All Categories - Light and Shadow

Tennessee Nature Writers

7/1/2022

As I write about nature here in Chattanooga, Tennessee, I also continue to read classic works of nature. A Sand County Almanac by Aldo Leopold and the Outermost House by Henry Beston were two of the many I knew before arriving here. I have read others because I believe one should read the best writing from the genre one wants to write.

Over the years, Terry Tempest Williams, Barry Lopez, and Edward Abby have become favorites. Still, they are westerners, just as Leopold represents the Midwest and Thoreau and Beston represent New England. I asked myself, who are the classic nature writers of my adopted home, Chattanooga, Tennessee?

I looked at my library and other resources and began formulating a list of Southern Nature Writers. As with many projects, my list grew with my reading and research. I narrowed the focus to Tennessee Nature Writers because even that list is growing. I wi

Part One includes articles about contemporary southern nature writers in a specific format.
Each profile begins with an introduction to the author and their works, followed by the URL for their website and other information about the author’s online presence, including video and audio appearances. Each article includes a brief description of the author’s conservation, social, and other concerns and information on works published in anthologies and periodicals. The final section contains reviews of books by and about the author.

I hope you enjoy this cursory look at southern nature writing. I enjoy reading and writing about nature as much as nature observation. I hope you will pick up one of the books described here and journey with that author across our southern landscapes. If you have other favorites, please bring them to my attention.

Ray Zimmerman

Reading the Works of Emma Bell Miles

6/30/2022

I have been reading the works of Emma Bell Miles. She was an Appalachian author and artist who lived on Walden's Ridge and died too young of Tuberculosis. Comments on the works follow.

Emma Bell Miles 1879 – 1919

Emma Bell Miles was a child of the mountains who lived in two worlds. She was at home with Walden’s Ridge mountaineers and Chattanooga socialites. Many of the latter were patrons who purchased her art. She went to art school in St. Louis and returned to Walden’s Ridge to marry and raise a family.

Miles suffered ill health throughout her life and died at age thirty-nine of tuberculosis. At the time, tuberculosis sufferers were lodged in unheated tents year-round to keep them in the fresh air. This treatment may have contributed to her demise.

Her news reporting for the Chattanooga Times, selling her artwork to local patrons, and publishing poems and short stories in Harpers and other magazines largely supported her husband and children. Her husband also suffered ill health. His work was irregular, and often the children were left in his care while she worked at the newspaper and lived in town.

Two authors have assembled portions of her diaries into books. She also has at least one published biography. Dr. Peggy Douglas, Chattanooga musician, playwright, and poet, wrote and produced the musical, Twisted Roots after extensive research on Miles at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga library’s special collections.

The Spirit of the Mountains

Emma Bell Miles addresses the joy and despair of mountain life. She quoted one mountaineer saying, "My land is so poor it couldn't raise a fight."

She also chronicled music and verse of the mountain people, with digs at the "summer people," who had second homes on the ridge. These people may have thought of the camp meetings and baptisms with their emotional and vocal responses as "entertainment." Miles also speaks out on the treatment of Appalachian women with a proto-feminist voice.

She ends with a hope that mountain culture will come into its own and a lament for all that the people have lost as Appalachia succumbs to progress that impoverishes rather than enriches. Folklorists value this book.

Our Southern Birds

This book includes descriptions of birds and the author’s drawings of each species. Several entries include descriptions of her encounters with the species. A scanned version is available as a free download from Google Books. A recent reprint is available for purchase from various sources.

The Common Lot and Other Stories

This is a recent publication by the Ohio University Press. The stories are about Appalachian life, particularly women’s lives in Appalachia. Many of the stories were first published in Harpers’.

Strains from a Dulcimore (sic)

This is a collection of Miles’ poems edited by Abby Crawford Milton and published in 1930. She lovingly spoke of birds, wildflowers, and the dulcimer in these stanzas.

Once I too Had Wings: The Journals of Emma Bell Miles 1908-1918

Stephen Cox, the special collections librarian at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga Library, edited this volume. He transformed hand written diaries into a published text. The available material was substantially more than that included in the final book. He provides an excellent description of the editing process in the introduction. The forward by Elizabeth S.G. Englehardt offers tremendous insight into the life of Miles, as does the book’s text.

Diary: May 25, 1914, to June 10, 1915

This volume is a hand-bound, typewritten manuscript deposited with the Chattanooga Public Library. Abby Milton Crawford is listed in the card catalog as a second author. She is also the editor of Strains from a Dulcimore (sic). The librarian informed me that the other diaries are at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga archives.

