Category: Uncategorized

On March 10, it was sunny and a beautiful day to walk with your friends or family, but what’s even more beautiful is having a good time, discover more species and plants that bloom out toward the sun, and Spring season is here. As I walk on the pathway it felt so good to walk again not like the last time when it was cold and I felt really sick mainly my headache worse, but hey from the past, and good to start my first blog. As I mention walking through the pathway, there is a different specific area of the pathway or trail whatever you call it like the pathways are used to allow the visitors access and help protect plants the selection from stepping. The reason that because plants are sensitive and delicate. But enough about pathway which I’ll talk about it at another time. Nevertheless, Spring season is here already which I love and flowers started to bloom out beautiful, colorful, and good smell too, the species of animals started to come out as well fewer. As I kept walking looking around anything that surprised or interest me to see plants or animals, but in my mind when I think of the word “Spring” means is a time of renascence, revival, and enlightenment. The spring season is one of the majority wonderful seasons in humankind. This time of year, it’s a great opportunity to enjoy nature’s beauty and experience its rich diversity. As I walk I can hear the mini waterfall sounds like it went swoosh-plunk and hiss plop even with a force that moves fast at the stream. As I sat down on the branch I can hear a bird sound like a cheep note on a tree, so I went close, slowly, and quietly I started to take notes on my journal to make an observation. Technically it was a house sparrow bird, to describe its small, plain buffy-brown overall with dreary gray-brown underparts and the stripes on the back bird is buff, black, and brown which the gender is a female yeahhhhh lucky me. It was a beautiful sound and adorable cute bird. But I want to know more about the activities and significance in the spring season at Bog Garden back in the day and actually, in my research source, it said: ” The spring season also brings heavy rains that cause erosion of the paths, creeks, and can damage some of the more tender spring ephemeral plants of the Garden collections. The paths can also suffer significant impact from groups and some of the steeper and muddier paths will occasionally need to be closed to tour traffic.” Very interesting and that makes sense for safety, but also another important to check safety plants environment like it said “Early spring is also the time to check the canopy for dead branches hanging over areas frequented by people and they should be removed if considered a hazard.  If a tree is dead and needs to be removed, leave the lower 12 feet standing as a snag if it is not dangerous. Trim back shrub and tree limbs that grow out into the path.  This will need to check each season. Spray or dig A. italicum. There are also repairs to paths, path edges, bridges, and other garden infrastructure.” I understand that plants need to be careful and treated when it comes to seasonal Spring where it blooms, extra care, making sure smells good, and so on. Spring is the best and beautiful season even gardens are nurtured by a strong community.

The predominant trees include: Black Cherry, Sycamore, River Birch, and Box Elder.

The Black Cherry tree is a deciduous tree that grows all along the Eastern side of the North American continent. It can grow up to 25 to 110 feet tall. It is aromatic and has white drooping flowers. It has dark red fruit. Its foliage and bark when crushed have a distinctive cherry-like odor and bitter taste. Its wood is used for furniture, paneling, professional and scientific instruments, handles, and toys. The bark can be used to make wild cherry syrup that acts as a cough medicine. Jelly and wine can be made from the fruit. The fruit may be edible but the rest of the plant can be toxic because of the cyanide-forming toxic compounds, like amygdalin, found in this tree. The tree was also one of the first “New World” trees brought back to England as early as 1629. It is now highly invasive there and in northern South America.

The American sycamore tree is a wide-canopied, deciduous tree. It can grow up to 75-100 feet tall and has a massive trunk. Its canopy is made up of an open crown of huge, crooked branches and is classified as a shade tree. Larger and older sycamores lose some of the bark at their tops to reveal the smooth, whitish inner bark. The wood can be used for furniture parts, millwork, flooring, and specialty products.

The River Birch tree grows along rivers. It is also used for landscapes and can be planted almost anywhere in the US. It can withstand wetness and some draught and grows quickly. It has unique curling bark and spreading limbs. It works well to lessen erosion along stream banks. Songbirds enjoy the seeds. Deer eat the foliage. The wood was previously used for ox yokes, wooden shoes, or other farm products. They were not logged much because the wood is knotty and spindly.

The Box Elder is native to all states in the US. It is in the maple family but has compound leaves like an elderberry. The tree is often described as ugly and weedy. The tree is very adaptable and grows easily. Its wood is soft and has no commercial value. They stabilize stream banks and shelter wildlife, but in urban areas they are thought of as weeds. The trees germinate very easily and will spread, but they also have brittle and weak wood that makes them easily broken in wind and ice storms. They can grow in most soils but prefer it to be either dry or wet.

