March 31, 2014 - April Fool's Eve Emergency Camping Trip

I was able to weasel my way out of a day and a half of work this week to take off and join our and two other families for a night at Cane Creek Canyon; the place that started this blog that we've been to many times before. We've been trying to get more of our friends to join us in the canyon and this was by far the most successful effort in that regard. 

I cut my workday in half on Monday and drove back to the house to pick up Nia and pack my stuff. Little Bitches did really well on the trip considering the hour and a half non-stop nature and not having any idle hands onboard to pet her and hold her. She mostly kept herself entertained.

By the time I got there Esther and a company of kids were in the canyon already so I released the hound and joined three others in the party to find everybody and show them the canyon. The Spring flowers were really showing off. According to the landowner, they are about three full weeks behind normal bloom due to the cold weather we've had this year.

Bloodroot

Saxifrage

Trout Lilly

The older kids had set up a series of hammocks off to the side of the main camp of tents and picnic tables. The plan was for most of them to sleep in the trees but the chill of the night air brought a few of them to huddle in the tent.

Fire was made and marshmallows were sacrificed to the flames.

Many stringed instruments were brought for evening. I had planned to being my bongos or my djembe, but managed to forget them in my haste to pack.

The next morning I did first a quick jog on the trails with the two dogs that came along and then later a run with our team captain for the Panther Run coming up next month. I did better than I expected but I still have a ways to go before I'm ready to run what will amount to a 5K with obstacles.

After breakfast the whole group took a longer hike down to the spot that we camped at nearly four years ago (and nearly froze our butts off) to hang out in hammocks and have lunch. The kids stopped to swim at Blue Hole and all three dads (me included) jumped off a rock to cannonball into the water. 

Here are the pictures from the 31st and here are the two that I managed to take on the 1st.

No tracklogs this trip; I was busy enjoying being outside and hanging out with our friends.

March 15, 2014 - Tom Bevill Trail, Guntersville

Today Esther and I finally got around to hiking the Tom Bevill Trail, in its entirety for the first time. We tacked on some "bonus" mileage by pure accident and I am not to blame at all. AT ALL.*

We encountered many small animals that attempted to steal my woman from me. The first of which was this Eastern Fence Lizard that puffed up its sexy blue throat bladder and did push-ups. All very impressive, Eastern Fence Lizard. Show off.

Here Esther takes a picture of one of the many hikers that passed away while hiking the trail. She made me take this picture. I'm just kidding of course, this is one of the many markers at the King's Chapel Cemetery. I've just learned that this cemetery has it's own Facebook page. Sure, of course it does. And they wonder why more young persons are leaving the Facebook... Nothing makes the young folk leave in droves like some pictures of (non-goth) headstones.

Run in fear and boredom, young peoples

The western part of the trail, the side that directly faces the lake, is still recovering from the tornadoes of April 2011. Thankfully the trail is now completely clear for hiking, but the views toward the lake are a reminder of the power and lasting effects of our Spring storms. 

While Esther flirted with an obviously married man** (he did not even have to do push-ups), she spotted an eagle! Sadly neither of us got our cameras up fast enough, but this much slower moving eagles nest was not so lucky.

We managed to find six geocaches along the trail, which might sound kind of impressive if I don't tell you that there are no less than thirty placed all along the trail from start to finish. Three of the six we found I wasn't even looking for. There's one in the picture below. Can you see it? Hint: it's green. Another hint: it's hidden. Still yet another hint: it's under a rock.

Pics from the day: here
Tracklog of the hike: here





















*There is a slight chance that I am totally to blame.
**Of course she didn't.

March 9, 2014 - Caspey Falls, Bankhead Forest

Almost four years ago Esther and I set out on our own to find a place that we had not seen before. There was a geocache that I had been eyeballing the description of near a waterfall that neither of us had heard of before. A waterfall in Bankhead unknown to Esther? Exactly. 

The pictures from that trek can be found right here, but you don't have to run off and look at them right now.

Today we revisited Caspey Creek and the falls with our younger two along for the hike. The trail starts as an old logging trail that really isn't much to look at, but it's easy to follow. 

The old logging road

Pennsylvania Sedge

The logging road quickly gave way to a bramble of blackberry stickers so we dropped off the hillside and headed directly for the creek below. Two smaller creeks merge at the upper falls into a large pool then continue on down towards first the lower falls then Caspey Creek itself.

East upper falls

Looking across the pool to the west upper falls

Lower falls from above

Us below the lower falls

This is Ben in Caspey Creek up to his ankles in the water. This is probably the last time he will ever do this in his life. Why? Keep reading...

LITTLE DID HE KNOW

Chan scanning the woods with a fairy stone

This is actually kind of a big deal, this next picture. Esther is not what most would call an expert log crosser. Would you call somebody that? Is that a thing? Anyway, she ain't it. This log, however is Esther Approved™.

Although we didn't see a plethora of wildlife, we did see plenty of tracks.

Deer

90% sure these are raccoon (or opossum)

Feral hog (YES, we have those!)

Spring flowers are starting to pop up here and there. Nowhere near peak viewing, but extremely encouraging.

Trillium

Hepatica

Okay, now for the thing in the water. Esther was watching leeches swim around in the leafy-bottomed pools at the creek and Ben and I were looking at a crawdad when we spotted this thing in the water that we first thought was a pine needle caught in the current. But pine needles don't really move like that...

Still image does it no justice

It was about 15" long but no ticker than angel hair pasta (Esther is firmly against the use of wholesome pasta in the description of the beast. I was told to tell you that.) The preview image below gives you some idea as to how it moved, but click on the link for the video and watch it.

Click HERE for the full video (30 seconds)

Now, what was it? 

