CLOUDLAND CABIN JOURNAL, updated 03/09/06 LATE NIGHT UPDATE w/waterfall photos
NEW PRINT - Special Black Mat Print Series
03/01/06 I was up and out early this morning but no woodpecker symphony. In fact the airwaves were very quiet, although the wind was blowing 30mph+. And then I heard a LOUD scream that was very close by! The sole critter out before daylight was a GIANT red-tailed hawk that came soaring overhead, really low. I watched him for about ten minutes as we rode the strong wind currents. Even though that wind was so strong and changing directions all the time, he managed to fly a very tight grid pattern over the landscape. Must not have been any little critters up this morning as I never saw him take a dive once - perhaps he was just up there looking the place over for some good hunting territory later on. Normally we don't see hawks doing this sort of thing until later in the day, so it was kind of odd to find him up there this morning.
Yesterday afternoon I took a walk in the woods with my lovely bride and we found the first butterflies of the seasons. They were almost completely black, with just a touch of a white/yellow fringe along the back edge of their wings. The only thing we could find that fit that description in the butterfly book were "Mourning Cloak" - they are supposed to live in the woods and come out on warm winter days. Yesterday was certainly one of those, as the temp got up into the 70s!
Today is the first day of March, and that is typically what I consider to be the beginning of springtime here on the mountain. We will have warm temps once again today, and MAYBE, the first wildflowers. We found the stalk of what will no doubt be the first flower yesterday, and with a little more sunshine I'm hoping it will flower today, or maybe tomorrow. Even though we are low of water, I have a feeling the wildflowers will come alive this month and put on quite a showing. I have two special wildflower photo workshops later this month where I will teach the specific techniques I use to capture the great beauty of these little wonders. It is really very easy when you know how.
Speaking of WORK, I have decided that I am going to take off most of the month of March and take it easy. In my world, "taking off" means only working a few hours a day instead of 10-12 hours a day or more. I still have several major book projects that I am working on, and I will write and research a little bit nearly every day on those, plus will do any print work that needs to be done in the lab, and I'm sure a lot of other business things will come up (like, for instance, today we have to load up our big trailers and go into town to pickup a giant shipment of new guidebooks - just a reprint, nothing really new - and that is going to take most of the day today, or tomorrow if they don't arrive in time today). But overall my mind set is going to be that I am on vacation, which will give me a lot of time to do things around the cabin, read, HIKE, and concentrate on more personal items. The only reason I can do this is the fact that Pam has been doing such a terrific job of minding the store since she took everything over last September. We seem to be a pretty darn good team, and on March 20th will celebrate our fifth anniversary of making that official!
I am feeling a lot better this week and my strength is coming back (AND I get to curl up with my bride once again in the loft instead of being banned to the basement!). I think I am going to live, although there were a few moments this past month where that did not seem likely. I hope to be able to spend more time writing here in the Journal this month and next as the monochromes of winter give way to the incredible color of springtime in the Ozarks.
A controlled burn on Tuesday afternoon as seen from the back deck.
03/02/06 We had a spectacular pre-dawn show of color this morning, so wonderful that I dropped what I was doing and sprinted up to the deck in the loft. I took a single photo with my point-and-shoot camera, then realized the scene was worthy of my "real" camera. It took me all of about two minutes to get the big camera out of the case and onto the tripod, turned on, focused, and the correct exposure set. But it was too late - the color had already begun to fade, in two minutes!
It was downright warm out here yesterday, and try as it might, the little soon-to-be first-flower-of-the-year did not produce a bloom. But it did sprout a tiny green leaf. I will keep an eye on that leaf and expect to see the flower in another day or two.
We had a red-winged blackbird at the feeders yesterday - just a single one, and the very first one I can recall seeing up here. He swooped down and chased all the other birds away, but did not hang around the feeders himself for long, instead he flew up into a nearby tree and stayed there for a while, singing away as loud as he could. I suspect he was calling out to some buddies to tell them he had found the mother lode. This morning he returned, and did pretty much the exact same thing - chased all the other birds away, then flew up into a tree and started singing. No other buddies joined him yesterday or so far this morning. Sometimes we have 100 or more birds at our feeders right now, and they will often empty all 12 feeders in an hour or two. I bet a flock of red-winged blackbirds could do it in about five minutes!
