October 24, 2013 Paddling the Beaufort River

At 7:00 am, we walk down to the trestle and see the sunrise in all its splendor over the golden marshes.

On the way to the river, we stop at Old Sheldon Church where once I met Bill Campbell tending family graves.  He told me that he had met his wife, a Scottish Macdonald in India during the 2nd World War, how she was also related to William Tecumseh Sherman. Laughingly, he related how the Macdonalds had invited the Campbells over for dinner and murdered them and how Sherman had burned  down the old Sheldon church.

During the Revolution, the British had indeed burned down the church.  It was rebuilt and some believe that it was burned by Sherman in the Civil War. More recently, some think that it was merely torn apart by the residents nearby who had no fuel to burn to keep them warm in the days during and after the war.

Now only the brick columns stand in the deep woods, like a Southern Stonehenge, a tribute to a spiritual past.   Still, once a year on the Sunday after Easter, a service is held here.

Then, geared up in our life vests, gloves, hats, and sandals, we launched from the marina right into the Beaufort River. A barge and tug boat sailed nearby on its way out to sea. We paddled down river and under the bridge to Parris Island.

We were saluted by dolphins.

At Fort Fremont (a Spanish American War relic), we took out to look around.  I caught my sandal in the kayak seat and fell backwards into the water's edge.  Actually it felt good as the day had brightened and heated up.  I laughed.  Now I was truly baptized in the holy waters of the Beaufort River with the dolphins in attendance.  And I am changed forever.

Octber 23,2013 Paddling the Combahee

Early  morning put in at the Combahee (pronounced 'Combee' by the locals).  The Combahee is the "C" in ACE Basin, the three river estuary of the Ashepoo, the Combahee and the Edisto, an 18,000 acre wildlife refuge.

We paddled upstream with a 20 mph headwind for about an hour.  The day is bright and clear, cool (66'). I have a green kayak today, longer, sleeker and faster.  The Combahee is a fresh water river with salt underneath and is effected by tides as it flows through the oak, pine and cypress forest.  My brother, Buddy, has fished this river and tells me that even if you are sailing with the tide, you must go faster than the tide is moving and it can be a wild ride.

No alligators today.  Ring necked King Fishers skim back and forth over the water.  Turtles bask on fallen logs and suddenly, there is a flock of 30 to 40 white Ibis careening above us and alighting into the trees, then walking single file along the bank.  These blueways (or more accurately black or brown ways) have been called "The Atlantic Flyway" or the bird highway in the sky as there are countless avian species living here or moving through.

After a picnic lunch, we continue upriver as far as the estate, "Auld Brass" designed by Frank Lloyd Wright and now owned by the Hollywood producer, Joel Silver.  He has exotic animals living on the grounds and I remember about five years ago reading in the Waterboro news paper of his escaped rhino being hit by a car on a country road.  We could see only the green roofed dockside gazebo also designed by Wright.

We turned around and paddled downriver, past our put in, under bridges and turn around again at Public Park.  We have traveled 9.2 miles today.

October 22, 2013 Paddling Cuckhold Creek

In the early morning, we launched our kayaks downstream against the tide. A bald eagle flew across the sky above us, a welcome, a good omen.  All day it was cool and now and then a few rain drops would fall.
We saw small alligators, red winged blackbirds, terns, egrets, ibis and two osprey nests.

We paddled through old rice canals ringed with glorius brilliant sulfur yellow swamp flowers (which might be called swamp coriopsis). It was incredible to float there in a kind of round pond in the middle of the flower ringed marsh grass, a secret paradise.

Returning, the bald eagle watched us take out from his perch high in a dead tree.

In the old days, rum runners, armed with guns, drove their boats through this creek in the dead of night with their contraband loads of liquor, sometimes escaping the sheriff and sometimes being ambushed and caught red handed.

October 21, 2013 Paddling Boyd Creek

Last night I watched a full yellow moon rise in a deep blue buttermilk sky over the marshes at Knowles Island.  Far across the way I could see the rotating light on the Hunting Island lighthouse.

I have canoed before, but this is my first experience of kayaking.  We loaded up and drove to Boyd Creek. I had a fat baby blue kayak which seemed to want to drift to the right. I kept going into the spartina grass. Our leaders demonstrated a T rescue.

At noon, we put out at a picnic shelter and had our bag lunches which we had packed earlier.  Back into the creek and finally out at a place called Saltzberg, stacked the kayaks on the trailer and drove back muddy and wet and happy.

My upper arms and shoulders ached. We threw our clothes in the washer and sank into hot baths.

I sat on the balcony watching the green, gold, and brown grasses, the marsh, the water.  Aaaah.

Note:  Bill Hamel, Master Naturalist and One of "The Pinckney Island Wildlife Preserve honored Seven" is a volunteer who tends to and keep the Preserve open.  He tells about Port Royal Sound  watershed and the visisitudes of low country estuaries, the destruction humans have done to the sacred salt marshlands and black water salty fingers of water.

Boyd Creek travels into Jasper County where there is great poverty.  Next to Jasper is Beaufort County with Paris Island Marine Base, and Hilton Head and other islands where the very wealthy vacation.

November 19, 2013 Ninety-Six National Historic Site

Amazingly, I have come here by chance on the 238th anniversary to the day of the Nov. 19, 1775 of the first major land battle of the American Revolution in the South in which  1,900 loyalists attacked 600 patriots  on this very spot ending in a truce after 2 days.  The ranger tells me that Ninety-Six was the spot in the Upstate that the British wanted to control as it was the intersection of trading routes.  It had been so since the Cherokee Nation forged the first trails from Keowee (near Clemson) to Charleston, Augusta, Camden and elsewhere
(as those places are known now).

I get here from Columbia, up I-26, exit 74 for highway 34.  I cross the uprivers of the Bush and the Saluda before they reach Columbia, wide and roaring.  I cross Wilson Creek. In the small neat town of Ninety-six I take 248 for 2 miles to the Site.

Here the Island Ford Trail and the Cherokee Trail are deeply sunken into the ground from the hundred's of years' use.

I take the paved walk through the woods to the Star Fort (a star shaped earth bunker) with a snaking walk around it.  It is almost totally silent with only the wind in the trees and the rattling of leaves above the place where many died and in the woods where many are sleeping under the ground.  At the end of the Star Fort trail, the Gouedy Trail enters the woods.  There is the stone grave marker of James Gouedy who ran a trading post here.  The trail is marked with yellow blazes, but I lost it along a still silent creek with dark cloudy water.  I find it again and meet a couple from Seattle entering the woods.

Two local women out for exercise, tell me to take the gravel road at the entrance to the Star Fort trail and follow it through the woods until I come to a small field on the right.  Turn there to the left and a short walk takes you to a steel blue pond with ducks floating on its surface.  There is a fishing access trail off to the left.
There are other trails which the women tell me not to take as they are not marked well.

The war was already turning in favor of the patriots in May of 1781 when General Greene and his troops attacked the loyalist stronghold at Star Fort in Ninety-Six.  There were many casualties on both sides. Green withdrew his troops and British General Cruger abandoned the fort and burned the village to the ground.

I return home by taking highway 246 to highway 72 at Coronava and then left on 221 which finally becomes Church street in Spartanburg.  Between Waterloo and Maddens I pass the big Crenshaw's store which has hundreds of cow skulls and bones on the roof.  I think it must be a butcher shop.

Soon I am crossing Lake Greenwood, dark blue and gleaming. On the far is side a Sunoco station with a Subway.  It is most probably the Subway with the greatest view in the world, as it's tables overlook the wide lake.  You can also sit outside on the deck and the gas station has all of the fishing supplies you would ever need.

My trip on the back roads through the small towns takes me past nearly abandoned old main streets now filled with antique shops and rows of pansies for sale.  As I pass the lovely old two and three story houses with big generous porches, I think of going to live in a small town in one of those old houses and drinking a mint julep (I have never had a mint julep) on the porch on a hot summer evening with the fans ticking overhead.

The name, "Ninety-Six" is somewhat of a mystery, but one theory is that the old Indian trail from Keowee, near the present town of Clemson, was an exact distance of 96 miles.

Captain John Blakeney of Chesterfield County on Lynches River fought in the Revolution. I do not know whether he fought at Ninety-Six.  A young man in his regiment named John Welsh married his daughter, Jane and he was able to buy 3,500 acres from Frances Marion, the Swamp Fox, in Lancaster County to homestead.
However at the age of 65, Captain Blakeney, John Welsh and his wife Jane and their son William loaded up and began the long walk to Alabama. William became ill on the way and returned home to Lancaster County.  He was our family's forebear.  The rest of the family continued on and became among the original founders of Marion, Alabama.

November 18, 2013 Where is Betty?

The system that yesterday drove over 60 tornados across the upper midwest demolishing small towns and killing six, has granted us a warm day with a washed blue sky, breathable air on the trail.

A small group of walkers has gathered to ask where is Betty, the small white haired lady who walks the trail twice every morning, the champion walker of us all.  She has been missing for three weeks.  None of us knows how to find her.

We hope she has gone to Epcot for a vacation.  She has a gray hoodie with the name, Epcot on it.

November 11, 2013 Lee State Park "What Rough Beast?"

You can easily get there from I-20 (exit 123, go one mile north and turn left) but I came up from Turbeville ( where last night I attended Shane's coming of age event), first a short stretch on I-95 North and then to Hwy 341 West where the land is flat as a friddle, cotton ready to harvest, corn fields replanted with frilly green mystery plants, clumps of tall hardwood around low comfortable homes with porches on three sides.  A man walking across a field lifts a single finger wave.
I pass the South Lynchberg Presbyterian church and cemetery, founded in 1854, then Lynchberg with old Southern homes and an abandoned main street.  Then more fields and churches and in one wide flat field, a miniature Victorian palace with peeling white paint, lonely and empty now, dogs sitting sentry at the end of long dirt driveways.  It is early morning.

I cross I-20 after following a series of signs for the park and turns, then turn right, then left and I am there.

There is a forest of tall oaks dripping Spanish moss, not like the oaks of the low country, but thrusting higher into the morning sky.

I take the board walk trail first, through the flood plain of Lynch's River, the river of my mother's childhood, the name that has lingered in my mind, but I had never seen it.

On the boardwalk, signs tell the history of the broken and fallen hardwoods, clipped off by Hurricane Hugo in 1989.  It is a paradise for animals and birds, green frogs, anoles and five kinds of woodpecker, the redheaded woodpecker predominating.

