Nature – Nomadic Noesis

On Today’s Walk: Exploring & Experiencing

I generally don’t listen to audiobooks or music or anything on my phone during my pedestrian rambles. I also don’t usually set any kind of goal, track my walking speed, or try to solve any of my personal problems. No shade intended for those who get something different from walking. I’m simply describing how the practice is meaningful to me. My brain tends to hyperdrive most of the time, and this is how I find some balance in my life.

As much as possible, I like to adopt a child’s mind approach, open to exploration and experience, to a sense of wonder for whatever I might happen upon. Three phenomena caught my attention today.

First, I was walking near a sweetgum tree. Nonetheless, it took me a minute to realize what the darker object in this photo is.

Closeup of autumn ground cover including a tawny-colored, spiky Sweetgum seedball and an old, weather-beaten, grayish seedball with the spikes worn off. — New and old

At first, I thought it might be an old paper wasps’ nest that had fallen to the ground. But when I picked it up, I realized it was much too solid and hard. Only when I spotted a newly shed Sweetgum seedball nearby did I realize this is what they look like when they’ve been around a while and weathered difficult times. Doesn’t it look a lot like a wasps’ nest, though? Nature’s repeating patterns, I suppose.

Second item was a not-small hole in the ground. It looked like perhaps someone had dug out a small tree and forgot to backfill. Or else dug a hole for a tree and then never managed to plant it?

Hole in the ground, filled with dry leaves.

I estimate the hole to be somewhere between 1 and 1/2 to 2 feet on the long side. Definitely big enough my entire shoe would have fit in. I tried to plumb the depths through the leaf fill using a stick I found, but I’m not sure if I hit the bottom. I’d say it’s at least as deep as it is long.

The third wonder of the day was this patch of grass that’s a completely different hue than all the grass around. Did a spaceship set down here? I don’t really believe that. But why is it like this?

Grassy field in a park. One patch of grass is noticeably lighter in color than the surrounding area. — Call Mulder and Scully!

From a distance, it looked like it could be straw or hay spread on the ground. But it’s just monochromatic grass. Pacing it off, I came up with a guessed measurement of around 30 feet by 50 feet. It couldn’t be space aliens, of course. But how about fairies?

Truly, you don’t have to travel to distant lands to be an explorer. I’ve been walking around this same neighborhood for 20+ years, and I see new things all the time. It’s just a matter of noticing them.

Onondaga Cave Revisited

My firstborn came to visit recently, staying for eight days. Due to the fact that I rarely call out from work, I had abundant PTO in my leave bank and was able to take off the entire time for a staycation. The spouse was also able to use vacation most of the days. And son the younger works from home, so was able to flex his hours.

We did a lot of nostalgic activities and generally had a blast playing tourist in our own area. This included a day trip to Onondaga Cave, a place I haven’t visited in at least 15 years, though I did write a poem about it once. It had been long enough that the tour was fresh and new to me, for the most part. And even the bits I remembered were still awe inspiring, well worth a revisit.

Walkways and handrails inside a very large cave system — walking paths/handrails

Stairway inside a tourist cave, with pillars rising on either side. — walking paths/handrails

Onondaga cave is immense. Though there are a couple of places where adults need to duck a little, there’s no crawling, climbing or ropes involved in the exploration. Trails and handrails have been put in, and there’s an option to sit out the steepest part of the tour. Still, you need to be able to do some hills and stairs and to be on your feet for quite a while. If you’re able to do that, it’s a fascinating place to visit.

Since it’s operated by the Missouri Department of Conservation (incidentally, one of the top state conservation departments in the country), it’s well maintained with an eye to preserving a healthy ecosystem. That means there are no tours during bat hibernation season. A piece of good news we learned from our guide is that bat populations are starting to rebound after being nearly decimated by white-nose syndrome.

Some of my favorite spots on the tour:

Two large pillars--onne white, one rust colored--rising from a cave floor. — The Twins (cave pillars)

Cave formations - pillar and "curtains" — The Twins (cave pillars)

Saving my very favorite for last — the Lily Pad Room, where mineral deposits sitting in a pool of water take the shape of lily pads. It’s breathtaking.

