Running?

I hike. Period. 

Running is for 20 something's who want to stay buff and live forever.

So, why do I suddenly find myself running? Several colleagues from my school decided to run in the KOMEN WEST VIRGINIA RACE FOR THE CURE®.
A 5k race on May 2, 2015.

They formed a team and started recruiting members. I avoided them in the halls, said no several times, blustered about being a hiker, not a runner but finally gave in. 

         It was not a hard decision really, my wife is a breast cancer survivor. 12 years now.

So, I find myself in the evenings, in the dark, frozen fields around my home,  alternately walking and jogging, following an iPhone app called C25k ,Couch to 5k. A program that helps you prepare for a 5k race in seven weeks. During tonight's 30 minute workout, I covered 2.1 miles. 

Last year the first 275 finishers made the 3.1 miles in 30 minutes or less. The next 175 made it in less than 45 minutes. So my goal is between 30 and 45 minutes.    

I've setup a personal page where you can read more about my race and the event:

  http://westvirginia.info-komen.org/goto/cpackjr

Where are the Wildflowers in this post? Well, when I am jogging around that field, I find myself saying, 'there's the spot where Slender Ladies Tresses will be this fall', and 'there's the Nodding Ladies Tresses', and 'over there is Reclining St. Andrew's Cross.'

So, today is the day when meteorological winter is half over and I think I can make it to spring wildflower season now; if this running stuff doesn't kill me first..   

We Race Because…

One in eight women in the U.S. will be diagnosed with breast cancer in her lifetime.

Because every minute, somewhere in the world, someone dies from breast cancer.

And because, breast cancer knows no boundaries- be it age, gender, socio-economic status or geographic location.

We continue to Race because at the current rate, 13 million breast cancer deaths around the world will occur in the next 25 years.

Cold

What do you do when it's -1 degrees Fahrenheit?

You read about Wildflowers, of course. 

                       

An Artic Blast is affecting much of the East and South thus week. So it's the perfect time to read or reread Nature books. 

Besides the one above, I also have on my desk:

Blue Ridge Nature Journal:: Reflections on the Appalachian Mountains in Essays and Art by George Ellison

and

Orchid Fever: A Horticultural Tale of Love, Lust, and Lunacy by Eric Hansen

Those three new ones plus browsing through Bentley's Native Orchids of the Southern Appalachian Mountains and Frederick W. Case’s Trilliums should occupy me for quite awhile. 

 Hansen's essays include his classic account of traveling to Turkey to find an ice cream made of local native orchid root.  

So, bitter cold is not all bad. 

Ode to the West Wind Percy Bysshe Shelley O WILD West Wind, thou breath of Autumn's being— Thou from whose unseen presence the leaves dead Are driven, like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing, Yellow, and black, and pale, and hectic red, Pestilence-stricken multitudes!—O thou Who chariotest to their dark wintry bed The wingèd seeds, where they lie cold and low, Each like a corpse within its grave, until Thine azure sister of the Spring shall blow Her clarion o'er the dreaming earth, and fill (Driving sweet buds like flocks to feed in air) With living hues and odours plain and hill— Wild Spirit, which art moving everywhere— Destroyer and Preserver—hear, O hear!

...... If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind? Winter is the season in which people try to keep the house as warm as it was in the summer, when they complained about the heat. ~Author Unknown

Year Three - 2015

This begins year three of this blog, which chronicles my quest to find and photograph as many Wildflowers in West Virginia as possible. In 2013, I found and photographed 308 different wildflowers. In 2014, I added another 25. I hope to add more this year as well as revisit old favorites. I will be playing around with macro photography along with a ring flash.

      Today I hiked into the hills around my home. Last October, we were hit by a rare West Virginia tornado which flattened many acres of of forest. The owners of the farm accross the road from me have allowed loggers to begin recovering the fallen trees as well as a large portion of the woods there. I have been able to roam over that property for 40 years and I enjoy it very much. I have hiked, hunted, fished and gathered Morels and Ramps there. One of my favorite hikes is to walk up the hill across the road and around the ridge and come back down on the back of our property. A hour or so hike and a mile or more through mature forest and fields. Today, I saw the results of the logging. I have no problems with land owners allowing logging on their property, but I have to wonder if there is some better way to accomplish it. 

This is the remains of a natural spring that used to feed a wet gully where I could find purple trillium and   even Ginseng. It was so steep that it escaped logging in the past, probally 80 years ago. Now, I can't see how it will recover. I know the natural progression is briars and thorny brush, then bushes and trees and maybe in 20-30 years or so, a decent forest again. I have even thought about trying to find the trillium before it quits growing in the now sunny area. But, I suppose it somehow made it those many years ago to re-establish, so it will again.

                                     A walnut tree that I remember well. 

                                    Many Morel mushrooms were gathered here

I recently saw a bumper sticker that said 'If you object to logging, try plastic toilet paper.'

I really get that, but the bull dozed roads, clogged streams and springs, wasted wood and spilled fuel seem very wrong. So much so that we decided to not take an offer from loggers to do the same on our farm. We will harvest what we can for firewood and let the rest lie and decay naturally. 

        Now days, I have on my mind some Trillium that I found near Camp Creek State Park. They were in a remote and hard to get to area, where I had found some Appalachian Twayblade Orchids. I can hardly wait to get back there this Spring to see them.

"Sadly, it's much easier to create a desert than a forest."

— James Lovelock

"God has cared for these trees, saved them from drought, disease, avalanches, and a thousand tempests and floods. But he cannot save them from fools."

— John Muir

"If a man walks in the woods for love of them half of each day, he is in danger of being regarded as a loafer. But if he spends his days as a speculator, shearing off those woods and making the earth bald before her time, he is deemed an industrious and enterprising citizen."

— Henry David Thoreau