Barney's Wall

This hike did not start out as planned. We started out with poor directions from a website for "Scenic Mountain Views Near Blacksburg". After deciding that the name of the road we were looking for had been changed , we did eventually find Paces Gap Rd (now Little Meadow). The "road" ended up being a complete mud hole, but Blueberry (my Subaru) made it though the sludge. We couldn't find the sign for the Nature Conservancy Trail, so again we went out on a limb and tried an unmarked trail that seemed to be in the right area. This side trail did lead to the right trail, but we didn't know which direction to turn when we found it. Our first two guesses of the day worked so we turned right and walked, then just as we were about to give in we spotted this sign!!
Barney's Wall turned out to be a sheer drop off of about 700 ft. It is not the kind of drop off that had little ledges sticking out on the way down, in fact the ledge you stand on it jutting out over the cliff. I'm not too scared of heights but this one made me nervous, especially with the wind blowing pretty good. It is hard to see the degree of the drop off in this picture but I didn't want to spend too much time near the edge, but those toothpick looking trees are not seedlings.
This is a side view of the wall.
The view looking out wasn't so bad either!
I did say I was nervous about the edge, but I couldn't resist another last look. Laying down kept me from feeling like I might just blow off.
On one of the side trails we stood under this pile of layered rock.

Below - Running Ceder
Right before we were about to get back to the forest service road (Little Meadow), I spotted our first critter sighting. Clay was sprinting ahead of me and almost stepped on these guys. (We were pushing to get back home before the VT B-Ball game) Meanwhile, I kept stopping to take random pictures like the two pics above, and at first glance I thought I was looking at one snake, but then realized it had multiple heads. We counted three garter snakes.

Lobster Day

I went to Kroger's to buy some beef for a pot roast, and the nice man behind the counter told me I had to sign up to win a free lobster. I filled out the slip not wanting to hurt the man's feelings. The next day Clay sent me an email telling me that he had a voice mail from some man saying "Congratulations you won the lobster!" I had accidently put Clay's number down on the form and he had no idea what was going on. I went by Krogers after work to find out the details. I hadn't paid any attention to the lobster tank at all, since I was a kid and was fascinated by living creatures being at a grocery store. The man chuckled as he told me our lobster was the big one with the white bands around the claws. It was over 5 lbs! He assured me that they could steam the lobster if we didn't want to tackle it at home. So I planned to pick it up the next day.
We did have it steamed at Krogers, although Clay and I agreed that it would have been better if we would have tried it at home, so it was hot and fresh out of the pot. We did put it back in some warm water just to heat him up and we were lucky to find a pot that was big enough. We read that a 5lb lobster could cook for 23-25 min. and he was only steamed for 20 at Krogers so we also thought it was good to give him a couple more minutes.


Dave, our cat was terrified of the thing, as you can see here. It was easily as big as the cat. Clay was wishing we would have brought him home alive to watch Dave's reaction to it crawling around on the floor.
So here is the final set up. We had no proper lobster eating tools, so we had to go to the toolbox. We also used a regular nut cracker, which worked fine for me. The claws were so big that you could just pull chunks of the meat out with a fork, once you twisted the legs off. We decided that 5lbs is just too big. By the time we got to the tail it was getting cold and was actually a little tough. Older lobsters are probably not the best for good eating. We certainly had fun trying something we never would have purchased on our own, but we just couldn't finish it off. Dave was more than happy to help us clean our plates.

Cedar Run

Today I had a chance to explore a little nature trail with a couple of my co-workers. We were trying to scout out the area to see if it would be a good hike for our Wildlife Club kids. It most likely would not be a great area to take the kids. There is a ton to see, but it is not really a long enough hike to allow them to use up a lot of energy. Plus there was very limited parking and several areas where monitoring even a small group of kids would be challenging. It is difficult to find a good spot to take 15-20 kids (with parents) on a hike where you do not risk having a negative impact on the surrounding area. The hike is just off of Ellett Road across from Buckskin Road. There are a couple stoned in areas where people collected water from springs and then several buildings that were used for storing the water for the people that settled in the valley. The trail runs right along Cedar Creek, which is surrounded by Northern White Cedar trees. Here are a couple of shots from our walk.


This was taken through a small hole in a huge water tank. A few musicians decided to put some stools down there and take advantage of the acoustics.

The roof of this old building collapsed, making a nice reflecting pool, with some cool colors.

Go Hokies

Another far fetch from outdoor adventures, but I had to add this to my blog!!!!!

Crafty Crochet

This has nothing to do with outdoor adventures or gardening, but who wants to go outside when it feel like 0 degrees outside. Plus since I've had a couple of snow days I've had time to venture upstairs and dig through my yarn baskets. I'm not sure who is suppose to have the time to crochet little mini stuffed animals, but for some reason I've been a little hooked on them, simply because they're so darn cute. When I visited my cousin Jessica last summer in Kansas I bought a book called "Amigurumi World." I'm not even sure how to pronounce the Japanese word, but it translates to "knitted stuffed toy," but the instructions are for crocheting. They are a great way to use up scrap yarn, but more time consuming than I expected because of sewing the pieces together, which I'm really not so good at. Below are my first two attempts. I will have to do something to make the bear's eyes stand out more. In the background are a few easy coasters that I made.
The following two pictures are afghans that I had previously made. These patterns were also chosen to use up scrap yarn. My mother-in-law is always giving my bags of yarn, which is fun because I never know what I'm going to get. The granny squares were really fun to make, but a pain to sew together. I've seen blankets since then that have a border between the squares and I think that looks a lot better.
More coasters.

Field Guides

Since I started the Virginia Master Naturalist class I have been reading/reviewing various field guides. Santa left Clay and I each a field guide one for Insects and one for Caterpillars. They are part of the "Peterson First Guides" series, very small and easy to use. I needed to clean out the leaves and other various trash items that had blown under our rhododendron plant near our porch. As I was raking I discovered this little jewel tying to overwinter beside our porch.


You can see how we rolled up into a ball for protection and reviewed the red stripes on his body. They are easier to see if you click on the picture.

So I got to use my new field guide and discovered I had a Giant Leopard Moth. My little guide discussed what to do if you want to "rear" the larva, and I couldn't resist, my students will be so fascinated by this guy. Wish me luck, I will feel terrible if he dies before emerging. This is a link about the moth that another curious naturalist wrote, notice the adult moth picture!

At the same time I took the picture of the caterpillar I discovered the little bugs in the background and got to use my other field guide.
These appear to be a scentless plant bug called Box Elder Bugs. They congregate in large numbers to hibernate during the winter, sometimes choosing human abodes to do so.

I also wanted to include a couple of sunset pictures that Clay recently took. I really like the pink reflection on the river.

Current Reading

My posts are far and few between, due to the lack of any outdoor adventures. I am looking forward to browsing a few seed catalogs as we prepare for next years garden. I have had more time for reading since I'm not outdoors as much, plus having a winter break from work helps. The following is a quote from the current book I'm reading titled, " The Unsettling of America."

"It is possible, then, to believe that there is a kind of work that does not require abuse or misuse, that does not use anything as a substitute for anything else. we are working well when we use ourselves as the fellow creatures of plants, animals, materials, and other people we are working with. Such work is unifying, healing. It brings us home from pride and from despair, and places us responsibly within the human estate. It defines us as we are: not too good to work with our bodies, but too good to work poorly or joylessly or selfishly or alone."

The last sentence really rang a bell for me. The following review is a great summary of the book highlights.

I hope to post more pictures again soon, I've neglected using the camera for awhile, although we've had some beautiful sunsets and a few birds at our bird feeders that I would like to photograph.