Category: Interesting Information

The hesitations I had about moving to South Carolina were primarily three: heat, snakes, and alligators.

I’ve gotten used to the heat, though I do live in air-conditioning, and I do miss the crisp cool air of Maine where windows can be often open for a lot of the year. Here in the tropics, humidity and moisture is an issue, and the AC does control it, but opening a window is not a good idea.

We see alligators in our ponds off and on. They seem to come and go via the underground water drainage system of culverts so common in this Low Country.

You can clearly see alligators should one venture into your…garden…which is highly unlikely in my neighborhood. Alligators do occupy some places and paths in parks and golf courses where ponds or wetlandsare involved.

Wetlands are all around my neighborhood, and I can tell you that I wouldn’t put one foot into those woods without donning boots and snake protectors on my lower legs. Not one foot. LOL. And I’m not especially snake phobic. I just honor the snakes’ privacy in their habitats.

We do have garter snakes here in the neighborhood. And they are WAY bigger than the garter snakes in my Maine garden. Here’s one in my back door neighbor’s garden. When we touched it with a rake, it COILED, which made both of us back off immediately until it got identified as “garter.” In this picture, one can see that the head is not wide and shaped like a triangle wedge, but we weren’t sure.

Here’s another one in another neighbor’s garden.

Garter snakes actually eat garden pests. I would go so far as to say they signal a healthy garden habitat. Or, one in the making. I rather think it has a cute little face, and it looks at one with curiosity, not malignancy.

We also have water snakes that eat things in the water. At least one showed up here on a road after a long dry spell where the creek from the wetland dried up. It eats aquatic creatures. It was dead in the road, and I don’t know if it was killed or run over by accident. And I’m sure, somewhere, there are the types of “black” snakes–rat snakes–that eat rodents. And I’m sure there are many other types of snakes here as well.

But this one! Which was found on a neighbor’s porch that backs up to the woods and wetland…

Our knowledgable neighborhood snake identifier said it was a Hognose Snake or a juvenile moccasin–and to leave both alone.

“Hognose” is used as a kind of a general term for snakes identified by an upturned nose. They are harmless and eat frogs. They are also more prone to being in woods and not wetlands. Some people have them as pets.

Eastern Hognose Snake

Moccasins DO like wetlands. A juvenile would have a green section at the end of its tail. In the neighbor’s picture, we can’t see the tail. They are seriously poisonous, but are not terribly aggressive unless backed into a place where they don’t feel safe. Or, stepped on.

Their close relative is the Copperhead–and you can see the green tail section of a juvenile in the picture below. They are very orange, not dark like a moccasin.

The South Carolina Department of Natural Resources has good information on snakes and on moccasins and copperheads specifically at dnr.sc.gov. Or just search on SC and moccasins and copperheads.

The natural world is an amazing place, filled with wonders and dangers.

Debbie gave us a break most of yesterday afternoon and much of last night, so I went out to explore in the early afternoon, alongside many of my neighbors, many of whom were walking dogs that had been penned up inside for a long time. My back yard neighbor was really worried about the creek/bioswale running through our property rising up to a level that would come into her house. I wanted to see how all the drainage systems here were working–as this type of Low Country drainage is new to me.

There are two big ponds at the front entrance of this property–the fountains in them are decorative, but the ponds are there to capture rain water. The one on the left is very full–you can see that the drainage platform in the front of the picture is now covered with water. But the steep sides still have a ways to go before overflowing would occur.

**Note that these ponds are also tidal, so at high tide there is much more water. When I went out, it was low tide. ***Many of think that the bigger fish, otters, and alligators travel around via these drainage pipes/platforms and culverts.

Here is the entry pond on the right, and it lies adjacent to the wetland that lies between the property and the road outside the property. That road is much higher than the wetlands that line each side of it–so the road functions kind of like a levee. Drainage culverts run underneath the big road to channel water…elsewhere.

You can see that the wetland is full of water, which is how it functions. On the left is the culvert that runs under our entry road to the wetland on the other side of the entry road.

Out on the big road, there is a big culvert draining water from our property. This big culvert is the tail end of the creek/bioswale that runs through our property. There is a network of other smaller drains all along the road that channel water from the wetlands to the other side of the big road.

Our neighborhood has a LOT of depressions that are “dry” ponds until we have a storm. There are about six or seven of these depressions scattered about the property, and a few hold some amounts of water all the time. This one is by the mail kiosk is usually dry. Now it drains into the creek/bioswale on its far side.

Here is a little video of the creek/bioswale that is worrying my neighbor–from a point where it leaves the property. The head of the creek/bioswale is on the other side of the road where my house is located. You can see where the creek runs under that road.

