Workaday Walks

Monday, August 20, 2007. A long morning jaunt in the farmlands of northwest Alachua County, Florida began on a dirt road that passes between a tobacco field and a millet field on its way north to a cattle ranch on the Santa Fe River. The tobacco was all but harvested; now just bare stalks with a crown of small leaves and a few spikes of pale pink flowers stood naked in the field.

The millet was a different story. It was vigorous, robust, and seemed to be loving the hot rainless weather we've experienced lately. Individual stalks stood about waist-high. Six to eight foot plants towering over their brethren at the extreme edges of the field hinted that this field had been cut over once before. This field of millet was destined to be silage for cows, and the second cutting was nigh (the friendly farmer presently appeared driving a large tractor with a sickle-bar and began cutting as the walk began). I broke off several millet spikes that were bursting with seeds to take home to add to a trellis upon which I've interwoven the seed heads of the many sunflowers I grew this year to attract butterflies and birds to the yard. Cardinals and other summer locals have been busy at work on these offerings during the past week or two.

The modest pleasure of drawing then observing birds and butterflies to one's home is an easy way to begin to reconnect one's self to the natural world and to become more aware of the lives and workaday doings of these lovely creatures. I recommend the effort to everyone with a little patch of earth that they might devote and cultivate to that purpose. Perhaps you might set up and stock a bird feeder or two and begin to plant annuals and perennials that attract birds and butterflies native to your area. Or let a piece of your yard go wild for a few seasons and see what a gentle yielding to nature brings. The rewards are many. I promise.

The walk in the floodplain woods on the far side of the millet field was equally rewarding. Here and there majestic spruce pines towered over younger blue beech, Florida elm, and swamp chestnut oak. Portions of this parcel of land, once mostly cleared and farmed during the last hundred years, preserve a portion of the rich floodplain slope forest that once dominated the area. How does one know that? This parcel abuts the 1200-acre Mill Creek Nature Preserve, purchased and managed by Alachua County, a piece of land that holds not only the southernmost population of American Beech in North America, but one of the southernmost populations of beaver as well. Species from the preserve, saved from the plow, are just barely starting to recolonize those portions of the adjacent farmed area that have lain fallow for a number of years. The remarkable diverse forest of the adjacent preserve is truly one of the natural jewels of Alachua County. The floodplain woods and associated wetlands and drainage features on the far side of the millet field will be placed under conservation easement, and will become a de facto addition to the larger Mill Creek Preserve. One couldn't be happier. This is how development should work, no matter the scale.

Wednesday, August 22, 2007. Today I walked around a 2-acre parcel near a freeway interchange that is slated to join a gaggle of hotel properties already in the area. The land was underbrushed a few years ago and a portion of the ground beneath towering live and southern red oaks has been choked by the exotic invasive Cogon grass. While it will be nice to eradicate a patch of this awful African invader, the loss of mature native oak canopy for development of a hotel property is troubling. One tree of note stands on the property line, and will be likely incorporated into the site's landscaping if I have any say (and I do) - a tree in the citrus family known by several names, including toothache tree, prickly ash, and Hercules club. The tree's foliage is shiny green, and when chewed, turns the tongue, teeth, gums, and palate uncomfortably numb - hence the name toothache tree. These native trees prefer dry open habitats. There are commonly encountered along fence-lines in pastures and farm fields ("planted" by perching birds who've eaten their fruits), but also occasionaly as dwindling hold-outs in well-drained early-successional upland woodlands that have grown up where old fields have been abandoned. The particular individual on this property is quite large and branchy. The species is host to the giant swallowtail butterfly.

My treasure from this walk was a guayabera pocket stuffed with native passion-vine fruits. The seeds within these green ovoidal fruits are covered with a fleshy growth that is tart and fruity tasting. I'd not tried it before today. I was pleasantly surprised by how much flavor Nature can imbue into this edible native food.

Later in the day I walked a few blocks downtown to post a letter and to return a book to the county public library. I'd walked those particular sidewalks many times. This walk was different, because I was engrossed in a new book - Jon Clinch's "Finn" - a new novel by a new author that imagines Huckleberry Finn's father, "one of American literature's most brutal and mysterious figures", to quote the blurb on the back cover. Reading while walking familiar paths is a pleasure in and of itself. You might try it, especially if your reading is generally accomplished indoors.

Alachua County, walking, passion vine, reading, books, Huckleberry Finn, American literature, Florida, Alachua County