3:30 pm Dorian Update: 9 '19

The center of Dorian is currently about 100 miles South of us -  approximately even with Jacksonville, Florida.  She is still a Cat II with 105 mph winds at the center and is moving north along the coast at 8 mph.  We are expecting the heaviest rain and winds to hit our area around midnight, and stay with us all through tomorrow (Thursday).  Even so, we are already getting some pounding bands of rain in our area.  As you can see from the forecast, the eye is likely to pass very close to our home so things are going to get worse for the next 24 to 48 hours before they get better.  By Friday,  Dorian will have moved on to North Carolina and the Outer Banks. 

Low Country Prepares for Florence: 9 '18

All across the low country businesses large

 and small have begun preparations for Florence's fury.

Those which can provide needed services are remaining open

are remain open.

But most of the  public entertainment

and smaller private tourist shops have already closed.

Some  are preparing to meet the storm with humor,

and others with defiance.

My favorite are those low country folk who  are showing  us

we will get through this one too.

Black Porridge for Breakfast: 7 '16

Bruce had the funniest look on his face when I served him Korean Black Porridge for breakfast this morning. But once he tried it , he really liked this nutritious, nutty flavored  rice and black sesame dish.

Here's the recipe for Vegan Black Porridge:

Ingredients:

• 1 cup short grained rice 
• 1/3 cup roasted black sesame seeds ( you can also use white sesame but they are less nutritious than black seeds)
• 5 to 6 cups of water
• 1/2 tbsp sesame oil
• 1 tsp Mirin* or honey ( I used Mirin* a sweeten rice wine vinegar available in the Asian section of many grocery stores)
• 1 tsp salt
• Optional honey or agave

Directions:

• Soak rice in water for 1 hour or more and drain.
• Rinse and drain sesame seeds. 
• When the rice is fully soaked, finely grind the rice with 1 C (out of 5) of water. Depending on the power of your blender, it may not come out fully smooth right away. If you see large rice chunks pulse the rice until it is evenly ground into a corn meal like consistency or finer. Set aside. 
• Finely grind the black sesame seeds in the blender, once ground blend the ground sesame withh 2 C of water.Instead of adding all of the water at once, start blending with less water (more like 1/2 to 1 C) and gradually add more.
• Mix the blended rice and black sesame seeds in a pot. (NOTE: because I blended my rice and sesame mixture really finely, I just cooked everything together directly in the pot. If your blended mixture is coarse, you may want to separate the solid rice and sesame bits and their liquid by straining. Mix and cook the two liquids first (just for 2 min) and then add the solid rice and sesame bits later).
• Turn on the heat to medium high and keep stirring until it starts to boil. Stir in the Mirin , the sesame oil and the remaining 2~3 C of water as it cooks. Cook at low heat for 10-15 min. Make sure you continue to stir (I used a wooden spoon) to prevent any rice from sticking to the bottom of the pot. Consistency will be similar to a thick pudding. If you like yours to be a little more thin, add more water (up to 1 C - totaling 6 cups) . 
• Season with salt (1 tsp) to cook's taste, or you can just serve the porridge with the salt on the side for each to add to their individual taste.  ( Note Do NOT add salt early on while it’s cooking as salt can solved the rice making it mushy.) 
• Garnish with some toasted sliced almonds or pine nuts and of course, sesame seeds. 
• Optionally, you can add agave or honey or serve it on the side!

Brookgreen River Boat Tour 7 '14

I think I remember being told that the sculpture gardens, open to the public,  comprise only about 450 acres out  of Brookgreen's 9000 total acreage. Much of Brookgreen property is in preserve .  The preserved areas can only be viewed on prescheduled tours such as their riverboat cruise which takes you up and down the tidal creeks within the Brookgreen Preserve. 

As part of it's' Cool Summer Evenings' program, Brookgreen Gardens has extended its  boat cruise tour schedule into the early evening hours.  Bruce and I decided this would be the perfect time to see  this lesser known  side of Brookgreen , so we hopped on board  a 48-foot pontoon boat  for a hour long cruise along historic ricefields now home to alligators, waterfowl, and osprey.

Our tour guide, Don Spriegel,  interpreted the distinctive landscape of the rice plantations and helped us to understand the role of enslaved Africans in the cultivation of the rice crop.

Small Cyprus tree 

First,  the massive cypress trees were dug up by young male slaves from, what was at that time, a mature old forest cypress swamp.

Dykes  held back the tidal waters

Once the swamps were rid of the forest, the branches of the cypress were pounded into the mud to make  a dyke, and soil dug out of the swamp to build up the rice beds fields behind it. 

Trunk opening

Openings were left in the dykes  to called 'trunks'.  On the earliest plantations, hollowed out cypress tree trunks were place in these openings, with gates at either end, to control the flow of tidal water in and out of the fields. A later design looked like the Rice gate below..  

Rice Gates control water flow in and out of the rice fields

Shortly before the civil war, Georgetown county was the richest county in all of the colonies.  Except for the oaks in the residential areas, all of the land had been denuded of trees and converted to rice fields

Trees  grown since the civil war

After the war,  the slave labor force need to maintain this industry was no longer available, and the destitute landowners did not have the means to pay for the labor intensive farming.  The land began its slow  return to its natural form.  Today the Bald Cyprus and

Tupelo trees are once again reclaiming the land that was once theirs.

The hour went all too quickly, and soon we were seeing the sun playing peek a boo with the edges of the  horizon.  It was promising another beautiful sunset over the peaceful tidal creeks.

