I am out early again today in a light rain. A huge barred owl swoops low across the path so near that I can see his speckled brown and white undercoat. The trail is cleared and muddy. I walk on the edges on dead leaves. Three deer leap down the hill as I cross the ridge trail. The wetlands are brim full, a cloudy moss green. Dozens of Cardinals and Wrens twitter and call and scatter around me.
At the crest of the Highlands trail, just since two days ago when I passed here, someone has planted a White Oak, "In Memory of Medea Beauvais" with a bench beside it.
The inscription on a stone says:
"Shine Your Light".
Monday, December 29, 2014
Sunday, December 28, 2014
December 26, 2014 The Cottonwood Trail: Love Is Enough
It is so very, very early on this morning of first frost. I know where the deer sleep and I rustle them up. Like dancers, they bound up and away through the woods. I am wearing the gift of a new knit hat, a new scarf, even carrying a new hiking stick with a carved "howling wolf" made of bianbai wood.
On Christmas Eve, I hung metal ornaments on a tree on the Rail Trail in memory of the 133 children and 10 adults gunned down by the order of the same Taliban leader who ordered the shooting of Malala Yosephzai
who survived and has been awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace. "You should not have to be brave to go to school", a Pakistani said. "They are all our children," said John Kerry.
I attended the Holiday concert at Zack's and Shane's school where Zack played the violin and Christmas, Hannakah and Kwanza were celebrated. A little girl with a big smile and a bald head from chemotherapy, danced beautifully with the other children. The next day I attended the Hannakah play at James' school and watched a small girl in a wheelchair sing and dance.
And no one came to kill the children.
I walked through the woods, over the boardwalk covered with frost, over the frosty wetlands, up the highlands trail, through the piney woods and up and around the ridge trail. There is no one out except me and the deer.
At home, there is a black and white photo on my mantel of my entire family gathered on Thanksgiving on the front steps of the home of John and Colleen, dogs included. There is also the photo of "the secret place" the boys found on the marsh at Edisto. It was my secret place as well. Beside it, is the dark red mug, a gift from John from the National Museum of Art in Washington.
On it, the words of William Morris, English painter:
"Love is Enough".
On Christmas Eve, I hung metal ornaments on a tree on the Rail Trail in memory of the 133 children and 10 adults gunned down by the order of the same Taliban leader who ordered the shooting of Malala Yosephzai
who survived and has been awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace. "You should not have to be brave to go to school", a Pakistani said. "They are all our children," said John Kerry.
I attended the Holiday concert at Zack's and Shane's school where Zack played the violin and Christmas, Hannakah and Kwanza were celebrated. A little girl with a big smile and a bald head from chemotherapy, danced beautifully with the other children. The next day I attended the Hannakah play at James' school and watched a small girl in a wheelchair sing and dance.
And no one came to kill the children.
I walked through the woods, over the boardwalk covered with frost, over the frosty wetlands, up the highlands trail, through the piney woods and up and around the ridge trail. There is no one out except me and the deer.
At home, there is a black and white photo on my mantel of my entire family gathered on Thanksgiving on the front steps of the home of John and Colleen, dogs included. There is also the photo of "the secret place" the boys found on the marsh at Edisto. It was my secret place as well. Beside it, is the dark red mug, a gift from John from the National Museum of Art in Washington.
On it, the words of William Morris, English painter:
"Love is Enough".
Wednesday, October 29, 2014
October 28, 2014 Congaree National Park, A Sounder of Wild Boars
We used to call it the Congaree Swamp, then it was the Congaree National Monument. Now it is Congaree National Park. It is actually a flood plain with some of the tallest trees in the world, tupelo, loblolly pines, American beech and bald cypress with their minions of cypress knees sprouting up from the Dorovan muck. The clay and dead leaf muck is eight feet deep and nourishes the forest.
You can get there from I-77 and I-26 about 10 miles south of Columbia, but I take Assembly to Bluff Rd from downtown and drive 12 miles through the Cowasee Basin down back roads to the park. It is one of our last days of summer like weather, early and perfect, blue and gold, but anticipating 87 degrees in the afternoon.
I take the Weston Lake Loop trail which is about 4.5 miles. Much of it is a boardwalk over the Dorovan muck, and then a footpath through the high sheltering trees along brown, leaf strewn Cedar Creek. Ducks fly up from the water as I approach. In a sunny spot, Great Blue spreads his wings and settles in the branches of a tree over the water. I pass an old still left by Moonshiners long ago. Here along the creek are two measuring poles indicating that now the water is only two feet deep, but the levels can go up to 12 feet during flooding.
An antlered stag moves quickly across my path. He is thick and grey and furried, not especially afraid of me. This is his home, not mine. I hear the deep hoot of an owl and call back, but he is silent. Woodpeckers tap and birds chirp high in the trees as I approach the boardwalk and pier over Weston Lake, an oxbow of the Congaree. I have been here before and saw countless turtles, yellow bellied and snapping just floating up and down below. No turtles today, but coming down from the pier, a black piglet, the size of my cocker spaniel, jumps up and runs to the safety of his family. Later the ranger tells me that a piglet is called a shoat and the group of boars is called a sounder. There are six or eight shoats and as many large boars. Most of them are black, or dark gray and brown, but there is one middle sized boar that is bright red like a fox. Long ago, the ancestors of these pigs were brought here, some from Germany, for hunting. The ranger tells me that now they are infested with pseudo rabies and brusolosis. There is a management plan for them. They look at me and walk a few steps away, rooting up the ground.
Nearing the Park Center again, I talk to a German family about the boars and then I meet a Japanese family with two small children dressed in Halloween skeleton costumes under their jackets. The little girl holds my walking stick to inspect it. The little boy talks to Momie-San in English and Japanese. I have had my solitary walk, but now I can hear the loud noise of thousands of quacking geese nearby. It is actually one hundred and twenty school children from Rice Elementary in Hardscrabble having a picnic lunch before they take the trails and see the movie.
High on the wall over the water fountains is a Mosquito Meter, something like the old arrow pointing to the numbered floors an elevator reached. 1 = All Clear 2 = mild 3 = moderate 4 = severe 5 = ruthless 6 = war zone. I take my hiking stick and move the arrow from just over All Clear to between mild and moderate.
The Congaree floodplain was once a wild place where fierce, wild and unbroken slaves escaped from plantations, slave owners and others who tried to capture them. At the nearby place where the Congaree and the Wateree meet, they set up a Maroon village, preserving some of their African culture and adapting to their circumstances.To this day, some of their descendants abide in this beautiful wild place.
You can get there from I-77 and I-26 about 10 miles south of Columbia, but I take Assembly to Bluff Rd from downtown and drive 12 miles through the Cowasee Basin down back roads to the park. It is one of our last days of summer like weather, early and perfect, blue and gold, but anticipating 87 degrees in the afternoon.
I take the Weston Lake Loop trail which is about 4.5 miles. Much of it is a boardwalk over the Dorovan muck, and then a footpath through the high sheltering trees along brown, leaf strewn Cedar Creek. Ducks fly up from the water as I approach. In a sunny spot, Great Blue spreads his wings and settles in the branches of a tree over the water. I pass an old still left by Moonshiners long ago. Here along the creek are two measuring poles indicating that now the water is only two feet deep, but the levels can go up to 12 feet during flooding.
An antlered stag moves quickly across my path. He is thick and grey and furried, not especially afraid of me. This is his home, not mine. I hear the deep hoot of an owl and call back, but he is silent. Woodpeckers tap and birds chirp high in the trees as I approach the boardwalk and pier over Weston Lake, an oxbow of the Congaree. I have been here before and saw countless turtles, yellow bellied and snapping just floating up and down below. No turtles today, but coming down from the pier, a black piglet, the size of my cocker spaniel, jumps up and runs to the safety of his family. Later the ranger tells me that a piglet is called a shoat and the group of boars is called a sounder. There are six or eight shoats and as many large boars. Most of them are black, or dark gray and brown, but there is one middle sized boar that is bright red like a fox. Long ago, the ancestors of these pigs were brought here, some from Germany, for hunting. The ranger tells me that now they are infested with pseudo rabies and brusolosis. There is a management plan for them. They look at me and walk a few steps away, rooting up the ground.
Nearing the Park Center again, I talk to a German family about the boars and then I meet a Japanese family with two small children dressed in Halloween skeleton costumes under their jackets. The little girl holds my walking stick to inspect it. The little boy talks to Momie-San in English and Japanese. I have had my solitary walk, but now I can hear the loud noise of thousands of quacking geese nearby. It is actually one hundred and twenty school children from Rice Elementary in Hardscrabble having a picnic lunch before they take the trails and see the movie.
High on the wall over the water fountains is a Mosquito Meter, something like the old arrow pointing to the numbered floors an elevator reached. 1 = All Clear 2 = mild 3 = moderate 4 = severe 5 = ruthless 6 = war zone. I take my hiking stick and move the arrow from just over All Clear to between mild and moderate.
The Congaree floodplain was once a wild place where fierce, wild and unbroken slaves escaped from plantations, slave owners and others who tried to capture them. At the nearby place where the Congaree and the Wateree meet, they set up a Maroon village, preserving some of their African culture and adapting to their circumstances.To this day, some of their descendants abide in this beautiful wild place.
Wednesday, October 22, 2014
October 21, 2014 Love Locks at Dreher Shoals Dam
Exit I-26 just above Columbia onto Lake Murray Blvd (exit 1) West. Drive just a few miles into Lexington County. Dreher Shoals Dam holds back Lake Murray from drowning the City of Columbia.. Only in the past decade, the Army Corps of Engineers found the old dam to be so faulty that if there had been an earthquake or a severe hurricane, it could have burst and flooded Columbia, so it has been rebuilt and with the rebuilding came a 1.5 mile walk, named after Johnny W. Jeffcoat, along the dark deep waters of Lake Murray. South Carolina Electricity and Gas asks for a fee from April 1 to September 30, but now it is free to park, or even to bring your boat to launch. (After the dam on the right is also Lexington County Public Park).
In the distance there are islands (one is named Lunch Island) where in World War II pilots learned to bomb and drop incendiary devices. Five B25's went into the deep. Four were later brought up and salvaged, leaving one rare B25C left to find and restore in 2005. Now that war is long off. The remaining soldiers and pilots are growing very old.
From the top of the dam on this cool early morning, I see the blue silhouette of downtown Columbia. Across the road, the concrete bunker of the dam rises with two dozen vultures resting on its parapet. Others circle in the morning haze.
Approaching the far side of the walkway, there is a 15 foot chain link fence with countless tiny glittering sparklers covering it. They look like the tiny schools of silver fish flashing up from creeks. When I arrive at the fence, I see that the silver sparklers are locks and chains. The locks have the names of people on them, sometimes even a photograph, a date. The occasional chains are attached in the shape of hearts.
At the end of the walk is another parking area where I meet a woman in an SUV who tells me about the locks.
They are called Love Locks and no one actually knows how the tradition began. They are sometimes memorials to a deceased loved one or friend but more often they commemorate the love between two people, family members, a marriage. The lock is attached and the key is thrown into the deep waters, signifying undying love, perhaps even eternity.
In the distance there are islands (one is named Lunch Island) where in World War II pilots learned to bomb and drop incendiary devices. Five B25's went into the deep. Four were later brought up and salvaged, leaving one rare B25C left to find and restore in 2005. Now that war is long off. The remaining soldiers and pilots are growing very old.
From the top of the dam on this cool early morning, I see the blue silhouette of downtown Columbia. Across the road, the concrete bunker of the dam rises with two dozen vultures resting on its parapet. Others circle in the morning haze.
Approaching the far side of the walkway, there is a 15 foot chain link fence with countless tiny glittering sparklers covering it. They look like the tiny schools of silver fish flashing up from creeks. When I arrive at the fence, I see that the silver sparklers are locks and chains. The locks have the names of people on them, sometimes even a photograph, a date. The occasional chains are attached in the shape of hearts.
At the end of the walk is another parking area where I meet a woman in an SUV who tells me about the locks.
They are called Love Locks and no one actually knows how the tradition began. They are sometimes memorials to a deceased loved one or friend but more often they commemorate the love between two people, family members, a marriage. The lock is attached and the key is thrown into the deep waters, signifying undying love, perhaps even eternity.
October 19, 2014 Great Blue, My Altar
Each morning I have gone down to the dock on the marsh at sunrise and he is there. First, he is perched far out over the creek at the end of a long palm tree leaning over against the yellow and orange sun coming up, then on the left bank already fishing and then on the bridge to the dock itself. He is there, completely visible to me, gray and blue, haunting in his faithfulness on nearly every hike. Sometimes I hear his wings and sometimes I know he is there and but I do not see him. I see him in my mind's eye.
On this last day, I walk the Spanish Mount Trail with Michael and his family. The children are transformed here as are we all. They tell us that they are no longer speaking human. They have found a secret place down a hidden path onto a dried pluff mud shore along the marsh. Now they scamper down the trail, wearing their coon skin caps, dragging palm fronds behind them and chortling in secret wild tongues.
We have all heard the wild language of the birds, the animals, the marsh and the sea. One day, we too, may learn to speak it.
We are restored.
On this last day, I walk the Spanish Mount Trail with Michael and his family. The children are transformed here as are we all. They tell us that they are no longer speaking human. They have found a secret place down a hidden path onto a dried pluff mud shore along the marsh. Now they scamper down the trail, wearing their coon skin caps, dragging palm fronds behind them and chortling in secret wild tongues.
We have all heard the wild language of the birds, the animals, the marsh and the sea. One day, we too, may learn to speak it.
We are restored.
Monday, October 20, 2014
October 17, 2014 Edisto Island, Oyster Shell Kaddish
I am walking down the beach intending to cross Jeremy Creek at low tide where the big shells are, when my cell phone rings.
My dear old friend is dead. Her death has lasted for three years, first the brain and then the body. And now she is at peace.
Oddly, it is just here at the campground behind the big dunes where she used to come, driving down in her Mustang convertible with her son, Willie, for camping under the stars with the sound of ocean waves and the scent of the sea air.
I turn back and gather a bag full of oyster shells, the old kind battered by the tides, that have holes in them. I buy a spool of crab trap cord at the gas station. And then I find a gnarled spindly piece of drift wood and tie the shells to it into a makeshift wind chime.
I hung the chime on the edge of the marsh so that at night I could hear the clacking, clinking sounds of a kind of prayer for the dead, wafting across the water.
Peace. Amen.
My dear old friend is dead. Her death has lasted for three years, first the brain and then the body. And now she is at peace.
Oddly, it is just here at the campground behind the big dunes where she used to come, driving down in her Mustang convertible with her son, Willie, for camping under the stars with the sound of ocean waves and the scent of the sea air.
I turn back and gather a bag full of oyster shells, the old kind battered by the tides, that have holes in them. I buy a spool of crab trap cord at the gas station. And then I find a gnarled spindly piece of drift wood and tie the shells to it into a makeshift wind chime.
I hung the chime on the edge of the marsh so that at night I could hear the clacking, clinking sounds of a kind of prayer for the dead, wafting across the water.
Peace. Amen.
October 16, 2014 Charles Towne Landing, Aboriginal Eyes
On the way to Edisto, down I-26, I visit Charles Towne Landing in Charleston. (Take exit 216 A onto Hwy 7 which is Sam Rittenburg Blvd, then left onto Hwy 171, which is Olde Towne Road (go past Charlestowne Drive) then take the next left at the stop light into Charles Towne Landing State Historic Site.
The first European settlement here was in 1671.
The Visitor's Center is flanked by gardens of sweet Grass, now blooming with cloudlike fronds of dusky pink blossoms.
In the Center, there is much to learn of Colonial history. There are tours and demonstrations. In the park, there are replicas of a ship, the building of another ship like the rib cage of a huge whale. There are cottages to visit, a history trail, an animal forest, a Native American exhibit, archaeological sites. There are many paved walks.
I elect to wander around all of these things until I find the dirt trails bordering the marsh. I find an entrance near the beautiful restored home of Ferdinanda Waring's grandparents who once owned this land. Today, there are marriages held here.
In 1941 Ferdinanda planted an avenue of oaks as an incredible approach to the house. Ferdinanda had a flower business and an egg business, around the same time mid century that my Grandmother, Katherine Quigley, had an egg business out in Leslie, SC. She had tried to learn to drive a car in her 60's but proved so maniacal a driver that my father hired a man to drive her into town to sell her eggs.
Ferdinanda sold the property to the State of South Carolina in 1981.
I take the dirt path to the marsh and am engulfed by the intense sweetness of the Elaegnus (Elaegnus pungens, also known as Silver Thorn) which is everywhere. Later the ranger tells me it is an invasive species. I say let it invade for its scent alone.
I enter a side path to a "Scenic Point" where there is a bench on a sandy spit of land. With my hiking stick, I write "Hallelujah" in the sand.
Walking back along the marsh where oaks bend gracefully over the water, dripping Spanish Moss, I look out with my "Aboriginal Eyes", something I have done since childhood, imagining I am one of the first people seeing nothing but what they saw, without modern civilization.
Silently a silver plane emerges in the deep blue heavens, seeming to hang there almost motionless. I perceive that it is a god or a demon, a flying canoe drifting the blue waters of the sky.
Back to today's reality, a world where there is the Ebola virus and where there is the plague of Isis, and I am, out of some kind of Cosmic luck, safely buying coon skin caps for Zack, Shane and little Earl who will meet me at Edisto for a moment out of time.
The first European settlement here was in 1671.
The Visitor's Center is flanked by gardens of sweet Grass, now blooming with cloudlike fronds of dusky pink blossoms.
In the Center, there is much to learn of Colonial history. There are tours and demonstrations. In the park, there are replicas of a ship, the building of another ship like the rib cage of a huge whale. There are cottages to visit, a history trail, an animal forest, a Native American exhibit, archaeological sites. There are many paved walks.
I elect to wander around all of these things until I find the dirt trails bordering the marsh. I find an entrance near the beautiful restored home of Ferdinanda Waring's grandparents who once owned this land. Today, there are marriages held here.
In 1941 Ferdinanda planted an avenue of oaks as an incredible approach to the house. Ferdinanda had a flower business and an egg business, around the same time mid century that my Grandmother, Katherine Quigley, had an egg business out in Leslie, SC. She had tried to learn to drive a car in her 60's but proved so maniacal a driver that my father hired a man to drive her into town to sell her eggs.
