authored by NALT Biogeographer, Williams Gandy
I had a long but very good day yesterday. Betty and I left the house at 7:30am to meet a fellow western North Carolinian out in Tompkinsville, Kentucky on the Cumberland River. Jackie McClure placed over 1300 acres under a conservation easement with NALT back in 2011, just a year before I was hired. It must have been 2012 or 2013 when I first met Jackie, when I arrived on-site at the Turkey Neck Bend Farm. The easement area is remote and truly bucolic.
The property is sandwiched on a very emphasized meander on the Cumberland River. It would truly be a peninsula of land if there were a waterbody to the west. But it might as well be, because there isn’t a way to get across the river off of the Turkey Neck Bend except to turnaround and drive back southeast to Celina, or to take the Cumberland River Ferry across to Otia.
Jackie has always been such a kind person and very welcoming when I’ve visited him. We talk about hunting, the children in our families, the horses and the equestrians in our families, and how beautiful it is to be out here and taking it all in; taking it all in with friends and family is the heaven on earth. We catch up for a bit and then hop on a couple four-wheelers to tour the property. Jackie and his buddy Walt had come over from Hayesville, NC two days prior to clear the trails for our monitoring visit. It’s good they did, because many trees were sawn through to make our tour possible. After about an hour of pastures, cows, forests and streams we arrive at the bluffs on the north side of the tract to one of the more unique places on the property. It’s a rock outcrop of Mississippian limestone that makes up the highest areas on the property. This outcrop sits about 250 feet above the Cumberland River below. At about 750 feet in elevation and over 400 miles from the Atlantic Ocean we can clearly see seashell fragments that compose the rock itself.
As a regional geomorphology nerd, I can’t help but talk about how during the Mississippian Period (359 to 323 million years ago), this part of the continent a warm, shallow sea was, with what are now the Appalachian Mountains to the ancient south (nowadays east). The sea is thought to have resembled the modern day Carribean with lots of marine animals completing their life cycle and then returning to the earth to become part of what we term the “rock record” nowadays.
Jackie then says “…and if someone doesn’t believe that, they should come up here have a look at this rock.” I agree and we take our four-wheelers down the hollow to the toe slopes above the Cumberland’s floodplain to the house where Jackie and Walt are staying. “I come bearing gifts” I say and run to the truck to let Betty out and get some NALT swag that I brought for Jackie. It’s only a couple stickers and a magnet, but I’ve brought one of our new hats too. Jackie puts it on, and it looks pretty handsome I’d say.
We shake hands, say our pleasantries and part ways.
Stewardship is our most important job as a land trust. If we can’t ensure what we’ve protected is actually being protected, then what have we done as stewards of the land? I love getting on new piece of property as do all my colleagues. It’s the closest that I’ll come to being the explorer that I fantasized about being as a boy outside of Boone, N.C. But stewardship is really what it’s all about. And the only we get there is to have meaningful and real relationships with our partners and landowners. I gotta say, it was a pleasure to hang out with Jackie, poke around in the woods and shake his hand. It was a long day, getting back to Asheville at around 8pm. But after I got a belly full of food and got Betty fed and satisfied, I have to say I’m blessed man to spend my days like this.
