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Fall is a wonderful time to visit the parks! The weather is crisp and cool and the changing leaves create beautiful scenery and photo opportunities. We encourage you to enjoy one of the many trails and outdoor recreation opportunities at Cedarock Park, the Pleasant Grove and Eli Whitney Community Centers, and along the Haw River Trail.
Capture a great shot? Send your best fall foliage photos to recinfo@alamance-nc.com or tag on facebook @alamanceparks.
On September 24-25, Cedarock Park welcomed approximately 900 area students for the annual Farm-to-Table Program. This event is sponsored by the Alamance County Agri-Business Committee and is a unique opportunity for students to learn about agriculture in Alamance County at no charge to the students. 4th-graders from all over Alamance County came to Cedarock Park for two days to learn first hand about how food is grown and produced on a farm and ultimately brought to the family table. Students toured the historical farm and learned about farm animals, plants, and farming equipment. They heard from industry professionals in nine different stations representing various areas of agriculture including dairy, poultry, farm technology, beekeeping, forestry products, beef cattle, field crops, soil and water conservation, and plant science.
For more information about this annual program, contact:
Lauren Langley
Chair, Agri-Business Committee
lauren_langley@ncsu.edu
If you’re interested in local farmers markets, check out this list of nearby Farmers Markets from NC State’s Extension group.
The pollinator plot, shown above, is sponsored by the Alamance County Soil and Water Conservation District. This acre of sunflowers, cowpeas and buckwheat drew a lot of attention from visitors and was very popular with area photographers during the late summer. The project is a part of a statewide conservation restoration initiative known as Butterfly Highway. The goal of the program is to restore native flowering plant networks in order to support pollinators.
For more information about the Alamance County Pollinator Trail, visit: https://www.alamance-nc.com/swcd/pollinator-trail/
One of the great things about our parks is the variety of wildlife we encounter. The photo above to the left is a mantis observed at Saxapahaw Island Park. The honey bee hive to the right was discovered at the Pleasant Grove Community Center. Honey bee colonies have been on the decline in recent years, so the discovery of this feral hive is exciting. Hives such as this one assist in pollination and benefit all gardeners and farmers living within a 2-3 mile radius.
We encourage you to visit one of our many parks or trails in the county and find a discovery of your own. Remember to leave only footprints!
The Civil War Trails is a historic preservation organization based in Virginia, which works with communities in numerous states including North Carolina to help preserve the heritage of the American Civil War. This past month, the Civil War Trails organization began overhauling longstanding and worn Civil War Trail interpretive markers across numerous states, which designate historic events and places during our nation’s most tragic and significant period, 1861-1865. Included in these upgrades are the markers in Alamance County, where there are currently nine interpretive marker locations that tell the story of both the soldiers and the community’s involvement in the war. Alamance County’s Civil War Trail takes about 3 hours to complete if you visit every location.
The first initial sign enhancement is located at Swepsonville River Park, recently transferred to Alamance Parks from the town of Swepsonville. The park is also home to a section of the Haw River Land Trail and two access points on the Haw River Paddle Trail. Here along the riverfront of the historic Haw, in April 1865, several thousand soldiers of the Confederate Army crossed the river en route to Greensboro, where they would ultimately be discharged following the surrender agreement between General Johnston and Major General Sherman at the Bennett Farm just outside Durham. The interpretive marker is located along the riverfront where visitors can stand and view the river crossing, and get a visual sense of what it might have been like for the men wading across the river with their knapsacks, personal belongings and muskets. Sadly, the deep rocky river presented a risky crossing and some soldiers died during the passage, just days before the war would come to an end. There are more fascinating stories like this one exhibited at the other locations across Alamance County.
For more information about visiting the Civil War Trail through Alamance County, please visit the website of the Alamance Convention and Visitors Bureau: http://www.visitalamance.com/location/civil-war-trail/ (link will open a new window). You can also download a printable brochure of the Civil War Trail in Alamance County here (PDF will open in a new window).
