Waiting

Originally Posted October 19, 2021

After nearly a year of waiting, we are preparing to start our trip across the country to visit equine rescue homes and to observe wild mustang habitats. Olive, our beautiful airstream sits patiently in the yard waiting for her maiden voyage, after considerable modifications that allow her to be free of campgrounds and to park herself in the wild BLM lands out west. Solar panels, lithium batteries, water filters, cell signal boosters and other unmentionables, she is itching to travel.

Jenny has been carefully cataloging the bands, their stallion and mare leaders, their offspring and the realignments that occur every spring. We are gathering our snake proof boots and binoculars and readying ourselves for the vagabond life that lies ahead. Do we have a plan? Not really,….

Cam

6:30 AM Charlestown Beach

Originally Posted October 22, 2021

There's a quiet anticipation this morning at the campground. The Rhode Island coast is magnificent, and as the sun gently rises, a tropical breeze blows hard, erasing all sense of time.

It was a late night last night at a premier fishing location. The striped bass have been close in the surf, and in the rip nearby fishing boats struggle to maneuver in the current. All here are friends, or maybe just friendly, the friendship of returning year after year. A ventured hello. Never a name mentioned, lest it be forgotten.

It’s a tropical, coastal, beach world. A fellow I see constantly, surely not the same one, grizzled, in waders, rides an electric bike down the beach with a milk cart on the back, poles upright. Moving up and down the beach to the birds and the bait, he moves again quietly when the fishing boats drive the fish away.

Grace Farms

Originally Published November 1, 2021

We spent Sunday afternoon at Grace Farms in Connecticut with our friend, Sharon Prince, the Founder and CEO, on an 80-acre public space that supports nature, arts, justice, community, and faith. 

Sharon is a powerhouse of boundless positive energy, bringing together a group of extraordinary colleagues involved in countless initiatives, and creating an inclusive and friendly atmosphere for families, scholars, organizations and individuals.

At the center of the farm sits the River Building, designed by the Japanese firm SANAA along with the close collaboration of Sharon and Bob. It’s hard to describe the effect of this structure, which practically disappears into the landscape. The attention to detail, or rather the attention to eliminating detail, is heroic. The structure has been disguised, boundaries eliminated, soffits calculated, chair fabrics and curtains nearly dematerializing, and all in support of an atmosphere of quiet contemplation.

Tucson

Originally Published November 2, 2021

Tucson was her favorite. He arrived in the middle of the night squeezed into a three horse trailer with another yearling, a donk, a mini and an injured mare with her 6 month old colt. Equine Rescue Network had outbid the kill buyers at the largest auction house east of the Mississippi: the dreaded New Holland, PA Auction house. Like most of the equines dumped at New Holland, he was underweight, and his coat was dull and matted with rain-rot, still sporting the glued-on sticker that all poor souls are given when entering into the slaughter pipeline.

Before (January 2012) After (August 2013)

Tucson had clearly been handled as a foal, was halter trained and human friendly. Why such a fine young horse would so easily be tossed away is one of the many mysteries of the rescue world.

Today, Jenny visited with ten year old Tucson in Flemington, New Jersey where he lives with Elisa, his owner. It was another family reunion on our trip south to see old friends.

The Kids are Alright

Originally Published November 4, 2021

The two families camping across the way have five or six children between them.  The parents are young, in their thirties. The kids are home schooled.  They have been travelling for two years. 

The night we arrived, the kids were running around playing, shrieking with laughter.  This morning, an older one came out early, lit a hibachi, and crouched down to get warm.  Younger ones followed.  There were friendly exchanges. 

I asked the parents about the home schooling. There was no mention of religion, only that school turns people into factory workers. They had been dutiful students, they said, and were not about to subject their kids to the same thing.

What about the curriculum?  No, they said, there wasn’t one. They explored history every place they went. The rest took care of itself, with the oldest often acting as an instructor to the younger. 

What it must be like to be a child today with the incessant shower of commerce, media and technology. Here in the park, every morning is like a Saturday in 1960. 

Charting our Course

Originally Published November 7, 2021

Charting our course between the “open-road” and having a place to sleep, so far we’ve avoided Walmart and Cracker Barrel. No doubt the time will come.

