Lazy Day

I took it easy yesterday. I bought a plastic strainer so that I can search for minerals and fossils in local creeks. Just a simple plastic colander. Yesterday was the first time I've tried using this method to look for stuff, and I didn't spend a lot of time messing around with it. But I did find a nice piece of white quartz. If I can find enough decent stones I may drag out my father-in-law's old tumbler and lapidary stuff and polish them up.

Spent a little time there on Gar Creek. The most interesting things I saw were animal tracks. Some were quite fresh. In fact, I think the deer had just passed by before I got there. I saw some fox tracks, but they were so faint that I couldn't get good images of them with the camera.

Since the creek was near my wife's family church I drove over to clean up the grave site where her father and brother are buried. There wasn't much to do beyond pulling up some stray tufts of grass and brushing off the headstone.

Then I headed back where I checked on the backyard hemlocks and am very pleased to see that there has been no new sign of the wooly adelgid infestation. The insecticide I treated them with last year seems to have completely killed off the hwa. I used both a spray application and soil drench. I think I killed off the little scumbags for good. From what I understand, the hemlocks shouldn't need another treatment for a few years. I'll keep my eyes peeled to make sure.

Gar Creek. Didn't find much. I'll try again another day.

I think the deer had just passed by. (Water was slowly filling the tracks when I found them.)

Raccoon tracks. I also spotted some little gray fox tracks but they were too faint to photograph effectively.

One last look at Gar Creek before I walked back to the truck.

 

Cleaned off the Henderson family plot.

Checked on the back yard hemlocks. So far, they seem to be completely free of hemlock wooly adelgid.

Killing Bugs, Shopping Goats, Washing Trailer

Easter Sunday was spent with family, as always. Andy, Carole and I headed out to Carole's mom's place to eat dinner and take care of a few errands and go for a quick trip.

The dinner was also--as usual--satisfying and memorable. After that we drove over to one of Faye's friends who has a big farm with lots of animals, including a bunch of goats. One thing that Carole and I want to do when we retire is to adopt a pair of those miniature goats. So we decided to go look at the ones at the farm even though they're not the type we want to get in a few years.

The farm was a lot of fun. It's always interesting to be around domesticated animals. In this case we met two horses, a burro, a Labrador retriever, and a butt-load of goats.

After the trip to the farm, we headed back home where I treated the two hemlock trees with Imadacloprid, the best insecticide for getting rid of the Hemlock wooly adelgid. As I reported in an earlier post the horrid bugs finally found our pair of thriving hemlocks and have infested them. So I bought enough poison in solution to both drench the bottom branches and also to apply to the soil at the base of the trunks so that the roots can absorb the poison up into the tree to kill the little monsters when they begin to draw the sap from the hemlock needles.

I hope it works. I've been told it's quite effective.

With that done, I tackled washing the Casita travel trailer. We're going on a short jaunt with it into the mountains this coming weekend so I needed to get her into traveling shape for the journey.

Friendly horse. We fed her carrots.

They keep the burro in the paddock with the goats because they say it protects the flock from coyotes. We fed the tiny burro carrots, too.

Andy feeding carrots to the goats.

Can you say "pregnant"? This ewe looked ready to pop!

The boss billy goat. Two of the ewes were fighting and he got between them and broke it up.

The "wool" produced by the almost-invisible Hemlock wooly adelgid. These tiny insects have finally found my back yard hemlocks. But I treated them with a heavy dose of Imadacloprid. Hopefully, the treatment will kill the horrible invasive aphids in quick order.

Got the Casita cleaned up. I like to take a photo of her every Spring sitting under the blooming dogwood. I think the flowers should be all fully open by Thursday when I'll take another shot.

Birthday. Casita. Hemlock plague?!

Carole and I rode out to her mom's today to celebrate her birthday. Carole's actual birthday was a couple days back, but both of us were so sick with some kind of bug that we couldn't celebrate it. So, today we headed out. Her mom treated us to dinner out and then we went to the house for cake. Later, we messed about with the Casita trailer. Carole vacuumed and cleaned and restocked some of the shelves. I got out the generator to tune it up and get it running. Today, it ran great! That was a relief. It has not given us any trouble after almost ten years!

The last thing I did was go check on the backyard hemlock trees. I examine them every time I'm there and up until now they have been free of the Hemlock wooly adelgid plague that is driving the species to extinction. But today...looks like one of the trees is stricken! Just a few days ago there was no sign at all. And today several of the branches had what looks like adelgid infestation.

