Virgin Longleaf Forest
In this photo, I am standing in Moody Forest, Appley County, Georgia, in a section of old-growth Longleaf, tall columns with crowns touching the sky.
Old-growth Longleaf Pine grow sporadic, unlike slash pine in neat rows, but as God-planted from flat-winged seeds blown by the wind. They nurture themselves disguised as wire grass until their root system anchors them deep into sandhills.
The idea for Song of Jaybird was gifted to me by Marcia Beasley, historian, and author, of the Floral City Heritage Museum. She told me about Etna Turpentine Camp, located in a part of present-day Withlacoochee State Forest.
Etna is a historic archeological site on the National Registry of Historic Places.
When I began my research, I knew nothing about the turpentine business. Before researching the Naval Store Industry and the history of African American laborers under debt peonage or resin harvesting, I had to understand Virgin Longleaf Pine.
Janisse Ray’s book Ecology of Cracker Childhood was my first introduction to Longleaf. Her relationship with nature, land, animals, and plants provided an awareness of a disappearing ecosystem, which resonated with my understanding that virgin Longleaf Forest in Citrus County, Florida, no longer existed.
During the Antebellum history of the Naval Store industry, Longleaf Pines were devastated by the millions in the Southeastern states. By the mid to late 19th century, the industry had moved into Georgia and Florida. Closer to home, it is beyond comprehension that Citrus County once had an ecosystem of old-growth pine, which I had never known.
Janisse Ray’s crusade and devotion to preserving an existing virgin Longleaf Forest through the Nature Conservancy allowed me to walk through old-growth Longleaf. On October 25, 2020, my husband, Michael, and I visited Appley County, Georgia, to walk in the Moody Forest, 8 miles north of Baxley. I aimed to see the lonely forest as my characters would have done at Etna.
I counted Henry's steps in the October mist from tree to tree, carrying his axe. This excerpt is from Chapter 35, “Tallies” of Song of Jaybird.
“October’s air was thick with a soft mist, glazing Henry’s skin. He looked into a slate-gray sky defining edges of emerald green crowns. A cool fine haze gently collected and formed an infrequent single drop. When Henry’s beveled hack cut a streak, a shiny black crow cawed four times overhead. Blue jay flew by as Henry continued his “V” cuts from tree to tree. “Ya callin’ me Jaybird? Ol’ Henry ain’t givin’ up!” He chipped another level of cat whiskers. His steps formed a zig-zag pattern between God-planted trees, raised from wind-blown seedlings, which had been missed by rooter hogs and skipped by fire. The moisture brightened the cinnamon-colored bark where flames had missed. Fallen needles shifted under his feet, and thin grasses wiggled at his movement. Sixteen steps. Nineteen. The dampness enhanced Rattler’s musk, not yet retired into Gopher’s burrow. It knew Henry’s steps. Third tree to the right…seventeen steps. Fourth tree to the left… sixteen. Rattler made its zig-zag pattern between the trees in the opposite direction. Do not change your pattern of work because rattlesnake knows.”
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