Then I take a trail around the artisan ponds and find the small shell of a yellow slider back turtle which I put in my pocket to take to James.

The ranger, Frederick S., tells me to take the 5 mile Loop trail where the sign says: Road Closed.  I am overwhelmed by its' beauty.  Along the twisting Lynches River, the bending trees, still leafed with green and yellow, are lacy with early morning sun filtering through them.  It is magical. I feel as if I have gone to another time, another place, another universe.  But there are prints of horses hoaves on the dirt road and after a couple of miles I leave the river banks and come to a large trap on the edge of the woods, big enough for a black bear or even big foot.  It's door is open, but I see no bait.  I consider myself alone in the woods with a creature big enough for this six foot square, four foot in height trap.  It is a sobering thought.  I pass on through the back side of another gate that warns "Road Closed" in the direction I have come.

Soon I come to the youth camp where a group of Royal Rangers and their leaders have spent two nights.
A leader tells me he grew up in the Woods Bay swamp not far from here.

On down the road pairs of horses and riders begin meeting me, four pairs in all.  Next I come upon the
Equestrian camps, then the riding ring, and then the regular camp sites.
I find a dead green green snake on the road, still in perfect shape.  I will also take this to James.

Back at the office, Frederick S. tells me that the trap is for a wild pig or boar. "I will not bait it this holiday weekend (Veteran's Day is Monday) when the park is so full.  We do put the pigs down, but we do it without unnecessary pain to them and we give them away for food to people who ask for them."

I stop at Wendy's off I-20 towards Columbia and order fries and a small frosty.  I am back in what is my real world now.  A young man in line tells me about the 12 mile Mud Run obstacle course he has run. He has a ribbon with a medal around his neck.

On the car radio, there is a discussion of the films of Andy Warhol, five hours of a sleeping person, eight hours of the empire state building.

Worlds collide.

Note: Lee State Park was built by the CCC , called the Tree Army,  under Roosevelt as part of the New Deal in the Great Depression.  It's name comes from Robert E. Lee, in Lee County, SC.

November 5, 2013 Seiquicenteniel State Park Loop Trail

8:30 am and it is clear and cold, not freezing yet, however.  As I walk over the foot bridge, 18 mallards paddle swiftly under it.  There are eight glossy green headed males and ten camouflagued  females, now dipping their heads down into the lake for morsels for breakfast.

The Canadian Geese rouse up from their night time beds on the shore, unfurling their rounded necks and glide soundlessly out onto the silver surface.

November 3, 2013 Jones Gap Standing Room Only

I went up 290 through Greer, past blazing maples and at times getting a glimpse of the ancient rounded by wind, rain and snow, peaks of the Appalachian mountains.  I got on 25 which goes from Greenville to Ashville, then 11, the Cherokee Scenic Highway and turned right at the F-Mart, advertising Food, Knives and Hamburgers from a sign on the roof.  This is Gap River Road and it snakes alongside of the rocky Middle Saluda River until you reach the park on the escarpment of the mountains. (You can also reach hwy 11 from I-26 between Asheville and Spartanburg, go West).

A glorius day, golden beams of sunlight reaching behind and through the dappled canopy of burning yellow leaves above.  It is the height of the fall leaf viewing season.

There is a line of cars at the entrance with two rangers directing traffic.  They say that there is parking in the park for only about 40 cars (there is handicapped and camping parking as well at the top of the drive), so that when full, we have to wait until cars come out before we go in.  I am the thirteenth car.  Now and then a car drives slowly out.  I walk the dog and meet a couple from Texas with a little boy learning to walk.  We wait and wait. Soon I notice people are opening up their picnic lunches and enjoying fried chicken and brownies from the back of their cars.  People are patient, however. Now and then a car turns around and leaves. (You cannot park down the road and walk in, not unless you live there.).  Finally, a gold SUV drives out of the park and I am in!  It has been an hour and 15 minutes, but it is worth it.

Jones Gap was originally Cleveland Fish Hatchery and there is still a stone basin of trout, rainbow, brown and brook swimming peacefully around and around.

You can take the long trail from here to Caesar's Head, but I chose the Hospital Rock Trail which is 4.4 miles long. I pass primitive campsites, one with a lone camper sitting by his fire.  The trail is blocked due to mud slides from the wet summer so I turn back.

The ranger tells me that Hospital Rock, by legend, is so called because wounded Confederate soldiers camped there in secret. The rock juts out for shelter and there is a stream nearby. They tended each other''s wounds.

He told me another story told to him by a landowner nearby of a solitary grave on the mountain.  He tells that there were two Confederate deserters caught here. They were given the choice of being executed either on the mountain or down at the Baptist church.  One grave remains here on the mountain.

The ranger says that at this time of year, Caesar's Head and Table Rock also have lines of cars waiting to get in.  In a few weeks, I will visit Caesar's Head, early in the morning.

November 2, 2013 Sumter National Forest A Single Shot

Today near Abbeville,  a hunter on the ground was shot and killed by a hunter in a tree stand.

October 29, 2013 Rose Hill, Two Roads Diverged in a Yellow Wood

Rose Hill Plantation can be reached from Hwy 176 in Union, SC by turning  southeast on Sardis Road and traveling through the country for about 12 miles.  I reached it from Hwy 176 between Whitmire and Union following signs through the Sumter National Forest where the trees are turning yellow and orange and red. From there it is about 7 miles.

All at once, the forest is decimated by commercial timber companies.  The remaining gray trunks and branches of trees lie abandoned on the ground like a moonscape.  Then, on the right, a new forest of pine is growing.

In forest again along the way there are red pick up trucks parked driverless in turnoffs.  It is still hunting season.

The plantation house is on the right, surrounded by tended gardens of sassanqua, roses and boxwood.
The fragrance of the boxwood floats on the air.  I have toured this antebellum house in the past.  I remember the second floor ballroom with two pianos.  There is a slave cabin and a kitchen outback, another cabin with restrooms and another with the ranger office and gift shop.  This was the home of the Secessionist Governor, William Gist.  No one is around.

I finally find the one lonely ranger who is getting ready to go to lunch.  I am carrying an orange T-shirt to wear on the trails so that I will not be mistaken for a deer.  The ranger tells me that it is probably safe to walk the short nature trail on the state park site property, but the .9 mile spur down to the Tyger River is on Sumter National Forest land and the hunters are out there.  She tells me to come back in January or February when hunting season is over.

I take my orange T shirt and leave, trying to remember the poem,

The Road Not Taken

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that, the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Ye knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I-
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

Robert Frost

October 27, 2013 "Picnic with Bears"

The "Baers" are my extended family.  We had our annual fall picnic in my birthplace of Rock Hill at Manchester Fields.  A Southeastern league girls' lacrosse tournament is going on with hundreds of cars.
We picnic at the shelter beside the playground.

There is a lovely trail just short enough for a stroll which is part of the Carolina Threads Trail.  I took Zipper, the Cairn-Yorkie terrier belonging to Hanah and Patrick, Liza and Sergey, over the bridge and into the woods. The trail branch on the left ended at the Olive Garden Restaurant very shortly.  We went back and took the right branch which circled a small lake surrounded with oranamental sweet grass (the kind sweet grass baskets are made of by the descendants of slaves from Sierra Leonne in Charleston).  The grass is now in pink fluffy bloom.  Nearby there is a picnic shelter with 18 tables and restrooms along the side.
The trail loops back to the playground area, but another branch circles the entire park with all of its playing fields.

The Carolina Threads Trails is an ongoing project linking North Carolina and South Carolina greenways, trails and blueways, now extending through 15 counties for 132 miles, an effort to preserve and protect the natural environment while making it accessible to the public.

October 17, 2013 The Seasons are Confused

Out of season, crab apple trees are blooming their fragile pink blossoms, but along the trail branches reach out  offering orange  persimmons just on schedule. Don't eat them raw, we were told as children, or they will make your mouth "pucker up".

Here is a recipe for Persimmon Pone from the "Granny's Old Time and Modern Cookbook"

Persimmon Pone

2 or 3 eggs
1/2 cup milk
1/2 cup sugar
persimmons.

Take seeds out of persimmons. Beat eggs, add milk then sugar.  Put in pan and bake like a cake at 350' until done.

The origin of the word, "pone" is perhaps lost to history now.  I tend to believe it is of African origin due to the people I knew who were using it, but it could also be of English and of Algonquian languages initially.
It means a pudding, not necessarily sweet, and often refers to a cornpone baked cake.

October 8, 2913 The Columbia Canal

A gloomy morning on the banks of the canal, soot gray layered clouds like blankets above, a chill breeze, few walkers and runners, a dark hollowed eyed bearded man pulling his bag laden bike up the slope.  Not a single water bird on the rocks of the Congaree, only a feeble tweet now and then from the bushes.

Returning, I notice the tree dedicated to Dr. Andrew Bowling with the inscription on a stone:

"For he shall be like a tree planted by the waters, that spreadeth out her roots by the river, and shall not see when heat cometh, but her leaf shall be green, and shall not be careful in the year of drought, neither shall cease from yielding fruit."  Jeremiah 17:8

October 6, 2013 Falls Park, Greenville, SC

The sassanquas have pink bloom; pyracanthia berries are turning orange, then red; the fragrance of  Tea Olive is in the air again since Spring and trees are dropping their seeds and nuts to the ground.  The remains of a hurricane will be coming up from the Gulf tomorrow, but today is a day out of time with indigo sky, cotton clouds and temperatures in the low 80's.

Eleanor and Mathew, Hannah, Sergey and Liza and I spent the afternoon, walking up and down Main St, eating Azeteca food at a table on the street, eating gummy bears from The Mast General Store, counting the little bronze mice along the way.  A walk for the homeless was winding around the park, many of the walkers wearing gold T-shirts, a reminder that just beyond this lovely place filled with the beautiful and well dressed, were the unbeautiful, the unwashed, the unsane and the unfed.

We met a couple dressed in Superman T-shirts and capes, walking their red Chow and their black Lab who were also dressed in Superman T-shirts and capes.  Sergay kept saying "I want a chow-chow".  Liza is still wearing an orange cast on her left arm which she broke skate boarding.  Mathew, Sergey and Liza climb over the rocks near the water and watch young men trying to walk a bungie cord they have stretched across a pool.

Hannah bought halloween hats for Liza, Sergay, Mathew at Publix and Eleanor and Mathew gave us beaded bracelets with little pink skulls Mathew's classes made for an art fair at his school.

