View From the Top 11-18-2013

This is one of those panorama shots with the new Pentax outdoor camera. Roane County is on the near side of Whites Creek and Rhea is the far side of the gorge. The view goes from due East to Southwest. Due South is directly across the peak of the dead tree and the mountain just right of center. There is a bald eagle flying around in the deep gorge but you'll have to trust me that it's there. I can't find it either.

I So Want This For Whites Creek

If you want to protect rare species, first you have to find them. In the past few years, biologists have developed a powerful new tool to do that. They've discovered that they can often find traces of animal DNA in streams, ponds — even oceans.

What's Swimming in the River?

This is Why We Do It

Raise Money for Conservation Fisheries, I'm talking about! US Fish and Wildlife Note

Diana's In The Yard

This is that time of year when the relatively rare Diana Fritillary butterflies get together and make sure there are Diana Fritillaries next year. The males arise in late spring and survive until the girls come out, about now, actually. These shots were taken on opposite sides of the house today. Males on the butterfly bush and female on the monarda. Interesting lives they have, albeit short ones. The males will die soon after mating. The girls will survive until frost. They deposit their eggs near violets but not on them. The babies hatch and don't eat but crawl into safe cracks and crevices in the earth to winter over until spring. Those that survive, a small percentage, find the violets and start eating. Then everything starts all over again. Amazing! And yes, there is a lot of activity for the sharp eyed to observe...

What's Making All That Noise Out There in the Puddles?

With all this rain we have a renewal of toads calling all over the county. Here is a resource that will let you play the call and see what's making all that racket out in the yard. Right now the eastern spadefoot toads are the main songs we are hearing. We also hear the occasional narrow-mouthed toad. Both tend to call after heavy rains. I would be interested in everyone posting what they can identify...
Link...

Whites Creek Palooza...It's Time

2 PM til 9 PM Sat. June 29

 In benefit for the good folks at Conservation Fisheries we will gather for a fun time in Whites Creek Gorge, a 164 acre conservation easement along the creek in Roane County, Tn. We swim in the pristine waters of Whites Creek, hang out in the sun, eat, drink, and listen to some fine music from Jeff Barbra and Sarah Pirkle, and maybe some other special musical guests. There'll be things to buy and an auction of at least two works of art, including this years edition of the Palooza fish mosaic by Joe Matlock and Rita Senko. The Palooza is family friendly but no pets, please.

We will be in a pristine and primitive area. Dress accordingly. We will be several hundred yards from the house. Most folks enjoy the beautiful walk but we have transportation for those who need it.  A camp chair is nice to have if you want to bring one.

AUCTION ITEMS The photos never do these works of art justice, but this is the third year for the Whites Creek Palooza Mosaic by Joe and Rita.The previous mosaics have been going for $250 plus.

You have to be here to bid. Well unless you want to send me an email bid (stevescarb@aol.com ), in which case I will bid it off for you. Be forewarned that these have been going for several hundred bucks in past years. They are one of a kind each year in a series. This one might be the coolest one yet! Here are the other items that we be at auction.

The above is a green sided darter, below is a tangerine darter, which gets our vote for official fish of the great state of Tennessee. Retail value $75 each.

This is a Dick Biggins sculpture of a brown trout. Retail value $250.

This wood carved fish is a Boulder Darter and goes for $150 retail. Created by Rick Jacob, it is stunning and would look really good on anyone's wall.

So, Paloozers, Are you ready to party for the fishies? First off check out Conservation Fisheries and see what good work they do for the environs of Tennessee and the natural diversity of our streams. Then put on your party hat and get out your wallet. Now unlike many fundraisers we think we have an event that's worth way more than the $25 per person, with guided snorkel trips at 3:00, and 4:00. Unguided snorkel trips are continuous. We're seeing a few big gar this year and there's never a shortage of drum, red horse, and small mouth bass, but it's the small and beautiful darters and shiners that really show off Tennessee diversity in the nearly crystal clear Whites Creek. We'll swim with the fish, eat some good food, and listen to some great music and raise a little money for a group on the forefront of saving Tennessee's fish diversity.

