Antique Tools

I found this near-century-old English fork and spade at an antique dealer. Sheffield steel (I was told), smooth, well-worn ash handles (T-handle on the fork, D-handle on the spade). Well used -- nice to think of all the dirt and potatoes they turned in their time. Notice how short they are -- witness to generally shorter people in the 1920's? Or perhaps because they were made for small, kitchen gardens, a step up from hand tools? I won't use them, but will clean them (probably leave the crumbs of English soil lodged in the top of the spade blade around the handle), oil the wood, and hang them on the wall as a silent testament to man's first pleasurable occupation: keeping the Garden. And the wounds on the wood and metal as a grievous testament to man's second, harder challenge: coaxing "plants of the field" by "painful toil" in competition with the "thorns and thistles," out of a cursed landscape. I will pretend my maternal English Blackburn/Draper ancestors used them for fun and profit.

Stamp on the fork: "Brades Skelton, Made in England"

Stamped on the spade: "Made in England, Parkes Diamond Steel"

November Tomatoes and Peppers

A pleasure to still be getting tomatoes and peppers from the yard in mid-November:

Definition of "Shin"

A shin is a device for finding furniture in the dark.

New Web Browser

A totally new web browser for social networking has been in development the last couple of years and is beginning to be released in Beta. (It's interesting that the web/social networking has changed a lot in recent years, but browsers really haven't.) It's called RockMelt -- you have to sign up for it on Facebook on their page. (Note: for Macs, works only on Intel-based machines.) Here's a look:

Feeling Better About Bittman

I have been less than enthusiastic (critical) about food writers like Michael Pollan and the New York Times' Mark Bittman for several reasons, not the least of which has been their unwillingness (in my opinion) to speak more honestly about what they know to be true: that consuming plant foods is a key ingredient in solutions to world-level issues like the healthcare crisis, world hunger, and ecology. I'm feeling better about Mark Bittman (not yet so much about Michael Pollan). In a recent (Oct 18) culinate.com interview here is what Bittman said:

Now I have some kind of philosophy: We should all be eating more like vegans — less meat, more plants. It’s the simplest thing in the world. You don’t need to know anything about health, phytonutrients, selenium, fat, salt — it’s all bullshit. The important thing is, you eat more plants and eat less of everything else. That’s what it all boils down to. . . . The key to survival is a plant-based diet. I don’t mean we have to be vegan, but we’re 90 percent nonvegan now. Begin by being semi-vegan.

Nice job, Mr. Bittman. Thanks for speaking up.

Another interesting article recently (Nov 7) in New York Magazine explains why "Vegetables Are the New Meat" in New York City. That makes it sound trendy, but some trends are good and result in permanent change.

Shopping in the New Jerusalem

On Saturday, October 30, shoppers at the Macy's department store in Philadelphia were surprised when more than 600 professional choristers, who were mingling among the shoppers, began singing Handel's Hallelujah Chorus accompanied by the world's largest pipe organ which happens to be in the historic Wanamaker Building where Macy's is located. The event was part of the Knight Foundation's "1000 Random Acts of Culture" which will take place over three years. Maybe what shopping in the New Jerusalem will be like.

A lot of the folks seeming to sing with authority are wearing round, brownish badges -- maybe they're the choristers (?). A shame that Handel's Messiah is now firmly ensconced in "Christmas Culture" rather than "Christian Culture" where it began. But having Christ presented at the counters of commercialism is a good thing regardless. (Tip 'o the hat to my grade- and high-school buddy Lile for passing this on.)

Airline Vegetarian Meals

Because I rarely fly, and never fly internationally, I was unaware that so many vegan/vegetarian meal options are available on international flights. This is a sample from a Flickr collection of beautiful photos of such meals which can be requested.

And on a less healthy note: Want to see your tax dollars at work? This New York Times investigative piece highlights the inconsistency of the US government promoting less fat, then spending millions through the USDA's program to promote the marketing and sale of dairy and cheese products -- saving Domino's Pizza business in the process. The closer we look at how Washington works (with our money) the more pathetic it gets.

