Category: Nature

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Paintings and Drawings by Patricia Wallbertson

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Works shared with Sourwood Forest by Patricia Wallbertson, artist in residence June 2024, inspired by her time here. creekbed paint sketch, June 2024, 1.5’x 1’, sediment paint, charcoal, white  daylapse, June 2024, 16”x 11”, graphite, Pokeweed berry paint, watercolors, and paper poppy opening, June 2024, 16”x 11”, graphite, Pokeweed berry paint and paper copperhead paint sketch, June 2024, 4”x 6”, sediment paint and paper butterfly flapping, up close and from a slight distance, June 2024, 8”x 5”, sediment paint, graphite, and paper poppy bloom and bleed, June 2024, 16”x 11”, watercolor, ink, and paper Continue reading

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Precious Bugs

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It’s the time of year when spider webs waft through the air from impossible heights in the oddest of places and often capture falling leaves along the way. Of course there is a spider somewhere responsible for each of these, but what I see is a magic leaf, seeming to hang and dance but not fall, held in the air by an invisible tether. I saw two of these instances today, in very different places, so I took a picture of the second–a sourwood leaf suspended above our road. Because this September the webs I’ve run into have been few and far between. I had to remove a very scary spider from my room before I went to bed last night (not pictured). This one was of the wolf variety. Not a web-maker. More of a marauding hunter. It was tricky to get at it with the empty yogurt container (my bug removal device of choice) both because it was near the corner of the wall and because I had to move a floor lamp to reach him, which I did as carefully as I could, praying he wouldn’t move. Just a foot or so from him was a crevice he could easily hide in, between painted cinderblock wall and concrete floor (no baseboards in this room). And I had to crouch and reach without throwing a shadow across him. Slap of plastic onto wall then scrape of cardboard square sliding between plastic and wall, and he was with me traveling to a new home outside the front door. All of this happened swiftly (I’ve moved hundreds of spiders from inside my house to out over the decades I’ve lived here), but this year such encounters have been particularly focusing for me. I think it is because there are fewer of them. Insects, that is. I used to be afraid of insects. They seemed to be everywhere, and I knew nothing about them. Now, I’m seeking them out. I am thrilled to see them, mostly. Especially when they are outside, like the caterpillar pictured above, who looks like she’s wearing a fancy dress costume. Apparently she belongs to a group that has earned the title “dangerous saddleback caterpillars,” and will turn into what is unpoetically called a slug moth (about as handsome as the name implies). But I didn’t know that when I was inspired to photograph her in her… Continue reading

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Poppies and Patricia: Sourwood Forest, June 2024

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Poppies. The Fancy Poppies, as I call them, not the smaller, orange kind that grow on roadsides (though we do have a few of those around, too). These are descendants of one packet of seeds a friend shared with me about ten years ago. They come up in various places every year. When the weather is right (cool nights, not much rain, as it was this year), they are a grand feature in the late May and early June yard. Patricia Wallbertson, our June resident, was lucky enough to witness their fantastic transmutations from bowed bud to erect open bloom to petals falling and seedhead emerging. Each day she’d spend time visiting the poppies in the yard, watching their process of becoming and unbecoming. She would stare at them, draw them, later adding textural paints she created using some of the soil from the creek or yard. More samples of Patricia’s work inspired by her time at Sourwood Forest can be found at Patricia. Patricia was impressed by the diversity of forms, textures, and ecological processes happening all over– from poppies in the yard to decomposing logs in the woods to the shadows, light, and moods of Melody Creek. She was interested in soils, the decomposition process that they embody, their differences and the way in which they define a place. She surprised me by how much she delved into the opportunity to connect with the environment specific to this place. She seemed to let it guide her process rather than her being driven by preconceived ideas or abstract intentions about what she wanted to make happen. One of the pieces she made here is gradually merging into the front yard: a clay human figure prone on the ground with hands outstretched holding onto string. The strings stretch up to a redbud sapling about three feet above the small body, and their ends attach to a piece of clay- stained cloth. The cloth is the one Patricia had between her hands and the clay as she molded the body’s shape. The image left on the fabric seems a sort of apparition of the body’s creation. We enjoyed talking about what meanings this combination of form, string, and cloth might offer a viewer. I imagine the clay figure as a man prostrate in a kind of prayer, as if he sees the image of his own creation and thinks it is… Continue reading

