Water Is Life

Five grandchildren splashing, playing in the branch,  Ages from one to eight.  We have a pool and they enjoy it but nothing compares to playing in the branch.  The only time they are sad is when we have to leave.

BEARS ARE HERE!

Last week we were at Cave's Cove and the bears were really out.  It is exciting to me that we are beginning to have more and more sightings of bears in our area.  Just today a bear was sighted in Heflin about 20- 25 miles away.

The Alabama Game and Fish website recently had an article about bears and the bear recently seen in Alexandria, about 40 miles away.  Attached is the article: http://www.outdooralabama.com/young-black-bear-makes-appearance-alexandria-ala

The article shows sightings in Alabama since 2010.  In 2014, I sent a video to them of the bear we had on the game camera on our property.  I was not sure it was a bear but I knew it looked like it, for what I could tell.  After seeing the bears this weekend and watching them walk I then decided it was a bear. The Game and Fish division thought it was a bear too after they saw it because they have it marked in Clay County in 2014.  If you look back at my 2014 post in February you can see that video.

SFI Photo Contest

I entered this photo I made in the backyard at our home on Dewberry Lands after a summer shower.  This photo was selected by SFI as the winning photo in the Scenic Forest category. 

I received a nice thank you note from SFI and a $250 gift card from Amazon.

Here is a link to the announcement and pictures from the other winners and runners-up: http://www.sfiprogram.org/photo-contest/photo-contest-winners/

Check out the SFI website for more information on what SFI is all about.

SFI is  responsible for maintaining, overseeing and improving the internationally recognized Sustainable Forestry Initiative® (SFI®) program.

New Wildflower Pictures

Today, I added two more wildflower pictures to the "Wildflower" tab to make a total of 117 wildflowers I have documented on Dewberry Lands.

Forest Friends

One of our forest friends.

Wild Flowers

It is so beautiful in the forest now.  I added three more to the tab"Wildflowers": Wood Betony (Lousewort), Wild Geranium (Purple), and Eastern Bluestar.  I always like seeing the flower in the picture, Jack-in-the-pulpit, each spring growing in the wet areas.  I made this picture Sunday.

Woodland Magazine

Below is the link to an article that will be in the next issue of Woodland magazine published by the American Forest Foundation.  When the article was written back in the fall we had five generations on the Dewberry property but back in February we lost the oldest one and we now are down to four.  There are some good articles in this magazine and you will probable want  to read the others.

Thanks, Kathy Westra, for doing a good job on the article!

https://www.forestfoundation.org/spring-2015?utm_source=SpringWildflowers&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=2015MLPUsers