Birthday Dinner and Bentos and Noodles 1 '14

The evening before we left for home we took Laura and David and the boys out to celebrate Laura and David's  birthdays at Bentos. The place makes the most incredible sushi dishes. It was a feast for the eyes and well at the stomach. It was a lovely way to end the trip.

Bentos Dragon Roll

What a shame - Georgetown Fire

What a shame.  Wednesday a massive fire destroyed several historical buildings in one of South Carolina's oldest cities, Georgetown.

 Officials say 7 buildings were damaged.  Many of the buildings collapsed leaving only store front walls after being gutted by the fire.

 So sad!  that pretty much took out all the active businesses and restaurants on that street.

That's going to really hurt this lovely old community.

New paintings at CAG 2 "13

 

I went to Charleston today with some new paintings for my wall space. I almost drown getting there in the torrential downpour we were having, but it was worth it. My wall looks really nice with the wildlife paintings I did at Hobcaw Barony/Wynyah Bay, Huntington Beach SP, and Magnolia Gardens.



Volunteering for Habitiat for Humanities' Souper Bowl '11

Once again the Habitat for Humanity in Georgetown has asked the members of the Seacoast Artists Guild to volunteer their skill set in painting Soup bowls.

Yes that's right... Bruce is painting a fired bisque ware bowl .

His and five hundred other one of a kind bowls will be sold  at

the HfH fundraiser known as Souper bowl.

People purchase a ticket to get into the event, where they can choose on of the hand-painted

and then the can select from a dozen or more soups being offered ( in Styrofoam cups) by the local restaurants who are also volunteering their services.   All of the proceeds go toward building new homes for those in need in the Georgetown County.

Bruce's Birthday Dinner at Nosh's 5 "11

To celebrate Bruce's Birthday we went to the newest high class restaurant in Pawleys Island  named "Nosh" .  It bills itself as artful dining, and believe me it  lives up to its banner.  They have some of the best food in the county, and definitely some of the best local artists.

Happy Birthday, Bruce!

 Left front to rear:  MaryPaul and Robert LeClercs;
 center back: Scott Susla,: 
right rear: Nancy & Harry Susla, front Bruce and Cece Jacobs

Georgetown Lighthouse 2 '11

We recently took a boat tour of South Carolina's Winyah Bay.  The tour included a visit to North Island and its  Georgetown Lighthouse.  I was so impressed with the history of the place that I decided to paint a picture of the lighthouse for my local landmark series. 

Georgetown Lighthouse 12"x9" oil

Her's my rendition of  the Georgetown Lighthouse.

and here's a photo  from the University of North Carolina of the  the lighthouse.

 By way of background....Georgetown Harbor, located in Wynyah Bay  between North and South Islands, is the second largest seaport in South Carolina.  Safe passage into the harbor is now, and as it always has been,  critical to the local economy.  In 1789, Revolutionary War Patriot Paul Trapier donated a tract of land on North Island for the establishment of the Georgetown Lighthouse.  (aka North Island Lighthouse.)  The seventy-two-foot, pyramidal tower, constructed of Cypress wood, was finished in the early part of 1801 Besides the tower, a two-story keeper’s dwelling was built along with a tank for holding the whale oil that fueled the lighthouse’s lamp. The wooden tower’s life was cut short by a violent storm in 1806.

Several years passed before a replacement structure was built. A marble plaque positioned above the door records the names of those who undertook the work on the tower and records the year of its erection as 1811. This time the seventy-two-foot tower was constructed of brick, greatly reducing the chance that those big, bad gales which plague the area (aka hurricanes) would blow the lighthouse down. The staircase that spirals upwards inside the stout brick tower is made of stone. In 1857, the tower was modified to display a fourth-order Fresnel lens. 

When the Civil War broke out, the Confederates used the Georgetown Lighthouse as a lookout station, until Union forces captured it in May of 1862. The lighthouse was heavily damaged during the North-South conflict, and as part of the post-war repair work, the tower was heightened to eighty-seven feet.  The Georgetown Lighthouse was manned until 1986, when the Coast Guard automated the light.

As stipulated in the will of former Boston Red Sox owner Tom Yawkey, South Island and all of North Island, save the lighthouse acreage, was bequeathed to the South Carolina Heritage Trust, creating the Tom Yawkey Wildlife Preserve.  In 2001, the lighthouse property was added to the preserve.  This is a rare early federal lighthouse is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, and with it now under state control, the tower will hopefully be restored and one day open to the public.  The 1-story brick keeper's house, brick oilhouse (1890), and boathouse (1894) are also preserved

Aaron and Lauren Teeter's Wedding 10 '10

Laura D'Amore, daughter of our Neighbors Joe and Julie was married today to Aaron Teeter  in a beautiful ceremony under the oaks of the historic Litchfield Plantation

Guests of the wedding waiting for the ceremony to begin

Bridesmaids and Grooms assembled for the wedding march

Mother of the Bride, Julie DAmore and Best Man

Mr and Mrs Teeter, Mother and Father of the groom

 Aaron Teeter,  the groom

Followed by the bridesmaids and grooms

The ring bearer and flower girls

Bridesmaids assembled for ceremony

Grooms assembled for the ceremony

Joe D'Amore and Lauren

Beneath the tent with the Rabi and the Minister

Pouring wine

Grooms during the ceremony

Bridesmaids during the ceremony

Vows

Vocalist

Parents of the Groom

Joe and Julie Parents of the Bride

Joe and Julie with the Rabi and the Minister after the ceremony

 The wedding party retreated to the historic Litchfield Carriage House  so they could receive their guests from an elevated location

 The wedding dinner was held in a tent next to the Carriage House

and included a  full course sit down meal

Followed by the dance party.  Joe looked so proud of his little girl and so happy for her.

Cutting the wedding cake