Bird feathers & Spiders

For 4 years now, my wife and I have been on the avoiding-back-pain exercise plan. If we walk, my back's fine. If we don't, it begins to hurt after about 3 days of inactivity.

Now, this plan works for me, because the pain makes it easy to stay motivated. Lots of things that motivate other people don't motivate me. But I find it only takes a little pain, before I'm scrambling around to avoid any more!

Unfortunately, I also find walking around a track to be a pain, too.

I think I always suspected this, but after about 6 months of walking the 2 mile track around East Ridge's very nice Camp Jordan park, I was experiencing pain. Not the physical kind of course, but the monotony of going around the    s-a-m-e    t-r-a-c-k    a-g-a-i-n    a-n-d    a-g-a-i-n    wears me out, and not in a good way.

So, we began walking and talking and thinking in the Battlefield. After four years of walking and talking and thinking, we've seen some things we find interesting and significant. We've learned what a "buck snort" is -- or for that matter, a 'doe snort'-- and why they do it.* We have two prized wonderfully stiff Flicker tail feathers . . . and we know (now!) why they are so stiff.

We've seen things that are slightly horrible, but still amazing, like spiky butt spiders:

More info on Micrathena gracilis: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spined_Micrathena

And, we've decided to start keep notes, showing pictures, and telling tales both old and new.

Ben

* And now, we've solved the mystery of why anyone would have named that town west of Nashville, "Bucksnort".
(Map of Bucksnort)