The Resurrection

On this afternoon's hike we ran up on this ferocious character...

This is a Heterodon platirhinos, sometimes called a hognose snake, because of the armored nose scales which help it dig up toads in the mud. It is a totally fearsome beast...Rumored to be so venomous that if it accidentally bites itself it will die immediately.

And then a miracle happens...The Resurrection!

These snakes have specialized rear fang teeth that they will absolutely not use to bite a human with, but which some think can puncture toads when they puff up to avoid being swallowed by a snake. Although they are completely harmless to humans and are absolutely not venomous as we normally think of it, hognose snakes use coloration and a vicious attitude to scare people, which usually gets them done in unless you know what they are. This one has a near perfect copperhead/rattlesnake mimicry. Last time we saw him he was headed for safety in the leaves.

A Little Head

You dirty minded people! It's the first cabbages from the garden. I know you're jealous. Coleslaw to go with the steaks tonight. My recipe uses balsamic vinegar and your Mamma called and said you can't have any.

Mist Monsters

Friday Bird Blogging

There's too many kids in this tub!

Feel Good Friday

Billy and Drew play a tune.





Billy Redden was cast in a Tim Burton film "Big Fish" in 2003. For appearing in the film, Burton gave Billy a banjo and an instructional tape on learning how to play it. 

Time Travel

We kayaked the Chattooga River yesterday and, though we didn't see any of these people, this trailer for Deliverance brings back memories. 

Those who know them can pick out our friends who were the stunt men in certain clips but the actors did a good bit of their own paddling. Watch closely and see that, once again, the Old Town wood canvas canoe breaks apart in a perfectly sawn straight line even before the Grumman aluminum canoe touches it. That scene was on the Tallulah River. 

Except for the big names, most of the bits were played by local folks. Yes, I know Billy, and No, he can't play banjo. Rent the movie.

Feel Good Friday

Garden

The English cukes are looking well. We also have Armenian yard long cukes out there somewhere. We'll let you know how they do.

I love yellow squash at every step of the way. I think I would plant them as an ornamental even if they didn't make killer stir fry ingredients.

Sweet banana peppers have already made it to salads and stir fries. Salsa and chili  peppers are almost ready to start picking. 

Secret Spot

We camped with friends on the other end of the yard. This is actually in Rhea County and is not as serious a hike as we usually take but the destination is a sensory overload.

Our Memorial Day Weekend camp out was way cool. Actually the water in this spot was more than just cool. Grown men make noise like girl. Girls make noise like grown man. 

For our work project we hauled out 7 trash bags of bottles, beer cans, and things that are unmentionable on a family oriented blog. We cleaned up several campfire sites where folks had thrown bottles and cans into the fire, thinking somehow that would make them go away. We have barely made a scratch in the amount of trash that has been thrown out but the campsite, at least, no longer offends the sensibilities. 

I took a privy design from the LSU Ag Extension and created a kit for the privy that could be carried in to what we hope is will be a often visited campsite. We located it above the flood zone in a private spot with a nice view. In the process we found this installation in a laurel thicket, installed, no doubt, by one of the legions of atv'ers who are no longer allowed to ride into this private land. The plastic bucket lid carved into a toilet seat is a nice touch, don't you think?
More pictures as I get around to them.

Scary Saturday Factoid

Contemplate This!

Total value of the 10,149 U.S companies acquired since 2001 by foreign interests: $1,480,000,000,000.00

That would be another 1.5 trillion dollars in foreign owned US corporations that the Supreme Court recently gave personhood to in the worst decision ever. We have now witnessed the selling of our elected officials allegiance to foreigners rather than that totally outdated and disenfranchised loser group know as "We, The People".

WE continue to install that idiotic fence to keep Mexicans out of our asparagus fields... Where's the border fence that's going to keep the People's Republic of China out of our elections?  

Robin Hood Gets It

What would Robin do?

"Would he be political? Would he aim at certain figures and try to bring them down? Would his aim be economic? Would he be looking at Wall Street and the huge sums of money that people have been patting themselves on the back with, and the subprime mortgage collapse?
"Or would he be looking at what you guys do for a living and realizing that the true wealth lies in the dissemination of information? And my theory would be, if Robin Hood was alive today, he would be looking at the monopolization of media as the greatest enemy." 

