Merry Christmas 2014

A Charlie Brown Christmas Tree on Lake Jocassee

         

          May you have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! I am looking forward to a wonderful 2015.  I wonder what will be around the next bend in the trail and at the narrow end of the next cove I nudge my canoe into!


          Turtle



         

A Mountain Top Experience! August 29,2014

Wyatt, not real sure what's going on!

          We arrived at the top of Sassafras Mountain with me just a fussin' and actin' annoyed because I had read in the paper that the trees had been cut off the top of the mountain! You know that a tower is going to be built up there and I and all other types of people will be able to walk the steps and have a 360 degree view from this tower. I had already, a few weeks earlier spit out my window and threw up my hands in disgust when I was driving up a paved road instead of the dirt gravel road which has been there for years. [  make sure window is down before spitting to the left  ] The Foothills Trail pushes over Sassafras and is open to all who care to hike to the top! If you want to see a view, put on a pair of sturdy shoes, throw a water bottle in a daypack and start walking!

          No other cars were parked in the lot, just Wyatt and I checking out the damage. Wyatt is my grandson, he refuses to walk, almost 15 months old at this time and he is almost untoteable. [  spellcheck says that is not a word, but it is now!  ]  I unbuckle him - all child seats are training straps for future astronauts - lift him out of the car and tote him to the Mt. top! Yep, the trees are cut! I stand next to that rock and look around all around and say to myself, but not out loud, "that sure is some view" "never seen it look that way with the trees all growed up" "if they was to build a small tower, I bet a man could really see a long ways away" "sometimes a man has to admit he could be wrong 'bout towers and such" "as a man's hair turns gray, he is smart if he admits he's  been wrong bout lots of things, unless he's a stubborn fool!"  So, OK, build the tower! on the first clear cold full moon night, I,ll drive to the mountain top and walk up the steps with my grandson and we will marvel in God's wonderous creation! Then we will go again when the moon is dark and stand in awe gazing at the millions of stars nodding and winking at us.

       

Just a quick look see !

Whats left of a good tree.

View goes forever!

          For those of you live in the Upstate of SC, when you come to Sassafras the cooler the weather the less haze to block your view. I will try to keep up with the progress of this tower and post my findings.

       

Hatchling

          A baby turtle is called a hatchling. I go by Turtle on my blog and Wyatt is my small outdoorsman in training, so for the time being I hereby tap him on each shoulder with a dead pine branch and call him Hatchling!



          In the woods or on the water,



          Turtle and Hatchling



          May Gracie rest in peace.
       

























       
         

GRACIE MAY 27, 2000 --- JULY 09, 2014

Gracie - Friend

          I had an early morning appointment with the local Vet to have Gracie put to sleep. I had to carry her to my small SUV and gently laid her in the back and then arrange her legs so she looked comfortable to me before we made the ten minute trip down the road. We arrived at 7:40 am and I carried Gracie into the waiting room. They were waiting for me and quickly lead us to a room where I carefully laid Gracie on a cloth covered table. The vet and his helper came in and explained what was going to happen. I could not respond so I just put my finger up to my lips and did the hush sound, he understood and they left to get the stuff. They returned and gave the first injection which made her very sleepy and comfortable so the second injection would not be painful. Once again they left the room and I was able to rest my forehead on her forehead while I continued to rub her ears and I could feel her relax as the pain and tension went away. At that point her heart was still beating but she was gone. The vet returned with his helper and told me I was welcome to stay or some people chose to leave, I stayed and petted and loved my girl one last time as she slipped away out of this life. The kind gentle vet said stay as long as you like and he and his helper left us alone. I petted that fur which I had watched turn from the yellow of a young Yellow Lab to the white of an old fourteen year old Yellow Lab and then I kissed the white muzzle and hugged my friend before walking out of the room.

          I'll retrieve her ashes in a few days and I plan to scatter them a few at a time at our familiar camping spots along the Foothills Trail and the shore of Lake Jocassee.




          Goodbye Gracie - You are still loved!



          Turtle





















 

Sittin' , Sittin' and Thinkin'

Lake Keowee Family

          I'm sitting on the shore of an island on Lake Keowee. I see an American flag waving on a flag pole, underneath the American flag is a Marine Corps flag. The flag pole is attached to a covered boat dock, a cement path leads to a huge beautiful three story house, I wonder if this is a weekend home or do they live here every day? Would be a great place to live!

          My work schedule allows me to paddle the lakes during the weekdays and I normally have the lakes pretty much to myself. Gracie, my dear old yellow lab and I quietly and smoothly move along the shore line watching for cautious wildlife and hidden waterfalls. We conquer small sandy spots, staking our claim with a camping chair. I am vigilant, dozing under the fresh spring sun. We seek refuge from the summer sun's heat by swimming under the clear mountain water or napping in the dappled shade. Everywhere we make landfall you will find a shallow bed clawed out and yellow lab hairs sprinkled in the disturbed soil. My patch is four camp chair feet imprints and a rectangle of squashed lake debris made by on old plastic Coleman.

