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.