Don Robinson State Park: First Look

Click on the above photo to see the full horizontal view

Don Robinson, childless bachelor, made a fortune with spot remover and ended up owning 818 acres in northern Jefferson County, MO that before his death in 2012 he gave to the State of Missouri for a new state park that opened at last on January 6, 2017. One of its two hiking loops is 2.4 miles, partly paved, and the other more than 4 miles; the latter isn't open yet. His unusual, hand-built hilltop house (part stone cottage that was already there, part particle board, old boards, old glass, or anything he could recycle) is preserved for a future Don Robinson museum.

Raw-looking orange and red sandstone cuts are the first thing you'll see as you enter from the Byrnesville Road. A steep short asphalt loop leads to Robinson's house, with an Ozark foothills view as far as you can see. A huge concrete terrace was poured to its south and furnished with a shelter, picnic tables, and rocking chairs. It'll be a spectacular view in every season. Some old stone stairs have been preserved, along with the old bench in the photo, the only ornate thing there. Robinson's grave (he was born in 1927) is not far from the house and on a new bench nearby you can sit and say a long thanks that his land did not become a subdivision.

Originally it was said there'd be a campground but there isn't. The property abuts some of the LaBarque Creek-area conservation sites and natural areas. Special features include lots of chinkapin oaks and birds, and hardly any cedars (unlike the formerly cedar-choked Glassberg Conservation Area). Eight hundred eighteen more acres for the people of Missouri and guests. Most of the land is accessible only on foot. I was there late in the day and caught a few rays of sunshine, scarce these last two weeks in January. The land will be fun to explore.

What Does "Ozark" Mean?

We say “Ozark” but where did that name come from and what does it mean? Is it French, perhaps formerly “Ozarque”? Is it Indian? Which Indians, the Osage, or maybe the Sioux, who named Missouri, calling it Oumisourite, meaning “men with large canoes”? I wondered.

Although the name “Ozark” is fixed on maps by 1815, its origins are unclear. The most common explanation goes like this:

The Arkansas River was a great trade route flowing from Pueblo, Colorado (!), through Kansas and Oklahoma and then Arkansas, draining through a huge swamp into the Mississippi. The Quapaw (Sioux) Indians living in its delta were called the Arcansea, from the Sioux word "acansa" meaning "downstream place," and other Indians called that river the Arkansas before Europeans got there. In 1686, Frenchmen established a trading post about 35 miles north of the confluence at a bend on a tributary. They either shortened the word “Arkansas” and called this place “aux Arcs,” or “place of Arcansas Indians,” or, less likely, they called the river bend an “arc” and referred to the place as “aux arc.” Either way, surviving letters from trappers and traders prove that the post was indeed called something like that. Eventually it shared its name with its whole watershed including multiple rivers and mountainous areas to the north and west, including Missouri.

The Ozark plateau, vast as it is, the size of Tennessee, is pretty much a petticoat for the formerly volcanic St. Francois Mountains in east central Missouri. Travel southwest from St. Louis on Interstate 44 about 30 miles and suddenly an ordinary road opens out onto a majestic vista of hills. Those are the Ozark foothills.

Masterpiece Eggs

Monitoring your bluebird box is a duty, said The Michigan Bluebird Society site; those who don't monitor should not own one because a bluebird box must be clean, dry, safe, free from mites, blowflies, and wasps, not ant-infested, and the owner must check that the eggs aren't broken, and also watch for house sparrows that will fill the box with sticks and thorns. Don't worry, it said, about your "scent" -- birds have no sense of smell. But I read elsewhere that predatory animals can pick up any scent trail I leave going to and from the box, so I do that as little as possible. Today I checked the box responsibly, and for this I briefly removed the nest, revealing these five masterpiece eggs. As instructed, I did not touch the eggs, simply admired them, and replaced the nest. And my cup runneth over: The hummingbirds returned to their feeders on April 24 this year, perfectly on schedule

Courage

Usually it's young male turtles who travel away from their birthplaces to seek their own territories, so I'll call this one "he." The road is the two-lane, 40 mph Highway F on a Saturday morning, and I calculated this box turtle just starting his crossing had about a 50 percent chance of being crushed or maimed by monster turtles with wheels. He looked so brave and alone that I was moved to pick him up, take him across the road, and carry him well into the Divine property hoping that in its 100 acres he will find, as I did, the acre of his dreams.

