Giving gifts at Christmas is an old and venerable tradition. It's more personal than the modern process of wading through crowds of people to select a gift from thousands of products in the store aisles. A gift made specifically for someone is special and reflects the fact that you spent time and talent just for them. Since everyone enjoys nature, here are some gifts you can give that come from outside.

My church celebrates the beginning of Advent around the first of December by sometimes carrying out the “hanging of the green” tradition of decorating the church sanctuary for the Christmas season. Our pastor explained the meaning of the Advent tradition, which was good because while I had heard of it, I didn’t really know what it was about. I’m all about old traditions, and so it sparked my own research which I thought I would share.

By Steve Roark
Volunteer, Cumberland Gap National Historical Park

With winter coming on, folks start thinking about precipitation of the frozen kind. In what form frozen water come to us meteorologically depends on a whole lot more than what the temperature our thermometer says, and I’m sure you’ve see days when the weather goes from rain to sleet to snow and back again. So let us delve into the frozen world a little while.

Our native wild turkey has been in the Americas for a very long time. Fossil records show they have been around for eons and were once distributed continuously from the middle latitudes of North America to northern South America. The Aztec Indians were the first to domesticate the bird and it became an important staple to their diet. The Navajo gave up on keeping the hungry birds away from their scanty desert corn crops, and instead began to feed the turkeys and fence them in and provided a dependable source of protein and ornamental feathers.

A walk in the woods is often done to escape the complexities of human society that hound us all. The forest is a place of peace and supposed simplicity. But a closer look reveals an intricate complexity that is so elegantly carried out we aren’t aware it’s happening. Take that dead log lying beside your favorite trail. It’s just a tree whose time ran out and appears inactive. But what’s going on inside it is a key component in recycling nutrients to feed the trees of the forest and provide food and habitat for many wildlife species.

By Steve Roark
Volunteer, Cumberland Gap National Historical Park
With Thanksgiving approaching thoughts turn to the first English colonial settlement in America. If you remember your history lessons, the first attempts to colonize the New World were the Roanoke Colony in 1587 and the Jamestown Colony in 1607. The Roanoke Colony disappeared without a trace and has been the subject of much speculation ever since.

Persimmons are a popular food source for many wildlife species such as fox, opossum, deer, raccoons, and many types of birds. Humans find them tasty as well if gathered at the right time. If you want to try some, be sure and take along the kids or grandkids, as they benefit from a shot of nature every now and then.

The autumn coloration of trees is always looked forward to with anticipation. The presence of numerous tree species (around 125 for us) having brilliant fall foliage is not common planet wide, as the only other places with a similar abundance of foliage colorations is northern China, Korea, and Japan. A common question this time of year is will the colors be good or not? The answer is meteorological.

Ironweed (Veronia altissima) is the purple flowers you see growing on a tall, slender stalk in pasture and hay fields while driving down the road.

Ironweed can grow to a height of 7 to 10 feet in deep moist soils, but usually averages around 5 feet. The stem of the plant is very hard and stiff, hence the name. Spear shaped leaves around 6 inches long grow all along the length of the stem.

Maybe you aren't familiar with the plant, but perhaps you’ve noticed Witch Hazel as an ingredient found in after-shave lotion, skin ointments, eyewash, or hemorrhoid medication. Witch Hazel (Hamamelis virginiana) is a small tree common in our forests. It usually only reaches 15 to 20 feet in height, and tends to have a thick, crooked crown with a lot of branching. The leaves are round or oval shaped with wavy edges. The bottom of the leaf at the stem is always offset, where the leaf edges don’t meet the stem at the same level. The bark of the tree is light brown and scaly.