          The story is told of the old hillbilly rocked back in his cane bottom chair on the front porch of an old log cabin. The young college boy drives up in his polished car and asks the question, "What are you doing?" The old man chews his tobacco and pets the head of his favorite Redbone hound before saying, "Sometimes we sits and thinks, and sometimes we just sits!" I find myself doing that on these long warm afternoons, not spittin' tobacco, just sittin' or sittin' and thinkin'! Today I'm moving back into the shade so I don't sunburn the tops of my feet, really uncomfortable to wear heavy steel toed work boots when your feet and toe tops are burnt. I'm ashamed to admit that this is the first time this year 2014 that I've put the canoe in the water, about a month ago I was headed to Lake Jocassee but found a birds nest with eggs in the stern of the canoe. The right thing was done and I waited until all the birdies left the nest before attempting another trip. So here I sit with my lily white feet, afraid of burning them, but knowing that in a few weeks they and most of the rest of me will be tanned like a Thanksgiving Turkey!

          Thinking, has brought to mind the summer many years ago when I tried to plant and grow a large garden. Tried - is the key word in that sentence! I was living in whitetail deer country at the time and it never crossed my mind that a garden in an open field near many acres of woodland would be a salad buffet to the calorie counting doe eyed ladies of the night - BUT IT WAS !!!  I worked very hard at encouraging the little veggies to struggle toward the warm nourishing rays of sunshine and they did. One hot summer day with nothing on but a pair of long legged blue jeans I crawled up and down the rows removing offending plants so that all that remained was the choicest of veggies for my DEAR friends! I know they were thankful because all they left behind were little piles of chocolate tidbits! All I received was a bad sunburn! Crawling in long pants kept pulling my pants down below my waist and even lower! The sunburn on my back was bad, but nothing like [ you know where the sun don't shine ] the top half of my cherry red butt,  split with a bad case of plumbers crack! The bottoms of both feet had never seen sunshine until that day and they never want to see it again! Burnt so bad - like walking on coals of blue fire. Never planted a garden for the DEAR ones again!

          That was the same year I decided to go white tailed deer hunting', I wonder why? That fall I went to the nearest biggest small town with a gun store and bought me a gun. It was and still is a Ruger .270, bought a box of twenty bullets, a hunting license, an orange hat, and a plastic cover with a big diaper pin on it. The license had to go in the cover and the cover had to be pinned on your back so the Game Warden could see it and know you were legal. The orange hat told the other hunters that you were not a deer, but a hunter. To be honest, I don't think I ever acquired the title - Hunter! - more like, "Dude in woods with rifle". My wife used to laugh with me cause I would take a Louis L'Amour book with me in the woods and read of the Sackett brothers adventures while "Hunting". Then one day I left the gun and book behind and called it hiking - changed my life! Thats another story for another time.

          I'm high five proud with my new hunting gear and really itching  to shoot something, BANG! BANG! you would think I gotta pee the way I'm dancing around! Finally the day comes. I'm barefoot again, love being barefoot and back in that life would kick my shoes off in a skinny minute. I cross the two lane road, walk through the empty salad buffet, crouch like a soldier on patrol eyeing the tree line before I enter the woods on an unused overgrown road. Follow the road about a hundred yards and tack a target on the broad side of an oak tree. At one time I was a member of the 4-H rifle team and learned how to shoot. We shot a .22 rifle with peep sights, the strap wrapped around our arms so tight that we all had a black and blue stripe around our bicep. It was so tight my mother's arm was even bruised! Well, my .270 had open sights and no strap, one in the chamber and five in the magazine. Awesome! Here Deerie, Deerie! I stood straight and tall, chest out staring down the barrel of my every own gun preparing to hunt down the salad fed doe eyed thieves of the night! Twenty yards away the paper target hung quaking in fear, a somber atmosphere cloaked the dark forest, the gun was ready - was I?! The orange hat was sitting on my head, the rifle butt was resting against my right shoulder, my cheek was snuggled tight to the smooth cold stock, I sighted down the open sights as the trigger jerked back, the firing pin struck the bullet, the bullet exploded hurling the lead down and out of the barrel, my hat spun around facing backwards, my shoulder turning black and blue, my face registering horrifying surprise and the target relaxing into a smile not even feeling the breeze of the bullet. No deer heads mounted on the walls of my man cave.

          Sittin' and Sittin' and Thinkin',  time to do some more paddling and enjoy this quite peaceful lake.


