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The ultimate revenge: yellow jacket soup
Published: 2013-08-07 13:28:14The yellow jackets are back. They inundated my home office this morning. First they gnawed through the ceiling from a nest site that allows access under the eaves. . We sprayed them. The spray made them drunk with anger. Real honest-to-goodness anger. In...
Read MoreNuts about acorns
Published: 2013-07-31 18:02:39Acorns are elegant. They are one of our most beautiful fruits, sometimes produced in such numbers by the varied oak species here in the Smokies region that we tend to take them for granted. This year, however, may be a down year for acorn production. At ...
Read MoreThe peculiar grace of the mink
Published: 2013-07-31 16:40:11“On a morning in October, when a light mist hung over the pond, a mink appeared following this path beside the water’s edge. It ran in little spurts this way and that, alert, intense, tracing a weaving trail, turning aside, disappearing, reappearing,...
Read MoreAnother eventful day in Bryson City
Published: 2013-07-31 14:31:32The whistle of the excursion train on the far side of the river shrieked three times. From where I sat in the graveyard on the knoll overlooking Bryson City, I could see tourists waving from their windows the way travelers never do when departing on a tr...
Read MoreIn search of ‘White Lightnin’: Moonshine in Southern Appalachia
Published: 2013-07-31 13:42:47It was the only thing he knew how to do. It was the only thing he wanted to do. Marvin “Popcorn” Sutton was a moonshiner, through and through. Meandering the thick woods surrounding Maggie Valley, and points beyond in Southern Appalachia, Sutton gain...
Read MoreA beech for winter
Published: 2013-07-26 16:23:26“... the mellowing year marks its periods of decline with a pageantry . of hues so varied that it is, as Walt Whitman said, `enough to make the colorist go delirious.’ Here in the forests of the Blue Ridge, where well over a hundred kinds of native d...
Read MoreCold weather and deep sleepers
Published: 2013-07-26 13:48:19This past weekend’s sudden drop in overnight temperatures into the high 20s (26 degrees and 28 degrees Fahrenheit, respectively, at our place near Bryson City) was unprecedented in our experience. That is, during the 33 years my wife, Elizabeth, and I ...
Read MoreThe landscapes of our lives
Published: 2013-07-25 20:41:00By Michael Beadle Shafts of sun pierce through a misty forest. A thick river of fog rolls through ancient mountains. Plump sparrows perch on a bare branch thin as tin foil. . These are the images Elizabeth Ellison likes to savor and share. After more tha...
Read MoreAncient animals of the Blue Ridge
Published: 2013-07-25 20:30:20Names of places throughout the Blue Ridge country pay tribute to the familiar wildlife of the region: Bear Wallow Stand Ridge, Beaverdam Creek, Buck Knob, Fox Gap, Wild Boar Creek, Coon Branch, Wildcat Cliffs, Possum Hollow, Polecat Ridge, Raven Rocks, B...
Read MoreInterrupting irruptives
Published: 2013-07-25 19:17:50Some winters there will be an influx of northern bird species into the southeastern United States. Here in the Smokies region of Western North Carolina, it’s been a few years since this has happened. Early reports indicate that this winter could be an ...
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