Snowdogs in the future?

    

Virginia in the winter.

    We received "some" healthy fresh air when we went outside the other day to build a snowman. I tried something a tiny bit different -- I gave the snowman a smile shaped from yellow squash. It surprises me that there even "is" squash this time of year. This time of year this vegetable is probably trucked in from Mexico and been sprayed with a half dozen noxious chemicals, no doubt.

    This winter all the big snows have gone to the south or north of us. So Mr. Snowman was a long time in coming. We're not kids anymore but so what? It's fun to get out and do something in the snow. Right as we were finishing our messter-piece, my spouse suggested we should have done something more original, you know, like a snowdog or even a snowcat. But what would you use for whiskers, straws? Blades of grass? Long pieces of material plastered to the side of the head to represent dog ears?

    We haven't done this yet. And as our gloves easily got soaked in this wet yet clumpy snow, we realized there wasn't time to fix our snow person into something else. Maybe next time.

Don't Eat the Christmas Berries

    This may be a little after Christmas, but those of us trying to learn more about nature and foraging (especially if you are ever lost in the woods!) need be weary of the many red berries we see around Christmas time. Like holly berries, which come from the female tree-- yes, some trees are like that, carrying the female parts and fruit, with male parts on other trees of the same species. There a number of different holly trees on the Radford University campus, and the red berries produced are poisonous. Maybe one berry wouldn't hurt much, but poisonous parts of plants in nature make people very ill, or the case of certain plants, like jimson weed or  poison hemlock, downright deadly.
      So don't let the kids or cats eat the holly berries that may be part of Christmas wreaths. The white berries of mistletoe, that little sprig you put overhead in order to garner a kiss, also are not healthy, the leaves even moreso than the berries and cause vomiting, diarrhea, stomach pain, not fun things to happen to you during the holiday.
     Wintertime and the woods seem rather brown and bare, and the bright berries on display then are for the birds, though they aren't the birds' first choice.

Falls Colors and Hiking Blue Ridge and Mabry Mill

                                             Me on the Rock Castle Gorge Trail, Blue Ridge Parkway.

                                     The scenic Mabry Mill, Blue Ridge Parkway in VA.


     It was over a week ago, after being "inside" the previous weekend promoting nature, that we went outside to take our first real trip on the "Blue Ridge Parkway" to partake of the fruits of nature's labors in autumn: the fall colors.
     Actually, on Route 8 on the way to the Blue Ridge Parkway, I think the colors were brighter and peaking a bit more. I think it depended on what part of the Blue Ridge Parkway you were on. But we did see some outright bright reds (of dogwood, sourwood, red oak, sumac, most likely) at a few overlooks, amongst some greens and other muted colors. On one hillside, at the "Rock Castle Gorge" overlook, it was bright with many shades of yellow and oranges. I noticed the yellow orange color was prominent at the Rocky Knob picnic area.
     The Rocky Knob area was, well, rocky, with many outcroppings people could walk among as they headed toward a very rustic, slate colored restroom. The information station on the Parkway itself was also slate colored, and small. But it had some neat little items, like brochures showing the entire route of the Parkway you could take. If you wanted more, they had for sale cards identifying Eastern forest trees,  drawings of animal prints, and even hats and pocket knives for sale. But the picnic area itself, which seems to be "at the top" of the parkway, was windy and a bit shady and cold. I needed to head back to the car for my hat before sitting down to wolf down a sandwich in the cold wind. And I noticed a big oak above me --- most of its branches were near the top, and the top of it swayed to and fro about 80 feet above me!
     But diagonally across from Rocky Knob was Rock Castle. We looked out a bit, but also wanted to see a bit of a trail. The trail had some rocks you  had to get over and I almost tripped a few times --- good thing my spouse went back to the car to give us some steadiness with our walking sticks. The trail in many parts was "slushy" with fallen, dry leaves, and I noted the hickory nuts and some turkey oak and white oak too. As I told my college students, the trees are having their late hurrah before winter and then going dormant. It was a short trail, and we took pictures by these  rocks in the middle of the woods, in a configuration and little bit like an "open" Stonehenge.
     Then we drove several miles down the road to the reknown Mabry Mill, which was in business in the last century and before, at a time when they went to a grist mill to have their corn ground. It was packed -- you'd have had to wait an hour to get in their little restaurant, but there a guide speaking about the grist mill's history, and many other artifacts at the site, like an "evaporating dan," blacksmith log cabin, wooden wagon with wooden wheels, etc. And even some information on making soap. The good ol' days, when people were very self sufficient. And everyone was taking pictures of the mill and pond nearby, a few fall colors adding some contract to their dark color.
     Fall colors are an interesting way to get people out on the trail. The Parkway was busy the third weekend of October and hopefully it will continue to have visitors through the entire month.  

Hiking the Cascades in one day-- a good hike

                                                   Cascades Falls, Pembroke, Virginia

    I took oldest son Zeb and his girlfriend Stephanie on a hike to "The Cascades," a well known spot in Virginia but one we hadn't been to yet. The falls are well known, and I'd heard something about the trail being a little rugged in parts and they were right. The so-called lower trail took you close to a cool stream with various little falls. You were stepping on rocks that were pretty flat, or stone steps, or stepping around the above ground, thin roots of trees that were also on the trail, so it wasn't flat by any means.

      Being as it was July, there were very few wildflowers making an appearance along the trail. But there "were" some pretty white and pink bordered rhododendron flowers, as well as some bergamot, white and yellow avens, leafcup, and a bit of wild ginger leaves too. I also picked up some "heal all". I thought it might help Stephanie, who fell and broke her foot!

    Actually, "comfrey" might have been more helpful as some kind of poultice, though she didn't have an open wound. When we first got to the falls my spouse and I took off our shoes and socks and put our feet in the cold water. But Zeb and Stephanie took off their shoes and walked together up to the falls themselves. She said the stone was slippery, and she turned and her left foot fell into a crevice, fracturing a little of her foot above her toes. She went down the "upper" steeper trail without all the steps but mostly dirt, using our walking sticks like crutches. The next day she "did" get crutches and we found a few places that would have wheelchairs we could borrow for her so we could visit a few places.

     When we got back to the parking lot she soaked her foot in the cold stream water and I got her a towel, as the men did most of the cooking of our steak shish kabobs. Before her mishap she actually got a lot of good pictures. I didn't take too many as my camera was acting up, without its full compliment of power,  I guess. It was 4 hours to the falls and back. A lot of exercise!