Category: Low Country Living

When SIL Maryann visited, we explored nearby Laurel Hill County Park, which is a beautiful 745-acre tract of woods and creeks with trails that circle the whole and some trails that form loops off this main trail.

We wanted to walk to the avenue of “live oaks” that once led to the Laurel Hill plantation house–which is believed to have been destroyed by fire some time after the Civil War. The avenue is marked by the black-slashed line on the bottom left of the above map–to the right of the white trail. But, here’s the start of the trail at the trail head, which you can see on the above map.

The avenue of live oaks was about a mile down the trail and was in an area that has been preserved as a field. It takes 200 or so years for the live oaks to grow tall enough to form a “ceiling” where they meet in the middle.

Here was our first view as we approached. Look, too, at the gorgeous sky. There was not a cloud in sight all day.

And here is the avenue stretching out to the left, with all the lovely grey moss draping the limbs with their long garlands.

Looking down the avenue.

These old live oaks are home to many other plants which live on them, hopefully symbiotically.

Here’s a better picture of one of the limbs, which is covered with a layer of green growth.

I found information on live oaks at the Smithsonian Gardens web site: “The Live Oak” (gardens.si.edu). Here’s a quote–and I didn’t know live oaks were a keystone species:

“The Southern live oak (Quercus virginiana), also known simply as the live oak, gets its name from the fact that, unlike other oaks, it doesn’t lose its leaves in the autumn. Live oaks are native to the Southeastern coast of the United States, extending from Virginia to Florida and as far west as Texas and Oklahoma. The live oak is a keystone species that serves as the backbone of its ecosystem. It provides shade and furnishes a habitat for hundreds of living organisms, including mammals, birds, insects, and other plants.”

I still have not seen the very famous live oak, “Angel Oak,” on John’s Island. A visit there is on my list. It’s HUGE AT 65 feet high, and estimates place it at 400-500 years old.

We passed a steady number of people using this trail, many with their dogs, so I don’t think I would feel unsafe using it by myself, though the trail loop does get a long way from the parking area.

Granddaughter Mina sent me this picture of the sunset last Monday night, taken from the dunes just back of the beach on Isle of Palms.

DIL Corinne often goes to the beach to see the sunrise. She sent me this picture the other day.

Maryann and I went back to Breach Inlet, the break between Sullivan’s Island and Isle of Palms, last Friday–and we did see one dolphin feeding under the bridge as we began our beach walk.

The wind was very high, so we got a lot of exercise walking against it. There were three hanggliders and one paraglider riding the wind currents off Sullivan’s island, but they were too far away for a picture. Hangliding is where a person is part of the flying apparatus and lies prone; paragliding is where the person sits below the sail.

The beach was smooth at this low tide, with very few tidal pools–which was witness to how the beach changes every single day. In one lone tidal puddle, we saw a live starfish. Its little tubes were wriggling like crazy when I picked it up.

The underneath was a brilliant yellow.

You can see that one arm is growing back. I found this quote from the Denver Zoo online site in a quick search online–and wikipedia has an extensive entry on starfish that describes pretty much everything about them.

“Some species of sea star have the ability to regenerate lost arms or even regenerate a whole new sea star from a single arm attached to a portion of the central disc. Regeneration is possible because each of the arms contains parts of the vital organs including the digestive tract and reproductive organs.”

The channel under the bridge is deep and dangerous. The tidal currents are very, very strong here. But this is also where the dolphins feed. Son Bryan told me the local dolphins have learned how to push a school of fish up to the steep banks here so they can trap and eat them. It is unusual, local dolphin behavior, and the pods have trained their offspring to feed in this manner.

We saw a cute little tugboat pushing a dredger up the channel so it could dig out this pier area.

No trip to the beach is ever a waste of time.

One of my 1963 Bellevue High School classmates is among those classmates who are still in touch with each other via email and Facebook. She lives in Chicago. Recently, knowing I have moved to Charleston, she sent me this Smithsonian article on the history of Indigo in Charleston and how Indigo is grown and used in the Low Country today. It is a beautiful article.

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/indigo-making-comeback-south-carolina-180980987/

Eliza Lucas Pinckney (1722-1793) is credited with starting the indigo industry on her family’s Wappoo Plantation, sw of Charleston. At the time she was 18 years old and in charge of this plantation in her father’s absence. Here is a link to her fascinating history: https://www.nps.gov/chpi/learn/historyculture/eliza-lucas-pinckney.htm

Eliza’s father was the Lt. Gov. of Antigua, so she was born and raised on a Caribbean plantation. Her parents sent her to a boarding school in London, which was very unusual for a girl child. When she was 16, her father sent her mother and her sisters to Charleston, where the family owned three plantations. At some point, he also sent her Indigo seeds to plant. Eliza loved botany and was something of an expert.

