I don’t know the stats for our area, but on a national level Americans are overstressed, which long term is unhealthy. The causes are familiar: fast pace of lifestyle, multi-tasking, you know the sound bites. I’ve written about studies that show that immersing yourself in natural settings can reduce stress, so I revisited the topic and found some new twists on natural stress reduction. Here are some recommendations that surfaced.

If you look up on a clear day you will likely see man-made clouds somewhere in the sky, trailing behind jet aircraft high up in the atmosphere. Contrails, short for condensation trails, are formed from the water vapor in aircraft exhaust as a byproduct of fuel combustion. Natural clouds form the same process of water vapor condensing in cool air as it rises, so technically contrails are clouds, just from an unnatural source.

By Steve Roark
Volunteer Cumberland Gap National Historical Park

Eastern White pine is a very handsome tree widely used for landscaping, windbreaks, and visual barriers. It can be hard to find in natural stands here locally, and most of what you see has been planted. There is also a species west of the Mississippi called western white pine.

By Steve Roark
Volunteer, Cumberland Gap National Historical Park

Our winter has delt us with some single digit temperatures recently, so perhaps you don’t really want to hear any more about cold. But stay with me on this one and perhaps you won’t be so down on our own winter weather.

By Steve Roark
As a forester, I often get asked tree health questions, and one involves flat blotches stuff growing on well-established yard trees. It’s often blue-green but can come in other colors. These are Lichens, of which there are many species, have found a niche where they can grow off the ground and away from competing plants. They are perfectly happy living in the high-rise apartment provided by tree trunks, especially in deep shade areas. Most older trees in our area have at least one small colony of lichen growing somewhere.

My job as a forester was a blessing that allowed me to get out and enjoy the beauty of our woods and fields and get paid for it. But there were plants out there that would suck some of the joy of being outside. Plants that can make you bleed because of their thorns; things like blackberry, escaped rose bushes, and my worst nemesis: sawbriar. I’ve come off wildfires with literally every square inch of my legs scratched from these painful vines.

A lot of my trips into the wild come with the obligatory ritual of pulling off seeds stuck to my clothes. This is especially true in the fall and winter, when the seeds are mature and easily dislodged from their mother plant. Most of these hitchhiking seeds use the Velcro method of grabbing hair or clothing. They use small barbs or hooks that adhere to whatever brushes against them. The inventor of Velcro did in fact got the idea from these sticky plants. Grabbing onto animals (and humans) is how these innovative plants get their seeds dispersed far and wide. Here is a description of several seeds you are most likely to find stuck to your socks.

I have never outgrown my love of a fresh snowfall, which takes a bleak winter scene and transforms it into a wonderland. The quiet that snow brings is both eerie and wonderful, and a walk in the snow on a moonlit night is something you simply must experience. A lot of folks think that snow begins as rain that freezes on its way down and turns into snow. It's usually the other way around, with rain beginning as snow, which melts as it falls.

Winter is a good time to prune most trees because they are dormant and their leaves are off, making it easier to see how the branches are laid out. Here are some general guidelines to help keep your trees healthy and more attractive.

1. This is the most important tip I can give. DO NOT LEAVE STUBS when you prune. Trees are wired to heal at branching intersections, so always, always prune where branches or twigs meet. That is where the tree will properly scab over, but if you leave a stub, it will totally screw up the healing process and lead to decay. End twigs should be pruned back just above a bud.

Christmas is probably the most tradition-packed holiday there is, and over the years I’ve enjoyed chasing some of them down to find their origins. The Christmas stocking goes way back, and its origin is nothing like the large, ornate sock shaped bag of today that is hung up on Christmas Eve so that Santa can fill it with small toys, candy, fruit, and such.