Western Salsify

It looks a bit like a gigantic dandelion, with the "poofball" as my kids called it up to three inches across. Also called Western Goat's Beard, Wild Oysterplant, Yellow Salsify, Yellow Goat's Beard, Meadow Goat's Beard, Goat's Beard, Goatsbeard, Common Salsify, or Salsify, its European kin, Tragopogon porrifolius, makes an edible root eaten for its mild oyster-like taste.

This plant was new to me in the late 70s, an invasive from Europe, first spreading in the western states, and this past weekend, found everywhere along the Blue Ridge Parkway.

My kids loved this plant--one we really had to look for back then. If you take a single "parachute" from the head and remove the long stalk and seed at the bottom of it, the top pappus bristle "sail" is so buoyant it will hang in the air like a strange sea creature suspended in a clear ocean, even on a windless afternoon. They would chase it across the pasture until it vanished into the inverted depths of the ocean of mountain air.

Larger image of Tragopogon dubius is here.

Black Velvet Or Backlight

This tall wraithe of a forest wildflower is Black Cohosh. Like so many other wildflowers that are many times taller than wide, it's a hard one to show off in the best light. Unless, of course, you seek and find the best light.

And that is not all that hard to do along the Blue Ridge Parkway in the morning hours before 10 or afternoon after 3 in the summertime. Shafts of light slanting through the forest selectively illuminate your subject against the black velvet backdrop of unlit shadow, eliminating the busy, distracting blobs of shape and color that leave the eye searching for the picture.

You may have heard of Black Cohosh, if not as a wildflower, as a medication recently in use to treat menopausal symptoms. See this Mayo Clinic report on Black Cohosh. I suppose the drug companies accept wild-collected stock, but haven't heard of people collecting it for cash like they do Galax, Running Cedar, Ginseng and such. I'll have to explore that issue. There's sure plenty of it in the rich woods along the ridges here'bouts.

The larger image does a better job of showing this plant off at its best.

Light and Air

Rude awakening. I sat down at the computer at the usual 4:00 ready to blog my little heart out--so much to show and tell, and just as I was stretching my fingers like a concert pianist before a big recital, an alarm popped up reminding me I have an 8:00 meeting in Floyd this morning. And another, that I have three uncompleted patient evaluations from work to complete before I leave for my meeting. I shoulda stood in bed.

I'd like to ramble in my usual effusive way about this shot taken yesterday within easy ear shot of the Wine Down The Music Trail event just off the Blue Ridge Parkway. But I don't have the luxury of that much time.

Suffice it to say, I risked poison ivy and had the parkway ranger stop and investigate the strange man hunkered down at the edge of the woods, just where the afternoon sunlight gave way to the afternoon shadow.

Take a look at the larger image (different specimen/composition) hand-held (Nikon D200 with 18-200 VR lens) with the wind blowing. It's a wonder you can see any detail at all.

The plant: perhaps more about that tomorrow.

NOTE: Unplanted Gardens Gallery is up, but rather empty. Anyone?

Morning Meadow

She scolds me when I don't stay in lock step on our ramble around the walking loop. But how could I leave such glorious light to bloom unseen? I had to stay behind. This was one of those times when light makes the image, the image in a sense is of the light and certain objects--a half dozen Black-eyed Susans that didn't fall in the pasture mowing--just happen to fall in those misty shafts. Larger image here.

I'll have more images from this same morning of light. But before I forget...

This weekend: busy busy busy! July 7 and 8, Saturday and Sunday, marks two nearby events. The first, the Wine Down the Music Trail festival at the Floyd Fest grounds. We're going on Saturday afternoon.

And nearby, just off the Parkway beyond Mabry Mill is the Crafts in the Meadow Festival at Mountain Meadow Farm and Craft Market, where the motto is "Uniting Southwestern Virginia's Artisans and Craftsmen With Local Heritage Farmers to Preserve the Traditions of Days Gone By."