In North Carolina, we are trying to visit our friends, both furred and unfurred.  Leaving Massachusetts later than we liked, the fall weather is now bearing down on us, with every other day rainy and windy. Some days we hunker down in Olive listening to the rain on the roof, emerging like chickens from the shell at the end of the day. 

This morning we met a couple.  They had sold everything they owned except for what remained in the storage trailer behind their camper.  Gone were the house, her mother’s house, and her mother.  They were living in campgrounds now.  There was a sense of “Nomadland” in listening to her story, the need to tell me everything, hoping that the plot was holding together, where they shed everything until they were free from whatever they had left behind.

Then RSS

Chesapeake

Originally Published November 11, 2021

“Do you hear that sound?”  He had a satellite dish outside his RV, and watched the naval station.  “It’s the hovercraft.”  We rushed down to the dock.  There was a sunset, the hum of the large freighters, small fishermen returning to the dock, but no hovercraft.  We had heard sounds all day - pairs of F35’s, helicopters performing maneuvers just offshore, confounding looking planes flying low, and in the distance, an occasional sailboat would appear while a vapor trail scratched the sky.

Chesapeake Bay is a nexus of strategic, commercial significance. Every day a line of freighters sits outside the ports on inland side, a sign of the “supply chain” bottle neck.  One wonders how long they will wait for the results of the new infrastructure bill.  On the Del Marva Penninsula side, the consolidation of rail lines from New York and Philadelphia to ferries bringing one across the Bay to Virginia, and then on to Florida, were enormous, private ventures whose payoff was never fully realized, as the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel rendered the ferries, and to some extent the rail lines, obsolete, and a continual stream of trucks now easily crosses the bay. It was “disruption” twentieth century style.

Driving down the peninsula today, you see remnants of the earlier, pre-industrial landscape. There are intermittent cotton fields, long allayed driveways to retiring looking plantation houses, multiple small churches multiplied by denomination, class and other factors.  Between are gas stations, mini marts, boat dealers, fireworks shacks, cabins for rent, junk dealers and thrift shops.  It’s an economy struggling to catch a world passing it by at sixty miles an hour.

The sky here is larger, bluer and deeper as we head south.  Today when we went for our morning walk on the beach… there was the hovercraft.

Chincoteague

We expected to be surrounded by the Chincoteague ponies for which this barrier island is famous. However it’s November now, and they have moved inland.  They appear when only you are not looking, say, outside your camper first thing in the morning.

Assateague is a national park and at great pains to protect the ponies.  Speed limits are fifteen miles an hour.  Visitors are instructed to stay a schoolbus length away.  Visitors to the park live in a kind of parallel universe, generally unnoticed by the ponies.  There is a sense of removal.

In July it’s total mayhem here as the Salt Water Cowboys drive the ponies from Assateague Island to Chincoteague Island. It’s a three minute event generating much fanfare, followed by an annual auction to thin out the herd. 

The rest of the year it’s quiet.  In the summer the ponies lounge on the beach, while tourists battle the horse flies.  Grazing is plentiful, and attention is closely paid by the park staff to those showing signs of trouble.  Keeping the herd manageable level, mares are darted with PZP, a birth control method.

During our visit the winds grew stronger and the temperatures continued to drop, and so we found ourselves one of the last campers to remain at the campsite. We hunkered down in Olive, turned on the furnace, and thought about playing Honeymoon Bridge.

Originally Published November 11, 2021

Saturday Afternoon at a Rescue

Originally Published November 16, 2021

They were getting blankets on the horses before sundown, on those without winter coats, and those recently from the auction. The donkeys were less of a concern.  Hearty and thick with fur, they watched with detached amusement.  

Debbie has run this rescue operation for years.  With the air of a battlefield nurse, she ignores our offer to help and goes back to blanketing.  She has no time for us or for the single volunteer today.  Decisions have to be made quickly.  There are 40 equines, including a dozen donkeys.   Some will be adopted out. Others won’t make it.  Some will stay indefinitely, watching the new ones come and go.

