BOO! Some Scary Stuff

  Halloween won’t be the same this year.  The usual Halloween activities, mostly sponsored by churches in our town, have been cancelled because of Covid so we don’t know what to expect.  We will put wrapped candy on a table in the driveway, wear masks, and wave at the little trick-or-treaters from the porch if any come.  

  Downtown merchants and some of the historic houses downtown have some fun spooky Halloween displays up.  

Oops!  Dang fence! 

Really spooky at night, I bet, as this is all lit up.

Witch flying on a leaf blower pulling a skateboarding skeleton and his cat, officer clocking her speed with a radar gun.  Or is the skeleton surfing, hence the jumping fish??  

And, is she the same witch (above) who  crashed into the fence up the block?

Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse 

HAPPY

HALLOWEEN!

Red-Cockaded Woodpecker

  Since the weather has gotten somewhat cooler here and the biting bugs have backed off a bit, we’ve been enjoying a return to the Great Outdoors.  One morning last week we meandered along the Alligator Pond Trail in a longleaf pine forest, a tree that once covered 90 million acres of forest from Virginia to Florida. The longleaf was gradually replaced by the growing lumber industry with the faster-growing and more profitable yellow pine.  In the name of progress, the robin-sized Red-cockaded woodpecker that depended on the longleaf nearly became extinct by the 1970s. 

 In some protected forests the longleaf pines have been reintroduced.  They are beautiful trees with soft, fragrant needles up to 18 inches long! 

 

 We have been curious about the trees we see that have a wide band of white paint around them. We recently learned that the Forest Service marks trees to indicate evidence of Red-cockaded woodpecker activity.  

  

  On this hike we were rewarded with the close-up sight of not only a white-banded tree, but the presence of an artificial nesting box inserted into the tree trunk.

 

 You see, before 1989 the Francis Marion National Forest (where we spend a lot of time enjoying the woods) had the densest naturally increasing population of red-cockaded woodpeckers in the country, about 475 of the endangered birds. Then, in 1989 Hurricane Hugo flattened the pine forests of coastal South Carolina and killed more than half the birds.  

As the trees have been replanted, the Forest Service has worked to bring the birds back.  A tree has to reach 80 feet tall before it is suitable for nesting, and then it takes the birds two to six years to make a nesting cavity in the heartwood. They are what is called “cooperative breeders,” meaning that the birds in a group work together to support a nesting pair. The parents, plus other non-breeding birds, work together to feed the young and maintain one nest cavity.  Each group has a territory of about 125 acres of forest. 

  The artificial nesting boxes, about 10x25x6 cm, are made of cedar and placed in a manmade hole carved out in a live tree.  

  Several thousand boxes have been placed in the forests here and have allowed the birds to make a comeback, from approximately 200 in 1989 to  515 family clusters counted in August of this year.

  You’re probably wondering what the birds look like that this fuss is all about.  I wish I had a photo of my own to show you but, despite spending lots of time looking for them, we have not been able to see a single one let alone photograph it.  

  This is a photo from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.  You might be wondering where its “red cockade” is.  Well, the female doesn’t have one at all and the male’s is seldom visible.  If we ever manage to see one, you’ll be the first to know!  

Fungus Among Us

    Note: This is not meant to be an identification guide for mushrooms. 

It goes without saying, but I will anyway:

Don’t eat wild mushrooms unless you know what you are doing!  

  We’ve been spending lots of time out in the woods enjoying the fall bird migration, the abundant wildflowers, the crisp air — all the wonderful changes that come with autumn.  So far our best fall colors aren’t up there where most would expect them.  Rather, they are down near your feet and you have to be alert so you don’t step on them.

  There’s fungus among us!

Here are a few specimens from our walks this weekend.

  

Russula emetic, aka the sickener,      

 vomiting Russula.  

  Pretty, but beware!  

