When my son, now grown, was about 9 or 10, he queried me one summer day about the foamy bubbles in the tall grass of a meadow above the house.

Hog Holler, Hog Branch, Hog Camp Branch, Hog Cane Branch, Hog-eye Branch, Hogback Gap, Hogback Holler, Hogback Knob, Hogback Ridge, Hogback Township, and Hogback Valley in addition to six sites in Western North Carolina named Hogback Mountain. Proof enough, if anyone required it, that hogs have been an essential part of the mountain landscape.

It’s mid-June again … the time of the year when certain plants can be relied upon to do their thing in our yard and on the decks that enclose the house on three sides. Yuccas, oak-leaf hydrangeas, spiderworts, coral vines, various ornamental lilies and roses, and others are in full bloom. But none of these can hold a candle to the trumpet vine.

Certain questions inevitably pop up during plant identification outings. One has to do with whether or not eastern hemlock trees are poisonous.

A friend of mine who is a veteran backcountry explorer in the Smokies sent a recent email to me and others in which he noted that various lodges and hotels associated with the Great Smoky Mountains National Park “would make a good topic for a book … including such locations as the Wonderland in Elkmont, the original Cataloochee Ranch, the Swag, the ones at Tremont, below the Chimneys Picnic Area, and on the Tuckaseegee at Canebrake, as well as the one up on the Thomas Divide and the old Mountain View in Gatlinburg. I am sure there are many others but those are just the ones I can think of.”

For awhile everything was in control. But that didn’t last. It never does. Once again my books are in total disarray. I can spend hours looking for a book I should find in a few minutes. The only good thing about this situation is that it provides an opportunity to re-shelve my books. And it gives me an excuse to reread Larry McMurtry’s books about books.

“The cascading, four foot, doubly-compound leaves of devil’s walking stick, bunched near the end of long crooked thorny stems reaching as tall as 20 feet, give this plant a decidedly tropical look — it’s a plant that might fit in nicely on the set of Jurassic Park.

Unfortunately, more undeserved prejudice exists about bats than any other animal, except, of course, serpents. 

In European lore, vampires (a word derived from the Serbian “wampir”) were bloodsucking ghosts, dead men’s souls that siphoned blood from sleeping victims.

Purple rhododendron is the most admired flowering plant in the Southern Appalachians. Ginseng is the most celebrated medicinal plant. And ramps are the most sought-after culinary plant — a fact that has led to its overharvesting in the wild.

As I write this on Tuesday morning there are five or so inches of snow covering the ground outside my window. The forecast on the Internet is for more snow. By Thursday there may be upwards of 10 inches. 

My wife and I protect ourselves from the elements by having an artificial structure (our house) to live in. We can put on additional clothing. We keep the woodstove in the living area stoked up. Bedroom, bathroom, and office doors can be closed so as to maintain warmth in the living area. Soup is simmering in a crock pot. This is our version of hunkering down.