Lucille's Pecan Pie

1 uncooked pie shell
1/2 stick butter
1 cup light brown sugar
2 eggs
2 T milk
1 1/2 T plain flour
1 tsp vanilla
1 cup pecans (break up)

Cook at 350' for 30 minutes
I making two pies, cook at 325' for about 50 or 55 minutes

October 2, 2013 Aiken State Park "The Jungle Trail"

From Columbia, I took I-20 towards Aiken/Augusta, got off at exit 33 South on hwy 39 to Wagener (14 miles), then turned right at Kent Korner gas station at the stop light. Bear to the right onto hwy 302. Go for about 8 miles past horse farms named "Broken Arrow" and "Hidden Creek". There is cotton in the fields ready for harvest. Bag worms are in the branches of small trees. The road is framed by pines and giant oaks turning vertigris and bronze now.  Go through Kitchings Mill, stop at the four way and go across and you will be on State Park Road. The entrance is on your right.

The Park Manager, Robert Mahoney, was there and told me an interesting story about how big logs were floated down the Edisto to the lumber mills, but many sank to the bottom.  The solution was to wrap rubber tires around the logs and have men swim with them down the river.  Some of those logs were used by the CCC to build the camp.  This CCC group was African American.  There are four artesian lakes and three artesian wells for drinking water.

I took the 3 mile Jungle Trail, a foot path through the forest, as beautiful as any I have seen. There are signs noting the wildlife including the Barred Owl, famous for it's call "Who Cooks for You? Who Cooks for You All?".  The Similax vine has been cut back along the way so that hikers do not have to be caught by its barbs.  It is also called "Catbrier" due to its cat like scratches that rip the skin of the unobservant.

At the crest of the trail is a short turn off to the put in of the Canoe Trail on the South Fork of the Edisto. Here there is the artesian fountain made of rocks spouting clear water to the left and right. I tasted it and it had a clear metallic flavor.  Red, blue and orange canoes are here to put in, Thursday, Sunday and Monday at 10 am, noon and 3 pm and on Friday and Saturday at 10 am , noon and 2 pm.  It is a one and 3/4 mile float down river and you take out and leave the canoe on standards. If you just drift with the current it takes 3 hours and if you paddle, it can be much shorter.  The cost is $15.00 a canoe for this lazy trip through paradise.

There is camping in a cleared pine area with bathroom facilities or primitive camping along the river with fire rings and privies.  You can fish  and you can swim in one of the deep, dark luminous green green artesian pools (no life guard).

I left the park, my radio tuned to KRX Oldies singing "Cause you've got:...

Personality
walk personality
talk personality
smile personality
charm personality
love personality
plus you've got
a great big heart!
So over and over
I'll be a fool for you.." -Livingston Taylor

On Hwy 39, I discover this road was once called "Old Ninety-Six Indian Trail" and later I pass Indian Trail Country Club.  I drive up through Batesburg-Leesville and on hwy 391 to the lovely small town of Prosperity on the same road once traveled by the early inhabitants of this land.

Post Script: At night, I found I had many many itching insect bites, so use your repellent generously here, it is buggy.

September 29, 2013 Cheraw State Park "Our Happy Ever After"

Now it is fall.  I caught SC highway 9 at Jonesville and drove through Lockhart, Chester, Lancaster, Buford, Pageland, Mt Croghan, and Ruby to the outskirts of Chesterifeld and in  Cheraw turned rt at the CVS onto Hwy 52 for 3 to 4 miles and the park is on the right.

The  roadside is full of showy, sweet goldenrod. The still green fields are dotted with fat round bales of straw and hay.  The corn has been mowed down and lies tattered on the ground.  There is a deep high cobalt sky with puffy gray clouds turning as white as cotton.  I drove a long way, almost 150 miles. There were three dead  deer, three run over raccoons, a white cat, a spotted black and white cat, a possum and a live beaver on the side of the road.  There, I spotted a bunch of rabbit tobacco, whose dried gray leaves we would roll into a piece of newspaper and go out to the gully behind our grandparents house and smoke.
And their farm was just here nearby in the place called Pleasant Plain.
This is an area of great beauty, forested with hard wood and pine, crossed by Lynches River. It is Sunday morning and in this Bible Belt community, the Mt Croghan Flea Market is going full steam under the sheltering oaks. In Ruby, there is another flea market and a sign for "Frog Legs".  "Polecat BBQ" is here too.

Cheraw is an Indian word, or a corruption of an Indian word.  These native people were called Xuala, Suali and Saraw by European explorers.  It is thought the tribe originated in the place in the mountains east of Asheville called Sualy Mountain and that they were once called Sualy.  Cheraw probably comes from the Suoian language.  The word is now lost to time as are the Cheraw peoples themselves.  Their survivors were probably incorporated into the Catawba.  Watching the kayaks and canoes floating, dipping and gently shoshing on Lake Juniper, I thought of them in this the land they believed belonged only to God.  There is a 1.9 mile boardwalk circling the end of the lake. Along side it, water lilies are blooming.  Someone has written in chalk on the first boards of the walk:

"Our Happy Ever After"

Foofa and I walked the 4.5 mile Turkey Oak Trail, accessed by driving past the golf course, and modern golf club certified by the Internat'l Audubon Society as a Wildlife Sanctuary.  There are fox squirrels there.
They love the cleared pine needled floor of the White Pine and Loblolly Pine Forest, especially the golf course.  There is a 2 mile short loop of the trail but then you would miss the stand of hollow trees where the endangered Red Cockaded Woodpeckers live (I heard them but I did not see them). You would miss the lookout over the Cypress Wetlands of Lake Juniper.  But you might see deer, a timber rattler, or you might see Blue Flag irises in the Spring or rose pogonia orchids in the summer.

The longer trail is well marked with white blazes, but somehow I got off the white sandy path and wandered around until I could see the manicured green grass of the golf course. Then I found my way up the road to my car.

I would like to come back and spend the night in one of the cabins and go on a moonlight canoe float which they hold year round when the moon is full, departing before dark and traveling to the headwaters, then returning by moonlight.

September 9, 2013 Deepdene Park

Deepdene Park is the largest of five parks of the Olmstead Linear Parks greenway in DeKalb County, GA.
The four other parks are pastoral. This one is true to its name, Deepdene which means a deep narrow wooded valley of a small river.  There is not actually a river, but winding streams with granite bridges wind through it.  Deepdene is also the name of a famous diamond.  The neighborhood of Druid Hills (where Driving Ms Daisy was filmed) borders the park on one side.  The CDC is nearby.

Frederick Law Olmstead designed the Linear Parks in 1893.  He believed that emersion in our beautiful natural environments is essential to our mental health, from the cares and worries of daily life to serious mental disorders, that healing is found here.

Eleanor, Ryan, Mathew and I walked here after dinner. Mathew had Foofa on the leash.  We saw the tallest tree in the park, a 181 ft. tulip poplar.  We saw a white poodle and a Corgy and a 7 month old Springer Spaniel.

There are 295 acres in Deepdene park.

September 8, 2013 South Carolina Botanical Gardens at Clemson

From I-85, it is only 9 miles to the garden. Take exit 19-B to Highway 76 (Clemson Blvd).  Pass Palmetto Moonshine (the first legal Moonshine in SC) with goats on the roof, next to the red painted Charlie T's Wings and Fingers.  You will be in Sandy Springs.  Soon there are orange Tiger Paws painted on the very floor of the highway, BBQ The Smoking Pig is on the right. Pass over Three and Twenty Creek, then by Tiger Financial and Tiger Paw Storage.  You are in Pickins County. The Armory is on the right and the entrance to the garden is off Perimeter Rd on the left.

Do not try to go there on a game day unless you are already safely there with one hundred thousand other people who are dressed in orange Clemson T-shirts.  On this day, the game had been the day before and Clemson's opponent was overcome by 52 to 7.

At the head of the park are stone walls, benches, restrooms and a red caboose (erected by the class of  '39).
From there you have access to the trails that go past the Hanover House (a building from the 1700's moved from the Midlands when the Santee/Cooper Dam displaced it) , and  the Hayden House (a small conference center).  I did all this backwards by starting on a trail with a closed gate back near the parking lot behind the geology museum.  This lovely wooded trail had other trails sprouting from it. Foofa and I wandered around and passed nut trees with their fruits covering the ground, dark mahogany colored hickory nuts bursting from their spiky shells.  We came out at the Koi pond where fat orange (of course orange) koi floated beneath the surface like gentle submarines.

September 7, 2013 Honey Locust Beer and Boykin Spaniels

A beautiful cool Saturday morning with high white clouds and silver blue sky. I met a man with a little puppy, a deep molasses brown Boykin Spaniel. It is interesting that this registered small hunting dog, now renowned for it's water and land retrieval abilities, had an ancester who was a stray found just blocks away near the Presbyterian Church in Spartanburg.  The man who found him called him "Dumpy" and gave him to his friend Whit Boykin of the Camden area who needed a dog that was light and compact enough to fit in a boat for hunting on Lake Wateree.  Dumpy's progeny are now history, the breed, the Boykin Spaniel.

Along the way, I see the long pulpy legumes hanging from the Honey Locust Tree.  The old people used to make Locust beer from the pulp. (There is a Black Locust Tree whose legumes are poisonous.  I do not know where it grows So beware.)

Locust Beer from the Old Time and Modern Cookbook:

Locust Beans       Sugar             Water

"Get locust and break up and put in a wood barrel.  Take a handful of broomstraw and put pieces crisscross in different layers in the bottom of the barrel like a rail fence.  Put the locust on top of the broom straw and pour boiling water over them.  Add a quart of sugar. Tie a cloth on top of the barrel.  When that sours, take out everything and strain through a thin flour sack."

People " used to drink locust beer with persimmon pone .... the locust beer was real pretty, the color of broomstraw and kind of like the beer they drink today.  Persimmons can also be put into the locust beer.  Put them on the bottom on top of the broomstraw."

September 1, 2013 The Figs Are Ripe

Before walking, I go out and pick the figs, wash them and cover them with lots of sugar in a big bowl.

On the Cottonwood trail, there are so many flowers blooming and I cannot identify them:

The tall now pokeweed has purple berries,
A thin and graceful 4 ft high plant is blooming in the shade with orange purse-pocket shaped blossoms
There is a plant in the sun, seven feet tall with pink/purple blossoms like the thistle but without thorns,
A deep purple blossomed plant rises on the shore of the wetlands with many branches, six feet tall.
The  brilliant colored zinnias someone has planted are turning brown.

