Total Loss

 

The call from Jordon came Sunday night. We were thinking at first he was joking, as he usually does. He said that he and Ben wrecked the truck, that it was totaled. Melanie and I were at the Huddle House, just finishing a breakfast supper. We drove across town down Pinemount, then down Birley Road to Johnson Road, where we found the truck off the dirt road, over a fence. Ben was driving with Jordon and two girls in the passenger seat. They said they were not speeding, but heading down the dirt road when the back brakes locked up, they went into a spin, flipping three times,coming to rest upright over the fence.
By a miracle, no one was hurt, the air bags did not deploy. There at the scene was Ben's parents and the Pope's, whose daughter was with Jordon and Ben. We called Trey and he bought his 4 wheeler and pulled the truck off the fence. We had to change the front tire which was off the rim. The truck cranked and Russell and I drove it slowly back to the Popes house. Two days later the insurance adjuster came and totaled it out, cutting us a check. The next day the salvage company came and got it.
That little truck drove many a mile with Landon over to St Augustine and back and all over. It was a good truck and a crying shame to lose it.
But, it was a big blessing that no one was hurt.

Grand Magnolia

The frost did pass by these Spanish Magnolia's. The sky was a clear,crisp blue, the temperature in the mid-sixties, and I was quite content to be on the Gum Swamp Road.

Upon fields of Frost

On Kayak Court, the sun was just coming over the trees and the frost from the nights freeze was yet upon the ground. I paused and took this photo, attempting to balance the brilliant white with the morning sky. My ground was a bit darker than I wanted.

Planter Garden

I came upon this nice planter garden off Voss Road. I want to build planter boxes like these and create a backyard planter box garden. But since the truck was totaled, I am out of a way to get the eight foot boards I need to haul them.

Double Run Home

My home continues to progress along. I've added a front door. Next the steps.
Windows were too expensive so I will just have to stay out more if I want a view.
I've placed it in a field so there is no danger from falling trees.
I wish to live a life of unquiet desperation, free from the confines
of a desperate city.

Why did the chicken cross Cline-Feagle?

I do not know, but everytime I am on my favorite road in Columbia County, he is either crossing or in the middle. Today I was up early and made the long loop I like to take(which I used to take on the bicycle)down Price Creek Road to Cline Feagle and on down to Providence and back. I stopped at Bailey's along the way for fifty pounds of layer crumbles for the two hens.
Then on to Watermelon Park for gas and then back home, having only taken twenty photographs, a low for me.

Mary's Raleigh

Mary Knapp lives off Gum Swamp Road. I took this photograph and turned it black and white for my friend Tomi-Sue Markham. I hate to see any bike chained to a tree. I had a good of mind to free it.

McGlamery/McCormick

Never grow tired of passing the old McGlamery place on Gum Swamp. In the mid-eighties, Mrs McGlamery was selling the old home and property for a whooping $75 thousand. Today, Mr Jordan, who owns the property is trying to sell it for a Million.

Guineafowl

Got snakes?
Get some guinea
They say if a snake ventures into the yard
they will seek it out
gather around it and
torment it until either it leaves the yard
or you come out and
rid the yard of the snake.

I told that @$%# pruner, just a little off the top!

 

