Reading the Hill Country's Agricultural Landscape, Part One

I inhabit a landscape of loss. I recall Shelby Foote, writer and historian of the Civil War, remarking (on Ken Burns' Civil War program) that the South is unusual in the country because it has had the experience of losing a war. But that is not all that it has lost. It has also lost the A horizon of its soil -- a layer of organic-rich "topsoil". Up to a foot of black earth once covered its red clay heart, the now-exposed iron- and clay-rich B horizon. All that is gone -- lost to King Cotton, and afterwards, lost to mismanagement as fields were abandoned during the Great Depression. Maybe, in a few thousand years, a new A horizon will develop. But for now, I am haunted by the sense of absence, an incomplete soil. And all around me, inscribed into the landscape, the gullies that once flowed with a slurry of soil and water, and the upland terraces where the cotton once grew. Looking closer, I see old fencelines with barbed wire, and Coca-Cola bottles from the 1920s (I discovered two across the road from my house), and rusting farm machinery of mysterious form and purpose. And I think about what once grew here, and the cattle that once roamed fields now grown to forests (and still roam other nearby fields).


Mostly, though, I think about the soil. There is a new soil survey for Fulton County -- 2008 -- and and older one (and more intriguing, for its age), from 1958. The soil names have all been changed in the interim, and the aerial photograph used as a base is correspondingly newer, too.


Nonetheless, my favorite local aerial photograph is the one above. It shows the crossroads of Goodes, southwest Fulton County, as it appeared from an airplane sometime in 1938 -- back when a lot of the erosion was still going on, when the topsoil was still on the move. Goodes is more noticeable on an aerial photograph or map than it is from the ground -- the roads come together in a distinctive pattern that lends character to what otherwise would be just any other highway intersection in what passes for "country" outside Atlanta. From the ground, Goodes is just a sign like an old-time gas station kind, easily overlooked.

But in the aerial photograph, I can spot Goodes among dozens of other highway crossroads. Rico residents may have the old schoolhouse that is now City Hall, Police Station, Community Center, and Library all rolled into one (and they may have the volunteer firehouse, too), but we have that strange crossing of roads where the north-south Atlanta Newnan Road is offset, with Rico angling northwest in-between its two sections. A geologist, examining the crossroads, would declare Hutcheson Ferry Road a fault line, and pronounce the movement right lateral.

Hutcheson Ferry is hardly a plate tectonic boundary -- we are fully in the United States, deep in the heartland, as the soundly Republican tone to the political signs on homeowners' lawns remindes me. But it is a boundary of another sort -- a drainage divide, separating small subbasins within the Chattahoochee River Watershed. To the north, along Rico Road and in the woods just across the street from my house, a brook flows in a narrow but deeply-incised channel, eventually joining another stream, flowing into Longino Creek and then at last into White Oak Creek, and thence into the Chattahoochee River. To the south, the water flows into ephemeral gullies, like the one behind Hill Country Montessori School, and then into Cedar Creek, which briefly serves as county line between Fulton and Coweta Counties.

All this shows that, if not the center of the universe, Goodes is a fascinating place to be. But, as Brian Swimme the theoretical cosmologist reminds us (to go from the crossroads to the cosmic for a moment), we are in an expanding universe where every point is a center of expansion. So every place is the center of the universe. Goodes is as good an axis mundi as any other one, and perhaps a bit more distinctive when viewed from above (or nowadays, from Google Earth). But other spots are intriguing in their own way, if you slow down enough to read them -- to study their chorography. That, I suppose, is the irony of being a proponent of reading the landscape -- I become proficient at reading stories in the immediate earth where I live, but I do so with the hope of encouraging others to do the same in their own places.

The stories are different, perhaps, though too many are, I fear, variations on a theme of loss. After all, no places on this continent will feel again the whirlwind force of a visit by a sky-darkening flock of passenger pigeons, and no tree will shake with the tropical chatterings of a flock of Carolina parakeets. The elm tree is gone, apart from a large specimen I found along a trail at Etowah State Historic Site. And the chestnut is gone, too, apart from a few tentative saplings that die young and diseased (awaiting a naturalist equivalent of A. E. Housman to celebrate them), and a dozen that made National Public Radio news last year for lingering into adulthood on the slopes of Pine Mountain, well south of here.

I was the speaker in our Sense of Place Series this month, though I did not cover anything I wrote above (except the lost topsoil part). I drew upon the work of an ecologist at the University of West Georgia, Joe Hendricks, presenting one of his Terrestrial Ecology PowerPoint presentations to offer the half-dozen audience members a sense of the landscape history of this region. Then I showed the Goodes aerial photograph from 1938 -- a travel back in time to when terraces were still bare -- covering parts of the land with patterns akin to suminagashi, the inky swirls of Japanese marbled paper. Then I showed them images from a walk in the woods I took last year, with scenes evoking stories in the landscape.

