Wednesday, October 30, 2013

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



Monday, October 28, 2013

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.

Friday, October 18, 2013

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.

Wednesday, October 9, 2013

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

Monday, October 7, 2013

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

Wednesday, October 2, 2013

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.