Tag: nature walks

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Gravel County Road

My Missouri county seems to draw a lot of people from other places. Most of them are city people who don’t really want to live in the country so the county is busy paving their gravel county road system.

Me? I like living on a gravel county road. Like anything else, it has advantages and disadvantages.

gravel county road in winter
County gravel roads are the highways for people and animals in rural areas. They are easy to walk on. Reptiles love how they heat up. Deer love to browse they reach along the roadsides.

Disadvantages of a Gravel County Road

Dust, lots of dust is kicked up by passing vehicles and the wind. All that dust drifts away to settle elsewhere – like in the house. It coats everything in a brown layer.

Every rain storm seems to leave pot holes behind. Occasionally the road grader comes by to fill them in, but never address the reason the pot hole appeared in the first place. This is usually a ditch choked with branches, dirt and rocks or sloped so the water doesn’t run off.

armadillo along gravel county road
Ozark county roads have sides with ditches to hold water and sides covered with leaves and other plant pieces. This armadillo was spotted checking for grubs and earthworms buried under the leaves.

Loose gravel can be a problem too. It rolls under the tires letting them slide. Or the road develops washboards – a series of small mounds across the road – that challenge the shock absorbers which are another casualty of a gravel county road.

Gravel wears out tires. The best tires are all terrain or have mud and snow tread. The good ones are costly. Cheap tires with city tread can be deadly.

Mourning Cloak butterfly sunning on gravel county road
Mourning Cloak butterflies hide over the winter and often come out in the first warm days in February. This one is sunning on the road. There are no flowers for nectar, but it sips water and minerals from the roadsides and near streams.

Advantages of a Gravel County Road

My road has springs all along it and is no candidate for paving. That’s just fine with me. It discourages lots of idle traffic.

And that is the biggest reason for choosing to live on such a road. When the weather is bad, there is no traffic, only country quiet. Even many nice days have little or no traffic.

I can walk a mile or more up or down the road enjoying the wildflowers, spotting the wildlife that also use the road. And have no one drive by.

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Goldenrods Are Blooming

In spite of the drought many wildflowers are trying to put on a show along the roads here in the Ozarks. Goldenrods are blooming with their bright yellow making them hard to miss.

Downy Goldenrods are blooming
I stopped because of another goldenrod and found this Downy goldenrod right beside it. The reflexed bits under the flower heads make this one easy to identify as the only other one like this is very hairy. The rays on these flower heads are very long and showy.

How Many?

It’s easy to say goldenrod and give the impression there is only one. Driving by it’s also easy to think these yellow blurs are all the same.

They are not. Four goldenrods are blooming now and several have finished. As I try to get something done on my Dent County Flora, I’m taking pictures of some.

The picture taking is the easy part. Identifying the different ones is the hard part. Several look a lot alike. Luckily the four in bloom now are easier.

Hairy Goldenrods are blooming
Most goldenrods have big, branched flower tips. This is one Hairy Goldenrod, doesn’t. It is a single stalk with clumps of flower heads from the leaf nodes. The stalk is stiff. The rays are small and there are no recurved bits under the flower heads.

One Patch Missing

For years I would take pictures of the Tall goldenrod blooming just down the road. The road grader scraped that section away and none grew there this year. There are some along the road to town, but I miss the little patch. Orange day lilies are taking over that spot.

However, three others are still found along the road on the walk to the river. I do have several books to help me identify them. Unfortunately, I don’t really understand the descriptions with all the botanical terms.

My main way is through drawings and pictures, both in the books and at missouriplants.com. The flowerhead arrangements are different on the different kinds. The leaves are too.

Rough Goldenrods are blooming
Rough Goldenrods are smaller plants. they like to grow on roadside banks and nod over them. In a good year I will see these drooping out along a long stretch of roadside. They like lots of sun, although their bright color rivals it.

Other Roadside Attractions

Yes, the goldenrods are blooming. Their yellow is so attractive. They are not the only wild flowers along the road.

This is aster season. New England purple and gold, spreading blue, heath white are some of the colors. There are several blue lavender asters and several white heath asters.

White snakeroot, yellow brown-eyed Susans, sweet everlasting and thistles are wrapping up their time. The trees may not be in fall colors yet, but the roadsides are.

More about wild flowers can be found in my book Exploring the Ozark Hills.

