ANNOUNCEMENT

ANNOUNCEMENT: Reading/signing at Newberry’s Branch Library on Saturday, 19 July, at 2:00 p.m. Afterward, I hope to see a bit of contemporary Newberry where my grandfather, Malachi N. Strickland, delivered rural mail nearly a hundred years ago. Although I wasn’t born in time to visit my grandparents in Newberry and knew only their Alachua home, we sometimes visited their Newberry friend, a Mrs. Marable who allowed me to climb up into the wide arms of her backyard fig tree.

I had a beautiful walk this morning while the tall, green grasses along River Road were still covered with dew. Found a running deer’s tracks and the Partridge Peas, (Chamaecrista fasciculata of the Pea Family) are thick with yellow blooms. Many of one of my very favorite wild things, the Swamp Hibiscus (Hibiscus grandiflora of the Mallow Family),have opened the petals of their lovely white faces so that their scarlet throats can be seen. This plant is related to Turk's Cap, the Hibiscus so often planted in flowerbeds on south Florida lawns and the commercially grown cotton plant that I first examined in the Mississippi Delta. I am happy when it appears here each year.

The Party for the People of the Book

June 26, 2008



Something wondrous happened Sunday; I went to a party for the book, SOUTHERN COMFORTS: Rooted in a Florida Place.The invitation from our hostesses, Dottie Price and Merri McKenzie, read,“The Book’s Having a Party,”and, indeed, it did have quite a party. Mary Elizabeth Knight Irby, Arthur Spencer, Jr., Vada Beutke Horner, Leoris Richerson, Steve Everett (of Gainesville), and Gussie Lee were here in White Springs at the Suwannee River Yoga Studio where we were fed better than any bride at her own wedding.
Also from Alachua, representing Tommy (the fox hunter) and Huldah Malphurs, his mother (with whom I baked Communion bread in Ch.5) were Fay Malphurs Vaughn and Peggy Malphurs, daughter and daughter-in-law of Huldah.

I introduced our special guests by reading snippets from their sections of the book. To my astonishment, when we ran out of chairs, the rest of our audience of more than 50 people dropped to the floor and sat, motionless, through the entire reading. I had no microphone and, yet, we could have heard pollen falling. Janet Moses, who drew the book’s wildflower motif, the Linaria canadensis, more commonly called “Toadflax,” was also on hand. I’ve never been to a reading anything like this one which came together miraculously, as though perfectly rehearsed. At the end, the people who bought books went about the room, requesting autographs from the People of the Book. Linda Gafford thought of that; I just wish I'd had my copy so I could have got those signatures on mine, too.


At this rate, summer will end shortly. The days unfurl so effortlessly. Sun up, sun down, a little rain in between that cuts the heat, this afternoon from 95 to 65 here on the deck where’s it actually a little nippy. A light jacket would not be uncomfortable. I hear the interstate this minute (is there a single spot in Florida where one doesn't?), an unremitting drill on pavement, perhaps more trying in this quiet place than if I were driving I-75 myself.

I finally had to admit the blue men’s work shirts that have been my daily costume since I came to White Springs are worn thin enough that they might shred and fall down around my ankles as I’m walking along the street. I went into a second hand store for replacements and came out with two wild Hawaiian shirts, the length of mini-skirts. They are very happy and I plan to wear them all summer long. I’ll buy some more work shirts, but cheaper ones next time; I shouldn’t complain of their $30 price, though; after all, I have worn these two nearly every day for two years.

Mmm. A mosquito on my cool deck. Beyond the sounds of semis, my imagination reaches, all the way back to Sunday afternoon’s party when Suwannee River Yoga was decorated with handmade baskets and quilts, reminding me of the Bellamy Road Exhibit of 1988 when Bellamy Road folks gathered in a similarly decorated room at the Florida Museum of Natural History in Gainesville.

In celebration of the museum’s Tenth Annual Heritage Day, Betty Dunckel Camp invited me to create an exhibit based on my interviews along the Alachua-High Springs length of the Bellamy which is part of Florida’s historic Spanish Trail, a path worn by Pleistocene mammals, barefooted Native Americans, the Spanish, French, and the English, then early Florida pioneers and the slaves they brought with them.

