Little Bluff Cabin cam March 31 - some nice color at dawn - cloudy and warm with rain chances this week - YIPPIE! HAPPY EASTER TO YOU!

PRINT OF THE WEEK SPECIAL (above) - click here

03/02/24 We awoke to a layer of ice pellets on the deck, but also a sea of clouds below and colorful clouds above. HAPPY FIRST DAY OF METEORLOGICAL* SPRING TO YOU! Looks like March is going to bring us a mix of weather and lots of changes in the landscape - I just LOVE March! *Meteorological seasons are broken down into groupings of three months in our civil calendar based on the annual temperature cycle. We generally think of winter as the coldest time of the year and summer as the warmest time of the year, with spring and fall being the transition seasons.

The biggest news of the day was that I somehow managed to GET MY TO-DO LIST DONE!!! I don’t think that’s happened in a very long time. It was just a single day’s list, and it was actually for yesterday, March 1st. But I got everything done. (Helped no doubt by the fact that I was stuck at the gallery all day but only had a single person show up, so I had LOTS of free time.) I AM a big list maker, but the best intentions usually come up far shot. In fact it often seems that once I put something on a list, that lowers the fact that I will ever get it done - how does that happen? Anyway, small steps - I got a list completed - and it feels great...

FYI, if you are an Instagram user, for some odd reason I'm not able to post or even see our home page...

03/04/24 Awild and windy night with gusts up near 50mph - the trees were siniging quite a lively tune! No moisture though. I sat in the dark at dawn and watched the cloud parade heading east. You know how much time is spent "seeing" different people, faces, animals, etc. in the clouds? Well the clouds this morning were zipping by so fast I couldn't find a single object - they all looked like blurry clouds to me (although this phone snap froze them in place.

03/05/24 A really warm and muggy day, and after a propane tank exchange in town I headed up to do a quick hike on the Roundtop* Mountain trail just south of Jasper. This is a great trail that’s so close - I probably should hike it every morning before breakfast! (*This mountain is known locally as Roundtop Mountain, but on the official USGS maps it’s always been called Round Mountain.)

There was a group of hikers at the trailhead when I arrived - so great to see young folks out and about during the week - much less traffic than weekends. This was a short hike to laid eyes on the forest floor up there to see how wildflowers were coming along - I consider this mountain paradise almost as prolific with early-season wildflowers as Lost Valley or the Smith Creek Preserve.

Right off the bat I started to see a few flowers, though most of them were tiny, but colorful none the less. My old bones haven’t really done much hiking other than around our own loop trail, so I also wanted to get in a little cardio work while wildflower hunting. The first section of this trail was perfect for that - it switchbacks steeply up the hillside. I leaned into the hill, steeped up my pace, and both my heart rate and treating picked up quite a bit - just want I wanted.

Soon I was at the base of the big bluff that encircles this mountain - the hiking trail pretty much follows near the base of the bluff all around, mostly level, although the first bit after I turned left on that section still had a little more climb to do. There were most wildflowers along the way, but all of them were tiny. I could see the leaves popping up everywhere of the larger species but no flowers yet - I’d say we were still a good rain shower or two and more warm sunny days away from this being a really good wildflower hike.

A second reason to do this trail was to hike up to the top and to the north end of the mountain where there was an overlook - wanted to see how much trees and brush had grown up to block the view of the horizon - it’s a spectacular view from there, though I discovered too many trees for the type of Milky Way photo I’d hope to do later on. Great daytime view, but at night the scene is kind of dominated by the giant light dome of Harrison and would not be a good spot for Milky Way. Oh well, this is why we do these research hikes in the daytime and not in the middle of the night, haha!

It was a quick and pleasant jaunt back across the top of the mountain, and several times I thought I could hear the chatter of the young ladies on the trail below. Funny though, each time the wind stopped blowing I could no longer hear them. Then it hit me - not human voices, but rather the language of the trees swaying in the wind! Always delightful music, and I take every chance to spend a bit of time just stopped to Listen To The Trees. I’ve always loved this term, and was reminded the other night when one of the episodes of Northern Exposure we were watching was all about this, and title Listen To The Trees. As soon as I saw that I got up and pulled a book off our personal bookshelf - LISTEN TO THE TREES by John Sexton is one of the most beautiful picture books of any sort I’ve ever seen. John was a longtime printing assistant of the legendary landscape photographer, Ansel Adams, and each time I look through his book I’m amazed that I can relate on a deep level somewhere in my psyche to the trees, patterns, and the conversations going on in his photographs (all black and white).

Last night we had some major storms approaching as we went to bed - howling winds that got out big pine trees speaking in another voice, a rather LOUD voice! We could also hear a different tone of roar from those high winds. It wasn’t until I made a late-night trek up to the gallery to unplug all of our computer equipment (lightning approaching) that I realized we’d been hearing a parade of very loud jets passing overhead - must have been a lot of them since that particular roar went on for more than 30 minutes. (B-52 bombers were the likely jets, training runs from Tinker Air Force Base in Oklahoma, or other bases - their sound is quite different than other jets.)

While the storm thunder boomers rolled on through all night and were still quite active this morning, we got almost NO rainfall here. Reports of 4-8” in other parts of the Ozarks with flooding, but it all passed us by. Looking at the radar right now this morning it appears we’ll get at least 2-3 inches here today and tomorrow, no telling what’s going to make it to the ground - but for sure I’m doing my best RAIN DANCE - we sure do need it!

Oh yes - a flowering tree update - we have popcorn trees (serviceberry, shown below) in bloom here and is becoming widespread, also saw the first redbud tree and wild plum in bloom. I expect all of these trees will be in full bloom in the week to come - it should be a great time to be out and about in the High Ozarks the rest of this month!

Popcorn (serviceberry tree0 above, wild plumb tree below

03/10/24 I have no idea how this happens, but it happened again this morning. I had the alarm set for 3:30 (got to bed about 10:30 last night). Just like clockwork, I awoke and looked at my watch - it was 3:18. I wasn't tossing and turning all night worrying about not hearing the alarm, in fact I slept just fine - and then all of a sudden, I'm wide awake before the alarm goes off. Then spent some quality time in the back yard testing out a couple of different lenses* - seems like that sort of thing is a never-ending saga for me - always chasing perfection (the only one of those I've found was my LOVELY BRIDE!). And so here is a snap our the beautiful Milky Way rising over yonder mountains, with the promise of a sunny day approaching.

 

03/13/24

03/20/24 Another night wandering with my camera beneath a sea of stars above - this one shot in the back yard as the bright 3/4 full moon was setting. Note the star trails from this two-minute exposure. The cloud streaks or beams were from a combination of the moonlight low on the horizon and jet trails. It looked kind a eerie in person, but i knew I could always run and hide in the cabin if needed!

04/26/24 We got almost FOUR INCHES of wonderful rainfall yesterday - YIPPIE COYOTE! I spent much of the day shooting waterfalls (and REDBUDS) - this is what my photo setup looks like when it's pouring rain (below) - that's my camera on the tripod beneath the umbrella, and my camera bag hanging from the tripod. All stayed mostly dry - except for me and my clothes - I ended the day half frozen and a muddy MESS!