OF SALAMANDERS AND DAYS GONE BY..........MARCH 2015

 


 “The walking of which I speak has nothing in it akin to taking exercise, as it is called, as the sick take medicine at stated hours …but it is itself the enterprise and adventure of the day.”
― Henry David Thoreau, Walking

The Cumberland Plateau
Photo courtesy of Jeanell Weintraub

March is here, the weather is milder and the rain is pouring. The plateau is soaking it up, overflowing, the creeks which have lain dormant are now actively running. Flowing over and under rocks and debris, the air is alive with the smell of rich decay. You can smell the forest on the wind. Busting down the trail, wind in my lungs the smells are amazing. This is my land. I am a son of the plateau. My father would bring me up to the mountain as a kid. We’d mostly go up to Morgan’s Steep or to The Cross and go for hikes, where he’d identify trees for me. He would rattle off their names like you would the names of your favorite nieces and nephews. He knew them well. We’d walk around, usually wearing identical hats of the camouflage/hunting variety. My favorite was a sporty one that was two-sided. Camouflage on one side Blaze Orange on the other, for hunting of course. I’ve never been much of a hunter, mostly just walking for me. Outside in the sun, wind, and rain. It was here on the Plateau where I learned to walk, truly walk. Walking not to reach any particular destination, but to ramble, explore to see what’s out there in the unknown. Walking in and of itself is ultimately divinely gratifying. The Domain, located at The University of the South in Sewanee, Tennessee has left a strong indelible print on my life that continues to guide me to this very day.

            Today is a great day, with all the rain everything looks like it’s been scrubbed clean. 

The Perimeter Trail Sewanee TN

The forest is bright, the browns and greens are popping and the sky is blue. The temperature is mild, shirtsleeves of course. My favorite place right now is out by the Forestry Cabin, where I then proceed to tramp and tumble down the Perimeter Trail. The trail circumnavigates “The Domain” of the University of the South in Sewanee Tennessee. It’s perched in a small corner of The Plateau conveniently located within six miles of my home in Cowan. This trial in its current form has been around since the mid 1980’s, I remember them completing sometime around 1992 or thereabouts. The Trail goes for around 20 miles or so, but it is cross-cut, intersected, and supplemented with so many other side-trails, old logging roads, and foot paths. You could lose yourself for years just tramping up and down this geography. It may be laid out on the map one way, but once your boots are on the ground, your experience may be different. Maps and compass are the tools of the trade for exploration. However, they are no substitute for wander-lust and strong legs. Otherwise, all your equipment will simply gather dust. Tennyson in his great poem Ulysses writes:

“Some work of noble note, may yet be done,
Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods.
The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks:
The long day wanes: the slow moon climbs: the deep
Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends,
'Tis not too late to seek a newer world.
Push off, and sitting well in order smite
The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars, until I die.
it may be that the gulfs will wash us down

It may be that we shall touch the Happy Isles”

  A. Tennyson – Ulysses

 The Cumberland Plateau, named after William “The Butcher” Augustus, Duke of Cumberland 

