Category: Slice of Life

I’ve seen the diverse Alabama countryside many different ways: hiking, of course, but also from the seat of a bicycle, speeding along the road in a car or truck, and even out the window of an airplane.  My least favorite way to see things?  That would be lying on the ground wondering how I got there!

The topography of Alabama is varied, and that’s an understatement.  The northern part of the state, known as the Highland Rim, has rolling hills and plenty of relatively flat ground.  

Moving toward the northeast corner of the state takes you into what’s known as the Cumberland Plateau, an area of low mountains that extends along the southern edge of the Highland Rim westward almost to Mississippi.  

Moving south of the Cumberland Plateau takes you into two more-mountainous regions, the Valley and Ridge region and the Piedmont Upland region.  These regions also extend about two-thirds of the way across the state toward the western border.

Alabama has a fifth region, the Coastal Plain, that covers the remainder of the state–well over half of the total land area. Relatively flat, its land was once under what we now know as the Gulf of Mexico (actually, the whole state was, but that was a lot earlier).

The other day, I was hiking on a trail at the transition between the Highland Rim and the Cumberland Plateau.  The trail had the best of both regions: high, but well-worn limestone hills, and relatively level flats.  I had spent the previous hour navigating a higher trail, carefully placing my foot with nearly every step.  

It was the lower part of the trail that got me, though: an almost level stretch through a stand of trees mostly consisting of maple, oak, and hickories.

I was walking along, my mind a dozen other places, when–I promise this is true–a root just reached up and grabbed my foot!  Falling is a peculiar sensation, especially when one is not used to doing so.  I’d love to say that I was graceful, executing some sort of tuck-and-roll or something, but no…I just fell.  

Left-hand-right-hand-left-knee-left-shoulder-boom. 

Quickly I was back on my feet, despite the fact that there was no one within site to give witness to my crash-and-burn.  I’m old enough to feel the need to go through the checklist to see if anything hurt worse than my pride.  With the exception of a small chunk of skin missing from my left ring finger, I was fine.  Given the fact that I was by myself, I was happy to find all systems were a “go.”  

Folks, enjoy the outdoors, but watch where you put your feet!

Lately, I’ve been walking the trails of a local Land Trust property for exercise.  In my mind, what I’m doing is different than hiking because, well, I’m not walking as slow as I normally do; I’m not observing like I normally do.  I did see a pretty cool cedar apple rust yesterday, though, and today?  Well, today I didn’t step in it.

I was moving pretty quickly for an older guy, and surprised myself at my own agility as my foot swung wide mid-stride to avoid the furry little pile sitting in the middle of the trail.

Coyote.  Segmented but ropey, filled with fur–yep, it was coyote poop.

Here’s the deal: coyote’s mark their territory in a number of ways, including with their droppings.  Seriously, they go out of their way to poop on the trail.

Three thoughts went through my mind after the initial identification and avoidance maneuver.  The first was, “I’m glad I didn’t step in that.” The second was, “I’m glad I’m not the one who did,” as the edge of the pile was, apparently smeared away by a boot or shoe.

The third?  Well, I had to rap.  You know, a sing-songy rhythmic chant.  A rap.

It starts with an S and ends with a T
It comes out of you and it comes out of me
I know what you’re thinking–don’t think like that
Think like a scientist, and call it…scat.

I love being an environmental educator. People, watch where you walk out there!

A glance over my right shoulder showed me I was probably going to make it off the trail before dark.  Probably.  The sun was just barely visible through the trees, its last rays of light for the day shining off the hedgerow to my left.  

I was hiking, but really I just needed and wanted the exercise as I navigated the trails of this familiar nature preserve.  I was moving quickly, knowing I had a mile to go.  No worries–I knew I would make it.  Plus, my phone has a flashlight, right?

Suddenly I brought my pace to a small fraction of what it was.  I’d seen something unusual, and I had to decide if it was worth going back to check it out.  Of course it was.  Again, I had a flashlight if I needed it.

Backtracking 20 or so feet, I found myself looking at what I thought was a gall formed on a eastern red cedar tree.  A gall is an abnormal growth, often appearing as a spherical mass on branches and leaves.  They’re normally caused by parasites or even bacteria and fungus.

The more I looked at it, the less I thought it was a gall.  For that matter, the less I thought the tree–a shrub, really–was an eastern red cedar.  It looked like some other juniper, perhaps, that found itself planted well outside of the residential yards in which it normally grew, its seed dropped by a bird years ago.

Back to the gall, er, thingy.  Tiny little bells were ringing in the back of my head; I knew what this was, but couldn’t pull the necessary levers in my brain to bring the answer to mind.  

The sun, without uttering a sound, said one last “goodnight” as I stood there pondering.  Taking advantage of those remaining rays, I snapped a few pictures using my phone.  Before I walked away a moment later, the sun was below the treeline and I was officially walking in the dusk, living my best crepuscular life.

Fun fact: Animals that are active during the hours of darkness, are, of course, nocturnal.  Those active during the day are diurnal.  Those active during those brief times of light before the sunrise and after the sunset? The term is crepuscular.  Really, I’m not making that up.

