Deer Moss and Gum Drop Trees

December means hiking into a special dry place in our woods.  It’s a bald spot, open and dry and sunny. A magic carpet of deer moss yields spongy with each step. Silvery green carpet colors, climb the little haw trees too.  Lichens, with silver leaves. Only lichens are not plants, so they don’t have leaves. …

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Grangran’s Gumdrop Tree

My grandfather cooked.   He set the table with “Old Britain Castles” china; he painted and gardened.  Maybe because the lessons were so constant, from birth on, I don’t recall him teaching me gardening things.  But I know the palmetto tree by the back steps was one he dug up on Hunting Island; I know he…

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