Nomads, day 34 (10/4/2023)

We are home after 34 days on the road and let me tell you it feels good to us weary van travelers. This is how day 34 transpired:

Day 34: Natural Tunnel State Park – Gate City – Abingdon – Salem – Home

On the evening of our 33rd day it came to our attention that our battery was dead. I had put a bug-screen in the passenger window and lowering the window resulted in partial opening. After a little I figured out that it wasn’t a malfunctioning window, but a dead battery. I tried to start the vehicle but to no avail. I approached the folks next to us and they had one of those starting gizmos. We made a deal that we would try to use it in the morning; however, that did not ease that evening’s sleep.

Now try to jump a Ford Transit Van. We finally found out that the battery is located underneath the driver’s seat. However, you don’t jump the vehicle on that; you could not sit in the seat and turn the key. After looking under the hood we found a place for the positive jumper cable to attach to, but the negative was not to be found. We clamped it to the body of the vehicle; no that did not work. Back to the manual: jumping the battery, page 188. Ah, there is this one bolt sticking out underneath the hood hinge where you need to attach it too. Which bolt? The photograph is very unclear. Let’s try this one; success!!! We can get on our way.

Breakfast in Gate City and off we go. Gate City, the county seat of Scott County is a lovely little town, and we may need to return to explore it. We drove a few miles through Tennessee (Bloomingdale) and then permanently back into Virginia. I had to drive through Abingdon, a town I like a lot and to show Donna around. We eventually made a brief stop at the start of the Virginia Creeper Trail, fleetingly walked a short distance on the trail with the dogs. It is a six-hour drive home from there, so without further hesitation it was on to home. A quick burger in Salem and a gas and coffee stop interrupted the drive which got us home around 5:30.

We found that our home was in great shape. It smelled good, probably thanks to the dehumidifier we had installed in the crawlspace just before leaving. The dogs were happy and so were we. Thirty-four days on the road is long (yes, we stayed for a week at our daughter’s and slept in a real bed). The home survived, my bonsai trees are looking great; in all, we are happy campers (pardon the pun).

This is the end of this series of my travel blog. I still plan to write a summary post, in which I will try to summarize the trip, discuss some of our experiences and what we learned. So, stay tuned.

The beginning of the Creeper

I was so happy to be able to Donna this 150-year-old (or older) white oak at the beginning of the trail

Bonsai Philosophy (11/7/2022)

During the recent meeting of the bonsai club that I am a member of, I asked one of the members for critique on one of my trees. It is a willow oak that I dug up out of my back yard and have had in a pot for about four or five years now and it is doing really great. The trunk of the tree is still fairly thin and here in lies the rub.

The member that I asked the critique or help from is advanced; I consider my skills somewhere in the middle, having gained a lot of YouTube knowledge. He is part of a bonsai club in northern Virginia and gives workshops up there. He is very good. In other words, I appreciate his feedback. His first remark was that based on the circumference of the trunk, “the tree should be approximately 4 inches tall to be in proportion.” My tree right now is two feet tall. While I agreed with him, if I want a finished tree; however, this tree is in development and hopefully by letting it grow tall, I can get some girth on the trunk. Cutting the tree that low is scarry to me. I do not see any leaf scars down there and I am not sure if it would back-bud or die when cut that low. I am not sure if I am prepared to risk it.

The next discussion point was movement in the trunk. My tree has a double trunk that are both about as straight as arrows. The discussion was about using very heavy copper wire to put some movement in the trunk. The following discussion ensued. A lot of bonsai artists including my advisor likes to put in exaggerated movement into trees to represent the age of the tree, ravaged by time and the weather. They also reflect the artist’s ability to work with the plants. I am not sure if I am a huge fan of all these trees with strange twists and turns that all these bonsai “artists” put in their trees. One of the YouTube channels I watch is the Bonsai Zone by Nigel Saunders. Nigel used to be a model builder, and his philosophy is (as I understand it) to create trees that are a copy of what they look like in nature. Well, I hardly see a contorted twisted willow oak in nature. My mentor for the day pulled up some pictures of mature willow oaks on his phone and had to agree. Trunks are mostly straight, and the canopies are brought.

Personally, I have a few trees that I am twisting and turning, but most of mine are clip and grow, like Nigel. Mine are mostly small. While I would love some larger specimen, being almost 70, my time to grow and lift large trees may be limited. Being a naturalist, a biologist, I like to recreate nature and walking in the woods, the day after the meeting I noticed that 90% of the trees had arrow straight trunks. Some of the understory trees were twisted: maples, ironwood, pawpaw, hornbeam, etc. They were looking for light, those sun flecks.

Naturally, making a forest like bonsai with multiple trees, we need to start thinking about making trees with relatively straight trunks. That is what we see in nature, the competition for light. But then, are there twin trunk oaks? I actually have a triple trunk oak in my front yard, and one of the tallest oaks on my favorite trails behind my home is a twin-trunked red oak. I did learn something. I am not yet going to cut off the leader (which I had planned to do) in the hope to develop a thicker trunk. Moreover, I am going to plant it on a rock!

All together it was a win-win meeting for me. I really encourage everyone to join a bonsai club, if you grow then and have not joined one yet. 

The willow oak of today's discussion.  As you can see the trunks are too thin and the side branches are not well developed.  My fear is letting the top grow too much might kill the side branches.  I put the rock there just now as a trial.  It is too big, but that is what we were thinking about with root over rock. 

This is the only strangely shaped oak that I know in the woods behind our home.  My wife calls it the howling dog tree.  It is in one of the ephemeral ponds and I assume a regrowth from a stump that broke off.

The twin-trunked red oak in the woods behind our home.  This tree is at least 300 feet tall, and the trunk is huge; you would need at least four persons to span around one of the trunks.