At home, my butterfly bushes are full of lavender blossoms and full of butterflies.

How to make fig preserves:

Go out at dawn before the birds get to the figs.
If you have a tree all the better but it takes a number of years to bear fruit.
Otherwise, hide your car and wear camouflage.
Wash the figs and put in a large bowl.
Cover the figs with much sugar and let sit overnight.
The next morning, the sugar will have dissolved and the figs will have leaked into the sugar.
Pour them into a pot and bring to a boil (do not add anything)
The mixture will at first be red.
Turn heat down and simmer, cooking until the mixture turns a nice red/brown and thickens.
This takes a while, so be patient.
You may mash up the figs or you may leave them whole, whichever you prefer.
Pour the preserves into sterilized jars and lids.
You may then process the jarred preserves in a water bath.

Excellent on toast.

August 28, 2013 Let Freedom Ring

Walking on the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington, I pass by the gospel lady who is wearing ear phones and singing a soft and mournful song. Closer I can hear it is "We Shall Overcome".

A little girl with her father is picking flowers.  I pick some grape cluster shaped kudzu blossoms and give them to her.

The bicycle rider passes by just chanting one time, "Walking the Dog" but not singing it.

I the car, I listen to parts of the "I had a dream" speech, ending with "Let Freedom Ring....Free at Last, Great God Almighty, Free at Last".

Then Pete Seeger singing his version of "We shall Overcome" and then Patti Griffin's "Up To the Mountain", the MLK song.

Lake Wateree State Park, August 27, 2013 Desportes Island Nature Trail

I drove to Wateree State Park from Columbia, up I-77 today, a few miles off the marked exit, near Winsboro in Fairfield County, eight miles south of Great Falls.  It is still summer with Black Eyed Susans along the way, only here and there a tree beginning to turn.  I pass over Taylor's Creek which looks less like a creek than a wide lake, then over a railed spit of land crossing Lake Wateree and you are there.  Pass the brown ranger house on the left with a 3 foot carved rooster on the porch.  Imagine a blob like splayed hand with fingers reaching into the lake.  The office here is open 7 am to 7 pm week days and 7 am to 8 pm on the weekend.  They give you free handfuls of trail mix bars called Mojo and Clif.  There is a long dock with a gas tank for boats, a playground, camping and picnic tables.

I take the Desportes Island Nature Trail which loops around the bloby index finger of the hand. The trail is wide and surrounded by oak, holly, cedar and pine.  Crows are mobbing and arguing, cicadas are singing, invisible insects are stinging now and then.  I can see the fluttering of white wings lifting over the water.

Near the shore, the water is like green olives through glass and farther out like silver, shining in the sun.

Father out on the trail, there is trash, even an old tire.  Still it is quite beautiful.

Leaving the park on Hwy 21 north,  I spot what looks like a yellow squirrel with a ring tail.  I see a big fat wild turkey near a sign for the Piedmont Hunt Club then pass a nicely refurbished black hearse with orange and red flames on the side.  This old road is startling in its rod like straightness.  You can see the road for miles ahead stretching up through the forest on the way to Great Falls where there is a great falls on the Catawba River.

August 18 through 22, 2013 The little Tenderfoot Trail at Cedar Lakes, WV

I walked this little trail above the Cedar Lakes Center several times.  In West Virginia, there are mountains everywhere and so you first must climb up the edge of the mountain on the leafy, rainy, foggy trail which circles two dark green lakes with yellow and brown leaves floating on their surface.  In places the path is very muddy. Last year, I am told, the quilting instructor was bittten by a snake on her heel while on this trail.
So don't wear sandals on hikes.

Unassuming Sarah, who painted beautiful water color flowers at my table, said that the first hiker stirs up the snake and the snake bites the second hiker.  She learned this when walking the entire Appalachian Trail with her husband.  Second only to having children, it was the greatest experience of their lives.  She carried 35 lbs of food, but they mailed packets of food to general delivery along the route. They stayed in the shelters or just in their tents, often finding books left by Trail Angels along the way.  Their children were grown. The husband's company had downsized and he was retired early. She had taught 5th grade for many years and now retired. They decided to cross the full expanse of the United States from California to Maine on bicycle.
Her husband died in a tragic accident along the way.  She climbed to the top of Mount Katahdin in Maine, the terminous of the trail and scattered his ashes.

The fly fishing teacher told me that there was a "geocache" up on the trail, that there was a fallen tree with another fallen log across it and a stone on top of that.  Without a GPS, I searched without results for the cache.  Later he told me that it was about 30 feet off the trail.

I drove back down the magnificent mountains in the fog and rain on Friday. At Tamarak, I gave a woman gas money. She was stranded without gas to get home.   Although the trees and fields are still green and the sky a pale insistent summer blue, there was a wind with yellow leaves swirling down on the road to my house, hinting at fall on its way.

I walked the familiar Rail Trail Saturday morning passing my fellow travelers:
the political refugees from Columbia, the fit Japanese man with the foot shaped running shoes, the attorney with his cell phone to his ear discussing a ruling, the two women and a man from the Phillipines, the home school family on bikes, the jogging girls with their pony tails swaying mightily, the roller bladers, the tall, sturdy New Zealander woman, the elderly woman who walks eight miles a day,  the two handsome gray bearded brothers ambling on  their long legs, the two sisters with dazzling smiles, identical except one is tall and one is short, all the dog walkers and the dogs in the Rail Tail dog park.

Bull Hawg's Barbeque has made a path from their back door to the trail with wooden steps, a bike rack, picnic tables and a sign advertising breakfast bagels.  The biggest lure, however, is the aroma.

Volunteers are cleaning and pruning and have provided a big dry erase board for ideas for the new year.
I suggest "Little Libraries", the kind they have in Decatur, essentially a box on a pole where you can leave books and where you can take books to be your own, if you wish.

Children are returning to school.  Everywhere on the edges of the woods, Confederate Jasmine vine is blooming.

July 28, 2013 Sadler's Creek State Park, Muscadines and Relentless Optimism

Such a beautiful Sunday, a very fine day with the temperatures in the high 80's and low 90's.  Everything is still deep summer green and not the scorched brown as in the past years of drought when the temperature in July was usually at least 100 degrees.  I am on my way to Decatur to stay with Martin and Mathew and to have supper at Chai Pani on Ponce de Lione Street, walking distance from their house.  Here and in Decatur, the Crape Myrtles are in full exuberant bloom, pink, red, tropicanna, watermelon , white and old fashioned purple like the one in my yard I planted some years ago on July 26 , my sister's birthday in her honor.

After Anderson, take exit 14 and go south on the Heritage Corridor of Rivers and Lakes, SC Hwy 187.
Soon I am crossing the Calvin Wesley Belcher Bridge which curves across wide shining Lake Hartwell.
On the right is Pearl Harbor Rd, Mohawk Rd and then a large shopping center area where the highway takes me right out into the countryside.  It is about 14 miles from I-85 to Sadler's Creek. Just before I get to the sign for Sadler's Creek Road on my right, I see Sadler's Creek BBQ, a gigantic establishment on the left, open on Saturdays.

If you could fly above the park, you would see a peninsula jutting into the lake, looking like a short narrow tube expanding into a big round balloon, a lovely forrested place which has 37 campsites and a picnic pavilion and trails. There is a .5 mile nature trail as well as a 5.4 mile trail through the woods.  I take the 5.4 mile trail which is well cared for and shaded.  I step from the real world with a surge of anticipation into the enchanted forest.  There are nats, a few of which I breathe in. The ranger tells me that you can get a hat with a net veil over your face, but it is hot.  There are hardwoods and pines and many, many muscadine vines, some of which have ripe purple berries dropped to the ground.  On the trail, I stumble upon a folded wad of dollar bills, only a little damp.  These I donate to the park in the big glass jar in the ranger station. People have been here, but I see no one.

The trail winds up and down, here and there coming along the lake shore.  Two white tailed deer leap across the path ahead of me and near the shore I find a piece of driftwood, oddly shaped like deer antlers which I take home with me.

In the car now on the radio, I hear the Sihk mantra:  "Go with Relentless Optimism" .

July 15, 2013 Harbison State Forest: Lost in a Fairy Circle

I dropped off James at Soccer Camp, a little boy sitting beside his water, his snack kit and ball and was reminded of dropping off his father at Clemson long ago and even longer ago the memory of being a small girl at Girl Scout Camp at the scorching hot Police Camp where bullying big girls ruled the scene.

Harbison State Forest was nearby.  You can approach from Harbison off I-26, then turn right on Broad River Rd. The entrance comes up right away.  It costs $5.00 to park or $25.00 for an annual permit.
There are over 30 miles of trails in this pine and hardwood greenspace. One side borders the Broad River with a drop in for canoes and kayaks.  In old times, Native Americans walked on trails here to a ford on the Broad river.  Now hikers, cyclists, dog walkers and bird watchers go here, but no horses.

This was the first day in 17 days when it did not rain. The forest is cool, sparkling with dappled sunlight and spangled with spider webs.  The floor is covered with ferns and countless varieties of mushrooms and toadstools, some are a stunning neon orange, others are as big as saucers.  There are tiny delicate white ones like elf or fairy fingers reaching up from the dark earth.  I see that I have stepped inside a fairy circle of mushrooms.  They said that the fairies may cast a spell on a person who intrudes into their circle.  There are certain rituals to break the spell, such as walking backwards around the outside of the circle 3 times in the light of the full moon.

There is a kiosk with maps of the nine intersecting trails, but I cannot figure out where they begin.  I want to take a short one, but instead I find a trail with white blazes and follow that.  I think I will just walk for 30 minutes and then turn around and go back.  I make small cairns of three rocks here and there to mark my way as there are plentiful areas of white stones nearby.  I find I am on the Firebreak trail and see a sign for the Crooked Pine Trail and Verdan Pond which I take to the right.  When I come to the "pond", I see an open area full of tall reedy grass, but no water, and follow the flagstone path around it.  Soon, the tall grass envelopes the path, but I push on through it as I can see a kiosk on the other side.  There, an arrow points to Crooked Pine Trail.  I take it and see no crooked pine unless it is the tree that has fallen across the entrance.
For a long time, I am walking and come to a sign pointing in both directions for the Firebreak Trail again.
I have no idea which one to take so I take the one where I can see light through the trees as opposed to the dark forest.  Suffice it to say that after a long hike, I returned to my car.