And on Sunday, along with a half-dozen other authors, I'll be sitting in a lawn chair behind a stack of signed books, fanning myself under the book tent in the heat of the day--there to serve the literature-hungry throngs clamboring for something to read. They'll especially be looking for locally-written slice-of-life memoirish works from Floyd County. Right?

Like a Weed: Forget-Me-Not Part Two

A closer look at our discovery (Part One) reveals the details of this sea of tiny blue flowers, details easily missed from a distance to those too busy for a bugs-eye view. It means getting down on your knees in the wet sand--a small price to pay for such a visual memory.

And among the details of form and color in this closer view of Myosotis scorpiodes is the inflorescence type. A flowering plant's "inflorescence" is the way it holds its flowers on the main and secondary stems. (Great page about flower types is at Wayne's World) This flower (and in fact the flower family to which it belongs) is characterized by this unusual type of flower growth form called a helicoid or scorpoid cyme. (More about that tomorrow in Part Three.) Getting an uncluttered shot to show this took some doing, so I'm especially pleased with this shot.

What I wasn't pleased to learn, however, is that this plant is considered an INVASIVE, primarily of wetlands. As a plant brought here (for aesthetic reasons, most likely) and escaped from cultivation, it spreads readily in places like our sandy creek. Ann spotted it yesterday downstream on her drive to town.

Next Thursday I'll be participating in (and photographing and writing about) a workday on the Blue Ridge Parkway to remove invasives from a parkway wetland area near the VA-NC line. More about that then, of course.

Friday SHoRTs

&tc... This has been a difficult fern to make look nice, because unlike yesterday's featured pteridophyte (Osmunda cinnamomea) that had feather-duster distinct spore-producing separate stalks, this Interrupted Fern (same genus) looks like it forgot what it was doing, interrupting the leafy sterile frond for a few iterations of spore-producing pinnae, then resuming its green photosynthetic tasks.

&tc... Funny how time heals--even very tiny wounds. I'd almost forgotten. In the garden this week, I've been so intent on my planting I haven't dwelt on the stingy itchy spots down next to my scalp and on my arms. I just remember to wear a cap and a long sleeve shirt and go on. But it occurred to me yesterday: hey, these are not your plain vanilla gnats. I've only one or two years before felt that invisible irritation, but never before the middle of June: Noseeums. Biting midges so small you can fit three on the head of a pin. Dang global warming.

&tc... Places of Our Lives: a Visual Essay. That's what I've tentatively titled a program I'll be giving twice in October. The plan is to take three "makes a point" essays and illustrate them with digital images. The chosen pieces are (1) Child's Play: Addressing Nature Deficit Disorder; (2) Calling Them By Name--that encourages folks to learn to identify trees, birds, wildflowers etc as a way of gaining appreciation and respect for our personal environments); and (3)Where I am Married--that talks about sense of place, particularly mine for where we live our lives.)

&tc... I plod with the iPod. Personally, I'd ditch iTunes if I could. I'd expected more of Mac. Even so, I'm manually adding and deleting now, and it's working okay. Yesterday I loaded an mp3 book-on-CD (not exactly a streamlined process but it works) and with my new Sony Earbuds purchased at BestBuy in South Dakota, I'm happy. I also found most of my lost music library on CD's hidden in the wardrobe. I used to take these to work years ago--Beatles, Lettermen, lots of classical stuff, Harry Nilsson. NeoLuddite wife Ann still gives me grief, which I accept, having had lots of practice.

The Seldom Scene

I have a few *pterible images from that Blue Ridge Parkway meadow full of ferns I discovered a couple of weeks back, and will post one or two of my favorites.

As with wildflowers, the first blooms (as if ferns had them) are most attractive. Ferns, in addition to their lacy leafery, often have this seldom-seen "fertile" stage, as in this Cinnamon Fern, when they are busily producing spores by the millions for dispersal in the wind.

As I'm sure you remember from biology class, those spores, against all odds finding favorable soil, can produce a gametophyte, a little heart-shaped leaf that will produce either an egg, or a flagellated, swimming sperm.

