Our area’s high plant diversity makes getting outside an adventure, with every trail or country road having something interesting to see, feel or smell. If you’d like to add taste to some of your outings, there are several common plants that provide a variety of flavors to enjoy as a beverage. Here is a rundown of some that I have tried and enjoy. Be sure of correct identification before consuming any wild food and try only a small amount in case of food allergies.

When I ask kids why trees are important their number one answer is that they produce oxygen. Plant leaves are solar collectors that take sun energy to produce food through the miracle of photosynthesis, a complex chemical process where carbon dioxide and water are converted to a glucose sugar. This sugar is used for food energy or converted to a starch called cellulose for building the plant body (stem, limbs, etc.). In trees we call this wood, something we use a lot of.

Being old has its disadvantages, but something I’m glad it allowed me to witness (at age 15) was the first moon landing and walk that occurred 50 years ago this month. It was one of those moments you remember exactly. In my case it was at my boyhood home in Middlesboro, Kentucky at 10:30 on a Sunday night. Me and my dad (mom was out of town) sat there watching a small black and white television totally mesmerized as these two guys walking around on another world. I remember lots of goosebumps and feeling so happy (I was a bona fide science geek by then).

In an earlier column I wrote about our version of English I like to call Mountain Speech, a unique and very old dialect that has been retained through mountain isolation to this day, though much has been lost. I’m going through a book called Smokey Mountain English that has thousands of words and phrases collected from mountain people throughout our region by linguistic experts. I’m going through the book looking for words I heard my parents and grandparents use and thought you might enjoy seeing how many you’re familiar with.

When holidays roll around, I like to poke around for a connection with the natural world, and I found some interesting stuff about The Declaration of Independence. This most revered American document kicked off our nation’s quest to rule itself, which we celebrate on the 4th of July, Independence Day.

Thousands of years before modern medicine, people depended on medicinal plants to ease pain and aid healing. Our early pioneer ancestors learned from native Indians what plants were useful to treat maladies. Many of these plants are common in our area and easy to identify. What follows is a description of some of the more easy to find medicinals found in our area.

Chicory was a popular wild plant back in the day when it was used to make a coffee-like beverage. It is very common in our area and can be seen right now growing along roadsides and abandoned places.

I like to write articles that are upbeat and positive, but this one is a total bummer. As a forester and lover of the outdoors, I’m in the woods way more than the average citizen, and over the decades have had my share of ticks. But this past year is beyond anything I’ve experienced before, finding them on me every month, including the dead of winter. Some were so small that I would miss them and let them get embedded, which is particularly worrisome with all the tick-borne diseases out there now. So this time I’m writing words of warning.

If you paid attention in health class you know that our body needs to move materials around to function properly, such as oxygen. The transportation system is the bloodstream, which utilizes red blood cells as a bucket brigade, going to the lungs via veins to pick up oxygen, and carrying it to various body locations via arteries. A tree has similar needs and uses a liquid transportation system.

Sometimes you find an immature bird that has fallen out of the nest, which can happen in the spring when the birds are old enough to move around in the nest but too young to fly. Their flopping about sometimes puts them on the ground and in serious trouble. So what to do?