03/03/06 There is a cool sweetness in the air this morning just before first light. Looks like clear blue skies above too as all I could see were stars and planets everywhere up there. I was out hiking a little bit last night in the darkness - moving very slowly between the trees. A tiny moon was up there somewhere, but only breaking through the clouds every now and then, and casting just a faint hint of moonlight. Otherwise I was on my own to feel my way along. It had been quite warm all day, especially while I was unloading 6,000 pounds of books one box at a time - I could really tell how a month of being under the weather had taken a toll on my physical fitness level. Of course, sitting at the computer all day long and eating cookies hasn't helped any either!
Yesterday afternoon I made a visit to the "first flower" site and found the flower was indeed beginning to appear, but in anticipation of the chilly night ahead it remained tightly curled up. This is a trout lily, which is generally the first wildflower to pop up out of the ground up here on the mountain. I know other flowers have already bloomed in other parts of the Ozarks, but in our little world, the trout lily is kind. And year after year, this specific single flower is always the very first to bloom. I wonder if the cold temps this morning (down in the 30's) will keep the little flower rolled up for another day, or if it will open up fully and take in the bright sunshine that is about to burst onto the scene? I will bet by this afternoon we will have a flower!
I sit at the little table in the drawing room each morning sipping tea and eating cereal, and have a grand view of the wilderness spread out before me. I'm about five feet away from the branches of a serviceberry tree (aka sarvis, aka popcorn). This is not the first popcorn tree that blooms here, but it is one of the first to bloom. Right now the branches are covered with tiny buds, but nothing has "popped" out yet. I expect that to happen in the next week or two, and then we'll see popcorn happening all over the Ozarks (dogwoods don't bloom until April). This tree is the main one that is used by dozens of birds that come to the inside-window feeder. Quite often its branches are filled with little birds waiting their turn at the feeder when the sun come up - the birds become backlit jewels then. I can't wait to see this once the popcorn blooms - it should be quite a sight, and I hope to be able to get a photo or two to share with you...
03/05/06 Yesterday morning just before the girls headed out the door to pick up some of Amber's friends and spend the day shopping in Fayetteville, Pam asked me if I wanted to go with them. Hum, let's see, go spend the day with a bunch of teenage girls at the mall, OR go TO THE WOODS? About two minutes later I began to lay out equipment for a backpack trip into the wilderness below, and about an hour later I strapped on my backpack, my boots, put on Aspen's protective vest, and was headed out the door myself.
Something very odd and WONDERFUL about putting on your backpack in your own living room and heading out the back door to go on a hike.
The sun started to pop out in between clouds above as I made my way carefully down the steep slope towards the river. About half way down I found the first wildflowers I'd seen up here, trout lilies that covered both sides of the trail. All of them had their heads wide open but pointed down into the ground. For a time, the farther down the hillside I got the more flowers there were, and then all of a sudden, no more. I half expected to see a lot more flowers as I got lower, and many different species, but nothing but dead leaves.
As I got closer to the bottom the landscape all around me changed and became a finely-groomed carpet of beech leaves. Holy cow there were millions of them, and they were all laid down smooth as far as I could see. They kind of reminded me of a shag carpet that had just been "raked" - with each thread of yarn being a beech leaf. I guess the wind had shaped the leaves so smooth, and I kind of felt guilty about walking across the carpet as I left a trail of disturbed leaves. And all around me small beech trees still held full loads of their leaves, and that brilliant sunshine lit them up and I was walking through a forest of gold. I guess most of the leaves on the ground came from larger beeches, and looking up I could see most of them had bare branches, waiting for new growth to come on.
Whitaker Creek had water in it and was running, but just barely. The Buffalo River was running, but no where near its normal March levels, as expected. The Buffalo had an eerie brilliant GREEN cast to it, and when I looked closer, I could see it was algae down under the surface that was so bright green. I guess that is what you get with too much fish poop and not enough fresh water or plants in the water to eat the algae. The water was CLEAR, just had this unnatural green glow to it in places.