Given the necessary film of water between the two (understand why there are no desert ferns?) the multi-tailed sperm swim to the egg along a chemical gradient (they "smell" the egg, in a sense) and voila! a fertilized egg (the sporophyte phase in this "alternation of generations") begins to elongate into what will become a fern frond--either a "sterile" leaf-only frond, or one these fancy feather-duster-looking arrangments (or some variation on the theme generally not as gawdy as this) that is "fertile" and spore-bearing.

Now. You may expect a pop test on this at our next meeting. Do your homework.

*Pteridology is the study of ferns, so if I'm having a pterible day, it means I'm seeing lots of them!

Parkway Wildflowers

I caught a flash of orange-red out of the corner of my eye, off in a morning meadow beside the Blue Ridge Parkway. "California poppy escaped from cultivation" I thought, but pulled off the shoulder anyway, because these small but colorful flowers were nicely backlit against dark morning shadows in stark contrast to the plant's brilliance.

But as I walked closer through the damp grasses and ferns, I could tell this was not poppy, but Indian Paintbrush--an uncommon wildflower in my experience. Here they pose along with Golden Alexander.

The botanically-best thing about the Parkway is that there is almost always a place you can pull over, get out and explore.

And almost anywhere you do that, if you take your time and wander off into the woods, you'll find something of interest.

But remember: the Blue Ridge Parkway, while it is the nation's LONGEST national park, it is in many places only a hundred yards wide, and then, you're on private property. So go with this thought in mind.

The Burning Bush | Flame Azalea

Flame Azalea | Rhododendron calendulaceum | acid soil loving shrub of the southern Appalachians

I had what I would call a successful day in "the field" with the camera the other day--a wonderful couple of hours devoted to stopping whenever, where ever and for how ever long I wanted along the Blue Ridge Parkway to photograph whatever struck my fancy.

My chief objective was to bring back some Flame Azalea pix, but they aren't the easiest flowers in the world to photograph, as I could have better explained to my friend Dennis, on whose porch my parkway excursion for the morning ended.

"What difference does it make if the wind is blowing?" he wanted to know.

While there are several issues photographically, I suppose the greatest challenge with this particular flowering shrub is the depth of an individual flower, what with the three inch exserted stamens; and the globular, one in every direction way the flowers are arranged in the flower cluster, adding the challenge of additional depth--up to maybe six inches across.

Another complicating factor is that it is often difficult to find a cluster or group of clusters in good light, not bobbing in the wind, where ALL the flowers are in bud or flower, without a few brown and droopy spent flowers spoiling the prime-of-life composition.

Set this whole mess of orange or yellow waving along all axes in a 10 mph wind, and it makes for no small task on a cloudy day to get an image in focus without cranking the ISO up into the grainy range (>400 max).

So, here's one of just a couple (true color, actually DEsaturated a bit) with the 18-80 Nikkor and D200. The 18-200 mm lens won't be back from Nikon for at least another week. (Man, I sure am glad somebody talked me into keeping the backup lens!)

Aren't we blessed in these gentle mountains to have Flame Azalea as a common roadside shrub?

There is another fact about this plant I hope to tell, but that will require yet another arduous morning out on the Parkway with my camera. Well, darn. Somebody's gotta do it!

Spring in Passing

The solution to finding the spring we missed while out West: go HIGH young man, go HIGH. (Well, forget the young part.)

The Blue Ridge Parkway is lush with spring wildflowers along its 3000 foot plus ridges, and it took great will power (I caved a couple of times) to keep my appointment at Mabry Mill and Chateau Morrisette yesterday afternoon. Oooh! Black Cohosh, Fire Pink, Pink Geranium. Interrupted Fern--so much more a blur as I sped along to my appointed tasks.

I did pull off a couple of times and wandered down into the woods. I caught myself just before I got down on my knees in my dress pants to get a better view of this patch of Lily of the Valley. I intend to go back right away. The Flame Azalea is almost in full bloom.

More Than Scenery: Viewshed Protection

That we are deeply affected at a gut level by what we take in through our eyes is a given. A picture of an abused animal makes you want to cry, while another image of an injured soldier can make you sick at your stomach.

