We went to NW Georgia for today’s big adventure. We parked at the Keown Falls picnic area—lovely, under the trees—and ascended to check the falls (dry), and ascended further, to the top of Johns Mountain. Then we followed the trail south along the spine of Johns Mountain, then, well, as Bill said, it’s all downhill from here.

We found the fall color glorious, brilliant in full sunshine, with few leaves fallen. Spellbinding in every direction….

We took advantage of the picnic area to down some calories, both solid (mmmm good salsa!) and liquid.

Part of our route followed the Pinhoti trail, which, I have now learned (courtesy of the internet—scroll down for map), apparently is the longest foot trail system in GA, and extends into AL for another 136 miles. It connects with other trails to make a walking trail from FL to Canada. So they say.

Georgia mountain woods, in my experience, lack many rodents, birds, and larger critters relative to other North American woods I’ve spent time in. Today was no exception. Our most exciting critter sighting: several busy dung beetles.*

* Get this: one of my recent birthday cards referred to dung beetles….

…you may have noticed that I’ve been on the road lately. Although yesterday we returned home (yeah!)—and it is MOSTLY our Home AGAIN (double yeah!)—today I was traveling again. To Rome. Not the Italian or even the New York one, but the one in northwest Georgia, where I attended Society for Georgia Archaeology semi-annual meeting events.

There, I got stuck in the parking lot of the Chieftains Museum (also the home of Major Ridge, a prosperous Cherokee who was forced to endure the Trail of Tears ethnic cleansing/removal to lands that became Oklahoma over the winter of 1838-39*), waiting for a parade of modern wagons drawn by pairs of mules escorted by myriad riders on horseback to pass by. I estimate there were perhaps two hundred non-human critters involved in that mini-migration….

* Ridge, whose name in Cherokee was Ca-nung-da-cla-geh, was murdered by other Indians in 1839 for having signed the Treaty of New Echota (then the Cherokee Capital, in Georgia) in 1835, along with a minority of other Cherokees and without the permission of the tribal government. The treaty was an agreement by the Cherokees to leave their southern Appalachian homeland in return for monetary compensation and lands to settle out west.

PS If you’re bored with the above, perhaps you’d be interested in this NYTimes piece on worm grunting aka worm charming? BTW, the full PLoS article by Kenneth C. Catania is here….

Back to the garden today, and we finally determined that the pond has nine fish. For some time we didn’t see the black one that often swims off by him/herself. This one was feeding aggressively amongst the rocks….

Chapel Lake, view west across south end.

Today’s adventure was a loop walk around Chapel Lake, in the Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore. The breeze was offshore and we could hear the wind in the canopy as we walked through the mostly maple woods. We saw two little snakes (snakelets?; possibly hatched this year?; one probably garter/garden; other unknown), no fur bearers, only a few other hiker/walkers, no campers, many chipmunks. Notable plant species include Doll’s Eyes and moosewood (no time to find links). We also saw Chapel Rock.

All week I’ve been watching the LBBs* working on the barberries. Since there still seems to be a bumper crop on the branches, I think they’re not particularly efficient.

* Little Brown Birds.

Part of today’s excitement involved a visit to a family farm—almost private petting zoo. Sheep. Llamas. In short: fiber creatures. Yes, the lady of the house is a spinner and weaver. Among other things.

After our late morning shopping expedition (miscellaneous hardware supplies), we took the long way back from Curtis, thereby circumnavigating* the lake. We stopped to photograph a field of near-harvest-ready sunflowers, and a pair of Sandhill cranes rose up from the far side of the field and flew over the sunflowers and our heads, vocalizing all the way! Exciting! [But mediocre photos.]

Our last photo stop was at the boat ramp/public access on a lovely curve of the Manistique River, where I greatly enjoyed capturing vegetative reflections in the relatively quiet river-surface.

Diary note: cleaned ashes out of wood stove (five trays) and outhouse bucket is now reloaded.

Late afternoon addendum: RIP Aunt NTM.

* Circumnavigate in the dictionary refers to travel aboard (a sailing) ship. Circumambulate means to circle something on foot. I don’t know of a word for traveling around something in a land vehicle.

This morning’s darkness yielded to overcast and drippy rain, but before 10 am all was sunny and glistening beneath a cloudless sky. Still, I was sucked into my mystery novel, although I kept getting up to do this and that: tuck more wood in the stove, rinse some split peas and get them onto a burner to boil then shift to atop the heat stove to simmer, check the orchard for wandering deer, try to figure out where that tiny mouse noise was coming from (north wall?) and thus where anti-mouse activities should focus, and just plain look around and grin. This is the morning for unstructured meanderings; there’s time enough ahead for removing cobwebs, mowing grass, painting window frames, checking the fencelines, and the like.

Throughout the day, the sun peeked in and out, and sprinkles came and went. By late-day, the sun made the skyline over the lake brilliant silver. When I went out to take pictures, I scared up two white-tails who probably felt like their territory had been invaded. The wood stove has kept us toasty with long-cut stove chunks and the leftover pea soup is tucked away in the fridge.

Due to a flurry of emails and calls, we missed today’s (away) volleyball matches, so this image is from Tuesday’s home game.

What critter would you pick to be your school’s mascot if the school was named Paideia? A python, of course! And if you’re really cool, you’ll present the python entwined with a π symbol (that’s the off-white in the photo).

Found this almost-drowned butterfly in the lake last week; I don’t think our rescue was enough for him/her to survive.

Under a grey sky, I might consider loon calls plangent, but probably not if it’s sunny.

Plangent

A loud, reverberating sound considered melancholy. (From the Latin word for lamenting.)