Despite an unsettled weather pattern yesterday, I managed to find a window for a hike on the Bald Knob Trail in Canaan Valley State Resort Park. The turbulent sky and wind made everything so much more vivid and dramatic. The trail starts at a tube park and ascends steeply to the rocky overlook on Bald Knob before winding gently to the south through a serene boreal forest on Cabin Mountain dominated by red spruce (Picea rubens), where the trail cuminates at a chair lift on the north face and a hang glider launch area with a sweeping view of the Red Creek Valley on the south face.

Ψ Nova Scotia Qualities ↝

pt; Nova Scotia Qualities

Duck Tolling Retriever - when one's masculinity is tied to being from Nova Scotia. Mayflower - when one's femininity is tied to being from Nova Scotia. Red Spruce - when one's neutrality is tied to being from Nova Scotia.

First three stripes come from the mammal/flower/tree themselves. Blue, yellow, green, and white are commonly found on a province/territory's flag or coat of arms. Dog [link], flower [link], spruce [link].

Tagging @radiomogai @io-archival @obscurian @rabidfreak @goregender

The road to Clingmans Dome is closed seasonally (for the winter months), so we weren't able to visit when we were in the area in February. Not the case this time though.

I was much more fascinated with the unique flora to the area than the views, to be completely honest. The highest elevations around the Smokies are spruce-fir forest, predominantly red spruce and Fraser fir, the latter of which is endangered and is being destroyed by the invasive balsam woolly adelgid. These are considered coniferous rainforests, and the biodiversity is incredibly rich. Ice age climates pushed boreal species much further south than their usual range, and a lot of them persisted in these higher elevations. A neat current example, which I did not know until I saw an absolute shit ton of them, are dark-eyed juncos. They appear in the backyard here in north AL to overwinter, and spend their summers far north in Canada and up into the arctic. They live year-round through the peaks of the Appalachians though! They were a friendly surprise.

Conservation efforts for the Fraser fir and other at-risk flora are making progress at slowing the damage, but the sheer amount of dead snags hurts to look at. Some of them harbored some pretty incredible moss and lichen growth though.

Todays Tree is the Red spruce tree and Tommy fits this tree perfectly!

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Sketch below!

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This week's "Spring has Sprung" kitchen experiments included: a violet and blueberry switchel (drinking vinegar), a first attempt at making violet cookies, and evergreen beer!

The violet cookies tasted good but didn't exactly go to plan - I tried to recreate violet shapes with the petals on top of the cookies and then the cookies spread out while baking so it didn't work out. (lol) I will try freezing them before baking next time.

Both the switchel and evergreen beer will take a couple of weeks before they are drinkable but I am very excited to try them out when they are ready.