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.