Emma Bell Miles by Kay Baker Gaston
This volume is a bibliography. It is out of print, but available in some libraries and from used book dealers.

Lost Works
Stephen Cox, the editor of Once I Too Had Wings, examined her collected papers at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga and described several works mentioned in the journals and correspondence. Miles was a much more prolific writer than indicated by her known works. There are references to a trunk of papers someone took from her residence just after her death.

Downtown

3/23/2022

Rayz Reviewz 3.1

3/4/2022

Rayz Reviewz Volume 3, Number 3

In this issue, I begin with a discussion of some recently received publications and end with a view of the night sky in March.

Penguin released David George Haskell’s third book, Sounds Wild and Broken, on March 1, and I received my pre-ordered copy on March 3. In 2012, Haskell broke into the world of literary naturalists with his first book, The Forest Unseen: A Year’s Watch in Nature, a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. In 2017 he continued to inspire readers with The Songs of Trees, for which he won the John Burroughs medal, an award given for distinguished nature writing. Sounds Wild and Broken introduces the reader to the vanishing sounds of nature and is sure to continue his success. Haskell is a professor at the University of the South.

A few weeks ago, I received a copy of Rhythm of the Ink – The First Wave by Markey Mark Symmonds, a British author. After a diagnosis of dyslexia and dysgraphia at age 46, Mark returned to college and passed the English proficiency test that had been an obstacle to him years ago. Five of the poems are about dyslexia though the final of these five examines success. A few are about being bullied. All of the poems show Markey Mark Symmonds demonstrating his mastery of the craft of poetry.

Congratulations to the following Chattanooga area authors for publishing books of poetry:
Kelly Hanwright, The Locust Years
Rachel Landrum Crumble, Sister Sorrow, Finishing Line Press
Christian Collier, The Gleaming of the Blade, Bull City Press
Helga Kidder, Learning Curve, Blue Light Press
KB Ballentine, Edge of the Echo, Iris Press

The Night Sky
Canis Major is high in the South early in the evening, with Canis Minor above and to the left. Taurus and Orion have moved off to the West, and Leo is rising in the east. The bright stars Sirius in Canis Major, Procyon in Canis Minor, and Betelgeuse in Orion comprise the winter triangle. The Big Dipper stands on its handle in the north.
Venus dominates the morning sky just before sunrise, flanked by Mars and Saturn.
The next meteor shower is the Lyrids which will peak on April 21.
The moon was new on March 2 and will be full on March 18.

Resources
StarDate https://stardate.org/
Earth and Sky https://earthsky.org/
Astronomy Magazine https://www.astronomy.com/

Sandhill Cranes

1/30/2022

These images are from my most recent trip to Hiwassee Wildlife Refuge on January 23, 2022

Street Photography

12/25/2021

Cloudland Canyon this Fall

12/23/2021

Impressionist Paintings

12/19/2021

Impressionist Paintings

When I take off my glasses
the world becomes
an impressionist painting.

Infused with light
the purple flowers
shimmer and vibrate.

Impressionist brush strokes
visible with juxtaposed colors
record the passage of time
give birth to fauve and cubist.

Real or unreal
Dali’s clock melts,
the canvas yields
a completed painting
as Gauguin sets sail for Tahiti.

Reel to reel tape yields the best sound.
Dance the Virginia Reel
as Picasso fractures physical planes.

Reel in a struggling fish
in a struggle for wholeness.

Appeared in the October 2020 issue of Quill and Parchment
Republished in the Weekly Avocet

The Songs of Rivers

They are stilled by dams though
bass notes still resound in depths,
lull catfish to sleep.

The tremolo of rapids is lost
to navigational safety.
Lament the silenced symphony.

The river waves to fishermen on shore.
“Heed the sign, keep away from the outflow,
unless you wish to kiss the muddy depths.”

Below the dam, the river accelerates,
sings of crickets and raindrops from its youth,
up there, at its mountain birthplace.

Published in The Weekly Avocet

More Nature at Night

12/17/2021

First, please let me offer an apology. The link to boaters at Nickajack Cave did not appear in the previous issue. Instead, I included this link which takes you to a fact sheet. Nickajack Cave Wildlife Refuge | Tennessee River Valley (tennesseerivervalleygeotourism.org)

Here is a link to the video of boating at Nickajack Cave.
Outdoor Chattanooga | Nickajack Cave Wildlife Refuge - YouTube

Animals that Glow

You are probably familiar with our local Lampyrid beetles that flash their lights on summer nights. They are commonly known as lightning bugs or fireflies, but they are neither bugs nor flies. They are beetles in the order Coleoptera, family Lampyridae.

