Hike at Mayapple Glen

Mom and I went on a little walk behind Papaw Melvin's house today and decided to nickname it Mayapple Glen, because the Mayapples were thick as a blanket over much of the valley. We have had a lot of rain the past couple of days leaving everything green, green, green. I love the smell of a forest after a fresh rain. I was so happy to spot a couple Jack-In-The -Pulpit plants. The pulpit that surrounds jack is not the flower, it is a leaf bract.

We also spotted several Yellow Lady's Slipper plants. These plants have a very interesting pollination process. They require a specific fungi to be present in their roots in order to survive, and their bigger Pink counter parts are pretty rare.

Here is the bloom of the Mayapple. To find one of the blooms you need to spot a plant with two stems. When I was little I can remember calling these little plants Smurf homes. I guess it was the shape, because they are not a brightly colored toadstool, but it was still fun to imagine.

We also spotted several other flowers that I tried to ID when I got home. I think that we found:
Prairie Ragwort
Daisy Fleabane
Golden Star
Hoary Puccoon

Mid April Garden Days

Clay worked really hard today tilling up a section of the garden for seed potatoes. We actually decided to till over the area we planted the sugar snap peas because there was no sign of life. We did three thirty-five feet rows. One and half rows are Red Pontiac, and one and half are Kennabec. We also planted our final blueberry bush, that we ordered by mail (Patriot).

The seedlings we planted are coming up well. I majorly over seeded each cup, thinking that some seeds may not germinate. Plus I only have a few containers and not nearly enough space in the garden for all these seedlings. I have been thinning them out daily, feeling horrible that I'm killing a possible beautiful tomato plant, I still have about five per container and there should only be one. I did replant some of the seedlings in potting soil mix instead of seed starter and put a few cucumber seeds in today. I also started some oregano, Imperial Larkspur, and Delphiniums in pots. I know that these can be directly sown, but we are not sure where to put them yet.

Color Code for Seedlings:
green-blank-green = Brandywine
green-black-green-black = Green Zebra
orange = Silentz
orange-green = Brandywine (2008)
black-orange-green = Risentraube
black = Purple Tomato (Sarah Black)
blue-orange = Red Belgian Pepper
blue-green = European Hot Pepper
plain = Early Russian Cucumber
We had our first asparagus harvest today. We usually like the skinnier pieces when we buy asparagus in the grocery store, but these were coming up pretty thick. We were pleasantly surprised that they didn't take long at all to cook and were perfectly tender and super yummy.

Garden Pics and Hanging Rock Raptor Observatory

We have had horrible luck so far with planting an early spring crop. So far no sign of spinach, lettuce, or sugar snap peas that were planted two weeks ago. Although I planted a second round of peas and lettuce, so they still have a chance, I hope! Last year we tilled in a large truck load of horse manure to help fertilize the soil and we added compost and organic fertilizer with each row of seed or each hole for a plant. I was in such a rush to get something planted that I neglected to add any compost to the soil. I have some more seed to try to put in later today or this weekend. We did put in four red cabbage plants that need to be mulched (I hope to save some grass clippings for the next time we mow the yard). Also in the picture above we have returning oregano and lavender. Good News!!! In the picture below we have our first signs of asparagus coming up. We should be able to do a light harvest from the patch, because this is the second year it has been established.
Below are some pictures from our trip yesterday to Hanging Rock. Hanging Rock Tower is in Monroe County, West Virginia which is in the southeastern part of the state near the Virginia border. It is on part of the Allegheny Trail, which intersects with the Appalachian Trail.
The best time to visit the tower in in the fall from late August through October, during migration season. Our only bird sightings were Turkey Vultures, which we see every day down at the river and all over the place, but it was still amazing to see them at this elevation. We did see some other interesting birds and bird calls on the trail up, including some woodpeckers. The other great part about going this time of year was we had the place all to ourselves and the view is amazing. During peak season the spot can get up to 100 visitors daily.

This pictures shows why it is called Hanging Rock. The wind was not too bad (otherwise I wouldn't be sitting on the edge), I can easily imagine being swept off the rocks on a really windy day.
Elevation - 3812ft

The building has an interesting history including plenty of vadalism, requiring it to be rebuilt. It has to be hard keeping the shingles and the roof in good shape. There was one window with a broken latch that kept banging open and shut.
Meet Grendel!
On the way back we took Rt.600 to Paint Bank. We have visited this are before, but neglected to check out the buffalo farm. The sign is very entertaining.
After visiting the farm we ate at the local restaurant, Clay had a buffalo burgar and I had a grass-fed beef burgar, not too cheap, but very yummy. The history of the town is pretty fascinating. When reading about one of the old flour mills, that is being renovated to do demonstartins of the milling process, I realized that the owners of basically the whole town graduated from Roanoke College.
We were able to stay on the scenic country roads for the whole trip. We returned to McCoy just in time to catch the train.

Cold Mountain

Clay and I traveled to Oronoco, Virginia (near Buena Vista) for a day hike. It took about 1 hour and 45 min. to get there. Then we hiked 5.8 miles to the summit of Cold Mountain (Which is actually Cole Mountain, but somewhere along the way the name changed). This is the first clearing we came to that is maintained as a campsite, with a large stand of mature Oak trees.

Bloodroot

This open meadow had a 360 panoramic view.


Elevation 4033ft.

One shot from the top.

A few other images we enjoyed along the way.

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.