Back to Belmont, NC: A walk through the woods

I promised to revive my blogging habit after much encouragement from the wonderful people in the Mobile community. Many of them were shocked by my leaving and some of them were surprised to stumble upon my blog. I will miss all of them dearly and so, moving forward, this is for them and all of the other folks who I've had to part ways with along the path of life.

My customary 10-hour trip was extended to a three-day visit with friends/horticulturists I'll miss in Alabama. I followed a looped path from Anniston to Birmingham to Auburn on my way up. Stay tuned for the next post to hear about the roadtrip.

~~~

The metallic whir of cicadas and katydids reverberates through the panes of glass in the backdoor. They hum the background track to a summer in Charlotte, North Carolina. The sound penetrates through your head despite your best efforts. I can even hear it echo from the days of my childhood. The symphony/cacophony ebbs and grows with the heat of the day and vibrates from the trees of the eastern deciduous forest. It doesn't sound like Mobile, Alabama anymore.

Looking up into the canopy of a Platanus occidentalis, Eastern Plain Tree

Well, life sometimes just takes a different turn than the one you'd like, and sometimes the best place to go in that moment when things are off-kilter is home. Ask anyone who knows me and they would either say North Carolina or Scotland is home to me. In this case, North Carolina is easier to drive to from Mobile.

A walk in the woods is the best remedy a frizzled mind and get a sense of place, so off we went, Sparky and myself, down the trail behind my friend's house.

The trees in the yard of our childhood had grown exponentially from my memory. Through my travels I now knew their scientific names: Betula nigra, the river birch, and Platanus occidentalis, eastern plain tree.

The woodland trail was just beyond the back gate. The canopy had grown lower to the ground so it was almost like going through a green curtain. Invasive mulberries guarded the edge of the forest and the beginning of a deep slope, which dropped down to a creek now choked with runoff from the construction upstream.

Once I'd ducked inside, my eye was immediate drawn upwards as the forest opened up like a cathedral, but instead of stone it was made of great arches of old beeches (Fagus americana), red oaks (Quercus ssp.) and tulip poplars (Liriodendron tulipifera). I was happy to see the lack of invasive plants in the gully below and even more excited to see the colonies of paw paw trees (Asimina triloba) spreading around. There were even a couple colonies with trees old enough to have fruit on them!

Bloodroot, Sanguinaria canadensis

I noticed herbaceous plants with bear claw-like leaves at the edge of the path as it curved around, and immediately recognized bloodroot, Sanguinaria canadensis. It created an impressive carpet down the steep hillside and my imagination took over as I saw it in full flower in the late winter, as if snow had fallen down the slope. Had this always been there?

Before the trail dropped down the hill, the umbrella-like whorls of Magnolia fraseri leaves rose above me and my heart soared. "Hello there!" I exclaimed. I couldn't help myself. I had never noticed any Magnolias, except the tulip poplars, growing in these woods. I saw a few more young saplings before Sparky had had enough and turned me around to go back.

~~~

My walk taught me something, even in a brief time. I had to let go of what I thought I knew of this North Carolina I had moved back to and experience it anew. Things had changed, times had changed. It was a brand new place compared to what it had been before.

Had I returned home after all? My friends and family are still here, so in them, yes. Everything else? We'll see.

City Hall, downtown Belmont, NC

Click here for more photos!