Cultivating the Wild is a video that focuses on six Southerners committed to reclaiming the nature of the South through art, science, and culture. Their inspiration is William Bartram, 18th century naturalist and America’s first environmentalist. From 1773 to 1777, a plant-collecting trip took Bartram from the Carolina coast west to the Mississippi. Far more than a botanical catalog, Bartram’s 1791 book Travels provides a captivating window into the past and continues to fire the imagination of readers over 200 years later. Despite the passage of time, Bartram’s words speak to current issues of critical importance. The film responds to an America hungry to re-connect with the natural world around us, an America increasingly focused on sustaining this planet we call home. Often called “the South’s Thoreau,” Bartram’s reverence for all aspects of nature lies at the heart of these modern environmental movements and in the people we meet in “Cultivating the Wild.”
Yearly Archives: 2020
Collective Risk with a Human-Error Kicker
by Tim Homan
During the summer of 2011 I was finishing the manuscript for my Shining Rock and Middle Prong Wildernesses hiking guide. One of the last items on the field-work list was to find Beech Spring, just south of Beech Spring Gap on the upper-elevation segment of the Old Butt Knob Trail. Clearly marked with the customary tiny blue-line circle on the Shining Rock quad sheet, the spring looked prominent and permanent, the kind all you had to do was follow the footworn path to the cold water.
But that had not been the case the first time I went looking for the blue dot. After mapping out the confusing trail junctions in Shining Rock Gap with measuring wheel distances, GPS coordinates, and compass headings, I followed Old Butt across the southeastern shoulder of Shining Rock before descending to Beech Spring Gap. I paced a compass heading toward the blue circle, but found neither beaten path nor an obvious and easily accessible spring within easy reach. It looked so simple on the map. The lack of a recently used fire ring in the gap’s clearing suggested the spring was intermittent.
FINE Things No. 21
Please join us for an upcoming webinar on: “What Does a Changing Climate Mean for Georgia’s Ecosystems?” on Wednesday, November 18th, 2020, from 11:00 am – 12:30 pm EST.
To register, visit this link.
The Georgia Climate Project is a statewide network launched by the University of Georgia, Emory University and Georgia Institute of Technology to help Georgia reduce risks and maximize opportunities related to a changing climate. This webinar is part of an ongoing monthly series discussing climate change impacts across a variety of themes in Georgia. Next month, the topic will be climate change and Georgia’s water resources.
Here are this weeks FINE Things:
Duck-billed platypus fluoresces under UV light: A NYTimes piece here. If you can’t get access to the NYT article, you can find better pictures in the original open access paper here.
Harvesting Cranberries and producing juice.
“Monarch butterflies-an iconic flagship species for grassland ecosystems and pollinator conservation– are widespread, yet both the eastern North American and western United States populations have declined by approximately 80 percent since 2010.
FINE Things No. 20
This first item is my pick of the week: The tragedy of swearing parrots.
I’m guessing that many of you have encountered news items in which the word “CRISPER” appeared. In fact, earlier this year a Nobel prize was awarded to two of the discoverers of CRISPER. You might not know what CRISPER is or why its significant, but I’ve found the answer for you: an understandable explanation of what CRISPER is, how it works and what it’s used for.
An Uncommon Kindness
By Tim Homan
Late June, 1986. Last trail of a four-day work trip to the North Georgia mountains taking notes for the second edition of my hiking guide. I turned into the Rich Mountain Trailhead off Stanley Creek Road just before ten, nearly two hours later than intended the night before. And very late in the morning to start a long work hike — pushing a measuring wheel, frequently stopping to write notes — at least 16 or 17 miles round trip.
I finished the route’s longest stretch, rising along the eastern slope of Rocky Mountain before descending to the Aska Road crossing at Deep Gap, with a little over 5 miles worth of feet clicked onto the wheel’s counter. I sat down for lunch, an egg biscuit I had bought in Blue Ridge in the morning, and studied the sun’s westward angle. Well into the afternoon already.
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FINE Things No. 19
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| Red Maple leaf Drawing by Linda Chafin |
The first item is my top pick for this week:
Can Rewilding Large Predators Regenerate Ecosystems?
As some conservationists and researchers begin to return large carnivores to areas where they once roamed, scientists intensify efforts to study the ecological roles of predators.
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Five Easy Bobcats (Part 2)
by Tim Homan
Middle of February, 2003, rural Madison County in Georgia’s Piedmont. I stepped out onto our back deck at about ten-thirty in the morning to look at Brushy Creek, to check its depth and speed and color down the sunset slope from our home. The green under gray slope — mountain laurel beneath winter-stripped oaks, white and northern red — is steep for Piedmont topography. I stood at the back railing and watched as the South Fork Broad River tributary ran full and fast and red clay orange-brown from last night’s heavy rainfall. No chance of spotting a gaudy male Wood Duck cruise by today.
Five Easy Bobcats (Part 1)
by Tim Homan
Spring 1975, my first canoe trip in the Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge. I had signed up for a Sierra Club trip to the swamp, an introductory one-nighter from Steven C. Foster State Park to the designated campsite on Cravens Hammock. Our group of five would begin paddling at the park well within the western boundary of the refuge. Our three canoes would glide half the length of Billys Lake, follow the Suwannee River to the dredged canal butted up beside the Suwannee River Sill, a long and low earthen dam. We would turn right onto the canal and head north beside the sill, then follow the North Fork Suwannee River to Cravens Hammock. Ten and a half miles out, the same distance right back in: simple, nearly impossible to become lost, the swamp water deep and tea dark all the way.
FINE Things No. 18
This week I’m bringing to you an uncensored collection of things I found this past week. Usually I take a second look and prune from the list items that I think will not appeal to the majority of Nature Ramblers. But, today, I’m letting you decide for yourself. There are a lot of videos on various subjects, some not directly nature related.
Note: I added this link on 10/29 so Ramblers could get information on the upcoming “Micro Blue Moon” on October 31, Halloween.
1. This beetle’s stab-proof exoskeleton makes it almost indestructible
2. High-jumping beetle inspires agile robots. Machines could get themselves out of a sticky spot, thanks to an insect that can right itself without using its legs.
A Hard Penance Part 2
by Tim Homan
The forecast for the following two days called for cold and rain, with a chance of sleet or snow showers in the mountains. By the time the next decent day rolled around, I was sick with a sore throat and severe cold. I didn’t hike again until mid-December. I read the weather forecasts in the newspaper every day, watched the weather on TV every evening. The mountains were becoming colder and receiving steady precipitation, a bad combination.
Rain fell off and on for two days just before I was well enough for hard hiking, so I opted to walk and work the first half of Section 2 of the Bartram Trail-the segment from Rabun County’s Warwoman Road to Sandy Ford Road-rather than risk West Fork’s ford at higher water. I left home under starlight, fully expecting to walk nearly 14 miles of empty trail and lonely road. I pulled onto the shoulder of Warwoman Road and started walking in the soft gray and gauzy light of early dawn. Rhododendron leaves drooped down and curled inward against the cold and frost flowers crunched underfoot as I passed through the Warwoman Dell Recreation Area.