Coyote

Coyote, a photo by FreeManWalking on Flickr.

Took a wrong turn in Cumberland County while looking for the Obed Wild and Scenic River...this is what we found!

Botanist's Reverie

This morning our flowering plants class walked out for one of Dr. Blum’s infamous m ii-field trips. We walked over to the shingle oak which blew over in last week’s storm. Though more appropriate to the dendrology course I took under him back in the fall of ’09, Dr. Blum discussed the growth rings and the significance of what they represent. He asked for a volunteer to count them. I’ve always had too short of an attention span for the tedious task of counting growth rings but when no one came forward I volunteered anyway. Beginning in the heart wood center I began, keeping my place with an ink pen: one two three four five six seven eight nine ten eleven twelve…seventy-one. The old tree was seventy-one.

It was a large seventy-one, owing to growth a few years ago in which it put on half an inch per year for a few good years. But in recent years the old tree had gone into decline. The last four or five years exhibited growth rings of less than a quarter inch. The days were numbered for this tree. Dr. Blum pointed out how some of the newly exposed roots already looked dead. The shallow, spreading roots of this variety of red maple didn’t allow for the strong anchoring of the white oaks with their taproot systems. But the tree had grown tall and large, much larger than the surrounding walnuts which were a good ten years older, having been planted from walnuts brought back from Mount Vernon by a former grounds keeper.

                Afterwards we walked on, Dr. Blum and myself at the front discussing the scene in A Sand County Almanac where Aldo Leopold discusses the oak he cut down for firewood and in its rings remarks on how the tree had faired under different owners (really paying overseers) of the land. We talked a little of Loren Eiseley and wondered why such a brilliant, thoughtful and somewhat dark author had fallen out of the public consciousness in the decades since his death in 1977.

                This is the last class I will take with Dr. Blum. It is a wonder that I was able to learn his botanical knowledge even now. Back in ’09 he missed weeks of class toward the end of the semester with a mysterious medical condition. As the story goes he was in the bar taking a shot in celebration of his birthday when he went down with internal hemorrhaging.

                But I’ll take what I can from these old school naturalists, who have paid their dues participating in the hard-living lifestyles of botanists of old. There is an art in the knowledge of plants. From learning the vocabulary, interpreting fuzzy differences in an attempt to find order and a sense of belonging for a specific plant, to hours spent collecting, pressing, and mounting herbarium specimens I don’t doubt all great botanists see themselves as artists in some way. What is art if not identifying the order in a world that otherwise seems chaotic to the untrained eye.

Friends: the longest four-letter-word

Good Gawd…Mother Earth & Other Pretty Girls has made it to Amazon.com, here in the U.S. and surprisingly in the U.K. as well where there are already two used copies for sale. Discovering my book was finally for sale online yesterday while sitting in the hospital waiting room waiting for my dad to get out of surgery was a little victory in a 36-hour period that didn’t hold many victories. (But one of those victories was the fact that he came through everything just fine.)

The weekend was a washout, not from rain – the weather was beautiful, likely added to the trouble – but from so much beer I lost count of how many cases were scattered about the yard and my kitchen floor. It was all fine enough Saturday morning, sitting around with Jake and Grigori, sipping coffee till my bowels hurt and my bladder exploded. Then we decided to sit outside. One beer led to another. Then Ty Paint pulled up in his little Saturn car and I could see the day might devolve into abandon and unproductivity. Kate pulled up on her motorbike and the guitar came out. And of course Eli got off work and showed up with another 12-pack of Budweiser.

But oh, so much for listing participants. We sat around the front yard on couches and office chairs and as far as I can tell no one had a care in the world. Later Ty and I walked up to the square where I promptly fell asleep on the bar for an hour and a half.

I awoke Sunday feeling washed out but okay. I had a hangover but it was the emotional kind. I realized I had finally run poor little Meadow off, not so much run her off as pushed her toward Mark. He’s younger and definitely more capable of falling in love than I am. He doesn’t play the stupid catch and release game that I am unfortunately prone to. Nearing forty I have begun to overthink my collection of years versus the years collected by someone else. When she left with him Saturday night a little of that old black magic walked out of my life.

But she came to me Sunday night. I needed her badly so I left the door unlocked. But it had all changed. No longer did she strip down and curl up beside me merging our bodies into one warm organism of comfortable sleep. We lay in bed a safe distance apart. We talked. She told me again where I had gone wrong, it was in the cedar glades when, in a moment when I had should have shown her the most kindness and tenderness, I said something more predictive than true: “I don’t see this going anywhere, I see us being very close friends.” A week hence we lay there subdued, sex verboten, only the tenderest of kisses planted on her pretty head as we stared at one another with tired, sad eyes and she told me about her ex-boyfriend.

We all know “friends” is the longest four-letter-word in the English language and sometimes it’s the ugliest. It is the ugliest when a “friend” has to watch his or her “friend” falling into the lustful, hungry arms of another who is less than “friend”. But maybe if this happens on the backside of the original lust it is more bearable. In this way a man and woman can talk sympathetically to one another about subsequent relationships, because each is a known commodity and it is forever understood that they have not been relegated to “friends” due to an unsaid lack of attraction. So all I can tell you girls is that if you like a guy and really want to be friends with him, be his lover first if so inclined, then you will find a friend for life.

