Category: St. Clair Outdoors

Equine Aid

New Springville barn uses horses to heal peoples’ bodies and souls

Story by Joe Whitten
Photos by Mackenzie Free
and submitted Photos

“There’s something about the outside of a horse that’s good for the inside of a man.”

While that quote has been wrongly attributed to several famous people, including Winston Churchill and Ronald Reagan, research indicates it probably dates back centuries before they were born.

Nevertheless, the sentiment expresses in a nutshell what Nicole Whitehead Tucker has in mind for Canoe Creek Stables in Springville.

“Canoe Creek Stables is home to Light Of The World Adaptive Horsemanship, a faith-based nonprofit with the mission of helping others heal and grow while enjoying one of God’s greatest gifts, horses,” she says, quoting her mission statement. “We use adaptive horsemanship to provide both physical and emotional benefits to those in need.”

Adaptive Horsemanship is recreational horseback riding and horsemanship lessons adapted for each individual’s needs, goals and abilities. It utilizes mounted and unmounted activities to provide both physical and emotional benefits.

Potential students include autistic children, children suffering from emotional and physical trauma, those with crippling diseases such as cystic fibrosis and veterans suffering from PTSD. Nicole wants to use horses to help these folks and more. That’s why she is working on her certification from CECTH, the Council for Education and Certification in Therapeutic Horsemanship.

Nicole has had horses all of her life. But her dream to use them to help others mentally and physically began when she was a teenager.“My younger brother, Kyle, was born with cystic fibrosis,” she says. “I watched him grow up battling this disease. He inspired me because he never gave up. He died in May of 2019, when he was 29, but he never lost his spirit. I owe a lot of my personal and spiritual growth to him.”

Her husband, Jake, also comes from a horsey family. He lost his brother the year before Nicole lost hers, and it helped Jake develop the same passion she has. “I also want to take horses to places like Children’s Hospital, church events and nursing homes,” Jake says.

“My brother and I talked about doing this for about a month before Kyle passed away,” Nicole says. “I told him about my dream, too, and he said, ‘That’s awesome, Sis.’”

The Tuckers broke ground on a 100 x 100-foot barn on April 1, 2023, after Jake had sketched the design. They contracted to have the outer shell erected, and they finished the inside themselves. “What a journey,” she says. “Jake even built the wooden fence, and he has never done that before. He has no training in carpentry. He was a fuel truck driver for McPherson Oil for 10 years, and now he’s maintenance man at the new Big Canoe Creek Nature Preserve, which is next door to our property.”

One side of the barn measures 30 x 100 feet and has 15 stalls. The arena is 50 x 80 feet and covered with sand, while the other side is 20 x 100 feet and has space for seven more stalls. Ten skylights and a chandelier in the center of the arena light up the premises. “I ordered the chandelier via Amazon, and Jake built a crank system so we can lower and raise it,” Nicole says. When he asked her why she needed a chandelier in the middle of a riding arena, she replied, “For barn dances and fundraisers.”

The structure is bathed in Scripture, literally. Several posts and internal walls are covered in Bible verses because Jake and Nicole invited people to write their favorites on them. Some wrote the Scripture reference, while others scribbled entire verses.

“If you take out the wall panels of the social room, for example, you’ll find the internal walls covered with verses,” Nicole says. “Friends, family members, even the Alabama Power crew and concrete contractor wrote them on studs, posts and the plywood under the paneling there.”

To handle the $250,000 price tag of the barn, the couple dipped into their savings account and took out a loan that comes with $1,400-a-month payments.

Lessons are one hour long, and include riding, grooming, lunging, tacking up, learning the parts of a saddle and building a relationship with the horse. They cost $65 per hour. However, low-income persons can be sponsored through donations and fundraising.

“This barn has been a Band-aid for me,” says Nicole. “In the past few weeks, I’ve had conversations with families about what they are going through, including a couple of people who were autistic, and a couple with sensory disorders. They found me via Facebook.”

She started a Facebook page in October, before the barn was even finished. As of Feb. 29, she had 5,500 followers, but her goal is 10,000. “Imagine if 5,500 people said a prayer for our program,” she says.

The barn houses nine horses and three ponies, with five of those used for equine assisted activities. The others are personal ones. Two activity horses include a white horse and a pony from a woman in Mississippi who learned about Nicole’s mission via mutual friends on Facebook and contacted her. “She drove them over the next day, along with some hay and feed,” Nicole says. “That’s a four-hour trip one way.”

Other donations have included two Haflingers, a brother and sister named Candy and Cane. “These are our two main buggy horses, but we use them in our adaptive horsemanship program, too,” Nicole says. “They were given to the program by the family of my great-uncle in Tennessee, who died in the summer of 2022. We got them that November.”

Open house was a great time to meet the animals

A more recent equine donation was the return of her “heart horse,” which she had sold when her brother was ill. “As my brother got worse, I started riding less, because I was just too emotional to enjoy it,” she explains. “So, I sold Handsome to a sweet lady in Georgia. I stayed in touch with his new mom for five years, and she’d update me on him from time to time. Then in February she gave him back to me because she wanted him to be part of something special. I still can’t believe it!”

