lloydslensphotographyllc

Incident On Panther Mountain

Color Photography, Landscapes, short stories

Hello friends! Tonight’s feature image is titled “Foggy Morning On Panther Mountain 101919” and is available for purchase by the instructions at the bottom of the article.

The engine of my big blue truck growls as I carefully ease my way up Panther Mountain on a foggy October morning. I have the windows down and have turned the music off so that I can listen to the forest. I have become accustomed to paying attention to the bird calls as a kind of “radar”. The forests speak to you if you know what your listening for. Even with the windows down and the radio off I have to stop the engine and step out to be able to get a good ear shot of what’s going on. The fog seems to close in on me like a cloak and the morning light dims a little as I find a spot wide enough to exit the vehicle.

The big blue truck 101919 — Finding a place to sit quietly and listen to the forest speak.

I took a little peek over the edge but the valley below is completely hidden by the fog. After a few minutes the birds began to chirp. I was hoping to get a nice photo of the fog on the Gauley River below but the fog was so thick that you couldn’t see beyond a few yards. I thought that maybe if I sat still enough some wildlife might stumble into range of my lens. This is actually a public road and even though it’s seldom used I can’t leave the road blocked so I stay within sight of the truck. I noticed that the leaves near the edge of the road were moving and suddenly a chipmunk popped up right at my feet. Before I could focus he let out a squeak and disappeared back into a sea of fallen leaves. I chuckled softly and was watching to see if he came back when the hair on the back of my neck stood up. Something was moving through the area. Something big enough to silence the birds. Normally I’d notice the holes in the bird chatter but I was too focused on the chipmunk. That eerie feeling of being watched flooded my gut so strongly that I became nauseous. Whatever it was that made the birds fall silent was close and I allowed myself to drift out from the truck a bit too far. To be continued on Part 2

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Kanawha Falls In Amber 3

Color Photography

The river playfully slips over and around the rocks at Kanawha Falls. The farthest tree out appears to be a yellow poplar standing by itself on a large flat rock. I’m amazed at how strong it seems in spite of the fact that it’s growing on bare stone. It stands there gracefully looking out over the falls as a silent sentinel witnessing the change of seasons. I wonder how many kayaks it’s seen go over the falls? How many faces have passed beneath it branches? Has it listened to the conversations of those who explore life while taking a break on the rocks it calls home?

I braced my lens on a monopod and zoomed in on the tree as close as I could get with glass and steel and brought the tree home to witness my life as well. Perhaps at the end of all things when these silent witnesses give their account to the Creator the story it tells will be one worthy of listening to.

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Forage Friday #30. Hickory

Color Photography, Forage Friday

Hickory Nuts 100119 — Hello friends! Tonight’s feature image was taken specifically for this article. All of the photos are my original work and are available as prints by following the instructions at the bottom of the article.

The hickory tree behind my grandfather’s house was always one of my favorite places. The tree was always a haven for the squirrels who would scamper and play in it all year but in the Fall they really came out. My first wildlife tracking experience was observing tiny claw marks on this tree and realizing that they were made by the squirrels.

The tree produces a high volume of hickory nuts. So much so that I can remember slipping on them as a child. It was like a field of wooden ball bearings directly under the tree.

Since this is a #ForageFriday post let’s start with the food aspects. Hickory is a close relative of both pecans and black walnuts. The tree I’ve chosen as an example isn’t really one of the sweeter varieties and that’s important because they can be really astringent. If you’ve ever eaten black walnuts then you’re familiar with the odd aftertaste and hickory nuts can have that too.

The squirrels have been cutting on the hickory nuts.

The rule of thumb is that the thicker a hickory nut’s outer shell is the sweeter the nut inside will be. There’s a few varieties of hickory nuts and some of them can be fairly bitter. We never foraged on this one because my grandfather told us this kind wasn’t really good to eat. The shell is kinda thin so we just assumed it was bitter. In my limited time I wasn’t really able to get out and find some of the sweeter ones for an example but you’d be looking for a husk that’s about 9mm thick. These would be the shagbark group. My online research suggests that the flavor of hickory nuts is improved by toasting them. Some people say that they prefer a sweet hickory to a pecan but in my opinion a pecan is hard to beat. However, pecan trees don’t really do well at this altitude and soil type.