Local Charlestonians ridiculed her attempts to get Indigo to grow as they knew Indigo did not do well in the region during the winter. Besides, rice was the main crop in the region. But she persevered, and the rest is history. Indigo became a big and lucrative export crop, having been adopted by many in the region after Eliza paved the ways of growing it.

Eliza was very close to Charles and Eliza Pinckney, and the Pinckneys were a prominent family. When Eliza Pinckney tragically died, Charles Pinckney, then 44 years to her 22, asked her to marry him. At that point, Eliza’s father had sent for the family to return to Antigua, and independent Eliza did not want to go.

Charles Pinckney (1699-1758) was the South Carolina Chief Justice. He and Eliza had 4 children, among them Charles Cotesworthy Pinckney, one of the Founders of the United States and a signer of the US Constitution, along with his first cousin, Charles Pinckney.

The Pinckney family held a prominent place for decades in South Carolina, both politically and culturally.

Here’s the wiki link to Eliza Pinckney–who was an unusual and very interesting woman.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eliza_Lucas

I will be exploring more about Indigo in Charleston today and about the historical role of the Pinckney family.

I picked up SIL Maryann Enright, arriving on a flight from Boston, Monday morning. This trip was my first to the Charleston airport on my own, and with Waze it was all very easy. This airport is very new and modern and beautifully laid out in so many ways. Parking was so easy.

While waiting for Maryann to meet me in the main lobby, I admired the display of Mary Jackson’s stunning sweetgrass baskets.

I’ve long been an admirer of these woven baskets–we had northern versions in Maine. But the sweetgrass makers and their baskets have a REALLY a big presence in the Low Country. The makers have many display sheds lining roads in Charleston so people can stop and buy their baskets.

There were two display cases of Mary Jackson’s baskets, and I took pictures of everything so you could all see how special they are.

What makes the low country baskets different from any I’ve seen in Maine is the use of pine straw in places. The dark decoration on many of the baskets tops is pine straw.

Here’s the second case.

Many of the local baskets are much plainer than Mary Jackson’s work as she uses light and dark materials to create her patterns. Most sweetgrass creations here are much plainer and just use the lighter-colored sweetgrass. They are ALL so special, however.

Maryann arrived and also admired this gorgeous work.

And then we went home and after she settled in, we went for a long walk at the Palmetto Islands park I blogged about recently. Yes, we climbed to the top of the observation tower.

Shortly after moving into my new home, I learned that people here love to make outdoor rooms–on screened porches and, sometimes, literally outdoors on a patio or some other hard outdoor surface, like, maybe, the upper part of a driveway.

Here’s a picture of the screened porch on the back of the house just after I moved in.

I brought the wood Adirondack chairs and the round table from Maine when I knew I’d have a porch for them–and, also, the Sunbrella cushions I had for the chairs, which came many years ago from LL Bean. These chairs were made locally in Maine and are so sturdy.

The little dark brown pottery pitcher has been with me for decades and decades now. It last sat on my beloved Reynolds, Georgia, grandmother’s back steps. It was probably locally made way way way back in the day. Grandmother loved all the shades of brown, and so it reminds me of her. And, it reminds me that she loved her gardens and worked in them a lot. They were famous in her small Georgia town.

The big blue pot was the only one I brought from Maine. At one time I had so many container pots and planted them in early spring so that the Maine house was surrounded by flowers all summer.

“You might like an outdoor rug on that screened porch,” DIL Tami said. “You might like to make an outdoor room to enjoy most of the year.” And realtor/friend Lisa Hartley said “I found an outdoor rug at Target a few years back that is wearing outside beautifully. We just hosed it off this spring and it looks like new.”

Target ships right to your house for free, and prices are super reasonable. I spent many hours pouring over pictures of outdoor rugs. And when I identified three I liked, both Tami and granddaughter Talula picked the same rug from the three I showed them–separately, not together. So I ordered it.

The two new navy blue Adirondack cushions came from LLBean. And the throw pillows from Target. The pillows were cheaper than anything I could make. I do bring them inside if I know it is going to rain–as the rain can blow well into the porch.

Next I found a very reasonably priced wooden outdoor coffee table that Target shipped to me. I put it together myself–which was very satisfying. Fake flowers from Target went into my grandmother’s brown pitcher–they are meant to be feathery, like beach grass. Bryan trimmed the long metal stems for me with a wire cutter. I am not a fan of fake flowers, but these will stand up to the outdoor weather. The green plant in its white holder came from realtor-friend Lisa when I moved into the house. The white cyclamen came from builder D. R. Horton to welcome me to my new home. And shells I’ve found on the beach are filling up the straw basket on the coffee table.