On Burying My Face In Her Hair

Erythronium albidum, a photo by FreeManWalking on Flickr.

Your hair is the nectar that keeps
My bee coming to your flower.
Anthropomorhically speaking you are
The twinkle in my eye
Still flickering
On a drowsy downcast day
When the rain and clouds attempt to chase
Spring blossoms away.

Pecking Thumbs and the Golden Twinkle In Mother Earth's Eyes

IMG_4867 a photo by FreeManWalking on Flickr.

Driving across the flat spine of the highland rim across an undulating but arrow straight stretch of Highway 70S I pondered my situation. Beside me sat a pretty girl half my age wearing out the keypad of her cell phone…because that’s what twenty-one-year old girls do. I’ve seen this before, been ignored in favor of a set of pecking thumbs at the other end of the electronosphere. But it was okay. I had my dog with me and where we were headed was so remote that no texts would come in no matter how many silly boys pecked out her number back in Murfreesboro.
Meadow had been late, of course, causing me to go through an extra pot of coffee and then bring myself down from the caffeine jitters with a noontide can of cheap beer. But that was okay. It set us up to arrive at our destination at that dazzle light time of day, the time when the sun cuts across the tops of the trees just before it sinks down behind the ridge and, as a good-night to the day, it sets the canyon on fire with a soft orange glow.
We were heading high up onto the Cumberland Plateau to Fall Creek Falls State Park to take in a bit of Nature and fresh air. Meadow isn’t really into hiking so I had planned an itinerary that didn’t call for too much strenuous activity, just a lot of pretty scenery. Just outside the park we stopped and each bought a six pack of pony beers, jerky, and potato chips. My young companion bought a Butterfinger bar as well which she smashed up before opening it. “It makes it easier to chew,” she said. I suppose.
Meadow had never seen a waterfall, at least not that I know of. At any rate she had never seen any like the ones at Fall Creek Falls. We parked and walked up to the overlook of Cane Creek Falls and she began to glow with excitement. After two weeks of intermittent storms the falls were booming. Cane Creek drops 85-feet into a large amphitheater where it pools and swirls before racing on down the gorge. I pointed down the gorge to the rocks where a buddy and I had to spend the night one chilly night when we got lost in dark unpreparedness and couldn’t find our way back up. “Cool, I need my cell phone to take a picture.”
“Here, use mine.” She figured out how to do more on my smart phone in sixty seconds than I’ve figured out since October.
From Cane Creek Overlook we drove to the parking lot for Fall Creek Falls. This falls is high but in dry weather can be underwhelming due to low volume because it is on a small-ish creek. We walked up to the over look and Meadow, this time armed with my Canon camera, began snapping photos of Fall Creek plunging a healthy plume 256-feet off the sandstone ledge it has cut over eons of time. Little Coon Creek Falls boomed away as well, just to the right.
We started down the short but steep trail to the base of the falls. We slipped and slid over wet rocks and mud, Maze Dog leashed and pulling me down the trail in a way that would have made her husky forbears howl in approval. We stopped often to take pictures. Meadow is an aspiring photographer with a good eye. I was happy not to have to be in charge of the camera. We climbed to the top of a rock as big as a house and sat down for a cigarette. I wondered what we would do, sitting there so close to one another, putting our hands on each other’s chest to feel our hearts beat. We had made out a couple of weeks prior but much alcohol had been involved and I don’t think that really counted. Anyhow, I’ve learned over time, especially when dealing with young girls, that it’s best to enjoy the moment, and even if its just for kicks, don’t try to steal that carpe diem kiss too soon, no matter what Ben Harper says about it.
Meadow was already tired from walking so back on the trail I carried her on my back for a ways until I realized the jutting rocks and slick mud presented a hazard to us both and falling down and bouncing our heads off hard shale-y rocks was a likely outcome. Meadow would have to walk.
At trails end we were enveloped by the tickling spray atomizing off the thundering falls. Fall Creek Falls really is an impressive sight during the wet weather of early Spring. More pictures, then it was time to climb back up, which was easier than going down.
From the parking lot we drove out the gorge overlook road. It is a pretty drive. I put on “Porcelain” by Moby to listen to. All day we had hit a generational gap on what constituted good music and this had led to listening to Weezer’s “Say It Ain’t So” about ten times, the rest of the drive being consumed by the Flaming Lips singing about fighting robots. But the gorge rim road in the dazzle light of late afternoon requires music that is measured and steady, classical works but a good electronic groove is best.
We stopped at Copelaner’s Point and looked at the sun hitting the headland on the other side of the gorge. I told her how it was named for a botanist who used to bring his students there to hunt for wildflowers but she was texting so I don’t think she heard me. “He did what? O my god, I can’t believe I have service up here!”
Our true destination on the gorge overlook road was Buzzard’s Point. It is about the most beautiful spot in the state of Tennessee and usually you can have it all to yourself. We pulled up to Millikan’s Point and briefly took in the view from the large observation deck.
“Let’s don’t waste the light here,” I said.
“But it’s so gorgeous here,” she protested.
“I’ve got something to show you and it’s only about 500-feet away.”
We walked across a short trail through the Virginia pine and chinquapin oak. I helped her down a small ledge then across a small gap between the rocks. That’s where the forest opened up and we walked out onto a high point that jutted out into the thin air where two gorges converge and there is nothing but wind and sky and ridgelines fading away into the distance of the Tennessee backcountry.
“O my god, this…is…so…beautiful!”
“I thought you’d like it.”
Meadow took the camera and ran around taking pictures, making the most of that golden yellow afternoon love light that is surly the twinkle in Mother Earth’s eyes. I sat in the sun sipping on my pony beer, smoking an American Spirit cigarette. That’s about as good as it gets for. Indulging in my two petty vices while watching a pretty girl enjoy the world around her.
We sat at Buzzard’s Roost about forty-five minutes until Meadow declared that she was freezing, which is funny because, once again, she had come out with me underdressed and was wearing my jacket as I sat in shirt sleeves.
Darkness set in on the winding drive back to the little big city. Her phone blew up with the pecking thumbs of probing boys. Meadow was so good at texting that I handed her my phone and had her send a couple of texts for me as well.
Back in town we stopped in at the little hippie bar where she works, the one that holds us all together. We had a couple quality beers, Sam Adams Noble Pils and Sweetwater 420. She invited me to go take shots with her and out friend that looks like Jesus but I declined. I don’t do shots anymore and the most important thing to remember when building a friendship with a young girl is to know when to release her into the eternal party of the wild night.