Ferdinanda sold the property to the State of South Carolina in 1981.
I take the dirt path to the marsh and am engulfed by the intense sweetness of the Elaegnus (Elaegnus pungens, also known as Silver Thorn) which is everywhere. Later the ranger tells me it is an invasive species. I say let it invade for its scent alone.
I enter a side path to a "Scenic Point" where there is a bench on a sandy spit of land. With my hiking stick, I write "Hallelujah" in the sand.
Walking back along the marsh where oaks bend gracefully over the water, dripping Spanish Moss, I look out with my "Aboriginal Eyes", something I have done since childhood, imagining I am one of the first people seeing nothing but what they saw, without modern civilization.
Silently a silver plane emerges in the deep blue heavens, seeming to hang there almost motionless. I perceive that it is a god or a demon, a flying canoe drifting the blue waters of the sky.
Back to today's reality, a world where there is the Ebola virus and where there is the plague of Isis, and I am, out of some kind of Cosmic luck, safely buying coon skin caps for Zack, Shane and little Earl who will meet me at Edisto for a moment out of time.
Thursday, October 2, 2014
September 30, 2014 Fourteen Mile Creek Trail, Lexington, SC The Tree of Heaven
From I-26 take Lake Murray Blvd West (Hwy 60) through the town of Irmo. In about 4 miles hwy 60 becomes Hwy 6 (do not turn rt on Hwy 6, go straight) and the road goes over the magnificent Saluda Dam where couples walk quickly holding hands, young mothers run with their babies in strollers on the edge of the deep blue Lake Murray.
Soon, there is a gas station on the left called Stop and Shop on the corner of Old Cherokee Rd. This is in the town of Lexington.
The trail begins from the parking area of the gas station. Just before I arrived, a dedication was held for the newly built trail. Dignitaries dressed in suits and ties, Sunday dresses are walking back from the woods.
The trail is only 3/4 mile ending in a loop in a field. It follows 14 Mile Creek. An explosion of fuzzy blue astor type wildflowers lines the wide walkway. On the far bank, bright red and yellow purse like blossoms
are in full bloom.
A big fat brown rabbit comes so very close, as if it is Durer's watercolor come to life, nibbling among the leaves and grasses, almost tame. Rabbit, symbol of birth and creativity, totem of the "fear caller", the
message to move through fear.
Here there are the invasive tall plants called "the Tree of Heaven" now hung with large seed pods. Two mothers with small children are investigating the pods. I hear a mother tell the children that these are the magic seeds of Jack and the Beanstalk.
Soon, there is a gas station on the left called Stop and Shop on the corner of Old Cherokee Rd. This is in the town of Lexington.
The trail begins from the parking area of the gas station. Just before I arrived, a dedication was held for the newly built trail. Dignitaries dressed in suits and ties, Sunday dresses are walking back from the woods.
The trail is only 3/4 mile ending in a loop in a field. It follows 14 Mile Creek. An explosion of fuzzy blue astor type wildflowers lines the wide walkway. On the far bank, bright red and yellow purse like blossoms
are in full bloom.
A big fat brown rabbit comes so very close, as if it is Durer's watercolor come to life, nibbling among the leaves and grasses, almost tame. Rabbit, symbol of birth and creativity, totem of the "fear caller", the
message to move through fear.
Here there are the invasive tall plants called "the Tree of Heaven" now hung with large seed pods. Two mothers with small children are investigating the pods. I hear a mother tell the children that these are the magic seeds of Jack and the Beanstalk.
Wednesday, October 1, 2014
September 30, 2014 Riverbanks Zoo, Over the Bridge and Into the Woodswalk
It is early and the air is filled with the hoots, screeches and hollers of monkeys, apes and birds. I take the modern concrete and steel bridge over the Saluda River where there are five foot tall pots overflowing with flowers and weeping willows, yellow Adirondack chairs and bright blue benches, where you can sit and watch the zip glyders flying across the waters.
There was a covered bridge here built in 1819, but it was destroyed by the Confederate Army in 1865 in an effort to prevent General William Tecomseh Sherman from entering the city of Columbia. Sherman had a floating bridge made from the lumber at the Saluda Mill just a hundred yards up river and Columbia was burned.
The Woodland Trail leaves the path to the right at the far side of the bridge, following the river to a building housing a textile museum. The trail is short and steep from there among mountain like boulders. The reward at the top is the stone entrance to the Botanical Garden. Entering is the intoxicating scent of hundreds of roses. There are spider lilies blooming. There are fountains. There is an Art Garden with a sculpture by Anna Hyatt Huntington of Jaguars on a Tree Stump.
Over the entrance to the Garden House is the inscription:
Care for the Earth As If it Were Our Garden.
There was a covered bridge here built in 1819, but it was destroyed by the Confederate Army in 1865 in an effort to prevent General William Tecomseh Sherman from entering the city of Columbia. Sherman had a floating bridge made from the lumber at the Saluda Mill just a hundred yards up river and Columbia was burned.
The Woodland Trail leaves the path to the right at the far side of the bridge, following the river to a building housing a textile museum. The trail is short and steep from there among mountain like boulders. The reward at the top is the stone entrance to the Botanical Garden. Entering is the intoxicating scent of hundreds of roses. There are spider lilies blooming. There are fountains. There is an Art Garden with a sculpture by Anna Hyatt Huntington of Jaguars on a Tree Stump.
Over the entrance to the Garden House is the inscription:
Care for the Earth As If it Were Our Garden.
Sunday, September 21, 2014
September 20, 2014The Carl Sandburg House to Big Glassy Mountain
It is the last day of summer and this blue day out of time is like a lingering kiss goodbye. Up I-26 West toward Flat Rock the ancient Blue Ridge sits majestic under a low layer of fluffy white clouds. Coming closer blue melts into the still lush green of summer with only a tinge of yellow or brown. Trees are laden and dripping with nuts and seed pods. Black Eyed Susans bloom ferociously on the sides of the road. Here there is a field of dark pink Cosmos and there a roadside planted with orange Zinias.
But the song birds have abandoned their nests, the Monarchs have passed through landing briefly in the Butterfly Bush at my back porch. I learn in my emails from Fran at Harbor Island, that the last babies from the last Sea Turtle nest have crawled into the ocean. The snow cone stand has closed: "Nancy Has Gone Fishing" on the sign. I have bought the last real tomatoes from 90 year old Vernon Griffin out in the country. The children have gone back to school on the yellow buses. And I have gone out in the early dawn and picked the second crop of figs for preserves.
The parking for the Sandburg Home is filled up and I park along a yellow curb. A thin man dressed for the office tells me there is parking at Flat Rock Landing and then you can follow the brick wall to the park.
At the pond a sign cautions about Banded Water Snakes. I see none today but once in the past, I looked down on the rocks below and saw countless snakes like live spaghetti, an unsettling sight.
Boofa and I take the Glassy Mountain trail across from the goat barn. There are more caution signs for snakes, ticks, poison ivy and Black Bears. But the trail is wide enough for a vehicle and goes straight up one and a half miles to a smooth rock outlook. There is a team of cross country runners from Hillcrest Middle School in Greenville jogging up, then back down, then timing themselves. At the outlook, we meet one of the trainers with a dog named Freckles much like Boofa, but he is actually a Cockapoo, white with roan spots like Boofa. The view here takes in a panorama of green then blue and fading mountain ridges under the clear warm blue sky. I look for petroglyphs on the rock face, but find none. I know that they must have been here, however, the ancient ones. It is a timeless spiritual place.
Going back down I pass the thin man in office dress climbing up. There is a roped off path which is a short cut made by hikers going to the outlook. Because it was not traditionally used by the Sandburgs, it is now closed. Another offshoot of the trail goes to Little Glassy Mountain.
Driving down the Saluda Grade past the town of Tryon, I am listening to country music on 92.5 fm and appropriately, the love songs are all about loss, betrayal and regret, just like the end of summer.
The summer that I have loved so passionately is boarding a train for South America.
But the song birds have abandoned their nests, the Monarchs have passed through landing briefly in the Butterfly Bush at my back porch. I learn in my emails from Fran at Harbor Island, that the last babies from the last Sea Turtle nest have crawled into the ocean. The snow cone stand has closed: "Nancy Has Gone Fishing" on the sign. I have bought the last real tomatoes from 90 year old Vernon Griffin out in the country. The children have gone back to school on the yellow buses. And I have gone out in the early dawn and picked the second crop of figs for preserves.
The parking for the Sandburg Home is filled up and I park along a yellow curb. A thin man dressed for the office tells me there is parking at Flat Rock Landing and then you can follow the brick wall to the park.
At the pond a sign cautions about Banded Water Snakes. I see none today but once in the past, I looked down on the rocks below and saw countless snakes like live spaghetti, an unsettling sight.
Boofa and I take the Glassy Mountain trail across from the goat barn. There are more caution signs for snakes, ticks, poison ivy and Black Bears. But the trail is wide enough for a vehicle and goes straight up one and a half miles to a smooth rock outlook. There is a team of cross country runners from Hillcrest Middle School in Greenville jogging up, then back down, then timing themselves. At the outlook, we meet one of the trainers with a dog named Freckles much like Boofa, but he is actually a Cockapoo, white with roan spots like Boofa. The view here takes in a panorama of green then blue and fading mountain ridges under the clear warm blue sky. I look for petroglyphs on the rock face, but find none. I know that they must have been here, however, the ancient ones. It is a timeless spiritual place.
Going back down I pass the thin man in office dress climbing up. There is a roped off path which is a short cut made by hikers going to the outlook. Because it was not traditionally used by the Sandburgs, it is now closed. Another offshoot of the trail goes to Little Glassy Mountain.
Driving down the Saluda Grade past the town of Tryon, I am listening to country music on 92.5 fm and appropriately, the love songs are all about loss, betrayal and regret, just like the end of summer.
The summer that I have loved so passionately is boarding a train for South America.
Wednesday, September 17, 2014
September 14, 2014 Oconee Station Falls , Fellow Travelers in the Rain
It is raining cats and dogs as I drive down 85 towards Decatur. I take Exit 1 to the right just before the SC/GA border and drive North past Hartwell State Park on Highway 11 (The Cherokee Foothills Highway) towards Oconee Station. Every few miles along the 25 mile trip are signs pointing the way to waterfalls: Lake Keowee waterfalls, Chatooga waterfalls. The side roads along the way are Blackjack, Falcon's Lair, and Earth Berm. I pass the No Sweat Auction, Jehovah's Witness and Seventh Day Adventist churches.
Just after the imposing Spring Heights Baptist church is an apple orchard and a field of orange pumpkins.
Soon there is a left turn onto Oconee Station Rd which takes me two miles down to the entrance on the right.
A green truck pulls into the parking lot in front of me. There is no one else here, not even a ranger in the tiny ranger cabin. The couple from the green truck and I read the notes posted outside the cabin, join forces and find our way up the hill to the two stone buildings which were at times, the Indian Trading Post, the outpost to ward off battles with the Indians, a trading post again, a private home and then a vacation home. From there we find a trail though the hardwood forest which is a kind of orange rivulet from the iron soaked water coursing down the mountain.
Will and Karen are kayakers who have come up from Florence to kayak at Devil's Fork. Their pontoon tour to view waterfalls has been cancelled due to the driving rain and they have left their tent to find their own waterfall. We find we are kindred spirits, who love the state parks, the woods, the water, the wildlife.
The beautiful trail winds around the mountain where mist is rising from streams below. After a while we come to the very road we came in on and cross it to continue the trail. There is a trail that goes off to the right that you can take to Oconee State Park through the woods in 2 and a half miles.
Further on, we hear the high screech of birds which turns out to be children playing at the foot of the falls. The sight before us is astounding. We cross the stream over smooth stones, crawl across rocks and breathe in the negative ions of the misty air. A family is here with two small boys of about 3 and 4 cavorting in the water, skipping across the rocks, their clothes totally soaked. One boy laughing, gives me a big acorn he has found. We take photos of ourselves standing on the rocks in the water with the falls behind us.
We are in awe. We are soaked. My pants are covered in red mud where I slipped on the trail.
I drive down to Decatur singing along with the radio.
Just after the imposing Spring Heights Baptist church is an apple orchard and a field of orange pumpkins.
Soon there is a left turn onto Oconee Station Rd which takes me two miles down to the entrance on the right.
A green truck pulls into the parking lot in front of me. There is no one else here, not even a ranger in the tiny ranger cabin. The couple from the green truck and I read the notes posted outside the cabin, join forces and find our way up the hill to the two stone buildings which were at times, the Indian Trading Post, the outpost to ward off battles with the Indians, a trading post again, a private home and then a vacation home. From there we find a trail though the hardwood forest which is a kind of orange rivulet from the iron soaked water coursing down the mountain.
Will and Karen are kayakers who have come up from Florence to kayak at Devil's Fork. Their pontoon tour to view waterfalls has been cancelled due to the driving rain and they have left their tent to find their own waterfall. We find we are kindred spirits, who love the state parks, the woods, the water, the wildlife.
The beautiful trail winds around the mountain where mist is rising from streams below. After a while we come to the very road we came in on and cross it to continue the trail. There is a trail that goes off to the right that you can take to Oconee State Park through the woods in 2 and a half miles.
Further on, we hear the high screech of birds which turns out to be children playing at the foot of the falls. The sight before us is astounding. We cross the stream over smooth stones, crawl across rocks and breathe in the negative ions of the misty air. A family is here with two small boys of about 3 and 4 cavorting in the water, skipping across the rocks, their clothes totally soaked. One boy laughing, gives me a big acorn he has found. We take photos of ourselves standing on the rocks in the water with the falls behind us.
We are in awe. We are soaked. My pants are covered in red mud where I slipped on the trail.
I drive down to Decatur singing along with the radio.
Monday, September 8, 2014
September 7, 2014 Long Shoals Park on the Eastatoee Creek, The Drednautalus and the Pit Bull Asteroid
It is still morning when I leave Devil's Fork without walking the Bear Cove Trail feeling sadness and regret.
Driving back on Hwy 11, Rodney Crause and Emie Lou Harris are singing a haunting song saying "I'll always rove your way again...til I can gain control again.." I cross back over the deep green Keowee River and on the right is a sign for the Long Shoals Park. I pull over and find a young family getting out of their van, an older woman helping her wheelchair bound husband back into their truck, all hauling picnic coolers. There is an enticing path inviting me down the sharp incline through the forest. I follow the family and suddenly we come upon the glorious and fantastic sight of the creek rushing across smooth rocks, surrounded by bounders the size of Drednautus, the dinosaur unearthed in Argentina four days ago, as long as a basketball court, two stories tall and as big as 6 elephants. There is a small beach with a few families, children splashing in the cool water. Boofa and I meet a man with a dog on a leash and a fat black and tan puppy named "Flash". The man tells me he found 8 puppies under a burned out house, gave the rest away and kept Flash. There is a trail going down by the creek. Muscadines are on the ground. The magic feeling that a key has unlocked the other world of the woods, the water, the cloud filled sky above is suddenly with me again.
The wayside park is part of the SC Department of Forestry and managed and maintained by the Andrew Pickens Chapter of the Cherokee Foothillls Byway Association. The managers are Dennis Chastain and Dr. George Smith.
The magic has infused my heart again. I feel a part of the universe, the universe where the Drednautulus skeleton bones were found, the universe where the Pit Bull asteroid is flying by only 25,000 miles away from earth today. The place where we live.
Driving back on Hwy 11, Rodney Crause and Emie Lou Harris are singing a haunting song saying "I'll always rove your way again...til I can gain control again.." I cross back over the deep green Keowee River and on the right is a sign for the Long Shoals Park. I pull over and find a young family getting out of their van, an older woman helping her wheelchair bound husband back into their truck, all hauling picnic coolers. There is an enticing path inviting me down the sharp incline through the forest. I follow the family and suddenly we come upon the glorious and fantastic sight of the creek rushing across smooth rocks, surrounded by bounders the size of Drednautus, the dinosaur unearthed in Argentina four days ago, as long as a basketball court, two stories tall and as big as 6 elephants. There is a small beach with a few families, children splashing in the cool water. Boofa and I meet a man with a dog on a leash and a fat black and tan puppy named "Flash". The man tells me he found 8 puppies under a burned out house, gave the rest away and kept Flash. There is a trail going down by the creek. Muscadines are on the ground. The magic feeling that a key has unlocked the other world of the woods, the water, the cloud filled sky above is suddenly with me again.
The wayside park is part of the SC Department of Forestry and managed and maintained by the Andrew Pickens Chapter of the Cherokee Foothillls Byway Association. The managers are Dennis Chastain and Dr. George Smith.
The magic has infused my heart again. I feel a part of the universe, the universe where the Drednautulus skeleton bones were found, the universe where the Pit Bull asteroid is flying by only 25,000 miles away from earth today. The place where we live.
September 7, 2014 Devil's Fork State Park, The Oconee Bell Trail, Spooked
The blooming wild plants along the Foothills Hwy 11 are announcing the Fall that is nearly here: wild coriopsis in huge yellow clumps, goldenrod in all its varieties, fields and hedges of purple and red morning glories, the Joe Pye bush in dusty pink profusion, Elkhorn sumac, pink Scottish Thistle and here a stand of Okra, six feet tall with blooms like hibiscus. Driving Southwest along the escarpment of the mountains, passing Jones Gap, Caesar's Head, Table Rock, Sassafras Mountain, Keowee-Toxaway, over the Keowee River and the right turn toward Salem and then it is 3 miles to the park.
Side roads are Whipporwill Hollow, Chapman Bridge Rd. A sign nailed to a tree says "REPENT" and then a sign for Jocasse Tours proclaims "Welcome to Paradise".
There are two trails, the Oconee Bell and the Bear Cove Trail. I intend to walk both. The Oconee Bell starts down some steps at the single vehicle parking lot near the park office. This park is about Lake Jocassee and the big lot is for vehicles pulling boats. The park is for fishing, but it appears most visitors are enjoying boating and picnicing and sunbathing on the water.
The Oconee Bell Trail is a lovely loop where in late March you can see the rare Oconee Bell plant in white bloom. I find the plants with heart shaped leaves along the way. Andre Micheau, the botanist, first discovered these plants in 1787. (The French Huguenot ancestors of my family included Micheaux. It would be nice to think that some were the Micheau Botanist brothers). The trail moves up and down along a narrow creek, at times the water courses in short waterfalls over black mountain rock. I counted four foot bridges and one bench near one of the little falls.
