Outdoors
The Joyful Botanist: Dog days of winter
While winter walks in the woods can sometimes seem devoid of botanical interest, especially for someone as flower-focused as I tend to be, there are plenty of evergreen plants, shrubs and trees to entice me onto a trail in the dormant season while I await the return of wildflowers.
Up Moses Creek: Bones of Contention
Watching birds is a year-round pleasure for Becky and me — daily to see their beauty and vitality, their aerial acrobatics, their antics and doings that reveal their native smarts. And to make sure there are birds to watch we bait the yard.
The Joyful Botanist: Back into the briar patch
I got stuck thinking about plants in the genus Smilax after writing about them last time out. It is such a great genus of plants, and as I discussed in my last column, most people only see them as a nuisance. I think they might be one rank below yellow jackets (Vespula spp.) and poison ivy (Toxicodendron radicans) as the most despised organisms in the woods.
The Joyful Botanist: A smile for the briars
I get asked questions a lot about plants, nature and the woods. People will walk up to me, take out their phones and show me a picture of a leaf or flower they found on their last hike or growing in their back yard and ask, “Hey Adam, what’s this plant?” I love it when this happens, every time. It brings a big smile to my face and joy to my heart.
Up Moses Creek: ‘Blow wind like you’re never gonna blow again’
On Saturday morning, Dec. 14, Becky reminded me that she was going to hear Darren Nicholson and his band play at the Tuckasegee Trading Company’s annual holiday open house, and she hoped I’d go too.
The Joyful Botanist: A cedar by any other name
When is a cedar not really a cedar? Well, in the case of the evergreen tree that most people know as eastern red-cedar (Juniperus virginiana), that answer is always. This cedar is not truly a cedar. Its common, or folk name is red-cedar, which I’ve also seen written as red cedar. And often people will shorten that to cedar and would assume that it is truly a cedar.
The Joyful Botanist: Happy Holly Days
Editor’s note: This is a re-print of a column that originally ran in 2022.
There are many different plants that Appalachian mountainfolk have used for centuries in their decorations and celebrations on or around the winter solstice.
Up Moses Creek: Cinnamon Bun eats out
A female timber rattler lived inside an old railroad tie beside our back porch last summer, coming out in the afternoons to lie on the steps in the sun. Curled up like that, the snake showed swirls of light brown, with dark-toasted bands, and her scales gave off a sugary glaze, so Becky named her Cinnamon Bun.
The Joyful Botanist: Bogged down in winter
I’ve been getting bogged down a lot this year. I don’t mean that I’ve been in a quagmire or morass necessarily, but I’ve been slogging through some incredibly beautiful wetland ecosystems in the mountains and throughout the southeastern US.
I’ve been bog stomping.
