Favorite Ozarks People – 13

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Bud Schuller, Lesterville, nature, Piedmont, Taum Sauk

Bud Schuller (and me)

I got to know Bud Schuller when I was in high school, and had landed a summer job as a counselor at Camp Taum Sauk up the river from me. I still don’t know how I got that job; I think the owner, George Smith, hearing that I was a farm boy, thought I would be good with the horses, when in fact I have never been fond of horses and was quickly dispatched to other duties. In any event, I got the job, and that’s where I met this guy.

Bud (he acquired that nickname later) was the nature counselor, and while I fancied myself to be woods-wise, I quickly learned that there were people far more attuned to natural world than I was. A devotee of John Muir and Aldo Leopold, Bud went on to teach in the Clearwater school district for many years, imparting his love of nature and appreciation for its complexity to hundreds of young people in the region. And he continued his involvement with the camp, introducing many more hundreds of kids, mostly from the St. Louis area, to the pleasures of life in the Ozarks.

Kids are usually pretty quick to spot a fake, and I think that’s one of the reasons kids always take to Bud. They recognize that he is the genuine article and that his interest in them is real. He’s a master storyteller whose tales are usually about as tall as he is. But there’s always something worth paying attention to in his tales, even if they don’t get it at the time. He’s an indelible personality who leaves a lasting impact, and it was an absolute delight to reconnect with him while I was on a book-promotion trip to Poplar Bluff last weekend.

Favorite Ozarks Books – 7

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A Country Year, books, Jacks Fork, Missouri, nature, Ozarks, Sue Hubbell, Texas County, writing

I heard a presentation on Sue Hubbell’s A Country Year at the Ozarks Studies Symposium in West Plains last year, from Brian Hardman of the University of the Ozarks, and that presentation reminded me I had been intending to dig out this book and re-read it (I’m pretty sure I had read it years ago). But nearly a year passed before intention became act. Another reason to love books—they’re so patient with us!

A Country Year may remind you of Walden in its seasonal structure (spring to spring), or of Pilgrim at Tinker Creek for its devoted entomology, but those comparisons only go so far. For one thing, A Country Year is a quieter book, not as rhetorically extravagant; much of it was originally written for general-interest magazines, so the needs of the intended audience figure into that choice to some extent.

But something else that interests me about A Country Year is its practicality; it’s a working book, not the ruminations of a comfortable observer. When Hubbell writes about jacking up her truck to grease the wheel bearings, she’s not doing it to experience the rusticity of common tasks; she’s doing it because the truck needs greasing, and nobody else is around to take on the job. Real poverty runs through this book and informs it at every turn. For that reason, A Country Year speaks to the Ozarks experience in a particularly meaningful way. A transplant herself (who has since moved away), Hubbell wryly comments on the urbanites who relocate to a scenic patch of Ozark countryside, only to learn that their rural utopia comes with brown recluses and intermittent mail service.

A Country Year embraces both beauty and struggle. It’s unassuming but firm. And in those respects, it resembles a lot of the country folk I know.

 

A Hundred Years of Parks, More or Less

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Conservation Department, Missouri, National Park Service, nature, Ozarks, parks, state parks

The National Park Service was established in 1916, a hundred years ago, and the Missouri State Park system has jumped on the bandwagon to celebrate as well. It was actually sort-of created in 1917 as part of the state fish and game commission, but the first actual park wasn’t created until 1924.

But who’s counting? It’s always a good year to celebrate our state park system, round numbers or not, and the parks department is doing so by offering prizes for people who get a “passport” and have it stamped at their locations. Will I get my passport stamped at all 88 locations by the end of October 2017 and thus be eligible for the best prizes? Probably not, but what the heck, it’s only five bucks and a fun challenge to take on.

The Missouri Legislature has not earned much of a reputation for intellect lately, with various harebrained proposals that just keep coming. But many are mere posturing for political reasons. What really troubles me lately, though, are the short-sighted attempts to interfere with the state park system and the Conservation Department, including efforts to prevent the purchase of land along the Current and Eleven Point rivers. Thankfully, the Current River park has made it through, but there are still efforts going on to derail the Eleven Point purchase. The opportunity to put this kind of land into public use comes very rarely, and once lost may not be regained for generations. I understand the concern of local officeholders about the loss of property tax revenue, but that’s a problem that can be solved. Most ironic is the argument that “we don’t have enough money to maintain the parks we currently have, much less additional ones.” And whose fault is that? The same kill-the-government legislators, of course!