Handsome is a 16-year-old Tennessee Walker with a lot of personality. “We used to compete in local horse shows in Western and English gaited classes,” Nicole says. “I feel like I got a HUGE piece of my heart back. My brother would be so happy!”

Other in-kind donations include the bathroom, three carriages and the sound system for the barn. The donation of the three carriages came as the indirect result of fulfilling another lifelong dream, that of becoming an airline pilot.

“I had wanted to be a pilot since I was 6-years-old,” says Nicole, who is 43. “My grandmother lived near the Birmingham airport, and I grew up lying in her yard and watching the planes go over. I’m stubborn, and I had no back-up plan.”

She got her pilot’s license at 19, started her aviation career as a flight instructor, then did corporate flying to get jet experience. Later, she was a commercial pilot for ExpressJet, a regional airline, for five years. She quit to start a family. “I’ve gone back to corporate aviation so I can control my schedule,” she says.

During the Springville Christmas Parade of 2022, she saw people like the homecoming queen riding in cars, and joked to her husband about how great it would be to have a carriage so she could auction a seat in it and donate the proceeds to a charity. The next day while she was co-piloting a corporate client to a meeting in Texas, he came into the cockpit and struck up a conversation.

“I showed him pictures of our horses and told him about my dream, and when we landed back in Birmingham later that day, he asked if he could talk to me. He said he had three carriages he wanted to donate, and he did. He paid for the delivery of the first one, and we picked up the other two.”

And that’s why an additional side of the barn was added to the original plans. The carriages include a Purple Princess that has hydraulic brakes and battery-operated lights, an Amish buggy and a covered wagon.

Other animals besides horses are being added to the mix. “We were given a five-day-old lamb whose mother rejected her, and we are working on adding more little critters to the barn, including a mini cow,” she says.

“We will also be taking over the petting zoo at Homestead Hollow this year. I’ll be working the May events with Anne Sargent, who has run it for 10 years. She’s going to show me the ropes, and then I’ll take over for future Homestead Hollow weekends. The petting zoo will be a big part of our barn, as it will bring lots of smiles to children. I’m so excited!”

And what about those “dream crushers,” the people who said she and Jake can’t do it, it won’t happen, they need deep pockets to make this dream come true? Nicole says phooey! “Think of what would not be accomplished except through deep faith.”

Features

Polar Plunge

Braving Logan Martin Lake in winter to help support veterans

Story by Carol Pappas
Photos by David Smith

Whether it looked like a leap of faith or a deep dive, what clearly surfaced on Logan Martin Lake New Year’s Eve Day was a small, but enthusiastic group of Polar Plungers determined to raise awareness and support a good cause – helping veterans.

The invitation went out on social media for what was billed as the First Annual Yeti Plunge. “The event is dedicated to the remembrance of military members we have lost to suicide and to bring suicide awareness to the local populace.”

A couple of dozen brave souls navigated the icy cold waters in the first Polar Plunge while a group of onlookers – a bit too reluctant to even put a toe in the water – lent moral support, cheering them on. They splished. They splashed. And they seemed to emerge as one big, continuous smile stretching across all their faces.

With the plunge, it brought on a sense of accomplishment. “It was a challenge,” said Terry Harrell of Cropwell. “I thought this was a pretty good cause.”

Catrina Cedotal agreed. To her, it was a sense of understanding. “My husband is a Marine veteran. My son is medically retired from the Army.”

Their cause? Project Absolution, a nonprofit effort to help veterans transition through returning home by taking the path less traveled – offroad. The project is a part of a group of veterans called Absolution Offroad, which is now 1,500-strong from multiple states.

Chase Poland of Riverside, who founded the project, is an Iraq War veteran. “It took me years to get myself together” after the war, he said. A buddy got him interested in offroading, and he saw that experience as dealing with what came next in his life, “helping me get through stuff without medication.”

They wanted to turn that experience into helping others just like them. It earned the name when Poland was reading Sun Tsu’s The Art of War. In it, he came across the word, “absolution.” Its meaning was a perfect fit – “a form of relief from one’s past, forgiveness.”

He named his Jeep, a specially-rigged offroad vehicle, Absolution, and the offroad group that followed bears the same name. Now comes another evolution for the name – Project Absolution – which seeks to get veterans out into the woods, experiencing the outdoors and new adventures. Under the umbrella of a its pending nonprofit, they hope to expand the adventures into hunting and camping and paramotor excursions. All expenses are paid for by the donor-supported organization.

The veteran community who rides calls it “a breath of fresh air to have something like this in Alabama,” Poland said. It is an effort to reverse the suicide rate among veterans, which has become alarmingly high – nearly 17 veterans take their own lives every day.

What Absolution Offroad finds is that getting them out of their homes and into these rides helps them deal with the aftermath of war. It’s as if they get home from service and retreat into themselves. “They build their own unit,” Poland said.

Absolution Offroad provides a bridge leading out from inside the walls they build around them. Riders and members now come from all over, from places like Alabama, Florida and Georgia to join the camaraderie and the challenge of offroading on trails from Stony Lonesome to Top Trails Cheaha and the Talladega National Forest to Chief Ladiga Trail.

