Think Tank

These Turkey Vultures were out at Cowan's Ford Nature Preserve immediately following the long period in January of rain and snow. It was only in the thirties, but I can imagine the sun still felt good on the waterlogged wings. They were quite obviously getting together to do some brainstorming on a global warming strategy.

Farmer's Market

 Had to go in to work this morning so stopped by the Charlotte Farmer's Market. We go there often in the summer and it is always extremely crowded. The sheds are all closed up tight but there are still lots of vendors inside with vegetables of all kinds, everything from collard greens to exotic Japanese and Korean vegetables, one farmer who specializes in growing a wide variety of mushrooms, and cut flowers. Another thing to make me long for spring and summer.  Nova*s Bakery always has fresh bread and pastries on Saturdays in the summer, and I was pleasantly surprised to see they were there today.

The older I get the more I look forward to the spring and summer. Fall is a welcome relief from the hot summers here, and winter is now appreciated more as a prelude to spring than for it's own merit. I'm trying to adjust my perceptions and feelings in order to give proper respect to each season, and am making some progress. I worked in the yard last Sunday when the high was only 31 degrees and it was quite invigorating. I'm remembering some of the good times I've had as a child playing outside in the cold, and also working outside cutting firewood and other winter chores when I was living in a home without central heat or air, enjoying almost every minute of it.

New Year's

New Years Day. Preparing the traditional stuff. Grateful to be at home. Finished Horace Kephart's posthumous novel Smoky Mountain Magic, which Frances gave me for Christmas. Very impressed. Had heard of it's existence but had just known Kephart as the writer of Our Southern Highlanders and Camping and Woodcraft. I guess that's only fair since he never published a novel in his lifetime. He had completed Smoky Mountain Magic and was looking to get it published at the time of his untimely death in 1931. The manuscript passed down through his family until this past year his great-granddaughter, Libby Kephart Hargrave, on the 75th anniversary of the establishment of Great Smoky Mountains National Park, worked to finally have the novel published, appropriately, by the Great Smoky Mountains Association.

Back In Charlotte

Saints be praised! I have been delivered from the lowlands of  SC. My project “go-live” date was pushed back to April 2010, so I was going to have a long interval before starting on the next phase. The very day that I completed Phase 1, I contacted a recruiter who just happened to have a possible opportunity in Charlotte. Could I interview the next day? What do you think? Frances and I drove back that night through a raging storm and I had my interview the next day, December 3rd, and started the new job December 10th.

Working long distances from home over the last couple of years has really made me appreciate being back home and having a 20-30 minute drive to work. I'm actually working about 2 blocks from where I first started in Charlotte 11 years ago.  There are a few parks and "natural areas" close by, so look forward to some lunch-break botany and birding.

Today is the Winter Solstice.  Days will be getting longer. Spring is not that far off. The Oconee Bells will be calling in just a couple of months. James and I will be heading once again up the Blue Ridge Escarpment with the same anticipation as twenty years ago, to witness the spring ephemerals as if they had never bloomed before. To watch the "greening of the grade" as though green was a newly invented color. To hear the first Northern Parula as if discovering a new species...

Sunrise

Another sunrise across the mighty Atlantic Ocean. While the ocean can have it's moments of beauty, it is by nature lacking in any degree of complexity. Millions of tourists flock to the shores to see just that --shores. A strip of land bordering the sea altogether just a few hundred yards wide, followed by water stretching to the horizon. For all of the tens of thousands of miles of coastline on our planet, the scene changes but little. And so humanity flocks there to sit or stand slackjawed, hypnotized by the incessant sound of the waves crashing, or just sloshing, on the shore.
A few million years ago our evolutionary ancestors crawled out of just such a scene. Good riddance I say. They crawled out and headed straight for the hills where some real progress could be made.

Myrtle Beach State Park

Today at lunch  I drove to Myrtle Beach State Park which is just 3 miles from my office.  I have been to Huntington  Beach State Park several times and enjoyed the trails and the especially the birds. I saw my first American Eagle there, stealing fish from an Osprey. The perfect bird to be the symbol of our great thieving nation.  But Huntington is a short distance farther down the road, and my goal was to find someplace where I could go and eat my lunch, do some birdwatching or botanical research, fly a kite, etc.. and still have plenty of time to get back to work in close to an hour.  MBSP is actually quite nice, with lots of large old live oaks and a few trails. There is also a pier, but I didn't have time for that today. I went a short distance down the Sculptured Oak Trail, and while I didn't make it to the sculptured oaks, I did see some nice Beautybush, Yaupon, and Partridgeberry to name a few.

Hurl Rocks

Fate has brought me far from God's country, all the way down to sea level, to Myrtle Beach, SC. I am thankful for the job and plan to demonstrate my gratitude by learning to appreciate the natural beauty of the lower reaches of God's country.
I am half a mile from the Atlantic Ocean, so drove down at lunch today to fly my kite. Very light wind but did get a little flying in. Interestingly, I've read in detail all of Bartram's botanical findings in the mountains but paid no attention to any of his other discoveries. Much to my surprise when I pulled over at the public beach access I saw the sign pictured here. I am grateful.



-- Posted from my iPhone