florida footpaths Podcasts

The Yearling Trail, Pt 1 - The Slideshow

Sun, 6 Jul 2008 15:41:10 -0400

The Yearling Trail is a gem of the Ocala National Forest and one of the sweetest hikes you’ll ever take. With every step, you’ll feel the ghosts of the Pioneers whisper past like an ever-present breeze through the tall pines. Read Marge Rawlings’ Pulitzer Prize winning novel, ‘The Yearling’ before you go and you may never be the same again.

Special thanks to my friends Pat Surface, Eli Bissonett, Mary LaPlant and the Spiritwoods Music Northwoods Ensemble for ‘Legends of the Fall’ and ‘Serenity’ from their cd ‘Cabin Serenity.’Always a pleasure to share the path with you.

Photographs of Kim Crow as Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings by Christopher Darling Photography. ‘An Invasion of Privacy’ by Larry Parr. Directed by Pamela Hunt. World Premiere Florida Studio Theatre, 1999. AP Picture of Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings from my collection.

See a Google earth map of the entire The Yearling Trail with Drew and Kim.kmz

Be sure to visit this complementary podcast,too.
©2008 Kim Crow. All rights reserved.

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The Yearling Trail, Pt 1 - The Trailcast

Sun, 6 Jul 2008 15:29:41 -0400

Part 1 - The Trailhead to the Sink Hole. 51:37 Minutes.
See a Google earth map of the entire The Yearling Trail with Drew and Kim.kmz

Special thanks to my friends Pat Surface with the Boundary Water Boys of Spiritwood Music and Mark Baczynski for their great music.

See a Google earth map of the entire The Yearling Trail with Drew and Kim.kmz

Be sure to visit this complementary podcast,too.

©2008 Kim Crow. All rights reserved.

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The Yearling Trail, Pt 2 - The Slideshow

Sun, 6 Jul 2008 09:38:40 -0400

The butterfly from the Sinkhole leads our way past the cattle dip through Jody’s Trace in the Big Scrub. 3:18 minutes 16.1 mb

Special thanks to my friends Pat Surface, Eli Bissonett, Mary LaPlant and the Spiritwoods Music Northwoods Ensemble for the beautiful‘Oak Pik Waltz’ from their cd ‘Cabin Serenity.’

See a Google earth map of the entire The Yearling Trail with Drew and Kim.kmz

Be sure to visit this complementary podcast,too.

©2008 Kim Crow. All rights reserved.

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The Yearling Trail, Pt 2 - The Trailcast

Sun, 6 Jul 2008 02:50:37 -0400

Part 2 - From the Sinkhole to the Cattle Dip, through the Big Scrub back to the Trailhead. 32:44 minutes 30 mb.

Special thanks to my friends Pat Surface with the Boundary Water Boys of Spiritwood Music and Mark Baczynski for their great music.

See a Google earth map of the entire The Yearling Trail with Drew and Kim.kmz

Be sure to visit this complementary podcast,too.

©2008 Kim Crow. All rights reserved.

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Nancy of the Wooden Nickel, Pt 1

Sat, 14 Jun 2008 23:14:39 -0400

Driving into Salt Springs on Rte 316, you can’t help but notice a big teepee on your right and a big sign with an arrow, “Wooden Nickel - Free Forest Maps.” Turn into the place -- watch out for Ozzie and Harriet, the peacocks -- and gaze in wonder. Take a minute to read the weathered-wood signpost and click your heels together three times. Betcha didn’t know that Land of Oz was this-a-way and Hog Valley t’other. Now step inside this eclectic and wonderful shop to sweet-smelling sage, Native American crafts and a very funny Wise Woman, our friend Nancy of the Wooden Nickel. Pull up a chair or a barrel. It’s time for sitting down and catching up. Part 1.

Be sure to visit this complementary podcast,too.

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The Wooden Nickel

Fri, 13 Jun 2008 09:25:10 -0400

Take a gander at the Wooden Nickel in Salt Springs. Here you’ll see a slideshow of Nancy and CatmanDrew with photos taken during our conversations in the podcasts ‘Nancy of the Wooden Nickel.’ The background drumming you hear is from the National Honor Society Pow Wow and Gathering, April 11-13 at Chambers Farm in Orange Springs.

Be sure to visit this complementary podcast,too.
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Jerry B. Thomas, Jr. Memorial Service

Sun, 25 May 2008 22:09:15 -0400

Here is a slideshow of few of Uncle Jerry’s many friends come together to celebrate one of the Forest’s Finest. Drew and I drove up from ‘Pee Wee Land’--Jerry’s name for Sarasota--to take part.

To listen to excerpts from his service and more, visit “Uncle Jerry is a Hummingbird.”

Many thanks to my friends Donna and Pat Surface (lead vocal) with Doc Rob Mattson and the Boundary Water Boys of Spiritwood Music for “A Closer Walk With Thee” from the cd “Spirit in the Sky.”

Be sure to visit this complementary podcast,too.

