A Bejungled Blackwater

The sun burned down as I found my way to a bejungled blackwater off the shoulder of highway 17 downeast near Wilmington NC. It was a solitary sidetrip to a relaxing beachy weekend with Heather. As I continue to craft a wonder for locales both native and natural; ordinary yet offbeat, I pause to consider why I’m drawn to these places. It has something to do with not wanting to take things for granted. I don’t want to overlook the often-overlooked. I’m curious. Oh, and I’m cheap…so, for now, instead of flying to Belize, I wander to the edge of town for a sustainable sojourn. Occasionally I’m rewarded for these myopic tendencies.

Town Creek, like many of our southern blackwater streams, slides quietly through a dark bottomland of cypress and gum. This one feels the slight push and pull of the tides as it shares water with the Cape Fear River. I have only taken my canoe on one other such stream and I was then accompanied by 6 adventurous men. Now it was just me and my red canoe…and two competing emotions: awe and apprehension. The awe was focused on the lush greenery swaying below the waterline, and on the palmettos, water lilies, silvery fish schools, and a vibrantly golden Prothonotary Warbler. The apprehension intermittently reminded me that I was alone in a swamp, that hordes of yellow flies could descend on me at any time, and that those lily pads could easily conceal a hungry gator intent on bagging the rare solo canoeist. I scanned the mudflats casually for tracks and swatted only a few times at the annoying yellow fly. I sat often in the shade listening to exotic songbirds and recalling the tale of a lone orchid thief risking much worse conditions in a similar yet far distant swamp.

While it Lasted

Heather and I went to Little River Park for our Sunday morning walk. We hiked the Ridge Trail. The information board told us it would take us 4 hours. When we completed the trail and arrived back at the information kiosk, it had only been 1.5 hours. Huh?
You'd think we didn't stop and smell the roses (or in this case, watch the water) but we did. We also looked closely at beech trees, nodded to other hikers, sidestepped dogs on leashes, drank from our water bottle, and generally had a casual, yet purposeful, walk. Heck, we even sat down for awhile, see the picture! We weren't running for pete's sake.

Did we take a drastic short cut? Was the sign wrong? Did it intend 4 miles instead of 4 hours? Had it actually taken someone 4 hours to walk that same trail? Had the sign erred on the side of safe planning while trying to account for an average measure of outdoor human foot powered locomotion? Maybe the person that made the sign had gotten lost and said "Screw it, I'm not walking that trail again, it took me 4 hours."
Regardless of the logic of the sign, it got me thinking about its effect on people and its effect on the land. On a simple level, I thought Wow, I bet a lot of people look at that sign and take a different trail. That's funny, people really missed out on a beautifully simple path through the woods. This must be a relatively well preserved trail we just walked. Why DID we take it after reading the sign...WE didn't want to walk for 4 hours did we? And finally, I imagined a few adventurous folks were flustered to find themselves emerging from the woods so soon after entering.
Anyway, you get the point. I'm easily amused. We had a good time while it lasted.

Garden Update 5

Food is coming in daily now. Eating lettuce, squash, cukes, zuchini, green beans, choy.

Peas are done.

Coming soon: Beats (They will be pickled!)

Our Humanity, Or Lack Thereof

Carve us a table, green, soft on foot, weeds unseen
Paint then a canvas low, brushed in youth, alive to grow
Etch now a path for two, tendered smooth, to lead us through
Frame strong the hedgerow gate, encircle us, nurtured fate

We returned home,from a relaxing weekend vacation, to a sweltering heat and an unkempt yard. I needed to mow. I like the land to look healthy and happy. I hate to fuss over it though. It has dandelions, crab grass, stilt grass, tall fescue, onion grass, clover, moss, and much else. It won't win any yard superlatives(at least not in the usual categories) but it has its own charm and I care for it. So after work today, I drug out the blade runner, filled it full of expensive fumes, and forced it, sweatily, around the property. I wasn't very careful. I wanted to get it over with and take a cold shower.
It seemed like an angry affair this evening,with the screaming machine, slicing noisily through the rough, tossing aside headless hoppers and zinging my bare legs with bits of hard earth. Not a pleasant toil. For almost the full hour and a half my mind was flooded with past mowing malevolence, from stinging hornets to a vivid memory of an encounter between me, on my dad's riding mower, and a garter snake who slithered unseen under the whirring deck immediately birthing a slew of messy mutant snakelings. Yep, hard to forget that one. Sorry. Must have been the heat this evening that brought that stuff back. These warm days tend to put us in our place; remind us of our humanity(or lack thereof).
But it finally ended at dusk with no real excitement as far as I was aware. In the morning I'm sure all will look lovely and I'll be glad I spent the time as I did.

Mercifully Happy Interlude

On Sunday, Heather and I took a long hot walk. It was probably a bit too long. And for some reason I convinced her we didn't need to bring any water. We walked out the front door and proceeded to get very hot and very thirsty for the next 3 hours. We made it over to Occoneechee Mountain and eventually made it back home. There was a mercifully happy interlude, spent in the cool shadow of the mountain along the banks of the Eno, where we snapped these photos. And then we had to go back out into the sun. Next time it will be easier. We'll have water.

Garden Update 4

We now have plenty of lettuce and peas to eat. Giving the extras away.
Little Squashes will be here soon.

Gently Down Joanna Mountain

The short slide show is composed of a few of the many photos taken during our time at the Mountain home with my parents and brother. Sis is still wrapping up her schooling out west. Here we see what it was like outside during Memorial Day weekend at Dupont State Forest.
For many years we did not have access to this land. It was recreation land for Dupont employees only. It later became held by a large developer of luxury homes. Before the homes were built, however, the State of North Carolina negotiated an important buyout. This was not a quick nor easy sequence of ownership...though an extremely valuable one.
It is a 5 minute, uphill and then downhill, drive from the Mountain home. Yes, there can be crowds now, not surprisingly, considering the views and adventures. They come from all over the East..especially on holidays. But...you can find solitude, as we did this day along the laurel paths and finally at Lake Dense where the breezes rolled gently down Joanna Mountain, cooling us as we lounged on the shady dock.