Beagle Ridge Herb Farm fragant and nature minded

                               

Ellen Reynolds talks to visitors at Beagle Ridge

     On her Facebook page for Beagle Ridge Ridge Herb Farm, owner Ellen Reynolds has some pretty looking lavender sashets on view, for the economical price of $4.95. This Virginia Master naturalist and herbal plant saleswoman had spent most of her life living "all over". When it came time to really find a place to settle down in, she and husband Greg decided on a wooded area about 10 miles from the city of Wytheville, in Matney Flats, where there are many birds in view. There is even a hiking trail for bird watchers and anyone wanting to get away from the busyness and noise of the city, to a place when one can experience peace and calm.

    She describes her decision to move to Beagle Ridge as serendipity ("a happy surprise") and welcomes visitors to her herb farm from Thursday to Sunday. Here she grows many wildflowers for sale, but especially lavender. In a study done by R. Reichow Braden and M. A. Halm, lavender was shown to ease the anxiety of preop patients in the hospital.  Both its flowers and oils  have been used in treating different pains, like toothaches and migraines, and assisting with insomnia and cancer issues. 

    Visiting lots of public schools to teach kids about nature Reynolds also feels is important. She even has a butterfly house she built, a place where Monarchs can live out most of their lives before they are let free to migrate south.

    To find out more or to see about purchasing lavender go to www.beagleridgeherbfarm.com. 

RAID-- Bad for Bugs AND People

   

      Husband Frank said he'd done this before as he'd seen the bugs swarming in the past (Really? You didn't tell moi); and recently he did the self same thing: he used RAID, and in the house (Ick).

    Nasty! RAID is a nasty bug spray, even if it is mostly used outside (by more informed people than this spouse). But he wanted to get rid of these winged bugs right away, "bugging" us as we sat in the living room, not two feet away and crawling around on the floor and wall just below the picture window. 

     I'd informed him that I'd seen bugs by the window and didn't immediately say don't use a toxic bug spray. So his immediate reaction was to get rid of them fast by generously spraying the area near us with RAID. I should have said "no" to bug spray right off the bat. Immediately after that our eyes and noses were affected, cringing from the smell and irritation of these harsh chemicals.

     At first I wasn't even sure they were termites. I thought they were harmless winged ants (which don't like to dine on the wood the house is made of).  I looked at several websites and found out termites have little black bodies which, unlike ants, have thick waists -- no segmentation. Flying ants have upper and lower wings, the lower ones shorter than the upper pair. Flying termites have uniform, elliptical shaped wings that are twice their body length, and when the RAID got them (hubby vacuumed up the mess afterward) you could see the little body laid out against the long, translucent wings.

     I had to inform him "you're spraying poison. What did people do before WWII? Why couldn't you have used boiling water in the house (then swept them out)?"

     I wondered what my body was being exposed to. RAID has a ton of nasty chemicals, like pyrethyroids, piperonyl butoxide, permethrin, and D-phenothrm (a mouthful).

    At a government toxicology site it pointed out permethrin, for one, is harmful if absorbed through the skin and if swallowed. It says to remove pets and plants away from the area to be sprayed and ventilate the area -- we opened the windows and ventilated the house for 3 days. Some recommend opening up the windows for a week!

    And he did this stupid thing for nothing. At the "gardens alive" website (an extension of NPR radio's "you bet your garden" show) it explains that you can get rid of termites without toxins. Just treat wood --- pine is their favorite -- with borate termiticide and put the wood in termite bait traps outside of the house. Our termites were trying to find a colony, as most East coast termites are subterranean and "want" to stay down in the ground. 

     Live and learn.

Don't Kill the Dandy Dandelion

   When my sons were rather young they would seek out these innocuous yellow flowers out on the lawn and gave them to me to put in a vase --- the humble dandelion. Then, as now, I thought they were rather pretty and couldn't understand why homeowners looked upon them with such disgust.
    But I find that dandelions are actually quite dandy. If you look in any "edibles" handbook you will see that quite to contrary of today's thinking, these wildflowers -- yes, they are in wildflower guidebooks, not weed books --- are quite attractive. And edible.
    Dandelions have vitamins A, and C in them. And being a "green," they are also good at "detoxing" the liver. In grammar school you may have been told the liver just stores excess energy and fat. It does more than that, actually; it processes and detoxes what comes into the body, from chemicals in our food and cosmetics to our doctor pills and common drugs over the counter like aspirin and Tylenol (acetaminophen). Dandelions help our overworked livers work better.
    Though the bigger leaves may taste a bit bitter, like many greens (mustard greens and collard greens), the early, smaller leaves don't taste bad. If you mix them into a big salad you can hardly taste them, anyway.
    At our wedding "rehearsal dinner," an outdoor affair, my soon-to-be spouse's good friend from high school brought along some dandelion wine. I think it had only been aged something like a week. It looked like muddy water and didn't taste any better. Kind of like muddy water but with a "kick" to it. His cousin Larry took some good gulps of it (and probably some other stuff too) and had a good hangover the next day. He looked rather pale at the wedding reception.
   Yeah, dandelions can make living interesting. They make good natural crowns for the hair too, or fluffy bracelets.
   So let them stay on the lawn for a week. They soon close up their flowers and go to seed and leave your property, till next spring. They don't hurt the lawn, so don't hurt them and poison the environment for birds and others who light on the grass.

