't like that groundhog digging holes in the bank, kill it.

As I hiked The Ridges in Athens, Ohio I came upon a powerline on the south side of the property.  They had done some work in the powerline early in the year, but imagine my shock and surprise when encountering it this time and finding that it had apparently been nuked.  Not hardly a single living thing remained.

The especially sad part of this for me is that I did my graduate research at The Ridges.  I cannot begin to tell you how many trips I have made to the former home of the mentally ill.  It would appear to me that somebody is still mentally ill.  One of the things my floristic inventory of the site back in 1994 found was that powerline cuts had the greatest species richness of any habitat on the site, including different age woodland habitats, wetlands, or fields.  As you can see in the photo above, there is no species richness in this shot, because there are no species.

On my trip home I visited another of my favorite botanizing sites, Ohio Route 56 between Athens and Ash Cave.  Along this stretch of road are some very interesting plants, plants that one does not see everyday.  In fact, I believe I commented in an earlier blog post that I believe this stretch of road is one of the most botanically intriguing of any state road in Ohio.  

This stretch of road however is also now under attack from poor land management practices.  I observed herbicide being used with reckless abandon and mowing practices that force the question, "Why?".  In the past, I have collected seed of several milkweed species, thistle, Indian Plantain and other wonderful butterfly plants along this stretch of road, but sadly, as far as this year is concerned, there will be no seed to gather because it all got chopped down.

Now, don't get me wrong, I understand that the power company does not want trees growing into the powerline.  I understand that for safety reason the edge of the road needs to be clearly visible.  But why can't we hire people to go into the powerline and cut down the stuff getting big and leave the rest.  Why do we need to mow a full 45 feet from the edge of the road (I measured).  It would seem that the only possible answer is, "because its there."

I know a lot of folks do not understand the value of this roadside habitat, and while its not the best habitat it is still beneficial, as evidenced by the photo below of two swallowtails and a fritillary enjoying the nectiferous bounty of a roadside thistle.  Your home landscape can provide the same bounty.  A photo that I did not stop to gather was of a roadside ditch that had been hit with herbicide.  The front yard of this home had a putting green lawn that extended to the ditch which was reduced to bare dirt, every living plant which had called the ditch home having been nuked.

My prayer as I wrap this post up is that at some point people will learn that a world exists beyond ourselves.  I pray that we come to the respectful recognition that God thought it important to populate this world with other organisms besides us, and that those organisms deserve a place to carry out their short but valuable lives.  That God expects this.  

Family Trip

Downy Rattlesnake Plantain

Water Horehound (Lycopus)

Hog Peanut

Scary bridge!

Devil's Trumpet fungus

Ragweed, with merely toothed leaves

Gorgeous campsite

Yes, there were fish in the pond!

Last week the family and I took a two-day camping trip to Lamping Homestead, a Wayne National Forest site just south of Graysville in Monroe County.  My oldest daughter's boyfriend had never had a primitive camping experience, so we thought we would educate him.  For our family, the site was a little more developed than our usual camping outings since there was an outhouse on site!

Lamping Homestead, as the name implies, is the site of an old homestead established by the Lamping Family in the 1800's.  The site had a two-acre pond, a couple hiking trails, and even a family cemetary, although we did not learn where the cemetary was until we were actually leaving and stopped to chat with a forest service employee.  For camping, there were a few sites under some white pine next to the pond, and there were some other sites tucked away in a pocket of deciduous hardwood.  We chose the sites next to the pond as they seemed less buggy.

The Lamping Trail made a loop starting from the east end of our camping area.  Not very far down the trail, hikers were taken over one of the most bizarre bridges I have ever seen.  I could not decide if it was intended to have a curvy nature, or if it was just that rickety.  We all crossed it and it seemed adequately stable, but was kind of scary to look at!

On the trail we came to a point where the "short loop" intersected with the "long loop".  Considering the knew problems I have been having the past couple months, I lobbied for the short loop and was glad I did.  The short loop was 1.5 miles and plenty far for my knee.  I discovered later that the long loop would have been 3.5 miles, and probably farther than any of us were prepared to handle.

The trail took us up a fairly steep, muddy climb onto a bench just below the ridgeline.  The soil was acidic and therefore home to some interesting plant life such as Spotted Wintergreen and the Downy Rattlesnake Plantain pictured above.  I sincerely thought I had missed my opportunity to photograph this small orchid, so I was quite pleased to find it, although I had a terrible time getting the lighting quite right.  The forest was quite dark and since I had several other people with me, I did not want to make them all stand around waiting for me to try a bazillion flash settings.

Made an another interesting find after the trail had descended and was heading back toward the lake.  Ragweed!  I know, normally ragweed is not exciting, but this one was different.  I am accustomed to ragweeds having deeply lobed leaves.  This one had no lobes.  I later learned that ragweed living in marginal habitat will sometimes exhibit this lobeless leaf feature.

