Welcome everyone to Day 2 of our Blogiversary Giveaways. Today we are thinking about food and how good it is after a tough day hiking, backpacking, or even camping. We have a few great food items which are perfect for the pack or while camping. A special thanks goes out to Hungry Hikers and Vasque...

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Happy 5 Year Blogiversary to Appalachia & Beyond. We hope everyone is just as excited about this as we are. We've been anxiously waiting for this day to get here. As you all know we have decided to have 5 full days of giveaways just to celebrate the occasion. Also, just to be clear, you have a...

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Just a couple of weeks ago we were contacted by Cobrabraid in hopes that we would like to review their 550 Paracord Survival Bracelets. Well knowing that rope is always handy in many a situation (e.g. string up an antenna, replacing a broken bootlace, etc.) we said we'd be more than happy to....

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Are you planning to stay the overnight at a campsite on the trail?  If so, please use the new trailhead parking registration process on this site.  By registering in advance, the CT park rangers will know that your car isn’t abandoned and that a hiking party is out on the trail.  Simply go to this page (http://www.friendsofthecumberlandtrail.org/camping/) and submit your form and the CT staff will get your information.

Posted on February 5, 2012

On Saturday morning, I visited the large ephemeral pond at the end of Brakefield Road. This pond, like all ephemeral ponds or “vernal pools,” fills with water in the early winter, stays wet through the spring, then dries up completely in either summer or early fall. The peculiar hydrology keeps fish out – they obviously can’t survive the dry spells – and creates an incredibly rich community of animals that thrive in the absence of fish predation. The abundance and diversity of salamanders and crustaceans in these pools is unrivalled; many of these species live nowhere else.

Although February has just started, spotted salamanders (Ambystoma maculatum) have already visited the pond, mated, and laid their eggs. The adults of this species lives underground in the surrounding forest and emerge only for a few nights in the spring. After breeding in the ponds, they burrow back down into the leaf litter and disappear from view for another year. This year’s breeding season got going very early. In most years, mating doesn’t happen until late February or early March.

I returned later, at night under a misty, drizzly moon, to see whether any salamanders were still in the pond.

Despite a thorough search, I couldn’t find any adult spotted salamanders, but I found dozens of egg masses attached to submerged twigs, especially in the center of the pond where the water was deepest (thigh-high: deeper than I expected). Illuminated with a flashlight these masses are quite stunning. The little embryos are visible within.

When these spotted salamander eggs hatch, they’ll feed on the diverse set of small crustaceans and larval insects that swarm through the pond’s water. Their cousins, the larvae of marbled salamanders (Ambystoma opacum), hatched in the early winter and have a head start on growth (I posted about a female marbled salamander guarding her eggs in this same pond last fall). This sets the stage for some inter-species struggles: the smaller larvae make good meals.

At the shallow end of the pond, I found a few mole salamanders (Ambystoma talpoideum). In our region, this species is found only at ephemeral ponds. Like spotted salamanders, they lay egg masses attached to small twigs in the pond, although the mole salamander has a smaller cluster of eggs (fewer than one hundred, rather than up to two hundred as in spotteds). The adult is also smaller, about half the length of the spotted.

Ephemeral ponds are in trouble – they have no legal protection in most states. The federal Supreme Court SWANCC decision removed Clean Water Act protections from these and other “isolated wetlands”) and these small pools tend not to get protected when residential development, tree plantations, or other habitat modifications happen in a forest. A few states have adopted their own protections, but Tennessee is not one of them, to my knowledge (and I’d be oh so happy to be corrected on that point if some recent legislative action has taken place).

Salamanders were not the only creatures on the move.

Toads were sitting on the paved roads in town.

I suspect that the toads were hunting stranded earthworms, which were everywhere.

Turning the flashlight around for a moment, another wet-skinned night wanderer was seen in the rain.

In closing, I’ll record a new life goal: to get some waders that don’t leak. The gallon or two of water that oozed into my boots was cold, cold. On the other hand: the feeling of icy water around my toes; the utter silence of the woods except for the patter of water drops in the dark pool; the spicy smell of wet leaves on the forest floor mingling with the slightly sulphurous odor of the black, sodden leaves on the pond margins; the feel of rain on my face. These things bring me back to my senses. Reframing: leaky boots are a doorway into experience. A new product line idea for LaCrosse boots?

The sign of a Saturday night well spent: wringing out your socks.

This blog post is from David Haskell - professor of biology

You can read more of his posts at his blog - Ramble

 

Once again Tennessee Governor Bill Haslam (R) has endorsed the Tennessee Real Estate Transfer Funds (and “Forever Green Tennessee” campaign) and included all four of the fully-funded Transfer Funds in his FY 2012-13 state budget!

Furthermore, the law that allows the diversion of these funds from the 4 dedicated funds to the General Fund is scheduled to sunset on July 1, 2012. What this means is that unless the General Assembly ONCE AGAIN targets these funds in the Appropriations Bill, these conservation funds will be safe forever. (Well, unless YET ANOTHER law is passed to allow the diversion or the outright dissolution of the “dedicated” mechanism.)

Here’s what at stake:

The State Lands Acquisition Fund will be funded with $3,087,500;
the Local Parks & Recreation Fund has been appropriated $3,718,700;
the Wetlands Fund will receive $6,521,300;
and the Agriculture Resources Conservation Fund will receive $3,187,500.

This is a whopping $16,515,000 for woods, water and wildlife; for our children and grandchildren; for a beautiful and sustainable Tennessee; for our farmers and outdoorsmen; for a Forever Green Tennessee!

Now, fellow Tennesseans, it’s up to us to make sure that the General Assembly keeps these funds in their final, approved budget. We will monitor the finance hearings and keep you posted. But this is a huge step in the right direction for the Tennessee Real Estate Transfer Funds and the Forever Green Tennessee coalition!