Wednesday, July 17, 2013

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.

Saturday, July 13, 2013

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.

Monday, July 8, 2013

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.

Friday, July 5, 2013

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




Tuesday, July 2, 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.

Monday, July 1, 2013

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.