Shackleford Banks

The wind-pushed waves in Beaufort inlet
smacked the pilings like clapping hands,
the salt-marsh grass swinging in the sparkle
and easy communing of freshwater and salt,
while we waited on weathered plank benches
for the Shackleford Banks ferry to depart,
the sky so blue that it made our eyes ache,
the brisk wind lifting hats and rippling nylon.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 It was a good way to spend another birthday,
a small adventure, looking for wild ponies,
remembering the long road to land’s end,
and bracing for the crossing ahead, the inlet
as choppy as we have ever found it, bucking
the big swells, tilting precipitously, the way
a little boat can do on a big sea, before finding
the leeward shallow and the silken shore.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We walked for an hour searching for ponies,
over the dunes and the scant cropped grass,
threading between massive piles of dung,
some of it so fresh it was black shining wet,
and thinking what a peerless day for seeking,
whether we found one or not.  When suddenly
there they were, four of them, calmly grazing
in a sheltered spot between the red cedars,

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


Eking out their frugal lives on this island,
digging holes in the sand for fresh water and
browsing on sparse grass, living and dying
their fleeting lives on this windswept island,
their ancestors surviving far rougher waters
than these, furiously swimming away from
sinking Spanish galleons in the dark night,
struggling shoreward toward this hard refuge.

We Find So Much to Do

It has been two weeks since I have posted anything to this blog, and that lapse is partly because of all of the activities we find ourselves occupied with in this last month of our Sabbatical.  We learned that our friends Billy and Mary from Highlands were staying in Emerald Isle, so we met them for lunch in Beaufort last week on Valentine’s Day, and we had a good time catching up over delicious and authentic Mexican food at Front Street Taco, a place we had been intending to try.

“You two find so much to do!” Mary told us, but she didn’t know the half of it.  We had dinner reservations that night, for example, at Amos Mosquito’s (they only take reservations on New Year’s and Valentine’s Day) and it was all delicious.  Dessert, in which we seldom indulge, was S’mores – the marshmallows roasted over an open flame at our table – and it was a lot of fun.

These photos are some of the ones Martha posted on Facebook, and from the comments they attracted a lot of attention, including the information that S’mores were enjoyed (in memory, at least) by many of our friends.

We have also been hiking in addition to running, first at Fort Macon, where the three-plus-mile Elliott Coues Nature Trail winds through a maritime forest from the Fort to the Picnic Area, where we run our intervals during the week.  This part of the trail is sheltered from wind and features sprawling live oak trees and expanses of salt marsh to the north.

We stopped at one point and noticed a large white bird perched on a branch above the still water, which I am guessing with its short neck may have been a cattle egret, although it was large for that.  A blue heron, perhaps?

From the Picnic Area, the trail returns to the Fort on the ocean side, winding around and over sand dunes where there are spectacular views of the surf.  The trail here is stabilized from the wind with Christmas trees collected at the Fort each year, and you can smell its lovely pungent fragrance all along the trail.  We often think this may be what it is like to hike on open moors in Scotland (except for the Christmas trees).
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The trail returns to the Fort near two World War II-era cannons, original 155-millimeter caliber field guns on loan from the Army National Guard.  In 1941, when the United States entered World War II, hundreds of Army soldiers were sent to Fort Macon as part of the harbor defense of Beaufort Inlet, defending the area against German U-boats. It took park rangers years to track down the guns and they are very proud of them; all of the other weapons in the Fort are Civil War-era, seen on the battlements in the background.

This gun points out to the inlet and reminds visitors that the Fort served a very real military purpose in two different wars.

Last week we hiked in another place we have been meaning to visit, Patsy Pond Nature Trail, between Morehead City and Swansboro.  The terrain was very different from that at the Fort, flat and very likely hot in the summertime.  There were signs at the trailhead that warned us, Beware of biting insects, venomous snakes, and poisonous plants on the trail, as well as a mention that alligators might also be on the prowl.  Fortunately we saw none of these creatures, but we did see almost immediately a dark, forbidding, ominous looking sinkhole – Bob’s Sinkhole – named after a Forest Ranger (although I could never determine who “Patsy” was).

What was more interesting was the presence of Longleaf pines, a tree which once dominated the Southeastern United States in the same way that the American chestnut did.  Sadly, while the latter was destroyed by blight, these pines were decimated by loggers cutting them down irresponsibly.  I had seen a good display about this at the History Museum in New Bern a couple of weeks ago, and I read about it on Wikipedia:

As they stripped the woods of their trees, loggers left mounds of flammable debris that frequently fueled catastrophic fires, destroying both the remaining trees and seedlings. The exposed earth left behind by clear-cutting operations was highly susceptible to erosion, and nutrients were washed from the already porous soils. This further destroyed the natural seeding process. At the peak of the timber cutting in the 1890s and first decade of the new century, the longleaf pine forests of the Sandhills were providing millions of board feet of timber each year. The timber cutters gradually moved across the South; by the 1920s, most of the "limitless" virgin longleaf pine forests were gone.