On the lake or in the woods,


Turtle

4-23-2014

         

         

Virginia Hawkins Falls --- Foothills Trail

Cold!! Foothills Trail next to Laurel Fork Creek

            WE, myself and I [ Jim couldn't join in the fun ] started this hike at the Hwy. 178 parking area at about 10:00am on a frozen Friday morning. My nose as red and shiny as the elbows of an old Santa Claus suit. The sun shining and laughing because there was no warmth in his breath blowing across the gravel parking lot and through the naked winter trees surrounding this bleak trailhead. A white pickup truck with GA tags silently waited the return of his master so they could seek the warmth of Georgia and shelter in the two car garage attached to a Colonial style house. My red Mazda hunched his shoulders against the cold and endured waiting my return. I stiffly removed my Crocs and slid my sock covered feet into the old worn hiking shoes, the left shoe is weary and torn but the right shoe is just weary. We've stirred up a lot of dust and scattered a bunch of leaves these pass few years. The imprint of this pair has been stamped in muddy creek bottoms, sandy ocean shores, the red clay of SC, and the rock covered trails twisting over the mountains and hills of the Appalachians. Two toned hiking pants with a quarter sized hole rubbed in a private place from hanging around my butt after a long hike on many a long trail. The shorts are light khaki, bleached in the sun and the zip off legs are darker only being attached in the cold weather months. My North Face fleece is old and shapeless and comfortable and as warm as the first time she was worn. The North Face daypack is as old as my hiking resume and still carries the same two Nalgene water bottles. Fresh Nature Valley granola bars and the basic survival    gear fill the daypack along with an extra fleece, gloves and socks. I hang a whistle around my neck, secure my dirty white Tilley hat on my head, a happy smile on my face, a spring in my step, trekking pole in each hand and we are gone.

        After hiking the entire length of the Foothills Trail this section has been voted "Best liked by me!" It starts with a steep set of steps to gain the ridge top and then the way is easy for a little bit. The elevation change will tie your thighs in a knot as you grab onto every breath you can reach. Up and down goes the trail, about six hundred feet up  from the TH and then down about twelve hundred feet to the valley, of course it is more like a roller coaster ride then a trip and fall and roll down the side of a mountain.

                                                                             

Small sample of getting up!

       
          This is not the steepest climb but will give you an idea of what the trail is like. The only thing that came to my mind when I took this picture was


                                            Climb, climb up sunshine mountain
                                             Heavenly breezes BLOW;
                                            Climb, climb up sunshine mountain
                                             Faces all A GLOW.

                                             Turn, turn from sin and doubting,
                                               Look to God on HIGH,
                                             Climb, climb up sunshine mountain
                                               YOU AND I

          Now any one who grew up in a Baptist church and went to Sunday school remembers these words. Really now you didn't even need  to be Baptist, all Protestant groups sang this song. The last word is always loud!!  You will be singing this all day. That is good , better then singing some of the songs we hear nowadays!

          So I keep hiking in the cold biting air, but am getting warm so its time to shed a layer of clothes and stop sweating. Just like an old snake I start at the top and peal back the top layer looking all fresh and new, I strap the fleece on the side of the day pack and stuff the gloves in the pack with my hat.
Enjoying being outside and walking up and down the mountain as I slowly hike along the trail. Carefully, very carefully I descend down the wooden steps and arrive at the Laurel Fork Creek. A great hike following the creek and crossing back and forth over it on the bridges built way back when. Several trees fallen into the creek, many have been there for quite some time coated with moss and ice crystals. Small, big, and boulder size rocks impede the flow of water creating the unmistakable roar of water which fills the valley. We come to the Virginia Hawkins Falls and step our way down the hundred steps to the bottom.

                                                                               

Virginia Hawkins Falls

Closer view of Falls

Virginia Hawkins Falls

                How about that, another pretty SC waterfalls. I hung out here for a few minutes then returned back the way I had come and saw everything from the opposite perspective.  As I was hiking high on the mountain side I remembered something a sales clerk in KY told me about the Foothills Trail. He said, he and some buddies came to SC to hike the trail, after hiking a couple days they started calling it the trail with no view.

                                                                             

Hazy Mountains

          I understood what he meant if he hiked when the leaves covered the trees, but during the winter time there is an impressive view through the trees all along the trail! I had time to meander back to the trail head and my waiting car, so I was in no hurry. The temp started to drop and I bundled back up feeling the cold wind chap by cheeks and tear up my eyes. The wind was just a blown' but did not sound like a freight train, more like the train pulling out of "Petticoat Junction", so I knew I was safe. The trees swayed and groaned, cracking and squeaking as they rubbed one another, fussing at the wind!   Was a good day!



          In the woods,

          Turtle