Ten years ago there were approximately 148,000 equines sent to slaughter.  Last year there were approximately 14, 000.  In the interim, US slaughter houses were banned, Canada stopped taking equines due to the prevalence of drugs, most commonly Phenylbutazone or “Bute,” commonly administered to US horses for pain.  The rest were sent to Mexico to experience the most primitive and grisly of deaths.

The market for horses at auction is a complex one.  There are private buyers, rescue organizations and kill buyers.  Some private buyers may in fact be buying to “fatten up” and later sell to a kill buyer.  Some kill buyers may be purchasing at the “per pound” price only to resell to a private buyer. Some rescue organizations may not truly be able to handle the horses they adopt. All of this raises ethical questions, even among the most dedicated horse lovers, for which there is really no good answer.

Histories

Originally Published December 14, 2021

Blossom

Led into the barn by another donkey, she faced the corner of the stall, hoping that by not seeing us, we would not be able to see her either.  She was one of eighty wild donkeys, dumped at the Bowie kill pen in Texas, and still too feral to approach.  It would be nearly two months before Jenny could sit in the stall and feed her from the bowl.  It was another few months before a touch on the muzzle was permitted, and then only when distracted by feeding.  The rest of the time she preferred to be left alone, out in the paddock, the breeze gently blowing, calm, but with ears constantly attuned to potential danger. 

You never know what goes on during a round-up. The equines are crowded together, young and old, healthy and infirmed, mares and stallions. It is a prison yard.  There are no guards, except when they arrive with their electric prods.  What can relieve the trauma of such circumstances?  Histories are hidden. You only hope, as you look into their eyes, that with time they will begin to trust.  Hers were soft, fearful, and surrounded by long  strawberry blond eyelashes, saying maybe…someday...but not now.  We named her Blossom.

It’s difficult to assess the exact age of a rescue donkey.  Her teeth would have told us. We guessed eleven. Early on, donkeys develop a stout, stolid figure, but Blossom's figure continued to, well, blossom.  Perhaps we should ease up on the grain, we thought, and then it dawned on us…she was pregnant. 

We watched as she became enormous.  She 'bagged up' and began to drip milk. The time was near.  We knew that we couldn't be of any assistance.  We worried.  Then, she escaped from her paddock.  At night.  Feral.  Uncatchable.

We searched in the night, we called, we listened.  Then we heard her footsteps on the wooden footbridge in the lower field.  We attempted to round her up.  She headed in the opposite direction.  We circled around.  She maneuvered the other way.  Finally, when she was ready, she casually returned and hopped back into her paddock. There’s an old expression that if you think donkeys are stubborn, you’ve just been outsmarted by a donkey.

The next morning there were two donkeys.

Apple

Apple was irresistible. Her mother did not object as we swaddled her, patted her, pushed her and played with her as she developed from a shaky foal into a rambunctious paddock presence. She was eminently adoptable. Nevertheless, we decided to keep her with her mother, for her sake, and with the hope that her mother might soften with the arrival of her new charge. This did not happen unfortunately, and when it came time to wean Apple, a year later, off went Apple to adoption, and off went her mother to Save Your Ass Long Ear Rescue in New Hampshire for hopeful rehabilitation.

Noah

At the age of 4, Noah found himself at the New Holland Auction in Pennsylvania, the largest auction house east of the Mississippi, known to be frequented by kill buyers looking for cheap horses to ship to slaughter in Mexico. He had sustained an injury to his stifle making him unfit for work of any kind.  A Percheron,  black as night, tall, lanky thin, he stayed for his thirty day quarantine with Jenny before joining his rescuer/owner, Kara, at Meredith Farm in Topsfield, who had his stifle surgically repaired.

When Kara adopted Apple, she joined Noah at Meredith Farm. Jezzie the senior donkey, took it poorly.  She had ruled the larger, acquiescent Percherons, Noah and Ella, and the old chestnut Rondo, unchallenged.  It was only when Rondo stood guard over Apple day and night, that peace was finally restored in the paddock.

When Kara decided to move them all to Mooresville, North Carolina, Rondo had passed on,  Noah had turned from black to dappled gray, and finally to pure white. Ella remained aloof, and Apple and Jezzie had become inseparable. 