Those who don’t have an offroad rig are equipped with one free of charge. The aim is to remove any obstacles en route to their offroad experience and along the way, the hurdles of life after war.

“We want to curb veteran suicide,” Poland said. “We want to make a difference in this world.”

Editor’s Note: To donate to Project Absolution, you may do so through Cash App. The account is $projectabsolution.

Seed + Sun

Mandy and son, Corbie, share a moment on a tractor

Story by Elaine Hobson Miller
Photos by Mandy Baughn

If you Google “poppies,” you’ll learn that poppies aren’t recommended for growing in this area (Zone 8), poppies don’t do well with root disruption, and poppies typically don’t bloom the first year they are planted.

Mandy Baughn’s poppy experiment defied all the odds and confirmed her idea to develop a flower shop by the side of the road.

That experiment began with a seed packet she picked up at a dollar store, planted in trays on her kitchen table, then transplanted into a garden bed. They survived transplantation, sent their roots deep during the winter of 2022-23, then bloomed beautifully their first season.

“I don’t know that I’ll ever be able to grow poppies to sell for many reasons, but for me, that first brave, pink poppy bloom was a sign and a confirmation that this is what I’m meant to do,” she says.

Seed + Sun Blooms, the name she gave her new flower business, involves growing a large variety of colorful flowers, arranging them into bouquets, placing them in Mason jars and selling them on the honor system in a little stand next to her house on Mays Bend Road. She charges from $5 to $40 for a bouquet, and purchasers leave the money in a lock box.

“They can take the flower jars home with them and keep or return them,” Baughn says. “Most folks return them, and some even bring me extra jars.”

She presented the idea for a flower stand to her husband, Scott, this past April. They had been on their 10-acre homestead for two years and had been tossing around ways to have it make some money. “I’ve always loved growing things,” Baughn says. “I come from a long line of green thumbs.”

She came up with this honor system, which, as she points out, isn’t the first in St. Clair County. “There are several in this area, including the Wadsworth Farm that sells blueberries and others who sell veggies. I’m a dreamer – it was my idea – my husband is the logical one. To my surprise, he said, ‘Let’s do it!’ ”

They had no tiller, no tractor and no experience in flowering farming. Then a friend explained the no-till method, where you lay a tarp down, and it kills the vegetation underneath, decomposing it and putting the nutrients back into the soil. So that’s what they did.

This growing season, the flower beds are covered with landscaping fabric, and she’s trying a gardening concept called the Cool Flower Method that a woman in Virginia named Lisa Mason Ziegler came up with. “You plant hardy annuals in the Fall, they over-winter, and do their thing in the Spring,” Baughn says. “Their roots are stronger because they survived the winter.”

In addition to the poppies, she grew sunflowers, zinnias, celosia, gomphrena, strawflowers, cosmos, marigolds, lots of Black-eyed Susans, Bachelor Buttons and more – all easy to grow, according to Baughn. “We hope to add tulips and daffodils this year,” she says. “We have 1,000 tulip bulbs and almost 500 daffodils already in the ground. We planted them during the first week of December.”

The “we” includes her husband and their two children. Son Corbie, 11, and daughter, Ellery, 9, help with the digging, planting and harvesting. “I have my own seed business, too,” Corbie says. They purchased a used tractor last November, which should help with developing the garden bed.

The whole affair has been trial and error, but has turned out even better than they had expected. “I have always grown things, but never from seeds,” she says. “I have been very surprised. I pictured people coming here just to get flowers, a destination, so to speak. But to my surprise, people in the neighborhood and passersby stop, some on their way home.”

Last year, after a late start, the stand opened in early July and closed in mid-December. Baughn estimates they sold 300-400 bouquets during that time. “Whew, that’s hard to think through and just a guess,” she says. They plan to open this year as soon as the bulbs start blooming, which could be as early as mid-February, weather permitting. “We’re hoping to have flowers at least through the end of October and maybe into November,” she says. Maybe we’ll establish a U-Pick patch with sunflowers and zinnias this summer. Obviously, everything is based on the weather.”

Mandy’s daughter, Ellery, takes her pick of flowers

The family wants to make enough money off the flower stand this year to fence their property. Then they can get some horses, sheep and chickens. “We love horses,” she says. “For three years, I taught riding lessons two days a week at RaeAnn Ranch in Moody. The kids, who are homeschooled, would go with me and had a ball roaming the ranch and taking riding lessons.”

She plans to set up a picnic table near the stand, a place for people to hang out, have a picnic, relax and enjoy the Spring and Summer breezes. “Our goal is to nurture community by building more of a community atmosphere so people can connect,” she says. “Young people are always on their phones, and older ones like to socialize. I want people to pass by and say, ‘How cute, let’s stop and sip our coffee at that picnic table.’ We may even offer coffee later. There’s a little bistro table out there now.”

It thrills her when people message her and say, “Someone gave me your flowers, and they made me feel so good. They cheered me up.” That cheers Baughn up, too.

