My third day of exploring the Glendale Shoals and neighborhood. I have noticed that there is a second blooming season this year for the Japanese Magnolias as well as some the traditional azaleas. Wildflowers are abundant: Rose moss on the shoulder of the road, Joe Pye bush in the tangled woods ( Some say the name derives from the name of a Native American madicine man who used the plant to cure fevers), Wild Blue Plox, and on the shores of a small tributary to Lawson's Fork Creek, great bushes of Jimson Weed (Datura Stromonium) rising five feet tall. The Jimson Weed large white flowers are faded and drooping now. The name is a corruption of Jamestown Weed where the early colonists first noticed it. All parts of the plant are extremely poisonous, even causing a skin rash if you touch it. Cows and sheep have died from eating it.
I notice that the beavers have built a dam nearby. The summer before John and Colleen's wedding, we were invited to Colleen's family's home in the Mississippi Delta. Their farm land is bordered by the Tallahatchie river. We all put on boots, covered ourselves with mosquito repellant, boarded pickups and drove out to a stream where there was a beaver dam, which Colleen's father and brother blew up with dynamite while we watched. Quite a sight. I used to think the beavers live in the dam, but they do not and it is illegal to kill beavers in Mississippi.
Tuesday, July 31, 2012
Sunday, July 29, 2012
July 29, 2012 The Secret of the Magnolia
We walked up Hilton Rd, past an old cottage with a new "Cube" parked in the overgrown yard. A bird had usurped their mailbox by the road for her nest inside. Here and there small houses had tomato plants full of ripe fruit growing at their back doors. Alice Hilton, my grandmother, used to keep a kitchen garden outside her kitchen door with tomatoes, peppers, eggplants (we called them cackleberries) and Jerusalem artichokes. Traditionally, the kitchen garden was nourished by basins of used dish water thrown out the kitchen door.
Boofa and I walked down the wooden steps out onto the wide rocks below the old Glendale Mill Spillway and stood for a while breathing in the cool mist of the splashing water under the morning's buttermilk sky. A pair of ducks were preening, cleaning their feathers and taking sips of water on top of the spillway. We took the bridge and met a man with binoculars watching them.
Not a soul was up and around this morning as we passed the old houses with gardens full of blackeyed susans, cosmos, zinnias, butterfly bush, canas, lantanas, chaste trees, coriopsis and rose of Sharon. I saw a hummingbird among the flowers.
Back near the bridge, there is a 10 ft black metal sculpture of a magnnolia. The bronze plaque tells me the artist was Barry Bate, done in 2000 and I paraphrase the legend:
"Listen to the waterfalls cleansing the river, just as the communities along its banks are renewing themselves again and again. Like the magnolia whose secret is renewal.
The sculpture is called "Rebirth".
Again, curving back along Hilton Rd, there is a kind of spa with a Zen garden. No one is there so early on a Sunday morning. There is a kind of Zen garden with a metal bench on an outcropping, overlooking a stone fire pit with stone benches and then the river below.
Boofa and I walked down the wooden steps out onto the wide rocks below the old Glendale Mill Spillway and stood for a while breathing in the cool mist of the splashing water under the morning's buttermilk sky. A pair of ducks were preening, cleaning their feathers and taking sips of water on top of the spillway. We took the bridge and met a man with binoculars watching them.
Not a soul was up and around this morning as we passed the old houses with gardens full of blackeyed susans, cosmos, zinnias, butterfly bush, canas, lantanas, chaste trees, coriopsis and rose of Sharon. I saw a hummingbird among the flowers.
Back near the bridge, there is a 10 ft black metal sculpture of a magnnolia. The bronze plaque tells me the artist was Barry Bate, done in 2000 and I paraphrase the legend:
"Listen to the waterfalls cleansing the river, just as the communities along its banks are renewing themselves again and again. Like the magnolia whose secret is renewal.
The sculpture is called "Rebirth".
Again, curving back along Hilton Rd, there is a kind of spa with a Zen garden. No one is there so early on a Sunday morning. There is a kind of Zen garden with a metal bench on an outcropping, overlooking a stone fire pit with stone benches and then the river below.