Winter Walks -- Healthy and endorsed by Thoreau

    It was Thoreau, the famous New Englander, who wrote fondly of the winter walk. He wrote the "meadow mouse has slept in his snug gallery in the sod," while we people  are "crunching crisp snow under our feet," as "feathery flakes" come down. Most of us look at winter weather and think ugh, it's cold and uncomfortable out. It doesn't have to be. And it's especially good if you're out in the sun.
   My friend Bud was the first one to point out he went on winter walks during Christmas vacation breaks from school. Winter on the East coast can get pretty darn chilly, and I have to admit my walks have been fairly short when I first tried to do this. Some think wintertime is only for kids, who build snowmen and toss snow balls. As a grownup I've built a snowman (or woman) or two and gotten boots as waterproof as possible for stepping into new or half melted snow. It can be a challenge if there is a layer of ice under the snow as you get older, so I'm sure the snow is more on the crunchy than slippery side.
    Dr. Lynn Millar, a Winston-Salem State University professor of physical therapy, points out that especially as you get older -- I've recently been diagnosed with osteoarthritis because I twisted my knee badly last year -- it is important to get out and exercise in winter. The sunlight in winter lifts your mood and provides needed Vitamin D, and is really helpful if you are getting  corticosteroids, which increase the risk of brittle bones, Millar says. I find just "nature watching," noting the woodpeckers and sparrows and cardinals on the trees, whether the squirrels are up and looking for nuts, and what kind of different shapes the tree limbs form, makes for a worthwhile jaunt outside any time. Try a winter walk sometime.
   (A link to more info on winter walks and health: http://blog.arthritis.org/living-with-arthritis/winter-walking-benefits-arthritis/ )

Tree Walkng for state champs at Virginia Tech

   It was cold -- a great day for a tree walk? Not really, though the good news was our leader, Jeff Kirwan and a few other ladies, were quite knowledgeable about the trees we were going to see. And we met in a gray parking lot. On Virginia Tech campus.
    Virginia State University and Polytechnic Institute -- a land grant college, with actually a lot of land-- 2600 acres -- is a good place for studying animal husbandry, self driving cars, water testing and nature at thee Hahn Horticultural Center. And on this big campus you find a variety of trees, from white pine to red hickory to a tree dedicated to comic Stephen Colbert!
   Wearing my furry black winter coat and red hat, I went off with several others, starting out in the duck pond area off of Duck Pond Road/Drive. After a handful of steps Jeff brought us slightly uphill, eyeing the president's home in the distance, to a few knotted old trees, what he called state champs. I believe one was a maple. There was also a white willow, on the east side of the duck pond, as we crossed a little foot bridge, also a champ. I think this was the one where it was so wide we couldn't tell its age.
   On the campus proper we headed down the west side of the Drill Field. I was really surprised when he pointed out there was "one" tree left from when the Drill Field wasn't an open area at all, but an arboretum. It is a "burr oak" with  huge acorn cups, a sign near it saying it was planted in 1895, I believe. That's an old and grand tree! Fellow naturalist Beth U. instinctively starting yanking off the English ivy around. It's sad they tore out so many trees for a field.
   With state champs they measure the height and circumference and possibly the rings too. Jeff, a former student, was there when a grand old tree fell in what is "Stadium Woods" behind Lane Stadium, where the football games are played. The rings were measured on the fallen tree and it was 300 years old! No wonder they want to save this woods of white and black oaks! This unique urban woods needs to be preserved. And it is also where a great oak with the sign "Colbert Oak" is nailed to it, as a means to entice comic Stephen Colbert to come. At least, they hope he will come visit, is my understanding.
    In the Hahn Horticultural garden we spied a few interesting, new to me trees, like the triofolate orange, the Alaskan yellow cedar and the kind of hanging down limber pine, also state champs. We traversed part of the garden I hadn't seen before, with a lot of brown wooden planks around a small goldfish pond and curving trails going back out toward the road and parking lots. The weather warmed up; our coats were open, and it was time to get something to eat.
    All in all, it was informative and a few hours of good exercise. Every town should have a "tree walk" like this.

Warm Temps, Ground hogs and Life (Star Wars Reference)

   

                   

                                                 Blooms on the quince tree.



