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586 Search Results for "george ellison"
When they bloom, ‘fall’s a-coming’
Published: 2017-10-04 16:18:36Late summer has slid into early autumn. The end of summer officially arrived with the autumnal equinox of Sept. 23, when the sun crosses the celestial equator. One senses this transition in the cool mist-shrouded mornings we’ve been experiencing of lat...
Read MoreTo free your mind, just get outside and walk
Published: 2017-09-20 15:23:36In the June 14, 2004, issue of The New Yorker magazine, there was an essay titled “Blocked! Why Do Writers Stop Writing?” Therein one of the Romantic poets, Coleridge, was cited as a prime example of a writer who suffered from that peculiar malady kn...
Read MoreLogging has always been dangerous work
Published: 2017-09-06 15:15:17Steam and water-powered sawmills were established here in the Smokies region during the 1870s and 1880s. But full-fledged industrialized logging didn't commence until after the construction of the major railroads was finalized in the 1890s. This opened t...
Read MoreTime to enjoy the bounty of your flower garden
Published: 2017-08-23 16:14:20[Before moving on to the primary subject of this column (yard gardens), I’d like to share some impressions with you of the eclipse, which (as I’m writing this) took place yesterday. For several weeks before the celestial event (as I grew weary of all...
Read MoreCherokee had uses for many local plants
Published: 2017-08-09 16:38:51For the ancient Cherokees and other southeastern Indian tribes, the greatest causes of illness were the spirits of vengeful animals. They were so angered at the killing of their brethren by hunters they convened a great council and devised human illnesse...
Read MoreWhat’s a naturalist?
Published: 2017-07-26 14:58:32Trying to answer that question, the first source I resorted to was, of course, the Oxford English Dictionary. Therein I encountered the following clues, none of which seem unlikely: . 1612 R. Carpenter — “Those blasphemous truth-opposing Heretikes, a...
Read MoreThe day lily is a beautiful, hardy outlander
Published: 2017-06-28 15:54:18How many naturalized plants do you recognize from your vehicle this time of year as you drive around taking care of business? My guess is that it’s more than you might anticipate. By “naturalized,” I mean those that were deliberately introduced as ...
Read MorePerhaps ‘possums are figuring it out
Published: 2017-06-14 15:05:27I bless my lucky stars that I’m a columnist assigned the pleasant task of writing about this region’s natural and human history. At a time when the constitutional underpinnings of this nation are eroding at an alarming rate due to the irrational and ...
Read MoreA blemish by any other name
Published: 2017-05-31 16:53:37Systems of mature trees and shrubs are covered with blemishes that signal age: cankers, seams, burls, butt scars, sterile conks, and protrusions in the form of bracket fungi. . Cankers are diseases in which lesions caused by a wide range of fungi and bac...
Read MoreThe honest little bird
Published: 2017-05-17 15:52:29On one level, the natural history of a region consists of its terrain, habitats, plants, animals and how they interrelate. I also believe that no full understanding of the natural history of a region can be realized without coming to terms with its spiri...
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