A few well-worded Google searches lead me to this site: http://www.nematomorpha.net/index.html the "Hairworm Biodiversity Survey" where I learned about nematomporhs and gordiids. They are basicly cricket parasites. I tried to submit my hairworm sighting but their form email service thingy looks to be broken. :(

They pose no harm to humans or pets, but watching this video may cause you severe psychological damage. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED. Imagine if in the movie "Alien" the part of Kane had been played by a cricket. Sort of. *See bottom of page for a more in-depth (and graphic) description if you think that might be better than watching the actual video. 

Now, more pictures can be found here and the tracklog of our hike can be seen here.

*Except replace "chest" in "chest-burster" with "rectum" and multiply the creature count by about seven. Also, the hand that places the cricket in the jar? Yeah in this analogy that would be the android, Ash. The jar would be the sick bay. Think about it. Also, WORMS SHOOTING OUT OF CRICKET BUTT AAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

February 9, 2014 - Belle Chevre Cheese Shop And Tasting Room (also hiking and geocaching)

Hey, I used to blog and stuff! What happened?!?! Well... all sorts of stuff happened. Birthdays, bonfires, high fashion photo-shoots, and various walks in the woods.

What's been happening the most around here is lumberjackery (word?) at it's finest. Sometime in November the heat pump took a nap and never woke up. Fortunately, we have a wood-burning stove in the living room that keeps us nice and snug on all but the coldest nights- which we've had no shortage of this winter. We started taking down some of the smaller walnuts from the brushy borders of the yard with hand saws. When it became clear that the small bundle of logs that we could gather in an afternoon from that exercise was not going to cut it (yeah, I did that) we ordered a rick of wood delivered to the house. A couple of weeks later we inherited Mom's 20-year-old Poulan chainsaw and after a quick $70 repair and tune-up we've been spending almost every weekend sawing into the fringes of our woods for firewood. 

I'd like to complain about the extra work, but honestly I kind of love it. Hard work for the purpose of literally keeping your family and pets warm at night. Rarely do I have the opportunity to see such tangible results from a day's labor. Plus, it's been a big help in the weight-loss department. Boring weight-lifting? No thanks. I'd rather spend an hour hefting logs and splitting them to stack on the porch. Plus... chainsaw. It's like hitting things to make music, right?

This was our first weekend in a long time that we didn't spend cutting down trees and stacking wood. We worked extra hard last week in order to have some time to get out and hike and do that geocaching thing that I haven't done with any real frequency since our vacation last October.

Today's hike is a familiar one; the south half of Richard-Martin in Elkmont. However, a new business has opened in Elkmont since our last visit and this is really the whole reason for writing this post anyway...

We had planned on stopping at the gas station in the middle of town at the halfway point before turning back to finish the hike but I noticed that one of the shops had made way for a new business. We recognized the name from the sign hanging outside and walked over to check things out. Belle Chevre is a local fromagerie that has seen its fair share of positive press via a wide range of sources, including the Today Show. The Cheese Shop and Tasting Room has been open for only about nine months.

Here's our lunch, a plate of four 2 oz cheese servings and four sides for $8! Well worth it. We had orginal Chevre, fig, Tuscan, and Belle and the Bees cheeses with almonds, beets, pepper jelly and Summer sausage. Thin crackers give you something to slather the cheese on. Incredible. I don't think it was just because of the walk we made to get there; this was an extremely enjoyable meal. 

Highly recommended

Samples of the breakfast and artisan cheeses

Check out Belle Chevre Cheese Shop and Tasting Room at the link I've posted above or via their Facebook page. This is one local business that's well worth your time and money.

We also did a fair bit of geocaching on the trail today. A big chunk of the southern half of the greenway has been taken over by a power trail of caches. We don't normally get into the mass-find-count-bumping-fest that is a power trail, but it's been a while and I did make quite a few more finds than usual. Found a new container type comprised of two soda bottle ends fused together and sealed with caps. The results were somewhat mixed in the waterproof category, but overall they seem to be holding up okay. If we found them on the ground it was about a 50% chance of the log sheet being a soggy mess; off the ground much, much better. 

My list of finds so I wouldn't forget

Random opossum sighting

More pictures of the day can be found here.

October 11 and 12, 2013 - More Fish Pictures, the Trip Winds Down, Flying Home

Esther and I have this problem when it comes to taking pictures whenever we go out: she's taking her shot and I'm right next to her, two feet away, taking the same shot. That works out generally most of the time because she posts her pictures in one place and I post my pictures in another. The people that suffer the most are our mutual friends and family that have to scroll through duplicate Facebook postings of first her accounting of the trip and then mine. The fact that we only had the one underwater camera for this trip has doubled the problem because while we passed it back and forth during snorkeling, now everybody is seeing the exact same pictures twice. All the underwater shots have been lumped into a sort of shared resource because for the most part we can't remember who took what- unless one or the other of us is in the shot.

We did more today than what I'm posting here. We had yet another incredible meal with Jacki and Phil and Esther posted the one picture of the four of us (me holding Esther in a "death grip"). Before that Jacki took Esther shopping for dresses while Phil and I hung out at the condo and discussed manly things.

Now I'm typing this over two weeks later and I'm missing the island and I'm missing the time that Esther and I spent alone (longest in recorded history) and I'm missing Jacki and Phil and I'm missing just not being at work every day and not dealing with all the stuff.

My point is this- here are some great pics that we took in the morning and here are some quick shots on the flight home, but so much happened that I didn't get a picture of. But- these are mostly the shots that I did get and here they are.

Nudibranch

The Gamma

Parrot fish

Florida Keys

Huntsville, Al

All the pics from the 11th are here, all from the 12th right here.