I counted no less than 16 cardinals around our bird feeders recently and remembered my grandma Roark sayings that a gathering of cardinals was a sign of snow. It perked my interest enough to study up on this very familiar and colorful bird.

Spring can be pretty noisy around ponds, lakes, water holes, and other moist areas. Male frogs and toads are the minstrels of warm weather, calling out in loud, pleading voices to woo females. Pause and listen to them, for what you are hearing is a love song.

The first Friday in March is when Tennessee celebrates Arbor Day, while Kentucky, Virginia, and the nation designate Arbor Day as the last Friday in April. The dictionary defines a tree as "a woody perennial plant having a distinct trunk with branches and foliage at some distance above the ground". This simple description falls short of what a tree is to humans and other life forms. What is a tree? Let me count the ways:

Snow is normally a dazzling, at times blinding white and we all enjoy the good snow that sticks to all the trees and is a thing of beauty. Snow strangely enough can be other colors at times, the most common being yellow where a dog peed on a tree or a juvenile male human peed his initials in the back yard. There are still other colors of snow that occur on the planet and so here is a rundown of some of them.

With maple syrup, the common assumption is that it’s a New England thing, produced in places like Vermont. But during European settlement times sugar made from maple sap was the only available sweeter besides honey.

Evergreen trees are more prominent in the winter in our area, being the only bright color seen among the bleak, bare hardwood trees. Besides their visual appeal, evergreens provide important food and shelter for many wildlife species. Common evergreen trees in our area include several species of pine, cedar, and hemlock.

Life lists are written documentations of things seen and identified. If you’re a birder you keep a list of birds you’ve personally seen. If you’re a railroad enthusiast, you keep up with what trains companies you’ve seen going down the tracks. In England they even have clubs for airplane watchers. These folks gather up around airports and watch planes with binoculars, making security people very nervous.

The geology of our area is unique in that it creates two worlds: a surface world and an underworld of caves, water, and stone. The type of terrain we live on is called "karst" and is characterized by rocky ground, caves, and sinkholes, underground streams, and areas where surface streams disappear into the ground. This type of terrain is the result of the eroding effects of underground water on limestone.

An ecologist named Joseph Grinnell way back in 1936 once asked how it was that oak trees could colonize the tops of hills and ridges. Acorns are too heavy for wind to disperse them, and gravity tends to make them travel downhill rather than up. He concluded that animals must be responsible for getting acorns to high places.
Many animals use acorns as a valuable winter food source. Deer, turkey, wild pigs, and bears are heavy users, but an eaten acorn cannot germinate and make a tree.

With all the worrisome events that have happened recently, I would ask that you pause and think about something. When you think of beauty, I assume that like me you envision things like a colorful sunrise, waterfalls, snow draped trees, and such. But I am sitting here having a tough time verbally defining it. It's an odd thing really. It does not produce any tangible product. It can't be bought or sold, and yet all humans value it and are drawn to natural beauty. Why?