The Encyclopedia Britannica has an extensive article about organisms that glow. Scientists call this phenomenon Bioluminescence: bioluminescence | Causes, Examples, & Facts | Britannica

The National Science Foundation has an article about fungi that glow A Thousand Points of Light: Bioluminescent Fungi | NSF - National Science Foundation

If you have never seen a bioluminescent tide, please visit an ocean. The tiny Dinoflagellates put on quite a show. Bioluminescent Tide: What makes the ocean glow • Earth.com

Some jellyfish and many of the stingless comb jellies glow as well. The Tennessee Aquarium once had a small display of comb jellies, and it may still be there. This link will take you to a fairly technical article about comb jellies. Ctenophores - some notes from an expert (washington.edu)

Nighttime Insects
As spring approaches, you may want to try learning more about moths. Here is a video on attracting moths Black lighting for Moths Day 1 [ National Moth Week ] – YouTube

Katydids sing late into fall evenings, and I have always enjoyed their chorus. Here is a seasonal article. Katydids - The Daily Garden Count the number of chirps in 15 seconds and add 40 for a rough estimate of the temperature.

Amphibian Voices
The Tennessee Wildlife Resource Agency has an excellent web page with photos of the many species of Tennessee frogs. If you click on an individual image, you will see a species account. Frogs and Toads in Tennessee | State of Tennessee, Wildlife Resources Agency (tn.gov)

You can also identify frogs by their calls. Go to the LEAPS website and click on the word “call” for a recording. Identify by Sound (leaps.ms)

Active at Dusk and Dawn
Crepuscular animals are active during the twilight hours of dusk and dawn. This website has an illustrated list of some of them.
Crepuscular animals (animalia.bio)

Night Sky Resources
The StarDate Podcast and web page is a friendly resource even for beginners. StarDate Online | Your guide to the universe

For more resources, check out the Earth and Sky podcast and web page Tonight | EarthSky

Pictures within pictures. Asterism (astronomy) - Wikipedia

There are eighty-eight official constellations.
The Big Dipper is not a constellation.
It is an Asterism – a picture within a picture.
It lies within the constellation Ursa Major.
The Little Dipper is an asterism within Ursa Minor.
The Pleiades is an asterism within Taurus.
The Hyades is also an asterism within Taurus.
The variable star Algol is an Asterism within Perseus.

Orion is already on the horizon at dusk and high in the sky by 10 PM and will be visible earlier and earlier in the evening.

Orion Constellation Image Orion Csillagkép Pictures (eu5.org)
Follow the line of Orion’s belt upward to Aldebaran and the Pleiades.
In Japanese folklore, the Pleiades are Subaru, a fishing net. A group of stars appears on the Subaru automotive logo.
Follow the line down to Sirius, the bright star in Canis Major.
Many cultures see a hero in the constellation Orion/
Some cultures see Orion as a butterfly.
Others see the three stars in the belt as a bridge.
Orion is the mighty hunter, and the Scorpion is his nemesis. They are never in the sky at the same time.
Stellar Enemies | StarDate Online

Nature at Night Redux

12/13/2021

Rayz Reviewz Volume 2, Numbe 29 Revised
I was not happy with the previous blog post and revised it substantially before sending it out in mt newsletter. Here is the revised version.

So, who am I to tell you about nature at night? I am someone who has read a lot, made some observations, written a lot, and published a little. My web page with links to published articles. Https://rayzimmermanauthor.com

This issue of RayzReviewz is a gateway to knowledge about the nighttime world. Follow the links for an introduction to each of the topics.
A Literary Approach
Poems and stories of the world at night are abundant, and some people like to focus on the terrifying ones, but I take a gentler approach.
The poem "To Know the Dark" by Wendell Berry offers the insight that "the dark blooms and sings." You can read the short text here: Poetry Chaikhana | Wendell Berry - To Know the Dark (poetry-chaikhana.com)
The British writer Chris Yates, who spends a lot of time writing about fishing, also spends the shortest night of the year, the Summer Solstice, walking. His book, Nightwalk: A Journey into the Heart of Nature, relates his experience on one extended walk. Nightwalk: A Journey to the Heart of Nature by Chris Yates | Goodreads
An Educational Approach
Brad Daniel and Clifford Knapp prepared an article on leading a night walk, primarily with students in mind. Knapp, now deceased, was one of my mentors at Northern Illinois University. Read their safety tips, whether exploring the nighttime world on your own or as a leader or participant in outdoor activities. Explore an area in the daytime first, and make sure you know it well before going at night.
Nighttime Adventures - Green Schools National Network
Nighttime Animals
The Barred Owl is the owl most commonly encountered because they sometimes hunt in the daytime and are not shy.

