Northern Arkansas Ice Storm January 09

Here in White County Arkansas, we had ice for one day and warm rain the next. We escaped the brunt of the storm. 45 minutes North of us though was a completely different story. Mt. View was shuttered for several days; trees are splintered by the thousands. Even Wal-Mart was closed. (You'd think after a year that had 100 yr tornadoes and floods, Wally World would have its act together.) My buddies in Melbourne, Izard County did some A+ video reporting of the situation - they've had a very busy year with such. CHeck it out

We wanted to go up and check out our land in Mt. View this Saturday, but too many people have warned us that the steep road hasn't seen the sun yet and the creek will be too high to cross.

Dagnabbit, I wanna crank up our new chain saw.

Attack of the Beavers

There is a pretty stand of Sycamore Trees on the bank of our slice of Sylamore heaven. It's where we camp. We hadn't been for a visit in almost 3 months. Low and behold the beavers have been busy.

They are eating the bark and killing the trees.








This is all a welcome diversion from the plague of bad front page news elsewhere. But we've got to save those trees! The roots are doing a fine job of staving off flood erosion. ( We lost very little soil during the TWO 100 year floods in the Spring of 08. The lot next to us lost a great deal.)








photos taken with cell phone - sorry.

my temp solution. at hand.










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The Track (Dirt Bike)

Building this track has been Daren's main passion these last few months. He and our neighbor have it almost ready to invite folks over. (I'm pretty impressed - he is approaching his fourth decade after all)

(He's on a Husqvarna TE450 , BTW)

Jim Kress WMA / Big Creek

Jim Kress Wildlife Management Area has two purposes: atrocious clear cut timber and planted pine rows for harvesting on the perimeter and untouched wild beauty at its core, Big Creek.

Big Creek does it again. We feel like this is our own secret playground of the gods. ( a mere 15 miles from our house) One needs to buy a land permit use to officially access here and the gates are often closed, but a couple of weekends ago they were open. We went exploring. The jeep made it across a creek crossing so deep that water went over the hood of the jeep !

If you want to learn more about this area, there are several more posts over on the left category column.

Official Exploring Izard County : Fall Road Trip

I joined the Explore Izard County crew this past glorious weekend for some, well, exploring of Izard County. Here are some of my favorite pics. Daren claimed my T-shirt as his as soon as I walked in the door.

Click here for all the details of their road club and roadtrips

Thanks so much EIC. I so admire what you do!

(Can you tell I have crush on Mr. Kanky?)

Canvassing for Obama in the Ozarks

I saw a video of the Red Team leaving a recent rally in OH. A Blue Team member had a camera and was asking the question, "do you think Barack Obama is a terrorist?" The answers I saw sent a chill to my very core. About the same time, I got an email from moveon.org asking if I would be willing to drive to swing state Missouri and volunteer in a campaign office. Their email stated, "you'll have a lot of fun and you might be sorry if you didn't go". Well I said, "YES I CAN". I posted that I had seats to share. (no takers with 24 hr notice).

Saturday morning I packed a bed roll and drove North on Ozark Hwy 65. Through Rosebud, and Bee Branch and north past St. Joe, Harrison, Branson and I turned left into Nixa, MO. The office was in a shopping mall and the greeting from other Blue Team members was exuberant. I met (most astonishingly) another couple from moveon.org and AR that made a similar 4 hour trek. There was a 78 yo doctor who was moved by BO's health plan. There was a social worker volunteering for the not so fortunate she sees on a daily basis. There was a Catholic who was canvassing to keep a woman's right to choose and I was paired with her.

I was shaking like a leaf heading up to the first door. Were they going to be as ferocious as what I saw in the video?

The first person who answered was a mother who said that she hadn't decided yet. She hadn't even seen any of the debates yet. She stated that her issue was health insurance and that everyone in her family had pre-existing conditions. I was able to relay the story of Barack's mother whose last two weeks in life were battling her insurance company that said her cancer was a preexisting condition and that they weren't going to pay. We might very well have won a vote with this mother!