When we visited the Meredith Farm crew in Mooresville today, we wondered if they remembered us, our scent, of voices, our touch…or was it the carrots.

Shoebox Canyon

Originally Published November 26, 2021

Lunch was served.  It was black eyed peas, mushrooms, garlic, chives and lettuce from the garden. We had just let the mules and ponies out.  They ran and bucked in the lower field before settling down to graze.  Earlier we were treated to a ride on the Pickle Raft in the pond behind the barn. We floated dreamily, gliding over the snapping turtles in the pale green water below.

Julia and Bernie live a life of ascetic luxury.  They are both writers, she of a blog called https://www.consideringanimals.com/ and Bernie of several books, including Too Proud to Ride a Cow: by Mule Across America.

Everything on the farm is considered, carefully made, enhanced, celebrated, reconsidered, remade, transformed, preserved, repurposed or put to greater use.  It is a palmlipsest of objects born of and yet always returning to nature.

The equines are pristine.  Coats shimmering, they are brushed, loved and tended to daily.  In return they carry Julia and Bernie on journeys into the Blue Ridge Mountains and beyond.  It is a partnership well understood.

Julia was our neighbor once and had left everything to join Bernie here in Shoebox Canyon, just outside Lenoir, North Carolina.  They thrive on working hard, eating less, and being a little cold all the time.  Until recently they had no bed, but slept on blankets on the floor of the cabin. 

She showed us a small coatrack with a few shirts and jeans.  That’s my wardrobe, she said.

The Uwharrie Forest

Originally Published November 20, 2021

We’d heard the dogs howling until past midnight, tracking under the moonlight.  Most in the Canebrake Horse Camp did not appreciate it, having settled their horses down for the night, they were not in the mood for interruptions. Ensconced in the front quarters of their horse trailers, they turned up the radio.

“How did you guys do last night?” we asked Willy Trent when he walked by in the morning.  “Oh…just one possum in a hole.”  We gathered this was not success.  Still, he seemed unperturbed.  Cautious at first, he paused, waiting to see if there was anything else.  We asked about the dogs.  Black and tan, he said. We asked some well-meaning, uninformed questions.  No, that would be a blue tick.  Yes, those are blood hounds, but that’s something else. They all do something different. 

There are many things that go on in the Uwharrie Forest. One hears shotguns in the distance all day, and sometimes at night.  It might be a good idea to wear blaze orange when hiking, they said.  Wait, aren’t there designated hunting areas?  Yes, they said…

During the day dust covered jeeps stream down the dirt roads with military style trailers in tow.  At night, ATV’s ride back and forth. On the roads during the day we brace ourselves at every curve, waiting for an encounter.

On our first day we got lost in the woods. Paint slashes, plastic triangles, colored reflectors, numbers and names mark the trails.  Some trails remain unmarked.  Few correspond to the map. This is common in the national forests, and it appeared to be the fourth or fifth iteration here, creating an archeological and disorienting accumulation.

We came across two men trying to drive a jeep up a steep ravine.  No they weren’t stuck, just seeing if they could do it, and no, they had no idea where the horse camp was.   A motorbike approached, lost as well.  We looked at his map together and surmised our location, then headed back to the nearest forest road.

Eventually we were saved by two women on horseback who guided us back to the camp, just before sundown. 

Today we bought a compass.

Passing Through

Originally Published December 14, 2021

It’s a soft Carolina evening. Half the herd is dozing. It’s tranquil at Lynnwood Farm.  The lessons are done for the day.  The farm hands have gone home.

Over forty equines, twenty-five of whom train after-school riders, live here at Lynnwood.  They are arranged in paddocks according to the social order of the equine world.  The Arabian, who pitched his owner after leaving his paddock of mares, is now settled down peacefully with a group of no-nonsense geldings.  New arrivals are carefully integrated.  There are donkeys, minis, mules and horses of every stripe and feather.  There are thoroughbreds, acquired in Kentucky for practically nothing, and developed by young instructors to be resold later for thousands. 

On any given night, half the herd is inside, the other outside under the stars. “Hot bunking” as the Navy calls it.  Everyone has a healthy winter coat, not too spoiled by the luxury of the barn.  They seem to prefer the outside, the company of other horses being important.  One lies down down, one or two stand watch, as donkeys keep an eye on the coyotes.