Russell Crowe speaking on the hero he plays in the new movie.

Bigger Than They Say

The BP oil gusher is growing at about 300 square miles a day, 4,683 square miles as of 3 days ago. Satellite photos are being examined by SkyTruth to get those numbers. They calculate the oil gusher to equal 25,000 barrels per day, five times the claims by BP. I swear there must be some law firm specializing in lies for disaster damage control because this is very similar to the flow of "worser" information as a more accurate picture of the TVA disaster unfolded.

Thought for Today

One of the key people who alerted police to the failed Times Square car bomb was a street vendor, Aliou Niasse. He is a Senagalese immigrant. He is a Muslim. 

Mother's Day Hike

WE hiked by the wild turkey nest and found it empty. Looking around we found lots of empty egg shells that look like this. Here's hoping this is what the shells look like when the babies break through and that there's a happy turkey momma out there with eleven poults roaming around the gorge.

A Jack in the Pulpit sits in the middle of our trail. I put a rock next to it so folks won't step on it. Even so it is tough to see.

This is a carnivorous plant called Round Leaf Catch Fly that lives on the sandstone cliffs of the Cumberland Plateau. It's closely related to Fire Pink. The leaves have sticky hairs that catch midges and other small insects from which the plant gets its nitrogen. this lets it survive in really harsh environs like the sandstone cliffs of East Tennessee. All that said, it's a striking flower.

As we sat on the rock above the previously mentioned flower it comes to us that today was a stunningly beautiful Mother's day.

Off in the distance is Star Mountain and Gee Mountain, as the locals call it. Between them flows the Hiwassee River. Closer and more prominent is Whites Creek. The hills on the left and right are Walden's Ridge, ,cut clean through by White's Creek. There are two eagles in this picture, believe it or not. You should have been with us today. 

Aliens Among Us

The Lady Slippers are in bloom at Whites Creek.

There are several wild orchids in East Tennessee but the Pink Lady Slipper is the largest and maybe the showiest of the bunch. They are symbiotic with pines and a certain fungus so they don't grow just everywhere. We feel honored that there are so many patches of them on Whites Creek. 

And so are the Sweet Shrub, but they aren't at their peak scent just yet.

Tree fern fossils don't need a season. Lepidodendrons grew to 150 feet high in the carboniferous age when all of Tennessee's coal was deposited. This is the fossil of the bark of this giant fern. We see the fossils of the fronds and roots all along Whites Creek.

Baby Blue

So I'm sitting here wondering why the blue birds are in a tizzy and then they start dive bombing this guy and I know why the blue birds are in a tizzy. It's all about protecting the babies! There's five I think.

So I grab the camera and go down there and see the babies start flying out of the nest box, only flying is not exactly what they did...More like falling out of the nest while flapping their little blue wings for all they're worth. It is a matter of life and death, after all.

Mom and Dad did an amazing job on the black rat snake and drove him out of the tree with such vigor that he dropped the last ten feet in a free fall to get away from them. With the snake dealt with they turned toward me. I tried to stand without flinching as they flew right at my head, blue missiles out of the sun. They came right at me without so much as veering an inch until they were literally two feet from my head and I flinched.

It's a dangerous world out there but here's hoping!

As the morning has progressed I've bashed the cat to make it turn loose of one baby and pried another baby out of a black racer's mouth. Both babies are still out there being fed even after the trauma. The racer got loose and disappeared under a rock. The cat will probably hate me until supper time when it hears the can being opened.

Here's hoping the parents move the babies away from the nest area which seems to have collected more than its fair share of predators. Other than my cat guilt, the only threat I really begrudge are the blue jays. They just kill other bird babies, for what reason I don't know.

This is the last straggler, which I nudged off the porch to get it to join the rest of its siblings. Stupid me, there was a snake waiting below and I had to run around and make up for my interference by transporting the serpent to the other end of the yard. This particular snake is one I've interacted with before so it was unperturbed even after being carried around until I poked it a little to make it hide.

It could be that I should have dealt with the cat and left nature to deal with the others. Five babies may be too many for a breeding pair to raise safely. I'll just watch from here on out.

Schermerhorn's Big Organ... Blower All Wet

Sorry...Fingers...can't stop..fingers from...typing....