who defeated the Scottish Clans at the Battle of Culloden Moor. It was the humble Dukes treatment of the wounded that earned him the nickname “The Butcher”. April 16^th 1746, the Battle of Culloden Moor resulted in a devastating defeat for the Scottish Clans fighting under the Jacobite banner and secured the House of Hannover to the English throne for years to come. The Scottish defeat sent many fleeing across the sea to the new colonies where they found refuge and new life in the land named after a hated foe.  Geologically the Plateau is a mighty wonder. Millennia ago, the Middle Tennessee area consisted of a vast inland sea ringed with marshes and wetlands. Over the years sediments were deposited and layer upon layer of sandstone, coal, and limestone were laid down. During this time, movement of the Earth’s plates caused this “Appalachian Basin” to rise higher and higher. Over eons, this created a plateau that stretchers from modern day Southern New York all the way to North Alabama. This became what we now call the Cumberland Plateau. This geography is home to an immense diversity of plant, animal, and recently human species.
      My life’s experience with the Cumberland Plateau is entwined like a mighty grape vine with the Sewanee Perimeter Trail.    The Perimeter Trail first appeared on the planning books in 1984 and after many spurts and stops was officially completed in 1992. A healthy donation from Albert Roberts III of St Petersburg, Florida allowed for its completion and continued maintenance. The trail had been there before any of this official work commenced, but it was poorly mapped and lacked coherence. Signs now point the wanderer to various look outs and points of interest. The trail side maps are done in bronze for longevity. However, these are looking a little long in the tooth and show their age accordingly.
     The Perimeter Trail was established as a means to identify, unite, and map existing trails into a trail system that would be maintained for generations. Much of the trail system incorporates older trails, man-ways, game trails, and fire lanes. Notably, the Civilian Conservation Corps built several sections including the Arcadian, Corso, and the Shakerag Hollow trails, during the Great Depression of the 1930’s. The trail today is well marked, maintained, and attracts not only University students but folks from all over the county and beyond.  The trail snakes, winds, and circumambulates out and around The Domain of the University of the South for 18 t0 20 miles.    
     The trail provides me with continued activity and thought. I am a devotee of its circuitous paths and trails. Running the path is a tonic for my soul. Except for the time I ran into two unleashed dogs. Not so funny, my favorite line for this is, “Oh they wouldn’t bite you.” How am I supposed to know this? I was already plotting my escape, giving them some loud shouts, staring them down, and generally making a spectacle of myself. Luckily their owners appeared around the bend. I kept my mouth shut. I didn’t say what was on my mind, because it would not have been polite at all. I kept on trucking down the path.
     Usually I park my BRIGHT RED FORD BRONCO out by the gate which takes you out to the Olde Forestry Cabin. I run down the path. To my right is mixed hard woods of varying ages and species; to the left is a pine forest of some age. Their uniformity gives rise to suspicion of something deliberate. In the middle of the Pines is a clearing. In the clearing, someone/somebody has deemed it imperative to erect a weather station. The clearing is strange, encircled as it is with tall dark foreboding pine trees. It’s obviously of druid cult origins who used it for arcane rituals to communicate with beings from beyond space and time is unquestionable. However, the Elder Gods, The Crawling Chaos, and the Black Goat with a Thousand Young (too much H.P. Lovecraft as a child) have all been banished, replaced by the gods of science, research, and technology. The clearing is now simply a weather recording station, which it does so with calm scientific efficiency.  Just past the druid circle I go left and plunge at headlong full sprint down the Perimeter Trail. Foot catches root, then I’m tumbling and rolling as I continue down the trail, righting my trajectory, checking my zeal, and slowing the pace I marvel at the creation that unfolds.  The great plateau is worn and eroded, its rock exposed like bare skin. I marvel at the sandstone veined with minerals and ore, the lichens and moss clinging tightly. Stripped Wintergreen peaks out from the leaf litter, the smells on the wind. It’s all there. It’s all so incomprehensibly vibrant, a man could spend his life exploring and learning here and still only barely scratch the surface of understanding.

 I’ve been exploring the plateau and its environs for several decades with varying

The elusive Spotted Salamander

levels of intensity. It has always provided space for refuge, camaraderie, learning, and reflection. I am forever indebted and bound to this land, that my friends is a strange thing to say. But that is the way it is. Jogging down an old fire break, White Pines gracefully towering on either side the vaulting limbs intersect creating an atmosphere ethereal, holy as one of the great cathedrals of old. Alone I run the length of the road. It’s quiet with the exception of squirrels digging and jumping. I steadfastly follow the blue trail marks, and soon I’m back on the “main” road that runs through these hinterlands. There’s a University Van parked on the side of the road. Curious, I slow down and start looking around. There a vernal pool that’s formed due to the spring rains, it’s about an acre in size. These pools form during the spring, and slowly disappear over the dry summer months. The University has seen fit to ring it with tin sheeting. Interesting, hmmm.  A woman is tromping around in a pair of galoshes, she hasn’t seem me yet. I’m tempted to just continue my run and not bother her, but I’m curious so I give her my best, “Howdy there, what are you doing?” I query. Oh hey! She says. So I ask a few simple questions, and she goes on to tell me how she is out here studying the Spotted Salamander, and that this is it’s mating season in the early spring when these vernal pools form the get their mating rituals on, and lay eggs. Salamanders use vernal pools due to the lack of predatory fish which love to eat salamander eggs. The tin ring drives the salamanders through small openings and into waiting buckets. Then everyday, students come out to count and release them. The student goes on to tell me, this is her first time doing field work, and its really enjoyable, she’s from some place up North, and hasn’t spent much time outside I learn. She is finding this work very rewarding. She digs into a bucket and pulls out a Salamander thick roped, black slimy a full hand length long, it’s marvelous. I’ve never seen one of these, I say. It’s a Ambystoma maculatum and we’ve counted well over a 1000 specimens. She goes on to tell me these are mole salamanders, living the majority of their life deep in the leaf litter emerging at night to feed, and in the spring to mate. She shows me the poison glands on the back and under the neck. I tell her that I’ve been walking these trails for a long time and haven’t seen any Salamanders before today, I tell her how glad I am that she chatted with me. Bidding farewell, I try my best to file all this away in my mind for regurgitation into story form at a later date, but I’ve got a lot of ground left to cover and miles to go before I sleep.