If we want to see our state park system enter its second century with a positive outlook, we need to insulate its operations from political intrusions and see that it gets proper funding. Our park system is the envy of most other states and should be kept that way.

A New Cross-Missouri Trail?

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Gasconade River, Missouri, nature, Osage River, Ozarks, parks, rivers, Rock Island Trail

The recent legal move by the Ameren Corporation to “abandon” a 145-mile stretch of rail line opens the way for a second cross-Missouri hiking and biking trail to be created. There’s a long way to go, but this is exciting news for anyone who loves the outdoors, especially in the Midwest.

The line, which was once part of the Rock Island Line (which as we all know, is a mighty good road), skirts the northern edge of the Ozarks, from Windsor southwest of Sedalia to Beaufort in western Franklin County. The Katy Trail also goes through Windsor, so the two trails would connect there.

I spent a while with my topographical maps today checking out the route of the rail line. It runs through some very wild country, nothing with special grandeur, but oh my goodness some of the vistas along this trail will be outstanding! There are crossings over the Osage River (above) and the Gasconade, and the line follows the Osage for several miles. These sections in themselves would be enough to make me celebrate. But I also think of the wild sections between so many quiet Ozark villages – Gerald, Rosebud, Owensville, Bland, Belle, Freeburg, Meta, Eugene, Eldon, Versailles, Cole Camp, Ionia – even the names are like a roll call of fascination. I don’t know this part of the country well, hardly at all really, but am excited to learn it.

Would this trail ever develop into the kind of serial B&B-and-winery trail that the Katy has become? I doubt it. It’s more remote, farther from urban centers, and the countryside is less hospitable to the casual visitor. But I think it will develop a character of its own, one that will appeal to a different sort of traveler, and will become a valued destination for people wanting to discover an overlooked part of the Ozarks.

Favorite Ozarks Images – 13

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Missouri, nature, Ozarks, photography, rivers, St. Francis River

Near the St. Francis River, Madison County, Mo.

Snakes

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nature, Ozarks, parks, snakes

I come by my snake-phobia honestly; my mom was the fiercest anti-snake crusader I’ve ever known, with the possible exception of my Aunt Gina. Even a four-inch ringneck would arouse her antipathy. For her, there were only two ways of approaching a snake – with a shovel or with a shotgun.

That’s why sad news such as this week’s death of a man at Sam A. Baker State Park after picking up a copperhead is not just sad, but enlightening. I would no sooner pick up a snake – any snake – than I would pick up a lit firecracker. Whatever you think of snakes, misunderstood outcasts of the animal kingdom or symbols of the Devil himself, the fact remains that they are wild animals that survive by biting things. Anybody who thinks they can pick one up without getting bit had better be a trained herpetologist, or else they’re in for an unpleasant surprise.

Over the years I’ve managed to calm my snake-a-noia to some extent, although not entirely. When we first moved to the farm where I grew up, the house had been used only on weekends for several years, and wild things had retaken much of the territory. I often ran over copperheads while mowing the lawn, and on one memorable occasion actually stepped across one before noticing that it was underneath my stride. Those kinds of childhood experiences tend to, shall we say, fix themselves in the subconscious.

Currently, there’s a four-foot blacksnake (now officially referred to as the Texas ratsnake) living around our backyard. I’ve worked out an uneasy truce in my head with it, and I recognize its value in keeping down the mice and voles. (The bluebird boxes are another matter, currently surrounded by a protective barrier.) But Lord help us both if I ever step on that sucker in the dark some night.

Two New Books by Leland Payton

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art, books, creativity, Missouri, nature, Ozarks, photography, writing

I was fortunate enough to obtain advance copies of these two new books recently, and I’ve been dipping into them section by section and page by page ever since. They are both essentially photo books, although both contain judiciously selected text (essays, comments, reminiscences) as well.

Subtlety is something of a lost value in our current esthetic environment. The outré and shocking gather attention and acclaim, encouraging a spiral of provocation in which each new art work must be more shocking than the last. But these books are subtle, and they take time to appreciate.