 Home base will be Whites Creek Global Headquarters. We'll spend the day at the creek and return to the house for supper and music. Please bring your own adult beverages. We will have water and soft drinks. We don't provide lunch so take care of that and bring snacks if you want them.

 Supper will be somewhere around 6:30 with the auction and music getting underway at 7 with Jeff Barbra and Sarah Pirkle. The Whites Creek Irregular Jug Band conducted by Denis Kiely will play us into the night. The evening will officially end at nine. We have primitive camping available by reservation.

 The Palooza is family friendly but NO PETS, please.

TICKETS:

 We have a limited number of tickets and encourage everyone to buy them as soon as you can so we can keep track of the crowd size. To reserve your ticket go to Conservation Fisheries and click the DONATE button and follow directions. Enter an amount equal to $25 per ticket. Put "Whites Creek" in the comment box. Don't want to use a credit card? Email me and we'll take your cash at the door. Can't make it this time but still want to show your love for the work these people do?. Go to the Conservation Fisheries web site and donate what you can. We'll forgive your absence and keep you on the mail list for next time and you'll get that warm fuzzy feeling that comes with doing good a good thing.

 Legal stuff: This is a primitive natural area with all its beauty and danger and you assume all risk, holding everyone else harmless.

 This is going to be a good one, folks.

 Steve and Annie
 www.whitescreekjournal.com
 680 Black Creek Rd Rockwood, TN 37854


 Directions to Steve’s and Annie’s House

 680 Black Creek Rd Rockwood, tn 37854

Black Creek Road turns right (West) off of Hwy 27 Three miles south of Rockwood (junkyard)which is 12.2 miles south of I 40. (or 8 miles north of Spring City and left). From I 40 take Hwy 27 Exit 347 Harriman Rockwood, and go south to Rockwood. That's left no matter which way you're coming from.

Stay straight through Rockwood on Hwy 27 as just South of Rockwood you'll pass the “Junkyard”, a noted landmark in Roane County. Black Creek Road is off Hwy 27 about 3 miles past the Junkyard/Hwy 70 junction on the right. It has railroad crossing arms and lights at the train track which you cross immediately. If you get to the Whites Creek Bridge you have gone a half mile too far.

Black Creek road winds around by farms and woods for about 1.8 miles to our driveway. Look for the big old barn on your left about a half mile before our drive. After passing the barn you’ll go back into woods for a short distance until you see a kudzu patch trying to eat two mailboxes on your left, the first of which says 680. Our drive is just past on the right going up the hill. You can’t see the house from the road but it’s up there about 2 tenths of a mile.

 If you miss the first driveway and wind up at the barricade at the end of the pavement, turn right up the hill. That's the other end of the loop.

 You won’t have reliable cell service after the first mile on Black Creek Road, but our home number is 354-4363.

You Say Jessamine, I Say Jasmine

I've always heard it called jasmine in the South that I've lived in. This is one of the domesticated cultivars but it is a native plant. The flowers are quite poisonous and deliciously fragrant. This was taken just a few minutes ago in the soft morning light.

Coal Mine Exploration

Our little pipistrelle bat was still hanging out  in the mine when we went back with headlamps today. We went past where the mine forks, with the right fork being more of a room with wood posts jammed between the floor and ceiling. Several had failed so we decided that wasn't the way to go. We stayed on the main shaft (horizontal) and found a rail structure made of wood. This surprised us but we've since done research and found pictures of wood wheeled carts and wood rails used in European mines in the 1700's and early 1800's. We're thinking this mine is pre civil war but more work needs to be done to set any date. It could be much later and more indicative of the poverty in East TN after the civil war than anything else. I would appreciate any info anyone might have on this.

We noticed that little needle like crystals were on the wood in places. We found them on pieces of coal as well. Any idea as to what they could be? My Google-foo isn't working on them so far.

Today's Walk

It was too nice to stay near the house today so we took a little walk. We wound up going along the old coal mining shelf and followed it past where the flat (ish) part ends. There is an old trail cut that is way too steep for any motorized coal hauler so we're thinking this is old enough to be for mules and donkeys. We were surprised to find a mine that went under one of the rock cliffs. It is about 5 feet high and goes further back than I was willing to go without a head lamp.