Schermerhorn

Hey, it's a disaster. We cry, we laugh, we cry.

Everybody can help a little by going Here.

TVA Board Member to Head Karl Rove's Vast Right Wing Conspiracy

I have to renew my call for Mike Duncan to resign from the board of TVA. He is a political hack with no business making decisions for the people of Tennessee:

 

American Crossroads  — designed to counter spending by labor and progressive groups, including the AFL-CIO, Service Employees International Unit and MoveOn.org — will focus on voter contact with the potential to move into ground game and turnout efforts. Organized under the tax code as a Section 527 organization, meaning it can spend directly on political activity, it’s set an ambitious budget of $52 million and says it’s already received commitments for $30 million of that. Its president and CEO is former top U.S. Chamber of Commerce executive Steven Law; its political director is veteran GOP operative Carl Forti. The chairman is Mike Duncan, former RNC chairman; the treasurer is Jo Ann Davidson, former RNC co-chairwoman; and the secretary is Jim Dyke, former RNC communications director.

 

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0510/36841.html

In the Evening Light

Redstate Report on the Flood

From our "It's nice to be noticed" Department:

Socially and politically incorrect, but hey...



Red State Report

Whites Creek Brings You Fox News on the Oil Disaster Without Comment

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Except for maybe this one...

Mom's on the Roof

Although BP originally stated that the spill amounted to 42,000 gallons of oil a day, the company later agreed with the U.S. Coast Guard's figure of 210,000 gallons a day. The nonprofit SkyTruth, which specializes in analyzing satellite and aerial data, also warns that the spill may be releasing as much as 850,000 gallons a day 

It is with a deep repugnance toward the forces at work in America today that I will watch the spectacle unfold on the coast of Louisiana. I suspect it will be worse than we have been led to believe, if my experience with TVA's Coal Waste disaster is any precedent.

In a repeat of the tactics that played out immediately after the December 22, 2008 collapse of the TVA ash storage mountain, when the disaster turned out to be at least three times as large as originally reported with far greater economic impact, the oil platform explosion turns out to be five times greater than we were told and will have devastating environmental and economic impact on the coastal communities of at least four states.


Up until now all environmental disasters have been compared to the Exxon Valdez. Exxon is still battling in court to prevent having to pay for all of the damage caused as a result of its short sighted cost avoidance and lack of supervision of a toxic cargo in an area where that cargo could cause terrible consequences if released into the environment. The names have changed but the situation is the same. BP Oil, in an all too corporate typical move, decided to save big money by not installing a proper remote cutoff valve on a wellhead the lies nearly a mile below the surface of the Gulf of Mexico. Hey...What could go wrong? When future environmental disasters are compared to the BP platform explosion of 2010, everyone will know what could go wrong.


So let's complete the Bill Maher quote:


"Every asshole who ever chanted 'Drill Baby Drill' should have to report to the Gulf Coast today for cleanup duty."

And now this:

A confidential government report on the unfolding spill disaster in the Gulf makes clear the Coast Guard now fears the well could become an unchecked gusher shooting millions of gallons of oil per day into the Gulf.

"The following is not public," reads the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Emergency Response document dated April 28. "Two additional release points were found today in the tangled riser. If the riser pipe deteriorates further, the flow could become unchecked resulting in a release volume an order of magnitude higher than previously thought."

An order of magnitude means 10 times as great. That would equal one Valdez disaster every 5 days. Get ready.

More on the story and some really scary pictures

Nest

A wild turkey mom has decided to nest just off our new trail.

Morning After the Storm

I suppose it's on to Blackberry Winter after this...

The Sunday Reader

From the book within Aldous Huxley's "Brave New World":

Doublethink means the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them. The Party intellectual knows in which direction his memories must be altered; he therefore knows that he is playing tricks with reality; but by the exercise of doublethink he also satisfies himself that reality is not violated. The process has to be conscious, or it would not be carried out with sufficient precision, but it also has to be unconscious, or it would bring with it a feeling of falsity and hence of guilt. Doublethink lies at the very heart of Ingsoc, since the essential act of the Party is to use conscious deception while retaining the firmness of purpose that goes with complete honesty. To tell deliberate lies while genuinely believing in them, to forget any fact that has become inconvenient, and then, when it becomes necessary again, to draw it back from oblivion for just so long as it is needed, to deny the existence of objective reality and all the while to take account of the reality which one denies -- all this is indispensably necessary. Even in using the word doublethink it is necessary to exercise doublethink. For by using the word one admits that one is tampering with reality; by a fresh act of doublethink one erases this knowledge; and so on indefinitely, with the lie always one leap ahead of the truth. Ultimately it is by means of doublethink that the Party has been able -- and may, for all we know, continue to be able for thousands of years -- to arrest the course of history.