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Uncle Jerry is a Hummingbird

Sun, 25 May 2008 13:54:04 -0400

To tell you the truth, I didn’t know Jerry’s last name until he died. In Salt Springs, a small town in the Big Scrub of the Ocala National Forest, among the folks I call friends there, last names aren’t all that important. He was ‘Uncle Jerry’ to a lot of us. And to the rest of my world, he was ‘my friend Jerry who looks like Robert E. Lee - after the War.

If love can make you real, Uncle Jerry was one of the realest people I ever knew. He never pulled his punches and would call ‘em as he saw ‘em. He was the Real Deal and he told it like it was. He walked the talk and when he talked, you listened. His sparkling blue eyes looked into your soul and if he liked what he saw there, he’d tell you. And if he didn’t, he’d tell you. His battles were hard fought and his wisdom hard won. “Everyone has their own reality,” he’d say. He would also say, “Make sure you take time to smell the roses,” and every now and then, ”don’t let your alligator mouth overload your mockingbird ass.” Jerry knew how to listen and how to hug.

His favorite thing to do was to plant flowers, watch hummingbirds and spoil his dog Clyde. His favorite expression was, “It’s another beautiful day in the Forest.” Jerry’s ashes are now scattered there. And so it is.

In Loving Memory of Mr. Jerry B. Thomas, Sr.
Sunrise: July 22, 1935
Sunset: April 27, 2008
Time and Place of Services; 2:00 P.M. Saturday, May 24,2008
First Baptist Church of Salt Springs

Be sure to visit this complementary podcast,too.
Clyde

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Salt Springs Don & the Florida Song

Mon, 12 May 2008 22:28:56 -0400

Florida is musically speaking, a doubly lucky state. Not only do we have a State Song, we have a State Anthem. This says a lot about the depth of our musical talent, diversity of heritage, and general sense of accommodation. Ours is a our semi-tropical environment; we live with a seasonal influx of tourists as well a variety of amphibious life forms. We accommodate. We learn. We adapt. We wait for the perfect opportunity. In this climate, words and melody lie right beneath the surface, like an alligator in the Ocklawaha. Or, more to the point, an alligator Way Down Upon the Suwannee River. That gator waits for its clarion call opportunity to get those creative juices flowing, bubble up and bite.
Blood began to stir in our legislature a while back with objections to the lyrics of our State Song, Stephen Foster’s Old Folks at Home. Many of our citizens didn’t know our State Song was Old Folks at Home. They thought it was “Way Down Upon the Swannee River.” They thought Old Folks at Home were, well, the old folks at home. Which is quite understandable as a significant percentage of our population is, well…old. As to the lyrics themselves, to quote from Wikipedia: Foster sought, in his own words, to “build up taste, instead of the trashy and really offensive words which belong to some songs of that order.” A man’s reach should exceed his grasp. But the enlightenment of time has woefully rendered many of Foster’s lyrics, well, trashy and really offensive. Those particularly heinous phrases have been amended from the public record of the lyrics of our State Song, so for all sense and purposes they truly are Gone With the Wind. Still, the historicity and resonance of Mr. Foster’s ditty leaves many Floridians very uncomfortable.
I remember a newspaper survey asking, “What do you think Florida’s new song should be?” I found out later that the results showed the overwhelming, number one choice was Jimmy Buffett’s “Margaritaville”. The old folks at home seemed to really get a kick out of that - many of them retired here just because of that song. “Nibblin’ on sponge cake, watchin’ the sun bake all those tourists covered with oil.”
Seems we were at a State Song Stalemate, musically-speaking. So borrowing from the rich, modern American commercial exhortation of “Just Say No!” “Just Do It!” and “Just go shopping,” it was determined that we would have a song-writing contest: “Just Sing, Florida!”
There’s nothing a true Floridian likes better than a good fight, a good prize and a good song. Combine all three and you have the makings of a great contest.
Jan Hinton’s beautiful “Florida - Where the Sawgrass Meets the Sky” won the new song contest, hands down. Not only does it lyrically salute my own personal Florida Favorites - gators, orange blossoms, mockingbirds and Native Americans - the melody soars and just sticks with you. Even little children can sing it. “Florida - Where the Sawgrass Meets the Sky” is now officially the Florida State Anthem.
So, our Florida has a State Song and a State Anthem. You see, we accommodate. We learn. We adapt.
I was curious how all this would play out in the Forest. On one of our too-few visits to the Big Scrub of the Ocala National Forest, I was soon to find out. As luck would have it, I also had my portable audio field recorder with me. On a delicious winter evening, under a moonlit live oak tree, my husband Drew, our friend Earl and me and Salt Springs Don were sitting enjoying, chatting about everything and nothing, as good friends do. I asked him what he thought about Florida’s new song contest. Out from nowhere Don pulled out a handmade guitar, pieced together from remnants of a lifetime of old guitars. It looked like a wooden patchwork quilt with cat gut. Then he pulled out a slide he’d made from a piece of aluminum boat trim. The gator was bubbling up and ready to bite.
When people get agitated, they sometimes write a letter, honk a horn or call their lawyer. In the Forest, however, the folks there jump in a cold spring, go hunting or fishing or like my friend Salt Springs Don, pick up a guitar…

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