I turned and headed upstream, following along beside the river some, and also back away from the river and up on a level bench some. It was a glorious day for hiking, with a breeze blowing, and all that sunshine. Eventually I came to a spot in the woods and beside the river that was calling to me to drop my pack and stay awhile, and so I did. Of course, it was also yelling out to Aspen to come in for a swim, which he did.
It was a beautiful spot with sandy beaches, gravel bars, giant sandstone boulders turned over out in the river, and deep, emerald pools surrounding the boulders. Lots of smooth rocks of all sizes everywhere. And along the river's edge, lots of beech trees with exposed roots. In fact this was the spot where I photographed one of those wads of beech roots several years ago - a favorite photo of mine that was published in the recent Arkansas Portfolio II picture book. When I went down to examine that very same root ball, I found it had been changed quite a bit by flooding since I took that photo, and I realized that I had probably caught it at its peak.
Aspen ready for his next pool
After the dogs played around a while and I set up camp a little bit, we all took off and continued upstream to explore around all afternoon and see what we could find. I elected not to bring my big camera system with me, but did have my point-and-shoot along with plenty of digital memory. This rig allowed me to move freely and quickly as I wanted to, taking a few snapshots along the way whenever I felt like it. When I carry my "real" camera system, I have to be much more deliberate, and will often spend an hour or more setting up and making a single photo (I have to try all the angles and lenses and study the scene to get the very best image possible). Freedom, that is what the little point-and-shoot camera give me. Of course, it also give me lower resolution photos (8 mega pixels), but if I do happen to find an exceptional scene, the RAW files that I shoot can produce some amazing prints (a 3 x 4 foot print from one of these I made a few weeks ago looked wonderful), and the digital files are publishable (several were included in my most recent picture book).
It seems like I was drawn to the river on this day, and the smooth boulders all over the place, and the reflections in the water, and the items under the surface of the water that were so clean and clear. The only problem with all this water stuff was the fact that my dog loves to SWIM, and I can't hardly keep him out of the water, which destroys reflections! But he was having a blast, and this trip was not about photography, but was rather about getting out and exploring and having a good time, and we were! But I did manage to take a few photos along the way.
The carpet of beech leaves continued. I could tell when one of the dogs ran across the scene as they too left a trail in the leaves. We came across a tiny drainage off of the main river that held scores of GIANT sycamore trees - those guys towered over everything else in the wilderness it seemed, fed by the constant flow (sometimes underground) from the little creek. I love how the upper trunks and branches of these trees turn white and glow in the afternoon sunshine.
Oh yes, speaking of GIANT trees - goodness the BEECHES were everywhere and some of them seemed like they were ten feet around at the base! And I don't recall seeing a single name carved into their smooth trunks. These trees get hollow in a hurry, and often they are just barely standing tall with only the outside one or two inches of their trunks still intact - everything else is hollow. These trees have a great deal of personality if you will stop and converse with them.
a hollow beech tree
I found several campsites that have been used for years by hikers and horse folks. One such campsite had a recently-constructed chimney. It was not there a couple of years ago, and you could tell it was built by someone in a hurry to throw something up, but still it was in pretty good shape and I guess did the job as intended.
At another campsite I found a pile of parts left over from a bygone era - made out of cast iron I guess, and I don't have a clue what any of the parts were, but they looked interesting.
parts left behind
Besides carpets of beech leaves I found hundreds and hundreds of trout lilies in bloom - all of them still with their heads hanging down. And only ONE other flower of any kind in bloom - a single spring beauty flower was in bloom, and holding on tight in the afternoon sunshine as the wind whipped it around. Nothing else was blooming, although I did find scores of fresh toothwort plants, so they will be blooming in a few days.
the leaf of a trout lily - where it gets it name from
a herd of Adam & Eve orchid leaves
I spent what seemed like hours and hours rock-hopping from one boulder to another as I made my way up the river, and never slipped into the water a single time - must be a record for me - I always get wet in a hurry! I had not place to go and all day to get there, and thousands of acres of prime wilderness before me to explore.