The greenway has many Box Elders and River Birches. There are much fewer Sycamores and Black Cherries. The Box Elders are very scraggly trees and have lots of little branches going in all sorts of directions. They are not beautiful trees. However, they do their job along the river banks to keep the erosion down. Reading about each of these trees, the interesting things that stand out are the descriptions of the uses for these trees in the past. They all have some element that was used or at least tried to use but humans. I think it is apparent in the amount of each tree there is along the greenway. The Box Elder is the most plentiful and most are big and beat up which correlates to it being very unfavorable to use by humans. They have been left alone more to hold up the bank, but also because there is not much reason to cut them down other than their unfavorable appearance. Nevertheless, appearance is often important to humans, so they have probably also been cut down previously simply because a human wanted a better view.

Source Links

https://www.wildflower.org/plants/result.php?id_plant=prse2

https://www.nashvilletreefoundation.org/blog/2019/11/5/tree-profile-box-elder-acer-negundo

https://www.wildflower.org/plants/result.php?id_plant=ploc

https://www.arborday.org/trees/treeguide/treedetail.cfm?itemID=792

https://www.gardeningknowhow.com/ornamental/trees/maple/boxelder-maple-trees.htm

The trees are magnificent standing guard over the old colonial, they are huge and dense evergreens with boughs and limbs draping to the orange soils of the farm. There are three of them, huge Magnolia grandiflora, or bull bay, more commonly known as the southern magnolia. They bloom creamy white saucer shaped flowers up to nine inches wide. They are native to North Carolina and are found south to Florida and west to Texas and Oklahoma. They have large dark green leaves that can be eight inches long and five inches wide with hard and heavy timber. The magnolia has been used to make furniture and veneer for doors and cabinets. But these trees, these three trees, they are special.

As a small boy I remember sitting on my grandfather’s lap one evening. I was on a sleep over at the farmhouse he shared with my grandmother and I had crawled onto his lap while my grandmother cleared the dishes and fixed us all a small bowl of peaches for dessert. The sturdy upholstered chair held us both with ease as it sat squarely on the braided rag rug that wound around the living room. I was sitting sideways on his lap looking up under his chin playing with his waddle. He took my hand, stopping my play, and told me he was having Déjà Vu. He may not have used that term, I was too young to have known its meaning, but he might have, because in a way, he did not seem to be talking just to me.

He told me of sitting on his grandfather’s lap when he was a boy, much like we were doing that summers eve. He was playing with the skin of his grandfather’s throat where a wicked red scar raced across the side of his neck. His grandad told him he that back in the war he was fighting a Yankee, firing back and forth with a blue coat hiding across a small draw in a hardwood forest, all the while using a White Oak for cover. He stepped out to fire his muzzle loader and was struck in the neck by a musket ball. He was imprisoned in Pt Lookout, Maryland and walked home to that old colonial after the war.

My grandfather was rubbing that scar in his mind’s eye, while I was rubbing his neck in my Grandmother’s living room.

Late in 1865, after the Civil war the family story goes, a walking confederate soldier came to the house seeking food and shelter. My great great grandfather Thomas Foushee Hogan was there recovering from his grievous wound, but he gave generously food and let him camp and rest. The soldier was so appreciative of the care and help, he planted magnolia seedlings in the front yard, Johnny Appleseed style. Three tiny Magnolia grandiflora were put in the ground that day 156 years ago and I am here to tell you they are huge now. They provide care and shelter to the old colonial as they shade the home from the western sunset.

3/14/2021 Although we are constantly surrounded by plants, they are living things that are easily overlooked since they don’t move, they simply exist, and they are abundant. I am extremely interested in botany so I pride myself as someone who notices the plants most people ignore. I take walks on my farm, the trails breaching the borders of several different kinds of environments, from wetlands and streams, to forested areas, to pastures, and stop at every new plant, snap a picture and then identify it once I get back to the house. I have since learned a large collection of different plants and fungi, from beautiful showy flowers and bushes, to more subtle but still fascinating plants all of which reside on my farm in Southern Virginia.

During the fall I took a lot of walks and I quickly noticed a few plants that stood out. Strawberry bush was one I had never seen before. It immediately caught my attention since the fruiting bodies are bright fuschia with hanging orange seeds that are just as beautiful as a flower and don’t resemble anything I can think of, they are just strange structures. The Strawberry bush I found was spindly without leaves and around 6 ft tall. The fruiting bodies almost resemble christmas ornaments.

