Hunting Island Sunshine
Hunting Island State Park, South Carolina, U.S. – After a couple of stormy days the sun came back out and we made it back out to the beach and went back to what's left of the tree boneyard.
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Friends of a Long Year is a private mailing list bringing stories to your inbox like it's still 1995. It's written in the spirit of Mary Austin. It was originally called Place Without a Postcard, which does a better job of summarizing what I like to write about. Friends is delivered roughly twice a month.
Archive
Hunting Island Storms
Hunting Island State Park, South Carolina, U.S. – Our warm southern summer comes to an end.
On The Path
Hunting Island State Park, South Carolina, U.S. – When you are on the right path. You'll feel it. Life will begin to feel like what it is, a gift, an adventure, a joy.
Southern Summer
Edisto Island, South Carolina, U.S. – We've always made a trip to Charleston from Edisto, usually to do laundry, but this year we skipped that headed straight out to Battery Park for a picnic.
Edisto Holidays
Edisto Island, South Carolina, U.S. – Warm weather and empty beaches makes for the best Christmases. We even got ourselves a new refrigerator.
Perfect From Now On
Edisto Island, South Carolina, U.S. – And we're off again. Well, once we bleed the brakes in the rain and mud, because that's how new adventures in Travcos go.
Back to the Life
Hundred Acre Wood, South Carolina, U.S. – I forgot. I forgot the Pleiades. I forgot how bright Venus could be on a clear, cold night.
Perfect Day
Hundred Acre Wood, South Carolina, U.S. – We're not real complicated people. Give us some tamales, a working bus, nowhere particular to be, and we're happy.
Catching
Hundred Acre Wood, South Carolina, U.S. – My parents came for a visit and rented a house by a lake with a little dock the kids could fish from.
May Days
Hundred Acre Wood, South Carolina, U.S. – Things have been pretty quiet in the woods lately. We've watched the world wake up from winter, turn green, and fly away the way baby birds do after a few weeks. Not a bad life.
Springsville
Hundred Acre Wood, South Carolina, U.S. – Spring is the best time to be in the south, except for the pollen.
Golden Sunshine
Hundred Acre Wood, South Carolina, U.S. – No birds? How about rocks? Golden rocks. Piles and piles of golden rocks. Just kidding.
Oak Grove
Hundred Acre Wood, South Carolina, U.S. – It's never silent among these trees, but it is almost always still and quiet. When you're out here it's hard to believe there is anywhere else in the world.
Down by the Creek
Hundred Acre Wood, South Carolina, U.S. – Warm winter days are best spent at the creek, laying back in the soft sand bed of a shoal, sun on your chest, watching the white tufts of cloud drift across the deep blue sky.
Solstice in a Strange Land
Abbeville, South Carolina, U.S. – Aimless driving is not the most ecologically sustainable thing you can do, but I do miss it sometimes. Driving is a kind of meditation, especially in the wide open empty spaces of the southwest where I grew up.
Six
Hundred Acre Wood, South Carolina, U.S. – Five was one of those years that seemed to fly by. I feel like you just turned five and now you're six? How did that happen?
Like Learning to Ride a Bike
Hundred Acre Wood, South Carolina, U.S. – And they're off. Riding bikes and reading. My work here is nearly done.
An Invitation: Welcome Friends
Hundred Acre Wood, South Carolina, U.S. – I started a club in the form of an email newsletter. If you'd like to join or know why you might want to, and where the name comes from, read on.
Halloween
Hundred Acre Wood, South Carolina, U.S. – A rock star, a rock star leopard, and a rock star flying squirrel walk into a bar... a candy bar that is.
Walking the North Carolina Woods
Shining Rock Wilderness Area, North Carolina, U.S. – As long as we've had feet, humans have been walking everywhere we can. This fall seemed like a good time to get back to that original mode of travel.
The Light Is Clear In My Eyes
Hundred Acre Wood, South Carolina, U.S. – Summer heat never bothers me. It's the humidity. These days I find myself itching for that first moment the humidity breaks and you can feel Autumn in the air.
Summer Teeth
Hundred Acre Wood, South Carolina, U.S. – I am so far behind telling these stories I am skipping a few things in the interest of catching up. I spent most of the summer unable to write. Unwilling perhaps? I'm not sure, all I know is I feel like I lost a summer.
Eight
Hundred Acre Wood, South Carolina, U.S. – Happy birthday girls. I can't believe it's been only eight years since you arrived, it feels like you have always been here, like we have all always been here.
Now and Then It Keeps You Running
Hundred Acre Wood, South Carolina, U.S. – Between frugality, a pandemic, and wanting to avoid the soul-sucking of consumer culture that eats at us all, we ended up just camping in the house we rented. Who needs furniture anyway?