A Lowcountry morning

Turning in, I was a little surprised to see a fresh strip of black dirt turned up on the clubhouse road. Somebody on a tractor, pulling a scrape blade, had just made a pass down one side of the wide road. I eased on down the winding sandy lane and encountered James Crosby. When he looked over his shoulder and saw me approaching, he stopped, got off the tractor and walked back to my truck.

He told me that he had just turned up a piece of rebar; it was sticking up in the road, and he asked me to back up and get it before someone else drove over it and busted a tire. I wondered, "What about my tire?" But I backed up, got the bar, tossed it out of the road and drove on to the clubhouse. There was a good crowd there.

A thin wisp of smoke was curling up from the chimney, with the promise of a warm stove inside. I noticed that the river was up, and the slough behind the clubhouse was flooded. I could hear the soft hum of the big generator running. When I walked in, the first person that I saw was Jim Hagan. He had been sick and had not been to the club in a while. He looked healthy, and I was glad to see him.

Mister Jim is quite a character, a little guy with a big handlebar mustache and a twinkle in his eye. I greeted him and said, "This place is just not the same without you." He smiled and said, "Don't you write about me." I assured him that I would.

This was a scheduled work day, and about two dozen people had signed in. The main item on the agenda was a trash pick-up on Highway 61. Our club has adopted a two-mile section of the busy state highway that bisects our property. This old stagecoach road is known as the Charleston/Augusta Highway.

Outside, the club members were organized into several groups and headed out. I lingered. I had a different agenda for the day.

Back on the clubhouse road I noticed another tractor behind James pulling a scrape blade. It was Bill Breland. They do a good job on the club roads. I followed along behind them to Middle Road and turned into Shoot Yo Leg Alley. At the end I stopped, put a roll of orange flagging in my pocket and headed across the big cut-over on foot.

This area had been a big stand of hardwood timber and was my favorite place to hunt. Now, it was all cut and replanted in pines. There was one section left that had been too wet to cut. It is just big enough to hold a few turkeys but can only be approached across this cut-over. I have established a path that I spray in the summer and trim and re-mark in the winter. I needed to check the path and add some new flagging. I will use this path for access during the turkey season.

I noticed that other critters were also using my path. It is the path of least resistance and is the easiest way to cross this big thicket of small saplings, weeds and briars. There were deer tracks, raccoon tracks, coyote tracks and even armadillo prints in the mud. On the way back to the truck, I realized that it had human tracks now. Mine.

From Shoot Yo Leg, I headed to River Road. I have a roadside chufa patch there, and the turkeys have torn up the ground scratching for the nuts. This patch looks like the surface of the moon with saucer-sized craters over the entire area. Chufa is a great winter food for turkeys. I drove on to check my patches on Jerry Road and Parler. There were similar results at those locations.

I took the clubhouse road out to the highway and turned toward the Rhodes property and GP. There were orange-vested litter collectors scattered down the roadside.

At the Rhodes property, I wanted to check on the creek crossing where Clayton and I had planted rye grass to stabilize a new roadbed, a couple of weeks before. I was disappointed. The seed was a year old and had not sprouted. I would need to get some new seed and come back one day and re-plant. I drove on down to the GP tract.

The lock at GP was stubborn and was a struggle. I had to spray it with WD 40 to get it to open. I drove in and rolled down the long, sandy road looking for tracks. Large sections of this tract had been cut recently. I was hopeful that the remaining timber might still hold some turkeys. When I turned around and started back to the highway, I saw something in the sandy roadside and stopped. I had to get out and look closer, but it confirmed my suspicion. It was a faded turkey track, and another. They were still here. I smiled and went on. At the highway, I turned toward home.

Reach Dan Geddings at cdgeddings@gmail.com.