Word from the Smokies: 'Gradient of spring' offers opportunity for exploration

By the third week of April, spring is in full bloom throughout the picturesque valleys of Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

Feeling the forest: Forest therapy offers opportunity for restoration

With my eyes closed, I can’t see the patchwork of brown leaves and fallen twigs covering the forest floor before me, the pale green lattice of lichen peppering the trunks of upward-reaching trees, or the waters of Fisher Creek rushing over a bed of weathered rocks.

2023 A Look Back: ‘That’s so Metal’ Award

This one goes to the Pigeon River, due both to the actual metals found in a sampling site along its bank and to the very metal way its fish populations have rebounded after the Canton paper mill shut down in June. 

Kaleidoscope of creativity: Haywood artisan offers her craft onstage, on the wall

Performer. Writer. Director. Instructor. Photographer. 

Wildfires a reminder of Nature’s power

A severe drought. A moderate but steady wind that’s coming from the north and very dry. Parched leaves swirling everywhere. 

It’s time to grab your hardhat

To the Editor:

As yellow falling leaves and cool, dry air are floating into the mountains, it signals to knowledgeable residents that it’s time to look up.

Notes from a plant nerd: I see ghost flowers

This time of year, as the wind rustles the leaves and the shadows begin to elongate as the sun lingers lower on the horizon, the veil between the worlds seems to grow thinner and thinner.

Notes from a plant nerd: A jewel among wildflowers

Among my favorite plants to teach to children is jewelweed (Impatiens capensis & I. pallida).

Up Moses Creek: ‘It’s a Wild World’

I hiked up the ridge behind our house early one July morning and saw an eastern box turtle with a millipede in its mouth.

Kids science program expands to Cherokee

A Cherokee Preservation Foundation grant awarded in March is allowing the N.C. Arboretum’s ecoEXPLORE program to deliver monthly environmental programming for kids at locations throughout Cherokee.

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