You’ve maybe noticed in recent years the increasing popularity of barn quilts, colorful wooden quilt blocks displayed on the sides of barns, outbuildings, sheds, houses, and sometimes on their own posts. If you’ve stopped by the Cedarock Historical Farm in the past week, you’ve seen that we now have one too! The quilt block pattern featured on the Historical Farm’s barn is called the LeMoyne Star and was a popular quilt pattern in this area. There’s another new barn quilt up on the stage near the fishing pond as well, featuring a flag-inspired pattern.
The barn quilt movement is actually fairly young, started in 2001 in Adams County, Ohio. While painting decorations on barns in the Americas dates back to the mid-1800s the colorful wooden quilt panels you see today are a movement of the 21st century to celebrate rural areas and the history of both quilts and barn decoration. Original barn paintings sprang from the culture and folk art traditions of the Pennsylvania Dutch and are often known as Hex signs. These tended to feature stars or other simple patterns and were added for decorative purposes and good luck. Modern barn quilts are generally made from brightly painted plyboard and are 8 feet by 8 feet in size. These blocks are then attached to the barns.
The modern barn quilt movement began with Donna Sue Groves of Ohio, who wished to honor her mother and their Appalachian heritage with a painted quilt block pattern on their barn. Her idea evolved into a larger community project featuring 20 barn quilt patterns on a driving trail designed to attract visitors to the area. The first barn quilt was added to a nearby greenhouse and featured the Ohio Star pattern, marking the first barn quilt square of the American Quilt Trail. Later, in 2003, a Snail’s Trail pattern block was added to the Groves’ barn. Since this first trail, a national movement has emerged, with barn quilts and quilt trails now appearing in almost all of the United States and several Canadian provinces. Quilt trails are often community-wide movements, but many individuals also have their own barn quilts that are not part of designated trails.
Seventeen counties in NC are home to barn quilts that are part of designated quilt trails, mostly in the mountains. The nearest quilt trail to our area is in Randolph County, which features 29 different blocks. A map of this quilt trail can be found here. Quilt trails have become an important draw for tourists to rural regions and are a colorful celebration of our history. You can explore a map of barn quilts across the U.S. by state with this great interactive map on barnquiltinfo.com.
Sources: barnquiltinfo.com & heritagebarnquilts.com & Wikipedia’s “Hex sign” article
Get out your fishing gear, the trout are in! This year we have once again stocked the main fishing pond at Cedarock Park with rainbow trout for the winter months. This afternoon, over 1200 lbs of trout went into the pond, ranging from 1lb to 9lbs. We also have a special treat- thanks to a surprise bonus from our supplier, the hatchery at Riverbound X-Stream Flyfishing of VA, this year we have golden rainbow trout!!!
We’re holding a special social media contest to celebrate these golden beauties. If you’re lucky enough to catch a golden trout, post a selfie with your catch to the Cedarock Facebook Page using the hashtag #CRPgoldentrout. We’ll enter your name into a raffle for a prize and draw a few winners during the fishing season.
The fish are delivered from the hatchery on a special truck with holding tanks. They are moved into the pond either via nets or a metal chute of water connected to the holding tanks. Each year, we have to wait until the water is cool enough for the trout before we can stock them. Trout prefer colder water than you generally find in this area except during winter months and the temperature needs to match between the truck and pond to avoid shocking the fish. With the warm weather lasting later this year, they’ve gone in at a later date than last year to ensure their safety. Be sure to check out photos from the delivery on our Facebook Page.
Remember, to fish at the park you need to purchase a Cedarock Park Fishing Pass and have a valid NC Fishing License. Please be sure to carry your pass with you when you come to fish. The park pass is available as a daily pass for $5 or an annual pass for $25. There is a daily catch limit of 6 total fish per pass. Please no catch & release of the trout- they do not survive it well. Other fish you can catch in our pond include catfish and bream. For full details on fishing in the park and how to purchase a pass, please click here. If you have any questions, you can call us at (336) 229-2410 or (336) 570-6759.
