When George Ellison first started writing nature columns for the Asheville Citizen-Times back in 1986, it was with the assumption that, while he enjoyed such things, reader interest was likely limited and the column would be a short-lived venture. So, when the editor called him in to talk, Ellison was surprised to get not a polite goodbye but promotion to permanent status. The resulting column, “Nature Journal,” is still published today.

Our elementary school primers were populated by robins pulling worms out of holes. They appeared on television screens on Saturday mornings, hopping about in Disney cartoons that represented “the idea of a bird.” We know what a robin looks like in outline, but do we know much about the real thing?

For Danny Bernstein and her husband Lenny, trips south to visit Lenny’s family in Miami Beach are a regular feature of life. They always drive rather than fly, and it didn’t take long to realize that the route brushes near an awful lot of national park units. The couple’s travel routine soon began to include two park visits with each trip — one on the way south and one on the return trip north. 

“As I really dug into it, this was not in and out,” said Danny Bernstein, who lives in Asheville. “It was, we’re going to spend a day and we’re going to do this.”

The evergreen plants and birds that overwinter here in the Southern Appalachians have made fundamental “choices” in how their lives will be governed. Being aware of what those “choices” are provides a better understanding and appreciation of what they’re up to.

Well, I knew it would happen sooner or later. Our house has been invaded by a herd of pygmy rhinoceroses, which is the plural form (I just discovered) of rhinoceros.

A nonprofit nature center ensnared in a foreclosure saga at Balsam Mountain Preserve is one step closer to being evicted.

“Hey buddy, you about ready to come out?” Michael Skinner asks the juvenile broadwing hawk standing in the back of a plastic carrying case. 

Skinner, executive director of the Balsam Mountain Trust and jack of all environmental trades, slowly reaches his gloved hands inside and pulls the raptor out. The bird flaps its brown-and-white wings for a moment but quickly settles down. Skinner sets him atop the cage for a moment, where he sits untethered, surveying the small storage room where Skinner keeps supplies for the nature center’s diverse charges — everything from box turtles to an opossum to a bald eagle.

Homeowners in the high-end Balsam Mountain Preserve development are trying to strike a deal with an investment lender from New York to stop the foreclosure of their community nature center.

By Danny Bernstein • Guest columnist

When I first thought about taking my granddaughter, Hannah, on an outdoor experience, I looked at various intergenerational offerings but realized that she and I would be doing the same activities.

Sipping hot tea while swaddled beside a propane heater, warmth beaming as wind whips snowflakes around the mountaintop outside. A stack of books beside the bed, well-worn titles alongside new adventures, a self-replenishing treasure trove of stories illuminated by kerosene-fueled light. Outside, darkness obscuring what dawn will reveal to be an ocean-like view of mountains upon mountains, frosted with snow and seeming to bow before the 6,594-foot peak of Mount LeConte, the third highest summit in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

It’s a romantic image, an idyll about which a society steeped in virtual reality is still wont to fanaticize. But for the past four winters, those cozy evenings and frostbitten mornings have been J.P. Krol’s life.