Inside a cave, flat rock formations in water look like lily pads

I’ll finish by sharing the poem I mentioned. This was published a few years ago in “Eternal as a Weed: Tales of Ozark Experience.”

Onondaga Cave

This race is indeed not to the swift
and is not a race.
Today we like speed. The whole world
in an instant with a keystroke.
Third-graders: do 100 addition problems
in five minutes. Speed proves competence.
Service so quick you’ll quake,
or something like that.
Nobody should wait.
The gravest sin is to slow others down.
That’s above ground.

Enter this cave and the standards invert.
Muse upon the mighty stalagmites.
Take in the tightly clinging stalactites.
Marvel at the pace of growth, an inch per hundred years.
One. Inch. Per. One. Hundred. Years.
That’s where the awe comes in.
If they formed at a fast clip, we’d chop them out,
carry them off, stack them in our garages,
intending to use them in a craft someday.
There would be no sense of wonder.
The slowness makes it so.
Speed wins the day, persistence the millennia.

On Today’s Walk: Bird Gossip

Today’s walk was an early evening affair for me. I came upon some sparrows, ensconced in what I’m sure they believed to be a private communications chamber. But they were spilling all their secrets to me.

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/FeXkK8HXHYM

Would they have been so chatty had they known a human was listening in?

On Today’s Walk: Sanctuary

Stone sign: Bonnie View Nature Sanctuary

I know we’re all fighting a lot of fires right now, some not even metaphorical. But we also need some times of rest and sanctuary from the…waves hand vaguely.

I found it today at the Bonnie View Nature Sanctuary. Wouldn’t you like to experience a respite vicariously through my photos?

I saw a cool playground. Got to admit, I was tempted to do some climbing on these structures.

playground climbing structures made to look like tree branches

I saw several birds but got no photos of any of them. However, the Merlin app took a stab at identifying them by sound.

Three birds, Carolina wren, song sparrow, tufted titmouse — Screenshot

A crane your neck to see the top tall tree:

Large bare tree with a cloudy sky behind

Some really beautiful prairie grass, even if it is dormant season. The mix of hues and shapes is breathtaking if you take the time to really look. One view from across the way and one view from what it might look like for a tiny animal taking refuge in the brush. (I stuck my camera right in.)

mown brown grass foreground, behind that, tall prairie grasses and trees

And despite the fact that our last snow fell on *January 10*, a little bit of it remains here and there.

line of snow in brown grass next to a walking trail

If all of the…waves hand vaguely…has got you stressed and anxious, try to go out into nature and move around for a while if possible. When you come back, I almost guarantee you’ll be better able to deal with it.

On Today’s Bike Ride: Stronger Than I Thought

There are a couple of quick and easy routes from my house to the trail where I often ride my bike. Getting back home, however, requires an arduous climb coming back off the trail, either way I go. One is a shorter distance, but a steeper slope. That’s the one I took coming home today.

It’s only a block, but more vertical than I would choose. I have never yet had to get off and push the bike, but I do shift down into the very lowest gear. The saving grace to this stretch is that there’s usually little traffic, making it easy to ride in a switchback pattern. Today, however, people were getting in my way with their cars. I was forced to grind it out straight up the hill.

75% of the way, I questioned whether I would actually make it to the top, but I focused on each pedal stroke. One more and then one more and then one more. I made it! Not only that, but when I looked at my gear shifts, I discovered they weren’t on the very lowest setting. I had put them into the second lowest setting.

Whoa! I’m stronger than I thought!

I’m going to hold onto this thought as a truth. I’m stronger than I realize, and I’m accomplishing more than I give myself credit for. Even when stuff is hard, I can hang on.

You know what else is hanging on? These trees.

The bottom part of two trees with their roots exposed on one side. Fallen leaves on the ground.

Their roots are all exposed on one side where the ground is eroded and slants down to the trail. But they still seem firmly anchored, holding on strongly on the other side. Hang in there, trees! You’re doing great!

I found them along the Hinkson Creek Trail, a different ride than Freida and I usually take. We had a nice, peaceful time of it, encountering few other humans today.