Up Moses Creek: The Hatband

I was on the ridge this morning admiring the autumn-red leaves of a gum tree, lit up by the rising sun, when a titmouse landed and, fixing his black eye on me, shouted a word in Bird I know — “Snake!” He shouted it so loud you could have heard him down in the yard. And every time he shouted it, he turned first one way on the branch, then the other. And with every turn, he fixed the eye on that side of his head on me. 

Up Moses Creek: This is the world!

Like some mountain man who’s happy in his holler, I’m happy to live up Moses Creek. It’s the right place to read, write and ramble in the woods around our house — the 3Rs of retirement for me. But sometimes, days having passed, and wondering how the water flows, I’ll drive down the creek to the Tuckasegee River, where the valley opens up and traffic rushes past, and looking around, I’ll think, “So, this is the world!” 

Up Moses Creek: 2 a.m.

A sudden, loud crack came through the open bedroom window, startling me out of sleep — “What was THAT?” Then came a cascade of pops and snaps that told me a tree was falling, a big tree, to judge by how long the noise lasted. Some tall wooden thing weighing many tons had just crashed. 

Up Moses Creek: ‘When, Wren?’

Finally, we can go out the back door again. For a month we made a front door detour around an unplanned construction project on the back porch. 

Up Moses Creek: Thinking Like an Empty

I was at Lazy Hiker brewpub in Sylva enjoying a meal with Moses Creek friends and talking about the neighborhood trash pick-up that was planned for the morrow — part of Jackson County’s “Cleaning Up the Mountains” campaign — when one of them mentioned another person who lives up the creek and predicted that we’d see his Michelob Ultra empties along the road. My friend had picked up after him more than once. 

Up Moses Creek: A Siphon Does Not Sip

Ready?” I shout over my shoulder up towards the pond. I am straddling the end of a long, white plastic pipe filled with water, its end taped shut with a wrap of 5-mil plastic.

Up Moses Creek: Coyote Howl

I was hiking in the woods above our house at sunrise when coyotes began to howl behind me, and they howled and howled.

Up Moses Creek: I’ll Fly a Ways

It takes something special to draw me out of Moses Creek — there’s so much here to see and do and write about.

Up Moses Creek: The Red Maple

The air was still and frosty when I started up the trail that November morning to watch Black Mountain light up in the sun.

Up Moses Creek: You come too

If happiness can be found in simple things, then Moses Creek is the place to look. And often those things are seasonal, which adds the element of pleasurable anticipation to their arrival. 

Page 1 of 2
Smokey Mountain News Logo
SUPPORT THE SMOKY MOUNTAIN NEWS AND
INDEPENDENT, AWARD-WINNING JOURNALISM
Go to top
Payment Information

/

At our inception 20 years ago, we chose to be different. Unlike other news organizations, we made the decision to provide in-depth, regional reporting free to anyone who wanted access to it. We don’t plan to change that model. Support from our readers will help us maintain and strengthen the editorial independence that is crucial to our mission to help make Western North Carolina a better place to call home. If you are able, please support The Smoky Mountain News.

The Smoky Mountain News is a wholly private corporation. Reader contributions support the journalistic mission of SMN to remain independent. Your support of SMN does not constitute a charitable donation. If you have a question about contributing to SMN, please contact us.