This week I'm off on Sunday-Monday because we have training starting on Tuesday. I finally went on another hike! I waited a while to leave
this morning, because it looked like it might rain again, but the gray sky got
brighter, even though it was still cloudy. Which meant it stayed fairly cool,
even though it was quite humid.
I hiked the Oscar Blevins Farm Loop Trail, which is about
3.7 miles around. It starts at the Bandy Creek Campground trailhead, so it
didn’t take long to get there! I went around it clockwise, as recommended in
the hiking book we keep at the VC, and it worked out really well.
One of the first things I saw after I started out was a box turtle, trundling his way along the trail ahead of me! I’m afraid I disrupted his travel – I stopped, he stopped… I got a little closer to take a picture, he ducked partway inside his shell… I went on past him, and looked back to see him booking it for the side of the trail. "So much for the easy route!" he seemed to say!
This stuff was interesting. It's called ground cedar, but it's actually a type of clubmoss. I had to look it up. It was covering the forest floor in several places.
It was a long walk through the woods, mostly level with just mild ups and downs. It was interesting to see how the forest changed – one minute it was poplars, then pine saplings under bigger deciduous trees, then a dark thicket of hemlock, then an open area of maples with no undergrowth at all. Most of the flowers are done blooming, but I did see a few – and I was surprised to find a lot of mountain laurel still blooming! Some of it was turning brown but most of what I saw was still at its peak. I guess its schedule is behind that of the bushes at the East Rim.
Diamonds on silk.
Blackberry blossoms! I wonder how much of this is out in the woods? And if there will be any left for us humans?
Virginia creeper was growing all over the ground in places. I was surprised to see it just popping up like that, because I've only seen it on long vines - but it makes sense, because poison ivy does the same thing.
They're only greenberries now, but they'll be turning blue eventually!
These are "oak apples" - big hollow galls on oak leaves. They're formed when an insect bites the leaf and injects something that makes it grow out of control - like a tumor - giving the insect a safe place to hide, or to lay its eggs - I'm not sure about this particular type. If you open one up, it's just fluff inside. Nature is weird sometimes.
Scenes like this remind me that this whole park is sitting on an enormous block of sandstone (AKA the Cumberland Plateau) and there's really not very much between the rock and the surface.)
This looks similar to hawkweed but the petals were different. It is possibly Twoflowered Cynthia - Krigia biflora.
This poor pine tree has had quite a trauma! If that bigger tree isn't removed for being so close to the trail, the trunk of that pine could get quite an interesting shape.
Sourwood - this is a common tree here. Named because the leaves are sour if you chew them, kind of like lemonade. (They also make you cough if you accidentally swallow it!) This is basically an excuse to freak out kids on nature hikes - the ranger just ate a leaf off of a tree!!!
I recognized this as the maple lookalike that was blooming when I did those hikes a few weeks ago. Seeds are forming now.
A wet ox-eye daisy.
Woodland Bluets - smaller and not so bright as the thyme-leaved bluets that were blooming a few weeks ago.
These were blooming along the trail in a particularly dark hemlock thicket, and I had a heck of a time getting a picture that showed how the petals are actually fuzzy! I saw more later. It turned out to be partridge berry. It always has two flowers, which join together to form one berry. Now I know why partridge berries have two bumps on the top.
This shows just how quickly the trail could change from light to dark and back again.
There were a lot of snags – standing dead trees – along the trail. There was one that was so big I had to get a picture. (Actually I took pictures of several of them, but I couldn’t include them all here!) As I was stepping over to it, I looked down and spotted a little red lizard! I took a picture from above, then moved the camera closer… and closer… and got a side view… and it never moved! It was amazing!
It turns out, it was actually an amphibian – a Red-Spotted Newt. To be more specific, it was an eft – an immature newt. Apparently they start out this bright orange color with red spots, before changing over to a dark color with red spots. And they are poisonous, so they don’t have that fear response that I would have expected – either that or he just wanted to get his picture taken so he could be famous.
Mountain laurel! I didn't think I would be seeing any more of this!
Now this is definitely rattlesnake hawkweed.
Here's another oak-apple - one that's fairly new, and hasn't dried out brown yet.
Almost halfway around the loop is the Oscar Blevins farm. It has buildings ranging from the 1870s to the 1950s. The family continued farming there until Big South Fork National River & Recreation Area was established in the early 1970s.
Above: the new house (1950s).
Below: the old house (with newer addition from 1870s.)
A pair of hikers had passed me on the trail and arrived at the farm just before me. I was walking over to the barn when I noticed there was a cat sitting in the loft above the barn door! He was quite striking, orange with a white tummy against the weathered gray boards, and appeared to be quite aloof…
However, after I took that picture I walked up to the barn and stretched my hand up toward him. He wanted to sniff it but it took him a minute to get into a position where he could reach down that far and not lose his balance! After that he started meowing at me and the other woman who was standing there, and maneuvered his way to where he could jump down to the ground and be properly petted.
Ooohh, yeah.
I asked about him later and apparently he is the resident barn cat there, since there are still some horses being kept there! I was very happy to get to meet him – it’s not often that your hike includes petting a very friendly cat!
While we were out there the sun broke through, even as a dark cloud approached and thunder rumbled once or twice. Luckily the weather held, and it continued to go back and forth between brief moments of sun, and lightly overcast.
The old house again - you can see where the addition was put on the far end.
This was along the trail as I headed off into the woods again. It's a storehouse of some kind, probably a root cellar since there didn't seem to be a spring there.
Mushrooms. Not sure what kind. I'm never sure what kind.
I saw more mountain laurel, and what amazed me was how pink it was! Mostly what I've seen has been white with a few pink dots - this was pink all the way through.
A lovely avenue.
Here's more partridge berry blooming.
A rhododendron thicket. This won't be blooming for a little while yet.
I was walking for a little while with the couple that had passed me earlier, and we had a nice conversation – but they ended up moving on while I stopped to take pictures. I caught up with them a few minutes later, at the first of several huge rockhouses – big overhanging rock ledges that form natural alcoves. It had gotten warm enough that it felt good to stand next to the cool rock.
The pictures above and below were taken from about the same spot, in opposite directions.
I saw a few more rockhouses and ledges as I continued. Basically the trail was following a small ridge.
This caught my eye because of the multiple levels of trees!
That last rockhouse was one that I recognized from a short hike we took during our first week of training, as a sample nature walk. It was nice to spot a landmark and know I was almost back!
A trickling waterfall. The rocks were too jagged to climb down to it.
Raspberries! Or blackberries - not sure. Whatever they are, everything in the woods will be after them once they ripen - including hikers!
Here's a rhododendron bud, about life size - still green and tightly clamped shut. Still a while to wait on that.
This will be a pretty cluster when they do bloom!
I made the whole loop in just under 2½ hours – and that includes time spent petting the cat. Not a bad workout. I was going to go swimming in the pool at the campground (yes, this is one National Park that has a pool!) but it started pouring while I was eating lunch so I had to skip it. For now...
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