And here is a video of the head of the creek/bioswale, which has water coming from the wetland that stretches across one side of our property.

Here’s the big back pond, and you can see it has very steep banks, and can take more water. The drainage platform is not covered back here.

***Note that all the ponds are treated by Mt. Pleasant environmental people. They install tiny fish that eat mosquito larvae.

Today we have gotten more rain, but much of Debbie is out to sea right now, where she may get bigger and more organized again. Who knows? The wind has picked up a bit as well, which may move her along up the coast.

In any case, we will not be done with Debby until Friday at the earliest.

Meanwhile, we are…dry inside our houses.

Look what was in my front yard when I came home from an errand yesterday. One of the Great White Egrets that are very common here. Note the short yellow bill, black legs, the long flexible neck, and the height.

S/he didn’t spook when I opened the window to get a better picture.

A quilty friend who came to visit told me that this bird, which was slowly walking around all the house gardens near me, was hunting for the little green anole lizards that also live here. A bit of research shows these birds (who are predominantly waders but who will come onto land for food) eat an array of critters, including “amphibians, reptiles, birds, and small mammals, as well as invertebrates including crayfish, shrimp, dragonflies, and grasshoppers.”

Great Egret

Amphibians…that means the green tree/rain frogs that have grown over the year from being the size of a fingernail to being about four inches. They “perch” on our houses and poop everywhere, and the poop is sticky and hard to clean. BUT, they eat insects, so are a valuable part of a balanced garden environment.

I’ve been thinking a lot about air conditioning, which makes summer living in coastal South Carolina pleasant. And that thinking about air conditioning has led to a whole train of thought that has been on my mind for months now as I’ve been researching the whole summer heat issue.

It has been a beautiful summer here actually, and I have been walking in the morning rather than at night as it has been cool enough until nearly noon AND because we’ve been getting late afternoon/early evening thunder storms that cool off the heat of the midday.

Living without AC is also possible. There wasn’t any air conditioning in Georgia and elsewhere when I was a child. There wasn’t any air conditioning back in the day when our forefathers pioneered this land. Today, there are generations that have never been without it. My children and their children grew up with air conditioning. How does that impact them in terms of how they think about summer heat?

Last summer, having lived in Maine’s cool summer for almost 20 years, I worried about summer heat in coastal South Carolina and stayed inside a lot. This summer I’ve been out and about much more, so it seemed to me as if this summer was cooler than last summer. But when I checked local temperature records, this summer is as “normal” for here as last summer was. So, I’ve lost some of my FEAR of the heat and have gotten used to the heat and let myself experience it.

Local weather sites say that July is the hottest month in this area, which was a surprise. I would have thought August was the hottest month. Note too that many of these local weather sites use the weather station at the Charleston airport for their data, a place which is surrounded by tarmac runways, roads, and running engines of all sorts. And temp averages used include daily high and low temps, which gives a higher reading than if one averaged the hourly temps.

I’ve also learned to close shutters and porch shades against the direct sun, which is around mid-afternoon on the back of my house, which helps the air-conditioner a lot I think. The porch shades make the porch really comfortable, except maybe in the very late afternoon when the sun hits it directly. That’s a time when I sew anyway.

Back in the day in the Georgia summer at my grandparents, there was no air conditioning. Like me, they had an elaborate system of lowering shades against the sun on the sides of the house where the sun was strong–a task that we children were sent to do if we were present. After “supper,” everyone often sat together on the “north porch,” and I have so many memories of being told family stories, of sharing in laughter, of cigarette tips glowing in the dark night, and of the happiness of being included with the adults–if we children were not out in the dark yard playing kick the can. At some point, one of the adults might offer to take all these gathered family cousins to the local pool at the edge of a swamp for a dip before bed, a pool where cold artesian well water ran all the time. Then we would go to bed with cool bodies and wet hair and lie under a running fan. (The pool didn’t need chlorine either, as that clear, cold artesian water ran in and out all the time.)

My point is that we didn’t think that summer was too hot. It was summer. The heat was normal. It was probably hotter than it is here on the coast, where we have a sea breeze most days. We just found indoor things to do in the worst midday heat of the day. There were endless card games with cousins and lots of books to read. Or even a nap as we cousins ran flat out all day long. Sometimes, in the quiet dark of the living room, our favorite uncle would read us a story, like Edgar Allen Poe’s “Masque of the Red Death,” which even as young teenagers we loved. Or maybe that uncle would play a game of “Fan Tail Hearts” with us or the family seven hand rummy game we all loved.