Efforts are being made to restore the Longleaf pine here and elsewhere, and evidence of treatment for insects and protection from fires was present everywhere.  The trees towered above us impressively, and I read that mature trees could live for 500 years.

The trail finally circled around the shore of a lake – no alligators – and brought us back to the trailhead.

Walking among these giant trees, I was reminded of a framed little poem that I recall from my childhood which was always hanging in my Mom's bedroom.  She was a North Carolina native, born not far from here in Roanoke Rapids, and I believe the poem was a school award, the first verse of the official North Carolina State Toast:

Here's to the land of the longleaf pine,
The summer land where the sun doth shine,
Where the weak grow strong and the strong grow great,
Here's to "Down Home," the Old North State!

What else can I add to this catch-up post?  Martha continues to prepare delicious seafood:  witness this from last week – crab cakes from Blue Ocean Market, roasted carrots, and salad.  Yum!

And I haven’t even mentioned Mardi Gras on Middle Lane in Beaufort, which we attended on a gorgeous cloudless day on Saturday afternoon, a parade and street carnival featuring Cajun food and music.  Martha posted photos of this on Facebook, too:

A highlight of the parade each year (which I enjoy thoroughly even through I am not a parade enthusiast) is the Bodacious Belles of Beaufort, a bevy of beauties who look like they are having the time of their lives.

We also attended two back-to-back theatre performances this weekend, one in Morehead City – Love, Loss, and What I Wore, by Nora Ephron – and one in New Bern – Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar and Grill, featuring a very talented singer and a jazz pianist and based on the tragic life of Billie Holiday, AKA Lady Day.   

I have abbreviated all of this because it is almost dinner time, and Martha is preparing fresh scallops (the small ones are local, shucked just a day or two ago at Blue Ocean) with roasted carrots and cauliflower, and the aroma as I write this is wonderful!

Bon appetit!  Until next time!

Valentine Party

The Beaufort Historical Association holds an annual Valentine Party the first Sunday in February, and we have attended it in previous years.  It is a free event, although they request RSVPs in advance to be sure they have enough food and wine. There was plenty of both this Sunday!

The weather station had predicted rain for Sunday afternoon, but thankfully it did not materialize until well after dark.  The event is held at the Beaufort Historic Site on  Turner Street, two acres that include nine historic houses from the 18^th and 19^th century, as well as the Carteret County Courthouse (ca. 1778), the Old Jail (ca. 1825), and the Apothecary Shop and Doctor’s Office (ca. 1859).  It was the perfect place to sample a variety of small bites donated by local businesses, and the craft beer and wine was also flowing freely, even though it was early on a Sunday afternoon.

“It’s a little early for me,” I told a pleasant woman behind the wine table, "But it's a party after all."  She assured me that “It’s never too early for wine.”  And so I wandered around with a glass of white wine in my hand, sampling home-made delicacies, and eventually making my way over to the table where fresh steamed shrimp and oysters were being served.

A friendly man was wielding an oyster knife, and I told him that I didn’t know how to shuck an oyster because I was “off” (Downeast for “not from around here”).  “Here, let me show you,” he said, and expertly slipped the point of the knife in the narrow end of the oyster, cut it open, and scooped out the succulent morsel within.

 
“Where are these from?” a woman asked, and we found out they were North River Oysters, which is not far away, here in Carteret County.

I watched how others were consuming these little delicacies – a saltine cracker, a spoonful of home-made cocktail sauce, and on oyster – and I did the same.  It was delicious.  I could have eaten them all afternoon, if only I had brought my own oyster knife, because they kept appearing on the table, bushel after bushel.

We stayed around for awhile, and then drove down to Taylor Creek to check out the course for a 5-K race being held on March 4 on Front Street.  We had not run the Cocoa 5-K due to wind-chills in the teens, and are hoping to be able to complete this one, our first race of 2023.  Looking across Taylor Creek we spotted some of the Shackleford Ponies that inhabit that place, and which we saw at a much closer proximity last year.  There is a herd of about a hundred wild horses that live there, browsing on the sparse grass and drinking water from one or two spring-fed ponds in the middle of the island.  Like the so-called “Banker Horses” which we have seen in Corolla, the origin of these horses is unknown, although legend says they are descendants of Spanish mustangs that survived a shipwreck.  (I have read that DNA studies confirm that heritage.)  We plan to visit the island later this month and hope to see some of these remarkable creatures up close!