“Flowers are a miracle of God, the way everything comes together to make them grow,” she says. “I go to the garden and know this is not a coincidence, and it strengthens my faith.” l

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Features

Run 4 the Parks

5K event highlights good things in Springville

Story by Paul South
Photos by Richard Rybka

No matter its size, a city’s growth is always measured in new jobs, new rooftops, new businesses and new people.

But in Springville – at least for its Parks and Recreation Department – growth is also calculated in miles and smiles.

Consider Springville’s Run 4 the Parks.

In its brief existence – the inaugural event took place last year – the city has raised some $23,000. According to the parks and rec website, proceeds from the 5k race and other run-related events will offset the cost of improvements at the Springville Sports Complex, specifically a stone entrance gate, new signage and lighting.

Rick Hopkins, the city’s director of Parks and Recreation, says the idea for the run sprouted from an effort to bring more events into the community.

Years ago, the city hosted a successful 5k run. But Springville’s park board envisioned something bigger and better.

“We talked about how we wanted it to be something more than a 5K so that it would be something for the entire family, not just for people who specialized in long distance running. That was the real genesis of it.” SpringFest and a previous 5K run – which helped fund Big Springs Park and the city’s popular Splash Pad – provided a template for the Run 4 The Parks.

“We just built off SpringFest,” Hopkins says. “But we wanted something that was focused on the entire family. We tried to bring back something similar to SpringFest. That was really our goal.”

In the 5K, 108 runners competed this year. Some 100 runners participated in the other classifications last year, which included runners across the spectrum in terms of age. The event also attracted a large number of spectators.

The sports complex improvements are aimed at raising the facility’s public profile.

“One of the big issues we have at the sports complex is a lot of the people don’t know we’re here, because we don’t have signage; we don’t have an entrance,” Hopkins says.

Run 4 the Parks is just a slice of what Springville Parks and Recreation offers. “We like to have something for everyone,” Hopkins says.

And it seems the city does – youth baseball, flag football, tackle football, cheerleading, basketball, soccer and softball, as well as adult co-ed softball. Disc golf and pickleball are also on the horizon.

The city has four parks – the youth baseball and sports complexes, Big Springs Park and Woody Park – six tennis courts, the Big Springs Splash Pad and Big Springs Dog Park.

The department also manages the Springville Senior Center, which according to Mayor Dave Thomas, is “bursting at the seams” and the Farmer’s Market site downtown. The city hopes to reopen the market by June 2024 as a state-certified Farmers Market, joining markets in Moody and Pell City as state-certified.

By the end of September, the city was expecting a $50,000 grant from T-Mobile to help fund improvements at the facility, and the city plans to match the grant.

A major municipal undertaking is underway, construction of the Big Canoe Creek Preserve. Paving work is moving ahead. And Schoel Engineering is providing a master plan for the project at no cost to the city. Some trails, including horseback, are expected to open in October.

Looking to future progress, at press time, Springville was awaiting the green light from the Forever Wild Land Trust to begin construction on a four-mile biking and hiking trail. Since 1992, Forever Wild has secured more than 284,000 acres of Alabama land for public use, and Big Canoe is part of that trust.

Big Canoe Creek Preserve will also be home to environmental education, celebrating the land’s broad biodiversity. “I think the future is so bright for outdoor education for the nature preserve,” Hopkins predicts.

“The nature preserve is going to be a feature for the entire county,” he adds. “It’s really a feather in the cap for this community because it’s going to draw people to St. Clair County from all over the state and outside the state.”

The preserve continues to be a community effort with in-kind contributions spurring the progress. It’s important to note the city has received some $30,000 in free excavation work from a local firm, Norris Paving.

Parks and Rec Administrative Clerk Lucy Cleaver, along with preserve manager Doug Morrison, is developing the environmental education program at the preserve to serve students and adults. She earned two degrees in outdoor education from Auburn University.

“We want to use (the preserve) to the best of our ability to truly be a spot where people can come and be inspired by nature, to learn about the history of St. Clair County … and all the immense biodiversity that we have out there. It’s a very special place.”

Cleaver also oversees the Farmer’s Market and assists Hopkins in managing Parks and Recreation events.

It’s estimated that some 90 percent of Springville’s nearly 5,000 residents utilize the city’s parks and recreation facilities and programs. Some 2,000 from the city and neighboring communities take part in team sports.

All of this is part of an ongoing effort by the city to “raise the bar” when it comes to quality of life in Springville, Mayor Thomas says. He praises Hopkins and his staff as they juggle the myriad activities and events under the department’s umbrella.

“Hat’s off to them,” he says. “I don’t know how they do it.”

The goal for parks and rec? Maintaining and expanding high quality opportunities for Springville citizens. Think possibilities like Art in the Park or Strings in the Park. But it takes time.

“Everybody’s struggling with finite resources,” Thomas says. “We can’t do everything we want to all at once. But as long as we maintain the vision and keep our eye on the ball, we will get there.”

While the success of Springville’s Parks and Recreation efforts can be measured in numbers like participation, a more compelling narrative comes from anecdotes. It’s impossible to please everyone. But Hopkins says positive feedback far outdistances complaints.

