Its been almost 7 months since the first “Right Here, Right Now” post.  The tiny new buds and green shoots are a distant memory; replaced by tattered yellowing leaves, fat red berries, and deer browsed remains. Throughout this time I’ve had the privilege to be present for the minute day to day changes so carefully noted by the creatures that live here. I can’t really understand this tangled web of connections, but wade through it wide-eyed and grateful for what is revealed.  This post is simply my observations from one week in late summer, on the brink of fall. Read More

 

What’s a Box Turtle’s favorite weather? I’m guessing it’s two days (at least) of steady light rain, to saturate everything and bring out the snails and earthworms. Last Wednesday’s weather was close to ideal; I was out early scouting the site of an invasive plant workday, when I almost stepped on the first turtle. Read More

 As you read this post, consider – how many of the life forms pictured here have you seen in your own yard? Assuming you even want them there, the chances are better the closer you live to a natural area with a diversity of endemic plants. All the animals in this post live at Beargrass Creek State Nature Preserve, a lovely protected fragment of forest. Their populations, though small, should be secure for the long term – but are they really?

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Musings on the utility or futility of exotic plant removal…

When you spend as much time as my friends and I do removing exotic (non-native) plants, there sometimes creeps in a weary suspicion that it’s all for naught. Like the fact that people everywhere spend most of their waking hours peering at tiny screens, maybe the world has changed and there’s no going back. But that’s when I’m feeling weary and frustrated. The rest of the time, just like a gardener, I can’t help but delight in the diversity of plant life that springs forth following exotic plant removal. Then come the pollinators, the caterpillars seeking their food plants, the parasitic wasps and other insect predators, and so on up the food chain! Read More

 

Once upon a time, a beautiful stream meandered through a rich bottomland forest on its  way to a great river. Unfortunately for the stream, its destiny would be decided by a city that began on the river and slowly spread its tentacles across the floodplain. Eventually the stream succumbed to the needs of the growing city, and its degraded waters were locked for good into an unwavering channel. A familiar story – the common fate of all urban streams, including our own South Fork of Beargrass Creek.

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It’s impossible to cram the impressions from a nine day trip to Guatemala, or any part of the world, into a neat blog box. No matter how many hundreds of pictures I take, no matter how earnestly I choose my words, it’s doomed to be nothing more than a cheap snapshot of a place incredibly rich in culture and nature. And that’s what it is to be a tourist – forever skimming the surface, obsessively collecting images as if I can really hold onto, really understand, really feel anything that is going on around me.

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This is Big Momma, the older dominant doe you’ve seen a lot in these posts.

Another pic of her from today, scarfing some Osage Orange trimmings. Note her long muzzle and the prominent veins on her face, a sign of age (I can definitely relate). She’s a wise animal with lots of life experience – she raised two healthy fawns last year, and likely will do so for many more springs. Read More

 

Yesterday’s adventure reminds me once again why Beargrass Creek SNP is my favorite place to hang out (with loppers and a saw). In the middle of nowhere in the heart of the city, I’m lopping away, when who should wander up but little Browntail? No surprise, she often comes to browse the honeysuckle “salad” left by my loppers.

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As the dog days of summer close in, I walk down the trail with sweat dripping, a small cloud of mosquitos in tow, Poison ivy brushing my ankles – but it’s still the coolest place in town.  A good number of degrees cooler, in fact, than the asphalt-clad regions surrounding. BCSNP, as the biggest chunk of pavement-free land in the city, is doing its part to reduce the urban heat island effect.

But the other part of “cool” (that word really dates me), is the revival in our forest of flowering forbs and shrubs, and the seeds they produce. Reinvigorating the seed bank, to get technical about it. Jewelweed is a great example; though preferred by deer, its seed-shooting strategy allows it to carpet the forest floor where the shade of invasive plants used to prevail.

The flowering shrub below, though just an ordinary Pasture Rose, Rosa carolina, is a happy find considering the takeover by invasive Rosa multiflora. It’s the first I’ve seen in BCSNP and is growing in a sunny clearing.

 

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