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.
Monday, February 24, 2014
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.
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