Ah, Spring. . .

When I lived in Georgia I never felt like spring had really arrived until Gillian's birthday (3/30), when the dogwoods in Marietta were at their peak. Occasionally, the dogwoods were fine but the weather wasn't cooperating. You see, I think it's hard to fully appreciate dogwoods in anything but bright sunlight. I did, however, appreciate this view from my driveway across the front lawn when the sun broke out from behind the clouds and caught the trees across the street. The picture was taken at the beginning of April 2004 after waiting several days for the sun to appear.

The picture above was taken in March of the following year. There was no concern about clouds, that's for sure. I guess this is about my favorite color combination - dogwood ivory and Carolina blue.

This one was taken on my patio, looking up into the pine woods behind the house. It looks a little busy - or a lot busy - and I don't think it's an especially good photograph. It's actually a failed attempt, a futile attempt, to catch an exhilarating phenomenon peculiar to dogwoods. Perhaps even, peculiar to my dogwoods. When the sun's shining just right and we're treated to a nice, cool zephyr, the large, floppy blossoms begin to shimmer in the breeze and transform themselves into a mob of ivory butterflies, fluttering at the edge of the yard. And that's - precisely - my favorite time of year.

I guess I should have tried to catch it with a video camera. . .

Of course, I know there're other kinds of flowers besides dogwoods, and I have an appreciation for them as well, though deep down I suspect they're superfluous. These tiny little guys - not more than a quarter inch across - were alongside a trail at an overlook on the Blue Ridge Pkwy between Cherokee and Balsam Gap.

My first trip to Asheville was in September of 1962 and I guess my first sojourn on the Blue Ridge Pkwy was that fall. In the ensuing 48 years I believe I've traveled every mile of the Parkway in North Carolina and a fair amount of the Skyline Drive in Virginia. I've often come around a curve and been surprised by an especially lovely vista, but never more so than in 2005 when I was approaching Mount Pisgah from the south enroute to Asheville. I'd probably driven that section of the Parkway 50 times or more over the years and never stopped at this overlook - I'd never before noticed anything out of the ordinary about it. But, getting on towards noon this day in May 2005, I was absolutely dazzled by Mother Nature.

The area is known as Graveyard Fields. At the trailhead originating at this overlook, the Park Service has provided a sign describing how the area got its name:

"A natural disaster occurred here 500 to 1000 years ago. A tremendous "wind-blow" uprooted the spruce forest. Through the years the old root stumps and trees rotted, leaving only dirt mounds. These odd mounds gave the appearance of a graveyard, and the area became known as Graveyard Fields. The forest eventually recovered, only to be destroyed by a catastrophic fire in 1925. This fire consumed the entire spruce-fir forest and the ancient mounds. The forest again is slowly recovering. The 1925 fire burned deeply, destroying the soil's nutrients. Blackberry briers and other small plants have taken hold, adding decaying vegetation to the earth each season, gradually enriching the soil. With time, this process will establish larger plants and trees. A spruce-fir forest might once again flourish in Graveyard Fields."

I've looked high and low on the Internet for pictures of Graveyard Fields that show it in its full glory. There are a few very nice pictures of the area in the autumn when the color peaks, but I haven't come across anything that even remotely suggests what I saw when I came around that curve five years ago this spring. That's especially surprising since parking at the overlook was overflowing the day I stopped.