Throughout the summer there were, of course, the showy flowers like Black Eyed Susans, Queen Anne’s Lace, Goldenrod, and Milkweed, but one day when walking in the forest, the heat suffocating, I noticed a funky looking flower that resembles those carnivorous flowers you think only appear in tropical rainforests\. It was Jack in the Pulpit, a pitcher shaped flower that attracts flies for pollination and sports bright red berries tucked away on the forest floor, hidden away by its three large leaves. I would have missed it if not for the deep dark purple stripes going from the top to the bottom of the flower.

There are also tons of medicinal plants on my farm, such as Mountain Mint which can be good for menstrual cycle regulation, a plant that has the distinct menthol smell and taste of every mint plant, and it prefers to grow along the edge of our forests. I can spot it from far away as the leaves are sometimes covered in a silvery powder and have delicate purple flowers that bees love. Another plant with silvery leaves is Jewelweed, a very well known “cure” for poison ivy. It’s much more delicate than the sturdy mountain mint, and prefers moist environments right next to streams. In the spring, delicate  spotted orange flowers bloom that attract butterflies. The cool thing about Jewelweed, is that if you try to dunk it in water, there is a coating on each leaf that repels water like a solid silvery force field. It also has spring loaded seeds that shoot at you if you brush up against them like miniature cannons.

Lastly we have invasive plants. The plants that takeover with very little control, plants like Thistle or Johnson grass, the bane of my Mom’s existence, that have large seed heads and deep tap roots making it impossible to kill and stay killed, because if you leave even one tiny piece of tap root you are going to see it again in a few months. The tap roots can go a foot or more in the ground and usually break off if you try to pull them. The grass towers above your head, and yes, it is beautiful, with the purple tint and sturdy stem and the beautiful sound it makes when it sways in the wind, or thistle which creates a beautiful pink flower, although not conventionally beautiful, and painful to touch because of the thorns, it is not worth keeping, because once you have it, it won’t go away. Sometimes I wish I was as persistent as Johnson grass.

Glaettli, Repp. Piedmont Native Plants: a Guide for Landscapes and Gardens. Piedmont Natives, 2013. https://static1.squarespace.com/static/58e25c41e6f2e17ea4cb7766/t/5c7e9fdceef1a1aa5076c56b/1551802341422/Piedmont+Native+Plant+Guide+-+April+2016.pdf 

Mahr, Susan, Written by. “Jewelweed, Impatiens Capensis.” Wisconsin Horticulture, hort.extension.wisc.edu/articles/jewelweed-impatiens-capensis/. 

TWC, Staff. “Euonymus Americanus.” Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center – The University of Texas at Austin, 2018, www.wildflower.org/plants/result.php?id_plant=euam9. 

TWC, Staff. “Arisaema Triphyllum.” Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center – The University of Texas at Austin, 2013, www.wildflower.org/plants/result.php?id_plant=artr. 

3/14/2021

Exploring the woods around the airport I found a big rock. Not at all a small rock but a big one. I knew it was in the woods to the east of the airport hangar, I remembered it from my childhood. Our family always called it the Big Rock. So I went looking for it.

I had always assumed and imagined the Big Rock traveled a great distance from the north on the back of a glacier whose icy tentacle placed it just so, then left it to cook in the Piedmont heat like a lump of sourdough, before racing back north, melting in the rising heat.

Boy was I wrong.

I spoke with a friend of mine who studied archeology in graduate school and showed him the Big Rock. When I shared with Chris Senior my suspicions of how the Big Rock got here, its imaginative journey, he did a big eye roll.  “No Don, the glaciers did not come this far south. This rock has been pushed up from below.” Evidently the big granite bolder was part of molten rock way below our feet and pushed up by volcanic activity hundreds of millions of years ago. And, he went on to say that likely the Big Rock was the tip of the iceberg, so to speak, and that this was a tough little nugget that erosion was still working on. “Little nugget” may be a stretch, I thought, the Big Rock is huge.

The circumference is almost 40 feet and if I did my math right that would put the diameter over twelve feet. It is over eight feet tall, and by any measure a Big Rock. “I am not a geologist” Chris qualified, “I may be wrong, but I doubt it. Native peoples would have used this rock as a meeting place, a road side attraction of sorts. They all would have known of this rock and how to get here.” Can you imagine, the plans made through millennium to meet at the Big Rock where Chris and I were standing today? I could. It had been the case in my childhood.