Once upon a Tide

This is a love story that began upon the banks of the St Mark's River in Wakulla County in the summer of 1985. My old running friend and photography companion Robert "Bob" Jones and I had traveled up to Crawfordville on a Friday afternoon. Our plan was to spend the night at my fathers old cracker house on Aaron Road that evening then run the Blue Crab Festival 5k in Panacea the following Saturday morning.
We ran the hot 5K along the dirt and shell roads through the little fishing village, known in the past for the sulphur springs where Northerners would bathe for their health. The race was little remembered, I did not even scroll it in my running log book I kept. I think this was one of those local fiasco's like the race in Live Oak where we met at the finish line in opposite directions, one bunch from the North, one bunch from the South, all wondering who took the wrong turn. We were there for the running but our real interest lie photographing wherever we ventured.
We made our way over to the old Spanish Fort at St Marks, the Castille de San Marcos at the confluences of the Wakulla and St.Marks Rivers. It was low tide and we poked along the banks of the St Marks, stopping here and there to plant the tripod among the black muck and oyster bars. In one of these particular plantings, I noticed as the fiddler crab ran for cover under the overhanging bank, a corked Lancer's wine bottle. I retrieved the bottle and noticed there was a note enclosed. Inside was a note written by  Bob and Carolyn White from Tallahassee. They had spent their twenty-fifth wedding anniversary in St Marks and had written the note, wishing that whoever found this bottle would find the same happiness and companionship they had found together.
Well, I had ole Bob and I did not dare tell him he was a great photographer and traveling pal, but, like that emptiness Augustine spoke of that could only be filled by God, that emptiness to me could be only filled by a companion like Carolyn White.
I went home to my little garage apartment in Lake City and put the note and bottle up on the shelf and resumed my life as a lonely bachelor runner and photographer. Several weeks passed and I decided to compose my own note and return to St Marks, thinking if I returned this bottle, I would find that special person. So I took one of my fathers syrup bottles and on a unicorn postcard, composed my little lost in a bottle note. I traveled back to Crawfordville for the Wakulla Library 5k then over to St.Marks, where I tossed the bottle in the same location I found the Lancer at low tide. I watched awhile as the bottle floated out towards the Gulf and my spirit soared then sank, as did the bottle.
When I returned that evening to the Camp Street garage apartment, something told me to check the little mailbox on the post under the stairwell. I had a post office box so I never received mail in the box.
But this time, to my heart leaping surprise, there was a letter addressed to me from Williston,Florida.
It was from Melanie Eatman, a nurse at Shands. I remembered her being my niece Jessica's nurse a year earlier. I had tried to ask her out to the Fanfare and Fireworks July 4th in Gainesville but she turned me down. She had a doctor boyfriend. I gave up on her having an interest in a struggling artist.
Her letter went on to say that she had recently purchased a "Cannon" camera and did not know how to use it. She remembered the zoo pictures I had put in Jessica's room, and would I come and teach her photography.
I was beside myself. Immediately I began making lesson plans on photography. We arranged for the day and I nervously drove the 60 miles to my old hometown of Williston. Arriving, we went to the living room where I started into f stops, shutters and ASA's, she with quite a blank look. I was failing! We gave up on the photography lesson and went for a drive toward Wacahoota for a field trip. That too did not pan out.
We came back to her house and on her kitchen counter wrote things about ourselves, to see what we had in common. Not much matched. I was about to gather my stuff and make a sad trip back to my little apartment when her mother asked if I would go with the family to a Wesley Smith Concert in Romeo out from Dunnellon. As we made our way toward Romeo, with my Juliette separated from me by Grandma Carter, the photography lesson was a long gone memory.
The rest was a wonderful history. I never received a reply from the bottle and then again, I did.

Those Who Linger

"Some of you lingered among the sheepfolds, and you found a dove's wings covered with silver, its feathers with yellow gold." Psalms 68:13.

We had mournfully returned to my fathers house off US27 a mile outside Williston, to finalize the moving of his belongings. In March we had come to Orange Hill Cemetery, to lay my father, The Rev.Luther Ray Stokes, in one of the many plots he had purchased years ago. My father had moved from Crawfordville, Florida some ten years earlier to Williston, no doubt in preparation for his final resting place.
As I opened the door into his house, the small wren-like bird flew around the foyer and into the blinds, tired from his long confinement. I was able to easily take the bird from the blinds in his weak state and take him outside. There, he looked about the yard in seeming wonder on my fingers, in no grand hurry to fly away.
I let him sit as long as he chose, before in unusual manner, he cocked his little head at me, as if to communicate something, then  flew up into the dogwood tree.
I knew of my fathers love for the outdoors, the many times, in Williston and at Crawfordville, he would just sit and observe from his porch or garden, the wonders of God's creation. With his passing went so much knowledge of the outdoors from gardening to the wildlife, I so miss today.
This past week, we were again called to Williston and Orange Hill, this time to lay to rest, my wife's youngest full sister, Melissa at age 43. Devon, Melissa's sister Kim's daughter, told this story. The day following the funeral, Devon was at her grandmother Billie Earl's house in Williston, and went into the utility room off the carport. There, in the blinds, was this small hummingbird, with gold breast feathers and dark wings. In his weak condition, Devon was able, like I was, to capture the little bird, which rested in her hand for a moment before flying off outside.
When I heard of this, I thought back to the bird in my father's house, and like him, Melissa too was a lover of all creatures and things at a disadvantage, wanting in some way to help.
Then there was the third manifestation at the cemetery the day of Melissa's burial. This young man, dressed in all black, going by the name of Gibson, rode in the funeral procession with the lead sheriff car. At the cemetery, he went over to my wife saying he knew she was the one most hurting, that he wanted to tell her that Melissa was OK, handing Melanie a funeral obituary scribbled with mostly scripture verses. And then he was gone. No one knew who he was.
I venture to say, in the two birds and the mysterious man in black, we were witness to the presence of the Lord's ministering spirits. They are all about, usually in plain view from our blinded eyes. Blessed are we when we perceive or gain a glimpse into their ministering work.