This trail was only a mile and since it was cool and lovely, I drove back down from the office area to the day area by going right on Devil's Fork Rd, another right on Buckeye road and up the hill to another park recreation area building where there was a snack bar: coffee $2.00, hot chocolate $2.00, ice cream and other goodies, kayaks and canoes in a multitude of colors for rent as well as umbrellas, chairs and other equipment. Here there are picnic shelters and a path to walk in camping. Between the shelters, the Bear Cove Trail winds into the woods. I am ready to go when a great hulk of a hiker looms beside me speaking to me and plunging into the trail. I notice there are no other hikers and I wait for a while sharing an apple with Boofa. I am torn. I want to walk the trail, but I decide with immense regret to leave. I am spooked. The forest can be a lonely place.
Side roads are Whipporwill Hollow, Chapman Bridge Rd. A sign nailed to a tree says "REPENT" and then a sign for Jocasse Tours proclaims "Welcome to Paradise".
There are two trails, the Oconee Bell and the Bear Cove Trail. I intend to walk both. The Oconee Bell starts down some steps at the single vehicle parking lot near the park office. This park is about Lake Jocassee and the big lot is for vehicles pulling boats. The park is for fishing, but it appears most visitors are enjoying boating and picnicing and sunbathing on the water.
The Oconee Bell Trail is a lovely loop where in late March you can see the rare Oconee Bell plant in white bloom. I find the plants with heart shaped leaves along the way. Andre Micheau, the botanist, first discovered these plants in 1787. (The French Huguenot ancestors of my family included Micheaux. It would be nice to think that some were the Micheau Botanist brothers). The trail moves up and down along a narrow creek, at times the water courses in short waterfalls over black mountain rock. I counted four foot bridges and one bench near one of the little falls.
This trail was only a mile and since it was cool and lovely, I drove back down from the office area to the day area by going right on Devil's Fork Rd, another right on Buckeye road and up the hill to another park recreation area building where there was a snack bar: coffee $2.00, hot chocolate $2.00, ice cream and other goodies, kayaks and canoes in a multitude of colors for rent as well as umbrellas, chairs and other equipment. Here there are picnic shelters and a path to walk in camping. Between the shelters, the Bear Cove Trail winds into the woods. I am ready to go when a great hulk of a hiker looms beside me speaking to me and plunging into the trail. I notice there are no other hikers and I wait for a while sharing an apple with Boofa. I am torn. I want to walk the trail, but I decide with immense regret to leave. I am spooked. The forest can be a lonely place.
Tuesday, August 26, 2014
August 25, 2014 The Cottonwood Trail, There is Always a Gift
Today, there were three.
Entering the trail, I chanced upon a geocache, a plastic box filled with cheerful doodads, tchotchkes, little toys, patterned erasers, even a coiled cell phone charger. I took a green plastic bug and left a ball point pen.
Rounding the corner from the woods at the creek, I spotted a Cooper's Hawk fishing from a low branch two feet over the water. For a while, I watched him. Boofa was quiet and still. The hawk leapt into the water and for a time, stood with his yellow talons submerged, head down searching.
Crossing the jetty over the wetlands, three American Goldfinch flitted around the branches of dead bushes in the water.
The day was cool, a harbinger of the fall to come.
There is always a gift. A peek into the natural world. An encounter with another human being. A flash of intuition like a bolt of lightening. A glimpse into the past. A challenge overcome.
Unfortunately, my gift from Santee was poison ivy. A lesson learned.
Entering the trail, I chanced upon a geocache, a plastic box filled with cheerful doodads, tchotchkes, little toys, patterned erasers, even a coiled cell phone charger. I took a green plastic bug and left a ball point pen.
Rounding the corner from the woods at the creek, I spotted a Cooper's Hawk fishing from a low branch two feet over the water. For a while, I watched him. Boofa was quiet and still. The hawk leapt into the water and for a time, stood with his yellow talons submerged, head down searching.
Crossing the jetty over the wetlands, three American Goldfinch flitted around the branches of dead bushes in the water.
The day was cool, a harbinger of the fall to come.
There is always a gift. A peek into the natural world. An encounter with another human being. A flash of intuition like a bolt of lightening. A glimpse into the past. A challenge overcome.
Unfortunately, my gift from Santee was poison ivy. A lesson learned.
Sunday, August 24, 2014
August 23, 2014 Santee State Park, The Hottest Day of the Year
Such a relief from yesterday. I walk in the light rain. There are purple blossoms on the kudzu. Confederate jasmine is in flower. The crape myrtles full of pink, purple and white blossoms and the cane are bending over with their burden of water.Here and there is a dappling of yellow leaves. In my garden, spider lilies have pushed up and the big red rose bush in is bloom again. The children have gone back to school.
Yesterday I drove up I-26 from Charleston where we had stayed overnight in an old Charleston house on the College of Charleston Campus. I took the exit for the town of Santee and drove up highway 15 past flat fields of dry brown corn and fields of blooming cotton, drooping in the blast of heat. Along the way are a few old houses set back surrounded by live oaks and here and there a church, one a tiny colorful steepled building in a field, the kind you might see in a miniature of a Christmas village. The country town of Santee boasts a large modern convention center, gas stations, pizza joints, tackle and fishing shops and a variety of lounges, sort of an unexpected and bizarre Las Vegas of the sandhills. It is the world class fishing that brings some of the less beautiful establishments to town.
The Santee dam was built in 1938 through 41 to create Lake Marion and Moultrie. Santee State Park is located on Lake Marion (the swamp fox) between the small towns of Santee and Elloree. I take hwy 6 towards Elloree from Santee and in front of the golf course, turn right onto State Park Rd.
After a short drive through the pine forest, Lake Marion, rippled dark blue and deep is before me. Across the water stands a long row of tall dead as well as leafed trees, the remains of the forest that was drowned to create the lake.
Here to the right is the Fisheagle Tours office. In front of me is the park store with fishing tackle, souvenirs and a snack area overlooking the water. To the left is the fishing pier and the park office.
There are four trails; three short ones and a 7.3 mile bike trail. Oak-Pinolly Nature Trail is near the shop. Sinkhole Pond Nature Trail is off Fox Squirrel Drive and the Limestone Nature Trail is off Cleveland Street close by a picnic area.
I take the Limestone Trail through the sandy pine needled woods and shortly come upon a footbridge over an alligator pond the color of green olives. Humans are not the only ones who catch fish. The gators are nowhere to be seen today. Going across the bridge, I startle up Great Blue and a duck. They fly up the pond to the north and I can see the intrusive outline of I-95 in the distance. The trail ends at a road so I turn back and find another trail that ends back where I started.
The park has 25 cabins, 5 of which are on piers out into the lake. It also has camping and a round community building. But fishing is the big thing here.
I get back on hwy 6 through Elloree, then St. Mathews where lovely well kept old homes alternate with crumbling old houses. All the yards have flowers, even those that are abandoned. Cows are standing shoulder deep in the ponds along the way.
Hours later I am near home in the Upstate. Children and their parents, fully clothed, are wading through the Tyger River. A blue-black cloud appears across the heavens before me.
Lightening cracks the sky and in moments, the scorching heat is gone, rain is pouring down on the windshield. It is hard to see the road, but just as quickly the pop-up storm is gone and fresh fragrant washed earth is left behind it.
Yesterday I drove up I-26 from Charleston where we had stayed overnight in an old Charleston house on the College of Charleston Campus. I took the exit for the town of Santee and drove up highway 15 past flat fields of dry brown corn and fields of blooming cotton, drooping in the blast of heat. Along the way are a few old houses set back surrounded by live oaks and here and there a church, one a tiny colorful steepled building in a field, the kind you might see in a miniature of a Christmas village. The country town of Santee boasts a large modern convention center, gas stations, pizza joints, tackle and fishing shops and a variety of lounges, sort of an unexpected and bizarre Las Vegas of the sandhills. It is the world class fishing that brings some of the less beautiful establishments to town.
The Santee dam was built in 1938 through 41 to create Lake Marion and Moultrie. Santee State Park is located on Lake Marion (the swamp fox) between the small towns of Santee and Elloree. I take hwy 6 towards Elloree from Santee and in front of the golf course, turn right onto State Park Rd.
After a short drive through the pine forest, Lake Marion, rippled dark blue and deep is before me. Across the water stands a long row of tall dead as well as leafed trees, the remains of the forest that was drowned to create the lake.
Here to the right is the Fisheagle Tours office. In front of me is the park store with fishing tackle, souvenirs and a snack area overlooking the water. To the left is the fishing pier and the park office.
There are four trails; three short ones and a 7.3 mile bike trail. Oak-Pinolly Nature Trail is near the shop. Sinkhole Pond Nature Trail is off Fox Squirrel Drive and the Limestone Nature Trail is off Cleveland Street close by a picnic area.
I take the Limestone Trail through the sandy pine needled woods and shortly come upon a footbridge over an alligator pond the color of green olives. Humans are not the only ones who catch fish. The gators are nowhere to be seen today. Going across the bridge, I startle up Great Blue and a duck. They fly up the pond to the north and I can see the intrusive outline of I-95 in the distance. The trail ends at a road so I turn back and find another trail that ends back where I started.
The park has 25 cabins, 5 of which are on piers out into the lake. It also has camping and a round community building. But fishing is the big thing here.
I get back on hwy 6 through Elloree, then St. Mathews where lovely well kept old homes alternate with crumbling old houses. All the yards have flowers, even those that are abandoned. Cows are standing shoulder deep in the ponds along the way.
Hours later I am near home in the Upstate. Children and their parents, fully clothed, are wading through the Tyger River. A blue-black cloud appears across the heavens before me.
Lightening cracks the sky and in moments, the scorching heat is gone, rain is pouring down on the windshield. It is hard to see the road, but just as quickly the pop-up storm is gone and fresh fragrant washed earth is left behind it.
Wednesday, July 30, 2014
July 29, 2014 Barnwell State Park: Water Lillies with a Possibility of Alligators
A bright green day with temperatures much cooler than the season and low humidity as well.
I loaded up Boofa, water, dates and apples and put oil in the car at Kangaroo Station. There I found legal moonshine for sale in flavors of apple, peach, strawberry and clear. The attendant told me that the clear was terrible, the peach so so and the strawberry fairly good. Not today.
It was 9:00 am before I was driving down the back roads (hwy 56 then at Chappells 39) as the crow flies in the green green of the height of summer. Impossible smooth green meadows stretch for acres to forests of deep dark green trees. There is not a leaf stirring. The trees stand magnificently and quietly knowing that the work of the green fuse is done now. I pass cattle farms with signs for Limousin, Brahman and Poled Hereford bulls.
On the Laurens/Newberry County line, Belfast Plantation is on the right (settled by John Simpson of Ireland in 1786) and on it's land a Wildlife Management area.
Later I pass the Jacob Odom house where George Washington spent the night on his trip north in 1755.
I cross the Spearman Bridge over the green Saluda and into Saluda, past the Saluda county Courthouse and a mural on the side of a downtown building for the Saluda Old Town Treaty in 1755 with the Native Americans. I turn past the Saluda Pool Hall, cross over the Little Saluda River, on past fields of Sun Flowers, small crops of okra and fields of cotton blooming with white and red blossoms, signs for Peaches at Cone Farms, Dixie Bell Peaches. In Wagener, a truck of watermelons is parked in the town median.
In Sally (home of the Chitlin Strutt) I get gas on Walnut St. The station is manned by friendly Southeast Asians. Nearby a group of men sit in the shade of a giant oak, passing the time.
The welcome sign for Springfield is beside a cotton field and a lonely Palmetto Palm. Nearby is the South Edisto River. I stop at the Morgan Pharmacy for directions. It sits in a lovely corner building on the downtown Festival Trail and it has one of the last soda fountains in South Carolina, maybe the world. They tell me to take Hwy 3 ( the Solomon Blatt Hwy) on to Blackville and then shortly to the park on the right.
This is a beautiful small park, another gem, somewhat the size of the Chester State park, with original work by the CCC. There is a park office (open 11 to 12 and 4 to 5) in the old bath house building with a women's bathhouse on the left and men's on the right. At the office there is a humming bird feeder and a trap for carpenter bees. Beyond is the upper pond with 5 children swimming in the roped area, their mothers in black T's and shorts sitting on the shore. The 1.5 mile Nature Trail runs off to the right and circles the ponds, graced with blooming lilies. There are a few people fishing, one paddle boat, signs warning the possibility of alligators "a fed gator is a dead gator". Up in the woods nearby, there are 5 round cabins with landscaping by local garden clubs. Inside I see a nicely appointed kitchen, two bedrooms, a large living-dining area with table and chairs, modern upholstered chairs in front of a flat screen TV.
Leanna McMillan, ranger, tells me the story of the Rosses who were rangers here, she for 24 years until 1979 and he, the husband for 10 years before. Ranger Ross died of a heart attack on the night he went to the aid of passengers in a car that wrecked at the entrance to the park. After his death, Mrs. Ross became the park manager and it was she who was able to arrange for the building of the 5 cabins with the help of Solomon Blatt, legislator from the area.
On the far side of the lake, my friend, Great Blue (heron), stands on the edge of the field of water lilies.
The trail has jetties through the woods, one out into the lake for gazing and fishing. Nearing the end of the trail, I come to the spillway with the sign, "Do Not Walk on the Spillway" and see a small path down to and around a little pond. This is not the way to go. It is passable but covered with branches. A little farther back off the trail is a trail to the road, so that you can walk along the road for a few yards and then come onto a bridge which takes you back to the office.
Leanna McMillan tells me that an Eagle Scout is building another trail in the forest across the road which will connect to the loop trail. Leanna has come two months ago from working at Hickory Knob where she cleared the trail for a Triathelon last year. She tells me about the Civil War Battle History site at Rivers Bridge where I plan to go next.
The swimming spot in the lake looks so inviting that I plan to start packing a swim suit and towel on my next hike.
I drive up the road through Blackville, which has a dark green Public Library in a signature Victorian style with cupola. I get gas at an immaculate station run by our Southeast Asian Highway Guardians. It has a Subway restaurant and a Blue Bunny Ice Cream stand and anything else you might need on the way. In the small towns on Hwys 39 and 56 there is always one or two great old mansions with shaded porches with wicker or rocking chairs. Who sits in those chairs now?
In the small leafy town on Monetta, there is a peach orchard where the ripe peaches lie rotting, ungathered on the ground.
Three deer leap across the road. The sky is filled with high cumulous clouds in a blue blue field.
I am on an oxygen high with the radio playing "Cecelia, The Lion Sleeps Tonight and Blackbird".
I loaded up Boofa, water, dates and apples and put oil in the car at Kangaroo Station. There I found legal moonshine for sale in flavors of apple, peach, strawberry and clear. The attendant told me that the clear was terrible, the peach so so and the strawberry fairly good. Not today.
It was 9:00 am before I was driving down the back roads (hwy 56 then at Chappells 39) as the crow flies in the green green of the height of summer. Impossible smooth green meadows stretch for acres to forests of deep dark green trees. There is not a leaf stirring. The trees stand magnificently and quietly knowing that the work of the green fuse is done now. I pass cattle farms with signs for Limousin, Brahman and Poled Hereford bulls.
On the Laurens/Newberry County line, Belfast Plantation is on the right (settled by John Simpson of Ireland in 1786) and on it's land a Wildlife Management area.
Later I pass the Jacob Odom house where George Washington spent the night on his trip north in 1755.
I cross the Spearman Bridge over the green Saluda and into Saluda, past the Saluda county Courthouse and a mural on the side of a downtown building for the Saluda Old Town Treaty in 1755 with the Native Americans. I turn past the Saluda Pool Hall, cross over the Little Saluda River, on past fields of Sun Flowers, small crops of okra and fields of cotton blooming with white and red blossoms, signs for Peaches at Cone Farms, Dixie Bell Peaches. In Wagener, a truck of watermelons is parked in the town median.
In Sally (home of the Chitlin Strutt) I get gas on Walnut St. The station is manned by friendly Southeast Asians. Nearby a group of men sit in the shade of a giant oak, passing the time.
The welcome sign for Springfield is beside a cotton field and a lonely Palmetto Palm. Nearby is the South Edisto River. I stop at the Morgan Pharmacy for directions. It sits in a lovely corner building on the downtown Festival Trail and it has one of the last soda fountains in South Carolina, maybe the world. They tell me to take Hwy 3 ( the Solomon Blatt Hwy) on to Blackville and then shortly to the park on the right.
This is a beautiful small park, another gem, somewhat the size of the Chester State park, with original work by the CCC. There is a park office (open 11 to 12 and 4 to 5) in the old bath house building with a women's bathhouse on the left and men's on the right. At the office there is a humming bird feeder and a trap for carpenter bees. Beyond is the upper pond with 5 children swimming in the roped area, their mothers in black T's and shorts sitting on the shore. The 1.5 mile Nature Trail runs off to the right and circles the ponds, graced with blooming lilies. There are a few people fishing, one paddle boat, signs warning the possibility of alligators "a fed gator is a dead gator". Up in the woods nearby, there are 5 round cabins with landscaping by local garden clubs. Inside I see a nicely appointed kitchen, two bedrooms, a large living-dining area with table and chairs, modern upholstered chairs in front of a flat screen TV.
Leanna McMillan, ranger, tells me the story of the Rosses who were rangers here, she for 24 years until 1979 and he, the husband for 10 years before. Ranger Ross died of a heart attack on the night he went to the aid of passengers in a car that wrecked at the entrance to the park. After his death, Mrs. Ross became the park manager and it was she who was able to arrange for the building of the 5 cabins with the help of Solomon Blatt, legislator from the area.
On the far side of the lake, my friend, Great Blue (heron), stands on the edge of the field of water lilies.
The trail has jetties through the woods, one out into the lake for gazing and fishing. Nearing the end of the trail, I come to the spillway with the sign, "Do Not Walk on the Spillway" and see a small path down to and around a little pond. This is not the way to go. It is passable but covered with branches. A little farther back off the trail is a trail to the road, so that you can walk along the road for a few yards and then come onto a bridge which takes you back to the office.