The Occaneechi, Haw, and Eno were early people to live near the Big Rock and the airport I know and love. I am sure many footpaths and trails crisscrossed the farm. As European surveyors and explorers traversed North Carolina in the early 1700s, John Lawson met the Occaneechi tribe in 1701. Maybe they met at the Big Rock? I don’t know if they did or didn’t but according to what I learned from my friend Chris, they just might have. My understanding of the Big Rock has changed and my imagination has too.

Yes, I am sure they met there.

Birds chirping. Touching flower petals. Sunshine shining on my skin. Crisp air. The smell of fresh water and moist soil. The 5 senses.

As I was walking around the Bicentennial gardens, I was trying to take in all 5 of my senses.

Recently, 555, has been appearing in my life. The angel number 555 spiritually represents the being in true sync with yourself. It also symbolize’s change. Change is something apparent in my life currently, as I am in a transition of beginnings and endings. Graduating college, moving, transitioning, adapting, growing, learning, living, in the midst of a pandemic. I’d say thats a lot of change going on.

Although in the midst of change, I have found that the more things change, the more they do stay the same.

The more you go through life, the more you are brought back to your roots and your passions.

***********************************************************

The 5 senses are sound, touch, sight, smell, and taste. On this particular day I paid attention to each one of my senses as I was walking around.

1. Sounds:

In the gardens, I heard birds chirping, cars going by, leaves and tree branches rustling in the wind. I heard people chattering as they walked by on the various paths through the garden.

2. Touch:

As I walked throughout the gardens, I touched a nearby fern leaf and felt the coarseness of the plant.

3. Sight:

The sunshine beaming onto you while simultaneously providing warmth, the temperature was low 60s with sunshine. The sky was clear blue -no clouds in sight. People walking by carrying conversations. Kids in strollers. As I was sitting on a bench my eyes finding glimpses of all the wildlife such as birds, ants, and other little critters. I passed by a “new” mill but modeled to replicate an old mill.

As we walked along the river bank we saw trees with giant, thick roots protruding out from the surface of the soil.

4. smell:

The smell of crisp air, moist soil, and honey suckles filled the air. It was slightly cold with some sun shining. The city air is more fresh.

5. taste

The taste of fresh water. The water you desire on a sunny afternoon. Also the water in the streams flowing into other mini pathways.

Taking in all 5 of my senses in the garden gave me the ability to clear my head and be present in the moment.

｡･:*:･ﾟ★,｡･:*:･ﾟ☆　K8 ｡･:*:･ﾟ★,｡･:*:･ﾟ☆　

This time, my visit to the woods was more intentional. I wanted to go deliberately, and gain some deeper understanding of the history of the place along the way. Something that popped up frequently for me was carvings in trees. Hearts with initials were the most common, but there were other words and symbols left behind for posterity.

It occurred to me through these many tree-as-canvas examples that a key feature of human beings is our desire to leave a legacy. The sign at the entrance of the Woods, proclaiming its eternal place in the history of the Underground Railroad. The carvings on the trees to mark love that may be lost, or may continue to this day. Perhaps even the pieces of litter down by the lake are a cry out to be remembered.

As Levi Coffin was growing up just north of these woods, with his Meetinghouse on the other side of them, he described them as a “refuge”. Certainly, that is an accurate name for them in the historical sense – but also in the personal and spiritual sense. In A Winter Walk, Thoreau offers the audience the chance to be cleansed by the purity of winter, by going out into the cold and snow that so many have hidden away from. But I believe that as the scope of rejection of nature has grown, so too has nature’s ability to cleanse us and free us from the weight of everyday life.

It’s something that has led me down to the lake many times now since my first trip with my friends. But now I go alone – often turning back or heading into the woods if the lake is already occupied. I’m not sure if it’s my fear of people or my inner transcendentalist demanding the kind of solitude that breeds real reflection. Either way, I hope one day I can sit on the swing and see someone else approach the beach without my skin itching and telling me to leave.
I hope one day I can sit and feel that I belong, and that no one has come to chase me away.

I don’t think i’m going to be doing any tree carvings any time soon. Not that i’m passing judgement on those who do, as I know all too well the wish that those who come after me will remember me. But I don’t want the trees to shoulder the burden of my legacy. Already they carry so much emotion, from love and elation and freedom to misery and bondage and heartbreak. They’ve got enough going on without having to sport my initials, and all the life and personhood that comes with them.

