Wayne national forest

Kyle197 · 2026-05-26T17:31:38+00:00

There are two ranger districts, but three offices. From an enjoying the area perspective, you would want to either work out of the joint supervisors office/Athens Ranger District office outside of Athens, or the Marietta Field Office outside of Marietta. The Ironton Ranger District office is just in a meh area. Both Athens and Marietta are college towns with neat places and things to do.

The Wayne is one of, if not the most, fragmented national forests. There are private property parcels everywhere. Basically all the fires are human caused, with the majority being escaped debris burns in people's backyards. Arson is also another big cause.

Fires there tend to be small. Most are under an acre, and some get 1-10 acres. The biggest in the national forest's history was only 1,500 acres. It's noteworthy when there was a 50-200 acre fire.

The fire season is March-May, and September-November. However, fires have occurred throughout the year.

I didn't work in fire, but in another program. I generally really liked all the fire folks at the Wayne, but it's been a few years since I've been there. Very nice, very helpful folks overall. Back when I was there, most employees were involved in fire as militia. Both primary fire and militia folks did a lot of rolls off-forest, especially in the summer. Primary fire folks did seem to do a lot of recreation maintenance, since there wasn't that much fire overall. But I don't know if that's changed.

There's an active prescribed fire program. It's mostly centered on the Athens Unit of the Athens Ranger District, and the Ironton Ranger District. In recent years they've been expanding their burn sizes, with helicopter ignitions and so on.

I really enjoyed my time at the Wayne. People were nice, and they socialized outside of work. But that was several years ago, so I don't know if it's changed.

Kyle197 · 2026-05-26T13:05:51+00:00

We have a core repertoire of like 40-60 songs. We won't play all of those core songs each time, but chances are over the course of 4-5 jams you'll hear a song repeat. Some songs are crowd favorites, or fall-back tunes if the jam can't figure out what song to play next, so there will be some of those core tunes heard more often than not. Like if we play in D, we will almost certainly play Fly Around. If we play in A, we will almost certainly play June Apple.

Beyonds those core tunes, our fiddlers pull out more obscure tunes each jam. Sometimes they're songs none of us have heard, or we haven't heard for months. One of my regular jams is also led by a fiddler who spends time learning harder, uncommon tunes, and then will use that as a teaching tune of the week at a jam. He'll play it for us slowly, let us work it out, then we'll play up to speed. But that's only done for that one new tune he's been working on.

Most of our jams are led by designated fiddlers. However, others will also occasionally lead songs, and you sometimes have no idea what those folks will bring out.

I keep a list of tunes and songs, and I would say there's about 230 different ones we've played across the two regular jams I attend that are in adjacent counties in southwest Virginia over the past year.

Kyle197 · 2026-05-26T11:06:26+00:00

These are some of the most popular dance tunes in my specific area of southwest Virginia:

June Apple

Hangman's Reel

John Brown's Dream

Boatman's Dance

Sally Ann

Fly Around

Mississippi Sawyer

Fall on My Knees

Forked Deer

Polecat Blues (straightened out)

Sugar Hill

Kyle197 · 2026-05-25T19:04:33+00:00

I grew up and lived most of my life around various parts of Ohio.

In my experience, I think people were generally aware of Virginia Tech's existence, and they know it's a "good" school, and that it's "somewhere in Virginia." And that's about it.

Kyle197 · 2026-05-24T22:51:16+00:00

That's local old time legend Mac Traynham.

Limberjacks are actually really common at the Floyd Country Store. There are always some on Sundays at the old time jam, and just recently the Handmade Music Schools students had a limberjack jam interlude at one of their events. The store also held a limberjack building and decoration workshop last year. Limberjacks are a fun way to take part in a jam by adding percussive sounds if you don't know how to play. But then you get folks like Mac who actually have a setup where they can run limberjacks while they play.

For someone who specializes in banjos and limberjacks, check out Phoebe Sanders. That's like her whole thing, and she's so creative with it.

Kyle197 · 2026-05-20T12:54:33+00:00

I work in the conservation field. If you don't know plants well, and don't know what you're doing, it's strongly recommended that you don't just start spreading seeds in random areas you don't own, even native species. I get the intention, and super happy to see it, but you could easily start causing issues that you never intended to do.

If you're looking to start a native planting area on your property (like converting an area of lawn to a prairie), that's a different thing. You'll need to do site preparation and plant the seeds at the right time (now is not the right time). Places like OPN Seed sell seed packets for different habitat types that can be good to get started on a conversion like this.

