Yellowhammer Lake

Yellowhammer Lake.  That’s where I go for solitude. Listening to the silence between the waves of the breeze, rolling and subsiding in the currents of wind that brushes over and through the pines.

I lay across the granite and let the sun warm my face.

It hugs and blankets me, the cool of the rock collecting the excess.  I slip into perfect tranquility.

My spot is near the inlet on a narrow upper strand of glacial-polished felsic paving where the slope rolls into the water, down, down to the clear, down to cerulean, down to the cobalt-blue then on to the black, unseen depths below.

A trout floats in the clear, just above the blue.  He does not care that I am here.

Above, an eagle soars in the cotton-white-patched sky.  He is watching for his dinner.

Chipmunks and squirrels scurry past, chirping their displeasure at my presence.  Soon they will have their space, but now it is mine.

I go there when I need to rest, to stop all around me, to clear my mind – spring, summer, fall, winter. The sun is never too hot; the snow is never too deep.

I find peace there.  It is my resting spot, my respite.  When all around me is chaos, I go there, say a prayer, and praise my God that he has given me that place of consolation.

I go there often – though I haven’t seen the lake since 1972.  It’s here in my mind.  So, I go.

It’s mine.

Videos are easy?

Making videos are easy, I was told.  They’re not.  They’re work… I mean, lots of work.

Working with Trustees’ Garden in Savannah, I’ve had the pleasure and job of finding the history of the ten-acre site that was the first British-Crown sanctioned experimental garden in North America.  The history of the site has been astounding when one finds the things that took place there and the people associated with the spot on the eastern side of the Historic District.

There is so much history I’ve started declaring it to be, arguably, the most historic piece ground in the southeastern United States.  I qualify by saying, “If it isn’t, then it is definitely a most historic ground.”

The video…

First, the script must be written, condensed, and (semi) memorized.  Then film the narrative.  Then finding illustrations for which permissions can be gained.  Then the editing.  It’s a bunch of work… and I loved every minute.

It is fitting that a short video introduce the site.  But saying that is like trimming 286 years of intense activity into a seven-minute YouTube post.

I didn’t.

I can’t.

So here’s what I was able to cram into that length of “air time.”  Take a look and give me your opinion.

– JB

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