Golden Rainbow Trout
The golden rainbow trout in the pond are a color phase variation of the regular rainbow trout. Both are the same species, Oncorhynchus mykiss. The proper name for this golden color phase is “palomino rainbow trout.” This is to distinguish it from golden trout, a separate subspecies found in certain areas of California. The golden rainbow trout color phase was bred from a single color variant that originated in a West Virginia hatchery in 1955.
Fun Facts About Trout
Sources
Wikipedia “Rainbow Trout” article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rainbow_trout
Riverbound X-Stream Flyfishing of VA: https://sites.google.com/site/riverboundxtremesite/Home
Thank you to everyone who joined us yesterday for Beekeeping: The Foxfire Way & Now! We enjoyed another excellent presentation by NC-certified beekeepers Ira Poston and Paul Jollay of the Alamance County Beekeepers Association. The presenters provided a relaxed Q&A style presentation that allowed visitors to get answers to their beekeeping questions. Also along for the ride was a travel demo hive, an example of a bee box, and an antique bee gum. Participants had the opportunity to pick up honey recipe leaflets and bee-friendly flower seeds, and to purchase honey from the presenters. In case you missed the workshop here’s some interesting info the presenters shared on different bee-related topics:
Training
History
Honey Products
Honeybees
People worldwide enjoy the changing colors of tree leaves in autumn. Not only are the colors spectacular, but they herald the onset of cool crisp weather and fun fall activities. Brilliant yellows, oranges, and reds draw tourists from all over to areas known for fall foliage, such as New England, the NC Mountains, and much of the East Coast. But did you ever wonder WHY the leaves change color?
It turns out that the yellows, oranges, and browns of fall are actually always present in leaves, just masked by green during the spring and summer. The reds are a fall-specific phenomenon. Several pigments come into play in the cycle of leaf color during the year. Chloropyhll, carotenoids, and anthocyanins are the key pigments involved. Chlorophyll reflects light so that we see green; carotenoids (such as beta carotene and xanthophyll) appear in shades of yellow, brown, and orange; and anthocyanins produce the stunning scarlets and purples that can make or break a fall color experience. Carotenoids are always present in tree leaves; chlorophyll is abundantly present during the growing season; and anthocyanins are produced in late summer and autumn in certain trees.
During spring and summer, the leaves on trees appear green because of the presence of large amounts of chlorophyll, the molecule instrumental in photosynthesis that allows plants to make their food. As chlorophyll is used up during the growing season, it is rapidly replaced because the plants are growing and need nutrients. Chlorophyll causes the leaves to appear green and as long as it’s abundant, that’s the dominant color. It masks the always-present carotenoids, hiding the yellows, oranges, and browns until fall.
As the days shorten and the temperatures drop with the approach of autumn, chlorophyll production slows down and the tree begins to slowly close off the veins that carry nutrients into the leaves, in preparation for shedding its leaves for winter. Chlorophyll is no longer replaced at the previous rate and the green color begins to disappear. As the chlorophyll levels dwindle, the yellows, oranges, and browns produced by the carotenoids are unmasked. While the magnificence of fall color may vary year to year, the yellows and oranges are fairly stable. Carotenoids also occur in other familiar plants and animals: carrots, canaries, egg yolks, and buttercups all owe their flashy shades to these pigments. You can look for brilliant yellows and oranges in poplar tree leaves, birches, hickories, and certain species of maples.
