November 2023 – David Kotz

Lowcountry Thanksgiving

A long weekend in lowcountry South Carolina.

A long buffet table, outdoors, with numerous pies and sweets. — Dessert table at Schutzenfest.

Every other year, our extended family gathers on a rural farm in lowcountry South Carolina outside Charleston, to celebrate Thanksgiving with family, feast, and friendly competition. My wife’s family prepares the turkey (130 pounds!) and the outdoor setting, and a hundred extended relatives bring potluck favorites … stuffing, corn pudding, collard greens, green beans, sweet potatoes, fish stew, cole slaw, and more. And the dessert table (shown)… pies and cookies and cakes galore. This year, 95 members of the family re-connect, and meet new relatives. Many huddled around the six-foot-wide diagram of the family tree to discover their relationship or to scribble in the names of new arrivals.

This year we were blessed with wonderful weather – sunshine and mild temperatures. As people finished their lunches and chatted in lawnchairs, another group set up for the skeet-shooting competition. This year, about 20 people competed, young and old, using a shotgun to shatter the clay disks as they flew away from them. It’s even harder than it looks! The old-timers taught the new-comers, some who had never shot skeet before, or perhaps had never shot a gun before. After several rounds of increasingly stiff competition, the best received the treasured felt hats – each scribbled with the winners’ names and dates going back almost five decades.

three felt hats, sitting on boxes of skeet (clay discs) and shotgun shells. — The prizes – Schiutzenfest.

Over the course of the weekend my father and I had a chance to explore Kiawah Island and Magnolia Plantation Gardens, also outside Charleston, to photograph the wildlife and scenery. Explore the photo gallery!

Jack and David, with cameras, at Magnolia Gardens — Jack and David – Magnolia Gardens.

Potash mountain

A beautiful late-fall day for a hike.

As I drove north in the early twilight, the few clouds slowly became tinged pink, then bright orange. I turned onto NH Route 25A and headed due east, the road ahead was illuminated in a brilliant orange display as the sun rose into the clouds. A broad smile spread on my face as I realized I had made the right choice; the forecast had indicated a slight chance of snow or (later) rain, but things were looking awfully darn good for an early-morning late-fall hike. Did it hold? read on.

Sunrise over Kancamagus valley from 118 over Moosilauke.

Viewpoints on Smarts Mountain

Smarts Mountain – from the north and from the the south.

An obscure entrance to the Appalachian Trail offers quick access to the trail where it crosses Jacobs Brook, and climbs Eastman Ledges on its way up Mount Cube. It’s a short walk, perhaps a quarter mile along the brook and then a half mile up the A.T. to the ledges. I had not been along this section of trail since I backpacked this segment in 2012, and had not driven to this access point since before the turn of the century. I’d been eager to return, so today I visited at the end of fall foliage and the beginning of deer season. I got some great photos of the cascades along Jacobs Brook and had a nice view of Smarts Mountain.

View of Smarts Mountain from Eastman Ledges on Mount Cube.

Then I drove back to Lyme and hopped up to one of its favorite viewpoints to look back at the same mountain. Read on!

First snowfall

Winter is here?

At daybreak today we woke to our first proper snowfall – with an inch of fresh snow on the ground by 7am. We’d seen snow flurries once or twice in the past week, but now we can confidently say that fall has ended and we’re entering stick season. It appears raspberry season has ended, as well!

Mount Monadnock

Back again, after 41.5 years.

The first (and last) time I climbed Mount Monadnock, in southern New Hampshire, was over four decades ago… as a senior in high school. Despite living in New Hampshire for nearly all the years since then, I have never returned. Why? my impression is that it is always crowded. It was true in May 1982, and it was true now in November 2023. (Some say it is the second most-climbed mountain in the world, behind Mount Fuji in Japan.) Read on for the story of my visit this weekend, and for the gallery of photos!

View of summit of Mount Monadnock from the Pompelly trail.

End of the sculling season

all good things…

I enjoy sculling (rowing) on the river, in the early mornings, from May through October. Prior to May, the water is too cold for to be out on the water alone; after October, the air is often too cold. (My personal threshold is forty degrees; rowing in 30-degree weather is far too chilly!) Darkness is also a factor this time of year… it’s too dark to see before 7am.

Some years, though, I manage to sneak in one or two more outings in the first days of November, when the weather holds and my calendar allows. This morning I enjoyed one final spin up the river, passing the few remaining ducks, geese, and other migrating birdlife. (On a recent outing, I saw four bald eagles!)

Time to wash and stow the shell until spring… and with snow flurries in the air three days ago, it’s time to dig out the snow-season equipment!

Wildlife camera – October

Fox, deer, bobcat, and more!

My two wildlife cameras spent another month in the yard, capturing some fun photos and video of critters who visit our property. Most of them were captured at night, using the cameras’ infrared illumination. Check out the gallery!

Perhaps the most fun video was the parade of animals that came by our patio to check out the spot where we’d accidentally dropped a pizza as it came out of the pizza oven! I also experimented with other locations.

You may want to take another look at September’s gallery, to which I’ve added some new content. Lots of critters came to browse for fallen apples under the apple tree: groundhog, possum, raccoon, porcupine, turkey, deer, fox. I was particularly excited to see a bobcat come by one night!

For November, I’ve placed the cameras in the forested hillside across the street – with landowner permission – and am hoping for some more action “in the wild!”