There are many stories that accompany each equine, the underlying theme being the undiscovered magnificent creature, saved from a fate of iniquity.  One wonders about the parts of the stories that are understood amongst the creatures themselves, in the careful silence that exists between them.

This is a way station for four-leggeds of all types travelling south for the winter. Last night a trailer arrived with two mammoth mules, a quarter horse and three dachshunds. Fur heaven…

Okeechobee

Originally Published December 23, 2021

On either side of Florida's meridian is the west coast of St. Pete, Clearwater, and the pre-Castro Cuban communities of Tampa and Ybor City; and the East coast, starting in Miami and spreading North through Palm Beach, Vero, Windsor and an infinite variety of gated, golf communities.

A delineation of more cultural significance is Lake Okeechobee, separating the world of South Florida, oriented to the Caribbean,  South America, and Europe from a world that is essentially part of the American South. The people in this part of Florida are commonly known, both affectionately and jocularly, as Crackers.

The Crackers have a long history in Florida, starting as early as the late seventeenth century.  Scots-Irish for the most part, they became the custodians of the horses and cattle left behind by the Spanish. By the time Spain forfeited Florida to Great Britain in 1763, they had managed to develop a unique breed known as the Cracker Horse, made famous in an illustration by Frederic Remington.

The Cracker Horse was bred from Iberian stock, and was a small-boned, light horse. Gaited, it could be ridden for hours in relative comfort, and at a significant pace .  This made it well suited to the herding cattle that roamed freely throughout the flat landscape of Northern Florida.  With the crack of a whip, and hence the name "Cracker" the cattle were herded to their fate, serving both the Union and Confederate armies during the Civil War.  It is a source of significant pride to be called a Cracker today, and most are at pains to describe a genealogical heritage, no matter how convoluted or tenuous.

The cattle business is now defined by large ranches, both dairy and beef, serving most of the East Coast.  The Cracker Horse has been replaced by the Quarter Horse, a stockier breed. It is capable of of speed, though not long distances, and of cutting cattle, roping and reining, and is generally nonchalant in regard to bulls. Desirable characteristics of the breed include its gentle nature, versatility, beauty, speed, agility, and loyalty.

Bred from the Thoroughbred, the Quarter Horse derived its name in the late 17th century, having been raced successfully over quarter-mile courses, mostly in Rhode Island and Virginia.  They are the Olympic sprinters of today , just as the Cracker Horse was the long-distance runner of its day.

It is not uncommon to see a stock trailer drive by in the middle of the day with Quarter Horses tacked up and sweaty, being transported to their next detail.  Its a working life.

The Grand Prix

Originally Published December 23, 2021

We had driven there from Salt Springs in the Ocala National Forest, an hour away on a dead straight, isolated road, leaving the Dollar General stores and BBQ stands far behind. We emerged into Ocala, then passed miles of post and board fencing and verdant pastures, before finally arriving at what seemed like an international airport. Large hangars housed the stables, and a grand hotel and exclusive shops surrounded illiuminated competition rings as bright as runways. We might as well have been in Qatar.

Touring the stables at an event like this you witness some of the highest and most expensive forms of equestrian breeding. Living in a kind of spa environment, they are bathed, groomed, clipped, and massaged. Their coats glisten like a prize fighter. Most are seventeen hands or more, with the strength required to launch over the twenty or more jumps in the Grand Prix.

In their stables they are calm, often friendly, sometimes oblivious or entranced. They are elite athletes, and professional in their demeanor. The only things missing from them is a silk robe with their name emblazoned.

The Hay Field

Originally Published December 31, 2021

The mist was like a fine rain this morning, except that it didn’t fall. It just hung in the air like a cool and gentle elixir.

Last night we watched the clouds advance over the hay field, cut and fallow, and so wide you could almost feel the curvature of the earth, captured only by the hammock at the far edge.

The sun faded behind bursts of gray and silver, only occasionally revealing the turquoise sky behind. We sat quietly until all turned to stillness.

