Wednesday, April 29, 2015

April 28,2015 The Rocky Branch Natural Area at Little Mountain, SC

On a cool blue day, I headed for Lynch's Wood at Newberry only to find it closed for repair of bridges.  A Police Department employee told me that there was a good trail down SC 76 at the small town of Little Mountain.  I followed the Georgia Pacific Railway East through Prosperity, past fields of green, of blue and of yellow wild flowers and stopped at the Little Mountain Unlimited Antique Mall for directions.  The clerk there knew nothing of a trail, but a  handsome man with a lisp appeared and told me to continue on 76 (Main St), pass the  Citgo Station on the right and then the big church (Lutheran) and turn right on Mountain St.  Shortly, AME Zion church is on the left and then a turn to the left and the park is on the left.  (There is a sign at Main and Mountain).

There  in the woods is a picnic shelter with table, restrooms and a memorial to  Roxie Koon Derrick "In Appreciation for her loving and generous spirit whose desire is to share this wonderful place with present and future generations. The town of Little Mountain and its Citizens." November 2012.

The trail is a dirt road down the hill (it may be the little mountain of the town's name) and then up a hill again.
Down to the left, the gleaming pewter surface of a pool of the branch is visible.  Butterflies and dragonflies flitter around me.  The path is a loop with benches here and there and two wooden porches built into the side of the little mountain where you can sit and look down into the forest below.  The trail eventually loops back to the picnic shelter.

Again I visited the Antique store and the same man told me that "Roxanne" of the trail is still alive and owns a gas station in town.  This is the biggest antique store I have ever visited.  It is full of pink depression glass, china, pottery, Citadel and Boy Scourt uniforms, Barbie dolls, linens, wreaths made from cotton plants, bird houses, iron skillets, portraits of generals A.P. Hill and George Meade who met at Gettysburg, a sign says "Fresh Eggs" and another boasts a cafe in the basement.  Also down below are beautifully restored antique cars, a truck and even a tractor. Beside the cafe is a set up for a live band with keyboard, drums, guitars.
The clerk tells me that this building was once a mercantile store, but was turned into the antique store about seven years ago.

In old Irish stories and in most of the world's mythology, dragonflies and butterflies are considered a glimpse of the ephemeral and transient, a fire like presence of the spirit or soul with the ability to cross into the other world.

Little Mountain can be reached from I-26 or from SC 76. It is 8 miles East of Newberry and just West of Chapin.

Tuesday, April 14, 2015

April 14, 2015 Greenwood State Park: Terra Emeralda

There is just a short nature trail here, a loop behind camp ground number 1.  It is raining and warm as I enter a green world.   Emerald, sage, vert, verdigris, malachite, beryl, aquamarine, chartreuse, lime, kelly, olive, Mittler's green, Prussian green, bronze green, Lincoln green,yellow green, grass green, forest green, spinach green, moss green, pine green, Nile green, jade, viridian.  I am in Terra Emeralda, the trees fleshed out with new leaves, the ground covered with new green muscadine vines.  The light filtered through the dark clouds illuminates this verdant world.  I search the roots of fallen trees for arrowheads and find only a large brown frog.  I can imagine the early settlers of the town of Greenwood naming this place "green wood".

The birds sing:  jeepers, jeepers, jimmy, jimmy, leave her, leave her, we do it, we do it, like the motto of the CCC who built the structures in 1938, "We can take it".  There is a small fishing pier with names carved on its rails: " Aika, Jason, Zornies were here." Picnic tables are nearby.  The lake is as green as the woods.

I visit the Drummond Center and the Ranger takes me to open the doors onto the stone terrace and an astonishing view of the lake.  The is a small photographic museum here devoted to the State Parks, the CCC and the people who had lived on the land as share croppers or owners.

I came up from Columbia on I-26 West, took exit 74 onto highway 34 through Newberry and continued 25 miles over Bush River, Beaver Dam Creek, Little River and the green Saluda.  There are blue, purple, pink and white ragged robins in the fields, red clover, then through the little town of Silver Street and took a right on hwy 702, then two miles to the park.  Near the entrance, there is a "Grand Daddy Greybeard" in full bloom, dripping a beard of white blossoms.

Leaving, I continued on 702 until I saw a sign that said a Piggley Wiggley was 3 miles down  Wilson Bridge Road on a sharp left.  Turned left on Cambridge Road which took me immediately to the Piggley Wiggley in the town of Ninety Six. Here I visited   the D and L Flower Shop in an old building, next door to Linda's Then Again and in front of Hairidice Styling Salon.

I went back on Cambridge Rd (246) until I met hwy 72 which took me through the edge of Greenwood and over the lake.  I had lunch looking out over the water at the Subway in the Sunoco Gas Station, the best Subway view in the world, where a man sailed up in his small boat, cut off his Evinrude and mounted the steps to the Subway (just like driving up in a car) and got his bag lunch to go back into the boat.

Hwy 72 continues on to Clinton where I took Hwy 56 which crosses I-26 again.  The sun is breaking out though the big white clouds as I arrive home.


Monday, April 13, 2015

April 12, 2015 Woodruff Greenway , Wild Pink Dogwood and Poke Salat

I am driving 221 (Church St. in Spartanburg, Main St in Woodruff) listening to Jose Feliciano playing and singing "You Were Always on My Mind" from his new album, "The King".

Past dogwoods and violet wisteria, 221 joins 146 when you bear to the left after the old downtown.   All is quiet as the good people of Woodruff are all at their places of worship in the early dawn. Turn left at the Baptist Church. On the right is the high school, then on the left is the Junior High.  There is no sign, no indication of the trail, so drive into the far end of the parking lot and walk down to the Theo Atheletic field.
Behind the bleachers the trail goes downhill to a series of two bridges over a clear stream.
Violets and ferns grow on the banks.

River birches stand tall. Out in the hardwood forest, stands a wild pink dogwood, the first wild pink one I have ever seen.  My mother said  long ago, my grandfather had found one out in the woods down home and tagged it with a red strip of cloth to dig it up in the Fall, but someone else got it first.

The tender green shoots of Poke Salat are spouting up near fallen logs.

The trail is an out and back just under a mile long. It ends (or begins) at the Woodruff Leisure Center where I meet a Dad and his two boys who tell me that this lovely walk is nearly always deserted. There is a plan to extend this trail.

If you follow 146 West, you will eventually leave the old small town and in about 20 minutes, find yourself in the cosmopolitan crash of the big shopping venue of Greenville.  Out of the past and into the future.

Poke Salat Annie by Tony Joe White:

"If some of yall.......
Down in Louisanna where the alligators grow so mean
There lived a girl that I swear to the world
Made the alligators look tame
Poke salat Annie, Poke salat Annie
Everybody said it was a shame
Cause her mama was working on the chain gang
(a mean, vicious woman)
Everyday 'fore supppertime she'd go down by the truck patch
And pick her a mess of Poke salat
And carry it home in a tote sack.
Poke salat Annie, 'Gators got you Granny
Everybody said it was a shame..
Cause her mama was working on the chain gang.
Lord have mercy, pick a mess of it...
Her daddy was lazy and no count,
Claimed he had a bad back.
All her brothers were fit for was stealin
Watermelons out of my truck patch
Sock a little Poke salat to me, you know I need it.
Poke salat Annie.