That we respond viscerally to the view before our eyes is certain. And so there are places we chose to go where what we will see can calm our souls in a world that in too many instances is a "bad scene".

The Blue Ridge Parkway is one such place, and millions of visitors make this aesthetic choice each year. And more and more, when they drive through the Roanoke section of the Parkway, they see that green corridor encroached by man-made structures built to the very edge of the thin boundary of pasture or woods that separates these two worlds.

And they may feel a sinking feeling deep in the pit of their stomachs. A favorite place, once set apart for a different kind of view of the world, is beginning to look like every other common road.

To many, it is appalling that such visual intrusion was not prevented before it ever happened. But there it is: a row of two story homes along a half mile stretch at Milepost 125.5 west of Roanoke. There is talk of a Wal-Mart being built adjacent to the Parkway near Roanoke--unless enough voices are heard to protest it.

Yesterday, the Friends of the Blue Ridge Parkway sponsored a viewshed tree planting to grow a new forest boundary along this short stretch of roadway, and even under the threat of rain on a chilly April day, dozens turned out to help, including these 25 students from nearby Roanoke College.

If you care about what you see along the Parkway, now is the time to make a difference.

Solved!

Maybe: the matter of keeping note card packages sealed (as per your vote a few weeks back) and still letting folks know what's in each pack of five cards.

I am printing two sets of five thumbnails on a single photopaper card the size of the finished notecards. I'll be able to display this "thumbnail sketch" of the two pack contents on the display rack or nearby on the counter. That'll work for now.

In the long run, I'm looking at a dozen sets. We'll worry about the logistics of that when the time comes.

Here's the Note Cards page where you can click for the larger image that includes all ten cards in the first two sets: Floyd County Set #1 and Blue Ridge Parkway Set #.

I'll be picking up the Parkway cards this afternoon, but it will be a week before I can send them out if you send requests by email (see sidebar email link). Order info is on the webpage.

UPDATE: Saturday, April 7 ~ I picked the Parkway cards up yesterday, and if you liked the first batch, these are even better! I am pleased. I expect them to go quickly. I think the next batch of cards will be five that come specifically from Slow Road Home, with the relevant quotes (for Ann's Falls, Winter Walk, Home Economics, etc) on the back of the card. That combination would make a nice gift set, don't you think? (And I'll keep this post up top for a few days during which I'll be posting lite.)

Friday Shorts: April 5

Hmmm. More like Friday Long Woolies. Spring was nice. Remember?

:: First, thanks to Blue Mt Mamma for including two Floydians in her "Thinking Blogger" Awards post this week, after herself being tapped thusly, twicely.

:: Google has made custom map-labeling easy for the common man (or wo- of the same species.) Here's a quick start on a Floyd County map. Come back for updates over the coming weeks. (Serving suggestion: Click HYBRID to show the terrain as well as roads and featured locations.)

:: Did you know that grapes and raisins could be poisonous for dogs? We've been paying more attention to what we feed Tsuga lately, knowing that people foods are not necessarily the best dog foods (though Tsuga protests loudly when I say this.) Last night we fed Tsuga the better part of a whole chicken. Partly because of the scare with processed dog foods. Partly because she thought I would and I thought she would move it from the counter (where it was defrosting for last night's dinner) and the fridge. Ooops.

:: Friends of the BLue Ridge Parkway is sponsoring a viewshed tree planting event near Roanoke, Saturday, April 14 (Step it UP DAY). I'm going to do my best to be there for at least a while. You come, too!

:: Radio Readers: If there are any of you who know visually impaired in the New and Roanoke Valleys of Virginia, let them know they can listen to the author reading Slow Road Home on their special WVTF receiver starting (last official word was) on April 10.

Mayberry, Maybury, Maybrey, Mabry

I get google visits from searches for the popular tourist stop along the parkway that is just barely in Floyd County. I've seen searches with all these spellings.

By most accounts, it is the most photographed single feature along the 469 miles of the Blue Ridge Parkway. From this weekend on til it closes in early November, the parking lot there will be full most weekends--especially Sunday afternoons when we get Carolina heat refugees, probably starting even sooner than usual this very warm year.