I like this forest very much and will return when I have more time to spare. There are trails named Lost Creek, Eagle, Stewardship, Discovery, Midlands Mountain (near the river) and Spider Woman II which has a natural rock garden.

I wonder if my cairns will be there when I return.  I wonder if I was lost under the spell of the fairies and may have to return on the night of the full moon to walk backwards.  Some say that you can wear a hat or a disguise to fool the fairies, or that you can dress completely in green from head to toe so that they cannot see you.

July 9, 2013 Rac Attack at Cowpens Battleground Nat'l Park

A woman walking the loop trail that I had just walked two days before, reported that a raccoon had come "screaming"  at her from the woods and bit her on the finger.

Rangers have not found the alleged offender.

* Such bites must be reported to the Health Department.

July 7, 2013 Cowpens Battleground Nat'l Park

On this Sunday morning, great water filled gray clouds cross the patchy blue sky.   Bee Balm is growing four feet tall with maroon flowers in gardens along the way. It is 80 degrees and very humid.  Girls in bright summer dresses walk to church in a ray of sunlight.
There is a wide green field with Canadian geese scattered across it.  And there are pastures where the cows are lying down under the clouds.  An archaeologist at Topper once told me that it is a good time to fish when it is cloudy and the cows are lying down in the fields.
I pass the store where one day the owner, Janette, told the shopper, Nanette, that they had the same father. "He was a rounder", my friend said.

Today I took the 3 mile Battleground loop because the woodland and forest trails are extremely muddy from this year's spring and summer of monsoons. The loop is a paved road with a bike and hike shoulder.  You can buy a CD to play as you walk or drive which recounts the history of the battle of January 17, 1781 in which the British were routed by Daniel Morgan and his troops.

This is a lovely 3 mile walk winding through shady forests and meadows blooming with wild flowers.  Cicadas are humming: "tsku, tsku, boshi". Elk Horn Sumac grows in the sunny spots. (Sumac is used in Greek cooking as the spice, sumaki.  There are many varieties of sumac and one is poisonous, I believe it is the one with white berries, not the one with horn shaped brown-red berries.)

A few runners pass by, several people on bikes and a large family with children, one carrying their dog.

When I return to the car, it begins to rain heavily.  The family is going to be soaked.

July 4, 2013 The Tree Bandit Strikes Again

Now red, white and blue wind twisters sparkling with tiny myriad drops of rain are hanging from trees along the Rail Trail at dawn on this stormy independence day.

The Celts believed trees to be the abode of the faeries. The Egyptians, Hebrews and Chinese considered the evergreen symbolic of eternal life.  And in Finland, to this day, there is the memory of memorial trees, guardian trees, spirit trees, the tree that was God of the Forest and sacred groves.

It is raining fairly hard.

Nevertheless, morning birds are singing:
video, video, video
Richelieu,
do it, do it, do it
pretty, pretty, pretty

The aroma of barbecue from Ribaut Catering and Bull Hawg's Barbecue fills the air.  The cooks at Bull Hawg's are sitting at the window eating their breakfast and waving.

In honor of the 4th, here is a barbecue sauce recipe from the Jr. League of Nashville "Nashville Seasons" of 1964:

Barbecue Sauce II

1/2 lb butter
1 cup catsup
1/2 cup vinegar
1/2 cup water
2 lemons, juice of
1 large onion, grated
2 Tbsp prepared mustard
2 Tbsp horseradish
2 Tbsp Worcestershire sauce
1 Tbsp salt
Red pepper to taste

Melt butter, combine remaining ingredients and simmer for 45 minutes.

Happy Fourth of July, 2013

July 1, 2013 Ligustrum and Pokeweed Along the Trail

It is strangely cool this July morning along the Rail Trail and the air is so sweet with the fragrance of the ligustrum in full bloom. Branches are topped with conical white sprays of blossoms. A Chinese medicine from the ligustrum is called Erzhi Wan, the two solstices pill. It's berries are harvested at the time of the winter solstice and combined with eclipta alba, harvested at the time of the summer solstice. It is said to strengthen the yin and create a balance of opposite energies.

And there is the pokeweed growing abundantly in the ditches and on the side of the path.

The alarming and almost unbelievable news is that the Pokeweed is poisonous and you should not eat it even if our grandmothers and aunties prepared it, their families ate it and they all lived to be in their 90's.  And they did know that it could be poisonous and so they picked it at certain times and prepared it in certain ways.
Even my mother told me that, but I cannot remember what she said.  It seems that it had to do with the maturity of the plant.

Here is a recipe from the "Granny's Old Time and Modern Cookbook" from the seniors of Rock Hill, but DO NOT EAT IT.

POKE SALAT

1 gallon poke leaves or shoots
Salt to taste
Water to cover
2 slices fatback
1 hot pepper

Wash greens and parboil, drain, rinse and chop.  Fry fatback in iron  skillet and then cook greens with water in same skillet until tender. Eat with cornbread.  Can also put onion in it.

Poisonous if raw. Pick in the spring from big bushes where older one has berries. Berries can be made into wine which is good for arthritis.

* Note, some people cook the greens and then rinse them again and heat them another time. This may reduce the poison content somewhat.  Actually this is done this way in the above recipe.

July 1, 2013 Walking the Dog by Rufus Thompson

A large man adorned in 4th of July colors rides past me three times on his bike as I walk the dog.

He is singing the Rufus Thompson song, "Walk the Dog" to me.

It goes:

Baby's back
Dressed in black
Silver buttons all down her back
High hose, tippy toes
She broke the needle and she sews.

Walking the dog
I'm just a walkin the dog.
If you don't know how to do it
I'll show you how to walk the dog
C'mon, now C'mon

I asked her mother for 15 cents
I see you ever jumped the fence
I jumped so high touched the sky
Didn't get back until (the 4th of July)

C'mon and walk the dog.

June 29, 2013 The Woods Bridge Over the Beaufort River

It came time to say goodbye to this island paradise of birds and fish, gators and the endless ocean waves.

I took a walk on the Wood Bridge over the Beaufort River.

The "High Sheriff of the Low Country" by J.E. McTeer has now been reprinted.  Sheriff McTeer said it well:

A man can find a secluded spot there even today and closing his eyes, almost hear the dreaded war cry of her Indians trying to repel the Spanish invaders from their beloved land of plenty.  The cries of "pull ahead" still ring out there at times, recalling the days (of). the pursuit of the giant devilfish...The thunder rolling in over the marsh in the late afternoon could almost be the rumble of a battalion's marching feet, and the lightning, the flash of the dreaded dynamite gun as it blasted a deadly projectile out over the sound.

But now the sound lies calm, and the thunder recedes back over the marsh more often than not. ...The people have changed throughout the years, but basically, the island has not.

Hunting Island State Park, June 25, 2013 A Walk at Night/Temple Music

Eleanor, Hanah, Sergay, Liza, Mathew and I walked out the Marsh Boardwalk Trail on this luminous night of the Super Moon.  We could hear the call of the Whipporwill and smell the salty tang of the pluff mud.

We went through a series of humacks to reach the dock where the marsh meets a tidal inlet. A raccoon, scurried under the dock as Sergay put in his fishing line. Immediately, he felt a pull and drew it in to find it severed, bait, hook, line and sinker.  The masked one had  grabbed it for himself.

Mathew hooked his shorts on his "trap" he had made by hand to catch fish.

We scurried back single file along the board walk under the stars gleaming and Saturn visible on the horizon.

From the house, the beautiful sound of temple music.  Inside the "Kitchen Supply Band" was in concert playing wine glasses with differing levels of water, pots and pans played on with wooden and metal sticks used for shishkabob and one Iphone.

Late May through Early June Congaree National Park: Fireflies

I have missed it this year, but I saw this phenomenon as a child from the upper window of my grandparent's house in North Wales, PA, a field of thousands of fireflies pulsing their lights on and off in synchronicity as night falls.  My daughter in law, Colleen, says that she commonly saw this firefly show at her family's farm in the Mississippi Delta.

It can be seen this time of year at the Congaree National Park just a few miles Southeast of Columbia.

The firefly, a symbol of hope in darkness.

June 15, 2013 Landsford Canal State Park: Eagles, Mimosa and Lilies

Landsford Canal is on old highway 21 between Rock Hill and Lancaster (you can get there from I-77).  21 is the old route my parents drove when we were children on weekly visits to my mother's parents at their farm beyond Lancaster.  All along the way, mimosa in full bloom grace the roadside, extending their pink to red blossoms from the rich- with -summer woods.  The air is full of their fragrance. Near them are the elderberry with heavy saucer shaped white flowers, some the size of frisbees.

The mimosa has a bad rap as it is considered a "trash plant" and invasive species. It was imported from China in the 1700's and inhabits the woods of the South.  Many people just associate it with the drink, the mimosa, which is made of one part orange juice and one part champagne and is quite delicious.  I love the mimosa, however, and it is much more than that. It was called, the silk tree, He Huan,  in China and valued for the medicinal qualities of  the essence of it's flowers and bark.  It is said to lift mood with its spirit calming properties, especially for those suffering a heartbreaking loss. (It is contraindicated during pregnancy.)

I was met at the park by my cousins, Jane and Ester, who had never seen the rare Rocky Shoals Spider Lilies.  Ranger Oneppo was in the midst of turning a canoer back due to the very high water.  He told us that the lilies are this year only sprouted in bunches, instead of the usual blanket of flowers rising from the wide and rocky river.  This was because of the very heavy rains all spring and the depth of the water. We walked the three quarter mile trail down river to the viewing station to see the still awesome sight of the lilies in bloom.

We hoped to see the bald eagles who have a nest just off the trail to the viewing station, but today they were nowhere in sight.  The ranger said they nest their eggs in late March. They hatch after 35 days. This year they had one eagle chick who has now left the nest.  At this time of year you are most likely to see an eagle soaring in the air down the river.

I hope to see the eagles next year.  The eagle, the symbol of the zenith, the spirit of the sun.

June 12, 2013 Oooh Happy Day!

I start out on the rail trail and find myself walking behind a tall woman dressed in red pants, ball cap and white T-Shirt emblazoned on the back with "Evangelist Team".  Her left arm is bandaged.