The naturalist in this short film gives a great introduction to barred owls, talking about the eyes, ears, unique feathers, and habits of these birds.  The Barred Owl - YouTube

The Barred Owl Fact Sheet from the National Audubon Society has another excellent introduction. 10 Fun Facts About the Barred Owl | Audubon

All about birds from the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology is a good starting place to find information about any bird found in the United States. This is their page about screech owls, the smallest of our common owls. Eastern Screech-Owl Identification, All About Birds, Cornell Lab of Ornithology

The Great Horned Owl entry in the Audubon Field Guide is a great place to learn about our largest owl here in Tennessee.  Great Horned Owl | Audubon Field Guide

The Barn Owl is also found in Tennessee and is very different from other owls. It has its own family, Tytonidae, and has nearly worldwide distribution.  Barn Owl Overview, All About Birds, Cornell Lab of Ornithology
Less common owls in Tennessee include the Short Eared Owl, the Snowy Owl, the Long-Eared Owl, and the diminutive Northern Saw-Whet Owl. The saw-whet is only found at high altitudes in Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Dr. Fred Alsop found a nesting pair of Northern Saw-Whet Owls in the Smokies. Owls remain mysterious, alluring (smokymountainnews.com)

The Bats of Tennessee website for the Tennessee Wildlife Resource Agency has a photo of each of our many species of bats. Click on an image to see a life history of the species. Mammals Bats | State of Tennessee, Wildlife Resources Agency (tn.gov)

Gray Bats are endangered and appear in Tennessee. This video from a neighboring state tells their story.  Gray Bats | This American Land - YouTube

Bat watching at Nickajack Cave in Marion County is a popular summer activity. This video shows people boating to the cave entrance. Nickajack Cave Wildlife Refuge | Tennessee River Valley (tennesseerivervalleygeotourism.org)

The above link actually takes you to a fact sheet about Nickajack Cave. It is interesting in itself, but I will include the link about boating at Nickajack Cave in the next installment.

This fact sheet on white-nose syndrome explains why bats are becoming less common. What Is White-nose Syndrome? (U.S. National Park Service) (nps.gov)

Explore the Night Sky
We have several local resources for learning about astronomy, but most of them are closed due to Covid 19. You will have to wait a while to visit the Clarence T. Jones Observatory or Smith Planetarium in Walker County.

I recently visited one that is open, the Star Walk trail at Harrison Bay State Park, developed b the Barnard Astronomical Society. I enjoyed a walk on the course and read the interpretive signs, which impart a solid knowledge of the subject.

You can explore it during the daytime to learn some astronomy. Keep safety foremost in your mind. Harrison Bay State Park's Star Walk - Sky & Telescope - Sky & Telescope (skyandtelescope.org)
You can also download and print a star chart and connect some lines before using it at night. The best way to begin learning the constellations is to connect them with lines.
Star Charts | Adventure Science Center
At the end of the Big Dipper, the two stars point to the North star. The North Star is a guidepost for navigation, and the big dipper inspired the song "Follow the Drinkin' Gourd." It was a guide for escaping slaves on the underground railway.
Follow the Drinking Gourd - YouTube
The North Star is the end of the handle of the Little Dipper.
Draco winds between the dippers.
Thuban, the third star from the end of Draco's tail, was the north star in ancient Egyptian Astronomy. Vega in the Lyre will be the north star in a few thousand years. Thuban - Wikipedia
Continue your line from the big dipper to the north star to Cassiopeia, the "lazy W."
•Perseus, Pegasus, Cepheus, and Andromeda are all nearby. These constellations are all named for characters in a Greek Myth.
Medusa, the Gorgon, had hair made of snakes. Anyone who looked at her would turn to stone. A goddess she offended inflicted this condition as a punishment.
Perseus severed her head and put it in a bag so he would not become stone. The variable star Algol, also known as the demon star, represents the head. Algol - Wikipedia