The Buffalo River
At one point I left the main river canyon and worked my way up into a side canyon that I had never been in before. I was quite surprised to find the creekbed clogged with boulders of all sizes - up to house-sized boulders - almost all of them moss-covered, even the big ones were bright GREEN with moss and other plants. It was a lush landscape, and a rather rugged one too since it was so steep. Most of the watercourse was dry though, with just a pool here and there. I could see where some spots that are normally pools at this time of the year must be 6-8 feet deep when full, yet were bone dry now. Lucy and I ran across a large shagbark hickory that spanned the creek at one point.
Speaking of Lucy, she likes to stay just a little bit ahead of everyone, sometimes exploring hundreds of yards out there and out of sight. At one point on the way back towards camp I could just barely see her way up high to my right - she was running the edge of the bench THREE benches above me. That was a little too far out there for me, so I yelled out to her to come. And then I counted. Seven seconds. That was the total time from when I got her attention to when she was standing at my feet - that dog can FLY!!!
After wandering around along the river and up and down the hillside next to it, I eventually found my way back to my campsite just before dark. After I filled up my water bottle at the river (via filter), and spread a bag of dog food on two large flat rocks for the dogs to dine on, I sat down up against a giant boulder that was buried deep in the leaf-covered sand yet reached about 15 feet up in the sky at just the right angle (oh yes, and it was moss-covered, which felt great on my back). And I proceeded to feast on all sorts of goodies from the Cloudland pantry, including a South Beach Diet dinner, bags of gorp, and chocolate granola bars. Add to that a water bottle full of wild grape wine, and I was all set. The dogs finished up their dinner and came to rest next to me and the three of us laid back and enjoyed the end of a terrific day in the wilderness and the sky grew pink, then dark, then black, and the river sang us all to sleep.
At some point during the night I felt a few rain drops, and looked up to see a sky filled with a zillion twinkling stars - I have no idea where the raindrops came from, but it must have been a small cloud. A few minutes later the drops stopped, and I never felt any more. It was a very quiet, peaceful night, and the beaver that I fully expected to slap on the surface of the water a few times never arrived (that will wake the dead and scare you half to death the first time or two it happens).
I had promised the girls that I would fix them "Cloudland hash" for breakfast, so I got up early this morning and headed back to the cabin, stopping at the river to take a photo for the "deck cam" to post in the Journal, then began the long and very slow process of climbing the steep hill back up to the cabin. In my prime I can scale this hill in about 18 minutes without stopping. My goal today was to make it without stopping, but at a much slower pace, so I put it in granny gear and crept on up. I passed many hundreds of trout lily flowers, but all of them were wrapped tightly up from the chilly temps.
from the river looking up towards the cabin, a reverse deck cam
I stopped three of four times on the way up to let my breath catch up with me, but it took me less than 30 minutes to make it to the top - pretty good for an old fat man who is out of shape and only about 75% healthy. When I reached the cabin I snuck in the basement and arrived in the living room still wearing my backpack, but my bride had caught wind of my arrival and was already up and out on the back deck enjoying the fresh morning air. The Cloudland hash was just terrific.
While it was up in the 60's here today, it seemed much cooler than that outside. We took a trip around the loop trail and found, at last, the first wildflower open at Cloudland. And much to our surprise it was not the specific flower we had been watching, but another one about two feet away. YIPPIE, the wildflower have begun!
The first flower of the year at Cloudland
Aspen and my lovely bride at the "hugging rock"
03/07/06 Just a quick update this evening as the western sky is fading away from a brilliant and colorful sunset. The wind is pounding the cabin, and the trees and furniture are swaying back and forth. Seems a bit on the chilly side, which I HOPE means that there will be some RAIN on the way.
I ran out into the wind this afternoon and spent a glorious hour on my belly in the leaves and dirt, with camera in hand (actually it was on the tripod), crawling around and taking photos of two or three different trout lilies in the woods near our cabin. Normally when the wind is blowing like it has been this afternoon I am unable to do much wildflower photography, but I was testing out a new contraption I bought for this very purpose last month and I am happy to report that it worked just great. It is actually a special light tent that not only allows me to control lighting on flowers, but also will help break the wind - I could have never gotten any good images without it. So my camera bag just got a little bit heavier, but now I'll be able to take pictures when sometimes I may have had to wait an hour or two for the breezes to die down. (It won't cut all the wind, but will certainly help!) So here are a few of my favorite images from today - looks like it is going to be one terrific wildflower season here in the Ozarks this spring! Oh yes, and one of our popcorn trees down in Mom's meadow "popped" out overnight, so the sarvis bloom is on too!