She is moving gracefully in rhythm, her arms reaching heavenward and then out, her index fingers pointing.
I get closer.  I can hear her singing:  "Oh Happy Day".  This is wonderful.

Oh happy day (oh happy day)
Oh happy day (oh happy day)
When Jesus washed (when Jesus washed)
When Jesus washed (when Jesus washed)
Washed my sins away (oh happy day)
Oh happy day (oh happy day)

He taught me how (he taught me how)
To wash (to wash, to wash)
Fight and pray (to fight and pray)
Fight and pray
And he taught me how to live rejoicing
Yes he did (and live rejoicing)
Oh yeah, every, every day (every,every day)
(Oh yeah) Every Day

Oh Happy Day

June 11, 2013 Rail Trail: Dandelion Wine

Yesterday we walked in the rain.  Today at 7:00 am the walkers, runners and bicyclists are out early. It is hot already. Boofa is eating the fermenting mulberries on the path.  Most of the dandelions have blown. I have taught Zach, Shane and James : "She loves me, she loves me not".

The magnolias are at their height, perfuming the air. Eleanor and Ryan's wedding  was on May 21 and we decorated with magnolias and roses.  The magnolia is one of the oldest trees on earth as fossils have been found to be at least fifty-eight million years old.  It is the icon of the South, the state tree of Mississippi and the state flower of Louisiana.  The name comes from the 17th century French botanist, Pierre Magnol.

A recipe for Dandelion Wine from "Granny's Old Time and Modern Cookbook" put together by the Senior Citizens of Rock Hill, SC in 1979.

DANDELION WINE
(3 qts)

1 gallon dandelion blossoms without stems
1 gallon boiling water
3 lbs or 6 cups sugar
3 oranges, clean, uncolored
3 lemons
1/8 box seedless raisins
1/2 yeast cake (wine yeast)

Pour 1 gallon boiling water over blossoms. Let stand 24 hours. Strain dandelion blossoms through cloth. Squeeze orange into mixture. Add all other ingredients, let stand two (2) weeks.  Stir every day except last day then strain through cheese cloth several times until clear. Pour into gallon bottles.  Tie cloth over top and let set six (6) months, or until bubbling stops.

DRINK AT YOUR OWN RISK

Many years ago, my transplanted German neighbor and I made dandelion wine in our basements (in town houses next door to each other). We used glass gallon milk jugs into which wine filters fit. For months, there was the scent of fermentation in the air where we lived.  When the bubbling stopped, she fortified hers with vodka.  I bottled mine and no one ever drank it including me, as I believed it to be poison.

June 9, 2013 Woods Bay Ste. Park Did It come from Outer Space?

Probably not, but there was a theory at one time that this Carolina Bay, an elliptical depression composing over a thousand acres, was caused by a comet. Bays are plentiful on the East coast and are oriented in a north west to southeast direction. This one is composed of four major plant communities: Evergreen shrub bog, cypress- tupelo swamp, grass-sedge marsh and sand rim composites. The name, Bay, comes from the Bay Tree which is plentiful here.  The swamp is magically alluring, full of alligators, snakes, lizards, birds and insects. Take your insect repellent.

My son, Michael met me there, as it is just a mile or two from his wife's family home in Olanta.  He told me to bring a big stick to fight off the alligators, but I forgot it and had only my pepper spray.

I drove down through Columbia and Sumter, past the Sedgewood Country Club in Horrill Hill where people were playing golf. Gray clouds from Hurricane Andrea had driven up the coast into Virginia by  now and the day was fine and clear.  Towards, Turbeville (most famous as being on the way to the beach)  the land becomes flat with cornfields extending for miles the corn already with tassels and fat ears,. Comfortable farm houses appear far and near and along the road are rows of orange day lilies.

I see a red winged blackbird, the spirit animal related to the feminine forces of nature.  Here it is early summer and deep emerald green all around.

Here is the deserted park where the nature center is open Monday and Friday from 2:00 to 4:00. Around the parking lot are water oaks dripping Spanish Moss (an epiphyte or air plant) where chiggers, spiders and the parula warbler often make their homes.

Blue and Green Dragon Flies dart through the warm air, they are in fact, the spirit animal of water and air as their life begins in water and then they are transformed into creatures that inhabit the air.  They have the power of air and light. If you encounter these spirits, you are challenged to change and evolve as they do, even changing their colors.

Michael and I take the lizard thronged board walk over the Tupelo-Cypress swamp.  The alligators escape us today. The boardwalk extends over clear dark black tea colored tanin laced water.  There are blue canoes and orange kayaks here and you are encouraged to take the canoe trail through the swamp.

We did not stay long. Barbequed chicken marsala was waiting for us in Olanta.

June 2, 2013 Yoshina Cherry Path

The entire ground is covered with ripe mulberries.  We step on them, squashing the juice on our shoes.

Here is a hard to find recipe for Mulberry Pie from the Farm Journal Country Cookbook (copyright  1959, 1972).

MULBERRY PIE

"Spread a worn sheet on the grass beneath the tree, shake the branches lightly and run from the shower of juicy, warm, sweet berries that plop down....

Combine the sweet mulberries with a tart fruit, like gooseberries, or rhubarb.  We give you a recipe for the berry-rhubarb team that makes one of the most economical farm fruit pies- and one of the best."

Pastry for 2 crust pie
2 c mulberries
1 cup finely sliced rhubarb
1 cup sugar
1/4 cup flour
2 Tbsp butter

Combine mulberries and rhubarb in medium bowl.
Combine sugar and flour. Sprinkle about 1/3 of mixture in bottom of pastry-lined 9" pie pan. Turn mulberries and rhubarb into pie pan and add remaining sugar-flour mixture.  Dot with butter.  Adjust top crust, cut steam vents and flute edges.

Bake in hot oven (425') 40 to 50 minutes, or until crust is browned and juices bubble in vents.

June 1, 2013 Andrew Jackson State Park "The Garden of the Waxhaws"

This state park is between Rock Hill and Lancaster near the junction of Hwy 5 and 521.  I take my old route to Rock Hill through Jonesville and Lockhart and then on hwy 5 to the park. On the side of the road now are daisies (called Day's Eye by the Anglo Saxons) and Queen Anne's Lace or wild carrot. The myth about this flower is that Queen Anne nicked herself with the needle while crocheting lace and the drop of blood fell into the center of the white blossom.  Here and there I see new corn fields rising from the earth.

On the radio Deepak Chopra is talking, saying that "matter is not matter, everything is atoms moving, that everything comes from nothing"

This park is beside the birthplace of Andrew Jackson, the 7th president and has a museum dedicated to him and to his time and place.  There are several buildings: a log cabin school house built for the area's centennial, and a Meeting House in the manner of the old Presbyterian Scotch Irish Settler's churches.

There are two short trails of a mile each. One is the Crawford trail which begins by the Meeting House and loops through the pine and hardwood forest. When I step on to the trail, I am engulfed by a woodsy fragrance which I recognize from my childhood.  It haunts me with the aromatic memory of my mother's family who lived in the country of Lancaster County.  I had noticed that the ranger had had the Upcountry twang of my uncles.

The Garden of the Waxhaws Trail circles the blue lake and is named after the Native American tribe, the Waxhaws, who once lived and hunted here.  They had a practice of laying a small bag of sand on their infants' forehead that created a wide flat upper face so that they were called "Flatheads" by the settlers. They had been friendly to the European settlers, but had begun to die from small pox and the other diseases they brought to them by the 1700's. The Yemassee War of 1715 decimated them.  The remaining survivors are thought to have been assimilated by the Catawba.

There are people in rented john boats on the lake, campers nearby in the woods, a young man swimming just out beyond a sign that says:  No Swimming, some sun bathers on the grass over the spillway.

There are boardwalks over the swampy places of the trail where the water is rust colored and cloudy as black tea with milk .  Boofa and I come to a dead box turtle, the size of a football with a long crack in his shell. He is covered with black and yellow carrion beetles who are turning the turtle into beetle.  I hear Deepak Chopra again in my mind:

"Matter is not matter
everything is atoms moving
everything comes from nothing"

On the lake there is a long line of Canadian Geese, a couple with 3 goslings, another couple with 5 goslings.

I am giving Boofa a dish of water at my car when an old red pickup truck comes up beside me.  The driver is a handsome broad faced woman with long straight black hair and burnished coppery skin.  She asks me where there is a place to grill their picnic food.  I point up the hill near the playground. She has a friendly group of young kids and two older people with her. They say "I like your dog".

I believe I have met the conservator of the Garden of the Waxhaws, the one who remains, the one whose ancestors lived and died here.

May 27, 2013 Oconee State Park "Water Eyes of the Hills"

"Water Eyes of the Hills" or Land of Springs is the meaning of the Cherokee Word for this beautiful park on the Escarpment of the Blue Ridge Mountains and the edge of the Georgia line.  On this Memorial Day on my way to Decatur to stay with Mathew and Martin, I detoured off I-85 at Exit 1 onto the Cherokee Foothills Hwy (11) for 20 miles to Walhalla, heaven of the Gods.  Soon you can see the ascending layers of mountains:  indigo, cobalt and cerulean, then on to Hwy 28 to Mountain Rest and right onto 107 for 2 miles, past the Last Chance Bar and Cuzzins Store with Bluegrass Saturday night. The Park is 2 miles on the right.  Enter through a tunnel of blooming pink and white Mountain Laurel.  The park gives me the feel of having been lost in the 40's, which was when it was built by the CCC. There are 20 cabins with mountain stone foundations. Some are log cabins. Six are on the edge of the lake where there is fishing and swimming with a life guard on a ladder out on a floating dock.

I take the short hike around the lake. There are many trails here. The lake trail has two board walks over swampy places and here again is the blooming mountain laurel everywhere.

I leave back down the mountain past the Stumphouse Ranger Station in another part of the Sumter National Forrest and through Walhalla, the county courthouse with a statue of a Conferate States Of America soldier in the median of the main street.  Nearby is the Dog House Tavern, Bottoms Up Liquor Store and the enticing Palmetto Sweets and Company Bakery and Cafe where I can see white tablecloths through the windows.  It is in actuality, a charming village with old houses and gigantic blooming magnolias reaching the clouds.  The first settlers who named the town for all of its beauty must have felt they were indeed in Walhalla, the Norse heaven.

Outside of town, I pass Critter Road and East Bear Swamp and on the radio I hear Barack Obama say:

God Bless the Fallen
God Bless those in Uniform
God Bless America.

