February 14, 2015 Saqsakaew, the Great Blue Heron

Some Native American Tribes have heron clans, the Great Blue Heron of the Menominee is called Saqsakaew.  The heron is believed to embody patience and wisdom.

It is a cool, clear day in the wetlands.  From the boardwalk, I stop and turn to the right. Out of the corner of my eye, I have perceived a movement or a branch that is not a branch.  Great Blue is standing on a log in the water.  He doesn't mind if I am there.  I stand silently watching.  Suddenly he dives into the water and comes up with a 6 inch long fish in his beak, which he swallows whole. For a while he returns to the log but then wades off into the water again, this time plunging for another small fish.  Certain in his stillness and swift in his dive, his aim is on target and he swallows his fish.

The Iroquois believe that Great Blue is a sign of luck.  A sighting of the heron foretells a bountiful fishing journey.

February 10, 2015 Sesquicentennial State Park: The Winter Blues

Sesquicentennial was built 150 years after the founding of the city of Columbia.  The terrain of this northern part of the city is sand hills.  There is even a new mall over this way called Sand Hills Mall.  The ground is white and black sand like the bottom of the sea where the sea used to be.  Pines are predominant.  The park has a lake owned by a big flock of Canadian Geese.  They also overnight on a little island in the center. They are so tame, they will jump up on your picnic table while you are eating.

I take the trail around the lake.  The temperature is 49 degrees but it feels much colder as the wind is pushing wet waves across the water surface relentlessly.

My grandparents had a farm in the sand hills north of here. We would go down home, down country or to Mama and Pappa's most Sunday afternoons.  My cousins and brother and sister and I would drive the old pickup down logging trails through a forest just like this one.  The little ones were in the bed in the back.  The adults would be in the house in this kind of weather, gathering around the dining table eating little biscuits with cured ham (some call it Virginia ham) and sometimes old fashioned banana pudding with meringue on top.

They raised pigs and we would go out to the smokehouse and see the salted hams hanging curing in the dark.
Now and then the pigs would get out of their pen and chase us.  We ran in terror. They seemed to us as children to be huge thousand pounders.  Inside the warm house, the adults would laugh and say, "Oh, they won't hurt  you" and turn back to their conversations.

February 8, 2015 Cottonwood Trail: Sunshine on My Shoulder Makes Me Happy

It is 66 degrees at 2:30 pm. Where on cold mornings, only the deer and I are here, today there are families with toddlers and loopy puppies cavorting on leashes, teenagers in shorts and sleeveless shirts and cowboy boots, an older woman with three big lazy dogs, bicycles, even a little one in a stroller pointing out an "alligator" to me.  (So far as I know, no alligators have made it this far up the state, although they do move inland at least as far as Columbia.).

I have read that the cost of keeping up this trail and area is $31,000 a year and the volunteers have been out clearing and cutting the big trees that have fallen over the path.

This beautiful day has just given fuel to my dreams of visiting the coast while another foot of snow covers Boston.  There a woman reported her car as stolen and then found it under a mountain of snow.

February 7, 2015 Kings Mtn National Park, The Cairn of Patrick Ferguson

A warm blue day has peeked out of the gray of winter. Even earlier this year, I have heard the frogs singing in the wetlands.  They are singing in the Spring to come, still far away.  Here and there in sheltered places, crab apples have been blooming since January.  Daffodil and jonquil bulbs are pushing up out of the cold ground.  The northeast is being hit week after week with blasts of deep snow.

In a thrift shop, I have found an army green floppy outback hat.  It even says "Australia". Around the brim hang wooden beads on yellow strings.  I think they must be to shoo away gnats and mosquitoes. On the monument trail up to the top of Kings Mountain, there is no need for this hat.  That is one thing about winter on the trail. There are no bugs or snakes. Bears are hibernating and so are some people, half asleep bundled up in front of their TVs or  clutching their cell phones.

There are small family groups, some couples moving up the trail.  A couple has two little girls who have hiking sticks they are riding like horses.  One drops her horse stick and runs down into a ravine.  The parents tell her if she doesn't listen, they are going to turn back.  She doesn't listen and they grab her up and turn back.

Today I do not read the monuments.  I find a nice rock and toss it to the very top of Patrick Ferguson's Cairn as I have done since childhood.  I have tossed many rocks now onto this mountain grave of the young Scotsman over the years.