Trout lilies (aka dogtooth violets)
03/09/06 My lovely bride had never been to Buzzard Roost before, so we decided to take a day away from the office and head that direction yesterday. The air was filled with heavy smoke smell - no doubt left over from the three forest fires the forest service had set the day before. But there was also a lot of weather in the air, with big black clouds a couple hundred yards above the cabin screaming by - coming up from the south - while the surface winds that were topping 40mph were coming from the east. We drove for an hour and the smoke was still in the air, but by the time we got to the parking area for Buzzard Roost we could no longer smell smoke.
Buzzard Roost is one of those places I had known about for 30 years but only visited for the first time a couple of years ago. A couple photos from my trips there are in the Arkansas Portfolio II picture book, including the one I got on December 21st (a year ago) of the sunrise beneath the giant stone arch. This is officially a "Special Interest Area" in the forest, and while there is no trail to it or any signs, once you know where to park it is pretty easy to get to the scenic stuff. And the hike in is very easy - about a mile and a half of level hiking on a four-wheeler road, then another half mile of hiking on the same road but mostly downhill - this becomes the only tough part as it is uphill for that first half mile on the way back out!
It was a warm afternoon with temps around 60, and still that strong wind. The overall landscape was still one of winter monotones, but upon close inspection we could see quite a few trees beginning to bud out, some of them bearing really RED tiny leaves. We only saw two wildflowers the entire hike - tiny violets that really stood out with their blue-purple color against the forest floor of brown leaves. There were a few popcorn trees out, but not many that we could see when looking out across the landscape. The views hiking down to the Roost are pretty nice during leaf-off, less so once the leaves get on in another few weeks.
We got to the top of Buzzard Roost rocks and sat down for a quick lunch (NOT a place for kids or drunks!), then explored around underneath a little bit - this is the most interesting part to me, the maze of caves under the massive rounded top surface of the rock formation. Pam is not a fan of caves, but I did manage to get her inside the maze for a photo or two.
That's Pam in the middle of the Buzzard Roost. She commented about there not being any "buzzards" around, and I offered to drop my pants and show her an old buzzars's butt, but she declined - smart lady!
This "cave" goes all the way through the bluff, and actually splits into at least three directions - all are open all the way to the sky above.
Then we headed on over to the big arch, passing by the little arch which some folks mistake for the big arch (did you get all that?). The big arch is a little tougher to get to and you have cross a very steep slope to get there, but it isn't too far away. Wow, I am always amazed at this giant rock formation, and yesterday was no exception. It is quite an impressive sight. Highly recommended!
On the way back out we found the base of a bluff that was covered with dead ferns. Normally dead things don't interest me too much, but these ferns were just beautiful in death - they had retained their delicate shape, yet all that green had turned brown, and created a scene that you rarely see. Plus there were brand new baby ferns sprouting up and taking their place, and these were still in the "fiddlehead" stage - all curled up and just now uncurling. It was great to see the bright new green growth in the middle of all that brown death. Soon this wall of ferns will be all green and lush once again.
Those hairy "fiddleheads" will soon open up and cover the wall with bright green
DIRECTIONS TO BUZZARD ROOST: (this hike with map and photos will be in the Arkansas Nature Lovers Guidebook that I am working on) First you have to get to Pelsor (shown on some maps as "Sandgap"), which is located between Jasper and Russellville on Hwy. 7. TURN WEST on Hwy. 123 and go 4.6 miles, then TURN LEFT onto a county road (the road # sign was missing). This is a gravel road. Drive on this road for 6.5 miles (stay STRAIGHT at the intersection after 3 miles) and you will come to a little white house on the right, and then an old barn on the left - you will need to park somewhere in this area and begin your hike here - TURN LEFT onto the four-wheeler road that is in front of the old barn. You will immediately cross into the national forest, although it is not marked. This road is level for the first mile or so, then curves around to the left and then begins to drop on down the hill, past a tiny pond on the left, then levels out some, then drops on down the hill more - there are no intersections up to this point. Just as you kind of begin to level out once again, there is a four-wheeler trail that takes off to the left - you STAY STRAIGHT - and then the four-wheeler trail will fork - TAKE THE RIGHT FORK, then follow this on around as it levels out and curves to the left and then it ends - Buzzard Roost is straight out in front of you and downhill just a little bit - you can't miss it! This is about two miles from the county road where you parked. BE CAREFUL!!! To find the large stone arch, it is back to your left as you are looking out over the Buzzard Roost - you have to bushwhack through the woods across a very STEEP little hollow to the bluffline on the other side, then either go along the top of the bluff or scramble down to the bottom of the bluff and follow the bluffline until you come to the great arch - it is only a couple hundred feet before you reach it.
