This weeks happenings...

Summer has arrived! Seems like it has been here a while we had 5 days over 100 degrees.  Later we did have a couple of Wonderful days with high in the 80's low humidity and bluebird skies...the perfect weather we all wish for but rarely get! 

Prairie Warbler against the blue bird sky...

Eastern Kingbird against the blue bird sky

Summer Tanager against the Blue BIRD Sky...

Blue Grosbeak against the Blue Bird Sky

We had a going away picnic and flotilla for my sis who has been here for the past 6 months...she is now back at her home in the Rocky Mountain State.  It was a fun day! 

The water was perfect on this hot sunny day!  We had eats and the dogs came along, and we had our floats! Poor man's kayak....it was a fun day!

That night we had

 the Strawberry Moon when it was almost to the point of Full 

...the sky was Indigo Blue!

..all the sounds of the night imagine if you will; the chirp of frogs, the singing of crickets, the distant
whippoorwill surrounded by the stillness that only a summer night like this one can bring!

My second sister is now here doing her part to help mom out...and so we are enjoying birding together.  We left the radius and went up to the Racetrack one of the county hotspots...we saw 19 species, including  7 cattle egret, 50 rock dove, 6 Mississippi Kites and 1 Swallow-tailed Kite!

A life bird for sis...a county bird for me!  

It was also a first sighting for this HotSpot...and only the 5th for the county since the beginning of time according to ebird... So it was fun to see it with my sis!  We were thrilled! 

That's about it for this week. 

PEACE

Every day is a new Adventure.

It IS in Stone!

This week was not so much about birding...I did however round up one new bird for my 5 mile no photo of the Cedar Waxwing (#112)...almost all the birds have young in tow now or are feeding fledglings.  I love this log, it almost always has a wood duck or 2 or even 3 on it! 

Notice the young drake in the middle...I'm trying hard to find a Snowy Egret in my radius so far no luck!  We have been taking some Sunday Drives like this one up to the Lake...

Lake Wateree, 19 square miles, and one of the oldest man made lakes in SC...one of the residents...

And some lovely Buck Eye Butterflies...

On Another day we visited some cemeteries up beyond the area of our county north and east of the lake.  This is on Stoneboro Rd... and by chance spotted this old one just off the highway in the woods near the community of Stoneboro...at least 30 graves are marked by locally gathered field stone...and 3 graves with surname of Duncan have engraved headstones...with death dates of 1857, 1859, & 1862 just prior to the Civil War...We both agree we believe the field stones are marking the graves of slaves...The elder of the family was William Duncan he died in 1862, I found some info about his will he was worth about $24,000 in 1860 census and he died in 1862.  His will was in probate in 1862 and later in 1865 the original was destroyed when Sherman marched through Lancaster! (as stated on the stone)

This is the old community...and we came across a stone with this fairly long history carved on it...there is no town here only a couple big fields..

According to the stone...there was a Granite Quarry nearby originally run by Stewart Heath...the stone cutter for the Quarry was an Italian immigrant,  George Sassi, he created the Confederate Monument that stands in front of the old court house in nearby Lancaster...c-1909 using stone from the Quarry.  I found the list of items deposited in the corner stone to be quite fascinating...you can read about it on that link 

So we drove over there to see it!   Pretty nifty indeed.  Also on the Stoneboro history stone is the name of James D Magill who lived in this area in 1871...he served as a State Representative and later as a Senator...We stopped at the nearby Beaver Creek Cemetery just to take a look around and there he was laid to rest...and marked by this stone. 

We were HUNGRY so we stopped in the Town of Heath Springs for lunch...it is located between Stoneboro and Lancaster. 

864 residents in the 2000 census...and 809 in 2018 and they had a pretty good veggie pizza!

And back in Lancaster we strolled one of the small parks there not far from the old Court House...

There was a wishing fountain,  and a town bird, the English House Sparrow.  

and we also stopped to see the Lancaster and Chester RR Spring Maid Line...still in operation today...there was an ugly power line in the way so I cloned it out 

The L & C RR along with the Central SC RR Mentioned on the Stone both used to stop at the Historic Heath Springs Depot  c-1903 on the National Historic Registry...We left town without getting a photo of the depot here is one that I found online,

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On the second floor of this beautiful Stone building is this amazing RR Museum! 

And we met this town dog Caroline Rose! Yep you guess it she is made of Stone!

All this history recorded in stone makes me think about the way we are currently preserving our records and our history??  On computers! Insanity!!!....we should be writing it on stone!!

It's a GREAT DAY to be in CAROLINA!

rock quarry we stopped to see in 2012, Westville, SC.

PEACE

Every day is a new Adventure.

Then n Now

Well this really made me say WHATTTT??? the beautiful Beaver Dam gone! At the hand of some fisherman who just decided HE didn't like it...

Before

NOW

The reason I know it was forced away and not washed away is the branches were dragged to the sides..not washed downstream.  SAD. And so upstream its drying up the wetland.  Don't people realize beaver create perfect habitat for fish, toads, turtles, aquatic plants? Anyway it was really a sad moment for me when I found it this way :o(  

This changes the entire dynamic of this place will wood ducks leave now? The vegetation will choke out the plants that like to have wet feet, and the Eagle nest nearby will have a hard time finding prey in a thicker swamp.  

I saw very few birds where I had been seeing and hearing many...I did find one owl pellet I forgot to take a shot of it before I began to sift thru it...

small rodent vole, mole? 

A common Yellow Throat took a look at me from the other side of the road...

back in the radius a black n white warbler gave me a serenade..

The Yellow eyed Eastern Towhee is still living in the clear cut Im happy to report. 

Some beautiful colorful Variegated Fritillary 

The Sticky Honeysuckle is in flower, bees love this..

and in the yard if you like Gardenia...these have a heavenly intoxicating fragrance...

I have 4 of these shrubs in my yard, they bloom very fast and fade quickly and I always enjoy them.  Other fun things in my container garden are the yellow squash that I ate yesterday! 

And these Green Peppers will make all sorts of good food at our table..

did I mention it was hot?....lol

northern mockingbird

We went to a small town nearby after memorial day and found this on display off main street...

We realized we knew the man James D Heriot we had found his grave here in Rembert Methodist Cemetery...and there is a short bio here of his military history including the medal of valor, I had taken a photo of his headstone.  And now he is forever memorialized in Bronze...and then another thing dawned on me...this is the sculpture's signature

M J Kirby-Smith 

I had forgotten about an artist I used to do upholstery for when I had my shop open back in the 1990's.  This artist had moved into the area... she was young and unknown and was budget conscious so we worked with her. on several of her decorating projects..and it dawned on me this is the same  Miss Kirby-Smith!  She has left quite a mark on our community and the surrounding area! And here is another of her work in our town...

Kinda dark and dreary on this day, this is the Catawba Chief, King Haigler, with Joseph Kershaw...and once I googled up her website, I realized she has become quite a successful artist since she arrived here in the 1990's.  I don't know if she still lives here but I suspect she does. 

We took a trip to town recently ...

and ended up at the farmers market...

That was fun...

And lastly a wonderful roadside find...

it rocks....soon to be a make over project for me...

PEACE

Every day is a new Adventure.