Used to early to mid-summer was considered tick season, but since here of late I have pulled them off me all twelve months, I no longer think there is a season. But warm weather gets more people outdoors, which ups the chance of contact with the little pests. I’ve also heard of several local folks that have gotten Rocky Mountain spotted fever, and they are other tick-borne diseases to be concerned about.

In mid to late summer if you’re out and about you will likely see plants bearing fruit going through color stages, especially blackberries right now. Blackberry and several other wild fruits go from green to red and finally black or blue when they fully ripen. As is almost everything in creation, there is a purpose to the color change.

It interests me how trees are so often intertwined with our culture and history. The July celebration of our independence is a good time to review the history of the Liberty Tree, a symbol for individual liberty and resistance to tyranny.

The first American Navy consisted of six schooners paid for and pressed into service by none other than General George Washington in 1775. He pleaded with the Continental Congress that he needed a Navy immediately, but true to form, the Congress endlessly debated on the need for a Navy, how to organize and fund ships, and so on until Washington’s patience was at an end, so he funded the ships himself.

Everyone knows the dandelion (Taraxacum officinale), which is usually found somewhere in your lawn unless herbicides are heavily used. This European import is probably enemy number one on the lawn weed list, but it is still an interesting study, being both an edible and a medicinal.

My Uncle (Cas Newton Day) remained a kid at heart to his last days. I loved him for it, for I think (and hope) a little of it rubbed off on me. To illustrate, he and I, both grown adults, were helping hang tobacco in a barn that had very dusty soil in front of the doors. We noticed funnel shaped indentions in the soil and asked what it was.

By Steve Roark
Volunteer, Cumberland Gap Historical Park

Summer tends to up activity levels with most folks, such as hiking or working in a garden. Sometimes these activities lead to a blister, which is your body's way of telling you to ease off on what you're doing. They are of course the result of too much friction, possibly from poor-fitting shoes or not wearing work gloves. There are several opinions on how to treat them.

If you’re outside much at all you will likely have a yellow and black bee-like critter fly up to you and just hover in midair, staring at you. Growing up I was told they were news bees and that they were trying to tell me something. Another name for them is hover fly, highlighting their amazing ability to hover perfectly still like a hummingbird or helicopter.
I’ve seen two different kinds of news bees, a small skinny one that flies silently, and a bigger one that resembles a yellowjacket. Both belong to a group of insects called “flower flies.”

I may be writing this for myself because I am a bona fide Type A person. I’m always engaged in some activity, making lists to check off, with my mind constantly engaged in problem solving or accomplishing some goal. And worthy things do get done for church and family, but it can come with the cost of exhaustion, burn out, and self-imposed stress. One way to improve things is to take time to get away to a quiet place and be still for a little while.

Spring has moved on from blooming wildflowers to trees in bloom, and so I’ve been trying to catch native trees and shrubs in flower. While observing American Holly flowers I was reminded that some trees do thing different. Several species like the holly produce flowers of one sex only, and so there are literally boy and girl trees, which is not common in the plant world.

We have several pine species in our area, and one of the more uncommon ones is Pitch pine (Pinus rigida). It is mostly found on dry slopes and ridges in association with other pines and oaks. It has little commercial use today but was very useful in pioneering days.

Pitch pine has dark green needles that are around 3 to 8 inches long and form in bundles of 3. Tufts of its needles stand out upon the twigs nearly at right angles, and sometimes are found growing directly on the trunk. The tree has ...

A family tradition my mom kept was to seek out young poke sprouts in the spring and make poke salad, a king of cooked greens. Back before grocery store chains and refrigeration, country folk came out of winter craving a fresh green to eat, and poke was one of the newly sprouted plants that were sought out, along with “creesies” or spring crest. The lack of fresh green vegetables during the winter months ...

Wild ginger (Asarum canadense) is an interesting plant found in rich, moist, forested areas in deep hollows and drains. East and north facing lower slopes are its favored habitat, where it can be widespread.

Ginger has a stem (called a rhizome) that grows low along the ground with pairs of heart shaped leaves sticking up through the leaf litter. The leaf stems are very hairy, and if you scratch around under the leaves from April to May you will find a brownish purple flower with three petals. If you break off a piece of the rhizome you will get a strong smell of ginger.

Since I’m in the woods a lot it’s reasonable to assume that I would have more ticks get on board and use me as a meal. But the past couple of winters I have pulled ticks off every month of the year, including the winter months when they are normally dormant. That’s not right people! All of my bites have been deer tick, smaller and harder to see and feel crawling around. Now that your family is outside more with the warming weather, best start body checking yourself and the kids. Since it’s good to know your enemy, here is a rundown on the tick lifestyle.

One of the most beautiful wildflowers to see in the Spring are trilliums, which are members of the Lily family. They are easy to find this time of year in rich, moist woods along rivers, streams, and in deep hollows. There are several species growing in our area, and all are easy to identify. The average trillium is 12 to 18 inches tall with a stout, erect stem. At the top is a whorl of 3 broad leaves and a single flower with 3 petals. Most trilliums have a flower supported by a stem just above the leaves (botanists call this pedicellate). But sessile trillium, also known as toadshade, (Trillium sessile) has no flower stem and the 3 petals appear to come directly out of the leaves. The sessile trilliums I have found locally have yellow petals, but some are dark red. The leaves of sessile trilliums have whitish splotches.

You have no doubt noticed all the white flowering trees that have been putting on a show the past couple of weeks along roadsides, fence rows, and field edges. They are Bradford pears, a popular landscape tree, noted for their beautiful flower blitz, symmetrical round crowns, and supposedly sterile so as not to produce messy fruit to clean up. That last part was a total failure, and the tree has gone Frankenstein and spreading rapidly to become what is called an exotic invasive plant, and a threat to our native plants and even our farmlands. This wasn’t supposed to happen, so what the heck?

Ah Spring! After a cold winter, we get one of those sunny, balmy days where the temps get up into the 60s and everybody sheds coats and dreams of gardening or fishing. Then along comes a cold snap that feels colder than what it is because your body had immediately acclimated to that warmth and sunshine. Those cold snaps are regular events that have been around before TV meteorologists, and our forefathers had to watch nature to determine when to plant crops. So through the ages we have weather lore that is still with us today.

Human archaeology normally involves the study of things left by an ancient people in an ancient time, but it is also interesting to observe more recent signs that people lived in our area within the last 150 years or so. Many areas that appear to be natural untouched forests were actually greatly impacted by human presence. I find it intriguing to seek out visible clues and try to figure out what took place many years ago. Here are some indicators that humans impacted the landscape, particularly in a forest.

Anyone who has hiked and crossed a mountain stream or took a cold drink out of a spring has likely seen periwinkles, which look like small black pebbles scattered about in the water. Closer inspection reveals that they are freshwater snails. I’ve been told by my older kin that seeing these little guys in a stream indicated that the water was clean enough to drink. I wouldn’t go that far about the purity of the water, but they are partially right in that these snails are environmentally sensitive and good indicators of unpolluted streams.

Nothing says Springs-a-comin’ like seeing Daffodils spotting the countryside. They are of particular interest to me because I’m a mountain history nerd, and they often point to old cabin sites that I like to check out when I’m out exploring