Of course we encountered McCain supporters. For the most part they were polite and we were polite and moved on. It was obvious that more than a few were racist. I told one red male how far I had driven that morning and he came out on the porch to speak with us. He asked our views and said he agreed with us on all points. He just "had always voted republican". Maybe he'll give a secret vote for Obama?

Nixa is population 13,000. It is considered a Red county in Red part of the state. 40% of the people we spoke with were voting for Obama. 40% for McCain. 20% undecided. One would NOT find these same statistics in White County, AR. Missouri is swing state and canvassing works.

Bambi, wildflowers and chiggers

In my August post I wasn't joshing about the deer getting closer to the house. (Maybe related to the fact we got behind on our mowing?) I know in more Northernly states that deer sightings near residences is more common. But not in the South. To see deer munching near your house is rare! This Bambi was the first thing I saw when I woke up the other morning. Her mom was near and could hear the click of my camera. No, it wasn't a hammer on a shotgun, Mama.











Al-Ozarka sent an email recently welcoming Autumn. He spoke of the crop of Autumn wildflowers that were on their way. I still wasn't prepared. Since March, we've had wave after wave of new flower crops. The Autumn wildflowers have been my fave. The Goldenrod is crowning our lot. I had no misgivings about paying $6 for a small bundle in Memphis and now I've got an ocean of it around my house.






(courtesy Ellis Hollow)

We haven't turned on the A/C in a couple of weeks and I'm already cuddling under the blankets at night. Chiggers should be gone by now, right? After a recent good rain, Daren and I went to our special nearby fishing hole. It was a glorious, sunny Sunday and only 75 degrees. I wore long pants, boots and a t-shirt. You have to trek about 3/4 of a mile to get there through the woods, but this insures you're THE ONLY ONE THERE. We both caught fish and I caught all the chiggers - once again. I bathed when I got home too. But I ended up with about 200 chigger bites. Daren didn't get one. And we've been through this before. I cried and cried. When I'm eaten up with hundreds of bites, I can't sleep at night, my bites ooze plasma and blood everywhere and the terrible itch lasts for about 10 days with me. There is No remedy for this, although my personal belief is that if you have chigger bites in your crotch and 50 on each breast, Valium would be very nice. I've spent hundreds of dollars of the last couple of Arkansas Adventure years looking for the most soothing product. Hydrocortisone patted down with Gold Bond Extra Medicated powdered is the best I can find. Daren said he could of made a pie crust on my stomach with all the powder I had on me. Chiggers and ticks will jump on me when I walk to the mailbox at the end of the driveway. WHY???? NOT FAIR!!!!

Temperate August

July was hot. Not too much adventuring to report on, yet Daren would tell you otherwise with the track he helped to build. The weather in this blog instance is remarkable.

My tomatoes shrieked and stopped growing, Sue Dog would do her business and then beg to come back in and our a/c bill was over $300. Every day was over a hundred.

Mercy came with August. In three weeks it has barely hit 90. Lots of clouds and showers. For weeks we've had our windows open at night to sleep by. Remarkable. The tomatoes have started fruiting again, in fact second generations of all the pots on our deck are begging to flower. Deer are huge and nosing up closer to our house every day and the leaves are blushing.

Smallmouth Fishing on South Sylamore Creek; Mountain View, AR

4th of July, 2008

Autoharp and ukulele duo; Mountain View, Arkansas

We're gearing up for the big time - from the porch to the Sqaure (Big plays a pretty mean ice cup)

tomato pest

can you tell the front end from the back end?

$12k Lawn Mower: bushhogging our nature trail

When we moved here in the winter, we found a half mile trail around our property perimeter. It passes three pretty pastures and heads to the little creek behind us. In the winter it was easy to naviagte. It has been impossible to breach in the summer. And boy are there some ticks; epic amounts. Our neighbor brough over one very fancy tractor and we're on our way to blazing our own little nature trail.

videos of the homebase

entrance

flowers out front

Piney Creeks District: Ozark National Forest

We strayed away from our home turf and explored West. Memorial Day weekend at Richland Creek we decided; somewhere new. It is ClOSED for an undetermined amount of time due to the severe Spring Floods. The roads are washed out and trees are washed down. Luckily the parade road guard alerted us to this fact while we were waiting for the Whitt Springs Parade to pass.




