July 25, 26, 27 28, 2014 A Snake Skin on the Banks of the Creek

Everyday, it is so hot, that the thunder storms that sometimes crack the darkening sky in the afternoons seem like the monsoons of the Rajasthan desert.  Everyday at dawn, I go to the Cottonwood Trail before the intense heat.  The storms have done little to fill the wetlands back up.  The reeds are turning brown reaching up from the mud.  One morning I can see not one but two Great Blue Herons perched high up in the tops of the dead trees in the wetlands.  There are deer tracks in the mud.  There is a flock of goldfinches careening around in the damp warm air. A doe picks her way through the bending grasses.

One day, I hear the deep and distant chanting of a large group of human beings.  They are coming closer, breaking the orchestral music of the cicadas, the crickets and the birds with their "sound off".  A group of ROTC students with their leaders are marching through the forest, calling out their sound off.

As children, we had a sound off that went like this:

I left my wife and 49 kids,
the old gray mare
and the peanut shells.
All because I thought it was right,
Right,
Right through the cornfield
Right by jingo (skip into the air and change feet)
Left
Left
Left
I left my wife and 49 kids
the old gray mare
and the peanut shells
Without any hamburgers
Left
left

Another day, I found a snake skin curled on the bank high over the creek.  I took it home.
The skin can mean, change, rebirth, the sloughing off of the old ways that are no longer viable.

July 13, 2015 Great White Swamp Flowers

At dawn, the wetlands are dry as a bone, still as the grave.  Hardly a bird sings, too early  now for the cicadas.  It  is overcast with white clouds, windless, airless without a leaf stirring, already  70 degrees.

All of the worshipers at the Emanual Church have been laid to rest.  The Confederate battle flag has been taken down from the statehouse grounds.  The people sang: Na, na, na na...Na na na naaaa...goodbye.

All across the drying wetlands, swamp flowers are in glorious bloom. Giant white blossoms, deep dark red at the base of the stamens.

July 7, 2015 From the Harbor River to Johnson's Creek

We have rented a house on Harbor Island in the woody section with a big porch over an alligator pond.  On the first night there was thunder and lightening and heavy rain. We stayed on the porch.

 This island lies where the Harbor River empties into St. Helena Sound.  In the morning I have walked along the beach from the Harbor River, south to Johnson's Creek.  An old draw bridge spans the river. Along the water's edge is the black sticky pluff mud of the wide marshes.  There are many conch shells scattered in the sand. Each one is inhabited by a hermit crab.  There are fishermen along the shore and shrimp boats on the horizon.  There are many sea birds, ibis, herons, gulls.  Here it is a bird sanctuary.  Great flocks fly out into the sky in the early morning and at sunset they return  to roost in the trees and bushes along the inlets.

There are few people swimming in the ocean. There have been seven shark attacks along the North Carolina beaches and one here beside us at Hunting Island.  The children have splashed and played in the tidal pools.

Fran, the Turtle Lady, has told us there are 47 sea turtle nests this year.  None have opened yet.  The first one at Fripp opened this week.  Hunting Island has 79.  Near Johnson's creek, there is a large roped off area where there are several nests.  Here when the tide is out and the beach is very very wide, there are many stranded horse shoe crabs.  I can see the light house across the creek beyond the trees.