The Best of Times

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July in Coastal Georgia is without a doubt among the best of times for locals and vacationers. It’s the month when summer has taken up full residency in the Golden Isles, with National Picnic Month kicking off on July 1 followed by all the flags and flares and other festivities of Independence Day on the 4th. It’s the month when freshly picked corn is so sweet it tastes like dessert, when the ice cream churn is pulled out of the garage, dusted off, and filled with cream and peaches. When the kids run and play and swim so hard that they drop like sacks of sand at bedtime, with noses and shoulders kissed by the sun and healthy glows across their faces.

Occasionally, though, July can also feel like the worst of times – creating a tale of two islands – evidenced by the “celebration” of World Snake Day on the 16th and mass quantities of bug spray being sold at Island ACE Hardware and the local drugstores. There are indeed serpents in paradise, along with gnats, ticks, and chiggers. But the hot weather irritants are far outweighed by the joys of summer. So, let’s start there, with the best of times.

On St. Simons, there are plenty of places to spread blankets and open up coolers and picnic baskets if you’re interested in recognizing National Picnic Month. One of our favorite spots on the island is the backyard of the Land Trust’s offices. If you’re biking or walking down Frederica Road this summer, we’d love to see you. Begin your visit at 1810 Frederica by checking out the latest offerings in our “Little Free Library” and join our favorite bench sitter, Tony, who does his morning reading in our front yard almost every day. Next you can search for “The Old Man in the Tree,” one of the island’s much-photographed tree spirits. We have picnic tables available out back, along with a bat house and the beginnings of native plant gardens. Your little ones might be intrigued by the remains of the rope swing (now looking more like a moss-covered vine from the Jurassic period). This is a remnant of the days when the property was a private residence and local kids swung from the rope and splashed into a freshwater pond. The little lake is no longer there, but that doesn’t stop ibis and herons and other shorebirds from visiting us often. We hope that you’ll visit, too, especially when we host one of our “Movie Nights Under the Oaks” or other events that are meant to thank this community for helping us to save the many magnificent trees that would have been felled on our property to make room for a proposed dollar store. You made it happen, so please stop by soon!

Across the street from us, you’ll find another spot saved by the Land Trust and a perfect place for a few minutes of downtime under wisteria-draped live oaks. 1819 Frederica Road is the site of the former Mildred Huie Art Museum. Mrs. Huie, a well-known impressionist painter and local historian, and her husband Carl built their residence here in the late 1920s. After her death, the building was maintained as an art gallery and museum by Mrs. Huie’s daughter, Millie Wilcox, a much-loved patron of the arts in this community. The corner property (comprised of four platted lots) was purchased by the Land Trust in 2018, preventing a commercial space, multi-family dwellings, or additional single-family homes from being built in an already congested area. Although the house itself is no longer inhabited, many species of native plants have thrived on the site for the nearly 100 years since the Huies lovingly created a sanctuary for artists.

Cross the street and head north on Frederica and you’ll find the John Gilbert Nature Trail. When in 2002 Dorothy Gilbert donated these forty acres to the Land Trust in memory of her husband John, she did so to protect her family’s marsh-front property and to make sure that “John’s Oak,” an ancient and enormous live oak, would never be destroyed. Our guess is that Mrs. Gilbert would never have guessed that twenty years later her beloved land would be one of the most popular spots on St. Simons, with walkers, cyclists, and drivers stopping daily to follow the wooden boardwalk through a maritime forest to the marsh. The Nature Trail is open seven days a week from sunrise to sunset, and in July it’s the perfect place to catch a marsh breeze. When sitting on a bench under John’s Oak, it’s easy to imagine being miles from the summer hubbub when in fact you’re only footsteps away from the busiest road on the island.

Further north on Frederica, at the intersection with Sea Island Road, is another iconic property – Old Stables Corner. The previous site of the Sea Island Stables, where generations of islanders and visitors learned to ride, the 2.3 acres are filled with live oaks and other native trees. It, too, is a perfect spot for resting on one of the benches, checking out the Little Free Library that is a replica of the old stables, or spreading out a blanket for a picnic that you’ve purchased from one of the many nearby restaurants that are partners of the Land Trust.

There are several other places for those July picnics. But there are also numerous spots where you can keep moving and observe some of the wildlife that is abundant in the summer. This brings us back to World Snake Day on July 16. 

It has taken a lifetime, and working among naturalists, for me to go from being terrified of snakes to forming a great appreciation for Ben Franklin. It was Franklin who suggested the rattlesnake as a symbol of America when he wrote, “She never begins an attack, nor, when once engaged, ever surrenders: She is therefore an emblem of magnanimity and true courage.” Every time I read this quote, I am reminded that old Ben also wanted the national bird to be a turkey. But Franklin was right about the rattler. Although all of Georgia’s barrier islands have the perfect habitat for this venomous species, it will never start a fight or chase you down as I always dreamt it would when I was a child. Instead, if you stay on your side of the trail, it will stay on the other. That is true for most of the wildlife found on St. Simons and other coastal areas. Whether it’s a snake or a bat or an opossum, they were all here long before we were, and they all play important roles in our ecosystems.

The weather in July may be sweltering, and the skeeters may be relentless. But the plusses of hiking through maritime forest at Cannon’s Point Preserve or riding a bike on Polly’s Trail at Guale Preserve far surpass the downsides of summer on St. Simons. Bug spray is a cheap price to pay for the first sighting of a painted bunting or the hatching of a baby sea turtle. 

If you stop by the Land Trust’s offices, be sure to pick up a copy of our “Passport to Preservation,” or download a copy from our website. With the Passport in hand, you and your family can learn more about the nearly 1,200 areas in our Trust and gain an even greater appreciation for this incredible place where we live and play -- one of the most biodiverse spaces on the planet. A perfect date to do this is on July 28, World Nature Conservation Day. This day was established to recognize that a healthy environment is the cornerstone of a healthy society. That’s certainly worth a snake or two!

For additional information about the St. Simons Land Trust, please call 912.638.9109, drop by our offices at 1810 Frederica Rd., or visit our website at sslt.org.