Leanna McMillan tells me that an Eagle Scout is building another trail in the forest across the road which will connect to the loop trail. Leanna has come two months ago from working at Hickory Knob where she cleared the trail for a Triathelon last year. She tells me about the Civil War Battle History site at Rivers Bridge where I plan to go next.
The swimming spot in the lake looks so inviting that I plan to start packing a swim suit and towel on my next hike.
I drive up the road through Blackville, which has a dark green Public Library in a signature Victorian style with cupola. I get gas at an immaculate station run by our Southeast Asian Highway Guardians. It has a Subway restaurant and a Blue Bunny Ice Cream stand and anything else you might need on the way. In the small towns on Hwys 39 and 56 there is always one or two great old mansions with shaded porches with wicker or rocking chairs. Who sits in those chairs now?
In the small leafy town on Monetta, there is a peach orchard where the ripe peaches lie rotting, ungathered on the ground.
Three deer leap across the road. The sky is filled with high cumulous clouds in a blue blue field.
I am on an oxygen high with the radio playing "Cecelia, The Lion Sleeps Tonight and Blackbird".
Tuesday, June 17, 2014
June 15, 2014 A Bad Day at Redcliffe Plantation, Beech Island SC
The day began with a wonder of wild flowers along the back roads: Mimosa, massive clumps of blooming viburnum, orange day lilies sprouting up from the green ditches, fragrant ligustrum, brilliant orange butterfly weed, Queen Anne's Lace. On Hwy 56, I crossed Little River, Mills' Creek and then the wide green Saluda. I crossed under I-20 and passed through Aiken with it's lovely old houses and gardens, then a fleeting glimpse of the nuclear plant.
Redcliffe Plantation was the retreat of James Henry Hammond, once Governor of South Carolina, slave owner and political proponent of slavery. The home was restored in 1973 by his descendant, John Shaw Billings, Editor of Life Magazine. Billings brought journalists and even the photographer, Alfred Eisenstaedt to the home to photograph it.
Tours of the home are at 11:00, 1:00 and 3:00. I arrived at 2:00 and missed the 3:00 o'clock tour because I was lost in the woods.
Doug, retired military officer and now park ranger told me that in February of this year, there had been a furious ice storm and that the two mile trail had been severely damaged by falling trees, branches and debris.
He and another ranger had just walked the trail and found the first quarter mile rough but passable and then "down near the pond" extremely overgrown and difficult to even find the way. He advised to just walk in a quarter of a mile and then turn around and come back.
I walked in a way, over fallen logs and branches and kept going, looking for the pond. I was thinking of turning back when a startled long-legged white spreckled faun lept just in front of me. In a state of wondrous awe, I followed it into the deep woods. At last I was lost. At one point, I could see the trail going up a far off ridge and I started down in that direction, but soon came to a small body of water surrounded by brush and had to turn back. I kept going through brush, brambles and black berries hearing the stamping hoof beats of hidden deer and wishing I had a machete until I gave up and headed for the sound of cars. I found a road and began walking in the searing heat from the macadam. Hitch hiking appeared not to be an option.
Finally, I got a ride back to the site from a man named Tommy Snell in his black truck. I washed up at the park office restroom and revived myself on the porch, drinking water and collapsing in a rocking chair until I saw the tourists coming down the hill from the plantation house. They greeted me saying that the ranger had them looking out for me when I didn't appear for the tour.
I do not recommend getting lost and then walking on a highway in 95 degree heat, but the house must be interesting and I did make it up the Atomic Highway to the home of my childhood friend in North Augusta who led me to the shower and put me in a bed with clean cool linens for the night.
I dreamed then of the people who slaved in the unbearable heat on the plantation, bending and chopping, seeding and sowing with no cool shower and clean linens to comfort them.
Redcliffe Plantation was the retreat of James Henry Hammond, once Governor of South Carolina, slave owner and political proponent of slavery. The home was restored in 1973 by his descendant, John Shaw Billings, Editor of Life Magazine. Billings brought journalists and even the photographer, Alfred Eisenstaedt to the home to photograph it.
Tours of the home are at 11:00, 1:00 and 3:00. I arrived at 2:00 and missed the 3:00 o'clock tour because I was lost in the woods.
Doug, retired military officer and now park ranger told me that in February of this year, there had been a furious ice storm and that the two mile trail had been severely damaged by falling trees, branches and debris.
He and another ranger had just walked the trail and found the first quarter mile rough but passable and then "down near the pond" extremely overgrown and difficult to even find the way. He advised to just walk in a quarter of a mile and then turn around and come back.
I walked in a way, over fallen logs and branches and kept going, looking for the pond. I was thinking of turning back when a startled long-legged white spreckled faun lept just in front of me. In a state of wondrous awe, I followed it into the deep woods. At last I was lost. At one point, I could see the trail going up a far off ridge and I started down in that direction, but soon came to a small body of water surrounded by brush and had to turn back. I kept going through brush, brambles and black berries hearing the stamping hoof beats of hidden deer and wishing I had a machete until I gave up and headed for the sound of cars. I found a road and began walking in the searing heat from the macadam. Hitch hiking appeared not to be an option.
Finally, I got a ride back to the site from a man named Tommy Snell in his black truck. I washed up at the park office restroom and revived myself on the porch, drinking water and collapsing in a rocking chair until I saw the tourists coming down the hill from the plantation house. They greeted me saying that the ranger had them looking out for me when I didn't appear for the tour.
I do not recommend getting lost and then walking on a highway in 95 degree heat, but the house must be interesting and I did make it up the Atomic Highway to the home of my childhood friend in North Augusta who led me to the shower and put me in a bed with clean cool linens for the night.
I dreamed then of the people who slaved in the unbearable heat on the plantation, bending and chopping, seeding and sowing with no cool shower and clean linens to comfort them.
Monday, June 9, 2014
June 8, 2014 Keowee-Toxaway State Natural Area: The Wild
The rain came down over the mountains last night and this morning there was fog and light rain, a pleasant cool temperature in the 60's. Up through Moore and Duncan on 290, then through Greer with it's mammoth churches, a quick left onto Wade Hampton Blvd in Greenville and then a right for several miles merging into Hwy 25 which goes to Asheville, but a left onto scenic highway 11 of the Cherokee foothills which travels along the escarpment.
Soon the fog is lifting, but still over the mountains water filled clouds linger as the sun fills the sky.
I am near the Table Rock entrance when to the left from a narrow driveway in the woods I see a big fat black bear, huge and beautiful, it's front legs with claws gently swaying as it meets the highway and decides to turn and mosey on back into the forest. I am astonished at this glimpse into the world of wild nature not far from Aunt's Sue's across the road where tourists gather on the porches. I pass Heaven Hill Rd on the left. This is where the big bear lives, on the hill of heaven.
I continue up highway 11, pass the entrance to Sassafras Mountain and finally the entrance to Keowee-Toxaway on the right. The ranger station is open from 11 to 12 and later from 4 to 5:00. The ranger, Kevin, tells me to take the two trails, clockwise making a big loop. Here I buy a carved and finished walking stick. I have passed up so many until this one which I can't resist.
I take the Natural Bridge Trail from the parking lot to the right. I pass over a rock which forms a bridge over Poe Creek where the cool rushing waters flow under it. Soon there is a sign which tells you that the Raven Rock Trail goes to the right. I take it up the mountain to where there are boulders of two or three stories high reaching into the heavens, smoothed by the progress of time and partially covered with moss.
Raven Rock trail curves around and up and down until it reaches Lake Keowee where at the bottom of the jade colored waters lies the remains of an ancient Cherokee village. I take time to search for arrow points near the stumps of uprooted trees but find none. Here and three the trail runs along the edge of deep ravines and where it curves along the lake, there are rocks jutting out with sharp and deep drop offs. At one place, the trail has completely fallen through and Boo and I crawl across, me holding onto a tree root.
The trail turns back into the mountain forest and later connects with the Natural Bridge Trail in its upper loop. This trail runs along Poe Creek again until you come to a rock crossing. There is a big quartz shaped rock perched on top of the large rocks in the stream. Later a ranger tells me that they found the rock in the woods and placed it over the rocks in the stream to make it more passable. From here it is .72 miles back to the ranger station.
Both Boo and I are exhausted. The ranger station is closed. My legs have rubbed against poison ivy at many points and so I stop at a grocery store and wash my legs, face and hands with lots of soap and water.
Soon the fog is lifting, but still over the mountains water filled clouds linger as the sun fills the sky.
I am near the Table Rock entrance when to the left from a narrow driveway in the woods I see a big fat black bear, huge and beautiful, it's front legs with claws gently swaying as it meets the highway and decides to turn and mosey on back into the forest. I am astonished at this glimpse into the world of wild nature not far from Aunt's Sue's across the road where tourists gather on the porches. I pass Heaven Hill Rd on the left. This is where the big bear lives, on the hill of heaven.
I continue up highway 11, pass the entrance to Sassafras Mountain and finally the entrance to Keowee-Toxaway on the right. The ranger station is open from 11 to 12 and later from 4 to 5:00. The ranger, Kevin, tells me to take the two trails, clockwise making a big loop. Here I buy a carved and finished walking stick. I have passed up so many until this one which I can't resist.
I take the Natural Bridge Trail from the parking lot to the right. I pass over a rock which forms a bridge over Poe Creek where the cool rushing waters flow under it. Soon there is a sign which tells you that the Raven Rock Trail goes to the right. I take it up the mountain to where there are boulders of two or three stories high reaching into the heavens, smoothed by the progress of time and partially covered with moss.
Raven Rock trail curves around and up and down until it reaches Lake Keowee where at the bottom of the jade colored waters lies the remains of an ancient Cherokee village. I take time to search for arrow points near the stumps of uprooted trees but find none. Here and three the trail runs along the edge of deep ravines and where it curves along the lake, there are rocks jutting out with sharp and deep drop offs. At one place, the trail has completely fallen through and Boo and I crawl across, me holding onto a tree root.
The trail turns back into the mountain forest and later connects with the Natural Bridge Trail in its upper loop. This trail runs along Poe Creek again until you come to a rock crossing. There is a big quartz shaped rock perched on top of the large rocks in the stream. Later a ranger tells me that they found the rock in the woods and placed it over the rocks in the stream to make it more passable. From here it is .72 miles back to the ranger station.
Both Boo and I are exhausted. The ranger station is closed. My legs have rubbed against poison ivy at many points and so I stop at a grocery store and wash my legs, face and hands with lots of soap and water.
Wednesday, June 4, 2014
June 3, 2014 Snake at Sundown
I found a big desiccated snake on the trail, not a skin, but a complete animal with head and tail down to the tiniest point, flattened and in the condition of jerky. I picked it up and put it in a plastic bag I had in the car.
A young man came along to examine it and declared it a black snake. He did not think the head was diamond shaped and discounted the patterned scales. He said he had heard that you must cut the head off the body or it will find its two separated parts and rejoin them. I had heard somewhere back in my childhood that if you kill the snake, you must bury it before sundown to make sure it is really dead. Of course I did not kill this snake. Probably a passing car flattened it and somehow it got off the road onto the trail.
A woman ran by and asked me if I had bought the snake at Steinmart as that was the logo on the plastic bag.
I am taking the snake to Matthew on the weekend.
A young man came along to examine it and declared it a black snake. He did not think the head was diamond shaped and discounted the patterned scales. He said he had heard that you must cut the head off the body or it will find its two separated parts and rejoin them. I had heard somewhere back in my childhood that if you kill the snake, you must bury it before sundown to make sure it is really dead. Of course I did not kill this snake. Probably a passing car flattened it and somehow it got off the road onto the trail.
A woman ran by and asked me if I had bought the snake at Steinmart as that was the logo on the plastic bag.
I am taking the snake to Matthew on the weekend.
Tuesday, May 27, 2014
May 25, 2014 The Magic Hour, Edisto
It is the magic hour. I am on the dock at sunrise. It is the moment when the tide reverses. The marsh is full and the water of Scott Creek is full, the colors of mother of pearl, as smooth as old glass. The early birds are twittering and tweeting, a few cross the pink and blue sky where there is a sliver of a moon
A man named David comes down to catch flounder, but catches a sting ray. I give him a knife to release the creature. He says he saw two falling stars the night of the Cameleopardalids meteor shower. We got up at 3:00 am but saw nothing but the sky strewn with stars. David leaves to fish in the sea at the Edisto 40 and 60 reefs.
Now the waters of the creek are dappled with tiny silvery waves turning slowly out to sea again. There are fingers of clouds reaching above from the pink horizon. High up, morning gulls fly. Far away a lone dog is barking. Do I hear the sea rolling?
Suddenly there is a large dolphin turning through the waters. Behind him, another smaller dolphin follows. She has a baby dolphin close at her side, their movements in perfect harmony.
A man named David comes down to catch flounder, but catches a sting ray. I give him a knife to release the creature. He says he saw two falling stars the night of the Cameleopardalids meteor shower. We got up at 3:00 am but saw nothing but the sky strewn with stars. David leaves to fish in the sea at the Edisto 40 and 60 reefs.
Now the waters of the creek are dappled with tiny silvery waves turning slowly out to sea again. There are fingers of clouds reaching above from the pink horizon. High up, morning gulls fly. Far away a lone dog is barking. Do I hear the sea rolling?
Suddenly there is a large dolphin turning through the waters. Behind him, another smaller dolphin follows. She has a baby dolphin close at her side, their movements in perfect harmony.
Friday, May 23, 2014
May 22, 2014 Owl, Who Searches Through Darkness
It is twilight on the Cottonwood trail when I hear the loud "hootoooooo" and perched 20 feet up in the branches of a tree is the beautiful Barred Owl. He shows his mysterious face, his black close set eyes, his curved beak, then suddenly lifts up, spreads his wings and flies through the forest.
Owl sits on the hand of Pallas Athene, goddess of wisdom.
Owl sits on the hand of Pallas Athene, goddess of wisdom.
Monday, May 12, 2014
May 12, 2014 The Trail Whisperer
I meet the great eight mile walker, Betty,coming towards me in the bright sunlight. She is wearing a T-shirt and black pants and long silver earrings. She shows me where yesterday on Mother's Day she fell off the trail and rolled down a sharp slope into a ravine. She has only a small gash on her wrist.
"Bouts of dizzyness", she says.
"I have nerve damage from the shingles." She points to the right side of her head.
"You don't want to get shingles. It was worse than cancer and I have had cancer three times. The first was 'carcinoma'. It goes straight down. And then colon cancer. The last time, it was liver cancer".
"My daughter asked me not to walk today, but I am"
"Yes, keep on walking", I say.
On the path, at our feet, there is a dried up snake in the shape of an 'S'.
In the air, the unbearable sweetness of honeysuckle.
Boo is eating ripe mulberries that have fallen to the ground.
"Bouts of dizzyness", she says.
"I have nerve damage from the shingles." She points to the right side of her head.
"You don't want to get shingles. It was worse than cancer and I have had cancer three times. The first was 'carcinoma'. It goes straight down. And then colon cancer. The last time, it was liver cancer".
"My daughter asked me not to walk today, but I am"
"Yes, keep on walking", I say.
On the path, at our feet, there is a dried up snake in the shape of an 'S'.
In the air, the unbearable sweetness of honeysuckle.
Boo is eating ripe mulberries that have fallen to the ground.
May 11, 2014 The Birds, Our Brothers and Sisters, Cottonwood Trail
"Richelieu...Richelieu....Figaro...Figaro...Figaro....vvvvideo...video...tweee..tweee...do it...do..it...Presidio...stupid...stupid...stupid...tears..tears..spitoon..spitoon"
The speech and comprehension of humans and the songs of birds are the mysterious languages of relatives.
The FoxP2 gene in humans, found to impact or impair our speech is the same in birds who are song impaired.
Great Blue flies up into the blue sky.
Boo and I find a box turtle in the woods.
In the wetlands, purple marsh irises are in full bloom. Kirigamine, in Japanese, "foggy peak".
The speech and comprehension of humans and the songs of birds are the mysterious languages of relatives.
The FoxP2 gene in humans, found to impact or impair our speech is the same in birds who are song impaired.
Great Blue flies up into the blue sky.
Boo and I find a box turtle in the woods.
In the wetlands, purple marsh irises are in full bloom. Kirigamine, in Japanese, "foggy peak".
Monday, May 5, 2014
Sunday May 4, 2014 Caesar's Head, Raven Creek Falls
It is another impossibly beautiful Sunday. I remember as a young girl that my friend, Karen and I would be relied upon by the teacher to have read the lesson and discuss it in the Sunday School class, while the boys who almost never came, would say, "The river and the woods are my church." Now I am the renegade while the boys are the pillars of the community, men who sit in the church with their wives every Sunday while I visit the river and the woods for my church.
I take Hwy 190 West from Moore across I-85 to Hwy 25 in Greenville, then West on Hwy 11 and connect with Hwy 276 West which goes past Glassy Mtn and along the Blue Ridge Escarpment to Cleveland, South Carolina, past the Asbury Methodist Campground on the left, the Sunoco Station (with a hot food bar) and the little store that sells carvings of bears, past the entrance to Jones Gap and then the very curvy mountain road to the right (276) which leads to the park office, gift shop and restrooms to Caesar's Head on the left.
There you can go to the overlook, have a picnic, buy a key chain of a medallion of the U.S. Geological Survey here stating the elevation to be +3208 ft. above sea level,or a sparkling lizard bracelet as I did or a birthday gift for your daughter, as I did, of a yellow and black jeweled bird.
The Mountain Bridge Wilderness Area includes Jones Gap and Caesar's Head and trails that can take you all the way to Sassafras Mountain and even Oconee which is 80 miles to the West.
I take the red blazed trail to Raven Creek Falls. First I must get back in the car and drive out of the park office to the left a quarter mile on the road. On the right is parking for a number of trails. Parking is limited, but it is early in the morning. Then I cross 276 on foot for the beginning of the trail which is a car wide gravel road going sharply down to a small water building. From there, the trail is a well trodden, well marked footpath moving up and down through root stepped forests of hardwood, pine, mountain laurel and rhododendron. In a sunny spot, I see a laurel in bloom and in another spot, a blooming violet colored mountain azalea.
There is a fork with a trail going off to the right with blue blazes. That is the Jones Gap Trail. Later, there is a trail going off to the left which is cordoned off, the Dismal Trail.
