Bee balm

Bee balm

The girls love to surprise Mom with bouquets of wildflowers. The other day they came in with a handful of one of my favorites, bee balm. Monarda didyma, bee balm or Oswego tea, is a striking perennial wildflower common across much of the eastern U.S. It is in the mint...

A sure bet

I’m sure that if you belong to any environmental/conservation organization or if you have donated to causes in the past or perhaps simply visited a Website recently – you have received pleas for donations and/or instructions detailing ways you can assist the Gulf...

Still soaring after all these years

Eagle Lady Doris Mager enjoyed a “rock star” reception last Friday (6/18) at the Waynesville public library. But instead of overage adolescents flicking bics and shouting “Freebird,” Mager and her friend E.T. (Extra Terrific), a 27-year-old great-horned owl were...

Skulker of the tangles

The other morning at 6:00 o’clock, at Hickey Fork in the Pisgah National Forest’s Shelton Laurel Backcountry Area in Madison County, the loud ringing song of a Swainson’s warbler shattered the early morning stillness. The mnemonic for the Swainson’s song is “whee,...

Puddling – a kaleidoscope adventure

Maddy (my four-year-old) and I had been in the woods at Harmons Den checking on some bird points. We came out of the woods at the Harmons Den Horse Camp. At the intersection of Cold Springs Road (FS Rd. 148) and the entrance to the horse camp (FS Rd. 3526) there is an...

The answer’s still blowin but the times may be a’changin

I was heartened recently my two op-eds I read in area newspapers regarding industrial-sized wind turbines in the mountains of Western North Carolina. The reasoned commentaries were written by individuals with firsthand knowledge of science, the scientific method,...