Sunday, June 16, 2013

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.

Wednesday, June 12, 2013

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.


Sunday, June 9, 2013

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.

Sunday, June 2, 2013

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.