Above is what I wanted to say, or begin to say, or struggle to make sense of -- the mysterious force that compels me to find new stories in the land, the way I have become so taken with the crossing of roads I walk every day, the way I thrill to the discovery of another trace of abandoned fenceline, the sorrow I feel when I look across a gully at a white oak over a hundred years old, once a pasture tree and now, roots exposed, holding for life onto a mound of soil. And I think of the distance between that oak and me, a distance once filled with earth, now not capable of being bridged. It is a distance in space, of course, but also in time, back to a time when the soil was black not red, and the forests were composed of oak and hickory, not these weeds of loblolly and sweetgum I now find cropping up wherever I leave the lawn unmowed. We cannot go back -- Georgia will never again be the wilderness that William Bartram explored, or where, centuries earlier, Hernando DeSoto first encountered the remnants of the Mississippian civilizations (once called "The Moundbuilders"). The gullies are largely stable now, except perhaps after a heavy rainstorm. Then, briefly, the water may trace out with muddy fingers the gullies' former paths, leaving behind a thin blanket of silt in its passage over pine needles and sweetgum leaves and branches and bare earth.

Birds and Butterflies of the Chattahoochee Hill Country: Part Two

On Saturday, August 16th, a group of us met at Hill Country Montessori School for our monthly Sense of Place Outing. We were bleary-eyed and clutching cups of coffee, because it was only 7 in the morning. (Ironically, the early start time was intended so that we would enhance the likelihood of seeing a variety of birds. Yet, apart from a brief glimpse of a couple of great crested flycatchers (Tara identified them -- I saw only a blur of movement.), we saw practically no birds during the entire outing. We heard quite a few, including a number of catbirds, and we also briefly glimpsed a ruby-throated hummingbird sipping nectar from a flower on the other side of Cedar Creek. But otherwise, our trip would be a trove of insects. Tara's consolation prize, though, was a number of insects that took rides on her shirt throughout the morning, including a dragonfly that stayed with her for an hour, and a butterfly that landed on her shoulder toward the end of the morning.)

We caravanned to Dunaway Gardens just south of the Fulton County Line in Coweta County, where the gate was opened for our entourage to enter. The gardens, otherwise closed for the weekend, were opened just for our group. Throughout our visit, we relished the experience of being on our own in the gardens, in contrast to our visit earlier this year, when our trip coincided with several large garden tours and an afternoon wedding. Garden maps in hand, we hurried downslope to the edge of Cedar Creek. Although the path was well-mowed, my feet were still quickly drenched by the early morning dew.

Gosh, did we see a lot of insects, though! Greg, sporting an insect net, was full of glee, snatching up all sorts of treasures in his net. It was still cool enough in the early morning that the dragonflies were motionless atop plant stems, and an easy catch. The first one we found, a slaty skimmer, is pictured below. This is the dragonfly that subsequently befriended Tara for much of our morning.

A few minutes later, Greg was using his net to try to catch some aquatic denizens of a small pond adjacent to the creek. He quickly found a water scorpion -- an insect belonging to the order Hempitera, or the "true bugs". Related to the terrestrial "walking stick" insect, water scorpions are air-breathing predators that feed on smaller insects, such as mayfly and stonefly nymphs.

In another few minutes, Greg had located a "tent" belonging to a cluster of tent caterpillars in a shrub along the streambank. Based upon their size, the larvae appeared to be almost ready to pupate, emerging afterwards as small, reddish-brown moths.

Continuing along the riverbank, we saw another dragonfly, perched calmly on a blade of grass. I snapped its photo before it flew away.

We continued along the creek's edge, stopping to scan the far bank for birds, but to no avail.

The prize find of the day, in my opinion, was a sleek green tree frog that I noticed on a cattail reed, blending in almost perfectly with the stalk. A moment later, a green dragonfly (possibly a pond hawk) landed on a nearby reed and perched there for a group photo.


I returned to the site a few minutes later, and the dragonfly had flown away. I did get a splendid closeup of the green tree frog, though, who remained motionless there, against the backdrop of Cedar Creek.

At last we wended our way up through the gardens, finding quite a few butterflies but only a couple of birds. We heard a woodpecker's call through the trees, and briefly saw a cardinal who scolded us from a shrub along the path. Tara, Greg, Valerie and I inspected another set of shallow ponds (Arrowhead Pools) that had been constructed as part of the gardens. Tara found an intact snakeskin in the shallows, but the birds (including a heron known to haunt the area, feeding on the pond's goldfish stock) continued to elude us.

Chattahoochee Hill Country Birds and Butterflies: Part One

On Thursday, August 7th, eight participants joined us for overviews of the birds and winged insects (butterflies and dragonflies/damselflies) of the Chattahoochee Hill Country area. Tara Mostowy, biology graduate student at the University of West Georgia, began with a splendid overview of bird identification. She then shared with us both photographs and brief descriptions of the range of local birds we might see on our trip to Cedar Creek wetlands, later in August.