Yes, that is a bat. "That's an eastern pipistrelle/tricolored bat (Perimyotis subflavus)" reports Dr. Brian Carver of Tennessee Tech. I had no idea such a beastie existed, but I'm proud to have his home in a protected area. This shot gives us a clues as to its name, "tricolored".

We found several new patches of bloodroot. It is now officially spring.

Dealing With Invasive Species

We've been working on trapping this sow for a month now. By getting her when we did we took another dozen pigs out of the loop. They are incredibly destructive and displace other native wildlife. This one went over 300 lbs and was well fed. The bad news is that the game camera shows several more. We are thinking of switching to corral traps so that we can catch several at a time.

Thomas and Martin did the hard work.

Sharp Shinned Hawk

One of the downsides to living in a house with lots of glass is that birds think they can fly through it. After cringing for a number of years as the little beauties crashed and mostly died, I studied on how to stop them. We have spectacular views here but that doesn't give me the right to kill things just so I can see the cliffs from my couch. What I settled on has worked extremely well.

 There are all sorts of commercial coverings for windows that purport to scare birds away from the glass. They are expensive to do a lot of windows. What I did was identify which windows were the worst and hang window screen on the outside of them. The views are only slightly diminished and we've had zero fatalities on the protected windows. Unfortunately the birds will sometimes, though rarely, fly into one of the remaining areas of exposed glass.

 We were sitting at the breakfast table when a very loud thunk startled us. "That's a dead one," I said. Running outside there was a pigeon sized bird lying upside down and motionless on the deck. I picked it up, it was limp and had one eye open and the other closed. Then we saw it was breathing very shallow breaths. We took it to the sunny side of the deck and laid it in a flowerpot as gently as we could so the dogs wouldn't get it. (We are catless here) We thought we were holding a Merlin (Now that I read more, the yellow eye is the giveaway this is a sharp shinned hawk) but that, while it probably wouldn't make it, we should give it every chance. After a half hour there was no change but we left it and went about our morning chores in the yard.

 At some point my son came out and said, "That hawk got up and flew off!" He went a few yards to a limb down below the deck and then flew around the house into a tree. I knew that this doesn't necessarily mean they will live but it gave us hope. Just now, a day later, it flew up to the house and landed in a hickory tree, eying the goldfinches on the feeder. Then it flew strongly away. I covered the offending glass with screen as the hawk lay in the flower pot. It is either a juvenile or a female, I'm not enough of a birder to know. I can't tell you how happy I felt when it landed in the hickory tree just now.

New Year's Eve Eve Morning

Season's Greeting from Conservation Fisheries

One of my favorite organizations has put together a collage of rivers and creeks they have worked in over the last year.

Big Tree

We walked up to this old Hemlock yesterday. There are larger trees out there but this one is pretty big. My woodsman guess-timation has it at just under 100 feet tall with a crown of 54 feet in width. I need to take a 100 foot tape and inclinometer out there to get something more accurate, but I'm pretty close. Been an engineer too long. This one will get the treatment when the adelgids hit it. If(When) we lose all the hemlocks in the gorge it will change everything.

New Pound Dog

No name yet.

Whites Creek Bird

New Wasp

So we keep badminton racquets posted around the decks to help with the over population of carpenter bees, which are actually eating our house. They haven't been that much of a problem lately, which is different. So I was out on the back porch and these blades of grass poking out of a bee hole in the white pine ceiling caught my eye.

Then this beastie wandered into view. Anybody have any idea what it is and if it is actually predating on the bee larvae?

A Long Range Project?

This has me thinking.

Photo from...

The Day Before Palooza

So I invite a few folks out to snorkel and we get kayaking levels. Maybe some folks will want to bring tubes and life jackets.

Here's the blue hole at 11 am Friday.

 Here's what the peace flag and 680 mailbox look like. Get ready to turn right.

30 feet past the mailbox go up there for a couple of hundred yards.

If you miss that turn here's the last one. Turn right and we're up there somewhere.

Fire