Like the beech, hickory produces a high quality oil that’s used in cooking. Like any other food source that’s just outside of the mainstream the internet is full of articles claiming health benefits of hickory oil and some of them are probably true but I’m going to recommend that you do further research of your own.

Something that even the bitter varieties provide in spades is in providing the smokey flavor of meats like bacon. Nothing beats a well done hickory barbecue!

Any nuts that on the ground should be checked for worms.

Nuts that are on the ground should be checked for worms. Nut weevils are pretty quick to bore holes into the shell and feast on the nut.

One of the more obscure things that hickory provides is salt. It’s a bit of work but a few years ago I learned that in the early days of Appalachia salt was hard to obtain. There was few salt mines in operation and the steep mountains here meant that it was hard to get outside resources into the more isolated communities. Hickory must be able to concentrate salt because the instructions say to cop or crush the roots and boil them. The roots are strained out and the liquid is boiled down until it evaporates leaving the salt behind. Hickory salt is dark colored and is sold as a specialty product today.

Hickory bark — The rough bark of a hickory

The shellbark hickory has large scales of lose bark similar to the image but much more pronounced. Believe it or not shellbark hickory plays an important part in controlling mosquitoes and other insects. All trees are natural water pumps that help stabilize the water cycles and can even effect the weather as well regulate ground heat but hickory and in particular the shellbark group is the natural roost for bats. The long strips of lose bark that forms on a shellbark hickory is a natural bathouse. Local species of Little Brown Bats will even hibernate under the bark. A Little Brown Bat will eat about 1000 mosquitoes per hour over the course of it’s 40 years in the forest. We normally associate bats with caves thanks to pop culture. And they do use the caves too but when you look at the design of a bathouse it doesn’t really mimic a cave and we had the bats before there was attics and abandoned buildings to roost in. The bat house mimics lose bark. Which is a good reason to use hickory for land rehabilitation.

I have only given a brief overview to show the potential of hickory. As always my #ForageFriday posts are designed to be a conversation starter and give you a starting point for further research. And since I wasn’t really able to provide good examples of the more useful hickory nuts I’mgoing to include a link to How To Identify Hickory Nuts on Wikihow. I found the guide there to be pretty easy to follow.

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Kanawha Falls In Amber Number 2

Color Photography

As the Kanawha River flows over the dam and rocks mists rise from the mountains. The steady drizzle of rain has replenished the landscape and allowed the Fall colors to fill the hills. The trees on the rocks out in the middle of Kanawha Falls seem to glow as if they were so full of sunshine that it was bursting out from the leaves. The colors of Fall are a flame that enters the eyes and warms the soul against the oncoming night. Enjoy the colorful world while it lasts for soon the flames will burn out leaving only the frozen bones of winter.

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Kanawha Falls In Amber

Color Photography

The morning mists now linger well into the afternoon as the rain gently lands in Kanawha River. If it wasn’t for the tiny splashes of rain the water above the hydroelectric plant would have given a perfect reflection of the amber leaves rising out of the falls. The trees that grow on the rocks out in the middle of the river have defied all odds to claim this spot where the water often rages through and threatens to tear them from the rocks. And yet not only are they able to hold themselves in place but, they do so with grace and beauty. Their roots may be shallow but they are strong and they hold tight to the rock.

To survive and even thrive in harsh conditions is an accomplishment but to do so with enough grace that it imparts a sense of peace is real strength.

The big blue truck provides a nice window to soak in the tranquility as I idled in the parking lot of the Glen Ferris Inn. It’s so much easier to appreciate the beauty of a cool Fall day with heater on. I Hit the button that rolls down the window and began to shoot as the water carried my cares over the falls and washed them out of sight downstream.

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Thank you again for your support of my page! ❤