He advised us to trek further West and into the Piney Creeks valley for fishing and dirt biking. We drove down a long FS road and pulled into the last remote campsite available. A couple was there for an afternoon of fishing. They let us pull in and pitch tent.



This was the snakiest place I have ever seen aside from the Temple of Doom.




We got to know and like these folks. The lady is from just down the road on Moccasin Creek and she was up for the afternoon . The more we heard about her home, the more we wanted to go see it. She owns 40 acres of a hollow that are grandfathered into the National Forest. It is a apart of the old Paige Homestead. The Paiges were from Mississippi and resettled into Moccasin Creek in the mid 1800s. Supposedly a couple of hundred people lived down in the hollow - and this is just hard for me to imagine.








This valley is so remote. The homestead has a home built in the 50's and numerous outbuildings on it from the mid 1800s and pastures and more swimming holes than one could ever hit in a weekend. They fed us and toured us around and there was no place else I'd rather be!







Unlike the Sylamore District of the Ozark National Forest, there were biting flying insects here and I'm not accustomed to that!

Arkansas Laws on Creek/River Pollution and dumping and who to contact

Popular opinion states that you can dump whatever you want in Arkansas, wherever you want. Even a local elected dignitary told us that if it’s on private property, you can almost forget about it. The renegade culture in Arkansas is part of its inherent charm; the trash ain’t so cute. I spoke with a chief inspector at the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality today. He stated it is ILLEGAL to dump poultry or livestock into any stream. If you find instances of livestock or poultry (even their waste) you call this number to report it to the inspector: 501.907.2400. If you find solid waste like appliances, autos, household trash go here to find your local inspector. http://www.adeq.state.ar.us/ . The water guys I spoke with at ADEQ deferred to the solid waste guys. I have a query into them now.

Reporting a dump site/ pollution in Big Creek

On a mission. Tossing and turning in my sleep about the trash we saw in wild and beautiful Big Creek. The following Letter was sent to the Arkansas Heritage Commission seeking advice. I've also written to ADEQ. Will seek help from TU and maybe the EPA? My friends at Ozark Anglers have good strong advice - some from experience; no reponse yet from any authority.

Dear Keeper of Big Creek Natural Area,

My husband and I have recently moved to AR. We are a short distance from Big Creek Natural Area of Cleburne County. It is a wonderful place that we visit often for hiking and fishing and whatnot. On our first visit we thought this creek looked like canoe heaven and indeed it is. This very wet Spring afforded us a long canoe trip a couple of weekends ago – almost 19 miles we think. The fishing and the scenery was spectacular.

We saw some bad dump sites and I am not resting easy about it. I write to you now for your guidance. I’d like to learn more about what I can do about this. The two worst sites have: cars (old and new), appliances (old and new) and even freshly dead cattle. The dumping is active and smells wretched. The ‘trash’ is pushed over the side of the ridge and sits very near the water level, which of course ultimately runs to the Little Red River …...

Big Creek is a wild treasure! Any advice you have for me will be appreciated. Who should I go to about this? It’s so remote that I doubt few will ever see this horrible pollution until its too late.



Sincerely,
Virginia

Big Creek Wilburn Creek Bass Fishing

These are easy enough to hit after work for a couple of hours. The Little Red River is closer, but Wilburn and Big Creek are more fun for us - wade fish. Drive a little bit North of Pangburn, AR. Find Warren Mt. Access Road. Go Left and you can drive up to Wilburn Creek. It's in a WMA.










Go right on Warren Moutnain Road and you can walk down to Big Creek. Or visit the Natural Area of Big Creek. Follow the nature trail down to the river. Follow the unofficial trail left/upstream to a large rock out cropping. There is a deep hole there with abundant variety. Nearly ever cast landed us fish: stripers, smallmouth, 1 gar, brim/bass hybrids, etc.







Other Big Creek Posts on our blog

Arkansas Spring Storm Pictures

My half hearted attempt at storm chasing this season. The first two are from the back porch and the third one is a little bit down Clay Road - behind our house. The dark skies in the back ground are the tornado 15 miles away near Heber Springs, AR. Each week since February there have been tornado warnings. All but three counties in the state are disaster areas.