Chicks, Ducks, Pups, and Watermelons

Saturday afternoon, somewhere between I-75 and Downtown Live Oak, I turned around and went back to these roadside vendors who I wish now I’d asked whether they make a practice of setting up for sales in 95 degree heat or is the current economic situation their inspiration.
But I didn’t think to ask; I was too busy admiring the pale, buttery fluff of the Peking ducklings (raised for eating), absorbing the fact that when grown the toes of one chicken will be covered with feathers.[feathers growing on toes] )


I considered buying Guinea chicks, which would roost in my trees and make good substitutes for watchdogs, but the seller, Terry, who also sells dogs, assured me Guineas would not stay out of my neighbors’ yards.
I exchanged cards with Brenda Welch who was selling Chihuahuas, Dachshunds, and miniature Dobermans. Brenda is from O’Brien where her business is known as

“Brenda’s Lil’ Joys”

. She answered a lot of my questions and exchanged cards and I asked how much a puppy costs.

“Three fifty,”

she said.

“Gosh, that’s an awfully good price for a dog, three dollars and fifty cents.”

“Three-hundred, fifty,”

she answered.
There’s certainly much that goes past me.

Reading on the internet last night about the pleasures of solitude I saw where somebody, explaining why many people actually enjoy being alone, says that without distraction these people can more closely examine details. I would like to think so, but isn’t this the same as not seeing the forest for the trees?

UPDATES: SOUTHERN COMFORTS, DDV, & NFCDS, INC.

The State of Florida Department of Education just posted its Summer Reading Series and included SOUTHERN COMFORTS: Rooted in a Florida Place on the list. Before I leave the subject of awards for Florida books, I want to recommend The Swamp by Michael Grunwald, a masterful and highly enjoyable study of Florida's history; Grunwald won the Gold Medal for Florida Nonfiction last year and he deserved it.

Now that the book tour's been suspended for the summer, I'm tackling the next book, DON DOMINIC THE FIFTH. I'm amazed to find how much of it I had already written; I'd put it away in 1994, some of its files were mildewed, but I'm sorting it out and finalizing its prospectus.


NFCDS, INC.: Please do check the website www.sudyecauthen.com (about to be updated) and/or my blog which you can reach from the website. In near future, there will be a second blog devoted to UPDATES on the work of The North Florida Center for Documentary Studies, Inc. (now incorporated as a not-for-profit); the new blog will be reached by link from the website.

IN THE DITCH

If you were driving between Jasper and Live Oak yesterday afternoon, perhaps you saw a woman in a black and white striped dress lying in the ditch taking pictures; that was me, admiring the Gaillardia pulchella Fougeroux. Coming home I stopped to photograph a lush garden with sunflowers on CR25A.


Reader, I have not served you well; in recent weeks I failed to report on the flowering of spring shrubs, flowers, and fruit trees. Among this spring's wild plants that have already blossomed, dropped their seed, and vanished are sheep's sorrel, toadflax, the wobbly-headed Cinnamon Fern, and the wild blackberries and huckleberries I ate from along my driveway. Along our county roads I spot signs advertising U-PICK blueberry operations. Our Suwannee Valley Blueberry Farm right here in White Springs has a luscious crop of organic berries. "A bumper crop" this year,, says owner Mark Quitero.

I have passed whole fields of dandelions, admired the chartreuse fruits of the Saw Palmetto, Serenoa repens (Bartr.); untangled myself from Catbrier, smilax lavafolia Linnaeus); and passed many tall, white spires of Spanish Bayonet. The purple Spiderwort, Tradescantia ohiensis Rafinesque I first learned in my Alachua backyard has come and gone, along with the white bells of the Dwarf Huckleberry, Gaylussacia dumosa Andrews; also the Anual Phlox, Phlox drummondii (Hooker) which spills its colors like blackberry pie a la mode along roadsides. The Fringe Tree, Chimanthas virginicus Linnaeus on the opposite bank of the river dropped its delicate white handkerchiefs within days of their appearance; here on Lot 22, the Chinaberry has shown its lavendar, and the Mimosa is blooming now, also Swamp Mallow and Passion Flower.

TRUE HEAT

A busy fish today. He has jumped—a fat, plopping sound—twice in five minutes and, of course, gives me no warning beforehand so that I can see him. He disappears so quickly. And I, immersed in Rudolf Otto’s The Idea of the Holy, can only hear him. Why do fish jump?