The less predictable player in the fall color line up is anthocyanin. This pigment is produced in late summer and fall due to a complex of factors related to the presence of certain minerals and the breakdown of sugars. As the veins in the leaves begin to close off, the change in presence of various minerals affects sugar levels and the production of anthocyanins begins. Bright days and cool (but not freezing) nights will lead to the best production of this pigment and the flashiest reds and purples for fall foliage. However, not all types of trees produce this pigment. Part of the reason New England is famous for its fall color is that a higher percentage of the trees in that region produce these brilliant shades. The color from anthocyanins is familiar to us in cranberries, red apples, cherries, and plums. You can look for red foliage on sourwood trees, dogwoods, and certain species of maples.
As veins close off in the leaves, the plant also begins to form cork cells at the base of the leaf that will eventually close it off entirely from the rest of the plant. During this transition of decreasing chlorophyll levels and slowly closing veins, you may notice some leaves that are a mix of green and other colors…look to see if the green is focused around the veins. Once the cork cell layer is formed, the leaves can fall off and land on the forest floor, where they are recycled into the soil and provide nutrients and moisture retention for future growth. There are various explanations for why deciduous trees lose their leaves, but the traditional one is resource conservation because the sensitive leaf tissue would not withstand the harsh conditions of winter. New research is showing that other factors may also come into play. Only deciduous trees change color and drop their leaves each year. Evergreens such as spruce, pines, and firs do not- their needles are waxy and contain substances resistant to cold temperatures, and they do not shed them yearly.
Temperature, length of day, rainfall, and other factors all play a role in the fall color experienced in a given year and when the trees will drop their leaves. It can be very difficult to predict both the “quality” of fall color and when it will peak. However, you can check out a fun fall color prediction tool on the Smoky Mountains website (https://smokymountains.com/fall-foliage-map/). Scrolling through the timeline on this map, you can see that the peak fall color for our region in 2016 is predicted to occur around the third week of October, though it will begin to peak the week before. Depending on where you’re traveling to, you can also call the U.S. Forest Service’s Fall Color Hotline (1-800-354-4595) for details on the progression of fall color.
Looking for something local to do to enjoy the fall color? Visit any of our parks and trails during the last few weeks of October and you’re sure to see some bright foliage. We are also holding a Fall Festival on October 15th at Cedarock Park with old time games for children, candy, hayrides, and face painting. This will be the week that the color is beginning to peak. If you like arts and crafts, consider joining us earlier that morning at Great Bend Park for pumpkin painting and nature art. While you’re at Great Bend, grab one of our self-guided Tree ID Cards and see if you can match up the different tree species on the trail with their fall colors! For more details about these events, visit our special events page or call (336) 229-2410.
Resources: The information for this article was gathered from several resources, including Wikipedia: Autumn Leaf Color, USDA Forest Service: Why Leaves Change Color, ESF: Why Leaves Change Color, and the Smoky Mountains’ Fall Foliage Prediction Map. Click on any of the links to refer to these resources.
Join us September 17th, 1:00pm, at the Cedarock Park Historical Farm for a presentation by NC-certified beekeepers Ira Poston of Blueberry Hill Apiaries and Paul Jollay of the Glencoe Honey Company. Ira and Paul join us again this year to present a workshop on beekeeping practices, past and present. They will have honey to sample, honey for sale, a demonstration hive, take-home seeds to grow your own bee-friendly flowers, and copies of their favorite reference materials for participants to look through. Ira and Paul are members of the Alamance County Beekeepers, a chapter of the North Carolina State Beekeepers Association. Ira & Paul’s presentation was a favorite last year- don’t miss it!
The Foxfire in Cedarock Park program is a series of workshops celebrating Appalachian culture and tradition. So far this year we’ve enjoyed programs about canning and woodturning, as well as the annual Preserving Our Heritage Festival. The next and final program after Beekeeping will be the Fall Festival in October which features old-time farm games followed by Ghosts in the Park storytelling in the evening. This year we’re adding professional face painting and a daytime storytelling station to the Fall Festival. More details will be announced soon.
All programs are free and open to the public. The Foxfire in Cedarock Park series is co-sponsored by Alamance Parks and Alamance County Public Libraries.