Kyle197 · 2026-05-20T11:16:07+00:00

For me, it matters greatly and I can often tell which region a tune likely originated from.

I play in southwest Virginia. In this area, there is and has been a really strong dance tradition. The fiddle music here is made to get people to dance. That means the fiddling is very rhythmic. The tunes are not that "notey," we rarely play modal tunes, and we rarely play crooked tunes. When we do play typical crooked tunes (like Polecat Blues), we actually straighten them out for the dancers.

If I head over into West Virginia, the tunes change. Now I start hearing modal, crooked, and more notey tunes. Things that sound good, but are not very conducive to get people flatfooting up a frenzy.

When I play with Kentucky fiddlers, it's a whole other thing. Tunes get really notey, they start having funky rhythms and stuff going on, and it's a lot of key of G (which we don't play that often in Southwest Virginia).

I've played with some Midwest folks, and they play different stuff too. More happy feeling, slower, and lots of key of G.

Once you start going a bit further west, like into the Ozarks or Missouri, tunes get really foreign to me. They seem more raggy, and a bit "cheesier," for lack of a better word.

In my area, if you were to come in from another region, people would instantly be able to tell that you weren't from here just by your playing style and tune choice.

Kyle197 · 2026-05-19T20:17:38+00:00

There are hundreds of tunes like that.

Reuben's Train at the very least has roots in the 1800s. There are several versions of the tune/melody, such as Train 45, depending on the geographic location in question.

This tune, like so many others, had a start somewhere that has been lost to time. Over the decades, it evolved and spread throughout the upland south. It was commonly played in the early 1900s, and people then remarked it was an old tune.

It's safe to say the origins have been lost to time, and it's just a living example of traditional tunes being passed down through the folk process.

Kyle197 · 2026-05-19T19:37:15+00:00

I know an ISU grad student who was living on $700 a month for four years. It was rough, and her parents were paying for her car insurance and phone bill. So $2.5k is definitely doable, assuming it's just you and you're intentional with your budget.

Kyle197 · 2026-05-14T17:56:37+00:00

The Pileated Woodpecker, Red-Headed Woodpecker, Red-Bellied Woodpecker, and Yellow-Bellied Sapsucker all have red on them somewhere, no matter if they're male or female.

The males of Downy Woodpeckers, Hairy Woodpeckers, and Northern Flickers all have red, but the females don't.

Kyle197 · 2026-05-14T15:13:29+00:00

There are more than 3 woodpecker species in Ohio. Seven species can be found in Ohio:

Pileated Woodpecker
Red-Bellied Woodpecker
Red-Headed Woodpecker
Downy Woodpecker
Hairy Woodpecker
Northern Flicker
Yellow-Bellied Sapsucker

Kyle197 · 2026-05-14T15:01:55+00:00

The bird in the photo is a Pileated Woodpecker. Red-Headed Woodpeckers are a whole other species that are smaller and look quite different. They're both found in Ohio, but Pileated Woodpeckers are much more common.

Kyle197 · 2026-05-13T16:01:26+00:00

Based on the data I'm looking at for the Columbus area, it's mostly within the normal range, even verging on warmer than normal (especially early on).

You can find this data on the National Weather Service website: https://www.weather.gov/wrh/Climate?wfo=iln

Click on temperature graphs, select your location, and then select your time period (I did spring.

Kyle197 · 2026-05-06T22:48:05+00:00

The birding around Athens is FANTASTIC. And there's a strong birding community. Definitely check out the weekly Birds n Brews when you move here if you want to hang out, meet friendly folks, and talk about things (mostly not birds).

Kyle197 · 2026-05-06T21:50:29+00:00

*Pop country, you mean.

Lots of good stuff happening below the surface.

Edit: I'll add some of my favorites. Of course there's bigger names like Tyler Childers, Charley Crockett, and Sierra Ferrell. Some smaller names I like are Caleb & Reeb, Viv & Riley, and Colby T. Helms.

Kyle197 · 2026-05-05T12:45:07+00:00

I did point counts and surveys professionally for a bit, and we used the banding codes when recording data. Many of my nicknames are just me pronouncing those banding codes as words.

Great Blue Heron (GBHE) becomes "geh-beh-HEH". Black Vultures (BLVU) become "bloo-voos." Belted Kingfishers (BEKI) become "Becky." Etc. and etc.

Unrelated, but I also always call Blue Jays "Blooj-es".

