What you see above is getting to be a regular sight when we go out to Roundrock these days. The unfortunate fish in that poor photo (on extreme zoom for my little camera) was trapped against the overflow screen when the lake was pouring through it. (Looks like another inch of movement and it might have found a way through the screen and onto the adventure of the intermittent pond.)

All those years when the lake was just a muddy puddle at the base of the dam left me thinking that if only I could have a full lake, all would be right in the world. And all those years when the lake was just a muddy puddle at the base of the dam left me thinking that I would never get to stock fish in it. (Had I been able to stock the lake with fish five years ago, you can just imagine the fish stories I would be telling you now!)

This spring, I get to see the other side of the matter. The lake is so full that the overflow drain is getting clogged with debris and the spillway is eroding dangerously. And I seem to have so many fish that they are clogging the system with their mortality.

I thought a full lake would be a pastoral water feature, passive and lovely and really requiring no intervention on my part. I guess not.

Missouri calendar:

• Dewberries bloom.

Today in Missouri history:

• Willard Preble Hall was born on this date in 1820. As governor he lead the state in the closing months of the Civil War after having been nearly captured by Confederate troops.

My forest is full of old snags just like the one you see above. The story I was told was that many years ago, when the land was part of a cattle ranch, a defoliant was sprayed from helicopters to kill all of the trees. Then the same helicopters came by later and spread fescue seed. Fescue is called the grass that ate the county.

Anyway, many of the trees did die (though many survived) and their standing trunks have been providing habitat for all sorts of critters for generations. Some of that has changed recently though.

All of the rain we have had lately has saturated the ground. These snags, which have no roots to speak of but only stubs of their main roots from decades past, have little more than their contact with the soil to keep them standing. And since the soil has been soggy lately, many of the snags have been toppling. We’ve found a few on the road and across trails. Some have split cedars down the middle on their fall. A few are finding their way into firewood. Most will simply rot into humus now that they’re in contact with the ground.

Most of the snags I have cut have only been hollow in small parts. The rest of the trunk is mostly solid, well dried wood. I don’t know about lumber, but it seems like the wood in these snags is still good for building. Might be hard to drive a nail into it though.

Missouri calendar:

• Truman’s birthday
• Watch for common nighthawks over cities at night.

Today in Missouri history:

• The Missouri Woman’s Suffrage Club was organized in St. Louis in 1867; the sole purpose of this organization was the political enfranchisement of women, the first such organization in the United States.
• Phoebe W. Couzins of St. Louis became Missouri’s first woman law school graduate when she was graduated from the Washington University Law Department in 1871.
• Harry S Truman, thirty-third President of the United States, is born in Lamar, Missouri in 1884. Harry had no middle name. The "S" was all there ever was to it.

I grabbed a gob of goo, but not the loathsome goo at the bottom of the pond. This is the clay I told you about several weeks ago that appeared under the gravel in the wet-weather stream where it enters our woods. The heavy rains washed the gravel from atop the white, smooth mineral, and I suspected it was clay.

Just before Seth and I left Roundrock on our last visit, we stopped at the clay deposit, and I wrested some free with the shovel. Then I started working it with my hand. It was malleable, though it wasn’t like modeling clay or putty. It would be hard work to make a teacup out of this stuff. Even so, I could push it around relatively easily with my thumb, as you can see in the photo above.

I had a hard time rinsing it from my hand. I’m not sure what that says about its mineral content, but I know the Bentonite I have thrown in the lake makes the skin of my hands sting if I make too much contact with it. (I can’t believe they feed that stuff to cattle!)

I don’t know how large the deposit is, but it’s worth exploring a little with the shovel. While I don’t have plans to get a kiln, I might try to quarry some and let it dry then pulverize it and throw it on the waterside of the dam. Maybe it will help seal the leaks. I don’t have any plans for exporting it though.

Missouri calendar:

• Brown bats are in nursery colonies.

Today in Missouri history:

• “Mr. Missouri,” Dr. Floyd Shoemaker was born on this date in 1886. He wrote six books on Missouri history and edited or co-edited thirty others.

