Long Leaf Pine South Carolina

I painted this long leaf pine standing near a salt marsh when I was in South Carolina. Some of these trees are very tall, but this one is stout.  The pine cones have sharp spines. 

Snowy Egret

Today we watched a snowy egret in his fancy plumage building a nest.  Still very windy but romance is in the air and the birds know it.

Horseshoe Crab

In which Norm finds and enormous horseshoe crab on the beach.  We learned that these crabs have 10 eyes and they swim in the water upside down.  If they get stranded on the beach upside down they use their tail to turn upright.  It is an ancient form of life.

The boardwalk leading to our villa.

Norm is carving driftwood.

When the tide goes out you never know what you will find.  Once after a storm we found the beach littered with hundreds of moon jelly fish-- none alive.

Scenes from the low country: South Carolina

Black crested night heron

Boardwalk to the beach

Harbor Island The lLow Country

Harbor Island South Carolina                          

On a low country barrier island

where sea tides sweep

         in each day on the sandy beach

through salt marshes

             where long billed willets

and snowy stilt legged egrets fly

where alligators and turtles bask in the mud

grow long and fat

no pity there.

The beach alive with mud snails

And worms that hide

Pelicans ride the wind

sandpipers skitter, sea biscuits wash in

yellow corals torn from sea bed

wave in the wind.

I wonder where they have been

these empty scallop shells, oyster shells

cockle shells, mussel shells—

bits of mystery to me.

The live oaks and long leaf pines

grow tall on what the sea blows in

Spanish moss trails from their limbs

thrive on salty sea winds.

                              --Barbara Spring