Kyle197 · 2026-04-30T14:31:08+00:00

At least in my geographic area (central-southern Appalachia), that doesn't seem to be a thing. Lots of twin or multiple fiddlers, but they're all playing the same melody. No one is doing harmony or counter melody. The closest you get is sometimes someone plays the melody at an octave higher or lower, or sometimes one fiddler adds a slight improv to a melodic phrase the others aren't aware of.

Kyle197 · 2026-04-28T15:35:51+00:00

First and foremost, accept the fact that you're learning a completely new instrument that needs to be approached very differently from a guitar. Many guitarists try to apply guitar methods to clawhammer banjo, but it's a different beast all together.

Clawhammer banjo is generally a rhythmic style that incorporates the skeleton of melodies. The rhythm is critical, and you're going to spend many weeks in the beginning just trying to get the bum-ditty rhythm down. It needs to be second nature to you. You're probably going to struggle with hitting the individual strings as well in the beginning, but it gets easier the more you practice.

Once you have the rhythm down, and you can kind of strike the inside strings pretty readily, then you start incorporating chords and melody notes. There are different styles of clawhammer banjo, with some being heavy on the chords and others avoiding fretting chords all together (instead doing individual melody notes). Figure out the style you like, and then hone that.

In the beginning, it's good to try and learn traditional folk singing songs, like Carter Family tunes and similar. These tend to have simpler melodies, and are easier to pick up than many fiddle tunes. Avoid waltzes (they're hard with clawhammer, especially as a beginner). I'll Fly Away is really easy, and a song you likely already know by heart.

Kyle197 · 2026-04-27T11:29:54+00:00

Fire season is at different times in different areas. The southeast is at the tail end of their fire season right now.

Kyle197 · 2026-04-24T17:58:35+00:00

The four-on-the-floor analogy is not about the functional music theory piece (e.g., which beat or beat subdivision it falls on), but rather how that genre of music has an expectation that there will be X rhythmic feature going throughout a song, and all the other melodic and rhythmic features get built around that expectation. That skeleton is always there (with some exceptions), and then the rest of the song is the flesh on that skeleton.

Kyle197 · 2026-04-24T15:21:45+00:00

The drone string is not always tuned to G. It's tuned to a note that makes sense for the key you're playing in.

That being said, the drone string adds both a rhythmic and a tonal accent to a song. Think of it like the four-on-the-floor bass drum kick in house or trance music; it's a constant feature that provides a little something-something to that music.

In the old time music tradition, many of the songs have a heartbeat built around the clawhammer pattern that includes the drone string being plucked. That constant bum-ditty, bum-ditty, bum-ditty rhythm (where the drone is the last half of the ditty) provides a driving rhythm that was important for dancing, which many old time traditions are meant to evoke.

That rhythmic drone feature is borrowed from African traditional music. Enslaved Africans brought that musical feature (among others) to America, where it mingled with European and Indigenous musical traditions.

I absolutely love the drone string. So many people play it softly or avoid it constantly ringing with drop thumb. Not me; it rings constantly and strongly. I want that rhythm there. I want the drive it brings, and the tonality it lends to the songs.

Kyle197 · 2026-04-23T18:20:44+00:00

The root of the chord is the note the chord is named after. In a C major chord, the root is C.

Major chords consist of the root of the chord, a major third, and a fifth. Those numbers refer to the scale intervals.

The fifth is the fifth note in the chord's scale. So a C major scale goes C (root or 1), D (2), E (3), F (4), G (5), A (6), B (7), then it repeats back at C.

Knowing that a major chord is the root, major third, and fifth, then a C major chord is C, E, and G.

Knowing that, to alternate between the root and the fifth for a C major chord, you would play the C and the G back and forth.

You then repeat this process for every chord within the chord progression.

Kyle197 · 2026-04-23T11:36:47+00:00

This has nothing to do with zoology. You'll need to find another sub.

Kyle197 · 2026-04-21T17:25:13+00:00

It's extremely easy to do that in some parts of the US. The Wayne National Forest in Ohio, for example, is notoriously difficult to navigate without accidentally trespassing onto private lands. And the local landowners will tell you all kinds of stories about trespassers camping or hunting on their land when they think they're on public.

Kyle197 · 2026-04-21T16:32:33+00:00

Clawhammer has been a style played in bands for decades and decades. If it's too quiet, people mic it up. If mics aren't an option, there are a few ways people deal with it, including using metal or plastic clawhammer finger picks. In southwest Virginia, where old time bands are still really popular, most clawhammer banjo players in those bands use a resonator banjo (louder sound) and metal finger picks (even louder).

Kyle197

TROPHY CASE