If these are mayapples, then they are right on time. They’re just in the wrong place.

I found these apparently freshly emerged from the ground under the big white oak trees just south of the pine plantation (site of recent mayhem). The patch was much larger than you see in the photo, and most remarkably, I’ve never seen them in this spot before.

Could it be that conditions were finally right this year for them to burst in profusion in the unfamiliar spot? Or could it be that they have always been in this spot and I’ve simply failed to notice them? Or could it be that I noticed them in the past and failed to remember that I had noticed them? It would make sense that at this time of year I could have missed them because I would probably have sped past the spot to get to the lake, which would be fuller than other times of the year and so be calling my name more clearly.

Missouri calendar:

• Goldfinches eat dandelion seeds.
• Wood ducks hatch.
• Male catfish begin making nests around logs.

Today in Missouri history?

• Stephen Hempstead was born on this date in 1754. He fought in many notable battles of the Revolutionary War in New York and Boston, but settled with his family in St. Louis in 1811.

What in the world is this? I’m glad you asked. Let me tell you.

What you see above is the latest bait we’ve set out for the critters at Roundrock. It’s a dozen feet in front of the game camera, and we’re hoping that providing this variety, we’ll get something more than just dear, sweet deer in the photos.

You see peanuts, of course. Those have proven to attract crows, so I think they may also get us some turkeys. I don’t suppose they will draw in any quail, but a guy can dream.

The smaller kernels are popcorn. We had bought a canister of this corn from someone’s fundraiser. The popcorn it produced proved to be tasteless, and it was full of bits of kernel that was like toenails. Maybe the deer and turkey and quail can do better with it.

I’m sure you’ve already guessed that the white things are powdered sugar donuts. (So obvious!) A good authority told me that bears are attracted to donuts. Well, I don’t think we have bears in our part of the Ozarks (they are more southern than Roundrock’s neighborhood), but maybe Ozark Howlers like them. Or raccoons anyway. Well, I’m eager to see what we do manage to attract.

I’ve figured out yet another work around to my photo posting problem. I don’t know how long this will work though. I think my problem might be local. My crack technical team in Oregon has no trouble accessing the blog and posting pix. It must be my computer and some configuration specific to it. Seems like I need to make a trip to the Pacific Northwest soon.

Missouri calendar:

• Hawthorns are blooming in open areas.
• Raccoons bear young.

Today in Missouri history:

• Alexander McNair was born on this date in 1775. He was Missouri’s first governor, campaigning on the platform that the job paid too much. He won 72 percent of the vote.

How are things in your part of the world? The big storms that passed through Kansas City on Thursday night dropped a lot of rain, but we were on the southern edge of the tumult and didn’t suffer any damage (unlike those northeast of the city). Based on the weather maps that were shown incessantly on television Thursday evening, Roundrock got a good soaking as well. I keep thinking we’re going to go out there one day and find the dam washed away.

#1 Son Seth is confirmed as not going back to Kenya or Africa or even the Peace Corps. He was on a third year extension, so he’d served his official tour of duty. All of the unrest has uprooted many volunteers, and finding them new openings has meant that there just wasn’t any space left for Seth. Now he’s looking into graduate school and/or a real-world job. I’m glad to have a hand with all of the heavy lifting when we make our trips to Roundrock.

The newest Festival of the Trees is up at 10,000 Birds . As I noted before, this is one of the best known "nature" blogs, so it will bring a lot of attention to the Festival. It’s nearly time for you to host it, dontcha think?

My picture-placing ability seems to have gone wonky again on the blog. It never really worked after the upgrade, but #2 Son had figured out a work around for me. Now even that won’t work. I understand it has something to do with WordPress. I hope it gets fixed sooner rather than later.

Update: I have no business fooling with html code, but I did anyway and seem to have found the reason why I couldn’t get photos to appear here recently. If I’m right, it had to do with the change from April to May and the way the code was pointing to the wrong picture gallery. Or not. I am at the perilous edge of my understanding of these kinds of things.