Perdido

Originally Published January 12, 2022

On an overcast day the magic seems to disappear.   It's as if the house lights come on.  On a sunny day the sky is bigger, the ocean broader, the sand whiter.  When it's gray, the sand is dull, the breeze foreboding, and the scrub brush skeletal.

Florida is a layer of sand onto which any arrangement of concrete, asphalt, gravel, and grass is possible.  The Panhandle received two hurricanes, Ida and Sally, one year apart, and though the recovery has been miraculous, there remains a certain temporality.  Palm trees topple and are quickly replaced. Underpinnings are shallow. 

Yesterday we came upon a family from Wisconsin in a modified school bus, three kids and no school curriculum.  "We just try to answer every question they ask - kids are curious," they said.  When the sun came out  the sky turned silver, the ocean pewter, and the sand held pockets of iridescent shells.

Later we drove past Jeffrey Bezos' ship, Jacklyn, a huge, converted tanker outfitted for the recovery of Blue Ocean's rockets.  The reality of the salvage operation took away some of the  glamour of space travel.  The house lights came back on.

Seaside

Originally Published January 11, 2022

"Seaside has become kind of seedy and I kind of like that," said Andres Duany, one of the founders of the New Urbanism, along with his wife and partner, Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk.  They designed Seaside as a prototype forty years ago.  When we arrived today it had hot dogs, crepes and grilled cheese sandwiches served from vintage Airstreams on the main plaza, so we felt at home. 

There have been innumerable towns built since on the model of Seaside, some designed by Andres and Lizz and their firm DPZ, and some designed by their protégés in the New Urbanism movement. The principles are empirical, traditional, and based on research. The fundamental notion is that streets are what make a town.  This might seem obvious at first, until you realize that the United States is largely rebuilt in the form of gated communities.

From a sustainability point of view one of the unique things about Seaside is its density, which is unusual given its location. Houses are close together with narrow streets, gravel aprons, alleyways and walkways winding through. This sort of thing is not normally permitted under most zoning codes, which dictate single family houses on minimum acreage lots. Such restrictions not only are environmentally destructive, contributing to endless suburban sprawl, but also add to the social stratification of America and the housing crisis in general.

At Seaside, as well as in subsequent towns based on this model, a new zoning was necessary to allow each house to exist in a mutually balanced arrangement with its surrounding neighbors. The design of each house is governed by a code that reinforces the definition of the street, similar to towns like Tupelo, Savannah or Oak Bluffs. Unlike an historic district code, it is not stylistic code. Rather, it is a dimensional code where the house and the street work together to create public spaces that contribute to the town as a whole as well as to each individual house. Lawns and asphalt are prohibited. Picket fences create a continuous Robert Frost civility.

It is interesting to note that the towns that have imitated Seaside fail to incorporate its fundamental principles. A development next door has borrowed many of its stylistic attributes in an attempt to emulate the "brand" yet was unable to shed the ubiquitous developer tropes of central parking lots, ambiguous pathways and dramatic architectural features with no real purpose.

The irony is that Seaside has considerably more dwelling units than the adjacent development, and these houses, originally built for a reasonable amount, are now worth a fortune, despite existing in a density comparable to public housing.

There have been many criticisms of Seaside and New Urbanism as a whole.  Are these real towns or just resort communities with second homes? How do these communities contribute to the problem of housing in America? All of these criticisms have some underlying truth to them, and in recent years Duany and Plater-Zyberk have focused their attention instead on the potential for new communities of mobile homes as a way of addressing the inequities in the market. Still, one has to ask, when looking at the gated communities sprawling across America, what is the alternative?

Seaside provides one answer.