I did, for the record, make it back to the parking lot without the need for a flashlight.  

As I sat there in the car cooling off, I pulled the computer, I mean phone, from my pocket.  My search term was “cedar tree gall,” and within a few seconds I had my answer.  I hadn’t been looking at a gall at all; rather, I’d seen an example of cedar apple rust.  It was a fungus.  I’d seen it before, but not in this form.  Within a few days or weeks, the growth I’d seen would turn into what looked like a gooey pom-pom hanging off of the tree, its color a beautiful rusty orangish brown.

“Gall at all” is pretty fun to say aloud.  I recommend it.

The natural world really is incredible, and I’m constantly blown away by the forms it takes.  I’m going to need to walk that trail again soon, hopefully catching Gymnosporangium juniperi-virginianae Schwein in all of its glory.  (Did I look up the Latin?  You betcha.)

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Want to know more?  This short article has a lot of great info–check it out!

https://www.fs.fed.us/wildflowers/plant-of-the-week/gymnosporangium_juniperi-virginianae.shtml

Change is a strange thing.  Sometimes it’s good, but sometimes it’s bad.  Sometimes it’s easy, and sometimes change is hard.  Recently, I added a new “sometimes” to the list: Sometimes I forget I changed at all.

The other day I was in one of the family Zoom calls that have become a part of daily life for so many people, including me.  I was talking about a subject (that I’m not going into here) and shared a lot of what I knew with the others on the call.  The discussion came to an end as they do, and we moved onto other topics.

After we hung up, my wife commented on how I used to hold the opposite belief of what I just talked about at length.

Whoa.

Honestly, it was an uncomfortable experience.  I completely forgot about the change I’d undergone over the last 20 years or so.

To say it again, it was uncomfortable facing the idea that I once held a belief that is diametrically opposed to what I understand now.  As I’m writing this well after the conversation, it’s making me feel uncomfortable all over again.

Change is a normal part of life, and in one way or another I occasionally encourage others to do it, given the “everyone has an opinion” information climate we live in now.  This experience, though, has given me a renewed understanding about just how difficult that can be.  

I have to remember this.

If you’ve ever spent time at the beach on the Gulf Coast of the United States, it isn’t hard to picture the scene I saw recently. Put on your imagination goggles, and follow me.  

My friends and I were hiking in the hills of North Alabama the other day, yet at the same time we were submerged in warm ocean waters that rose a hundred or so feet above us as we stood on the shelf extending hundreds of miles to the south and west.  

Things appeared relatively peaceful here in the waters of north Alabama.  The gentle currents caused the animal life to sway from side to side, aiding their feeding efforts.  These animals, crinoids, Archimedes, and blastoids, were mostly immobile, anchored to the ocean floor much like coral.  

Their appearance was unlike coral, though, as the structures they used for capturing food looked almost like ferns or fronds, held away from their bases by long, narrow stalks.  They ate plankton, detritus, and microscopic creatures that drifted into the pinnules of their mesh-like feeding structures.  

Breaking the calm, sharks and fish swam the waters, the hunters and the hunted.  Squid-like animals–cephalopods–were plentiful as well, moving through and around the creatures anchored in place.  Time passed slowly in the Alabama waters.  Animals were born, reproduced, and died there, their bones and other calcium-rich structures falling to the ocean floor.

Falling to the ocean floor, in layer after layer as the years, centuries, and millennia came and went.  Compressing under the pressure of the higher layers and the ocean water above, eventually forming the limestone we walked upon early in the twenty-first century, anno domini. 

As we walked among the creeks and hills, we were able to find a record of those days some 300 million years ago.  Fossils were plentiful: pieces of crinoids, blastoids, Archimedes, and various cephalopods.  With a bit of imagination, it was just a day at the beach, well, I should say “off the beach,” Pennsylvanian period style.

It’s the month of March, and so, like many others, I’m on the lookout for things to write about for Two Writing Teachers’ Slice of Life Story Challenge.  The goal is to write a personal narrative of some sort each day.  

This afternoon I had the opportunity to go hiking with my granddaughters, ages six and seven.  I just knew something would happen that would cause me to think, “That’s it–that’s what I’m going to write about!”

I picked them up at their house (their Nana, my wife, was at work and was to meet us at the trail), and throughout the effort of putting on socks and shoes and packing the daypack with toys nothing really struck my fancy.  

The 30 minute drive to the trail was filled with conversation between the two of them and me.  I asked questions, we talked about how to play tennis after passing a court full of people on a beautiful spring-like Saturday afternoon, and our follow-on conversation was about the different meanings of the word “boundaries.”  Still, nothing jumped out at me.

The time on the trail was wonderful, with the girls chattering constantly about whatever came to their minds.  I joked a bit about needing a towel after swimming in their streams of consciousness, but their voices were wonderful to listen to as they enjoyed the time with their Nana.  Their Auntie (our daughter was able to meet us for the walk) and I were there, but my wife had their full attention–she’s good like that.  Throughout the whole hike I listened carefully, but again I failed to come up with that perfect story starter.