The ranger told me that there were 3 geocaches in the park. I came upon one in the hollow of a tree containing a little notebook with the names of previous hikers who had found it and the palm sized rubber stamp of a "castle in the mountains" wrapped in a purple felt hand sewn purse. There was no pen or pencil to leave my name, but I left my sea turtle key chain. From now on, I will travel with pen and pencil, small notebook and trinkets to leave along the way.
The out and back trail ends at a shelter and lookout of the falls, the longest or highest in the state. For generations, the falls was owned and cared for by the Moore and Otis families who gave it to the State of South Carolina in 1981.
I take Hwy 190 West from Moore across I-85 to Hwy 25 in Greenville, then West on Hwy 11 and connect with Hwy 276 West which goes past Glassy Mtn and along the Blue Ridge Escarpment to Cleveland, South Carolina, past the Asbury Methodist Campground on the left, the Sunoco Station (with a hot food bar) and the little store that sells carvings of bears, past the entrance to Jones Gap and then the very curvy mountain road to the right (276) which leads to the park office, gift shop and restrooms to Caesar's Head on the left.
There you can go to the overlook, have a picnic, buy a key chain of a medallion of the U.S. Geological Survey here stating the elevation to be +3208 ft. above sea level,or a sparkling lizard bracelet as I did or a birthday gift for your daughter, as I did, of a yellow and black jeweled bird.
The Mountain Bridge Wilderness Area includes Jones Gap and Caesar's Head and trails that can take you all the way to Sassafras Mountain and even Oconee which is 80 miles to the West.
I take the red blazed trail to Raven Creek Falls. First I must get back in the car and drive out of the park office to the left a quarter mile on the road. On the right is parking for a number of trails. Parking is limited, but it is early in the morning. Then I cross 276 on foot for the beginning of the trail which is a car wide gravel road going sharply down to a small water building. From there, the trail is a well trodden, well marked footpath moving up and down through root stepped forests of hardwood, pine, mountain laurel and rhododendron. In a sunny spot, I see a laurel in bloom and in another spot, a blooming violet colored mountain azalea.
There is a fork with a trail going off to the right with blue blazes. That is the Jones Gap Trail. Later, there is a trail going off to the left which is cordoned off, the Dismal Trail.
The ranger told me that there were 3 geocaches in the park. I came upon one in the hollow of a tree containing a little notebook with the names of previous hikers who had found it and the palm sized rubber stamp of a "castle in the mountains" wrapped in a purple felt hand sewn purse. There was no pen or pencil to leave my name, but I left my sea turtle key chain. From now on, I will travel with pen and pencil, small notebook and trinkets to leave along the way.
The out and back trail ends at a shelter and lookout of the falls, the longest or highest in the state. For generations, the falls was owned and cared for by the Moore and Otis families who gave it to the State of South Carolina in 1981.
Sunday, May 4, 2014
May 3, 2014 An Earthly Paradise
At dawn, I open my door to an earthly paradise: a symphony of hundreds of birdsongs, pink and red roses with a perfusion of blooms, yellow bearded irises, so ancient that I had dug them up out of the woods where tall trees had grown up around them, deep blue and white Dutch irises and one execellent black bearded iris. and at the door, pink striped and maroon clematis on either side.
The weather is perfect on the Cottonwood trail. The Great Blue Heron is flying high up in the cloudless sky. A red headed woodpecker sweeps across the wetlands and alights on the trunk of a tree. The air is sweet with the fragrance of blooming white wild roses.
"Twas brillig"
The soft cotton-like puffs of seeds from the Cottonwood trees are floating in the air, covering the ground and the surface of the wetland pools. It is said that when the cottonwood seeds float in the air, it is time to fish for crappies.
A Dakotah storey (Dale Childs) exists about a lonely and curious little star who came to earth and hear the beautiful sounds of music and laughter from a small villlage. The little star hid in the leafy branches of the cottonwood tree to be near the people of earth.
And here is the refrain of the Marty Robbins song "The Cottonwood Tree":
Oh, cottonwood tree, are you waiting for me
Waiting to take me away
I've done no wrong but the town cannot see
And so with my life I must pay....
Majestically standing out here all alone.
The weather is perfect on the Cottonwood trail. The Great Blue Heron is flying high up in the cloudless sky. A red headed woodpecker sweeps across the wetlands and alights on the trunk of a tree. The air is sweet with the fragrance of blooming white wild roses.
"Twas brillig"
The soft cotton-like puffs of seeds from the Cottonwood trees are floating in the air, covering the ground and the surface of the wetland pools. It is said that when the cottonwood seeds float in the air, it is time to fish for crappies.
A Dakotah storey (Dale Childs) exists about a lonely and curious little star who came to earth and hear the beautiful sounds of music and laughter from a small villlage. The little star hid in the leafy branches of the cottonwood tree to be near the people of earth.
And here is the refrain of the Marty Robbins song "The Cottonwood Tree":
Oh, cottonwood tree, are you waiting for me
Waiting to take me away
I've done no wrong but the town cannot see
And so with my life I must pay....
Majestically standing out here all alone.
Wednesday, April 30, 2014
April 26, 2014 Forty Acre Rock, A Nest of Copperheads
Forty Acre Rock (some say it is only 14 acres), a National Natural Preserve, is out in the Boonies, the Outback, the backwoods. It is where my mother's family came from, nearby the land that was bought generations ago from the person granted it "by the king", so that story goes. You can get there by traveling 521 South to Lancaster from Charlotte or on hwy 9 from Spartanburg, then turn from 521 bypass onto 903, go 15 miles. Drive past the abandoned Flat Creek High School, merge left onto 601. Go across the bridge over Flat Creek. Take the next left. Go several miles and turn left again onto Conservancy Rd. There are no signs, just ask people if you see anyone. They are very helpful. Shortly you will come to the end of the road. You can park on the side of the road. You will be facing a dirt road, impassable by car as there are two piles of gravel in the way.
It looks as if you would take a trail through the woods where there is a partial wooden gate, today with two hiking sticks leaning against it, but the trail is the dirt road, a beautiful walk of about 3/4 mile to the rock itself.
It is very much worth the effort.
There are large boulders covered in graffiti at the entrance. There is also graffiti on the rock, but I found it
charming. It is not obscene writings, rather it is about who loves who. There are round indentations in the rock where the elf orpine, a small red, white flowered plant, grows, now in bloom, a very rare plant. The little ponds of flowers look as if someone has planted small landscaped gardens.
I was here with my friend, Kathleen. We searched for the trail into the woods. I came here as a child and at that time, the waterfall was visible from the rock. Now trees and shrubs have grown up and we could not see it, much less the trail. We came upon a group of men and boys from Lincolnton, NC who had camped overnight somewhere on the Lynches River. They also could not find the trail. We found an entrance onto a pine needle covered way to the right and followed it steeply downhill until we reached the trail by Flat Creek.
We took that to the right until it ended onto another outcropping of the rock and we turned back. Soon we met a couple who told us to follow the trail where we had met it to the left and we would find the waterfall.
We would also find a nest of copperheads in the water. They showed us photos of the snakes on their phone. We did find the waterfall and never spotted the camouflaged snakes (probably a good thing).
The trail took us back up to the rock face, an entrance and exit far to the left of where we entered.
The trail may be five miles, counting the dirt road. It is incredibly beautiful, a heritage preserve, a hidden paradise for birds, small animals and deer.
We drove back past the small white house where my grandparents lived after the old home place burned down. My mother and her sister were at nursing school in Union, NC that year. The family with the younger children had to move into an outbuilding. The winter was cold and the oldest brother and the youngest sister became ill, the brother, James, with pneumonia and the little sister, Helen Lee, with an ear infection that drained into her brain. They sent for medicine from the North, but it was hopeless. It was a few years before the discovery of the penicillin which could have saved them. My mother remembers her father pacing back and forth interminably.
Now someone else lives in the old house. The lines of plum trees that grew along the entrances are gone.
Most of the family has moved away. A few cousins remain on the land. One has a Christmas tree farm along the highway.
It looks as if you would take a trail through the woods where there is a partial wooden gate, today with two hiking sticks leaning against it, but the trail is the dirt road, a beautiful walk of about 3/4 mile to the rock itself.
It is very much worth the effort.
There are large boulders covered in graffiti at the entrance. There is also graffiti on the rock, but I found it
charming. It is not obscene writings, rather it is about who loves who. There are round indentations in the rock where the elf orpine, a small red, white flowered plant, grows, now in bloom, a very rare plant. The little ponds of flowers look as if someone has planted small landscaped gardens.
I was here with my friend, Kathleen. We searched for the trail into the woods. I came here as a child and at that time, the waterfall was visible from the rock. Now trees and shrubs have grown up and we could not see it, much less the trail. We came upon a group of men and boys from Lincolnton, NC who had camped overnight somewhere on the Lynches River. They also could not find the trail. We found an entrance onto a pine needle covered way to the right and followed it steeply downhill until we reached the trail by Flat Creek.
We took that to the right until it ended onto another outcropping of the rock and we turned back. Soon we met a couple who told us to follow the trail where we had met it to the left and we would find the waterfall.
We would also find a nest of copperheads in the water. They showed us photos of the snakes on their phone. We did find the waterfall and never spotted the camouflaged snakes (probably a good thing).
The trail took us back up to the rock face, an entrance and exit far to the left of where we entered.
The trail may be five miles, counting the dirt road. It is incredibly beautiful, a heritage preserve, a hidden paradise for birds, small animals and deer.
We drove back past the small white house where my grandparents lived after the old home place burned down. My mother and her sister were at nursing school in Union, NC that year. The family with the younger children had to move into an outbuilding. The winter was cold and the oldest brother and the youngest sister became ill, the brother, James, with pneumonia and the little sister, Helen Lee, with an ear infection that drained into her brain. They sent for medicine from the North, but it was hopeless. It was a few years before the discovery of the penicillin which could have saved them. My mother remembers her father pacing back and forth interminably.
Now someone else lives in the old house. The lines of plum trees that grew along the entrances are gone.
Most of the family has moved away. A few cousins remain on the land. One has a Christmas tree farm along the highway.
Monday, April 28, 2014
April 21, 2014 Hobcaw Barony
We did not walk a trail, but there are trails, there are also events for paddling, fishing, biking, crabbing, photography, horse backing riding (Bring Your Own Horse), birding and learning about the North Inlet-Winyah Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve. The NI-WB NERR is operated by USC and the Belle Baruch Institute. Clemson University also has a lumber research program here.
This was the land of the Waccamaw Nation before it was deeded to the King's Proprietors in the European invasion. The Waccamaw moved north and in 1800 there were an estimated 100 persons left. The Camden native and South Carolina Statesman,Bernard Baruch, purchased the land for a private preserve and it was donated to the University of South Carolina by his daughter, Belle Baruch. It's 16,000 acres of wildlife reserve are adjacent to the NI-WB NERR.
Sergay showed his shark tooth and his turtle shell fossil to one of the interpreters at the Center who thought the tooth was from a Tiger Shark and explained that the porcelain consistency of the turtle shell confirmed it was a fossil, a beautiful white and brown pattern like the coat of a giraffe.
John's wife, Colleen teaches photography here once a year to supporters of USC.
I purchased "safety bracelets" in the shop for all of us, which are colorful braided bracelets. The rope can be unwound to use as a rope and the clasp includes a whistle. When in danger, you might be able to hog tie a wild beast or at least call for help on the silly whistle which is barely audible. I like them, however.
This was the land of the Waccamaw Nation before it was deeded to the King's Proprietors in the European invasion. The Waccamaw moved north and in 1800 there were an estimated 100 persons left. The Camden native and South Carolina Statesman,Bernard Baruch, purchased the land for a private preserve and it was donated to the University of South Carolina by his daughter, Belle Baruch. It's 16,000 acres of wildlife reserve are adjacent to the NI-WB NERR.
Sergay showed his shark tooth and his turtle shell fossil to one of the interpreters at the Center who thought the tooth was from a Tiger Shark and explained that the porcelain consistency of the turtle shell confirmed it was a fossil, a beautiful white and brown pattern like the coat of a giraffe.
John's wife, Colleen teaches photography here once a year to supporters of USC.
I purchased "safety bracelets" in the shop for all of us, which are colorful braided bracelets. The rope can be unwound to use as a rope and the clasp includes a whistle. When in danger, you might be able to hog tie a wild beast or at least call for help on the silly whistle which is barely audible. I like them, however.
Sunday, April 27, 2014
April 19, 2014 Atalaya at Huntington Beach State Park, The Sandpiper Pond Trail
Atalaya means "watchtower". It is a Moorish castle facing the Atlantic Ocean, the home and studio of Archer and Anna Hyatt Huntington. Archer was the son of the wealthy Huntington family, who built the railroad from East to West across the US. Anna had tuberculosis and she and her husband came South from
Boston for the milder, healing weather next to the sea. Archer , a student of Spanish history and archtecture, built Ayalaya in the manner of the castles of the Moors where Anna could sculpt in the light beside the ocean. The home remains as a rectangular structure enclosing a courtyard with palms. Old windswept cedars embrace the light .They had a porch where they could drink their morning coffee and see the sea. The porch is gone now and between the house and the sea, myrtles have grown.
There is a little office at the entrance where Liza helped sculpt a colorful butterfly and Sergay,Liza and I composed poems on the poem board:
"A thousand views of diamond ice" Sergay
"A frantic storm..marble lies..shadow" Liza
"The ghost screams embrace me" Me
Hannah, Sergay, Liza and I drove up highway 17 from Litchfield Beach. Huntington Beach State Park is just between Pawley's Island and Murrell's Inlet. Across the road is Brookgreen Gardens with the enormous silver sculpture of a pair of rearing horses with a single rider at the entrance, the home of the outdoor sculptures of Anna Huntington.
Our iconic family photo on my living room wall is of the towering, moss hung oaks sheltering the long walk into Brookgreen. My brother and sister and I, just children, are kneeling beside the ivy ground cover, looking at a small frog.
In the distance, Daddy, Aunt Kitty and Mama are walking. My mother is wearing her sun dress made of the Spring maid material with the beautiful Native American maiden. Uncle Ned took the photo.
The old road to Atalaya is directly across the highway, but is blocked off.
The entrance to Huntington Beach State Park comes up within 100 feet. We entered and drove across the causeway. Driving right is Atalaya, the park offices and a gift shop. Driving left is the Nature Center and the entrance to the Sandpiper Pond trail. The trail is two miles long with board walks into the marsh at intervals.
In the Nature Center, we watched a park ranger feed a mouse to a long black snake.
There may be ghosts at Atalaya. If I were to meet one, I would thank them for this place of lasting beauty
they have left us.
Boston for the milder, healing weather next to the sea. Archer , a student of Spanish history and archtecture, built Ayalaya in the manner of the castles of the Moors where Anna could sculpt in the light beside the ocean. The home remains as a rectangular structure enclosing a courtyard with palms. Old windswept cedars embrace the light .They had a porch where they could drink their morning coffee and see the sea. The porch is gone now and between the house and the sea, myrtles have grown.
There is a little office at the entrance where Liza helped sculpt a colorful butterfly and Sergay,Liza and I composed poems on the poem board:
"A thousand views of diamond ice" Sergay
"A frantic storm..marble lies..shadow" Liza
"The ghost screams embrace me" Me
Hannah, Sergay, Liza and I drove up highway 17 from Litchfield Beach. Huntington Beach State Park is just between Pawley's Island and Murrell's Inlet. Across the road is Brookgreen Gardens with the enormous silver sculpture of a pair of rearing horses with a single rider at the entrance, the home of the outdoor sculptures of Anna Huntington.
Our iconic family photo on my living room wall is of the towering, moss hung oaks sheltering the long walk into Brookgreen. My brother and sister and I, just children, are kneeling beside the ivy ground cover, looking at a small frog.
In the distance, Daddy, Aunt Kitty and Mama are walking. My mother is wearing her sun dress made of the Spring maid material with the beautiful Native American maiden. Uncle Ned took the photo.
The old road to Atalaya is directly across the highway, but is blocked off.
The entrance to Huntington Beach State Park comes up within 100 feet. We entered and drove across the causeway. Driving right is Atalaya, the park offices and a gift shop. Driving left is the Nature Center and the entrance to the Sandpiper Pond trail. The trail is two miles long with board walks into the marsh at intervals.
In the Nature Center, we watched a park ranger feed a mouse to a long black snake.
There may be ghosts at Atalaya. If I were to meet one, I would thank them for this place of lasting beauty
they have left us.
Sunday, April 13, 2014
April 11, 12, 13, 2014 Cottonwood Trail,Carolina Silver Bell, the Northern Flicker
I have walked the Cottonwood trail for three days now. The water in the wetlands is as low as I have ever seen it, but today at noon, I counted 15 turtles sunning themselves, all on the same log with their heads pointing East. The Great Blue Heron spread his great wings nearby and then dropped back down behind the rushes. I saw a red winged blackbird. The air is full of the sounds of birds. Above me Carolina Silver Bell (Halisia Carolina) trees are blooming. Along their branches hang white bell like flowers, their four petals gently fused with an orange stamen.
I found a feather on the ground about 5 inches long, a canary yellow, tweety bird yellow vein with black shafts reaching out from it. The underside is the same bright yellow.
In a moment of random willingness, I meet a birder with big binoculars coming my way. He says it is the feather of a Northern Flicker, a type of woodpecker who eats ants and worms on the ground. They are a spectacular bird with a small red moustache, black shafts and speckles and the brilliant yellow feathers on their undersides. They are the state bird of Alabama. There is a story that Confederate Soldiers from a Huntsville unit had uniforms with yellow patches on their sleeves and coattails.
The bird is also called the Yellow Hammer and the Yellow Shafted Flicker. In the West, it is red where in the East, it is yellow.
I found a feather on the ground about 5 inches long, a canary yellow, tweety bird yellow vein with black shafts reaching out from it. The underside is the same bright yellow.
In a moment of random willingness, I meet a birder with big binoculars coming my way. He says it is the feather of a Northern Flicker, a type of woodpecker who eats ants and worms on the ground. They are a spectacular bird with a small red moustache, black shafts and speckles and the brilliant yellow feathers on their undersides. They are the state bird of Alabama. There is a story that Confederate Soldiers from a Huntsville unit had uniforms with yellow patches on their sleeves and coattails.
The bird is also called the Yellow Hammer and the Yellow Shafted Flicker. In the West, it is red where in the East, it is yellow.