And from the chapter on war...

The primary aim of modern warfare (in accordance with the principles of doublethink, this aim is simultaneously recognized and not recognized by the directing brains of the Inner Party) is to use up the products of the machine without raising the general standard of living.

Aldous Huxley wrote Brave New World in 1931. It is frighteningly analogous to today's events in the context where a Bush administration official stated that torture works because they saw it on the TV show, 24.

If you haven't read the book I have a present for you. Take it in pieces.

View from the Top

We've been working on the trails in Whites Creek Gorge and now have a rough in all the way to the rock overlook. The hill on the right is in Rhea County and is the backside of Walden Ridge as seen from Roane County. 

I guess this could also count as a bird blogging shot since it's looking down at a turkey vulture. Several of them flew right up to me as I sat on the rock. They were close enough that I could see their eyes but my little hiking camera couldn't make the shot work. More shots along the trail later. 

This bud's for you...a creekside azalea is about to bloom. There's still time for you to come out and take a walk with us.

This rock lies under the pedestal. We think it looks like a fossil of a dinosaur skull. 

This crossvine has climbed 50 feet up the rock wall of the cliff just to reach the sunlight so it could bloom. I have to admire its spirit. This picture is an act of danger by the photog, just so's you know.

We'll be hiking this trail often with friends.

Earth Day

Why I am an environmentalist...

I see two futures and I don't want the one that comes to pass to be this one...

So to rewrite Saint Marley just a bit...

Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery;
None but ourselves can free our minds.
Have no fear for alternative energy,
'Cause all of them can save our time.

How long shall they kill our prophets,
While we stand aside and look? Ooh!
Some say it's just a part of it:
We've got to fulfil de book.


Won't you help to sing
These songs of freedom? -
'Cause all I ever have:
Redemption songs;

Go outside and enjoy what there is of our natural earth. I really do believe that we could live well on this planet without destroying it and ourselves. So as we are assailed this 40th Earth Day with the paid for words of the deniers who serve those who profit from destruction, let us take heart in a few more words from saint Bob.... 

Let them all pass all their dirty remarks (One Love)
There is one question I'd really like to ask (One Heart)
Is there a place for the hopeless sinner
Who has hurt all mankind just to save his own?

Let's get together to fight this Holy Armageddon (One Love)
So when the Man comes there will be no no doom (One Song)

PEACE AND LOVE, YALL!

Steve

Red Shouldered Hawks

The nesting pair cross the gorge from our house are back at it. I don't have a lens long enough to get a decent picture so you'll have to go here to see what they look like and read up on them. The male was sitting at the very top of  pine tree all fluffed out this morning. He looked like a big ball of rufous feathers until I got out the larger binoculars. The fun part will be when the young fledge in a few weeks. I hope we can be here when the fun starts.

Check out the best pictures of a Red Shouldered Hawk ever!

Spring on the Creek

Last year's babies are this year's acrobats in the air above Whites Creek. We have two sets of eagle twins still hanging around while Mom and Dad care for the current crop of nestling(s?). The leaves have come out and we can't see into the nest any more. We'll have to wait until they fledge or I get the rim trail completed to the west overlook. At the rate I'm going right now this year's crop of eaglets will be making their own nests before I get it done. I have roughed in the Pedestal Rock trail to link up to the rock house and then around to the big overlook. I promise pictures later this week.

For now here are some more warning signs of Spring...
This red salamander got dug up Saturday morning when we were planting tulips. His chin color only has a hint of black so I assume he's fairly young and his stomach spots were the Whites Creek red color instead of the black ones typical of the species.

This Tiger Swallowtail appreciates this flame azalea just as much as I do. These are spectacular native plants. 