Thomas uses another metric. Smiles. “By and large, the support is overwhelming. They like what we’re doing.”

For Hopkins and his department, serving the community is the focus. “We are here to serve (the people), and we want to serve them in the best way that we can every single day.”

Bonsai Master

Pell City man creates living art

Story by Roxann Edsall
Photos by Mackenzie Free

Blame it on Valentine’s Day. That’s when Boomer Meason received a gift from his wife, Melody, that would end up changing his life. The gift was a “bonsai growing kit,” which, he admits was a challenge for a man with the “brownest thumb ever.”

Thinking it would be fun, but not expecting them to survive, he dutifully planted the seeds. A couple of weeks later, after returning from a trip out of town to their home in Pell City, the couple was surprised to see the seeds thriving in their growing pots.

“At that point, I had no idea what to do with them,” Boomer confesses. “So, I got on YouTube and figured it out. I watched tons of videos and learned a lot. I learned that it’s not just what you can create, but that what you can do is limitless.”

Bonsai is not a type of tree, but rather, the cultivation of a plant and its aesthetics to fall within a specific set of conditions. Bonsai is considered both a horticultural practice and an art form. The goal is for the grower to cultivate a plant or a tree to be a healthy version of itself, but small enough to be grown in a shallow dish. In fact, the word, bonsai, literally means “tree in a dish.”

Melody wins award for her serissa bonsai

There is so much more than that, however, to understand bonsai. It involves learning as much as you can about each of the species that you are working with. It involves clipping, wiring, and weighing down the branches that need manipulation.

A bonsai artist must first see a vision for the plant. Then he sets about figuring out how to make the plant fulfill that vision.

Most of all, bonsai requires patience. Each of the phases of growing and training the plant requires grooming, then waiting for the plant to recover, waiting for changes to take effect, rewiring, pruning again, then waiting for the right season to make the next change.

A centuries-old art form made popular in Japan, bonsai evolved from the ancient Chinese art of “penjing,” which includes landscapes or scenes in a pot. The Japanese art put more emphasis on the tree itself.

Traditionally, bonsai are trees or bushes that are pruned to create a smaller version over several years. The mission of the bonsai artist is to create a tree that looks like a tiny version of a mature tree, but without obvious evidence of human intervention in the process.

A typical tree in nature can live to be hundreds, sometimes thousands of years old. In contrast, a well-cared for bonsai can live indefinitely due to the constant care and promotion of new growth given by the artist.

Boomer received those first seeds in 2020, shortly before the pandemic changed so much in the world. “I always ask people if they have a COVID hobby,” he laughs. “My wife’s is kayaking. Mine is bonsai. We couldn’t do a lot of the things we normally did, but we spent a lot of time working on these. I spent the whole first year trying to not kill the trees.”

He took to the hobby like a duck to water. His “brown thumb” now a thing of the past, he has close to 300 plants in various “pre-bonsai” stages. It has taken more than three years to accumulate that many plants to work with to create bonsai. He has more than two dozen that are in shape to be considered officially show-ready bonsai.

Pencil drawing by Boomer’s grandmother, artist Evelyn Whatley, included with the display at the bonsai show

Although both his mother, Leah Whatley Meason, and his grandmother, Evelyn Whatley, were artists, he has never had an outlet to develop his artistic talents. He admits that his career in manufacturing does not always engage his artistic side. It does, however, make it possible for him to fuel his passion financially.

Buying that many plants at nurseries to work with can be costly, but Boomer gets about 20% of his plants from the wild, a practice known as “yamadori.”

Typically done in the spring, just before the plant’s growing season, a bonsai artist digs up plants from the wild, along with dirt from around the plant, brings it home and nurtures it to help it recover from the shock of transplanting. When the plant is ready, the pruning and training begins.

Another technique involves creating new plants from established ones from cuttings and air layering. A propagation technique similar to grafting, air layering is the practice of cutting a branch and wrapping the “wound” with special moss to encourage the growth of a new plant.

“You do everything in bonsai according to what the species needs and what the tree is telling you to do,” says Boomer. “Bonsai people probably know more about roots than most botanists do. The texture and nutritional details of the root systems are so important. When you do serious work on a tree, and you reduce the root system, you must reduce the canopy to make sure it can still survive.”

The deeper Boomer dug into his new hobby, the more information he craved. He began messaging questions to some of the YouTube video creators. He read all he could find on the subject.

World-renowned bonsai master Peter Chan’s book Bonsai Beginner’s Bible became his go-to guide. He spent countless hours watching channels like Chan’s Herons Bonsai. “His videos are geared toward people who want to get into it, but not spend a lot of money,” Boomer explains. “The way he works on his trees really helps you. And he speaks to you in a way that’s easy to understand.” Another bonsai expert, Ben Kirkland of Appalachian Bonsai, strongly suggested that Boomer get in contact with his local bonsai society.

At first, Boomer wasn’t ready to share his artistic efforts with anyone else. After picking his way along the path for three years with only the internet as his teacher, he finally reached out to the Alabama Bonsai Society (ABS).