Wednesday, April 9, 2014
April 6, 2014 Tugaloo State Park, Georgia
The Savannah River marks the Southwestern boundary of South Carolina and Georgia. South Carolina has the shape of a piece of potato pie (sweet potato for those uninformed), the upper crusty part being the boundary with North Carolina. The eastern sliced angle being shared with the Atlantic Ocean and the Southwestern angle being shared with the State of Georgia. At the pointed tip, the Savannah River flows into the Atlantic. Above the tip is Hilton Head in South Carolina and below the tip, is the city of Savannah in Georgia. The upwaters of the Savannah pour out of Lake Hartwell in the Northwest. The Tugaloo River is part of that watershed.
I drive down I-85 today along the frontage of the mountains towards Atlanta and Decatur. The rain comes up from Georgia along the mountains just this route, the rain or the snow or the wind. Today it is cool and misty. Finally winter has gone. The forests lining the route are Technicolor/Blu-Ray: Purple Wisteria dripping from the tall trees, white dogwoods, pink plums, fushia red buds and yellow jasmine wrapped around everywhere. The yellow jasmine is the State Flower of South Carolina. The new leaves of hardwoods are red, orange, yellow and tender green. I cross the Tugaloo into Georgia and all is green here.
I take exit 173 north into Lavonia, then 6 miles to Martin, turn right onto 328. Here is a small village called Avalon and on the left a residence with blue neon lights in the front windows off the porch proclaiming:
"Stumpey's Playhouse". Two miles up the road at the corner of Seven Forks Rd, in a village with the odd name of Gumlog, sits "Stumpey's Gas Station". Farther on is a BP station where I turn left and soon find the park. (This is not the best way to go, but it may be the most interesting.). I have traveled from Stevens County into Franklin county.
From the Visitor Center near the edge of the water, the 3.5 mile Sassafras Trail begins. It snakes along the shore, up and down hills with bright blue blazes to mark the way. Here there are flat rocks of sparkling shale. On a bluff overlooking the river, someone has piled stacks of them making a line of cairns. I pass an amphitheater and up the hill, a closed Nature Hut. Finally there are Yurts with decks built high up looking across the water towards expensive houses on the other side.
Back on the road, I wonder how my great grandfather traveled to Decatur to finish medical school at Emory in the year following the end of the Civil War. Was there a train? Did he ride a horse? Did he carry food with him? Where did he live?
Eleanor, Ryan, Martin and Mathew and I have dinner at Chai Pani (Namaste, Ya'll) in Decatur. Would he recognize this place? Would he believe it could be true? What will it be like another 150 years from now? Would we believe it?
Here is a recipe for Sweet Potato Pie, the winner of the "Back to the Basics" recipe contest printed in The State newspaper Sunday, November 7, 2004. The winner was Frances Mitchell of Florence.
2 cups sweet potato pulp
1 stick margarine, sliced
2 eggs
1/8 cup flour
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 tsp butter flavoring
1/8 cup milk
1 9-inch unbaked pie crust
*Mash sweet potatoes and all ingredients. Pour mixture into 9-inch pie shell
*Bake at 350 degree for 35 minutes.
What the heck, just use butter, not margarine and you will not need butter flavoring.
I drive down I-85 today along the frontage of the mountains towards Atlanta and Decatur. The rain comes up from Georgia along the mountains just this route, the rain or the snow or the wind. Today it is cool and misty. Finally winter has gone. The forests lining the route are Technicolor/Blu-Ray: Purple Wisteria dripping from the tall trees, white dogwoods, pink plums, fushia red buds and yellow jasmine wrapped around everywhere. The yellow jasmine is the State Flower of South Carolina. The new leaves of hardwoods are red, orange, yellow and tender green. I cross the Tugaloo into Georgia and all is green here.
I take exit 173 north into Lavonia, then 6 miles to Martin, turn right onto 328. Here is a small village called Avalon and on the left a residence with blue neon lights in the front windows off the porch proclaiming:
"Stumpey's Playhouse". Two miles up the road at the corner of Seven Forks Rd, in a village with the odd name of Gumlog, sits "Stumpey's Gas Station". Farther on is a BP station where I turn left and soon find the park. (This is not the best way to go, but it may be the most interesting.). I have traveled from Stevens County into Franklin county.
From the Visitor Center near the edge of the water, the 3.5 mile Sassafras Trail begins. It snakes along the shore, up and down hills with bright blue blazes to mark the way. Here there are flat rocks of sparkling shale. On a bluff overlooking the river, someone has piled stacks of them making a line of cairns. I pass an amphitheater and up the hill, a closed Nature Hut. Finally there are Yurts with decks built high up looking across the water towards expensive houses on the other side.
Back on the road, I wonder how my great grandfather traveled to Decatur to finish medical school at Emory in the year following the end of the Civil War. Was there a train? Did he ride a horse? Did he carry food with him? Where did he live?
Eleanor, Ryan, Martin and Mathew and I have dinner at Chai Pani (Namaste, Ya'll) in Decatur. Would he recognize this place? Would he believe it could be true? What will it be like another 150 years from now? Would we believe it?
Here is a recipe for Sweet Potato Pie, the winner of the "Back to the Basics" recipe contest printed in The State newspaper Sunday, November 7, 2004. The winner was Frances Mitchell of Florence.
2 cups sweet potato pulp
1 stick margarine, sliced
2 eggs
1/8 cup flour
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 tsp butter flavoring
1/8 cup milk
1 9-inch unbaked pie crust
*Mash sweet potatoes and all ingredients. Pour mixture into 9-inch pie shell
*Bake at 350 degree for 35 minutes.
What the heck, just use butter, not margarine and you will not need butter flavoring.
Sunday, March 16, 2014
Saturday March 15, 2014 Latta Plantation, "Faylin Village" The Fairy House Trail
There are many things to see and do at Latta Plantation; the Nature Center, The Raptor House, the Plantation House, fishing, canoeing and sixteen miles of hiking trails. The longest trail is 2.7 miles long, the Hill Trail, a gravel road through the forest. I meet two groups of runners who do not seem bothered by the golf ball sized gravel. In the quietness I hear the sounds of trickling water, birds calling and planes soaring overhead to the Charlotte Airport.
Turning back, I drive to the end of the road across from the Plantation where a Celtic Festival is going on.
Men in kilts the colors of their clans are walking from their cars. From the picnic area, the canoe area and the restrooms, I find the trail head for the Audubon Trail. Soon, I enter the Faylin Village where children have built Fairy Houses out of sticks, branches, pine needles, and leaves. Some are decorated with mussel shells from the nearby shore of Gar Creek branching out from the Catawba River. The houses are full of fantasy and imagination, some small, rabbit size, up to human size, something like Native American Teepees.
I enter a tall one and look out at the shining water down the hill.
I even make my own fairy house, a leanto, really, just a lot of branches and sticks leaning against a fallen tree with branches still full of pine cones stuck in the ground in front of it, for adornment. As children, we made Toad Houses by laying one hand on the floor of a muddy place and covering it with wet mud until you can gently ease your hand out. We too, decorated our Toad Houses and villages with flowers and sticks and little pathways to the doors edged by sticks and flowers, pine cones and acorns.
I had not been to Latta Plantation for many years, not since I brought my children to Shakespeare in the open at the Plantation House. It is part of Mecklenburg Parks and Recreation. I got here from the Berkdale area of Huntersville by driving down Beatties Ford Rd past Sergay's and Liza's schools where last night I saw Liza sing and dance in a filmy turquoise costume in Aladin.
You can get there from I-77, exiting North onto Sunset Road ( the opposite side from where the Metrolina Flea Market takes place) and then right onto Beatties Ford Rd. You will see the signs for Latta Plantation after Lancaster's Barbeque on the left.
Turning back, I drive to the end of the road across from the Plantation where a Celtic Festival is going on.
Men in kilts the colors of their clans are walking from their cars. From the picnic area, the canoe area and the restrooms, I find the trail head for the Audubon Trail. Soon, I enter the Faylin Village where children have built Fairy Houses out of sticks, branches, pine needles, and leaves. Some are decorated with mussel shells from the nearby shore of Gar Creek branching out from the Catawba River. The houses are full of fantasy and imagination, some small, rabbit size, up to human size, something like Native American Teepees.
I enter a tall one and look out at the shining water down the hill.
I even make my own fairy house, a leanto, really, just a lot of branches and sticks leaning against a fallen tree with branches still full of pine cones stuck in the ground in front of it, for adornment. As children, we made Toad Houses by laying one hand on the floor of a muddy place and covering it with wet mud until you can gently ease your hand out. We too, decorated our Toad Houses and villages with flowers and sticks and little pathways to the doors edged by sticks and flowers, pine cones and acorns.
I had not been to Latta Plantation for many years, not since I brought my children to Shakespeare in the open at the Plantation House. It is part of Mecklenburg Parks and Recreation. I got here from the Berkdale area of Huntersville by driving down Beatties Ford Rd past Sergay's and Liza's schools where last night I saw Liza sing and dance in a filmy turquoise costume in Aladin.
You can get there from I-77, exiting North onto Sunset Road ( the opposite side from where the Metrolina Flea Market takes place) and then right onto Beatties Ford Rd. You will see the signs for Latta Plantation after Lancaster's Barbeque on the left.
Monday, March 10, 2014 Today is the Day
Today is the day the Bradford Pears broke forth in white abandon.
Today is the day, the Flowering Quince and the Forsythia are in bloom. (My mother said they should be planted together for the contrast of the tropicana and sunlight yellow blossoms.)
Today is the day a red Piper Cub split the cloudless pale cobalt sky.
Today is the day the great 8 mile walker, Betty, returned to the trail after 4 months of Shingles.
"I know I can do it," she says.
Today is the day, the Flowering Quince and the Forsythia are in bloom. (My mother said they should be planted together for the contrast of the tropicana and sunlight yellow blossoms.)
Today is the day a red Piper Cub split the cloudless pale cobalt sky.
Today is the day the great 8 mile walker, Betty, returned to the trail after 4 months of Shingles.
"I know I can do it," she says.
Tuesday, March 11, 2014
March 7, 2014 Edisto, The Spanish Mount Trail
Sergay has come with me to Edisto in this day of cold temperatures and rain. Early in the morning, we are alone on the beach and find 20 welk shells, 3 lettered olives (the State Shell of SC), many Atlantic Cockles, a big sand dollar, a dried up Starfish and numerous strange objects which may be fossils.
After breakfast, we take the Spanish Mount Trail through the Maritime Forest to the Environmental Center and show our finds to Ashby Gale, the interpreter. Most of these are bricks from the settlement at Eddingsville, the remains of which are now out in the ocean. Our two shark teeth are only shells. He offers to meet us at 5:00 pm on the beach and teach us about fossils. We are so fortunate.
Traveling back through the parking lot of the boat ramp, a friendly gate keeper approaches us carrying a poodle in her arms. "This is Mr. Chance", she says. She tells us that he got his name because she got him by "chance" after several owners could not deal with him. "You, see, he has only half a brain, the right side is dead. He flings himself around and knocks himself out running into things". He is ten years old.
Sergay and I walk to the Indian Mound, which is a midden (trash heap) of shells, pottery and other artifacts. It may have had ceremonial or ritual aspects as well. There is a wooden platform in front of the layers of shells on the edge of the marsh. On the floor of the platform is a broken piece of Native American pottery.
It is unlawful to take things from the mound itself. (We take the pottery shard to Ashby who puts it in the Environmental Museum.)
On our trek back through the forest, Sergay's right foot begins to hurt. He is wearing a pair of my shoes since getting his own wet at the beach. He says that he wishes human beings had wings and could fly or that we could be like monkeys and swing from the trees. Somehow we make it back and meet John and James at the cabin.
We all meet Ashby at the beach at 5:00 pm. He tells us that the fossils here are from the Mesoic Era (reptiles) and the Pleistocene Epoch (early humans). "You look for something black and shiney and something that you cannot break". Among us, we find Parrot Fish head plates, an ancient bone, the spines of
Sting Rays.
Ashby shows us a collection of fossils in the trunk of his car which includes shark teeth and a mastodon tooth, found on this beach.
James also finds shells and then runs the beach as fast as the wind with his father who is also a runner, behind him, until they are out of sight.
These are the quotations written on the walls of the Environmental Center:
"The care of the rivers is not a question of the rivers, but of the human heart" Tanaka Shozo
"When one tugs at a single thing in nature, one finds it attached to the rest of the world" John Muir
"We simply need that wild country available to us even if we never do more than drive to its edge and look in." Wallace Stegner
"Come forth to the light of things. Let nature be your teacher." Willliam Wordsworth
It is a bright and springlike day on Sunday as we head home, down Hwy 17 and then West on Hwy 64, we see the first Red Buds reaching out from the woods. The Red Buds are Sergay's trees as they are in bloom, purple and pink on his birthday, the Ides of March. He was born in Vladavostok. Hanah and Patrick brought him home when he was 10 months old . The next September, his sister, Liza was born. "Segay was a gift and Liza was a miracle", they said.
As we drive North/West, we cross the black rivers and streams of the low country, then the green rivers of the midlands and finally the orange iron mud colored rivers of the upstate and piedmont.
After breakfast, we take the Spanish Mount Trail through the Maritime Forest to the Environmental Center and show our finds to Ashby Gale, the interpreter. Most of these are bricks from the settlement at Eddingsville, the remains of which are now out in the ocean. Our two shark teeth are only shells. He offers to meet us at 5:00 pm on the beach and teach us about fossils. We are so fortunate.
Traveling back through the parking lot of the boat ramp, a friendly gate keeper approaches us carrying a poodle in her arms. "This is Mr. Chance", she says. She tells us that he got his name because she got him by "chance" after several owners could not deal with him. "You, see, he has only half a brain, the right side is dead. He flings himself around and knocks himself out running into things". He is ten years old.
Sergay and I walk to the Indian Mound, which is a midden (trash heap) of shells, pottery and other artifacts. It may have had ceremonial or ritual aspects as well. There is a wooden platform in front of the layers of shells on the edge of the marsh. On the floor of the platform is a broken piece of Native American pottery.
It is unlawful to take things from the mound itself. (We take the pottery shard to Ashby who puts it in the Environmental Museum.)
On our trek back through the forest, Sergay's right foot begins to hurt. He is wearing a pair of my shoes since getting his own wet at the beach. He says that he wishes human beings had wings and could fly or that we could be like monkeys and swing from the trees. Somehow we make it back and meet John and James at the cabin.
We all meet Ashby at the beach at 5:00 pm. He tells us that the fossils here are from the Mesoic Era (reptiles) and the Pleistocene Epoch (early humans). "You look for something black and shiney and something that you cannot break". Among us, we find Parrot Fish head plates, an ancient bone, the spines of
Sting Rays.
Ashby shows us a collection of fossils in the trunk of his car which includes shark teeth and a mastodon tooth, found on this beach.
James also finds shells and then runs the beach as fast as the wind with his father who is also a runner, behind him, until they are out of sight.
These are the quotations written on the walls of the Environmental Center:
"The care of the rivers is not a question of the rivers, but of the human heart" Tanaka Shozo
"When one tugs at a single thing in nature, one finds it attached to the rest of the world" John Muir
"We simply need that wild country available to us even if we never do more than drive to its edge and look in." Wallace Stegner
"Come forth to the light of things. Let nature be your teacher." Willliam Wordsworth
It is a bright and springlike day on Sunday as we head home, down Hwy 17 and then West on Hwy 64, we see the first Red Buds reaching out from the woods. The Red Buds are Sergay's trees as they are in bloom, purple and pink on his birthday, the Ides of March. He was born in Vladavostok. Hanah and Patrick brought him home when he was 10 months old . The next September, his sister, Liza was born. "Segay was a gift and Liza was a miracle", they said.
As we drive North/West, we cross the black rivers and streams of the low country, then the green rivers of the midlands and finally the orange iron mud colored rivers of the upstate and piedmont.
Wednesday, March 5, 2014
March 3, 2014 Buzzards, Angels of Death
Out in the country, on highway 56 between Spartanburg and Clinton, I pass two groups of buzzards feasting on roadkill on the shoulder of the road. In South Carolina, there are two types of vulture, the black and the turkey. The turkey has a bald red head. We call them buzzards here. There are nearly always these large dark birds of 5 to 6 feet wing span circling in the sky. Before the advent of cars and roadkill, their diet must have been much more limited.
Up close, these birds are not pretty. Once one flew up from the roadside only inches away from my windshield and filled the car with the dark, loathsome smell of rotting carcass. It is interesting to me that they are dressed in black like the undertakers they are instead of decorated in colorful plumage with a little feather crown on their heads like the peacock. They are protected by the government because we need them to do their job.
At Musgrove Mill State Historic site, I walk the loop trail along the flooded Enoree. The tan clay banks and the muted green water remind me of caramel today. Many large trees have fallen during the long winter and litter the ground of the forest. Brian Robson, the park manager, tells me that rangers were out off the public trails cutting down a dead tree and found an arrow head. These weapons of the early people are difficult to find now even where once this was their hunting ground.
Still over the many years, the river flows, the turtles bask on the logs, the deer roam the forest and the buzzards come and do their work.
In the final days of my mother's life, I used to come here and walk, when she was in the Presbyterian Home in Clinton. She was 98 years old on the day of her death. In the hours just before dawn I drove this road to the hospital in Laurens. As the sun came up, I saw an old barn with many black buzzards roosting on its roof. It seemed an omen.
And still today, the ancient river flows on. The birds are silent. I see the tracks of the deer and the platter shaped turtles on the logs. There is a light rain.
Up close, these birds are not pretty. Once one flew up from the roadside only inches away from my windshield and filled the car with the dark, loathsome smell of rotting carcass. It is interesting to me that they are dressed in black like the undertakers they are instead of decorated in colorful plumage with a little feather crown on their heads like the peacock. They are protected by the government because we need them to do their job.
At Musgrove Mill State Historic site, I walk the loop trail along the flooded Enoree. The tan clay banks and the muted green water remind me of caramel today. Many large trees have fallen during the long winter and litter the ground of the forest. Brian Robson, the park manager, tells me that rangers were out off the public trails cutting down a dead tree and found an arrow head. These weapons of the early people are difficult to find now even where once this was their hunting ground.
Still over the many years, the river flows, the turtles bask on the logs, the deer roam the forest and the buzzards come and do their work.