I’ve gone back and forth as to which is my favorite, but I think I’ve finally settled on Ozark-Prairie Border (176 pp.). This book depicts the area between Kansas City and Springfield, where the Ozarks slope down to wide bottomland and prairie, and where the beauty of the landscape takes more than one look to see. One response many people might have to some of these photographs – a wire fence enclosing a grassy field, a dilapidated building in a small town square, a bulletin board in a country diner – is “I could have taken that picture!” But would you? Would you have seen the unexpected richness of color in that field? Or the rhythm of the rural architecture, the beauty in small things that is celebrated here? The images on these pages reward contemplation. They are visual meditations on the rural places of western Missouri, and I find myself looking at them again and again.

Missouri Squarely Seen (114 pp.) ranges more widely and narrowly at the same time. It covers the entire state – landscape, people, buildings – but all images were taken with a square-format camera and retain that shape. Like the form of a poem, the square format of the image both constrains and challenges the photographer, demanding and rewarding a fresh compositional approach. The photographs in this book are rarely conventionally beautiful; in fact, the traditionally “photogenic” subjects are often treated ironically. In the square format, the Kansas City skyline, ripe for panorama, occupies only the middle fifth of the frame, with a street in the lower two-fifths, a kid climbing a weedy embankment beyond the street, and a Fifties-postcard-blue sky stretching much too far above the buildings for a conventional composition. The result is a somewhat comic distancing and diminishment of the classic landscape view. In some cases, though, the square image does not distance us, but rather focuses our attention on some person or object placed at a strategic spot within the frame.

Payton has a remarkable eye for color, and both these books are filled with richly saturated images in which the colors collide, harmonize, joust, or disappear into unexpected darkness. Both books are rich, rewarding, and beautifully produced. If you love photography, or Missouri, or both, you should get yourself copies. They’re available from Lens & Pen Press.

Time for Learning

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nature, plants

I pride myself on knowing most of the flowers, trees, and shrubs of the Ozarks. So I was caught aback when this plant caught my eye while I was on a walk:

At first I thought it was poison ivy, but the red berries threw me off. I wondered if there was a variety of poison ivy that had red berries, or perhaps that it was poison oak, but a little research disproved both those theories.

After searching and searching both in my reference books and online, I finally spotted it — it’s fragrant sumac! No wonder I mistook it; it’s in the same genus (Rhus) as poison ivy and oak. Turns out that fragrant sumac is used as a native ornamental as well, although these plants were growing wild. I don’t know why I never noticed it before. My guess is that I have seen it many times, but only registered the three-leaf clusters, thought “poison ivy — stay away!” and never looked any closer.

So something new learned. Always a wonderful moment, and I never tire of the joy of learning new things.

Roaring River – 2

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favorite_places, Missouri, nature, Ozarks, photography, Roaring River, springs

This gallery contains 2 photos.

I have written earlier about Roaring River here. Just visited there again this week, and was struck once again by …

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The Environment and the Eleven Point

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Eleven Point, environment, favorite_places, Missouri, nature, Ozarks, parks, springs, Willow Springs

Anybody who has ever floated the Eleven Point River can testify that it is a wild, lonesome, and highly scenic stretch of water. It’s little more than a creek until Greer Spring comes in (there’s an image of Greer Spring in the background here, and I need to write about Greer Spring more).

What many people don’t know, including myself until I crossed it while on a speaking trip a year ago, is that one upper fork of the Eleven Point reaches back all the way to Willow Springs. It’s easily forty miles as the crow flies from Willow Springs to Greer, and given the twists and turns of the river, probably twice as much in river miles.

Not only is the Eleven Point a mere creek, it’s what hydrologists call a “lost” stream. A significant percentage of its water disappears as it flows southeast toward Greer, and sometimes the streambed is little more than dry gravel. Of course, that water doesn’t really disappear; it goes underground, into the many unseen rivers that flow beneath the Ozarks. This underground network of flowing water is what gives the region its many sinkholes and caves, as ground and rock give way to water.

In March, Ken Midkiff of the Sierra Club called our attention to a 33-tank petroleum storage facility in Willow Springs, very near the Eleven Point, that has little or no protection against contamination of the stream if those tanks should ever leak or seep. His article appeared in the Columbia Heart Beat blog. Now, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch has picked up the story, in an article by Jack Suntrup.

Willow Springs, Missouri, is not the Chemical Valley of West Virginia, despite the somewhat alarmist comparisons. But on the “better safe than sorry” side, it only makes sense that the EPA should inspect this tank farm and prescribe whatever safety remedies it deems necessary. As the good folks of West Virginia have learned, it’s a lot easier to protect your watershed before a disaster than to try to clean up and restore afterward.

Here’s a map of the Eleven Point watershed.