May 25, 2013 Paris Mountain State Park, Wise Men Say...

I am off early this morning on Hwy 29 (then in Greer to 291, then Piney Mtn Rd, then State Park Rd), passing countless yard sales. It is a little cool, 45 degrees at start, a blue sky with fragile long wisps of clouds, convertibles with the tops down, a white one, a tiny red one, a blue one, sailing by.

At Paris Mountain, there is a Greenville Track Club road race just ending.  The last runners are coming up the hill while others are gathered beside the Park Center eating bananas and drinking water.  The Park Center is made of  river stones rounded by water over time, as are some of the bridges over streams. These were built by the Civilian Conservation Corps in the 1940's. They used the materials available where they built the parks and created a style known as Parkitechture.

There are several trails and no paper maps available. You may receive a small business card and download the maps on your Iphone, if you have one.  I took the Lake Placid Trail, .73 miles around a small green lake.  There is one lonely Canadian goose honking loudly out on the water. Soon, I come to the spillway and cross a bridge below where the water falls beautifully into a clear stream.  On the far side I come upon a pair of Canadian Geese with their four big fluffy downy gosling children. They spread their wings, open their beaks, stick out their tongues and make hissing sounds at Boofa.  We crawl up a rocky bank and can see the lonely goose honking in this direction, as if he is calling the others.  The trail winds by the lake and is bounded by Mountain Laurel in full bloom.  There is a pair of domestic white ducks with their necks curled back in sleep on the shore.  They are oddly, not white, but a pale pastel yellow.

The Lake Placid Trail connects to the Mountain Creek Trail and I take it, soon seeing neon pink ribbons tied at intervals to tree branches, and limed lines marking off branching trails.  I am following the 12 kilometer  (7.5miles) race trail. Soon I come to an amphitheater built by the CCC where a marker dates occasions when music is performed here.

The Mountain Creek Trail runs into the Sulfur Springs Trail.  When I return to the Park Center, there are workers and life guards in swim suits readying the lake for swimming. The season begins today at l:00.

When I start the car,  I hear "Wise Men Say, only fools rush in, but I can't help falling in love with you..."  Why am I crying.

May 22, 2013 Peach Tree Rock, 60 Million Years Ago

From Columbia, I took Blossom St out past the airport. Stay on 302 and SC 6 joins it. In about a mile, 6 branches off to the left.  In about 2 miles, Kiosks for Peachtree Rock Heritage Preserve will be on your left.
Peachtree Rock Rd turns there to the left. Do not take this road.  I did and it does not go to the Preserve.
The trail is actually just there beside the kiosks on SC 6.

It is completely deserted, but I want to see the rock.  The trail goes downhill through a series of man made and natural root steps through a sandy pine forest. There are branching trails and the entire trail is a 7.3 mile loop.  According to the kiosk map, I bear to the left, but I keep making small crosses of twigs  and put them in the trail so that I can find my way back.  Soon there is mountain laurel blooming and this is not the mountains.

The big Peachtree Rock is not really far and you can see the Secret Waterfall trickling off to the left, the only waterfall in the coastal plain.

The rock might be thought to be in the shape of a peach tree, but it is more like an upside down pyramid, or a giant spinning top that is not spinning. There are fossils of sea life here, estimated to be 60 million years old, of the Eocene period when the ocean washed here on the coast of North America.

Farther on there is a similar but smaller formation called Little Peachtree Rock..

May 20, 2013 Chester State Park, A Wall of Bees

I drove on SC Highway 9 from Jonesville to Lockhart to Chester. The roadside was covered with Black Eyed Susans, called Deer Eyed by the Cherokee, wild roses reaching out from the woods and lavender flowering  China Berry Trees.

As children, my cousin Jane and I would stand under our grandparents' China Berry Tree in our bathing suits and pretend we were Amazons.  The seeds of the foul smelling waxy white berries can be dried and dyed and made into quite beautiful strands of beads and bracelets.

Chester State Park is a small gem with camping and fishing in "Lake View Lake". There are boats to rent and hook ups for RV's as well as primitive camp sites. There is a graceful pavilion looking out over the lake
and a "leave and come back" trail of about 3 miles round trip ending at the spillway.

I came upon a huge  wall of bees on the trail  between the boat house and the pavilion.  There were hundreds of holes in this red mud wall with more hundreds of small black bees buzzing around them.  Coming back , I noticed that the wall was actually the gigantic root base of an ancient fallen tree. The bees could be a German black honey bee, and they could also be dangerous.  Looking at the bees and not where I was going, I tripped and fell down in front of the bee wall, but they continued about their business and ignored this clumsy hiker.

Bees have been considered a sacred insect in many cultures, associated with immortality and resurrection.

May 18, 2013 Heartbreakingly Beautiful, the Mulberry and the Catalpa

I am walking in the rain. The air is fragrant with honeysuckle and many flowers.  The rivers and lakes and ponds are full again after years of drought. There are fields of daisies, fields of yellow dandelions, roadsides of blue, purple, pink and white ragged robins. Red, pink and white poppies are planted in the medians of the highway.  The trees are bowing with the weight of water, full and rich with green.  The Mulberry trees are heavy with unripened fruit.

The purple catalpa has bloomed and the tall white blossomed catalpa is now blooming. It is sometimes called the catawba or the Indian fish bait tree. The sphinx moth lives only in this tree and the larvae are excellent bait for fish.  Ryan tells me that on his grandfather's farm in Mississippi, they had a catfish pond, ringed with catawba trees. All they had to do to fish, was  use a cane pole, bait the hook with the sphinx worm and catch a catfish for dinner.

There is a Greek myth about how the Mulberry fruit changed from white to red. The lovers, Pyramus and Thesbe were forbidden to marry and so they planned to meet secretly under the mulberry tree. Thesbe arrived first only to be frightened away by a lion who took her scarf in his mouth and stained it with the juice from the berries. When Pyramus arrived he found the red stained scarf and thought Thesbe to be dead. He took his sword and killed himself. When she returned and found him dead, Thesbe took the sword and joined her lover in death. Their mingled blood soaked into the soil and stained the white berries red forever.

(There actually are white, red and black varieties, the red being indigenous to North America.)

I broke off a low branch of the catalpa, stripped it of leaves, dipped it in root hormone and planted it on a sunny bank.
Monday will be Peter's birthday.  He is in the hospital suffering from the ravages of long mental illness.
I plant the tree in his honor.

In all cultures, the planting of a tree is believed to be an investment in life.

"He who plants a tree will live a long life." Marco Polo.

May 14, 2013 Little River Blueway: Hickory Knob and Baker's Creek State Parks

I took 221 which goes directly to McCormick through old Southern towns along the railroad, Woodruff, Laurens, Greenwood and then McCormick (keep straight and continue on 378 a few miles to both parks).
On the way home I went through Clinton(catch 56 after Greenwood) instead of Laurens.  All of these towns have a  railroad running down the main streets alongside antique stores, spas and cultural centers.

( You can get there from I-26 if you take 25 somewhere near the town of Saluda and then to McCormick.)

At Hickory Knob, you come to a golf course at the end of the world with Pro Shop and bar, a lodge with swimming pool and dining room with buffet serving breakfast, lunch and dinner. In the great room lobby, there are stuffed chairs and couches and pool tables. On the wall are paintings from winners of the
Artist in Residence program each year. I like the water colour.

There are many golfers, but no hikers and the desk clerks, administrative staff do not know anything about the trails.  The clerk tells me to take the Beaver Run trail which loops back.

Most of the time, it travels along Strom Thurmond Lake.  I come upon a cabin and peek in the window.
There is a table with a half downed bottle of Jose Cuervo on top.  I keep going until I realize the trail is not a loop.   The rocks I find as I go are very heavy and rust streaked as if full of iron ore.

There are ant hills everywhere, and mounds of fire ants.

I see another log cabin which is the Guillebeau House built in 1770 and moved here from the Huguenot settlement of New Bordeau nearby.

A woman in the Pro Shop connects me to "Ranger George" on the phone who sets me straight about the trails.  They start at the big red barn and there are several, two or three miles each and one of 7  miles.

In the car, I realize that my legs are burning and itching.  I have been attacked by fire ants.

Baker's Creek State Park is only three miles away. It has a beautiful pavilion whose wide porch reaches out over the shore of Little River, a wonderful place to picnic.  There are trails here.

I drive home out of this part of the Sumter National Forrest under a cloudless pale blue sky, a perfect temperature of 70 degrees, past a church advertising a pancake breakfast and another with a sign stating "The Holy Ghost Came".  In Greenwood, I drive past the Amish Oven, renowned for good food and then treat myself to a real donut at Donuts and More (they have Tiger Mountain coffee too). This is a real old fashioned donut store, with real yeast raised donuts that taste like they used to taste.  Delicious. Coming down through Greenwood, you pass the Civic Auditorium on the left, then Charzene's Beauty College on the right, go through the stop light and the Donut and More is on the left.

Today I have been to the Little River Blueway (and it is more blue than green).  This is an area of the Sumter National Forrest, full of lakes and rivers and part of the Savanah River system which is the border of South Carolina and Georgia.

At home, I put cortisone cream on the ant bites.

Ruefully I read about Australian Aboriginal ant totems.  The ant works for the common good and has the characteristic of patience. The ant spirit teaches that you have everything you need and will receive it when you need it most.   If the ant people come to visit you, this is what you need to learn.

I also read that the fire ant illuminates the beauty of the earth with the brightness of his fire.

I'll say!

May 10, 2013 Back From the Dead

After two months, Big Cat is back, looking none the worse for wear and obviously not eaten by a coyote.
She missed the Flycatcher chicks and I am glad as one year, one fell out of the nest and Big Cat mauled it and brought it's body to me.

I went for a walk in Floyd's Greenlawn Cemetery while I was getting tires for my car. It was early and the workers were out digging, putting up tents and taking them down.  I saw a woman walking in the distance who then mysteriously disappeared.  It occurred to me that she could have been a ghost who had left her grave in the spring earth to have a walk around again.

At home, a message from my cousin, Andy, saying his brother, Bob's heart had weakened and he had quietly left the earth on Sunday.

I thought about how brave Big Cat is, how valiant, how fearless, to just up and leave for the unknown and then to return with the same Attitude.  And I thought now is the time to take more risks, not less. What is there to lose?

Later today, I am going to drive down to Atlanta in a rainstorm with one headlight to go with Eleanor to the High Museum to see the Frida and Diego exhibit which ends tomorrow.