After her talk, Dr. Greg Payne, entomologist at the University of West Georgia, walked us through an array of butterflies and dragonflies. In a marvelous conjunction of terms, our entomologist speaker also regaled us with extensive etymological information about the origins of many of the complicated terms used for classifying insects.

Not visible in the photograph above, off to the right, was a row of tables full of fascinating bits of natural history. Greg brought in wood and glass boxes full of mounted insect specimens, several dissecting microscopes, and a number of live caterpillars. I couldn't wait to see some of the mounted butterflies in flight on our Saturday outing!

Turtles and Toads of the Chattahoochee Hill Country: Part Two

Twenty people joined us for our Saturday "Turtles and Toads" outing, including a dozen children, mostly age six through twelve. We all met up at Cochran Mill Nature Center at 9:30 am on Saturday, July 19th. Valerie Hayes began the day with an abbreviated reprise of her overview of local frogs, toads, and turtles. After her talk, Rick gave participants a chance to explore the herp collection at Cochran Mill Nature Center, including bringing out a snake that we could touch.

As we set out to look for local herps, I admit to feeling skeptical that, with such a large lively group of participants, we would actually find any. But all it took was some fish food sprinkled on the water of the small pond outside the nature center building, and first the catfish showed up for a feeding frenzy...

...and then a couple of slider turtles arrived to claim the bits of food that landed on the mud at the pond's edge. After having our fill of catfish and slider turtles, we left the lovely new deck area around the pond, and began turning over nearby logs and stones. One of the children found an Eastern fence lizard, which lost the end of its tail while being captured by a young participant. (The tail will grow back over time; lizards "drop" their tails as a means of distracting predators, giving them a chance to escape while their abandoned tail continues to wiggle.)

We continued up the hill, off a trail and into the woods. Chigger Country, I was later to discover. Several participants, including myself, ended up with an unintended memento of our trip: a vast number of chigger bites around the ankles. The wooded area had many large rocks, but few creatures living under them, apart from the occasional ant colony. We returned to a grassy area near the nature center building, to visit with the resident sulcata tortoise. We gathered around his enclosure to watch him chowing down on various vegetables. Then we disbanded -- it was practically noon, and I had a long week of chigger-bite-scratching ahead of me....

Turtles and Toads of the Chattahoochee Hill Country: Part One

On Thursday, July 10th 2008, Rick McCarthy ("Reptile Rick") and Valerie Hayes gave a presentation on "Turtles and Toads" -- a shortcut for herps ( a word that refers to both amphibians and reptiles). Rick (on the left) gave a splendid talk about snakes and lizards in the area; Valerie followed with a fascinating look at local frogs and toads (complete with recordings of their calls) as well as (of course!) turtles....

The talks were highly informative, and Rick also brought several caged live snakes (venomous and nonvenomous) found in the Hill Country. Attendance was light, but the four participants who joined us indicated that they enjoyed the presentations very much. Both speakers gave their talks again a few weeks later, during Snake Day festivities at Cochran Mill Nature Center(Saturday, August 23rd).

Hill Country Trees and Lichens: Part Two

Our Saturday outing for "Trees and Lichens" on June 21st began most inauspiciously. First I was awakened by a thunderstorm, followed by steady rain that only ended an hour before the scheduled start of the outing -- in time to leave the lichens and mosses "fat, happy, and green." Then, Sean called to leave a message that he was ill and could not join us, but was sending Malcolm Hodges in his stead. Malcolm is a renowned lichenologist in his own right, who has apprenticed with Sean and now "lichenizes" free-lance, when not birding or doing general ecological studies for The Nature Conservancy. Malcolm and David both met up with us at Hill Country Montessori School, joining us for the caravan down the road to Hutcheson Ferry Park. I remarked that it was a pity Sean was ill, only to learn from Malcolm that Sean had been struck with Rocky Mountain spotted fever, obtained from a tick that no doubt hitched a ride during one of his previous lichen outings! (I am delighted to add that he has since recovered fully.) Indeed, as Valerie has discovered doing fieldwork and as other longer-term residents of the area have noted, this summer has marked a banner year for all sorts of ticks in Georgia.

We (Malcolm, Sean, myself and my wife Valerie, and the four "regulars") got out of our cars and strode across the manicured (or at least well-mowed) park lawn toward a ridge and the rock outcrop habitat that lies a short distance beyond it. In seconds, Malcolm had found a tree branch covered in lichen and fungi, and was holding it aloft for all to examine. Time to break out the hand lenses, and enter a miniature yet amazing world of strange forms and colors.