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Glade Exploring

Glades are special places often with plants found no where else. There is a small one near my home, so I went glade exploring.

What Is a Glade?

The ones I have visited have lots of rocks, thin soil and lots of dryness and heat. They are sloped. Chiggers love them as numerous lizards often live there, the preferred host for the minute biters. Before going glad exploring, be sure to spray to discourage these little attackers.

My small one is up on the side of a hill. It would seem unusual in that it is not far from the bottom of a small ravine. Yet it is definitely very dry much of the time with no trees other than some invading red cedars – the enemy of a glade.

Missouri Coneflower found when glade exploring
There are so many yellow aster type flowers. Although Missouri Coneflower reminds you of Purple Coneflower, it is in a different group, Rudebekia. They are still lovely to see especially when there are several dozen blooming.

What Did I Find?

No real rain has fallen in several weeks so all the plants were wilted to dried up, even the grass. Still, a few plants were still surviving. I was mostly interested in a yellow coneflower and the blazing star blooming among the rocks.

What I hope to find is an Adder’s Tongue, a type of fern. This grows in glades, but, being a fern, likes moisture. When the weather is dry, it withers away.

This fern puts up a single leaf, not a frond. It is usually seen in spring and fall when rain is supposed to fall.

Blazing Star Liatris
Three of these small Liatris flowers grow in my area. This one is officially called Blazing Star, although the others are often called that too. What sets this flower apart is the calyx below the tube flowers with the fat and pointed scales plus lots of hairs on the edges. To me this flower is purple, but it is often listed under pink in the wildflower books.

Another Fern

I have found another wet weather fern. It’s called a Resurrection Fern and grows on a large rock outcrop. Whenever it rains during warm weather, this fern unrolls its fronds.

This gives me hope the Adder’s tongue will reappear in this small glade once fall rains decide to come and visit.

Will it rain soon? Actually almost an inch fell the other day and the temperatures dropped into the eighties.

The rain is still on a cloud to cloud basis. This is when a thunderstorm cloud floats by and drops rain in one small area, but leaves nearby areas dry.

That small rain means I will go glade exploring to see if the small area has perked up as much as my pasture.

Find out more about many Ozark plants in Exploring the Ozark Hills.

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Ozark Wildflowers Blooming

The race is on. The spring ephemeral Ozark wildflowers blooming now are in a race with the trees. They want to put out their leaves for the summer.

Most spring ephemerals grow on the forest floor. All summer the trees shade this area making it hard for plants growing there to get enough light to photosynthesize. Certainly there isn’t enough light for a plant to make seeds.

Edible seeds on American Elm
Unless the tree has showy flowers like redbuds or dogwoods, people don’t think about trees having flowers. Many trees like elms, oaks, hickories and walnuts are wind pollinated so their flowers are tiny. The pollen clouds are noticed because they cover everything with a yellow film. These elm seeds are called samovars and are edible. I found them a nice snack, if I could reach them.

Trees Race Too

Many trees are wind pollinated. Leaves slow down the wind and the pollen. This yellow cloud coats the leaves instead of the pistils waiting to be pollinated. So the maples, ashes, willows, oaks and black walnuts are busy trying to bloom before the leaves too.

American elms are rare here due to Dutch elm disease. I’d found some down by the river in bloom. One even had branches low enough for me to get a picture or two.

On a recent walk I found the seeds on these trees. Since they were listed in “Foraging the Ozarks” as edible, I tried a few. They are bland, but a nice snack. Elms make lots of seeds so eating a few won’t hurt.

Nearby the green ash were blooming. November’s flood washed out my favorite ones, but I did find a few young ones I could get pictures of.

Ozark wildflowers blooming like Spring Beauty
Spring Beauty is a spring ephemeral. It forms large colonies in moist ground. I have seen it carpet lawns in town as well.

Ozark Wildflowers Blooming

The trees were expected. So many wildflowers weren’t. Beautiful spring beauties lined the road and the path along the river. Rue anemones are just opening. Blue violets are having trouble growing up through the sand leaving their flowers sandy.

Redbuds are blooming. Fragrant sumac is opening. Virginia bluebells are getting ready. Rose verbena has its purple pink bouquets out along the road.