Everybody knows how to find it. Not many know how to spell it.

It's Mabry--named after a prominent mill proprietor and his wife by that last name (Ed and Mintoria "Lizzie" Mabry, both born in 1867.)

I became immersed in the Mabry story just about exactly three years ago, "on assignment" for my friend, Elizabeth Hunter, for a story she was doing for Blue Ridge Country Magazine. She needed high resolution photographs of the little white church, Concord Primitive Baptist, where the Mabrys attended; pictures of their tombstones a couple of miles from the mill; and any local color I could scare up to accompany a possible sidebar for the magazine.

My D70 was backordered, and on its way from Thailand. Doug Thompson took pity on me and graciously let me borrow his Nikon D100 for the two days it took going back and forth between Goose Creek and Meadows of Dan to get the shots I needed.

I did get the story, the images, the good memories--and I learned the correct spelling for Mabry Mill at Milepost 176, which by the way, is owned and managed by a resort company in Arizona and NOT the National Park Service.

Here's a link to my post from back in April 2004. And here's a little gallery of a few images from that memorable adventure.

Sharing Some Good News

A few of you reading this have been following this dog and pony show since the early days (five years ago almost to the day). Suffice it to say that when this epic began, the destination was far from certain. In late March, 2002, the handwriting was on the wall, and it bode ill for my professional future.

I knew I would not continue to dig the same hole deeper. Just where I would plant my spade, and what treasure I would find there in the next excavation into the future, I did not know. But I had the strong and abiding notion there was treasure just outside my door, through my window that looks across at our barn and field. But what was it?

The blog started that month, and the mantra "write every day, write from the heart, write what you know" became the first thing in my mind when I awoke every morning.

And four years later, this week of this month last year, the manuscript for Slow Road Home was in the hands of Edwards Brothers, Inc. Soon, 1000 books would arrive on my doorstep.

And yesterday, five years from the inception of Fragments from Floyd, I learned that Slow Road Home - a Blue Ridge Book of Days will be acquired for distribution in all the Blue Ridge Parkway gift shops and book stores along the 469 mile length of the National Park.

The "reach" of the book is extended many-fold by this means of dispersal, and will find a population of readers to whom I very much wanted to speak. This news, for me, is a major encouragement and reassurance. And so, I wanted to let you know just where the slow road has carried us, you and me, here at the five year mark into the unknown.

And what chapter will unfold by this time NEXT early spring?

Hard frost last night. Sky is pinking up. The reflection of the woodstove flames dance orange against the windowpane, framing an utter calm, cold landscape beyond the glass. The barn roof is white, the butterfly bush outside my window limp with ice crystals fringing every curled and faded leaf.

How womblike-the warmth of the stove, the familiar touch of chair and desk, this old flannel shirt I wear as if it were my birth skin. I love this place, so constant, so fully known and at hand. This place: this room, this house, this valley, these mountains, this time in our lives. Especially now, as winter creeps closer and the days grow short, I appreciate the roof overhead, the full stacks of firewood, the canning in the basement and slow moments like this to see our blessings, the ordinary that we too often take for granted.

We can't know what's coming around the bend in the road. But it has been a very nice road, that's for sure.
from the last page of Slow Road Home ~ a Blue Ridge Book of Days

Blue Ridge Parkway Notecards Set #1

Be among the first to see the FIVE cards that were voted to the top by readers of Fragments from Floyd and Nameless Creek.

Thanks for your suggestions, and I hope many of you will want multiple sets of these note cards to use for yourself and to give as gifts.

I expect to have these available to shipping and placing on shelves locally by the first week of April. Please email me (see sidebar) to get your name on the list for first mailing. Please leave shipping information.

Sets will be $10 for five cards and envelopes plus $1 per set for shipping. You can make checks payable to Goose Creek Press. See mailing address at the bottom of this page. (Virginia residents please at state tax of $0.50 per set to keep the governor happy.)