We finished the hike, said goodbye to the Auntie, and headed toward the car.  They both clambered into the back seat; Lisa moved to one side to help our youngest buckle up, and I was leaning over the oldest, trying to get the belt buckled despite the booster seat’s best effort to hamper my success.

“Hey, Grandpa, guess what?” she whispered into my ear that presented itself some five or six inches in front of her face.

“What?” I replied.

“I’m wearing pajamas.”

As the buckle clicked into place, I extracted myself partially from the backseat in order to look into the smile on that that whimsical you didn’t know, did you? face.

I reached down slowly to feel the hem of the “dress” she was wearing over her leggings.

As my fingers slid easily over the smooth polyester and my eyes fell upon the pattern of the fabric, I realized she was right.

Quick, somebody get me a pen!

I rarely actually hug them, but I do love trees.  I enjoy walking along wooded paths and lounging in a hammock suspended between two towering trunks.  Listening to the wind move through leaves overhead and feeling the cool of the shade beneath are both activities that bring a smile to my face.  

I like knowing trees: knowing their characteristics, their preferences, and, especially as I walk through the woods of north Alabama, what they are.  What kind of tree is that?  I prefer to know.  Trees are all different, and I like to call them by name. 

It’s kind of embarrassing to admit this, but for the most part, I’m just a leaf guy.  If I can see the leaves, I can usually identify the tree, or at least its family.  The oaks, the maples, the beeches, pines, and hickories: I know a lot of them…if I can see their leaves.

Lately though, I’ve been working to learn to identify trees by other properties, specifically their buds, twigs, and bark (insert dogwood joke here).  

This is hard for me.  It’s hard because I have to slow down and observe closely, and that can be challenging unless I’m in the mood for it.  

As is so often the answer to just about everything, I’ve gotten a book on the subject and I’m learning.  I’m working with Winter Tree Finder, by May Theilgaard Watts and Tom Watts.  It’s a pretty cool little book (it really is just a bit more than a pamphlet) and I’m learning a lot from it.  

Recently, I went out to a tree near the school I was working at, book in hand.  I kind of had an idea what the tree was, and thought it would be a good first test of my ability to follow the author’s guidance.  The book follows an if/then format (okay, it’s actually called a dichotomous key) to guide the reader through the steps necessary to identify a particular subject.

I started with alternating leaf scars, thin twigs, and small terminal buds (those at the end of the twig).  That helped me recognize it as an oak. Observing the shape and configuration took me to the point where I was looking for an acorn cap on the ground, and the cap’s characteristics told me I was looking at a red oak.  I couldn’t be positive, but I think it worked!

Am I going to master this new skill anytime soon?  Well, probably not, but I’m going to keep plugging away at it.  Somewhere there’s a cliche about good things taking time, so if you know it, go ahead and say it to yourself now.  I am, and I think that’s okay. 

When your granddaughter asks you to dress up as the Big Friendly Giant, you dress up as the Big Friendly Giant!

Every year in the classroom, as best as I can remember it, I’ve read three different books, all by Roald Dahl, aloud to my third grade students: The BFG, Mathilda, and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.  Of course I read others as well, but those were my favorites.

And of those three, I enjoyed The BFG most of all.  Some folks have pointed out that my own height, somewhere around six feet, four inches, might have something to do with that, but that wasn’t the reason.  The reason was the voices; the story lends itself to using voices, and I love doing that.

My own height standing amongst third-graders?  Well, that was why I picked the BFG (the character, not the book) as who I wanted to be for character dress-up day each October.  A tan Henley shirt, a brown sweater vest (someday I’ll find a leather waistcoat), a pair of green khaki pants with the hems tucked up, and some old sandals were all I needed.  

One year I borrowed a black cloak, but didn’t really like it.  Cloaks are one of those costume items that need to be really, well, expensively-made to go over well.  The vast majority I’ve seen are too light-weight, looking more like a cape.  Giants wear heavy cloaks…everyone knows that.

Anyway, back to the BFG.

I’ve been out of the classroom for a few years now (hopefully I’ll be back next year), but I still love that story and read it every so often, just for the pleasure of it.  

A few months ago, my wife and I decided it was time for our granddaughters to meet the BFG.  The girls spend a few hours a week at our house, and we almost always have a time where we craft.  It might be something as simple as coloring, but it’s not uncommon for things to get a little messy with more involved projects.  My wife even likes—gasp–glitter.

So, there we were: My wife and our granddaughters were coloring, and I was reading.  It makes my heart happy to think back on the pleasure we all enjoyed during those times reading together, but, of course, the story eventually came to an end.

Or did it?

This week is Read Across America week, and a character dress-up day is part of the activities my older granddaughter’s school has planned.  You can only imagine the thrill I felt when she said she wanted to be Sophie, and asked me to be the BFG!  

She’s in a virtual setting right now, so she’s supposed to dress up for the online meeting.  She can also take pictures for the class to see.  Hmmm…pictures.  I’ve been wanting to learn some simple photo manipulation for a while now, and this was the perfect excuse to do so.

So, we got together, had a lot of fun taking some pictures, and I set out to learn a new thing.  I won’t go into the process, but the results are below. 

Hopefully in the future we’ll be able to do this with her class in person, but I’m happy we were able to make the memories this year.