In the final days of my mother's life, I used to come here and walk, when she was in the Presbyterian Home in Clinton. She was 98 years old on the day of her death. In the hours just before dawn I drove this road to the hospital in Laurens. As the sun came up, I saw an old barn with many black buzzards roosting on its roof. It seemed an omen.
And still today, the ancient river flows on. The birds are silent. I see the tracks of the deer and the platter shaped turtles on the logs. There is a light rain.
Monday, March 3, 2014
March 2, 2014 The Ghost of the Ivory Billed Woodpecker
I have returned to the Cottonwood Trail today. Much of the brush around the wetlands is stamped down as if a herd of large animals has slept here overnight.
A man and a woman with a long pigtail are sitting on the bench of the boardwalk with a telescope looking at birds. They have seen several woodpeckers.
I take the Ridge Trail, then the Highlands Trail and go over into the pine forest and meet a woman with a big speckled white and black dog named Bugsy. Bugsy has been chasing deer and is very excited.
I hear a slow rhythmic hollow tapping and can spot the dark silhouette of a large woodpecker high in a dead pine.
The angle of the sun prevents my seeing his colors or markings. I am possessed by the idea that the mythological Ivory Billed Woodpecker will appear to me one day. The long leafed pine forests were their abode and the pine forests have been decimated. At Harbison State Forest in Columbia, they are growing the long leafed pine (if we built it, will they come?). In Lousiannna, birders have recorded the unique tapping
sound of the lost bird.
Along the creek, the rapid fire tapping of the tiny Downy Woodpecker breaks the air. I can see him far up in a tree.
A fat Cooper's Hawk swoops silently across my path and across the creek to the other side.
A running man approaches, singing.
A toothless woman with a furry red dog tells me that when her pet was a puppy, people told her it was a fox not a dog. Now it is a foxy dog.
There are new leaves on the wild roses.
Close to the ground there is a pale blue butterfly with wings the size of a thumbnail. It followed me as if it was lost from another world.
A man and a woman with a long pigtail are sitting on the bench of the boardwalk with a telescope looking at birds. They have seen several woodpeckers.
I take the Ridge Trail, then the Highlands Trail and go over into the pine forest and meet a woman with a big speckled white and black dog named Bugsy. Bugsy has been chasing deer and is very excited.
I hear a slow rhythmic hollow tapping and can spot the dark silhouette of a large woodpecker high in a dead pine.
The angle of the sun prevents my seeing his colors or markings. I am possessed by the idea that the mythological Ivory Billed Woodpecker will appear to me one day. The long leafed pine forests were their abode and the pine forests have been decimated. At Harbison State Forest in Columbia, they are growing the long leafed pine (if we built it, will they come?). In Lousiannna, birders have recorded the unique tapping
sound of the lost bird.
Along the creek, the rapid fire tapping of the tiny Downy Woodpecker breaks the air. I can see him far up in a tree.
A fat Cooper's Hawk swoops silently across my path and across the creek to the other side.
A running man approaches, singing.
A toothless woman with a furry red dog tells me that when her pet was a puppy, people told her it was a fox not a dog. Now it is a foxy dog.
There are new leaves on the wild roses.
Close to the ground there is a pale blue butterfly with wings the size of a thumbnail. It followed me as if it was lost from another world.
Sunday, March 2, 2014
March 1, 2014 Pink Flair on the Yoshino Cherry Trail
I step over not one but two frozen corpses of squirrels on an annoyingly cold morning since I thought it was Spring. And yet, and yet, it bears gifts. Around a corner I come upon two 40 foot tall Japanese Magnolias embracing a Victorian mansion. They have given birth to thousands of pink and purple tulip-like blossoms. They smell like the world is opening up. They smell like Spring.
And then I come upon a group of orange vested men and women pruning a crape myrtle along the path.
The back of their vests says "Trees Kudzu Coalition". A pink jacketed woman, named Peggy is pouring out cups of steaming hot coffee. She offers me a cup. She introduces me to Newt, the leader of the group. He tells me that the Yoshino Trail is dedicated to Peggy's late husband, Bill Wilson. And now, they have planted 52 new Pink Flair Cherry Trees along the trail.
And then I come upon a group of orange vested men and women pruning a crape myrtle along the path.
The back of their vests says "Trees Kudzu Coalition". A pink jacketed woman, named Peggy is pouring out cups of steaming hot coffee. She offers me a cup. She introduces me to Newt, the leader of the group. He tells me that the Yoshino Trail is dedicated to Peggy's late husband, Bill Wilson. And now, they have planted 52 new Pink Flair Cherry Trees along the trail.
Monday, February 24, 2014
February 23, 2014 The Frogs Are Singing Again
On Wednesday I returned from Decatur, and opened the car door to the musical chorus of the frogs out in the wetlands. One yellow daffodil had opened. Three young deer ran across the road into the woods.
Today I walked the muddy Cottonwood Trail and the frogs were singing even louder here. There was a brave violet on the bank of a small stream and in the wetlands the master builders, the beavers, had built four new dams and I discovered that one of the old ones had been broken down.
Above me comes a scream: " Free you, free you, free you, free you, free you, free you, free you "and I spot a Sharp-shinned hawk in the top of a tall tree. He calls again, this time, 9 times and another hawk appears and alights just on the other side of the trail in the top of a tree and calls the same "Free you, free you" seven times. They call back and forth and then fly after each other across the fields still screaming their "Free you" call.
The hawks are screaming to "free us" from the cold winter and the frog totem means metamorphosis. A change is coming. It is 67 degrees. People with their dogs have flocked to the dog park. There are so many cars at the Rail Trail that the parking lot does not hold them all. People are wearing T-shirts saying "Chick Magnet", "I Heart My Church" in red and green. Some people are wearing hopeful new running shoes.
Last night, we had a party with Frogmore Stew. There are no frogs in Frogmore Stew, rather it is the South Carolina equivalent of crab and shrimp boils made up the Eastern Seaboard and on the Gulf Coast. It is sometimes called Low Country Boil. Frogmore is a small unincorporated settlement between Beaufort and Hunting Island, actually part of St Helena Island. Often I buy shrimp at Gay Fish on the shore of the Intercoastal Waterway in Frogmore, where the shrimp boats come in. There, they will give you a recipe for Frogmore Stew.
Get a very big pot and fill with about 2 gallons of water.
Put in a bag of Old Bay Seasoning. If you can't find it, use a bag of Zatarains's Crab and Shrimp boil.
Cut up two smoked turkey sausages or two turkey Kielbasa sausages into inch size pieces and add to water.
Scrub 3 lbs red potatoes. If they are the small ones, cut in half, if larger, cut in fourths. Add to water.
Boil about 15 minutes.
Add 6 ears of corn, broken in half (or more) and boil 10 minutes.
Add 2 lbs shrimp and boil 5 more minutes.
Serve on newspapers outside on picnic table with seafood sauce, butter, salt and toasted french bread.
Beer completes the menu.
Today I walked the muddy Cottonwood Trail and the frogs were singing even louder here. There was a brave violet on the bank of a small stream and in the wetlands the master builders, the beavers, had built four new dams and I discovered that one of the old ones had been broken down.
Above me comes a scream: " Free you, free you, free you, free you, free you, free you, free you "and I spot a Sharp-shinned hawk in the top of a tall tree. He calls again, this time, 9 times and another hawk appears and alights just on the other side of the trail in the top of a tree and calls the same "Free you, free you" seven times. They call back and forth and then fly after each other across the fields still screaming their "Free you" call.
The hawks are screaming to "free us" from the cold winter and the frog totem means metamorphosis. A change is coming. It is 67 degrees. People with their dogs have flocked to the dog park. There are so many cars at the Rail Trail that the parking lot does not hold them all. People are wearing T-shirts saying "Chick Magnet", "I Heart My Church" in red and green. Some people are wearing hopeful new running shoes.
Last night, we had a party with Frogmore Stew. There are no frogs in Frogmore Stew, rather it is the South Carolina equivalent of crab and shrimp boils made up the Eastern Seaboard and on the Gulf Coast. It is sometimes called Low Country Boil. Frogmore is a small unincorporated settlement between Beaufort and Hunting Island, actually part of St Helena Island. Often I buy shrimp at Gay Fish on the shore of the Intercoastal Waterway in Frogmore, where the shrimp boats come in. There, they will give you a recipe for Frogmore Stew.
Get a very big pot and fill with about 2 gallons of water.
Put in a bag of Old Bay Seasoning. If you can't find it, use a bag of Zatarains's Crab and Shrimp boil.
Cut up two smoked turkey sausages or two turkey Kielbasa sausages into inch size pieces and add to water.
Scrub 3 lbs red potatoes. If they are the small ones, cut in half, if larger, cut in fourths. Add to water.
Boil about 15 minutes.
Add 6 ears of corn, broken in half (or more) and boil 10 minutes.
Add 2 lbs shrimp and boil 5 more minutes.
Serve on newspapers outside on picnic table with seafood sauce, butter, salt and toasted french bread.
Beer completes the menu.
Wednesday, February 12, 2014
February 9, 2014 Hunting Island, Where the Cabins Used to Be
I found the fossil of an ancient bone or tooth on the beach, a dark heavy fist sized curved remnant of a creature with a smooth protuberance abruptly broken off. I take it to the ranger at the Nature Center on the pier and she doesn't know what it is. "It is a fossil", she says.
There is one lonely fisherman on the pier, who tells me that he has fished here many times and knows where each species of fish swims, but none are biting today.
From the pier, I take the gravel strewn trail though the woods and over the bridge which spans the lagoon.
The cabins where we once stayed were on the other side of the lagoon on the finger of land on the shore of the ocean. The last time we came, we stayed in cabin 8 and the park gave us the use of a two seater golf cart to ride to the cabin over the lagoon as the road along the shore had already become impassable. The ocean came within 10 feet of our door. It was Halloween and there was a brilliant full moon. We had jackolanterns outside. The children dressed as pirates, ghosts and a little witch and found their candy hidden in low trees in the sandy area between the cabin and the lagoon. They walked the length of the pier in their costumes to the delight of the fishermen. In the dark moonlit night, Patrick drove us back though the woods, now and then stopping the golf cart to scare us all into screams.
Today there is no sign of cabin number 8, only the woods and trees and the sudden fall of the big oaks and palms into the ocean. There is, however, one blue cabin standing on its stilts forty feet out from shore, the water swirling around its base.
Soon the light in the Lighthouse will be replaced.
There is one lonely fisherman on the pier, who tells me that he has fished here many times and knows where each species of fish swims, but none are biting today.
From the pier, I take the gravel strewn trail though the woods and over the bridge which spans the lagoon.
The cabins where we once stayed were on the other side of the lagoon on the finger of land on the shore of the ocean. The last time we came, we stayed in cabin 8 and the park gave us the use of a two seater golf cart to ride to the cabin over the lagoon as the road along the shore had already become impassable. The ocean came within 10 feet of our door. It was Halloween and there was a brilliant full moon. We had jackolanterns outside. The children dressed as pirates, ghosts and a little witch and found their candy hidden in low trees in the sandy area between the cabin and the lagoon. They walked the length of the pier in their costumes to the delight of the fishermen. In the dark moonlit night, Patrick drove us back though the woods, now and then stopping the golf cart to scare us all into screams.
Today there is no sign of cabin number 8, only the woods and trees and the sudden fall of the big oaks and palms into the ocean. There is, however, one blue cabin standing on its stilts forty feet out from shore, the water swirling around its base.
Soon the light in the Lighthouse will be replaced.
February 8, 2014 The Volks March at Hunting Island State Park
The Friends of Hunting Island are out early at the base of the Lighthouse in the picnic shelter for the start of the annual Volks March, a fund raiser for the island. We had spent the night in the Lighthouse Keeper's house and noticed the light was out in the lighthouse. The "Friends" tell me that they have voted to replace the light.
At 9:00 am in a light, cool rain, I take the 5K beginning at the Lighthouse trail behind the restrooms and through the pine and palm trees near the beach. To the right is the tree graveyard where huge oaks, pines and palms have fallen as the ocean moves inward. Between the marsh and the beach, a rivulet runs where someone has put a pallet for a foot bridge. Pink flags show the way to the campground where I get my March ticket stamped and turn to the left up the road from the hwy into the campground, past the Ranger's House on the left and then enter the forest/jungle to the left on the Magnolia trail. There may be a magnolia somewhere on this trail, but I didn't see it. Instead there is the pine needle covered winding trail through the Palmetto Palms and sheltering twisted oak trees. I meet only one of the "Friends" carrying an umbrella and walking the walk backwards to check for safety. The trail comes out again in the parking lot near the Lighthouse.
In the cabin, I meet my grandchildren, whose parents have taken them to the beach to dig alligator nests with stones for eggs.
At 9:00 am in a light, cool rain, I take the 5K beginning at the Lighthouse trail behind the restrooms and through the pine and palm trees near the beach. To the right is the tree graveyard where huge oaks, pines and palms have fallen as the ocean moves inward. Between the marsh and the beach, a rivulet runs where someone has put a pallet for a foot bridge. Pink flags show the way to the campground where I get my March ticket stamped and turn to the left up the road from the hwy into the campground, past the Ranger's House on the left and then enter the forest/jungle to the left on the Magnolia trail. There may be a magnolia somewhere on this trail, but I didn't see it. Instead there is the pine needle covered winding trail through the Palmetto Palms and sheltering twisted oak trees. I meet only one of the "Friends" carrying an umbrella and walking the walk backwards to check for safety. The trail comes out again in the parking lot near the Lighthouse.
In the cabin, I meet my grandchildren, whose parents have taken them to the beach to dig alligator nests with stones for eggs.
February 7, 2014 The Francis Beidler Forest Audubon Center
It is a beautiful, cool, clear blue day. I am on my way to the Beidler Forest in the Four Hole Swamp. Driving down I-26 now and then a speeding New York car passes covered in the white grunge of snow, ice, salt and detritus from the blast of winter in the Northeast.
After going under I-95, it is another 10 miles to exit 177 for Harleyville where I take Hwy 178 East through this small town and past the deserted Nightmare Cycles storefront, the small houses with perfectly groomed flat yards and the local churches. It is about 6 miles to the left hand turn at the signs for Bethel United Methodist Church and the Beidler Forest. Just after the church, the Forest road veers to the right, then another right onto a dirt road through the woods onto Sanctuary Road. There is the sudden flash of a Red Shouldered Hawk swooping across my path as I come to the Audubon Center in the middle of the wood.
Enter the Building and go through it to travel the 1.75 mile boardwalk extending through the Bald Cypress-Tupelo Gum Swamp. The oldest in the world. Some cypress trees here are 1,000 years old.
This is the summer home of the little yellow bird, the prothonotary yellow warbler, who is now in South America and will return next month.
Workers are replacing the wooden boardwalk which is about 30 to 40 years old now, but I can still walk the long loop through the flooded plain of the cypress, tupelo and many other trees surrounded by cypress knees, looking like gatherings of small hooded gnomes. I hear the hollow drum drum drumming of the red headed or the pileated woodpecker.
The Center has T-shirts and mugs with the benediction:
May the Forest Be With You.
And so it is.
(Note: from Charleston take I-26 West to exit 187. From I-95 North take exit 82 to 178 East.
Open Tuesday through Sunday 9:00 to 5:00 pm. Fees Adults $8.00 Seniors $7.00 Children 6 to 12 $4.00
Children 0 to 6 free. There are canoe trips also. 336 Sanctuary Rd 843-462-2150)
After going under I-95, it is another 10 miles to exit 177 for Harleyville where I take Hwy 178 East through this small town and past the deserted Nightmare Cycles storefront, the small houses with perfectly groomed flat yards and the local churches. It is about 6 miles to the left hand turn at the signs for Bethel United Methodist Church and the Beidler Forest. Just after the church, the Forest road veers to the right, then another right onto a dirt road through the woods onto Sanctuary Road. There is the sudden flash of a Red Shouldered Hawk swooping across my path as I come to the Audubon Center in the middle of the wood.
Enter the Building and go through it to travel the 1.75 mile boardwalk extending through the Bald Cypress-Tupelo Gum Swamp. The oldest in the world. Some cypress trees here are 1,000 years old.
This is the summer home of the little yellow bird, the prothonotary yellow warbler, who is now in South America and will return next month.
Workers are replacing the wooden boardwalk which is about 30 to 40 years old now, but I can still walk the long loop through the flooded plain of the cypress, tupelo and many other trees surrounded by cypress knees, looking like gatherings of small hooded gnomes. I hear the hollow drum drum drumming of the red headed or the pileated woodpecker.
The Center has T-shirts and mugs with the benediction:
May the Forest Be With You.
And so it is.
(Note: from Charleston take I-26 West to exit 187. From I-95 North take exit 82 to 178 East.
Open Tuesday through Sunday 9:00 to 5:00 pm. Fees Adults $8.00 Seniors $7.00 Children 6 to 12 $4.00
Children 0 to 6 free. There are canoe trips also. 336 Sanctuary Rd 843-462-2150)
Monday, February 3, 2014
February 2, 2014 My Frozen Heart
It is cold early and I am wearing three layers and a jacket, but soon there is a lightness in the air and the great white ice bowl of the sky opens spilling out pale yellow sunshine. On a back porch, there is a potted orange tree with three bright heavy oranges soaking up the sun.
It is the anniversary of my sister's death and I think of the beautiful twisted orange trees I once saw in a Japanese cemetery, the ground covered with ripened oranges filling the air with their sweet decaying scent.
I travel to the cemetery where we once took our children to feed the ducks and then I go to her old house and park in the driveway. I thought it would be only a rubble, but it was not. Someone who lives there now is keeping it up. The Red Tips she planted are nicely pruned and the winter grass grows over the place where the massive oak grew. That oak fell on the house during Hurricane Hugo and the roof was open to the sky for weeks. The squirrels were skittering around in the rafters.
I pass Akers Pharmacy where they bought the terrible medicine they had to take and then I go to the Lopez Bakery where I inhale the sweet and comforting aroma of the Conchas as big as cantaloupes. Concha Rosa, Concha Amerillia and Concha de Chocolate.
And later I buy two climbing ever blooming red rose bushes and a Brown Turkey Fig tree to plant.
It is the anniversary of my sister's death and I think of the beautiful twisted orange trees I once saw in a Japanese cemetery, the ground covered with ripened oranges filling the air with their sweet decaying scent.