July 28, 2012 Walking with the Carolina Dog
The Carolina Dog is also called the American Dingo. It has a faun or ginger colored coat, usually with a dark brown or black muzzle and often dark colored ears. This is an indigenous dog which can be seen in fossils of Native American dogs. DNA testing has shown it to be of ancient origin like the dingo and basingi and the Korean jindo. Most of these dogs are now domesticated and are recognized
by the UKC.
Boofa and I went for a early morning walk through the Glendale Shoals area over the bridge which is at the top of the old spillway on the Lawson's Fork Creek, breathing in the negative ions from the
spash of the water tumbling onto the rocks below. We walked through the old mill town where there are houses in disrepair as well as beautifully refurbished homes with well tended gardens in the huge back yards, the old white columned colonial home of the owner, completely deserted and overgrown with bushes and towering pecan trees. The Glendale Fire Dept is at the top of the hill and beyond that, in a lovely vacated church is the Glendale Outdoor Leadership School. Beside the church is a very old graveyard with dates back to 1867 on the stones that can be read, but there are older headstones whose legends have been erased by time and weather. (Nearby Graveyard Cycles
takes its name from the cemetery).
We were joined here by a Carolina Dog who followed us for our entire walk even back to our house and then disappeared.
by the UKC.
Boofa and I went for a early morning walk through the Glendale Shoals area over the bridge which is at the top of the old spillway on the Lawson's Fork Creek, breathing in the negative ions from the
spash of the water tumbling onto the rocks below. We walked through the old mill town where there are houses in disrepair as well as beautifully refurbished homes with well tended gardens in the huge back yards, the old white columned colonial home of the owner, completely deserted and overgrown with bushes and towering pecan trees. The Glendale Fire Dept is at the top of the hill and beyond that, in a lovely vacated church is the Glendale Outdoor Leadership School. Beside the church is a very old graveyard with dates back to 1867 on the stones that can be read, but there are older headstones whose legends have been erased by time and weather. (Nearby Graveyard Cycles
takes its name from the cemetery).
We were joined here by a Carolina Dog who followed us for our entire walk even back to our house and then disappeared.
July 26, 2012 Cat Rescue
Under the shade of the leland cypress, I spotted a skinny adolescent kitten with beautiful dark calico markings. When I came back again, a woman on a bike was holding the little cat with no resistance from her. She rode off carrying the kitten in one hand while steering the bike with the other.
Someone had painted a neon pink robot on the cement path. The temperature is climbing to 100 degrees and cooking. Everyone's T-shirt is soaking wet. After a while it feels like soggy air conditioning.
In a little village near Dungapor, Doris and Tom and I would dip our pajamas in water and put them on wet to lie down on the charpoys we had dragged outside. In the dark, with the bright stars overhead, a breeze with sand and tiny rocks would cool us as we slept.
Someone had painted a neon pink robot on the cement path. The temperature is climbing to 100 degrees and cooking. Everyone's T-shirt is soaking wet. After a while it feels like soggy air conditioning.
In a little village near Dungapor, Doris and Tom and I would dip our pajamas in water and put them on wet to lie down on the charpoys we had dragged outside. In the dark, with the bright stars overhead, a breeze with sand and tiny rocks would cool us as we slept.
Friday, July 27, 2012
Lake Hartwell State Park, July 22, 2012
Just a half mile off I-85 before you cross the South Carolina/Georgia state line, turn left into the park. On your right is the old fashioned visitor center which has registration for the many campers and fishermen, basic foods, free fishing rods to borrow if you forget yours, drinks, snacks and souvinirs, even those wonderful caps with the South Carolina palmetto tree logo (I bought a brown one and a yellow one for Martin and Mathew). There are restrooms and a big comfortable sitting area with overstuffed couches and chairs. Very cozy.
There is a short 1.8 mile trail which begins to the left a short distance behind the picnic shelter which has a full scale outdoor basketball court beside it. In the road, just at the trail head, I found a football shaped magnetic sign saying, "Save the TaTa's". I kept it.
This is a beatiful winding path through hardwood forrest. Once you come near a cove of the lake.