The group meets for monthly workshops and to encourage each other and share the progress of the plants they’re working with. They also hold an annual show at the Birmingham Botanical Gardens. Boomer can’t say enough about how the group has helped him. “I’ve never worked with a more positive group of people,” he adds. “Their support and advice were so helpful in building my confidence.”

Through the Alabama Bonsai Society, Boomer met John Walker, who curates the Meyers Bonsai Terrace at Aldridge Gardens in Hoover and is one of the best trained bonsai artists in the state. Boomer buys some of his plants through Walker’s company, Walking Tree Bonsai, which sells mature bonsai and plants ready to transform into bonsai. He also admits to “hanging out at Hazelwood’s” (nursery) at least twice a month scouting for plants to transform.

Sometimes treasures can literally be found in your back yard, like the Chinese privet Boomer dug up from his yard in 2021. The plant was still healthy, but not thriving, so he put it in a container and began working with it. Over two years later, he entered it in the ABS annual bonsai show and won his intermediate level in the broadleaf evergreen category.

“I have a lot of American Elm trees, wisteria, flowering plants, red maples and azaleas that have come out of my yard and from my mom’s yard.” says Boomer. He says the easiest to work with is the Chinese privet but added that he’s had the most fun with ficus trees because one of his mentors, Nigel Saunders, works with them and has given him a lot of inspiration.

A bonsai can be created using almost any plant with woody stems. Generally, one can expect to spend a minimum of two years pruning and cultivating a tree to get it small enough to thrive in a shallow dish (a requirement of bonsai).

ABS’s bonsai show director Anika Paperd explains. “Some species like a trident maple that grows quickly, you could do it in as little as two years. You’re going to begin refining it to develop the branches and shape. We use wiring and pruning techniques to cause the branches to split to make them spread and form a canopy on the tree.”

One of the most fascinating aspects of bonsai art is that it is never finished. That’s because the tree continues to grow and react to its environment. The artist must continue to maintain it and adapt it as conditions change. “It’s much like being a sculptor where your sculpture is breathing and continues to grow,” Paperd emphasizes. “It’s a constant progression.”

From start to that continued progression, a bonsai is all about the vision in the mind of the artist. It is nature inspired and human coerced. “Every time you work on it, you’ll either find a new inspiration or another aspect of it that changes it. Or you just keep working on the original plan you had envisioned,” says Boomer.

“You are trying to create the aesthetic of a really old tree in something you can pick up and carry around,” Boomer concludes, holding up a tiny juniper bonsai that is springing from a crater in a softball-sized rock. “My wife found this rock while kayaking. We both thought it would make a great container for a bonsai. So, I planted a Chinese juniper in the hole, and it’s pretty cool.”

Melody has now joined her husband in his hobby. She has developed her skills to the point that she, too, brought home an award at the spring bonsai show for her serissa plant, a deciduous evergreen.

Boomer’s quite a few years shy of retirement, but he says bonsai will be important in his future plans. He looks forward to the additional hours to devote to his art. As to whether he will ever be able to see a profit from his work, Boomer admits that he’s not sure if he’ll ever be able to part with his creations. “There’s a little bit of me in each of them.”

And those Valentine’s Day seeds? One of the black spruce seeds lives today as a beautiful bonsai on Boomer’s back deck. Not bad for a guy with a brown thumb.

Editor’s note: Next year will be Alabama Bonsai Society’s 50^th Anniversary. Their mission is to bring awareness to the community and to share the art form of bonsai. For more information about bonsai and the Alabama Bonsai Society, check out alabamabonsai.org.

Features

Nature preserved

Big Canoe Creek park is set to open soon

Story Scottie Vickery
Photos by Mackenzie Free
Submitted photos

Not long after watching eight turkeys disappear into the forest, Doug Morrison stood on a wooded trail overlooking a stream that flows into Big Canoe Creek. The only sound was the deep whistle of a great crested flycatcher, and Morrison felt pure serenity.

“This is God’s museum,” he said of the surroundings. “There are so many forms of life out here – plants, animals, fish. When you get out in nature and just stop for a moment and take it all in, it’s incredible.”

Raetta Young and horse, Fancy Rae, along the trail

Soon, many others will be able to experience Morrison’s joy when the “museum,” otherwise known as Big Canoe Creek Nature Preserve in Springville, opens to the public. The project has been a long time coming, but after 14 years of study, planning, roadblocks and hard work, the opening date is nearing, hopefully late October or early November. Morrison, manager of the preserve, couldn’t be more thrilled.

“This is going to be huge,” he said. The preserve – 422 acres of unspoiled terrain – will provide hikers (experienced or beginners), mountain bikers, horse owners, and birding and flora and fauna enthusiasts the chance to unwind, learn and enjoy the great outdoors.

“Being outside in nature can soothe the soul,” Morrison said, and the timing of the fall opening is perfect. “This place shines when the leaves turn. It’s beautiful in the fall.”

Big Canoe Creek, which is part of the Coosa River and flows on the northern boundary of the property, is a vital part of the preserve and a major contributor to the beauty. The main section of the creek, which has been described as “a jewel in the crown of Alabama’s biodiversity,” is more than 50 miles long and flows into Neely Henry Lake. According to The Friends of Big Canoe Creek website, the creek has four major tributaries flowing into it: Gulf Creek, Muckleroy Creek, and two “Little Canoe” Creeks.