 When Star War VII's "Kylo Ren" chases Daisy Ridley's character into the snowy woods, he ignores the dark silhouettes of the surrounding trees. The trees stand perfectly still (why, wouldn't they, they're trees) in their dormant, powered down state, nature's smart way of protecting them against the bitter cold. But what about winters "without" all that cold and snow?  
    At a recent Master naturalists' meeting, Judy K. pointed out a tree of hers, a quince, was blooming weeks in advance, in late fall -- not in springtime, like it should. What the heck is going on here? When it's almost 70 degrees on the East coast for Christmas, a time when people normally are huddled inside and expect bitter cold wind and snow, it's pretty confusing. Imagine how confusing that can be for the trees themselves. Some trees in the New River Valley (VA.) that had dropped their fall leaves began growing new ones right away or blooming, like silver maple and Judy's quince tree with its reddish flowers. And after they bloom, folks, that's it for the season, no apples, no more  funny helicopter samara seeds (for the maple trees, at least). Thank you, El-Nino!
    I was lucky my daffodils were deep enough they didn't start pushing up their leaves. It's nice to have flowers in the spring, something to look forward to and ruminate upon after dealing with a cold, stark, dreary landscape for many months (January and February, specifically). Phenology is the study of the timing of recurring biological events, and lately, the timing has been somewhat off.
    But it's interesting that Virginia Tech physiology specialist John Seiler says trees native to the region have a mechanism in place that kicks in, even in this crazily warm weather. They have to have so many "chilling hours" before they break out into bloom in warming weather. My dogwood and cherry trees definitely stayed "put" without bursting into color this year. And now that the cold in January is back and dormant they should stay dormant.
    The ground hogs haven't come out yet; that tradition/legend is about whether the ground hog (called a "woodchuck" up north) sees his/her shadow or not. It's said the first prediction about how early spring would come was in the 1886 "Punxsutawney (PA.) Spirit" newspaper. It predicted that if the ground hog -- Punxsutawney Phil -- didn't see his shadow, there would be an early spring. Europeans had thought badgers and hedgehogs could foretell the future and brought that concept to America. (I really loved Bill Murray's movie "Ground hog Day," by the way. Sometimes I wish I could do over a day or experience, like bad hair days, when I accidentally walk into the men's room, when an editor isn't interested in my writing, etc.)
    Like the trees, not matter the weather, time marches on for them. Whether you're Kylo Ren or a stuck in one place tree, hopefully you can deal with unexpected changes and "weather" them well.
    

Foster Falls, The New River Trail and Musings (in fall)

                                   Old depot at Foster Falls Recreation Area along New River Trail

                                           Along the New River Trail near Foster Falls

    A few weeks back we went with our friend Will to an area we hadn't explored all that much: the New River Trail, south of Wytheville, Virginia. I thought that there was just "one" New River Trail State Park, but along this old river that oddly flows north, there are several parks with the same name. And where we planned to walk was actually the Foster Falls Recreation Area.
   So what's so special about the Foster Falls Recreation Area? I assumed, rightly, that since it was a part of the New River Trail, a "rails to trails" project, that the walk would be fairly level, a great idea for a wounded knee, twisted and stressed more than once in the last year. And Foster Falls, with its tidy green and white old depot that now stays open as a gift shop, was once part of a somewhat bustling little town!
    The driving force behind the little town was the iron industry. An iron furnace was built by the Foster Falls Mining and Manufacturing Company during 1880-1881. It employed 70-80 people and shipped pig iron via railroad to huge cities that could use it, like Baltimore, St. Louis, and Cincinnati. The New River was important to the Foster Falls business, and this business also encouraged the opening of a hotel, a symmetrical structure we walked by,  as well as a dry goods store, distillery, and 100  homes. We only saw the depot and old hotel and a few farms nearby, but a friend in Pulaski told me she had kin who lived next to this "recreation area" till very recently. 
    The falls themselves are off a trail that winds by and then away from the New River. Foster Falls are actually very low to the surface of the water falls, that really look more like several big riffles or tiny rapids in the river. My husband wanted Will and myself to hurry up and take some pictures so he could actually hike the trail. Along the way a ground hog scurried in front of us and under a building that said "Discovery Center" (which was closed), and a raven hovered overhead in an updraft. We actually reached a dead end on a wooded trail near the river, so we backtracked and eventually got on another trail. That STILL wasn't the right one as it was only a few feet from the river. Would railroad track be laid that close to churning waters? I think not.
    Eventually we found we had to backtrack (again) to discover a fairly level, wide trail, going along a steep hillside, not too much color to greet us on this fall day. Will had to get into his gadget, his smart phone, and we looked up directions later to a log cabin restaurant maybe a half hour's drive, in Wytheville. But it was Sunday-- it was closed! So we gorged ourselves on turkey dinners at the chain  restaurant Bob Evans, instead. Man, was that good!
    Fall is a time to try to relax with nature, give it one more try, a last hurrah of positive interaction and reflection, before the cold and sometimes dreary isolation of winter, when we all stay inside way too much, becoming like bears without planning on it. Sometimes, when there is a winter thaw or it isn't too windy, winter walks can be interesting. But they never have the red, yellows, and oranges of autumn to greet us on our outdoor sojourn. 
    All in all, visiting Foster Falls Recreation Area (which also has camping, canoeing and picnicking we didn't have time for), was an interesting fall side trip along the New River Trail going south.