CLOUDLAND CABIN JOURNAL - July 2009
Cloudland Journal Archives, Cloudland Cabin Info Page
Cloudland Cabin Cam, July 2, 7:01am - cool with beautiful clouds this morning
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07/01/09 It is delightful outside late tonight (actually early morning), with a bright half moon shining down on the landscape, lightning bugs adding to the glow, and a chorus of frogs and night bugs making some beautiful music.
Yesterday afternoon I got to take the dogs out for a "snake" ramble. I took my trusty log-and-rock turner and we worked our way on up the hillside to Aspen's meadow and back down again. Things were pretty dry and I didn't find a single snake, lizard, or salamander - only a few ants. There were lots and lots of mouse holes under the rocks. And many hickory nuts and acorns under there too. These had been stored by flying squirrels I guess - most of the nuts had holes eaten in them.
I found a single hickory nut under one rock that had been split neatly in two - exactly in half. Both side were next to each other and facing up. They looked like they have been placed there for safe keeping, although there was no meat left in either one. No chew marks, or holes, or any sort of damage - just a very clean cut all the way through. Now how in the world did a critter split this tough hickory nut right in tow, and then why did he drag it under this heavy rock and store the halves next to each other? I would love to have seen that one. Speaking of hickory nuts, the last time I saw my pair of bronze hickory nuts that I picked up last fall they still had that brilliant warm glow to them like when I first found them. I suspect my lovely bride grew tired of me fondling my nuts and hid them from me.
Speaking of turning rocks over - a bear had beat me to many of the rocks today, and they had been turned over recently - easy to spot since the "raw" side of the rock is up and there is fresh dirt with no leaves covering it up where the rock used to be. That got me to thinking - I wonder how many times some of these rocks get rolled over and over and over during their lifetime by bears, snake hunters, big trees growing up and moving them, or weather conditions? And for that matter, how long is a lifetime for a rock? I figure that at first most rocks are really blufflines, then they eventually break down into giant boulders, which in turn get cracked apart into smaller boulders by the weather, then more weather and more and more until eventually the boulder is small enough for a large bear to flip it over. At some point in history the rock would erode down and crack into such smaller stones as to not be able to hide much in the way of bear snacks, and then become pretty useless to bears and snake hunters. Oh how my mind drifts as I wander the hillsides in the wilderness...
One funny snake note - while I've been skunked on all of my snake hunts so far this summer, I did find a beautiful little snake yesterday who was hiding under my jacket in the carport!
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