Pedlar River September Morning

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I am choosing a Pedlar River photo to put at the end of my book, which is about to go to print once I decide on this last image! It was a cool morning, so I braved the risk of ticks to walk down to the river and take photos, carrying my wading boots since I knew it would be low and that the best views were likely to be had from inside the river. Below are the four I’m trying to choose between. Continue reading

Here one day, gone the next

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Since the small milkweed patch finally appeared in our front garden several years ago, monarch caterpillars have been a part of September for me, and I’ve learned not to get too invested in the whole thing. That said, I am still thrilled when I first spy them (usually when they are smaller than my pinky fingernail), and I look in on them every day, amazed at how fast they can grow. But it’s hard not to be disappointed when they sometimes just disappear. I try to convince myself it must be because they have found their way to a secret location and are beginning to “hang J” in preparation for what comes next. This week I decided to photograph the current residents one morning when I was lucky enough to see four of the gaudily striped critters, quite healthy and sizable, and (in my opinion) way to close to the top of the milkweed they were feasting upon. When they reach the top and all that’s left is stem, do they climb all the way back down (some four or five feet) and proceed to crawl across the dangerous ground to climb up another stalk? I’ve never seen them on the ground or headed in a downward direction. They always seem to be moving up and very focused on eating. Today was rainy, and I wasn’t able to find any of them in my brief foray into their milkweed neighborhood. I’m going to believe that does not mean they are actually “gone” from the world. It is so metaphorically rich, this monarch life cycle, that the actuality of it can sometimes get lost in all the meaning I can assign to this particular creature’s way of being in the world. So my point here is just to document that “they were here,” that they had reached (at the time of having their pictures taken) a size that meant they were ready to pupate, to move into their next phase. I’ll post these pictures now and not speculate on the uncertain future they have already entered. That said, I’ll be looking daily in the neighborhood of my front gardens where these photos were taken for a gorgeous green chrysalis. Or maybe four. Continue reading

5 Minutes of Awe

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On the back porch last Sunday morning, I felt awe three times in under five minutes. First, from the sound of the wood thrush’s song high in the trees across the middle pasture from me. Second, from the arrival of a nuthatch, who stared at me as he stood facing downwards on the locust post waiting for the other nuthatch to finish his (or her?) turn at the suet cage hanging about five feet from where I sat. He turned his head left then right, tilting it each time. Then he faced me straight on, deciding he wasn’t afraid enough of me to change his meal plans. And third, a hummingbird flew into the scene to feast on the rhododendron blooms just off the porch’s corner.  (The pictures here aren’t from that morning, though, but from a few days later as I stood at the kitchen sink trying to photograph a very active nuthatch feeding at the same suet cage I’d watched during my minutes of awe. The awe that arose from those happenings was a feeling like I was invisible but yet not invisible, and so somehow part of everything. That kind of feeling is part of the official definition of “awe” being thrown about purposefully within psychology and health care circles these days. There’s a lot of new science supporting what we’ve known forever: that awe is good for us.) After the awe, when I was thinking about the fact that I’d experienced awe but still sitting and watching, I was happy to know that the birds, while wary, weren’t afraid of me. That made me think of the snake I’ve been seeing a bit too often in the past couple of days. I would prefer he were a bit more frightened by me. He’s a young black snake (a teenager by the size of him) who has been slithering around the back porch and sunning himself on the front patio. Too close to the house’s doors for comfort. And he’s so casual about my presence that it’s making me a little nervous. But I have enjoyed the opportunity to watch a snake move, imagine what he’s intending or how he’s responding to me, an incentive to stand there and adopt a snake’s pace—not the fleeing pace but the decision-making pace, as he chooses how to get from this point to that point. I wonder how my presence may… Continue reading

Little Irish Creek–celebrating freedom from diversion!