The creek is home to more than 50 species of fish, including the rare Trispot Darter, which is listed as “threatened” by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service under the Endangered Species Act. Salamanders, snails, crayfish, turtles and mussels – including eight federally listed freshwater species – can also be found in the waters. Just recently, in 2022 the Canoe Creek Clubshell (Pleurobema Athearni), a freshwater mussel found only in the Big Canoe Creek watershed, was listed as “endangered” under the Endangered Species Act.

“Alabama is fourth in the nation in biodiversity, but we’re first in the nation for biodiversity for aquatic species,” Morrison said. “That’s because of all of our rivers and waterways. That’s the kind of thing we want to teach our kids. Our vision is to get kids aways from their electronic devices, get them outside, and teach them about our biodiversity.”

With a motto of “explore and discover,” Morrison said the goal is to soon add outdoor classrooms and bring in experts from agencies like U.S. Fish and Wildlife and the Geological Survey of Alabama to teach students more about the world around them.

Until then, the preserve itself – the creek and 10 miles of hiking, biking and horse trails – is already the ultimate classroom and the perfect background for solace.

“This is really going to be something special,” Morrison said. “This preserve is going to be an asset to every individual who wants to get away from the hustle and bustle.”

Partners in preservation

Morrison knows the importance of that firsthand. After all, a search for a more peaceful life is what prompted him and his wife, Joannie, to move to Springville – just across the creek from the preserve – 24 years ago. “She was looking at the house, and I was looking at the creek,” he said.

A friend introduced him to kayaking, and after a short time of paddling, “I started learning about the critters in our watershed, and I started seeing issues from bad development,” Morrison said. “Sedimentation is a huge issue in our waterways – it’s the number one pollutant.”

Not long after Morrison fell in love with the area that’s now home to the preserve, he learned that he and his community was in danger of losing it. “In 2007, they were planning to develop this, and then in 2008, the economy went south, and the plans were scrapped,” he said. The scare stirred up an interest in preserving and protecting the land.

Fast-forward to 2008, and the effort started gaining traction. The Friends of Big Canoe Creek, a grassroots organization, which Morrison served as president from 2008-2020, learned about Forever Wild Land Trust, which focuses on securing land for public use.

They nominated the land for designation as a Forever Wild site, and after nine years of numerous delays and roadblocks, the first 382 acres were purchased by Forever Wild in 2018, and 40 more acres were added the next year.

St. Clair County and City of Springville leaders – both former and current – embraced the project and have provided tremendous financial support, along with the St. Clair County Economic Development Council.

The Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, Freshwater Land Trust, The Friends of Big Canoe Creek, Greater Birmingham Community Foundation and The Nature Conservancy have been vital partners, as well, Morrison said. Additionally, Dean Goforth who owns nearby Homestead Hollow, was a key player in making the acquisition a reality. “I don’t think this would have happened without Dean,” Morrison said.

Springville Mayor Dave Thomas pushed for the formation of the Big Canoe Creek Preserve Partners, a nonprofit organization that helps provide sustainable funding of the preserve. As a result, individual and corporate partners have come on board, including Community Foundation of Greater Birmingham, EBSCO Industries, Norris Paving & Excavating, Schoel Engineering, Amerex, Lovejoy Realty, KEBCO, BlueCross BlueShield of Alabama, All American Ford, United Way of Central Alabama and Lawley Resource Management.

There is one key donor for the Preserve Partners who wishes to remain anonymous. “This fella just continually steps up with generous donations at critical times when needed. I wish I could tell you his name, but again, just another one of those good folks in our community that steps up. This community is all in!,” Morrison said.

“It’s been amazing to be a part of this,” Morrison said. “I’m just so proud of and grateful for this community and how hard people have worked to preserve, protect and support this place. Sometimes I have to pinch myself.”

Discover and explore

Although there were a few old logging trails, the land offered a blank slate. Plans were made, and Granger Waid of Norris Paving & Excavating and Joey Breighner of Schoel Engineering, helped ensure the best design came to fruition. In addition to their companies donating tens of thousands of dollars in in-kind work, they provided invaluable input for the project.

“Granger’s vision has everything to do with what this is going to be,” Morrison said. “He brought changes to the original concept that made a tremendous difference, and Schoel Engineering took his concept and did the drawings. Those guys working together was just a godsend.”

For Waid, helping with the project was a no-brainer. “This is something I believe in and I’m passionate about it,” he said. “I’ve been playing in this creek since I was 2 feet tall. People need a place to be able to go and get outdoors.”

Breighner agreed. A 20-year resident himself, “I’m excited about the preserve and what it means to our community.” In addition to the recreational aspect, he pointed to the educational value it holds and looks forward to people being able to “see what the preserve has to offer.”

Through his work on the Springville Planning Commission, he developed a friendship with Morrison, who discussed plans for the preserve as they were building it. “I could see Doug’s passion for the project and when I toured it, I saw some needs.” As executive vice president of Schoel Engineering, he put his and his company’s knowledge and expertise to work for the preserve, donating land surveying and engineering work.