However, there was something about the hemlock wool that did not look right. I took some of the wool off the tree and examined it. A kind of brown residue was left on my fingers which was something I'd never witnessed when examining adelgid wool in the past. Is it something else? If it is hwa, then I will of course treat both trees against it with one of the nicotinoid insecticides that are proven to kill hwa.

The cake.

The birthday girl!

Getting stuff ready in the Casita. First trip is still some weeks away.

I powered up the Honda generator and plugged in the trailer.

Has Hemlock wooly adelgid finally located our hemlock trees?!

Helton Creek Falls: Hemlock holocaust.

Somehow I had managed to never see Helton Creek Falls during the years when I lived in the north Georgia mountains. It's a spectacular waterfall and I'm glad I finally got to see it. But I had mixed emotions viewing this very beautiful spot.

As I climbed down into the gorge the first thing that hit me was that I was walking in bright, direct sunlight when I should have been walking under a forest canopy. Looking all around--in every direction--I realized that this very steep and rugged gorge had housed a luxurious and probably old growth forest of hemlock trees.

And, of course, if you've been following this blog for very long you will know what has become of our native hemlock trees. This particular location was especially distressing. There was not a living hemlock there of any consequential size. I could see large hemlocks lying dead just about everywhere I cast my gaze. All victims of the invasive pest, the Hemlock wooly adelgid.

Since this spot is a very popular location for tourists to visit, the Forest Service has come in and felled most of the dead hemlocks. On the far side of the creek and well away from the falls there are some very big old hemlocks still standing, but very dead and all the more depressing for their size and stature. If only the people who control the purse strings had decided that saving places like this was more important than the things upon which they squander our national treasure.

The sign at the parking lot.

Some of the grand old giants are still standing. Dead, of course, but standing.

My first view of the falls as I hiked down the trail.

The Forest Service has had to go in and clear the dead trees nearest the trails to keep them from falling on visitors.

When I first got to the falls, I thought that this was the whole lot. Until I noticed the trail leading up and followed it.

The lower section of Helton Creek Falls.

There's some very nice infrastructure at the falls.

This falls has a great plunge pool for swimming!

The upper section of the falls.

Backyard Hemlocks

The two hemlock trees that were transplanted in the back yard of my in-laws' home are doing well. These two were brought from the Mills Creek area of North Carolina where there are pretty much no living hemlocks, at all. So my late father-in-law managed to save a tiny portion of those groves when he grabbed those saplings from the forest and brought them back for his yard.

At one time there were three, but the center tree didn't make it. The two others, however, are still thriving. I'm lucky never to have forgotten what it's like to see healthy hemlock trees, because I can go see this pair just about any time I wish.

Every time I visit them I check to see if there is any sign of hemlock wooly adelgid. So far, none have shown. If they ever do, I'll immediately treat the trees with the appropriate insecticide.

Good, lush, green growth.

Under the hemlock canopy. In some places, black bears would den under the overhanging branches of hemlock trees. As the snow would collect on the needles, the area around the trunks would become sheltered, like small rooms.

So Green They're Black.

The reason the Black Mountains got their name is because of the cloak of balsam trees (Fraser firs) that clothed their bulk in the days before Europeans arrived on the scene and scoured the peaks clear of the timber. The trees were so green and so lush on the ridges that from a distance these greatest of eastern summits appeared to be black.

Some two decades ago, the Black Mountains were in the worst phase of a double curse of acid rain and an invasive pest, the Balsam wooly adelgid. The pollution and the insect coupled to all but denude the Black Mountains of the balsam forests that had pretty much recovered from the late 19th and early 20th century timber operations (another story of wanton destruction). On my first visit to Mount Mitchell and the Blacks, I was greeted by scenes of devastation with no forests and only small trees struggling amid vast stands of bleached snags standing on the slopes and peaks.

These days, the balsam trees seem to be recovering well. There is not as much acid rain because of industrial regulations. And the wooly adelgid could be gone, having exhausted the source of food that had fed them. However, we probably won't know if the pest is truly gone for a while. Unlike the hemlock wooly adelgid which can attack any hemlock tree, young or old, the balsam wooly adelgid is dependent on gaining access via troughs that appear in the bark of older balsam trees. Thus, younger trees are immune to the depredations of the insect and only mature trees fall. We have some years more to wait to see if they're still lying dormant, lurking to wreck the forests again.

Going through my photos of the hike, I am reminded of the toughness and diversity of the route. If you're in decent shape, you should really tackle this trail!

Big Tom is a peak that is named for a particularly rapacious bear hunter who, in his lifetime, killed over 100 black bears in the Black Mountains. Fortunately, he's good and dead now.

Looking down into lower elevations that have hardwoods instead of fir trees.