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On March 5, 2023, a perfect Sunday afternoon, 14 people gathered along the banks of Little Irish Creek to celebrate! In November of 2022, the City of Lynchburg had removed the diversion pipe and its apparatus (mortar, bracings, etc.), which had been cemented into the bottom of the stream and syphoning flow from Little Irish into Lynchburg’s reservoir since the early 1960s. The permit that had allowed for the water diversion was scheduled to expire on December 31, 2022. In July of 2022, the City made the decision not to renew that permit. The people sipping sparkling cider by the banks of Little Irish Creek on March 5 had something to do with this fortunate change in Little Irish Creek’s circumstances. I first saw the absence of pipe and presence of free-flowing current in Little Irish Creek on February 24, when Scott and I drove up here to scope out a good place for people to meet on March 5. My heart leapt to see the whitewater creek roaring through waterfalls and swirling in pools, a stream doing what is was meant to do, being the lifeblood of a thriving community of plants and animals. We shared tasty snacks brought by group members, and people who had only met virtually before stood chatting happily together in the same place. I was cheered by the friendly energy in the group: people from very different walks of life getting to know each other. And I was touched by the bond between us:  our love for the Pedlar River and concern for its health and future. Most in the group live on land bordering the Pedlar and its feeder streams; most have been residents of the Pedlar River watershed for decades. All of us were warmed by the early spring sunshine and by our attachment to the common ground we were standing on: the Pedlar River watershed; the place we call home. See Shannon Brennan’s column in the News&Advance here. + In 2002, the renewal of the 20-year-permit had slipped by, unnoticed and unpublicized, only a month or two before I learned about it. I vowed to myself then that if I were still around in 2022, I would make sure this pipe was noticed and contested. As the winter of 2020 turned to 2021, I was already having discussions with fisheries biologists I knew from working with them on field trips for… Continue reading

When the River Runs Muddy

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This winter brought much needed rain to the Pedlar River watershed. With rain comes runoff, and with runoff comes sediment. Sediment is the fancy word for the loose sand, clay, silt and other soil particles that are dislodged from the land by rainwater and transported by stormwater runoff towards bodies of water. While runoff and erosion are natural processes, human activities on the land can drastically increase the rate at which sediment enters our waterways, making sediment pollution the #1 type of water pollution in our region of the James River watershed. (State of the James Report Card 2021, James River Association). Our local waterways have been looking cloudy after the big rains this winter. Sediment is what makes that cloud in the water.  The color of that cloud varies depending on what kind rock, soil, and clay runs off the land or makes up the stream bottom and sides. In the Pedlar River, the sedimentation cloud often looks orange, like our clay soils. Activities that expose soil are the main causes of sediment pollution in the Pedlar River watershed–such as logging, removing trees and shrubs from steep slopes and near streams, farming practices such as tilling, use of pesticides and fertilizers near streams, unprotected streambanks in fields and livestock pastures, and construction practices that do not follow Best Management Practice guidelines. Here’s the quick dirt on why we need soil to stay on the ground and out of the water, plus info about how you can make sure your property keeps its sediment to itself. Please, read on and do your part to protect our streams and rivers. Sediment is considered a pollutant because it degrades the quality of water for drinking, wildlife and the land surrounding streams in the following ways: It clouds the water, preventing animals from seeing food and harming aquatic vegetation. In streams, sediment disrupts the natural food chain by destroying the habitat where the smallest stream organisms live–organisms that are food for fish. And sediment can clog fish gills, reducing resistance to disease, lowering growth rates, and affecting fish egg and larvae development. Sediment increases the cost of treating drinking water and can result in odor and taste problems. It fills up storm drains and catch basins to carry water away from roads and homes, which increases the potential for flooding. Nutrients transported by sediment can activate blue-green algae that release toxins and can… Continue reading