There are five or six one-person size footbridges that cross tiny streams. I had to encourage Boofa to go across the first one. Beside the path, yellow and red toadstoods grow. They remind me of the toadstools in old Disney films, yellow underneath with red tops, splattered with yellow freckles. Katherine Quigley could go out into the forrest and pick mushrooms as she knew which ones were poison. Since these are red, I suspect they are poison. There are many ferns here too.
Cicadas sing softly and I hear a few birdsongs. You come out in the parking lot at the visitor center.
We leave the park and cross the Tugaloo River into Georgia. (I read that the Tugaloo were a fierce Native American tribe who practiced cannabalism and chased the Edisto onto Edisto Island. I do not know if this is true).
A Volvo station wagon passes us. On the back window in hand painting, it says, "Beware of the
Woods."
There is a short 1.8 mile trail which begins to the left a short distance behind the picnic shelter which has a full scale outdoor basketball court beside it. In the road, just at the trail head, I found a football shaped magnetic sign saying, "Save the TaTa's". I kept it.
This is a beatiful winding path through hardwood forrest. Once you come near a cove of the lake.
There are five or six one-person size footbridges that cross tiny streams. I had to encourage Boofa to go across the first one. Beside the path, yellow and red toadstoods grow. They remind me of the toadstools in old Disney films, yellow underneath with red tops, splattered with yellow freckles. Katherine Quigley could go out into the forrest and pick mushrooms as she knew which ones were poison. Since these are red, I suspect they are poison. There are many ferns here too.
Cicadas sing softly and I hear a few birdsongs. You come out in the parking lot at the visitor center.
We leave the park and cross the Tugaloo River into Georgia. (I read that the Tugaloo were a fierce Native American tribe who practiced cannabalism and chased the Edisto onto Edisto Island. I do not know if this is true).
A Volvo station wagon passes us. On the back window in hand painting, it says, "Beware of the
Woods."
Sunday, July 22, 2012
July 21, 2012 Bicycles
8 miles up and down the rail trail this morning in high humidity. The cyclists speed by.
Peter and I had bought bikes in Rajasthan as well as one for Nawal Singh, our companion. Nawal Singh named the bikes for the great trains that crossed the Indian Sub continent. Peter's was Mail and mine was Urti Rani (the Flying Queen). Once he took us out through the desert on our bikes to his ancestral home where the Rajput head of the large extended family lived in an ancient medieval castle surrounded by a high wall. A carriage hung from the rafters high above the entrance. I remember meeting this interesting man, who was now the Block Development Officer, on the second level of the castle. By now, it was dark and he sat behind a desk reading about the psychic, Jean Dixon, in a Reader's Digest by kerosene lantern. After our visit, we slept on a clean straw bed on the first level.
I have a bike now. It's name is Urti Rani.
Peter and I had bought bikes in Rajasthan as well as one for Nawal Singh, our companion. Nawal Singh named the bikes for the great trains that crossed the Indian Sub continent. Peter's was Mail and mine was Urti Rani (the Flying Queen). Once he took us out through the desert on our bikes to his ancestral home where the Rajput head of the large extended family lived in an ancient medieval castle surrounded by a high wall. A carriage hung from the rafters high above the entrance. I remember meeting this interesting man, who was now the Block Development Officer, on the second level of the castle. By now, it was dark and he sat behind a desk reading about the psychic, Jean Dixon, in a Reader's Digest by kerosene lantern. After our visit, we slept on a clean straw bed on the first level.
I have a bike now. It's name is Urti Rani.
Thursday, July 19, 2012
Sesquicentenial State Park, July 18, 2012
Sesqui can be found off Two Notch Rd. in Columbia near the intersections of interstates 20 and 77. It was built by the Civilian Conservation Corps in 1937, has a lake with canoes and fishing , a dog park, camping, hiking and mountain cycling trails and lots of Canadian Geese.
The ranger suggested I take the 6 mile blue diamond trail and I started out with Boofa before 9:30. "Follow the blue diamonds", she said and I did.
The landscape here is typical of the Sandhills of South Carolina, flat where long ago there was ocean,with white sand, tall pines and scrub oaks. The trail is winding and twisted, covered with a soft blanket of pine needles. It is the kind of land my grandparents lived on in Lancaster County where my cousins and I would take the old pickup and load the younger kids in the back and drive sand roads like this through woods like this. Afterwards we would go to the spring where a dipper gourd hung from a branch and get a sip of the cool clean water.
