Christmas Memories

The hunt for the Perfect Highlands Christmas Tree could take you down some unexpected routes.

Cruisin’ for Christmas trees.

Yep, that’s what we did in the good old days before Christmas tree farms dotted the landscape and artificial trees became acceptable.

For every tree you see atop an SUV these days, its early and modest predecessor was unceremoniously loaded into the trunk of a sedan the size of a football field and taken home to be nailed to a wooden stand and bedecked with lights the size of golf balls and shiny tinsel.

These trees, while precious in our sight and memories, were undoubtedly the inspiration for Charlie Brown’s Christmas tree. Most likely they were white pine and they were, to put it kindly, sparse. Mom, being from South Carolina, always dreamed of finding a cedar, but white pines prevailed.

Getting there was part of the adventure.

Where would we look? Most often it seemed we’d head to Blue Valley, though admittedly on more than one occasion we might have strayed onto private property. This particular year we ventured in an entirely new direction. It was early on a gray morning in December when Mom and I took up the mantle of finding the tree. We loaded a handsaw in the trunk of the trusty blue and white Ford Galaxy and headed to Brush Creek.

Why there, I have no idea, but down the remote gravel road we traveled, Christmas carols playing on the AM radio, eyes peeled for the perfect tree, when what to our wondering eyes should appear but…a young man we knew happily bopping out of the woods as though it was the most common occurrence in the world.

The three of us continued down the road and after a few false starts we finally found our tree. Our Christmas guest happily scaled the side of the mountain, sawed the tree down, loaded it in the trunk for us, and headed back on his merry way, off on whatever adventure we had interrupted.

These days I have an (gasp) artificial tree but make no mistake, I can’t pass a young pine tree without sizing up its potential as a Christmas tree, or remembering the sweet smell.

by Mary Jane McCall

Hemlocks & Salamanders

A dedicated cadre of researchers delving into the mysteries found on the Plateau form the centerpiece of Highlands Field Site program’s wildly successful return.

This year, the Highlands Biological Foundation has invested more than ever before in research and education on the Highlands-Cashiers Plateau – a feat only possible thanks to our supporters!

Some of HBF’s recent victories include hosting a successful season of nature-packed summer camps, funding several scientific research grants, expanding Highlands Nature Center outreach programs, welcoming renowned author and climate activist Dr. Katharine Wilkinson for a free community event, and committing three $100,000 grants over the next few years to UNC-Chapel Hill’s Highlands Field Site program at the Highlands Biological Station.

The latter victory is one that makes us especially delighted. This fall, after a two-year hiatus, the station welcomed back their long-standing HFS program.

With it came Dr. Rada Petric, the first-ever HFS Director, and 12 motivated UNC students ready to explore the ways humans affect the natural environment and the tools used to measure, understand, and communicate these impacts. Bats, hemlocks, and salamanders are just the tip of the iceberg for the subjects these students researched during the semester. Not to mention their group work analyzing microplastics in the Chattooga River, landscape studies using drones, and immersive, overnight field trips to Great Smoky Mountains National Park and the grassy balds of Roan Mountain.

These talented and determined students have been working hard for the past four months to contribute to the understanding of the incredible biodiversity of our region. You can join them for their end-of-semester celebration where they will present their individual and group research project findings for our community.

The presentations and reception will be held on Thursday, December 9. Location and time to be determined. Stay tuned to highlandsbiological.org for more information on this and other events.

For a sneak peek at the students’ research projects, see HBF’s fall newsletter on our website as well. The Highlands Biological Station is a multi-campus center of Western Carolina University.

by Winter Gary, Highlands Biological Foundation

ARTS

Pages 70-83

Photographer Kirk Dornbush saw the light early on. That brilliance has been glowing and growing in him ever since. As far back as he can remember, he’s been drawn to compelling images defined by dramatic light and deep shadow. But what punches this romantic, right in his core, are the photos that make poignant statements about Humanity. Storied 20th Century photographers Dorothea Lange, Ansel Adams, and Edward S. Curtis set the standard for Kirk’s black and white compositions. Of course their technical perfection mesmerizes him. But bits of life, frozen in time, are his favorite teachers, for it’s in the observation and study of these iconic images that he learns the most. A family dazed and devastated by the Dust Bowl; Native Americans vanishing forever on a fated horizon; on the opposite end of the spectrum, the mind-blowing wonder of the majestic Rockies are just some of Kirk’s best study-guides.

Images Steeped in Stories

For photographer Kirk Dornbush, the secrets of humanity and creation are all around us, waiting for his illuminating gaze.

While Kirk is in awe of Lange’s ability to discreetly capture a child’s shellshocked gaze, it’s landscapes that call him loudest. They too have a soul and personality, but they are welcoming and forgiving to a photographer’s intrusions.

Happiest scanning Nature’s panoramas, Kirk snaps vignettes along the Bartram Trail as it winds to the top of Scaly. It’s there, his 35th anniversary nearing, in perfect light, that he photo’d two weatherworn trees, intertwined, roots woven around rock and each other as if to keep from toppling in this crazy world. That iconic symbol of support and love spoke volumes to his wife.

Abandoned, crumbling structures have rich histories, but for their tales to be told well, the light has to be perfect. It’s in a morning or evening glow that their roofs and battered siding reveal their best stories. Kirk is there to give permanence to their memory with a little luck and careful planning,

“Observation is the key,” says Kirk. “ If you have an affinity for photography and you look at enough photos, then framing a brilliant image with perfect light will evoke the emotional response you hoped for. After a while, the process becomes unconscious, instinctual.”

To learn more about Kirk Dornbush’s work, contact him at kdornbush1@gmail.com.

by Donna Rhodes

Holiday Greening

You open your home to an entire suite of sensual delights when you invite Nature into your Holiday decorating plans.

Before there were plastic blowups, flashing lights, and twirling plug-ins, December decorating was au naturale.

And some (me included) still prefer it that way.

A favorite tradition of a log church just outside of Asheville is to gather the congregation on a Saturday in December with the one mandate: Bring greenery from your gardens and yards and forests. What results is the “greening of the church” with fragrant garlands and swags. The following Sunday morning presents a sensual experience ushering in the season in a way that only nature can accomplish.

That sacred family, the one that launched the “Reason for the Season,” smelled only livestock dung and dirt in that ancient makeshift birthing room (i.e. stable).

But we have the opportunity to inhale the woodsy fragrance of a Frasier fir, grown lovingly somewhere in the Western North Carolina mountains. Or, we might decide to trod upon our own property and scout out a more willowy, subtly fragrant cedar for decorating with smell-good strings of dried fruit, potpourri, and popcorn.

With the Christmas tree as the centerpiece, a natural holiday décor can be achieved with clippings from common Plateau plants: holly trees, mountain laurels, rhododendrons, and anything growing that is evergreen. Use a wreath form and prune and poke and arrange clippings to form a door or gate decoration. Pull out every usable container and fill them with water and stuff them with the plucked bounties; the aromatic arrangements decorate mantels, tabletops, dining tables, and more.

Make garland or a sash with long-bough, fresh-cut clippings of a wispy cedar or white pine, for example, by attaching limb to limb with floral wire (for garland) and the stem ends upside down (for a sash).

Add bows if desired – or just stick purely to an outdoorsy ambiance throughout the home’s interior.

Natural greenery may have to be replenished mid-season, but the payoff is a beautiful, scentfilled home that beats artificial any day.

by Deena Bouknight