Some of the other things we saw along the trail were Hog Peanut, Aster, and a very odd looking mushroom apparently called Devil's Trumpet.  Back around the lake I also found Water Horehound.  Or at least I think that is what it is.  Water Horehound and Field Mint look very similar.  The teeth on the leaves are not quite as robust as I would expect for Water Horehound, but the leaves had virtually no odor, whereas Field Mint is very aromatic.

The species total for the year currently stands at 493, with a few things still needing identification or confirmation.  Planning to make a swing down Clear Creek Road today in search of milkweed seed (Poke Milkweed) and Gaura biennis.

Weed Day

Ragweed

Carolina Lovegrass

Lamb's Quarters

St. Andrew's Cross

Now that the tomatoes and cucumbers are coming on, our family is spending more time at the garden on our property in Hocking County.  Or at least trying to!  And while the tomatoes, cucumbers, sweet potatoes, and watermelon are doing reasonably well, the weeds in the garden are doing amazingly well.  A tribute to plenty of rain and cooler temperatures.

So I figured I should add some of the garden weeds to the One Thousand Flowers project, afterall, weeds are people too!  The Ragweed and Lamb's Quarters are really starting to become established in the garden. It was no time before my son and daughter were having allergy fits.  They tried to blame my dad's dog for their sneezes and snots because it didn't really kick in until after they went inside the grandparent's house for restroom pit stop.  I'm sure the ragweed was more likely to blame than Julie the dog however.  Julie is the sweetest dog, although rather odd to look at (sorry I didn't think to take her picture).  She is an apparent cross between a border collie and a basset hound.  Border collie appearance on a basset hound frame!

Had a weedy grass in the garden that I did not remember seeing in years past, perhaps because in year's past we did a better job of keeping the weeds knocked down than we have done this year.  The grass is Carolina Lovegrass.  Sort of a handsome grass, as far as weedy grasses are concerned.

My son and I did cruise the rest of the property a little and came across a subtle beauty, hiding in among the grasses out in the fields.  St. Andrews Cross is a type of Hypericum (St. Johnswort).  I find the petal arrangement very interesting, sort of in an X pattern, a pattern one does not see in nature very often.

Our visit to the garden ended with a surprise visit from a cousin of mine.  Kenny Minehart and his wife Rose stopped by to visit my parents.  I had not seen Kenny and Rose since the early 90's when we lived out on our family property (where the garden is) and they lived on the next ridge over.  It was nice to get to visit with the long lost cousins.

After Weed Day, the official count for the One Thousand Flower project stands at 485 species, although I still have some identification work to do.  I suspect the final count will land somewhere around 600 species by the time all is said and done.  A frustration I am having is how to get the oaks included in the count.  I missed the flowering season for them, working from the idea that it would be more helpful to get them in fruit with the acorns anyways.  I am now finding the acorns are up in the higher reaches of the trees, out of camera zoom distance.  I think my best chance is going to simply be to photograph the acorns as they fall to the ground and take accompanying photos of leaves and buds of the tree from which the acorn fell.  We'll see how it goes!

Pleasant Surprises

Buttonweed

Peppermint

Swamp Mallow

Graffiti artist

Ditch Stonecrop

On Monday I visited The Ridges in Athens and then stopped by Clear Creek Metro Park on the way home.  The theme for the day was surprises.  My first surprise was this beautiful graffiti drawn on a concrete pillar that was holding up an ancient water tank.  I am not normally an artsy person.  My idea of art is normally the shapes of the cut-outs on the outhouse door.  But what was drawn on this concrete pillar made me pause.  My hope is that this artist will find a forum to display their work in a more well traveled place than a remote rusty water tank.

My next surprise was a large mass of Buttonweed.  I didn't realize that it was such a butterfly magnet and that it was a native.  There were several Cabbage White and sulphur butterflies enjoying the nectar of this pink ground cover.

I also made it a point to visit the wetland area at The Ridges that parallels Dairy Lane.  Among the several things I found there was Peppermint and Swamp Mallow.  I remember the Peppermint from when I did my floristic inventory of The Ridges in 1994.  I do not remember the mallow being there.  I guess things change over time.

On the trip home I stopped in at Clear Creek Metro Park.  It had been awhile since I had spent any time there, even though I live only four miles from it and drive through it every Sunday on my way to church.  While I found several things blooming that were new to the One Thousand Flowers project, the one that I was most pleased about was the Ditch Stonecrop.  I sincerely thought I had missed out on this one.  The only place I knew for sure to find it was at Hope Furnace, and on my last visit there this wetland species was nowhere to be found.  To find it growing along Clear Creek was a special blessing.