Rambling in Claiborne County

A ride down to Claiborne County to no point in particular yielded this batch of photos the other day:

Water drop on lily pad

Gator in lake at Port of Port Gibson

Cedar tree at Rocky Springs Cemetery

Graveyard fence post at Rocky Springs Cemetery

Mailbox on Curtis-Luster Road

Ferguson Tractor logo

Tree trunk graffiti

Yellow leaf on wet rock in creek

Farmall Tractor logo

Farmall Tractor sitting alongside Curtis-Luster Road

Red Lick Road in Claiborne County

To get from Barland Road, where the Little Bayou Pierre waterfall is, to Red Lick Road requires a step in faith. My route took me down Violet Road, which has to be the thinnest and curviest gravel road in the world. Man!

The top photo is of the Crossroads Masonic Lodge along Red Lick Road. It doesn't look like it has been occupied in quite a while. The steps leading up to the door were pretty shaky. I sure wish I could have gone in!

I surely wasn't expecting to see the next photo...a big ol' yellow bus at a place called Muhammad's University of the New Islam. I am kicking myself now for not getting a picture of their new bus, one of the fanciest rigs I have seen in quite a while. I have never heard of this place. 

The last two photos are of a rare two-seater outhouse located behind an old church now occupied by the Love and Deliverance Healing Christian Center. I just had to show you the custom, hand-carved seat in one! Ha! Mother Nature is claiming this little building... and not a moment too soon!

What a way to end the week! Y'all come back now, ya hear!

Little Bayou Pierre II

Early morning is not the best time to shoot photos of this beautiful little waterfall as I was shooting into the sun. So I will be going back one afternoon to take a look. It was interesting to see the numerous mussel shells that could be found along the creekbank. Another interesting feature was the crumbling limestone that was located on the opposite side of the waterfall. I love knowing each layer of that limestone has a history to it.

Tomorrow I will show you some photos of my ride along Red Lick Road. Mother Nature is claiming an old structure..and not a moment too soon! 

Little Bayou Pierre waterfall

This beautiful little waterfall is located on the Little Bayou Pierre off Barland Road in Claiborne County. I just thought the waterfall on Curtis-Luster Road that I posted about a few days ago was hard to find. This place is way down in southeast Claiborne County and takes quite a while to get to. Good thing it was worth it. I swear I am going to have to get me a video camera. The sound of this rushing water over the small fall was wonderful!

Little jewels like this is what makes photography exploring so rewarding.

Tomorrow, I am going to post a couple of other photos I found at the waterfall.

Friday, I will be posting photos of something that is surely disappearing from the modern landscape! Thank goodness!

Sarepta Methodist Church

I went exploring in Claiborne County again this past weekend looking for another waterfall, this one on the Little Bayou Pierre. But first I detoured to the Sarepta Methodist Church, a beautiful little country church. This present building dates from about 1850 and is the last of five structures to house the church body. It was originally built for the Pisgah congregation, located near Hermanville, but was moved to the Sarepta site sometimes after WWI when Pisgash ceased to exist. In the 1800s, the building also served as a community school. 

Don't try to find the Sarepta community in Claiborne County on any present-day map. Because it no longer exists, just like Pisgah. You can google Sarepta and Claiborne County to find out a few more details about the church. All I know is that it was quiet and peaceful inside this little sanctuary.

I am beginning to see a trend here. Little country churches are simple structures, opening their doors to one and all who venture by. Their message is one of come on in and find God. Modern churches nowadays have too much invested in their fancy sound systems and lighting and computers to allow the doors to stay open 24/7. It's something to think about.

Come back each day this week. I will eventually make it to that waterfall and it is a wonderful place!

Freeland Cemetery

Tom Freeland, an attorney from Oxford, emailed me last week. He writes a blog called NMissCommentor,  http://nmisscommentor, and had linked to my blog post about the Sprague.  The photos above are from the Freeland Cemetery located on his family land near Windsor Ruins in Claiborne County. The cemetery is in the woods on top of an old Indian Mound and the builder of Windor is buried here. On the day I visited, it had started raining right before my fellow photographer friend Jerry Rushing and I got there. And I am so glad it did! It certainly made the colors of the old brick wall and leaves come alive! (Can I say that about a cemetery?) Anyhow, it's a beautiful place with history galore.

Down Claiborne County way

This is a waterfall down on Curtis-Luster Road, way down in the depths of Claiborne County. I knew there would be some water running down the creek after this weekend and have been wanting to go shoot it for some time. I wasn't disappointed. Took me a while to find it, but it was definitely worth the trip. It is a gorgeous place. On Tuesday, I will show you an even prettier picture taken just up the creek from this fall.

Beaver Sculptures

This past weekend I rambled around Claiborne County and ventured to one of the neatest places in this area — the lake at the Port of Port Gibson. This lake has provided some of the best and funnest photos I've ever shot, from dragon flies to alligators to thousands of white lotus plants. The water in the lake was the highest I had ever seen it. The heron in the top picture was there to greet me. When I was leaving the lake, however, was the fun part. I passed by a bayou on my left and nearly every tree in the bayou looked like it had a white stripe at the base of it. I drove about 50 yards past it before I had my "wait a minute" moment. I backed up and walked down to the bayou and saw that nearly every tree at its base had been stripped of bark by beavers. Only one tree in the scores I saw gnawed on had been felled. A few had had serious attempts on felling them, but most had just been savored for the one layer of bark. I never could find the lodge these fellows called home, but it was something I had never seen in that quantity before. I'm glad I had my snake boots on because I never would have ventured down to the bayou without them on.

Up close at Windsor Ruins

Now for the rest of the story...

As I wrote on Monday, I was angered by the fact that there was no fog or even a good sunrise at Windsor Ruins when I went to shoot there Saturday. But something happened. As I was standing there in my funk, a still, small voice spoke to me. Six words and six words only.

"Marty, stop looking and start seeing."

I was standing next to a scraggly little bush near the fence line of the ruins and I looked down. The first thing I saw was the fungus in the top photo. I have never seen anything so intricate and delicate. It was amazing! I ran to the truck, put on a macro lens that I have and went back and started shooting. I usually am not too good at macrophotography because I am too impatient to carry around a tripod and take the time to set it up, get it adjusted, fix it just right, you know what I mean. So I slapped on my monopod and had the time of my life! I started walking the grounds of Windsor seeing all the little things that were all around me. It was a whole new world! Fungus, seed pods, tiny knots no bigger than a BB in vines, tiny water droplets looking like tiny diamonds, clover so small I could cover it up with the tip of my key! The detail in these miniature creations was just amazing and awe-inspiring.

Aren't you glad we have a great God! A God who would take the time to put teeny, tiny hairs around the top of a teeny, tiny piece of clover so the dew would catch on it and provide it nourishment. If these photso are too small, click on the individual photos and they should pop up a larger size!

I appreciate the lesson God taught me Saturday. I am humbled by a God who took such care to design the small things we never even take the time to see.