Page 109 - barefoot-in-the-sand-remembering-the-waning-days-of-the-hopewell-community-(1998)-bruce-c-gragg

Barefoot In The Sand: Remembering the Waning Days of the Hopewell Community (1998) Bruce C. Gragg 105/123

EARLY MORNING RIDE

While mentally looking back in time I can see the early morning
sunlight glittering on the dew on spider webs on palmettos as we
would go early in the morning to 82 to meet Aunt Nita coming in on
the bus. We would always go in the horse and wagon, a nice slow ride
amongst nature early in the morning. It so happened, so it seemed,
that we always needed to leave home before sunrise, the sun would
come up so bright and the morning would be so nice, not hot and muggy
or cold just nice riding time of day, and it was real quite except
for the wildlife. There was a road from the front of our house to 82,
it wound through the woods between the ponds and swampy areas. It did
cross some areas that held water during wet weather but mostly it
stayed on the pine hills, or higher ground. It was about two miles of
winding road from our house to the main highway. We would be facing
the rising sun and it would glisten on the dew drops, and every
spider web would be a bit different from any other. From the ponds,
various wildlife would be making their wake up call or maybe their
day had already begun, with the birds, frogs, crickets, even a crow
would be calling a warning that something was near that could be a
threat to them. Sometimes a Red Tailed Hawk or Owl would be out early
looking for a quick fresh breakfast. It is great to be out in the
wild early in the morning like that and listen to nature. The ride
through there was not the same after the timber harvesting crews
finished cutting timber, it was hard at times to find where the old
road was. A lot of the roads had been relocated to accommodate the
log trucks, and in the wet areas they had put slabs of wood to help
the truck get traction and keep it from bogging down in the mud.
There were not many trees for the various birds to light, or provide
a perch to look for their food or approaching enemies. Deep in the
uninhabited woods is quiet a sight early in the morning like this.
The sounds are all completely wild in nature, as many of the birds
and animals lived in the immediate area all year long, and seldom saw
any humans at all.

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