Why Mother Earth Doesn't Have a Wikipedia Article

I was thinking about creating a Wikipedia article for Mother Earth & Other Pretty Girls but then under this heading:

Wikipedia:List of really, really, really stupid article ideas that you really, really, really should not create

I read:

Your band which has only sold 47 copies of their one album. Even if you think it will sell 48. Or maybe 49! Or, if you get really lucky, you can pay off the record store owner so that he may buy one, and your sales will have gone up to fifty!!! Keep dreamin', brotha.

...so I didn't do it...gotta keep my marketing legit!

Party Girl at the Cedar Glade

nail a photo by FreeManWalking on Flickr.

     The other day I took a couple of friends to visit my research site at Flat Rock Nature Preserve just outside Murfreesboro. Jake is a good friend of long standing, Meadow is a young girl nearly half Jake and mine’s age. Though the day was warm the threat of clouds taking over the sun promised the temperature could easily drop ten degrees with the slightest shift of the wind. It being February, Jake and I recognized this and wore light jackets while Meadow, living full on in the youthful moment of sunshine, walked around in a thin shirt and the shortest of cut off denim shorts. Her outfit was pleasing but not terribly practical.
      The trail was extremely muddy and water-logged in places. Meadow’s Converse sneakers didn’t grip well. At times Jake had to carry her on his back and I had to heave her across a streamlet surrounded by thorns. My dog, who lives to run, ran all about us, kicking up mud onto Meadows bare legs.
     After a twenty-five minute hike we arrived at my research site in the farthest cedar glade on the property. In case you were wondering, a cedar glade is a specialized habitat occurring in the Central Basin of middle Tennessee with a few outlying glades in Kentucky and Alabama. Glades are ecologically significant for the rare plants that grow there, many of them being federally listed as threatened or endangered. Many plants grow only in cedar glades, with the rarest occurring in only one or two specific glades. These plants have evolved to outcompete less specialized plants, benefitting from the harsh conditions which range from being saturated as was the case on our visit to hot, xeric conditions in summer and fall.
     Crossing a wet weather creek, we left the trail and walked a hundred yards to the spring where one of my transects is set up. Just behind the oozy mud where my first nail is set into the earth is a flat rock facing the afternoon sun where I often sit and think. A couple of weeks ago some other friends and I sat there late in the afternoon and built a fire. Now, apparently our fire had been discovered by the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation because Jake pointed a new sign nailed to a cedar tree just behind the rock. It stated the rules of the property, among which was “No fires”. I was surprised that anyone would come out and patrol such a remote part of the property, especially off the trail. We speculated that the site must be patrolled by aircraft and acknowledged that black coals on the light grey limestone would stand out, even from hundreds of feet in the air.
     We shared a bottle of wine and listened to Meadow talk about her life and how much she enjoys getting drunk. I suppose a 21-year-old isn’t doing anything too out of the ordinary by getting drunk every night but I can’t help but feel a need to watch out for her. Even at twenty-one there are other things to do…hell maybe even something productive. But that said, at least she doesn’t sit around playing video games all day and night getting pimply and fat. I can hardly imagine a more useless activity than playing video games. At least drinking creates social interaction, broadens horizons, and just maybe causes someone to think about things they wouldn’t think about otherwise.
     Eventually the aforementioned winds did shift. Just as I was ready to put on my jacket Meadow took it and spread it across her legs.
     We sat till dusk as the earth cooled and the clouds rolled in. That night and all the next day it would rain. Maybe it would wash away the remnants of my illicit fire.