Well, I finally got to meet a Facebook friend about a week ago. Michael and I both enjoy hiking, wildflowers and photography. After a number of looking at each others nature photography, we finally linked up for a hike..
Michael's interest in the Cedar Glades where I hike goes back to time he spent in similar places while in college. He did field work in a Cedar Glade, and has helped me learn more about the plants and their flowers. He pointed me to the book
Wildflowers of Tennessee the Ohio Valley and the Southern Appalachians as a great reference for identifying the flowers. He has helped me identify flowers, even going back to a his field book from the 1980's to determine what flower matching my description bloomed in April in the Cedar Glades. I appreciate Michael's knowledge and willingness to share it. I appreciate his love of nature. Perhaps we will meet on the trail again sometime. Until then, we will look at each others pictures from the outdoors, and I'll still have to ask him what some of the flowers are, but I am getting better. Speaking of which, I think I mowed down some Common Wood Sorrel in my back yard on Saturday. Before it was just a weed. Now it is a wildflower in my own backyard.
Thanks, Steve. It was great meeting up with you and Randy in the glades. Thanks for taking the time out of your busy day. I think beauty can be found everywhere. In the words of John Muir:
ReplyDelete"All the wild world is beautiful, and it matters but little where we go, to highlands or lowlands, woods or plains, on the sea or land or down among the crystals of waves or high in a balloon in the sky; through all the climates, hot or cold, storms and calms, everywhere and always we are in God's eternal beauty and love. So universally true is this, the spot where we chance to be always seems the best." — John Muir's journal, as quoted in John of the Mountains.