The Gulf Coast

Originally Published February 1, 2022

From Mobile to Galveston, there is an uninterrupted coastline of white sand beaches.  Unlike Florida where condos tend to line the beach, here a road separates the beaches, meaning that they are almost entirely open to the public, that is, since 1965, when Blacks were finally allowed, after a yearlong "wade-in" at Biloxi

Cities come and go along this route.  Sometimes it's just a gas station, a thrift shop, a mini-mart and the ubiquitous tire shop.  Other towns have a vague resort quality with a combination of casino, hotel and RV park. The economy of the gulf coast is largely supported by oil and gas industry.  Nearly half of the country's fossil fuel demand is met here. To give you a sense of proportion, the annual industry report for Texas includes:

Refinery: Crude: 250,000 barrels (10.1 million gallons) processed daily Gasoline: 170,000 barrels (7.1 million gallons) produced daily total regular and premium grades Jet-A aviation fuel: 44,000 barrels (1.9 million gallons) produced daily Ultra-Low Sulfur Diesel: 95,000 barrels (4.0 million gallons) produced daily Anode grade coke: 1,000 tons produced daily

Chemicals: Ethylene: 3.33 billion lbs/yr Propylene: 1.44 billion lbs/yr Butadiene: 0.35 billion lbs/yr Aromatic Feedstocks: 0.84 billion lbs/yr

In Texas these refineries are mostly offshore on manmade peninsulas just off the coast.  In Louisiana they lie inland, in the infinite swamp above Lake Pontchartrain. In the daytime they blow cumulous clouds of steam.  At night they produce a halo in the sky from literally millions of lights illuminating their infrastructures.  Tankers move out to the coast the coast or up the Mississippi.  Railcars move in mile long phalanxes.

There is a Southern Gothic point & click narrative adventure that purports to “immerse the player in the sinking suburbs and verdant industrial swamps of a distorted South Louisiana.”  It is also the name of an oil refinery compound in South Louisiana.  We were returning from Natchez to New Orleans when we noticed a halo in the clouds in the night sky was.  As we approached, it seemed as if we were driving up East River Drive.  A virtual city was completely illuminated for several miles, with occasional flare stacks flashing in the night. 

https://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/mapping-climate-grief-one-pixel-at-a-time

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Natchez

Originally Published February 2, 2022

"You'll never find it," she said, when we inquired about the Devil's Punchbowl.  The flyers on the table at the Natchez Visitor Center encouraged us to "drive the Natchez Trace" and visit the "Antebellum Mansions," and so we visited the mansions.  We drove by some, walked around others, and toured the interiors of one or two. 

One cannot visit Natchez without stepping directly into the historical nexus of the Civil War, with all of its moral ambiguities.  Fact and fiction confound. Many owners of the large mansions had come from the North to take advantage of slave labor.  When Natchez surrendered peremptorily, the senior ranks of the Union Army included many of their relatives.  Occupation preserved their fortunes and their mansions, allowing them to stand today.

Natchez was also home to one of the largest slave markets in the South, The Forks of the Road, just outside the city limits. The Natchez Trace had provided a return route North to Memphis for crews manning the barges that floated down the Mississippi. With the advent of the steamboat, it became instead a highway for slave traders like Isaac Franklin and John Armfield, who took advantage of the failing tobacco economy in Virginia and the Carolinas to purchase slaves at a discount and sell them at a premium in the burgeoning cotton market of the Deep South. Cotton could now be shipped upstream on the Mississippi River or around the Florida peninsula to merchants in New England, and then to off to England. With the cotton gin increasing the productive capacity of the plantations, the textile industry in England and in the North, where slavery had already been outlawed, continued to drive the demand for cotto with its associated misery.  Today a small grass lot, across from a muffler shop and window tinting garage, marks the Forks of the Road.

Where fact and fiction collide in the most confounding way is the Devils Punchbowl.  The facts are that starting in about 1862, many slaves had left abandoned plantations and were headed north to freedom.  Often, sick, barely clothed and starving they arrived in Natchez to swell the population from approximately 10,000 to nearly 100,000.  Quarantined outside of Natchez, nearly 20,000 died of infirmity and starvation. Narratives compete to explain the circumstances surrounding this gruesome event.  One is that the Confederate Troops drove the escaping slaves toward the Union Army to slow their advance, thus creating a humanitarian crisis.  The other is that the Union Army created a "concentration camp" resulting in genocide. Both versions perpetuate the Lost Cause as well as the putative moral superiority of the Union. The reality is probably closer to what refugees experience when caught between two warring armies. Today the site lies just outside of town in a reconstituted landscape between Route 61 and the Mississippi. 

Perhaps our guide was correct when she said we would never find it.

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