The farther away from the parking lot, the less engineering there is to the trail. This far in, there are still stairs in spots, even if they're of available timber instead of rock.

In a few spots the park service has installed bolts and durable ropes to negotiate what would otherwise be Class II and Class III scrambling. The last time I hiked this trail, these ropes were not in place.

Red spruce trees all around.

A gnarly old tree along the trail.

As you can see, the balsam trees have recovered well. Walking along you are immersed in the scent of Christmas trees!

Sign along the trail as it passes over Cattail Peak.

This is the spot where I had my lunch. A nice log to lean back on while I had my sandwich, and water, and cookies. It was very peaceful and quiet, except for a brief moment when four other hikers passed by, one of them a babbling fool who would not shut the fuck up.

The place is green, and I was reminded of how much moisture these peaks get.

So green that mosses grow almost everywhere. When it isn't actually raining or snowing here, then the peaks are drenched in the dew from the vast clouds that pass over the tops of these highest mountains in the East.

Here, on Potato Hill, I took a video from the high point. You can hear the blathering hiker in the background. This group had decided to stop and eat lunch right in the middle of the freaking trail. We're talking about a very steep and very narrow trail and it was exceedingly difficult to get past these rude assholes. I grinned through it all, but was very happy when I encountered them one final time and they were gone from my life for-fucking-ever.

Continued tomorrow....

Old Growth Forests.

When I can't get into the forests and mountains, or out to a river, I have to dwell there in memories. Here, then, are some images from a bushwhack Andy Kunkle and I made into the Pisgah National Forest in 2011 to locate a grove of old growth hardwoods. (There were once grand old hemlocks there, but those are all dead now from infestation of the Asian pest, Hemlock wooly adelgid.)

The diversity of the hardwood trees is phenomenal. However, all of the hemlocks are dead and only their standing corpses remain.

A typical large Tulip poplar in the forest.

This area was the first National Forest in the USA. It was the initial tract of land that became what we know now as the Pisgah National Forest.

Classic Southern Appalachians

A great waterfall known simply as "The Cascades". Despite the fact that the spot is often crowded during warmer months (when we were there), I like it. It's classic southern Appalachian territory with great cove hardwood forests, rushing streams, and familiar wildlife.

We'll go back.

Familiar territory for me.

The hemlock wooly adelgid has been active in this area for a long time, and so there are almost no living hemlocks remaining. That component of the lush forests is now gone. The remaining hemlocks are just huge, dead snags with a few living saplings scattered here and there throughout the forest.

The local streams are full of dead hemlocks.

A tiny flying insect of some type was busy down in this little blossom.

Butterflies were common on the trail.

Great stream to go with the classic Appalachian terrain.

Our reward for the short hike: One of Virginia's greatest waterfalls and also one of its finest swimming holes.

The author takes a self-portrait.

From above. A highly recommended hike.

Sensoria

I'll be appearing in March at CPCC's Sensoria 2012.
They asked me for a brief bio to post here and there in some of their publications. So this is what I sent them:

Bio

James Robert Smith was born in Georgia in 1957. Currently he lives in North Carolina with his wife and son and three cats. He works full time in his day job as a laborer and in the evenings as a published author. He has sold more than sixty short stories to a host of magazines and anthologies. Smith has also written for various comic book publishers, including Marvel Comics. His first novel, THE FLOCK, was published in 2006 by Five Star Books and reprinted in 2010 by Tor/Forge Books. The film option to that book was picked up by Don (TRANSFORMERS) Murphy through Warner Brothers and is making its way to the screen. His second novel, THE LIVING END was published in 2011 by Severed Press. His third novel, THE CLAN (a sequel to THE FLOCK) was also sold to Tor Books and is forthcoming later in 2012.

Upcoming novels and collections include HISSMELINA a Lovecraftian horror novel set in the mountains of North Carolina, FOUR FROM MANGROVE a collection of sword and sorcery tales, A CONFEDERACY OF HORRORS a collection of Smith’s horror stories, and THE LOST CHILD a novel of the supernatural (also set in North Carolina).

His websites can be viewed at www.jamesrobertsmith.net and www.hissmelina.com and http://tilthelasthemlockdies.blogspot.com/.

Taken in the Pisgah National Forest on a hunt for old growth forests. I got hit really hard with poison ivy on this bushwhack. Which is my fault for not wearing the legs on my convertible pants. This was in the very first block of forests ever created for the National Forest system we now know. It protected a large expanse of old growth trees on and around Mackey Mountain. Of course the hemlocks are now all dead due to the invasive hemlock wooly adelgid, but the hardwoods are still there.