  

Chanterelles (right), 

trumpet-shaped beauties

 that the adventurous prize for their taste 

  

  

Amanita flavocconia, aka Yellow Patches,     shiny yellow like an egg yolk

Beige mushrooms with warts

😆

  Black trumpet mushroom, 

  aka black chanterelle 

Unknown

Unknown

Unknown

  Ephemeral, often associated with fairies and elves and other magic, forest mushrooms are fascinating.  If you haven’t seen my North Carolina neighbor Henny Penny’s yardful of beauties, click here:

http://hennypennylane.blogspot.com/2020/08/stick-around-for-last-one.html

Thanks, Canada!!

  I’d like to thank my Canadian friends for our weather this week, a huge humidity-clearing high pressure front pouring out autumn all over South Carolina.  Couldn’t be a more welcome— ahem— breath of fresh air!  As soon as it arrived, we got out and about to take advantage.  

  To start, here’s an early morning at the salt marsh.

We found a whole flock of wood storks feeding.  If you have sharp eyes, you might spot the four roseate spoonbills crashing the party. 

More spoonbills and an egret.  Also, a lot of oyster beds.

  Aren’t spoonbills gorgeous?  Their legs are red and their bodies pink because they eat shrimp. Shrimp eat algae, algae make their own red and yellow pigments, spoonbills eat shrimp, and voila! pink birds.

   A group of roseate spoonbills is called a bowl.  I don’t know why.

  You can see here how they get the second half of their name.  The spoon-shaped bills have touch receptors inside.  They swing their heads side to side, back and forth through the water, and when they feel vibrations of living things inside, they quickly snap the spoons together.  Because of this, they can feed at night and in murky water.  

  (This is not my photo.  It’s from the St. Louis zoo website.)

 

  

  A number of people live permanently on boats in Winyah Bay and Georgetown Harbor.  Sailboats are anchored offshore and other boats have permanent moorings on the Harbor Walk, a dock that runs along the water behind the stores on our main street . Conveniently, there are three (three!) ice cream shops on the Harbor Walk and I will admit, of a beautiful evening  we occasionally imbibe.  

  Ships’ cats throughout history have had a job to do — taking care of any vermin that come aboard.  While we enjoyed our ice cream (caramel pecan sea salt, if you must know) I think this guy was getting shipshape for the night watch.  One hopes that is not his unfortunate predecessor behind him!  

  While we were eating our ice cream his owner came strolling down the dock with a doggy bag (kitty bag?) from a restaurant in his hand.  As soon as the captain was in sight, the cat began “talking” and calling to him.  It was the cutest thing!  

  We have several more days of this beautiful Canadian air to enjoy and we have plans for every day of it.  

RIP RBG

“As women achieve power, the barriers will fall. As society sees what women can do, as women see what women can do, there will be more women out there doing things, and we’ll all be better off for it.”

– Ruth Bader Ginsburg

  Vote.  VOTE. VOTE. Not only for President but for Congress.  Not only for national but for state and local leaders where people, women people, get their start in politics.  Vote for school board and dog catcher and coroner.  Educate yourself.  Read both sides.  Use your best judgment and  

VOTE!

   Moved to do more?  Here are some addresses for organizations that are doing postcard campaigns to remind people to vote.  You add a personal message and drop them in the mail.  Most provide postage so you won’t even have to spend a cent. There are more at local and state levels also.

https://demvolctr.org/write-letters-and-postcards/

https://postcardstovoters.org/volunteer/

https://www.momsrising.org/blog/can-we-send-you-10-gotv-postcards-to-fill-out

https://togetherfor2020.org/resources/postcard-mailers/  

“Fight for the things that you care about, but do it in a way that will lead others to join you."

"To make life a little better for people less fortunate than you. That's what I think a meaningful life is. One lives not just for oneself, but for one's community."

RBG

Water Tower, Clock Tower

   When I was a kid in the ‘50 and ‘60s, my family traveled for a couple weeks every summer to see another part of our big country.  After hours of rolling along through endless countryside of grain fields and distant farms, the appearance of a silhouette of a water tower on the horizon was exciting. Slowly the name of another small American town would materialize painted on its side.

  The next item of interest to appear would be a sign announcing the town’s population which someone would read out loud, suggesting the possibility of a stop for gas, maybe an ice cold pop to share with your sister, or a even a delicious bakery treat.  