A special thanks to the following:

The University of the South Archives – they were extremely gracious to me.

Wikipedia for photos of Salamanders (I didn’t have my camera that day)

Lance Brock – For running around in the woods with me.

Jeanell Weintraub - photograph

The University of the South Dupont Library – for books on Salamanders and 

providing information about the archives.

“Occurrence at Rose Automotive parking lot”, or “How I rode around all day with a fifteen pound snapping turtle in the back of my car.”

 

 

20^th April 2015

On Monday’s it is not uncommon for my Dentist and I to have lunch together. Our favorite place to eat is “The Mexican Restaurant in Cowan”. I don’t know its real name, because it’s the only one in Cowan. Time permitting well team up, like in the comic books when The Fantastic Four teams up with The Prowler to solve crime. Today we’re engaged in just such activity. Our plan was to hit the Rose’s Automotive, dropping of my Dentists truck for routine maintenance and repair. Then we go and devour refried beans, rice, and grilled Jalapeno Peppers with blood-thirsty, reckless abandon. We can both eat our body weight in Fajitas and Chili Con Carne. It’s a mess, after were done there nothing but crumbs, empty cans of diet coke and fingernails littering the table. So I’m sitting in the parking lot waiting for my Dentist to arrive and out of the rear view mirror I see Rooster (Chris but everyone calls him Rooster, and you should too.) and some other guy, and their poking a hubcap with a big stick. Hmmm I’m thinking what are they doing? Then the Dentist arrives in his recently restored 1978 Toyota Pick-up truck.

            The 1978 Toyota Truck is a thing of sublime simplicity and beauty. By today’s megalithic standards this truck is not appealing to the great and many unwashed testosterone fueled masses. Who are forever reaching for the next biggest and greatest thing.  It’s little, a compact truck in a supersized world, but that truck has been running and hauling for 30 plus years, and I sincerely doubt that many of the new Dodge Rams or Ford F650’s will be functioning so flawlessly 30 years from now. My Dentist procured this truck as payment in lieu of cash for fillings and crowns. At first I was skeptical, I mean this truck was rough looking the bed was rusted out and the gas gauge was completely nonfunctional. However, I must say the truck is no nonsense, functional fun. It gets like 50 miles to the gallon, and after my Dentist put in a CD player we were cruising down the road listening to Hank Williams. I was hooked. Next thing you know, about five months later he shows up and it’s got a brand new paint job with red pin stripes down the side. The truck bed has been lovingly repaired. Same deal, service for service. It’s the barter economy at its finest. My Dentist then goes in to talk to Mr. Rose, and my attention returns to Rooster in the parking lot. Suddenly, I realize what prize they have found in the parking lot.

            It’s not a hubcap it’s a turtle, a Snapping Turtle (Chelydra serpentina ) to be exact. One of the most feared reptiles in the area. I get out of the car, and run over Holy Cow look at that thing it’s huge. It’s really mad too. The Snapper is as big as a hubcap and it’s mad, the neck reaches out snaps at air and retracts back into its shell. He’s a big one for sure. One of the biggest I’ve seen this close. Rooster says, “We found him out in the road, and got him over here so he wouldn’t get run over.” Looking closely, it appears he’s had a hard life. He’s been blinded in one eye and his right forepaw looks like it’s been chewed upon. Snappers can’t fully retract into their shell the way other turtles can. Snapping Turtles heads and necks are much too big for that. Thus, they have developed a ferocious pair of jaws that can sever fingers. In addition to their fearsome jaws do not underestimate their claws. They hurt too. The Snapping Turtle is truly a force to be reckoned with. It’s a graceful swimmer that skillfully burrows into muddy waters where it awaits its next meal. On land its tank-like shell and surly demeanor frighten off all but the most determined predators. There’s not many in the wildlife community that will prey upon the adult Snapping Turtle. However, the eggs are subject to predation by snakes, birds, and other animals. Newborns are frequently included in the diet of Blue Herons, other birds, and large fish. This coupled with low birth rates, people’s fear of them, and loss of habitat will make Creatures of this size much rarer. In the wild their average life span is around 12 years, it’s suggested that captive specimens may live 100 years or more. Of the Snapping Turtle in general, it’s best to just steer clear, and Lord help you if your wadding around in a pond and a Snapping Turtle get a hold of you. I hope your Tetanus and health insurance are up to date, you will need both.