I did borrow two small conch shells from the buckets of shells at Bryan and Corinne’s the other day–breaking my rule of only bringing home what I have found on the beach. They were just too cute to resist.

I ordered one more piece from Target–a round wooden outdoor table that will go under Lisa’s plant and will be somewhat like the table on the other side of the double seat that I brought from Maine. It came and I put it together too. These Target pieces of furniture will weather grey in time, but I do wipe them off when they get wet.

I planted the big blue pot with rosemary, which is really hardy here. I have already clipped some for a roasted butternut squash dish.

As shown in yesterday’s post, the blinds ordered from Best Buy Blinds, Inc, the folks who did the plantation shutters in the house, were delivered and installed Thursday, so my outdoor room is finished. I am so enjoying it, and I eat lunch while reading out there most days. Sometimes I sit out there and hand sew or knit. This outdoor room is just a lovely place to sit and spend some time outdoors.

The shades are perfect. They were installed yesterday, and you can see that they mask the outside and will prevent direct sun on the porch, but will allow light and vision. The porch can be made cooler and more private without losing the sweeping views I have.

This picture shows the density of the shades a bit better. There are three big shades–and they stop halfway down the porch screens so they can be attached via bungee cords if needed to the wooden strip in the middle of the porch. They are so light and easy to roll up, where they totally disappear beneath their holders, leaving only their little bungee cord holders and the steel chains that control them in view. The chains are at the corners, so they don’t dangle in full view across the screens.

The shade below and the door shade can come down at night to provide privacy in my big room in the house. But I would roll them up at night before I go to bed so if a storm comes in (as happened last night), they won’t flap in the wind.

Here’s the door shade going all the way down, and you can see to its left the adjacent shades little bungee cord holder and how neatly it lives in its holder box.

Note, also, how green the neighborhood grass is getting. It is still too early to fertilize it for spring growth, and we are actually heading into a cold spell with much colder night temperatures for about a week–happening, unfortunately, while SIL Maryann is here from Boston next week.

I am grateful for the solid rain that came last night and will last much of today. I watered a bit yesterday by hand as the shrubs were looking parched. And the grass sod was looking so dry.

My back porch neighbor is a home town woman, and she called upon an old friend of hers to mow for her and for whatever neighbors might be interested in lawn mowing. I signed up and will hold off on buying an electric mower for the moment.

The azaleas are blooming, as are the Red Bud trees and other white-flowered trees (ornamental pears?). And, the grass is greening up.

Unfortunately, I’m seeing all the azalea and other blooming colors from the inside of my moving car as in our new little neighborhood just has newly planted flowering shrubs.

Mine are white, which will be really pretty against my seafood green house with its white trim in a year or so.

I fertilized and have been watering these plants as azaleas are shallow rooted.

If you want to see some spectacular photos of blooming azaleas in South Carolina, here’s a nice link:

https://www.shutterstock.com/search/azalea-south-carolina

I have two new cooking adventures over the weekend.

Son Bryan has a Traeger wood-pellet smoker/grill, and Saturday night he grilled a marinated boneless leg of lamb on his smoker. His marinade included garlic, rosemary from his garden, olive oil, and salt. And while the meat rested, he grilled fresh asparagus. Corinne, meanwhile, made mashed potatoes.

Can I just say that this lamb was the best I have ever eaten. It was perfectly done inside and was tender and totally delicious. Sadly, I did NOT get a picture of this awesome family meal as I was too busy enjoying this family. But, the whole Traeger wood pellet smoker/grill was totally new to me. The pellet hopper automatically adds the pellets to keep the set temperature constant.

Saturday night at Mike and Tami’s, 14 people sat down for dinner: 4 adults (two grandmothers and 2 parents) and the rest ranged from 15 years to college freshmen. It was so fun to be amongst this energetic and happy crowd. M&T had BBQ with all the fixings, and Mike had also made extra side dishes, to include two platters of roasted veggies and a big salad.

I’ve never seen veggies done this way in big pieces. They were delicious! I came home with some of the leftovers. They are so pretty when cooked too.

There were many different BBQ sauces on the table as many of these folks had their own favorites. A new one to me was an Alabama white BBQ sauce made from a base of mayonnaise and horseradish, mixed with spices. It can be sweet or sour, or both, with varying degrees of hotness. There are many recipes online.

OK, that’s three new cooking adventures.

I’m stuck in the house today until my new grill arrives, with free shipping and already assembled included. Do I dare hope it actually will be assembled?

Bryan had an extra propane tank which he gave me. He told me to go to a local hardware store which will fill it FULLY, unlike, he says, getting a partially filled tank from the box stores.

Who knew?