Blog

Due to the high winds and cold temperatures this week, we rescheduled several tours. However, classroom guide training and preparations for the season are ongoing as we anticipate the spring arrival of close to 1200 local school kids for Jocassee Wild Child Adventures. Here at home, less than 10 miles from the lake, I’ve been watching the birds take advantage of the cover and the food sources close by, seemingly indifferent to the cold. Cardinals stand guard in the now fruitless holly in the front yard. Brown thrashers swiftly glide into the underbrush in stealth mode. Chickadees and titmice have decided the crape myrtle, with the feeder, is the new local hangout. The landscape here is successional, just like the Jocassee Gorges after the timber was harvested. The abundant mountain laurels, pines, oaks and sourwoods provide food and shelter for a variety of wildlife. My grandfather and father farmed this land. Cherokee arrowheads and pottery pieces were constantly turned up by their horse-drawn plough. Many have loved and worked this land along the base of the escarpment. Now that we’ve been discovered and the growth is slowly erasing these wild spaces, let’s continue to work together to protect as much of it as possible, for every creature, not just humans. ~Sheryl White, JLT guide