I travel to the cemetery where we once took our children to feed the ducks and then I go to her old house and park in the driveway. I thought it would be only a rubble, but it was not. Someone who lives there now is keeping it up. The Red Tips she planted are nicely pruned and the winter grass grows over the place where the massive oak grew. That oak fell on the house during Hurricane Hugo and the roof was open to the sky for weeks. The squirrels were skittering around in the rafters.
I pass Akers Pharmacy where they bought the terrible medicine they had to take and then I go to the Lopez Bakery where I inhale the sweet and comforting aroma of the Conchas as big as cantaloupes. Concha Rosa, Concha Amerillia and Concha de Chocolate.
And later I buy two climbing ever blooming red rose bushes and a Brown Turkey Fig tree to plant.
Friday, January 31, 2014
January 30, 2014 The Pope's Red Shoes and Snow Cream
It is the dead of winter. There is ice and mud on the Cottonwood Trail. The wetlands are iced with fallen trees and the dead branches and shoots of water plants. The reptiles are hibernating, but a few birds twitter and tweep their swooping up and down flights across the water. I am here alone and suddenly the gigantic Great Blue Heron squawks and lifts up just beside me into the sky that is so blue it looks like a Greek postcard.
There is still snow on the ground from the Arctic blast that came Tuesday afternoon and stopped traffic on I-75, I-85 and I-285 around Atlanta. Children were stranded on buses and many slept overnight in their schools. People left their cars on the highways and walked to stores or churches to shelter. A baby was born on I-285. Eleanor picked up Mathew early. Martin walked home and Ryan's Marta train broke down, the doors refused to open, but soon another train brought them home.
Here we had 2.6 inches also. I wore my new soft red suede shoes, a size too big to work because of my broken toe, looking just a little like the previous Pope's red slippers.
Here is an old recipe for Snow Cream.
1 (14 oz) can of sweetened condensed milk
1 (5.33 oz) can of evaporated milk
1 tsp vanilla
SNOW
Mix milks and vanilla. Gradually beat in snow until ice cream is of desired consistency.. Serves 5.
from Southern Sideboards of the Jr. League of Jackson, Mississippi, 1978
There is still snow on the ground from the Arctic blast that came Tuesday afternoon and stopped traffic on I-75, I-85 and I-285 around Atlanta. Children were stranded on buses and many slept overnight in their schools. People left their cars on the highways and walked to stores or churches to shelter. A baby was born on I-285. Eleanor picked up Mathew early. Martin walked home and Ryan's Marta train broke down, the doors refused to open, but soon another train brought them home.
Here we had 2.6 inches also. I wore my new soft red suede shoes, a size too big to work because of my broken toe, looking just a little like the previous Pope's red slippers.
Here is an old recipe for Snow Cream.
1 (14 oz) can of sweetened condensed milk
1 (5.33 oz) can of evaporated milk
1 tsp vanilla
SNOW
Mix milks and vanilla. Gradually beat in snow until ice cream is of desired consistency.. Serves 5.
from Southern Sideboards of the Jr. League of Jackson, Mississippi, 1978
Tuesday, January 21, 2014
January 20, 2014 Battle of Blackstock Plantation "The Broken Toe, Sub Zero Blues"
It has been the coldest January I can remember and on Christmas, I broke my toe and kept walking. On this Martin Luther King day I take Hwy 56 past the SC School for the Deaf and Blind on the left and Boofa's Vet on the right. It is 13 miles to the intersection of 56 and Hwy 49 at Cross Anchor. Here there is a Lil' Cricket gas station where I asked Justun Richardson, who was sitting in his truck, how to get to the Blackstock Battleground. It turns out that Justun is a history buff and not only gives me directions to the Battleground but tells me more of the history of Hwy 49 between Cross Anchor and Union. There was an old hotel just down the road called the West Springs Hotel to which people traveled from far and wide to drink the water from the sulphur springs there. Justun tells me that he has gone there himself and lifted the cover to drink the water. There was another Plantation at Cross Keys and another battle at the Tyger River at Fish Dam Ford. He says there was a band of Native Americans who lived here at one time who were made up of peoples from diverse tribes and once his grandmother found a stone bowl in a stream that was made long ago by the early peoples.
I drive up the road toward Union about 3 miles and find the marker for the battlefield on the left and turn there. I am on Battleground Road and soon I must turn on Monument Road. I find myself in a group of farms all with the name, "Lawson" on the mailboxes. I cannot find the battleground today. Wherever it is, there are supposed to be trails and camp sites there.
This road is also the road to a trail head for the Palmetto Trail, but I can't find that either.
William Blackstock had at least 150 acres along this road on the banks of the Tyger River, probably extending along 49 to the little village of Blackstock in York County. In 1780, the Revolution came to his plantation. Sumter was defeated in June at Fishing Creek on the Catawba River by General Tarleton. Sumter repelled them at Fish Dam Ford and then on November 20, 1780 again Tarleton returned to do battle with Sumter at Blackstock Plantation. Although Sumter was wounded and carried off the field in a sling, Tarleton withdrew with about 50 of his soldiers killed and only 3 of the patriots.
The name, Blackstock, is of Anglo Saxon origin and probably means blackened burned tree trunks. The family of Blackstock came from northern England or Scotland. Tyger, the name of the river, may refer to the mountain lions that roamed the South Carolina Upstate in great numbers in the 1700's or some say it might have been related to the name of a French trader in the area. I personally like the mountain lion legend.
Today there was a break in the very cold weather, but another polar blast is coming tomorrow for the rest of the week. I drove home past old houses situated in pecan orchards, the trees naked, graceful and bare.
Lucille's Pecan Pie
1 uncooked pie shell
1/2 stick butter
1 cup light brown sugar
2 eggs
2 Tblsps milk
1 1/2 Tblsp plain flouur
1 tsp vanilla
1 cup pecans (break up)
Bake at 350' for 30 minutes. If making 2 pies, bake at 325' for 50 to 55 minutes.
I drive up the road toward Union about 3 miles and find the marker for the battlefield on the left and turn there. I am on Battleground Road and soon I must turn on Monument Road. I find myself in a group of farms all with the name, "Lawson" on the mailboxes. I cannot find the battleground today. Wherever it is, there are supposed to be trails and camp sites there.
This road is also the road to a trail head for the Palmetto Trail, but I can't find that either.
William Blackstock had at least 150 acres along this road on the banks of the Tyger River, probably extending along 49 to the little village of Blackstock in York County. In 1780, the Revolution came to his plantation. Sumter was defeated in June at Fishing Creek on the Catawba River by General Tarleton. Sumter repelled them at Fish Dam Ford and then on November 20, 1780 again Tarleton returned to do battle with Sumter at Blackstock Plantation. Although Sumter was wounded and carried off the field in a sling, Tarleton withdrew with about 50 of his soldiers killed and only 3 of the patriots.
The name, Blackstock, is of Anglo Saxon origin and probably means blackened burned tree trunks. The family of Blackstock came from northern England or Scotland. Tyger, the name of the river, may refer to the mountain lions that roamed the South Carolina Upstate in great numbers in the 1700's or some say it might have been related to the name of a French trader in the area. I personally like the mountain lion legend.
Today there was a break in the very cold weather, but another polar blast is coming tomorrow for the rest of the week. I drove home past old houses situated in pecan orchards, the trees naked, graceful and bare.
Lucille's Pecan Pie
1 uncooked pie shell
1/2 stick butter
1 cup light brown sugar
2 eggs
2 Tblsps milk
1 1/2 Tblsp plain flouur
1 tsp vanilla
1 cup pecans (break up)
Bake at 350' for 30 minutes. If making 2 pies, bake at 325' for 50 to 55 minutes.
Monday, January 13, 2014
Sunday, January 12, 2014 Table Rock State Park, Carrick Creek
Today there is sunshine so I pack up Boofa, water, Nekot cookies and an extra pair of shoes and socks and head for the mountains.
To get to Table Rock, go West towards Asheville on I-26 and turn towards Campobello on Hwy 11 at exit 5. I go past Skunk Hollow on the right and then past "The Junction", a local much frequented "all you can eat" restaurant on the left. Between Campobello and Gowansville, there are peach orchards with their deep red bare branches reaching heavenward.
The shining rock face of Glassy Mountain fronts the escarpment next. There is an elite neighborhood on the top with a golf course. Legend tells it that two generations ago, teenagers drove up Glassy Mountain to park
close up under the moon.
There is a Gary Player golf course at the base of the mountains after a few miles.
From I-26 you are driving on Hwy 11, the Cherokee Foothills Trail. From this highway you travel the land at the base of the mountains so beautiful in its natural bounty without all of the junk of civilization.
There is now and then a tourist attraction such as the pumpkin colored "Pumpkintown Mtn Cafe" open today with pumpkin spiced lattes, sandwiches and salads.
On the right is a pulloff and sign for Wildcat Wilderness Area and a cascading waterfall. Apple cheeked bearded men are setting up a tent stand for "Boiled P-nuts" in the pulloff.
Now passing the side roads of Heaven Hill, Back Pack, Hiawatha, and Red Bird Hill, leaving Spartanburg County, then Greenville County and finally Pickens county with Aunt Sue's Ice Cream and Cafe on the right.
Directions from the SC Parks and Recreation will tell you that Table Rock is a 45 minute drive from I-26 and will be on your left at Ellison Rd. I realize that the mountain is on the right, but it turns out that the Headquarters Building is on the left beside a mountain lake. They are closed on Sunday. The park is up a very snaking winding road to the right.
The Lodge built in 1938 is on the left. There is a Mountain Bluegrass Jam monthly on the 2nd Saturday there from 2 to 6.
Now there is parking above a lake for swimming (it has a diving platform) and boating. There is another fishing lake. To hike on one of the trails, go to the Nature Center and Restrooms. There are the following trails:
Carrick Creek, 1.9 miles, Mill Creek Pass .7 miles, Pinnacle Mtn 4.1 miles and Table Rock NRT 3.6 miles.
The Foothills Trail goes 76 miles to Oconee State Park and 96 miles to Sassafras Mountain.
I decide, it turns out unwisely, to take the Carrick Creek trail as the booming, crashing creek passes there in all it's glory over great gray boulders at the Nature Center. This deep, powerful rushing water is coming from the heavy rains and snow during the last weeks higher up in the mountains.
Soon I meet people returning from that direction who tell me that the trail is almost impassible, but I go on to see what they are talking about and find that the creek is splashing deeply over its rocks which must usually be a dry crossing. Nearby, a father is patiently waiting for his 8 year old son to walk back over a fallen log from the other side. "We are going back", he says.
I decide to cross the creek. Boofa does not think it is a good idea, but comes along and we get wet. The trail continues down the far side of the creek until I come to another place where it again crosses the water to continue the Foothills Trail and here it is very deep. I think my trail may come up again on this side so I go off trail up the side of the mountain to see if I can regain the trail from up there. This is not a good idea. We are slipping and sliding on the wet leaves, tangling in the twisting arms of the rhododendron and mountain laurel until I fall and Boofa gets tangled in the branches and we descend the slippery mountain back to the stream. This crossing, we get even wetter. It actually feels pretty good to cool the feet, but only momentarily. Soon we are sloshing back to the parking lot.
Fortunately I brought the socks and shoes and put them on for the drive home.
I should have taken the Table Rock Trail and I will do that next time. Still it was a beautiful day.
On the way out, I check out cabins 15 and 16 just below the rock face of the mountain. They have adirondack chairs around fire pits on patios. A lovely place to sit out on a chilly night and watch the stars over the mountains.
To get to Table Rock, go West towards Asheville on I-26 and turn towards Campobello on Hwy 11 at exit 5. I go past Skunk Hollow on the right and then past "The Junction", a local much frequented "all you can eat" restaurant on the left. Between Campobello and Gowansville, there are peach orchards with their deep red bare branches reaching heavenward.
The shining rock face of Glassy Mountain fronts the escarpment next. There is an elite neighborhood on the top with a golf course. Legend tells it that two generations ago, teenagers drove up Glassy Mountain to park
close up under the moon.
There is a Gary Player golf course at the base of the mountains after a few miles.
From I-26 you are driving on Hwy 11, the Cherokee Foothills Trail. From this highway you travel the land at the base of the mountains so beautiful in its natural bounty without all of the junk of civilization.
There is now and then a tourist attraction such as the pumpkin colored "Pumpkintown Mtn Cafe" open today with pumpkin spiced lattes, sandwiches and salads.
On the right is a pulloff and sign for Wildcat Wilderness Area and a cascading waterfall. Apple cheeked bearded men are setting up a tent stand for "Boiled P-nuts" in the pulloff.
Now passing the side roads of Heaven Hill, Back Pack, Hiawatha, and Red Bird Hill, leaving Spartanburg County, then Greenville County and finally Pickens county with Aunt Sue's Ice Cream and Cafe on the right.
Directions from the SC Parks and Recreation will tell you that Table Rock is a 45 minute drive from I-26 and will be on your left at Ellison Rd. I realize that the mountain is on the right, but it turns out that the Headquarters Building is on the left beside a mountain lake. They are closed on Sunday. The park is up a very snaking winding road to the right.
The Lodge built in 1938 is on the left. There is a Mountain Bluegrass Jam monthly on the 2nd Saturday there from 2 to 6.
Now there is parking above a lake for swimming (it has a diving platform) and boating. There is another fishing lake. To hike on one of the trails, go to the Nature Center and Restrooms. There are the following trails:
Carrick Creek, 1.9 miles, Mill Creek Pass .7 miles, Pinnacle Mtn 4.1 miles and Table Rock NRT 3.6 miles.
The Foothills Trail goes 76 miles to Oconee State Park and 96 miles to Sassafras Mountain.
I decide, it turns out unwisely, to take the Carrick Creek trail as the booming, crashing creek passes there in all it's glory over great gray boulders at the Nature Center. This deep, powerful rushing water is coming from the heavy rains and snow during the last weeks higher up in the mountains.
Soon I meet people returning from that direction who tell me that the trail is almost impassible, but I go on to see what they are talking about and find that the creek is splashing deeply over its rocks which must usually be a dry crossing. Nearby, a father is patiently waiting for his 8 year old son to walk back over a fallen log from the other side. "We are going back", he says.
I decide to cross the creek. Boofa does not think it is a good idea, but comes along and we get wet. The trail continues down the far side of the creek until I come to another place where it again crosses the water to continue the Foothills Trail and here it is very deep. I think my trail may come up again on this side so I go off trail up the side of the mountain to see if I can regain the trail from up there. This is not a good idea. We are slipping and sliding on the wet leaves, tangling in the twisting arms of the rhododendron and mountain laurel until I fall and Boofa gets tangled in the branches and we descend the slippery mountain back to the stream. This crossing, we get even wetter. It actually feels pretty good to cool the feet, but only momentarily. Soon we are sloshing back to the parking lot.
Fortunately I brought the socks and shoes and put them on for the drive home.
I should have taken the Table Rock Trail and I will do that next time. Still it was a beautiful day.
On the way out, I check out cabins 15 and 16 just below the rock face of the mountain. They have adirondack chairs around fire pits on patios. A lovely place to sit out on a chilly night and watch the stars over the mountains.
Sunday, January 12, 2014
Saturday, January 11, 2014 Thunder
At 5:00 am there is rumbling, rolling thunder and lightening illuminating the room.
I find a break in the downpour and walk briskly in the heavy fog before Tornado warnings and more rain comes in.
There are huge orange puddles, colored with the iron leached from the soil. The Lawson's Fork Creek has overflowed far into the forest and is rushing in torrents over the spillway.
The early forsythia has been blooming since Christmas and I have found today that there are the first shoots of daffodils reaching from the ground beside my kitchen door.
"Some say the world will end in fire
Some say in ice.
From what I've tasted of desire,
I'd side with those who favor fire,
But from what I've known of hate
I'd say that ice is nice
And will suffice"
Robert Frost
I find a break in the downpour and walk briskly in the heavy fog before Tornado warnings and more rain comes in.
There are huge orange puddles, colored with the iron leached from the soil. The Lawson's Fork Creek has overflowed far into the forest and is rushing in torrents over the spillway.
The early forsythia has been blooming since Christmas and I have found today that there are the first shoots of daffodils reaching from the ground beside my kitchen door.
"Some say the world will end in fire
Some say in ice.
From what I've tasted of desire,
I'd side with those who favor fire,
But from what I've known of hate
I'd say that ice is nice
And will suffice"
Robert Frost
Monday, January 6, 2014
Sunday January 5, 2014 Frozen
A cold white day, only one other walker with his dog and the dog is wearing a saddle blanket. Near the grocery store, a moldering cat is lying frozen in the street. I find a mud and straw bird nest on the path next to a fly green empty bottle of Jagermeister. Soon, there is an empty bottle of "99 Bananas" and then two cobalt blue SKYY vodka bottles lying in the grass. There is some torn red and green Christmas wrapping lodged in the branches of a tree, green ribbon blowing in the wind.
The polar vortex blizzard has hit Philadelphia, Boston and New York. Monday night and morning, it will be 8 degrees here. I am dreaming of sitting on a balcony overlooking the golden marsh with the golden full moon above.
Driving home, I pass the closed Peach and Produce stand, empty now, but then, beside the road, I spot a regal wild turkey, no, a flock of wild turkeys, all large and elegant. I can see them among the trees quite clearly as the leaves and the undergrowth is gone now. There are many, perhaps 16 to 20. Surely, they have been living here but camouflaged in another season, invisible to me.
In the cold, last week, Zack, Shane and James were confined to the house and playing with light sabers, making treasure maps. Together they jumped up and down saying, "I love this day, I love this day. It is the bestest day!" And so it is.
The polar vortex blizzard has hit Philadelphia, Boston and New York. Monday night and morning, it will be 8 degrees here. I am dreaming of sitting on a balcony overlooking the golden marsh with the golden full moon above.
Driving home, I pass the closed Peach and Produce stand, empty now, but then, beside the road, I spot a regal wild turkey, no, a flock of wild turkeys, all large and elegant. I can see them among the trees quite clearly as the leaves and the undergrowth is gone now. There are many, perhaps 16 to 20. Surely, they have been living here but camouflaged in another season, invisible to me.
In the cold, last week, Zack, Shane and James were confined to the house and playing with light sabers, making treasure maps. Together they jumped up and down saying, "I love this day, I love this day. It is the bestest day!" And so it is.
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