Ozark wildflowers blooming like rose verbena
This native wildflower, Rose Verbena, blooms all spring and summer. It is a low growing plant and would be a nice groundcover. It is one of the earliest bright wildflowers blooming along the roads.

Time Frustrations

Now is the time to go hiking to find, admire and photograph all the Ozark wildflowers blooming. It’s also time to get the garden ready and to start planting early crops like peas, turnips, kohlrabi, mizuna and more.

Trying to do both is frustrating.

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First Spring Hike

The grass is starting to grow hinting at mower time coming. The wayside speedwell and early cress are blooming in the yard. So I went on my first spring hike looking for the earliest wildflowers.

Disappointment

The upper Meramec River is a short hike away. Usually I find harbinger of spring there.

Not this year. This year the river bank is totally different after the big flood that came through the end of last year.

Debris in the bushes marked the high water mark. It was over five feet up. Fallen logs were swept away through much of my hiking path. Sand was left behind.

Dreams of crossing onto the gravel bar in the center of the river were mostly cancelled. The river had cut into its bank, toppling trees and leaving sheer drops of four to ten feet into deep pools. This summer’s swimmers with their small children may not want to stay here this year. Already the party crowd has gone elsewhere as the far gravel bank is now inaccessible.

first spring hike find: American Elm flower
American elms aren’t doing well in my area of the Ozarks. Those near the house have all died. A few hang on in the river floodplain. My first spring hike was timed well as these trees were blooming. I was lucky to have a branch within reach to get a few pictures.

Only One Flower

A few spring plants are trying to force their way up through the sand. Some of the dirt areas are still clear. However, I found no early wildflowers.

Silver maples grow along the river. They had finished blooming. I don’t worry much about getting pictures of them as the flowers are thirty feet over my head.

The American elms had washed away in the area I had found. There does seem to be others further down and these trees were in bloom. One branch was even within reach of my walking stick-hooked on the end.

Later On

This first spring hike was mostly exercise and looking around. My next forays along here will hopefully find other flowers in bloom.

Some, like Virginia bluebells, rue anemone, false rue anemone, Confederate violets, are nice to see again. Another, Virginia waterleaf, is one I need more pictures of. I’ve found it along here in the past, but my return trips were thwarted by stinging nettle. Perhaps the flood swept most of these away. I can hope.

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Winter Hikes

The hills are covered with bare branches. They don’t look very inviting for winter hikes, but there are interesting things out there.

Birds

Most of the year birds say hidden behind leaves. I hear them singing or scolding, but rarely catch more than a glimpse.

Winter is different. There are few leaves to hide behind. Fewer kinds of birds are out there, but they can be seen.

Cardinals are the most visible. The males have put on their mating finery so their red glows.

Woodpeckers are beginning to nest so the sound of wood being chiseled is everywhere. The males are drumming to advertise their latest nesting holes.

Carolina Wren on Bird Feeder
I put out fresh sunflower seeds to lure in a couple of cardinals. They went elsewhere. Chickadees came to enjoy the bounty. Carolina wrens don’t normally stop at the feeder, but this one decided to inspect it.

Plants

The trees and shrubs may be bare, the ground isn’t. Mosses and lichens coat the ground with greens and grays. Christmas and ebony spleenwort ferns add green spikes.

A number of plants do sprout in the late summer into fall and overwinter as small sets of leaves. Trying to identify them is a fun challenge on winter hikes.

Trees and I have an uneasy relationship. I like trees. However, photographing them is difficult as they are so tall.

Still, on winter hikes, I take photographs of winter buds on branches I pull down. Then I go in to stumble my way through the “Missoui Trees in Winter” keys trying to identify them.

Once the trees leaf out, I will go back and use leaves to identify these trees. And I can look up to the branches far overhead on some trees I can’t include in my Flora project unless I learn to climb trees.

green mosses light up winter hikes
Mosses are among the very earlies plants. They need moist places and thrive even in frigid temperatures. Over the winter, with the trees bare, mosses green up absorbing the winter sun adding color to the Ozark hills during winter hikes.

Weather

The biggest drawback to winter hikes is the weather. Many days I stand at the windows looking out at the hills. Cold, rain, snow, ice are good reasons to stay inside.

One nice thing about the Ozarks weather are the warmer spells mixed into the cold ones. Going out walking is possible then.