Ah Spring!

Hard Work

Gardening is hard. Hard work, I tell you. Plants have been in the ground since yesterday and I still don't have any tomatoes.

We decided to guarantee that we have another frost by putting about half our seedlings out three weeks early.  We'll see if we get homegrown tomatoes any sooner this way. Everything was late last year, but we're counting on global warming to be good to the garden this time.

Cheers!

I guess it's no secret that I love water. This little cascade was just the right flow to keep me staring into it and getting lost.

Closer...

RARE

RARE is a new photo book by Joel Sartore. Some of the photos were taken at Conservation Fisheries.


RARE from Joel Sartore on Vimeo.

Easter Turkey

A beautiful 20+  pound gobbler goes into the freezer. Wild turkeys might be the most beautiful ugly thing I know of. They certainly taste better than those store bought things.

Pedestal Rock

We've been working on our trails around the gorge. We cleared the route from the waterfall on Ford Branch up to what we call "Pedestal Rock". This is from the west side as the trail approaches it.

This is looking back at it from the east. The pedestal holds up a massive rock that has cracked away from the sandstone cliff. I tell myself not to walk under it every time I go there but I always do.

This is standing under the tabletop looking up at the crack. It's a massive chunk of sandstone supported by a crumbling pillar of a sedimentary pile of rocks that looks like it could go at any time.

The micro habitat on the rock faces support an interesting group of plants that I don't see other places. The cliff just above this is the last pitch to the Plateau and has a wonderful colony round leaf catch fly, a carnivorous plant related to Fire Pink.  

This is an old shot of the pedestal and the cliff above it taken from the far ridge.

Friday Funny

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Conservative Libertarian
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Health Care Reform

From our "Global Warming is a Hoax" Department

Globally, this was the warmest December, January, and February ever recorded:

Fish Ark

From the new National Geographic Magazine:

"You keep the last fish in an ark because you never know when a river might come back," Shute went on. "If the Pigeon could, any river can. They'll have to drag me out kicking and screaming before I give up." 

I'm proud to be associated with CFI (Conservation Fisheries Inc) in the small way I am. They do work that is good for the world. We've had them out to Whites Creek Gorge for each of the last two years and are planning for this years WhitesCreekPalooza and as soon as we get a firm date we'll post it. In the mean time why don't we show them some love with a small monetary token of our appreciation?

Visit their site

 Pat Rakes photo taken at last year's WhitesCreekPalooza

Blue Boy

Last summer I put up an old bluebird house I had in the garage and forgot about it. It is on the far side of the arboretum I put up on the deck so it isn't seen from the house. It suddenly dawned on me this morning as to why this guy and his mate are hanging around the deck after they've eaten all the farkleberries. They are setting up house. 

"I Have Been to the Mountain--top Removal... And It's the Devil!"

I am a total fan of the Reverend Billy Talen and his Stop the Shop-Ocolypse movement. He's morphed from a one man performance artist into the envy of itinerant revival preachers everywhere, with his excellent choir, seven piece band, and hair reaching toward heaven so high that he has moved to reduced  its environmental impact by embracing green hair care.

Stunning my follicles into submission has been a consumer habit I’ve endured and my live-in wife has put up with the spray of effluent evil in our home as well. So this is time for a confession from the pastor who has these poisons in him, and who has cast-off the spraycans, famously unrecyclable. Suddenly I’m sitting here wondering how it was possible that I let this happen for so long? The sin is habituated, a programmed part of my inertia of desire. I’m maintaining my brand, and I beg for forgiveness – and I will change this immediately. I’ll never buy another White Rain or Aquanet as long as I live. Amen? ---Rev 

Now Rev. Billy turns toward something close to my heart and home and which promises to bring the aware among us to our feet shouting Hallelujah!

Have we been to the mountain-top? 

Did we do all we could do?

JP Morgan rains down rock

Exploding loans from the Devil came due...

 Well Reverend Billy shouts out to us, "I have BEEN to the mountain-top...And it is the Devil!"

Can I get an AMEN!

Amen!

I am thinking that Billy Talen is actually a genius crusader with schtick. For extra credit you should read this absolutely straight post by Reverend Billy.

Peace, Brothers and Sisters,

Steve

Bonus musical interlude...