What’s Pablo reading now? I’m in the middle of The Road by Cormac McCarthy. It’s a post-apocalyptic wasteland story, and it managed to win the Pulitzer Prize. I’m reading it for the social justice book discussion group I am in. I really liked Winter’s Bone , which I mentioned last week. It’s pretty grim subject matter, and it hits you like a punch in the stomach, but it is unforgettable.

Missouri calendar:

• Plant corn when white oak leaves are the size of a squirrel’s ear.

Today in Missouri history:

• Harold Bell Wright was born on this date in 1872. He wrote 18 books, the most famous of which is The Shepherd of the Hills , which was made into a film three times.
• Volunteers for the Spanish-American War began arriving in St. Louis in 1898.

When Seth and I were at Roundrock last time, the rain had barely bothered us when we arrived. The clouds showed the courtesy of holding back the more serious rainfall until we finished planting the pines.

You can see above the patter of drops on the lake. The bigger drops closer to the foreground are actually drips coming from the branches of the tree overhead that you can’t see.

Thanks to all of this rain, green is coming back into the forest.

Missouri calendar:

• Shorebirds are plentiful at wetland mudflats.
• Ohio buckeyes begin blooming.

Today in Missouri history:

• Journalist and novelist E.W. Howe was born on this date in 1853. He learned his trade in northern Missouri and gained national fame as the “Sage of Potato Hill.” His novel The Story of a Country Town is considered the forerunner of realism in fiction.

Last year I found one of these wild hyacinths growing in the creek bed far up the Central Valley. I was much enamored of it. But I was also sad because I didn’t see any others.

On our last trip to Roundrock, I found a whole hillside of them blooming and looking just happy to be there. I’ve noted more than once that I probably miss a lot of blooms simply because I’m not in my woods on the weekend when they happen. Maybe these hyacinths have been on the open hillside over the lake all along and I’ve just missed seeing them.

I’m happy I had the chance. I boosted the color on this image in order to bring out the blue of the petals more. Some guidebooks have these hyacinths classified under white flowers because the blue can be so pale.

Did you know: Hyacinths (or sonbol ) are the flower of the Persian New Year , which recently transpired.

Missouri calendar:

• Meadowlarks begin nesting.
• Skunks bear young through early June.
• Can you spot the Pleiades below Mercury after sunset tonight?

Today in Missouri history:

• Forty-one men were elected on this date in 1820 to draft Missouri’s first constitution. Among them were individuals who would play major roles in state and national political life.

The Ozarks are among the oldest mountains on the earth They have been eroding for a long time, so what you see now are rolling hills of what were once mighty peaks. (Well, I don’t think they were ever all that mighty, but they certainly are old.)

The Central Valley at Roundrock (on the edge of the Missouri Ozarks) where we carved out our lake bed was filled mostly with gravel. It washed down from the hillsides. Old accounts of Ozark streams and rivers tell of great sandbars. These are no more. They have been replaced by great gravel bars. The extensive timbering of the Ozark pine and oak/hickory forests in the last century allowed the hillsides to erode even faster, filling the streams and rivers with gravel.

Anyway, all of that gravel that had been washing into the Central Valley over the centuries was pushed into making the dam (which may explain why it leaks so much). The bowl was formed and in due time it filled with water. Then it drained away. And filled with water again. And so on.

The natural order of things, of course, calls for the valley to fill with gravel and soil again. You can see above how it is already happening. That is a picture of the road leading to the dam. The gray/white gravel we had brought in to pack down and give us a good base. The brownish orange stripe crossing it is where the rain from the recent toad stranglers has eroded the gravel and exposed the soil beneath it. In some places the erosion is four inches deep.

That soil actually looks like it has a good amount of clay in it, so if it does wash into the lake, it may help plug the leaky dam. I’ll try jamming some larger rocks in the rift and see if it slows down the erosion. Sooner or later we’ll need to get the gravel on the road refreshed, and we’ll correct this problem. But only for a little while.