How I Got to Live Here

A typed 3"x5" file card tacked up on a bulletin board at the university where I worked said a rural rental property was subletting for a year at $400 a month. I'd been living in a low-rent (bullet holes in my windshield) area of St. Louis for a decade and pined for change. I'd also been visualizing my ideal home: in the woods, near a creek, where night looked like night; I'd even taped up a picture cut from Reader's Digest. Given my situation it was a foolish impossible pipe dream. I phoned. A Dutch physics professor and his artist wife about to tour the world for a year said they sought someone clean and neat who'd occupy the house and care for their cat.
I drove 35 miles from town, increasingly enchanted by the hills and greenery. It was April. Found a little white house with green shutters and door, shaded by old hickory and oak trees (at that time I couldn't tell them apart). I glanced through the kitchen window at the porch and fell in love. The original three rooms of the house was a log cabin. Awkward additions had been tacked on. It came with 100 acres of Ozark foothills. My first night here was in June. I had no bed yet. I lay on the bedroom floor on blankets, the windows open wide to hear everything. The house is on a sandstone cliff, so when I looked out I saw starry sky. The cat was a sweet companion.

After 14 months the couple returned. I asked to be informed if they ever moved away so I could ask to be next to rent it. Moved back to the city and two years and two months later, on Oct. 1, 2001, I moved back into the Divine Cabin and they will take me out feet first. In order to stay here I have refused offers of good jobs and marriage. This old, drafty, complicated house requires hiring people to help me out but I'd rather do that than live somewhere with fewer challenges. The gorgeous stone fireplace doesn't work. The moldy, leaky, ugly, 4x8 bathroom (yes, it's the only bathroom) with the rusted hot-water heater got torn out and updated just this past year. (There's still no bathtub.) Nearly every morning from March through late November I have morning coffee or tea on the stone porch. It is my box seat on the universe. In the city, Summer Solstice meant nothing. Here it means everything.

Happy Summer Solstice June 20 at 6:09 p.m. CDT. Please celebrate anytime that life on earth is a peak experience. This is a meadow celebrating itself, across Highway F, not 50 feet from the LaBarque Creek.

Won't See This Again 'til 2024

Saw several of these strange burrows ringed with cairns of mud balls, a good three inches high, this past summer. They are called "chimneys." Like nothing I'd seen before, but remarkable, very noticeable, and today I find out it's no wonder I hadn't seen them before or since, because they are the homes of the nymphs of the 13-year cicada, whose year it was in 2011. (In late May and June you couldn't take a step outdoors here without feeling them crunch beneath your feet.) Some people confuse these mounds with crayfish "chimneys," but these were located on a hill, under trees, far from any creek beds. When it rains, the cicada nymphs house-clean by pushing mud and mud balls up and out of their dwelling -- pretty good considering they haven't any arms -- and leave them right outside. Good housekeeping. Now I will know what these little mounds of mud balls are when I see them again in 2024.

Jelly-Bellied Friends

I think spring rains water not only plants but snail seeds. Because when it rains, garden snails pop up full grown everywhere, walkin' around like they own the place. Up in the woods even at my Ozark foothills' highest elevations (about 880 feet) I still always have that moment of wonder when I see abandoned snail shells, whitened down bone-like, or sometimes polished down to a fragile brown translucency, with iridescence. "Shells? Up here?"

Picked up an attractive volunteer snail and put it on a dinner plate to pose for me. Actually I tricked it, saying George Clooney was looking for extras for his next movie. It handled this very well.