There were little or no landmarks on this trail and after I had gone more than two hours and passed a tall dead pine where beavers or deer had eaten away a large chunck at knee level, I knew I had been traveling around the same path again. Finally I came out of the woods onto a large trail in front of a sign pointing right saying "bike trail". The problem was I didn't know whether to go left or right.
Along came a hiker with a small gray terrier. Unfortuntately she was also lost. We hiked along together in the direction the sign pointed. Soon we met a gray haired man in a T shirt emblazoned with the word, "Finland". He told us he walks there every day and pointed the way to the park office and water. "Keep walking and lower your cholesterol and blood pressure and then go home and drink a big glass of whiskey," he said.
Mandy, her dog, Daisy and I made it to her car and she drove us farther on to my car, before she drove on to her next destination at Peach Tree Rock. It was noon, we may have gone ten or twelve miles today by accident.
In the car, I turned on the new radiio station, 92.1, The Palm, and heard:
Bless my Heart
Bless my Soul
Didn't think I'd make it to 22 years old.
There must be somebody up above
You got to hold on...
Got so much to do
Aint got much time...
Girl, you got to get back up...
The ranger suggested I take the 6 mile blue diamond trail and I started out with Boofa before 9:30. "Follow the blue diamonds", she said and I did.
The landscape here is typical of the Sandhills of South Carolina, flat where long ago there was ocean,with white sand, tall pines and scrub oaks. The trail is winding and twisted, covered with a soft blanket of pine needles. It is the kind of land my grandparents lived on in Lancaster County where my cousins and I would take the old pickup and load the younger kids in the back and drive sand roads like this through woods like this. Afterwards we would go to the spring where a dipper gourd hung from a branch and get a sip of the cool clean water.
There were little or no landmarks on this trail and after I had gone more than two hours and passed a tall dead pine where beavers or deer had eaten away a large chunck at knee level, I knew I had been traveling around the same path again. Finally I came out of the woods onto a large trail in front of a sign pointing right saying "bike trail". The problem was I didn't know whether to go left or right.
Along came a hiker with a small gray terrier. Unfortuntately she was also lost. We hiked along together in the direction the sign pointed. Soon we met a gray haired man in a T shirt emblazoned with the word, "Finland". He told us he walks there every day and pointed the way to the park office and water. "Keep walking and lower your cholesterol and blood pressure and then go home and drink a big glass of whiskey," he said.
Mandy, her dog, Daisy and I made it to her car and she drove us farther on to my car, before she drove on to her next destination at Peach Tree Rock. It was noon, we may have gone ten or twelve miles today by accident.
In the car, I turned on the new radiio station, 92.1, The Palm, and heard:
Bless my Heart
Bless my Soul
Didn't think I'd make it to 22 years old.
There must be somebody up above
You got to hold on...
Got so much to do
Aint got much time...
Girl, you got to get back up...
Sunday, July 15, 2012
July 14, 2012 Humid at 70 Degrees
Everyone's T-shirts are wet. It has rained every night for a week. Trumpet Vine (Campsis radicans) decorates all the fences along the way with its orange trumpet flowers. There was a trumpet vine in the corner of the stone garage and the fence of my childhood home. My mother said that if a black cloud came up from the direction over the garage then we would have rain. The fence separated our yard from that of the Archers, an older couple who were the only people in town to employ a liveried butler. Mrs. Archer was deathly afraid of our gray Persian cat, Madame Overpuss. One day, Madame Overpuss lay dead on our side of the fence next to a dinner of meat laced with ground glass.
That was when we, my brother and sister and I, began to crawl out our second floor window onto the flat roof and spy on the Archer's butler. We could see him carefully washing Mr. Archer's many used whiskey glasses at the sink beyond the lighted window.
We told each other fantasies of how the butler had murdered Mrs. Archer, usually by serving her a pork chop laced with ground glass.
That was long ago now.