Malcolm, who had never been to Hutcheson Ferry Park before, was visibly excited when we arrived at the outcrop. His enthusiasm was contagious. Within minutes, we were down on our knees in wonder at the patterns and colors of mosses and lichens and flowering plants.

Every branch was full of Dr. Suess-like shapes, including a number of lichens in the genus Cladonia, which includes the British soldier lichen. I recall from my childhood finding a "batallion" of the red-headed British soldier lichen apothecia (fruiting bodies) atop a next-door neighbor's fencepost. On Saturday's outing, we found only a few, but discovered many other specimens, including one that was quite common on the outcrop, but which Malcolm had never seen before.

Above is a close-up of a few of the British soldier lichens we saw, intermixed with another Cladonia species that was gray-green and branched.

In another hand gesture that has become enigmatical with the passage of time (i.e., I forget what he was indicating in this photograph), Malcolm kneels on the outcrop, adjacent a small pool of water remaining from the rain that had fallen earlier that morning. Note his look of enthused delight. It was shared by all who attended the outing.

At last we headed downhill from the outcroanp d into the forest, to try our hand at floodplain forest tree identification. Alas, the most noteworthy vegetation to catch our eyes at first was a very healthy stand of Microstigium viminium, also called Japanese stilt-grass, an invasive plant that tends to choke out all the native vegetation. Apart from trees and shrubs, the only other plants we saw in abundance were Japanese honeysuckle, which seemed to coexist pleasantly enough with the Japanese stilt-grass, while at the same time slowly choking the life out of every sapling they encountered. Still, the forest was lovely and green, and the Microstigium made the walking fairly easy, too.

Above is another entry in my photo series of uncertain hand gestures. Looking at the photograph now, it almost looks like a sort of woodland low-impact martial arts could be underway. I include the photobecause somehow it is the only one I took that shows both David Morgan as well. Down in the forest, he was in his element, an expert in identifying tree types by bark and leaf, as well as sharing his reflections on the ecology of the woodland.

Unlike the toad photograph from Part One this month, this photograph does relate directly to our outing. Shortly after leaving the outcrop for the forest, Valerie encountered this beautiful male box turtle lurking under a shrub. Caught without her extensive collection of field equipment for box turtle studies, she "borrowed" this specimen in order to take some measurements (such as mass, body width, etc.), then carefully returned him to the very spot where we had found him, none the worse for his experience. In this photo, Valerie counts the rings on his carapace (upper shell) in order to obtain an estimate of his age. I was delighted that we chanced upon him, as his photo provides yet another opportunity to make a plug for our July Sense of Place workshop on Turtles and Toads. Co-led by "Reptile Rick" from Cochran Mill Nature Center and Valerie Hayes, herpetology grad student at the University of West Georgia, the event will include an evening talk at The Studio on Thursday, July 10th, plus a Saturday outing to Cochran Mill Nature Center on Saturday, July 19th. For more information, contact Clifford at senseofplace@southeastpbe.org.

Hill Country Trees and Lichens: Part One

On Thursday, June 12th, renowned Georgia lichenologist Sean Beeching, along with University of West Georgia botany professor David Morgan, gave a presentation to SOP Workshop participants in The Studio at Serenbe Community. Sean regaled the half-dozen of us (myself, my wife Valerie, and four "regulars") with a speech on the nature of lichens, liberally augmented with a sampling of his collected field specimens. Afterwards, Dr. David Morgan talked about the trees of the Georgia Piedmont. He brought sample branches from each of the twenty trees, walking us through the process of telling them apart. I had a marvelous time, and learned a great deal more Southern trees that had previously been unfamiliar to me, such as sourwood and red maple. I'm not sure how I would do on a tree identification quiz, though....

Above, Sean waxes lyrical about lichens...

...and then later in the talk, I played the role of Vanna White, holding up a diagram of the classification of lichenized fungi for the audience. In this photo, I think Sean is explaining the difference between basidiomycetes and ascomycetes, or maybe he is simply attempting to demonstrate the Vulcan "Live long and prosper" gesture from Star Trek?

After the talk by Sean, and a brief introductory speech by David, out came all the tree branch specimens, and our work for the evening got underway. So many leaves, so little time....

Here, David is explaining how to distinguish a loblolly pine from a slash pine from a red cedar from a red maple from a black cherry....

This photograph has nothing to do with the evening's presentations, except for the fact that it was taken by my wife Valerie the same evening, shortly after our return home from The Studio. This Cope's Gray Tree Frog was captured mid-song, and serves as an advertisement of sorts, or foreshadowing maybe, of the July Sense of Place workshop, entitled "Turtles and Toads". The talk is scheduled for Thursday the 10th of July at 6:30 pm, and the outing will take place at Cochran Mill Park at 9:00 am on Saturday, July 19th. (For further information, contact Clifford at senseofplace@southeastpbe.org.)