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.
Sunday, March 16, 2014
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.
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