  At the very least, it meant buildings and people to break up the monotony of the miles, an opportunity to ponder what life might be like living in this little town.   

  The small town we live in now has just such a water tower. It has looked old and rusty for years and we thought it was probably not even used to hold water anymore.  We liked it though, especially because of the fading words painted on one side: “Georgetown A Character City”. Georgetown does have its share of characters!  

  One day in July something started happening to the water tower.  Trucks appeared with lots of equipment and soon a busy crew surrounded the legs with scaffolding and plastic wrapping that hid all from view.  Machinery whined and whirred with metal-on-metal sounds inside the plastic. Rusty dust billowed.  Were they cutting it up to dismantle it or what?  And then ...

  ...then one day they unwrapped it and revealed a whole new look!  Fancy new letters and a logo of the old town clock tower!  

  The real clock tower is on the waterfront and stands over an open air market, in use since 1788.  Behind it were the docks where rice, indigo,

and cotton crops from the plantations were loaded onto ships.  Beneath the tower was the slave market where enslaved people were brought up from Charleston and sold to the planters for work on their plantations. 

  The pictured Old Market Building was built in 1842 and the clock tower was added in 1845.  The photo was taken in 1899.

  In February of 1865, federal troops occupied the town and in this building Confederate officers signed surrender papers, handing Georgetown over to the Union army.  

Today, the Old Market Building is part of our town’s rice museum. The same tree still grows on the left, and behind the building is a harbor with a few working shrimp boats, a lot of sailboats and yachts, and the Harbor Walk which connects several waterfront parks.  

Seven Days of Rain and Counting

  

  Seven days of rain in a row now — so far.   We had an hour or so, maybe less, of dry this morning and got out and headed “up the neck”.  Waccamaw Neck is a long peninsula of land north from Georgetown with rivers on one side and barrier islands and ocean on the other.  There is only one road, Ocean Highway, up and you must cross two high and long bridges to get there.  Too often there is an accident on a bridge with traffic back-ups and nothing to do but wait until it clears.

  Most of our stores, medical services, etc, are Up the Neck and it’s just a fact of life that there will be delays.  Thank goodness for today’s cell phones.  If you have an appointment you just call and say, “There’s an accident on 17 so I’ll be there when it clears,” and they fit you in when you get there.  

 

 Last week we waited 30 minutes in this spot to get moving again.  

The views are nice, though, and you get there when you do.  

  Don’t think all traffic accidents and delays are on the bridges though.  This appeared in the town news on line last week.

  Shopping Up the Neck and in Georgetown has a whole new meaning these pandemic  days.  We don’t go in stores anymore, browse the aisles, exchange pleasantries or money.  Our shopping goes like this.

  For the hardware/garden store, you shop from pictures and pay on line and they notify you when your things are ready.  You drive Up the Neck, park in a special spot, and try to follow the somewhat confusing instructions on the sign.  Sometimes they work, other times you have to call the store service department.  Either way, eventually someone in a mask comes out, checks your I.D. through the window, places your stuff in the back of the car, and you’re on your way.  

  Walmart (groceries, prescriptions) has a similar system, but you send a text when you leave your home, they track your car and are often waiting with your order when you arrive. 

  Does this seem a little, um, 1984 to anyone else???

  If you have to wait a bit, no worries because there is lots of activity cavorting in this large drainage pond where you have a front row seat.  That thing that looks like a stick in the center — that’s a 4 foot alligator that entertained us.  The other dark spots are large turtles.  We counted nine with their heads out of the water at once this day.  

  Well, enough of that.  Let’s get to the real news.  

  For months I worked on a little project.  Months because — I made it and remade it three times!  The first time the color was wrong when we got a little important information about its recipient.  The second time I didn’t realize it was getting wonky from uneven tension (crocheting too tightly (me - stressed), then too loosely (me - relaxed)).  Instead of a rectangle we had a rhomboid,and I frogged it and began once again. Third time was the charm.

So ... 

Meet Jack, our ninth (9th!) grandSON!  

 

  Masked and socially-distanced, we are looking forward to seeing him for the first time this weekend.