That was when we, my brother and sister and I, began to crawl out our second floor window onto the flat roof and spy on the Archer's butler. We could see him carefully washing Mr. Archer's many used whiskey glasses at the sink beyond the lighted window.
We told each other fantasies of how the butler had murdered Mrs. Archer, usually by serving her a pork chop laced with ground glass.
That was long ago now.
Friday, July 13, 2012
July 12, 2012 Keys to the Past
I found a set of car keys on the trail and later a policeman found yet another set, this one to a black Audi. Both runners got their keys back and drove away with their dogs. I keep my keys attached to my clothes with a big safety pin from the Rock Hill YMCA. The pin has the number of the wire basket they would give you to keep your clothes in while you swam. I remember walking three blocks to the Y at 2:00 pm with my neighbor, Reedy Montgomery in the summer. I was about 12 years old.
A man dressed in dark shirt, heavy long pants, curly hair and granny glasses, toting a large backpack passed me saying,"I stopped smoking in October and gained 52 pounds. I have never weighed this much."
"Keep on walking." I shouted as he passed on by, opened the door of a gold Mercedes, tossed in his pack, got in and disappeared into the traffic.
Along a stretch of old railroad tracks, large colonies of cathedral like Common Mullein (Verbascum thapsus, related to the snapdragon) is flowering yellow blossoms, some 6 feet tall. I found this interesting note in my wildflower fieldbook:
"...an introduced biennial with very velvety leaves, it has long been used for many purposes. Roman soldiers are said to have dipped the stalks in grease for use as torches. The leaves are still used as wicks in some areas. Indians lined their mocassins with the leaves to keep out the cold, and colonists used them in their stockings for the same purpose. A tea made from the leaves was used to treat colds, and the flowers and roots were employed to treat various ailments from earaches to croup. The leaves are sometimes applied to the skin to sooth sunburn and other inflammations."
A man dressed in dark shirt, heavy long pants, curly hair and granny glasses, toting a large backpack passed me saying,"I stopped smoking in October and gained 52 pounds. I have never weighed this much."
"Keep on walking." I shouted as he passed on by, opened the door of a gold Mercedes, tossed in his pack, got in and disappeared into the traffic.
Along a stretch of old railroad tracks, large colonies of cathedral like Common Mullein (Verbascum thapsus, related to the snapdragon) is flowering yellow blossoms, some 6 feet tall. I found this interesting note in my wildflower fieldbook:
"...an introduced biennial with very velvety leaves, it has long been used for many purposes. Roman soldiers are said to have dipped the stalks in grease for use as torches. The leaves are still used as wicks in some areas. Indians lined their mocassins with the leaves to keep out the cold, and colonists used them in their stockings for the same purpose. A tea made from the leaves was used to treat colds, and the flowers and roots were employed to treat various ailments from earaches to croup. The leaves are sometimes applied to the skin to sooth sunburn and other inflammations."
Thursday, July 12, 2012
July 11, 2012 Singing in the Rain
It rained all night and we walked for a while and then it began to rain again and we kept on going.
The crape myrtles are so heavy with blossoms and rain that they are bent nearly to the ground.
Ripe persimmons have been knocked out of the tree. Boofa wanted to attack a black poodle and a weimaraner. I guess he will protect me in case of a poodle and weimaraner attack.
8 miles in the cool morning before work.
The crape myrtles are so heavy with blossoms and rain that they are bent nearly to the ground.
Ripe persimmons have been knocked out of the tree. Boofa wanted to attack a black poodle and a weimaraner. I guess he will protect me in case of a poodle and weimaraner attack.
8 miles in the cool morning before work.
Monday, July 9, 2012
July 8, 2012 Breaking the Six Mile Barrier
The heat wave continues. Certainly you could cook eggs on the sidewalk, but walking at daylight is good. Boofa and I walked 8 miles today by doubling back on the rail trail. We saw another rabbit, a smaller brown one that hopped to and fro and ran into the bushes. The great elk horn shaped clusters of sumac are blooming red and brown. Driving home, I saw men in their wife-beater undershirts sitting on porches drinking giant glasses of iced tea. Late in the day, the thunder rumbled and only a few drops fell. I am nursing along some spouts of lemon grass I bought from the farmer's market. I am not sure how to grow them, but I chop them up and stir fry a teaspoon full with the onions and veggies in a rice stir fry. Tuesday, the heat is supposed to break. So say the weathermen.