I suspect True Heat begins today with the predicted 88 degrees and I hold out slight hope for more days like yesterday and earlier, days of sunshine and cool breezes, and low humidity. I was close enough to last year’s Bugaboo Fire that I now realize low humidity has its downside, but only an idiot could fail to appreciate these glorious green and gold days of new growth on every limb and branch along which caterpillars—yellow and orange, horned and not—creep, the cries of birds both far and near, the house of twigs hanging from the nearest palmetto frond.

I must sound like I’m on vacation, sitting here with binoculars, books, and coffee, writing it all down, even the small olive lizard who has stopped before me and marvelously inflates the orange goiter on his throat as though to warm me the hawk is coming, the river will rise, this ethereal weather will wane. Why am I writing all this down, anyway?

I describe this scene because doing so intensifies its effect. Putting it on paper mirrors the inscription of it on my brain, which is why I scribble. This is the reason I encourage others to write. Doing so brings the sharp tips of the palmetto’s fans into focus as I look more closely. It sharpens my hearing so that I know a bee approaches, though it is still out of view Here comes an interesting bird, batting its white wings, a bird with a voice like a slide guitar—more than one long note, something more complicated, bluesy.

I got interrupted, reading the Otto book. Found it pretty dense and, anyway, isn’t it possible either that everything is holy or nothing is?

Last night I saw a wild hare in the driveway, also one on the county paved road. This evening I went out onto the deck just before dark, sat down, and observed directly in my line of sight a female deer, frozen in position on the opposite side of the river. She stared at me for all of 30 seconds, then snorted and flew, springing from one place to another in leaps that took her six feet off the ground.

Now I am working on “pupa” and “chrysalis.” I am trying to find out what creature lives in the minute twig basket that dangles from the very tip of a palmetto’s frond here at the edge of the deck.


scauthen
www.sudyecauthen.com

Blue Needle

BLUE NEEDLE

Beside the deck where I am drinking coffee, a fish jumps. Across the way, a blue needle of a bird appears on the opposite bank, stalking deliberately along, one slow step at a time. He could be counting steps, but he is staring steadily at the water. As though he has just heard “about left,” he turns, dimples the water with his bill, stands straight, shakes his feathered head, threads his way between the roots of a cypress tree, and resumes his march. When I move, he rises into the sky, curves over me, and flies away. I go inside for a second cup of coffee, come back with binoculars just as the bird’s double appears, flying upriver, wings beating, black head pointed straight east.

At this early moment of the day it is near-wondrous to picture the hours ahead as fully conscious ones, gifts as pristine as the white beach Blue Needle strides along, as mysterious as the furred caterpillar climbing my chair’s front leg toward a destiny he is not thinking of, lost as he is in the moment. What I don’t like to slip into is the unconscious part, when the brain goes numb with clerical tasks and I plod on, forcing myself to complete paperwork, slit anonymous envelopes, record information while the day drops away; it happens. Just as any friendship is forever informed by one’s initial impression, this one morning on the deck plays within the context of mornings that have gone before. The birds’ medley twists through these newly green trees, knotted with the all the dancing lights, squirrels, otters, and fish I've seen over more than ten years.

I sit on, under the delicate, white bells of the Highbush Blueberry, Vaccinium Corymbosum, surrounded by a United Nations of birds: “I told, I told you, I told you” says one and, hardly audible, an answer comes-- “Wait, wait, wait,” followed by the sharp warning of a red-tailed hawk as his shadow crosses the deck. The birds keep on, sprinkling their songs through bushes and trees.

The second fish of the day jumps, and circles within circles appear, casting mirror-like shadows onto the lowest limbs of the trees leaning out over the river. There goes Blue Needle, headed south, one step at a time. At the foot of the bank a wild dark wisteria twists its way toward a hummingbird. The river is low, maybe at about 52’, not worrisome at all (since 77' is flood stage). The relative humidity is the lowest it’s been this year; this is Eden, you understand, Eden where leaves of plants I could label pinnate, palmate, bipinnate, and tripinnate flourish between my chair and the river. One of this morning’s messengers, a small dark bird with a black bill, appears. He is unknown to me, nameless. I wish I knew his name but I can’t throw nets of words over every single aspect of Nature. And perhaps that’s a good thing.