April 1st: Lost Valley

Hiked 6.8 miles on the Lost Valley Trail, to the Dunlap Cemetery via trail. It was 60 degrees when I started, 80 degrees when I finished. Saw bicyclists and bird watchers.

These flowers are part of a field of flowers next to the Dunlap Cemetery. They were planted by J. Hodgen Bates around his homestead. Check out this excerpt that describes him:


"In his book The Rape of Howell and Hamburg: An American Tragedy, Donald Muschany described Hodgen Bates: '[T]here was one genius I shall never forget, Hodgen Bates. Bates was a bachelor who built his own log house, dug his own cistern, and, get this, slept in the shell of a grand piano. . . . He played almost flawless chess, and knew just about everything worth knowing about nature. I spent many a Sunday afternoon talking with Hodgen, sometimes walking through the woods, while he identified this tree or that tree, birds, rocks, and soils. . . . Hodgen truly loved animals and never as much as killed a snake. . . . And he was an artisan and a voluminous reader, who remembered what he read. Our uncle, Karl, has a fine hexagonal tapered walnut cane made for his by Hodgen Bates. It is an exhibit of superb craftsmanship. . . . After thirty-five years, I was privileged to visit the old homesite of Mr. Bates. Of course, the house and he were long gone, but I felt his presence as I recognized many signs of the past. Along the hillside the flowering iris, or flags, continued to bloom where this good old man, Hodgen, had planted them.'"