Sunday, July 8, 2012
July 7, 2012 Rabbits and Squirrels on the Trail
Boofa has the DNA of a hunting dog. We approached a beautiful brown Albrecht Durer rabbit still as stone (or as Roy Blount, Jr. would suggest in elevating a traditional southern fruit) still as a
watermelon. There are squirrels too, scampering everywhere, but we move on. Today I notice that there is a funeral home, complete with six gleaming white heares, just beside the bicycle store with the backs of the buildings facing the trail. I don't know if it has sprung up overnight like a poison mushroom or if it was always there. The bicycle store has a walking and riding ramp built out the back and onto the trail for people to come and go. Fortunately, the funeral home does not.
It is already 80 degrees at 8:00 am when we leave to go to the farmer's market. A string band is moving from the sun into the shade. Vendors are selling vegetables, fruits, baked goods and essential oil soaps under canopies. There is even a huge man in a stetson with his son from a ranch selling hormone and antibiotic free beef and pork. I buy better boy tomatoes and a bar of mint lavender soap.
And when I get home I make an old fashioned tomato sandwich out of a better boy tomato, white bread and mayonaise. Oh yes, and salt, that's all. It is so good. It is the food of my childhood.
watermelon. There are squirrels too, scampering everywhere, but we move on. Today I notice that there is a funeral home, complete with six gleaming white heares, just beside the bicycle store with the backs of the buildings facing the trail. I don't know if it has sprung up overnight like a poison mushroom or if it was always there. The bicycle store has a walking and riding ramp built out the back and onto the trail for people to come and go. Fortunately, the funeral home does not.
It is already 80 degrees at 8:00 am when we leave to go to the farmer's market. A string band is moving from the sun into the shade. Vendors are selling vegetables, fruits, baked goods and essential oil soaps under canopies. There is even a huge man in a stetson with his son from a ranch selling hormone and antibiotic free beef and pork. I buy better boy tomatoes and a bar of mint lavender soap.
And when I get home I make an old fashioned tomato sandwich out of a better boy tomato, white bread and mayonaise. Oh yes, and salt, that's all. It is so good. It is the food of my childhood.
Friday, July 6, 2012
July 5, 2012 The Heat Goes On
Even in the early morning, it is hot to walk. Every day the temperature breaks the record. We met the lady who walks 8 miles a day and she had begun her walk at 6:20 am.
Peter and I were married on July 5, 1966 in the Catholic Church in New Delhi, India. It was also a very hot day. We spent the night in the International Hotel where the Beatles had stayed the year before and then the next night we rode the train to the hill station of Mussori in the Himalayas. When the clouds parted, you could see Anna Purna.
For the wedding, I wore a white hand woven short dress with mirrors embroidered into it and a yellow glass bracelet that a seller had massaged onto my arm in the bazaar. I couldn't get it off until I tripped and fell on my honeymoon and it broke. In Mussori, we met a fortune teller who told Peter that he would be a king and live by a river.
Peter and I were married on July 5, 1966 in the Catholic Church in New Delhi, India. It was also a very hot day. We spent the night in the International Hotel where the Beatles had stayed the year before and then the next night we rode the train to the hill station of Mussori in the Himalayas. When the clouds parted, you could see Anna Purna.
For the wedding, I wore a white hand woven short dress with mirrors embroidered into it and a yellow glass bracelet that a seller had massaged onto my arm in the bazaar. I couldn't get it off until I tripped and fell on my honeymoon and it broke. In Mussori, we met a fortune teller who told Peter that he would be a king and live by a river.
Monday, July 2, 2012
July 1, 2012 We're Having a Heat Wave
The walkers were out this morning by 7:00 am. A bow legged man passed by me wiping his neck with a towel, "It's ghastly, isn't it?" he said. By afternoon, it was 107 degrees, the hottest it has ever been here in recorded history. And the cicadas knew it. They are here and they are blasting their song. In the night, violent thunder erupted breaking the red hot bowl of the sky and releasing blessed cool rain with hail and fallen trees.
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