Missouri calendar:

• May Day
• Ring-necked pheasant crowing is at its peak.
• Jack-in-the-pulpits bloom in the woods.

Wildflowers in bloom in Missouri during the merry month of May:

Yellow star grass ~ Squaw weed ~ Dutchman’s breeches ~ Wild sweet William ~ Blue-eyed grass ~ Missouri primrose ~ Purple coneflower ~ Columbine ~ Spiderwort ~ White trillium ~ Bird’s-foot violet ~ May apple ~ Jack-in-the-pulpit ~ Rue anemone ~ Rose verbena ~ False rue anemone ~ Shooting star ~ Larkspur ~ Yellow lady’s-slipper ~ Bellwort ~ Virginia bluebells ~ Pussytoes ~ Beard-tongue ~ Wild hyacinth ~ Tickseed coreopsis

Today in Missouri history:

• Martha Jane Cannary-Burke is born in Princeton, Missouri in 1852. She later became known as Calamity Jane.
• In 1858 John Hockaday begins weekly mail service between Independence, Missouri and Salt Lake City.

While I was busy improving my southern defenses, the attack came from the west. And it came in a tank !

What you see above is a "donut" some interloper made in the soft, wet soil of the pine plantation, which is in the northwest corner of Roundrock. (This is about the only area in my whole forest that has decent soil.) When Seth and I were out at Roundrock Sunday on our shortleaf pine planting mission, we came upon some serious tracks among the pines.

From what we can tell, the interlopers came onto our land from across Good Neighbor Brian’s property. I expect some young fellows whose right/wrong mechanism was running on Kickapoo Joy Juice decided to go for some midnight joy riding and found themselves among my pines.

The part of Good Neighbor Brian’s land that touches my northwest corner is pretty remote, and right now it is guarded by a good-sized pond that has kept the whole area plenty soggy. Nonetheless, the interlopers must have known there was a break in the fence there to have traversed that soggy patch at all.

In addition to tearing up the good soil among the pines, they managed to run directly over one of our pines that was fenced and had two steel posts in the ground beside it. The interlopers continued across a good fraction of our property, so running over two posts didn’t seem to hurt the machine. (So the obvious question is, what kind of machine could take a hit like this and keep running?) The pine itself was snapped off and the posts were bent. This kind of damage (and one other you’ll see below) tells me the fellows were out joy riding at night and couldn’t see what they were hitting.

Except that apparently they could because, as you can see below, they did manage to steer around the next pine tree. Nicely torn up ground, but it will heal.

What won’t heal, though, is this entire tree that the bozos knocked down and ran over:

That trunk diameter is more than six inches. What kind of machine could do something like that and keep running? Some kind of construction equipment, surely, and not just your average ATV.

The interlopers had left the pine plantation and made a circuit around the nearby pond, finding a way up the side of the dam that we had conveniently cut for them a couple of weeks before. They then raced across the narrow shore on the south side of the pond before encountering that entire tree above. There was plenty of room on either side of that tree to drive around it, so what was happening? Were they too juiced to care or see? Did they want to try out one of the features on their tank?

The sky was overcast when Seth and I visited on Sunday, so the photo below doesn’t have a lot of contrast, but it shows the impression of the tracks the machine left in the mud. It certainly looks to my (untrained) eye that those are tread marks rather than tire marks. I guess a small bulldozer like a Bobcat might have been able to do this kind of damage to my woods.

Honestly, the damage wasn’t all that serious. One pine tree and one forest tree. The road is a little churned up in one place. It isn’t the damage that bothers me but the "violation." I feel powerless when I see this kind of thing.

Missouri calendar:

• The Missouri Natural Events Calendar is blank for today.

Today in Missouri history:

• The Louisiana Purchase was signed in 1803. Purchase price: $15,000,000.00.
• Delegates meet in St. Louis for the first Missouri railroad convention in 1836. Various lines are projected.
• The 1904 World’s Fair opened in St. Louis, commemorating the hundredth anniversary of the Louisiana Purchase.