Pointing to all the partnerships and community support involved, Springville Mayor Dave Thomas said, “One of the things Springville and St. Clair County as a whole have earned as a reputation is the level of cooperation rarely seen elsewhere. Everybody appreciates the potential of the preserve that will outlive and outlast us all. It’s generational.”

He talked of the educational component with outdoor classrooms and the ability to bring in experts in the field to teach teachers from around the state who will go back to their schools and teach. Field trips will bring their lessons to life, giving them so much more than a textbook can.

“We have set the bar high to be an example for others that here is what we can do if we work together,” Thomas said. “This is a prime example of people bringing energy that translates into synergy.”

Focusing on details

The attention to preservation will be evident as soon as visitors drive into the parking lot. The top lot has room for cars, trucks and horse trailers, while the bottom lot has plenty of additional spots for cars. The two lots will be separated by a bioretention area with special landscaping designed to filter rainwater and runoff through gravel, sand and topsoil. “We’ll use plants that filter the pollutants from cars and clean the water,” Morrison said, adding that the area will eventually feature a seating area at one end.

Since a major goal of the preserve will be education, there will be a sign with a QR code to connect visitors to videos and photos that explain the concept of bioretention and document the building process. “This is something we hope to promote for any kind of development so that we can trap sediment and clean the water that’s going into our waterways,” Morrison said.

Leaving riparian buffers intact is a vital part of the preserve, as well. “The forest is a riparian buffer for the stream,” Morrison said. “It’s basically leaving the natural vegetation near a stream bank alone” so the trees, plants and shrubs act as buffers to pollutants and help control erosion. That’s why the trails offer a view of the creeks and streams in most areas rather than meandering alongside them.

“You can see the water and you can get down to it if you want, but we left all the vegetation near the streams alone,” Morrison said. “People come out here and say, ‘Look how clear this water is.’ Just look around. You have nothing but trees. The natural vegetation filters everything.

There are a variety of species doing the work. The woods are filled with mountain laurel, native azaleas and oak leaf hydrangeas. There are Bottlebrush buckeye shrubs, red and sugar maple trees, pines and beech trees.

“I call this area Beech Tree Hollow because there are beech trees all over the place,” Morrison said during a recent walk through the woods. “Beech trees keep their leaves longer than other trees, and you don’t really know how many are in here until wintertime.”

Ferns are everywhere, as well. “We’ve got so many different ferns out here, it’s unbelievable,” he said. “I brought a horticulturist from the Birmingham Botanical Gardens out here, and I couldn’t keep him on the trail. He kept wandering off and saying, ‘Look at this, look at this.’”

Morrison gets most excited about the preserve’s aquatic diversity. The Trispot Darter, for example, had not been spotted in Alabama in nearly 50 years before it was discovered in one of Big Canoe’s tributaries in 2008. The removal of Goodwin’s Mill Dam in 2013 brought even more species. The dam was built in the 1880s for a grist mill but hadn’t been in use since the mill closed in the 1940s

Restoring the creek’s flow has provided a larger and more suitable habitat for fish, mussels and other mollusks. Since the dam was removed, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service returned just a couple of months ago and was delighted to find the Canoe Creek Clubshell near the site. In 2013, prior to the dam removal, these were not present. “The fish passage returned after the dam removal. Fish serve as host for the mussels, so the fish passage returning was definitely a good thing for these mussels”, Morrison said.

“In a stream in the middle of the Nature Preserve, the Geological Survey of Alabama found a Western Blacknose Dace, a small fish that hasn’t been documented in the Big Canoe Creek Watershed since the ‘80s, so that was a great find, and we will continue to explore,” Morrison said.

News like that is what keeps Morrison motivated and excited about the preserve’s future and impact. He recently stopped at one of his favorite spots on the southern side of the woods to reflect on the opportunity he’ll soon have to share this piece of paradise with the rest of the world. Chances are, he knows the terrain better than anyone else, and he feels a special connection to the land.

“I call this section Slab Creek,” Morris said, pointing to the giant slabs of rock that line the stream’s bed. “They just keep going and going. It’s like a stack of dominoes that got toppled over.” Later, he pointed out two neighboring trees that meet as if in an embrace. “These are the kissing trees,” he said, shortly before telling of another huge tree that was lost in a storm. “I felt like I knew it personally.”

Morrison’s greatest hope is that visitors will love the preserve as much as he does, treat it with the respect it deserves, and treasure it for generations to come.

“It was a struggle getting this thing going,” he acknowledged. “There have been so many trials and tribulations, ups and downs, ebbs and flows. Right now, there’s just good things happening, and I sometimes feel like it’s just destiny. I am very grateful for our Mayor, Dave Thomas, and his leadership through this, the City Council, St. Clair County Commission and Forever Wild. They are seeing what this can become, the educational opportunities, the outdoor recreation and the economic value of greenspace.

For more information about Big Canoe Creek Nature Preserve, or to make a donation to Big Canoe Creek Preserve Partners, visit bigcanoecreekpreserve.org.

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