Today, “heat” has become an enemy, and there are dire predictions about the earth becoming too hot–due to human behavior. Know that this information is a powerful move made by some who would benefit by what they want to do to “cure” this problem.

The only thing is: this story is not true. Any of it. I can see the markets involved, the people involved, and I am now refusing to go “there” with them. Science, history, and the so-called data being used does NOT support any of this story which involves rising rates of the dry TRACE gas CO2–which is NOT given in total percentage of the earth’s atmosphere, but in the scary ppm (parts per million) figures which seem very large to those who have not researched this problem. No. I am going to enjoy having the summer heat warm my bones after my noon dinner on my back porch. I’m going to let the sun tan my skin. I’m going to continue walking. I am going to enjoy…summer.

La Niña is coming in now, bringing cooler and dryer WEATHER (as distinguished from CLIMATE). That weather vs. climate story is a complicated subject involving lots of factors. CO2 is the “gas of life”: it does NOT create temperatures; it follows temperatures. In the geological history, CO2 has been much higher in very cold eras. Temps are a complex series of Earth’s and the sun’s mechanisms that do not involve human behavior. The more CO2, the greener the earth. Greenhouse owners pump CO2 into their greenhouses to help plants grow better. Water vapor, often created by the eruptions of underwater volcanos, like the 2022 massive eruption of the Hunga Tonga volcano, is much more of a factor in the “greenhouse THEORY.” And the water vapor evaporates in time.

There are countless very well credentialed disciplinary scientists that refute this fear mongering about the earth overheating. They include physicists, astrophysicists, geologists, and climatologists–most of whom have been demonized, despite decades of published papers/studies, just like the physicians et al who questioned the covid origins and treatments were demonized. These scientists do not include the “Earth Scientists” who are interdisciplinary “field” academics who for some decades now have been funded to facilitate the markets involved in this fear mongering. They have never been able to prove their claims about CO2. So…beware what you are buying into these days. These people manipulate temperature data in countless ways because they cannot prove what they are saying with long-recognized scientific methodologies.

Here’s a quote from a well recognized, credentialed geologist, Australian geologist, Professor Ian Plimer: “As soon as someone tells you it’s warming, the reply you give is: Since when?….We have been cooling down for the last 4000 years. It’s all about when you start the measurements….If you take measurements from the Medieval Warming… we’ve cooled about five degrees since then. If you take measurements from the Roman Warming, we’ve cooled about five degrees.”

When you see anyone claiming “hottest day on record,” look at the time frame they are using. Most of the time, it will not include the 1930s or will be a product of a weather station that does not have a long record of existence so temps can’t be compared over time. Or said weather station will be located in a recognized heat island in an urban area, which would make generalization about “the hottest” day not accurate for that region.

Here’s a recent map made by an amazing college student, Chris Martz, who will soon graduate with a degree in meterology and who does amazing and solid research to refute the climate fear mongering online. He uses reputable data and often explains in depth what is wrong with the current claims that serve to scare people–to include all those maps we see now online that are colored in RED and that are meant to scare us. (The deep red color in the map below is just used to show the temp ranges of the 1930s.) Note that the data Chris used is from NOAA records.

If you want to understand what is happening with this climate fear mongering, here is a long series from an engineer, James Kirkpatrick, published in the Weston A. Price Foundation’s journals. Kirkpatrick has traced the history and the science of this subject.

The Obscure Origins Of Modern-Day Climate Change Hysteria

Understanding Natural Climate Cycles

So, how does the constant bombardment on our phones, in our “news,” on our social media platforms with “the earth is overheating and it is our fault” impact our minds?

I think it makes too many of us afraid, especially if some have never lived without air conditioning. I hear all the time now from many, here in South Carolina and up in Maine, how HOT it is. One day I checked the Portland, Maine, temps, which were in the low 80s. For Maine, yes that is hot. But it isn’t killing/boiling hot.

I think this media bombardment makes some of us agree to the “solutions” being proposed without really wondering (or investigating) if the story is true, or without thinking about the outcomes of the “solutions” being sold. And, yes, “sold” is the right term.

Many of us might not realize that one of the first things to go will be the air conditioning, as the solutions being proposed will radically impact the availability of energy for consumption.

Think about it all, ok? Think about what our world will be like with farmers no longer on the land, as is happening in part of Europe right now and is happening quietly here now. Think about what we will eat if the cows and chickens are killed under the guise of a bird flu story that already includes purchased vaccines. Think about how we can get back real news and real science and a government that works for us instead of being subjected to endless propaganda that serves some, but not us.

Think. Investigate. Choose.