On the way back to the truck it began to rain lightly, and on the way home the sky opened up and it started to pour - we drove through some heavy rains. Turns out that would continue, and it rained most of the night here and is still raining this morning - a little over THREE INCHES OF RAIN so far! While this will not magically create waterfalls all over the landscape, and wild, raging rivers to canoe, it will help out a great deal, and set the stage for more rain that we hope comes in the future that will fill up the rivers and waterfalls. AND it will take off the fire bans in the region, so campers can build campfires legally.
As the girls were leaving for the school bus early this morning, Pam noted the first frog of the season out in the front yard singing at the top of his lungs - that is a great sign of spring on the way!
NO SWANS. I saw the pair of swans at the Boxley Mill Pond Friday afternoon, but they have not been seen since - and I could not find them yesterday. So it looks like the swans have bid us farewell for the season and have flown up north to produce their family this year. We hope they have a safe and happy time of it up there, and choose to return here in December for another winter. I wonder how many photos were taken of that single pair of swans? I probably took a couple thousand myself. It was a delight to have them in the neighborhood!
LATE NIGHT UPDATE It was just delightful to have thunderstorms roll through all night and some of today as well. The rivers in the canyons below were full and singing, and once the fog cleared out, everything looked scrubbed clean, with deep, rich earth tones.
I got to sneak away for about an hour in the middle of the day, and dashed off down into Dug Hollow - the closest waterfall I could get to. I could hear the crashing long before I ever saw the water, and when I got to the creek, it was like old times once again - the creek was full and the waterfalls were flowing with whitewater they way they are supposed to do at this time of the year. Some of the water was a little dingy/muddy, but that was to be expected.
At the moment I got my camera on the tripod and ready to make my first exposure, the sun came out, and it would stay out most of my time on the creek - in general you want cloudy conditions for waterfall photos, not sunshine. But what the heck, we had FLOWING WATER and so I made the best of it. A little later one I set up my camera in a strange position and had a neat scene ready to shoot that had lots of brilliant sparkles on the water from the bright sunshine. Just when I was ready to start taking the photos a cloud moved in front of the sun. Darn it. Of course, that is what I had been wanting all the time, so I quickly flipped my camera around to a different scene nearby, recomposed, and got ready to shoot. Just then the sun popped out again. No good. So I moved the camera back the other direction and recomposed and got ready to shoo. Just then the sun went behind another cloud! No good. So I moved the camera back......well, I think you get the idea. I did finally wait out both situations and got both photos that I wanted. Patience pays off sometimes. Here are some shots from Dug Hollow today...
Later in the afternoon the sky got very BLACK and we had more rain showers, wind, thunder, and outdoor furniture flying around. We were all smiles around here.
And this evening an entire chorus of peepers started singing like crazy in the front yard. I don't think we've had peepers around here before - lots of normal bull and tree frogs, but no peepers. But they have moved in and are a sure sign of spring. With all this wonderful rain - we ended up with about four inches total - and the sunshine we'll have the next few days, I expect for wildflowers to crop up all over the place, and popcorn trees and perhaps a few other blooming trees to show their stuff. We have three or four popcorn trees around Mom's meadow in full bloom right now, but the one right outside the drawing room window where all the birds sit while waiting their turn at the feeder has not popped yet - probably in the next day or two. I'm hoping to get a sunrise shot of that tree with its branches filled with birds and all that popcorn glowing. You'll be the first to see it if and when I ever get the photo...
predawn on 03/10/06
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