I'll post this link to the Parkway Cards on the sidebar for future reference. But don't delay! Order now while supplies last.

(UPDATE: I have replaced #2 with the Pilot Mountain image on recommendation of one who knows Parkway consumers better than I do. I discovered I couldn't please everybody, but since these will be somewhat targeted toward Parkway travelers, I figured I'd listen to someone representing that population. I'll modify the thumbnails page to reflect the changes--soon.)

Fools Names and Fools Faces

It was not hard to find evidence of Blue Ridge Parkway decline a few weeks back when I went looking for it for the purposes of a Parkway newsletter. Damage from the vagaries of weather--like the two ice storms we've had in the last month--one can to some degree overlook as "acts of God." But the saddest evidence of Parkway decline and abuse was this: graffiti at Rakes Mill Pond dam.

There is, after all, scant risk of being caught by a Park Ranger while in the act. Far too few have far too much territory to patrol to be any kind of threat to vandals and lowlifes with spray paint like Jody.

Do you suppose that people like this carry cases of black spray paint in the trunks of their rust- infested, Bondo-colored vehicles just in case they get the opportunity to become immortalized on an overpass, or even better, at a frequently visited and beautiful place in a national park?

Do you suppose that for Jody this was an act of rebellion, of machismo, or of sheer indifferent disregard that there might be anyone else in the world beside him (or her, as the case may be)?

I sympathize with graffiti in public places to the same extent that I appreciate people rolling down their windows and throwing the remnants of their Happy Meals along our road.

There are just aspects to the human condition and perspective that I simply do not understand. Carrying spray paint for Jody's purposes is certainly well outside my frame of reference. I can only imagine with some satisfaction that, while the park rangers won't catch him, someone else with a badge eventually will.

Our Beleaguered National Parks

The 469 mile long Blue Ridge Parkway is the nation's most visited national park, and yet funding for it has not increased relative to the economy or to other national parks. Consequently, not only the aesthetic experience of travelers is being degraded, but even their safety is at risk.
The is no ASPLUNDH or Department of Transportation to come along after ice storms to pull fallen limbs and toppled trees from the Parkway. Large branches that littered Rocky Knob Campground will make for some good firewood to the first campers, but those limbs and trees also fall on the roadway posing risks for accidents. And there is far too little staff to do this kind of cleanup quickly due to longstanding funding cuts to the Blue Ridge Parkway.
Compare this not-uncommon sagging, rotting or fallen rail fence with the intact fence in the header image. In places, the rail fences are entirely rotted away; of course the farmers whose fields are lined by rail fence don't depend on it to keep their cattle in, and also string at least a single line of barbed wire, as you can see here.

But there is a glimmer of good news: in late January, federal appropriations were made so that the parkway and the Great Smoky Mountains National Park would be able to hire more seasonal workers to run visitor centers, keep roads and trails maintained and continue funding park programs. From the Asheville Times...

The proposed $2.4 billion for national parks, which is a $230 million increase over last year, would send $1.5 million to the parkway and $1.9 million to the Smokies, an 11 percent increase for both parks, the two most visited units in the National Park Service.

"These seasonals will enable us to keep those visitor centers open, providing safety and general orientations to the parkway, and educational and interpretative programming," Francis said.

"And we will be able to keep our facilities clean, roadsides mowed in a better way, our vistas will be in a better shape, and our law enforcement will be able to provide a higher level of visitor services."

Parkway Note Cards

You can start with this one, then click through to number six. Clicking the X at the top of the screen will carry you to the front page and thumbnails for the Parkway Cards gallery. Placing your cursor on each image will remind you of the title of the image.

I'm ready to have another set of note cards printed, five to a set, like last time. Trouble is, I have six images in the folder, and one of them has to go. Can you help me decide?

Deselect ONE, and email or send a comment with your choice, and thanks in advance for your contribution!

And if want to be put on the list for first orders, be sure your email is in your comment, or send me that info to my email addy. Cost will be $10 per set plus $1 postage set, ten cards and envelops. Each card will include the caption text you see in the gallery (or something similar). More, soon.