May 7, 2013 Muskrat Ramble

Raining this morning along the Columbia canal.  A few drenched runners and walkers pass by laughing.
I carry my green polka dot umbrella.  The canal has overflowed.  No rocks can be seen in the Congaree as it furiously rushes by.

As the rain begins to let up, animals appear.  A great blue heron just yards away on the bank.  Two rained slicked Canadian geese just on the side of the path.  A pair of wood ducks (aix sponsa) paddle out into the flood. Farther on, a pair of mallards.

I can see something with a silky swim coming across the canal. It is a small brown muskrat  (ondata zibethicus)who clambers up the edge of the shore and begins munching on the varigated honey suckle growing up everywhere among the rocks. The spirit of the muskrat is to create order out of chaos.

The honeysuckle is so very fragrant and I have never seen the yellow/rose/white variety.  I break off branches to take home, dip in root hormone and plant at my mailbox. As children, we pulled the stamen through the flower, releasing a drop of nectar to drop on the tongue and relish the pure sweetness. Honeysuckle is native to Japan.  For the Greeks it was the flower of love, blooming all summer long while Daphnis and Cloe were together. The Chinese used it for snake bite and the Scottish draped it on barns to keep the evil spirits away from their cattle.

The rain has stopped, I notice the 12 foot sculpture by Rachel Palmer called "Welcome Home" which speaks of the three rivers, the Congaree, the Saluda and the Broad.  There are seven cubes on top of each other, each displaying layer upon layer of earth, silt, rocks, sediment and even a glove, a bottle, a key, the fragments of someone's life.

May 6, 2013 Water Colours

All day yesterday it rained and into the night.  This morning there is a break.  To the South, dark heavy clouds filled with water and dark burnt umber shadows. To the north, Chinese white cumulonimbus clouds with cerulean blue patches and a high ceiling.

At Glendale Shoals, the muddy Lawson's Fork Creek roars, rushes and tumbles with enormous force over the spillway, flooding its banks.

A mountain bluebird whisks down the shadowy tunnel of the water and the rain drenched branches of trees
reaching over the maelstrom.

From the Mountains to the Sea (Charleston and Asheville) April 28, 29, 30, and May 1, 2013

Rain, rain, rain.  I drove to Charleston in a downpour all the way until Summerville where it stopped.  Old friends were waiting at the Andrew Pinckney. We walked down Meeting St and across Queen St, past the pineapple fountain to the waterfront park where we sat on a big swing and watched the boats in the Cooper River.

In the morning the rain caught up with us while we had breakfast on the roof in sight of the Ravenel Bridge.

We toured Drayton Hall, sitting under a tent with shards of phosphorous, sweet grass baskets and a saucer of early Native American/African pottery on the table in front of us.

More rain poured down as we were guided through the hall itself, my favorite part being the penciled records of the heights of the children as they grew on the door jam, facing the record of the standing
heights of Charlotta's dogs on the other side.

May 1,  Carl Sandburg's mountain-side home, Connemara, in Flat Rock, rain dimpling the lovely pond, twin
kid goats lying in the grass (descendants of Mrs. Sandburg's herd), the sound of Sandburg's guitar and his aged voice playing in the house.

In Asheville, we walked from the Grove Arcade up to Pack Square and the Vance monument and back and came down, down, down the mountain in the rain, rain, rain.

April 25, 2013 Gone, But Not Forgotten

I could see the Flycatcher chicks, big and fat, poised on the top of their nest as I went out the door to put my bag in the car.  Behind my back, they flew off and the nest was empty only moments later when I returned.

The gray Flycatcher, a native of Mexico, first came to the U.S. in the 20th century.

The SC naturalist, Rudy Mancke, noted them in Laurens County in 1982.

The Magic Hour April 24, 2013

A light rain at twilight, a glowing rainbow, slate clouds in a silver sky, a full pale moon.

Silent Running and Yellow Irises April 22, 2013

Today is Earth Day.

There are many many, perhaps a hundred, yellow irises blooming in my front yard.

I planted them there 15 years ago after discovering their unblooming fronds peeking  up all around in the woods behind my house.  There had been a house here many years before, I know at least 60 years from the age of the glass soda bottles I have found buried in the ground.

I dug up the irises and put them in a sunny place and the next year, I had flourishing plants with yellow bearded blossoms. For the ancient Greeks, Iris was the goddess of the sky, the personification of the rainbow. She carried the caduceus, the emblem now of medicine.

I have never ceased to marvel at the astonishing renewal of life after such a long time.

There was a film in 1972 called" Silent Running" in which the future earth had become barren of flora and fauna and the only existing ecosystems were in pods attached to large space ships.  The order had come down for an astronaut to destroy the existing plants.

Tonight on the Rail Trail there is to be a Silent Run in honor of those who suffered or died in the Boston Marathon, so this morning I silently walked the Rail Trail in my own memorial along with a woman with a tiny dog dressed in a red and white pinafore and a woman walking backwards who said, "It's easier on your knees and it makes you stronger."

Snakes , Cooters and Bluebird Eggs April 20, 2013

John and I took James to find some wildlife.  James will be four in June.  He just took off running across the field.  It is a good thing that John is a runner too. (He ran the Outer Banks marathon the year before James was born.)
We came upon Andy, a person I see at times out walking.  He had opened a bluebird house and was photographing the eggs inside.  John lifted James to see the three blue eggs nestled within..

In the wetlands there were big cooters resting on logs.

And then we saw a six foot long snake twisting with elegance through the murky waters.  It was perhaps a brown water snake, perhaps a water moccasin. A man coming by with his tiny dog said that all snakes can swim.

For some Native American tribes, the snake totem indicates Wisdom, Healing and Transmutation.  The appearance of a snake may be telling you of change and creativity coming in your life.

The Biophony Symphony April 20, 2013

My quiet morning walk on the rail trail was interrupted by the blasting shrill alarm from a business on the other side of the woods to my right, then to my left an unmistakable bird call imitating perfectly the alarm.
A few years ago, an alert observer in London noticed that a blackbird was making ambulance and other sounds from the traffic in his neighborhood. Anthrophony intruding on biophony

Biophony is the symphony of animals in their environment, the name coined by Bernie Krause who has spent his life studying the sounds of birds in their natural habitats.  He observed that the calls from birds and animals are orchestrated like the different instruments in an orchestra.  Their frequency, tone and rhythm
are not random. (Dawn Stover, The Best Science and Nature Writing 2010).

That evening, John and James were spending the night with me.  I could hear James crying a little at bedtime. Boofa joined him with the same mournful cry.

April 16, 2013 The Miracle of Walking

I am walking in this cool Spring morning on the banks of the wide, rock strewn Congaree, dozens of turtles basking in the sun, Indian Pink (spegelia  marilandica) in full bloom all along the way, it's flowers like trumpets, spectacular red on the outside and yellow in the inside.

Miraculous creatures are walking and running along beside, in front of and behind me.  It is a celebration of the breathing of air, the perception of eyes and ears and skin and the moving of muscles and bone.

Yesterday, at the Boston marathon, a bomb killed 3 people and injured 170.  There were amputations
of legs.

How dare they.

April 14, 2013 At Long Last

The baby Flycatcher chicks are here.

We Are Here Living on Turtle Island April 13, 2013

This was the kind of day you dream about in rainy, chilly winter nights.  I spied a big river cooter on a log in the wetlands. He slipped gently back into the water. Another joined him and I watched them swimming below the surface.  It is said that the Great Spirit created earth by placing it on the back of a turtle.  Contemporary Native Americans sometimes call planet earth, "turtle island".  Symbolically, the turtle can manage difficult situations.  Many North American tribes have turtle clans.
The name, cooter, may come from an African language word, "kuta"which means turtle.

The Southern River Cooter is an edible freshwater turtle.

There is a story in one of Lillian Hellman's autobiographical books where she was living in a cottage in the country with a pond full of turtles.  She caught two to cook for supper, put them to simmer in a big pot on the stove in the kitchen and went to bed.  In the morning,  she rose  to find the pot tipped over, the turtles gone with only a turtle trail through the mud back to the pond.

Here is a recipe for Turtle Stew from the Baton Rouge "River Road Recipes" (71st printing of 1997):

3 lbs turtle meat                                    2 bell peppers, chopped fine
3 Tbsp oil or lard                                  1 cup sherry wine
3 Tbsp flour                                          6 boiled eggs
1 lb dry onions, chopped                      Red pepper to taste
2 cloves garlic, minced                          Salt to taste
2 number 2 cans tomatoes                    4 bay leaves
1 can tomato paste                               8 whole cloves
boiling water                                        1/2 teaspoon allspice
1 rib celery, chopped fine                     1 Tbsp sugar
one bunch green onions chopped fine
1/4 lb butter
1 lemon, sliced

Parboil turtle meat. Make a brown roux of fat and flour. Add onions, garlic, tomato paste, and tomatoes. Cook slowly 20 to 30 minutes. Add to turtle meat. Add enough boiling salted water to cover meat. Boil down. Add celery, green onions, peppers, wine and seasoning. Cook covered over high heat for 30 minutes. Mash egg yolks; chop whites. Add to thicken stew. If stew gets too thick, add water. Cook slowly for about 3 hours. One half hour before serving add lemon slices and butter. To increase amount, add 1/2 pound turtle meat per person.  Serves 6.
Hoo Shoo Too Club, Baton Rouge, Louisiana

April 9, 2013 Sounds of Cicadas

It is a beautiful humming, a love song, a summer song heard through open windows on warm nights, humming to a baby in a rocking chair on a porch.  I don't know about the 17 year cicadas (this is their year) or the 13 year cicadas. I just know that they are always here in the warm weather and I heard them today at the lake at Sesquicentennial  State Park.

In some places, the farmers plant crops when they first hear the sound.  The Japanese have a song about them commemorating the end of summer:  Tsuku-Tsuku Boski. In Greek myth, Tithonus is granted immortality by Zeus and turned into a cicada. Unfortunately he is not granted eternal youth. Birds and squirrels and human beings eat cicadas. They can be deep fried or stir fried.

I took the Loop trail which is 3.5 miles and is actually a sand road which begins and ends at the log cabin.
The ranger told me the good news, that architects are visiting Hunting Island preparing for the building of new cabins on the far side of the lagoon in 2014.

The Chinese believe that the cicada's shedding of its shell symbolizes stages of transformation leading to enlightenment.