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.


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.

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.


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.

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.