I went to summer camp for two summers in a row. I absolutely hated it. I hated the mosquitoes and bugs and pooping in the woods. I hated that every time we camped, a monsoon of rain flooded the campground, our tents, and soaked our sleeping bags. I hated kayaking in the lake and tipping over. I hated cooking my food over a fire and it still being cold and I hated the stupid birds that crowed and chirped so early in the morning. 

Looking back at thirteen-year-old Taron’s summer camp experience, I wish that I could have appreciated it more. If you would have told me now, that I would go to the woods for fun, to decompress, I would have clearly called you crazy. Now I realize, the noise and chaos is what I didn’t like. I sit here on a broken dam that is graffitied by college kids who have since graduated. The comfortable silence washes over me like the pebbles in the stream at my feet. 

One of the things I remember most about summer camp was the bugs. Even now, I can feel their sharp bites on a thigh they merely saw as a roadblock in the way of a new adventure. 

At the time, I hated ants. If I’m being honest, I still hate them. I liked that, just like me, they had a life of their own. They had a goal and a purpose and they were willing to fight anything that got in their way. These little black bugs were powerful, strong, and fearless. I have the bites on my thigh to prove it. 

Ants were my creatures. I created a life for them as I waited for someone to ask me to be their friend on the dining hall stoop at 4H camp. I create a life for them now, as I sit in peaceful silence with crows cawing in the trees above me. 

The ants continue to march forward. They focus on the issues in front of them and tackle each issue one bite at a time. They use the community they’ve built and lean on each other for support and guidance. 

Regrettably, one of my favorite activities was stepping on anthills and watching the colony rush out. I know, I know- I was an ant bully and I shouldn’t have destroyed their home because I wouldn’t like it if someone destroyed mine. But I thought the community was so fascinating. When one ant is in danger, they all are. They collectively work together to neutralize threats and rebuild their home. These ant colonies are what teacher’s envisioned for group projects. Every ant has a role and they work together toward an intended outcome.  

If I’m being quite honest, I haven’t seen an ant since the world began to shut down. It makes me wonder, did the ants know that my Earth would stop spinning? Why did the world collectively realize they hadn’t seen an ant in months? Had I simply been so wrapped up in my own head that I forgot there was one outside of my own? 

The Woods are always shrouded in mystery. Even though I like to explore them, alone, for this trip, I invited my friend, Isaac.

After Isaac, learned about my night walks, he asked if he could tag along. On an unusually warm walk, we started our trek down the trail and into the woods. 

Typically, I enjoy my time alone. It gives me time to recharge and not feel compelled to fill the silence. I like silence, it gives me space to think. Isaac is the type to understand that silence doesn’t need to be filled constantly. Silence is already loud enough, it does not need to be shared with idle chitter.   

Today, the humidity was thick. I felt my hair frizz with each step we took into the woods. I tried to wipe the layer of moisture from my cheeks, but it still felt like I had a second layer of skin. The leaves crunched beneath my feet and the moon shined like a scuffed spoon through the trees and clouds above me. The new company I had was peaceful. Even though I liked to be alone, it was nice to have Isaac with me.

When Isaac asked if he could come, he told me he wanted to see the Underground Railroad Tree. 

“Of course!” I chirped. I didn’t tell him I had never been able to find The Tree in the dark. 

The Underground Railroad Tree is a tree that was not used as a marker, but bore witness to the intrepid escapes and adventures that took place in the pursuit of freedom. The energy surrounding the tree is magnetic. There is no way to explain the energy. This tulip poplar is over 300 years old. When the tree was a sapling, King George I was the King of England. 

I’ve guided many of my friends to The Tree. I’ve shown my sister and my family The Tree at their request. Before that, a friend had shown and shared her own adventures. Even though The Tree is old and viewed by many as a historical landmark, I think the less important stories, like my friend’s personal anecdotes, are just as interesting. I wish that it could talk so I could hear the small stories, as well as the big ones. 

I think stories like my friend’s are important to hear. They represent a different kind of adventure. Stories like her’s build a bildungsroman that she can tell to her children, so they can pursue an adventure of their own. An intrepid charge into adulthood and learning to leave who you once were is exciting. It gives you a chance to shed old skin and become a new person.

When I visit The Tree, I’m extra careful to be gentle to the land around me. I’ve heard many stories about the spirits and ghosts that roam in the dense woods. I’ve never believed in ghosts, but if they were any, they would be near The Tree. 

I think it’s worth mentioning that ghosts do not have to be people. They can be stories and experiences, legends and whispers.

One day, I hope that the secrets are shared with me, or maybe, I will create my own. Today, though, I’ll start by creating memories on my walk with Isaac.