            “Hey Rooster, you got a box?” I say with enthusiasm. “Sure, and some welding gloves. You want that thing?” he asks. “I’ll put it in my Dentists pond.” I reply, and we all laugh and cackle at the notion that will soon be reality. Dad has always told me to never pick up a Snapping Turtle. Which on the surface makes complete sense, however I plan to take this prehistoric beast and turn him loose to spend his days in a nice muddy pond. His claws are about an inch long and hooked for maximum traction in your tender flesh. I position myself directly behind the creature. He’s hissing at everything that moves. Picking up such a large and cumbersome creature is tricky business. Picking them up by the tail is a great way to injury their spinal column and sliding them around with a stick will damage the underside of the shell. This could leave the Snapping Turtle open to grievous infections. I grasp his shell firmly with both hands and heave him into the air stumbling forward towards a wide-eyed Rooster. The creature is mad as a hornet his head pops out hissing, snapping, and swings around trying to get at me. His back feet are clawing into my arm. Luckily, I got on the long sleeves today. I gingerly place him in the cardboard box and get him into the car. My Dentist comes out with Mr. Rose and we’re standing around laughing. “What’s in the box Shores?” I show him, “Holy Shit! That’s a big one.” he exclaims. “Hey can we keep him in your pond? He’s only got one eye. He won’t be no trouble.” I say using my most Southern and imploring accent. “Sure.” Says my Dentist. We stand around wondering how he got all the way into this parking lot. These turtles are known to cover great distances in search of mates and suitable habitat. The closest water is about a quarter mile away. In turtle distance, that is many weary miles. We take our leave of Rose’s Automotive and begin our trip back to Cowan. We carry on in the usual fashion. We name the turtle Winston, and “All Shall Fear His Slow Moving Wrath”. For Winston’s anger is mighty. Imagine for a moment if you were on your way to the grocery store. You’ve already had a bad day. Someone has poked out your eyeball with a stick, and your ankles broke. All you want to do is go to the grocery store, and maybe the police station to file assault charges. Your almost there, then two guys drag you out of the street and start poking you with a stick. Then another guy puts you in a box and sets you in the back of his car. You’d be hissing and snapping too. I just hope Winston likes the pond. We pull into “The Mexican Restaurant” leaving Winston in the car to collect his thoughts and calm down a little. He’s had a tough day.

            We get our table and order our food. My Dentist gets his usual. I decide to try the Chicken Provolone menu #27. Do not order #27. It’s not great, the worst actually, but it was completely edible, so I ate it all the while talking about the new turtle and how awesome he is. During lunch we always get grilled Jalapeno Peppers. It used to be my thing to just pick them up and eat them whole, seeds and all. Not so much anymore. They BURN, they burn so bad. Now I deseed them, which helps tremendously. Anxious to take care of our new and bestest friend we depart “The Mexican Restaurant”, and make for the Pond. At this time, Winston decides this box isn’t big enough so with his mighty snapping turtle strength and pure hate he flips the box over and crawls out, it’s quite a racket. Arriving at the pond I quickly don protective gloves and steel myself for my next grappling session with Winston. These gloves are much thinner than the welding gloves I had earlier. Greater care will be required. Both hands I reach in and grab Winston, hefting him out. His head is popping and snapping in ferocious turtle fashion. Menacingly, I advance on my Dentist; all the while he’s snapping photos, too fun. We walk him out to the pond, thinking that we’ll spray paint his shell so we know it’s our turtle, but then we realize he’s only got one eye, and a busted fore paw. Scratch that idea. I set him down, near the water. He just sits there. We watch as Winston takes in his new surroundings. Slowly he moves towards the pond, now faster he’s making for it. I was worried that his injury would slow him down, but it’s really hard to notice, splash he’s in and gracefully he swims into the murky depths.