Men and Dogs

A friend recently sent me one of those things that circles the globe on the Internet every day: "Why Some Men Have Dogs and Not Wives." I'm sometimes misunderstood when I forward things like that piece—it's obviously gender-biased, stereotypical, and probably distinctly Southern and therefore likely to offend. But I liked if for two reasons: First, it's creative. I would love to have the writing chops to think and write so creatively. And second, it made me laugh—because, as they say, the reason we laugh at some kinds of humor is because we know there's a kernel of truth lurking within. This piece qualified in both ways.

But I still didn't post it.

I decided to today because of a news video I saw about a beautiful dog whose owner was killed five and one-half months before—and how the dog waits every day on a country road for his owner to return. That kind of loyalty belongs on the list below except it's too serious. Most men probably long to share life with someone who will be excited when they return home—and wait loyally for them should they not appear. I know I do—which is why someday I'll have a dog (for starters) when I can give it the life it deserves. (Whatever happened to loyalty anyway? The most important theological concept in the Old Testament—loyalty—Hebrew hesed—is rarely mentioned these days and maybe even less practiced. Maybe because loyalty is so hard, which is why it's so valued when found; why news videos are made about it. And why we bipeds ought to take a lesson from our quadruped pals.)

The original list is below (less appealing than the original which had pictures) and the news video I mentioned can be seen here.

Why Some Men Have Dogs and Not Wives

1. The later you are, the more excited your dogs are to see you.

2. Dogs don’t notice if you call them by another dog’s name.

3. Dogs like it if you leave a lot of things on the floor.

4. A dog’s parents never visit.

5. Dogs agree that you have to raise your voice to get your point across.

6. You never have to wait for a dog; they’re ready to go 24 hours a day.

7. Dogs find you amusing when you’re drunk.

8. Dogs like to go hunting and fishing.

9. A dog will not wake you up at night to ask, “If I died, would you get another dog?”

10. If a dog has babies, you can put an ad in the paper and give them away.

11. A dog will let you put a studded collar on it without calling you a pervert.

12. If a dog smells another dog on you, they don’t get mad. They just think it’s interesting.

13. Dogs like to ride in the back of a pickup truck.

And last, but not least:

14. If a dog leaves, it won’t take half of your stuff.

Co-laborers

As one who lives a plant-based nutritional life, I don't eat animals. But neither do I object to intersecting with their natural lives in a healthy, mutually-beneficial way. "Mutually beneficial" suggests that animals might get something out of doing good—like some sense of satisfaction or purpose. The fellowship (commonality) of man and beast in the photo* above is a good example of a healthy relationship, it seems to me. Horses are amazingly strong animals—and why so? Perhaps to help till the earth and grow food.

In Chariots of Fire, Scottish sprinter Eric Liddell said he could feel God's pleasure when he ran. If horses could talk, I wonder if they would say they feel God's pleasure when they pull? Absent an answer from them, I choose to believe they would. Man's calling is to have dominion over animals which means to honor them, care for them, treat them with respect, and create environments in which they can express their creature-ness. (Which, of course, excludes eating them—something seemingly missing from their created design in Genesis.) When strong horses are allowed to do their pulling-thing because they are healthy, not stressed, and well cared for, their symbiosis with man seems wholly good and natural; benefitting both man and beast, redeeming something out of the fallen landscape on which we live.

*The picture is of Ryan Foxley (and his horses), a horse-powered small farmer who also writes wonderful articles about farming with horses for Small Farmer's Journal. Ryan's blog chronicles life on Littlefield Farm, from which I lifted the picture. There's not an email link for contacting Ryan on the blog so I wasn't able to get his permission to use the picture. Hopefully he won't mind.

The Reading Life

Heard an NPR interview this morning with Southern mega-novelist Pat Conroy celebrating the release of his new book, My Reading Life, in which he talks about the books and writers that shaped his reading and writing life. He gives priority credit to his mother who read countless books to him at bedtime during his young years, especially novels—e.g., Gone with the Wind when he was five.

My father's mother was a book-lover and reader, as was my father. My mother was a teacher before she married and drove us continually to the Carnegie Library in my Alabama hometown to check out books to read—I remember paging through the Louis L'Amour western frontier novels prior to sixth grade. I was raised in a house filled with books, as were my children, and their five separate abodes today contain their own collections. That's not uncommon, of course. The farmhouse I've been looking at in Ashe County has a room dubbed "the library" with tall bookcases filled with books. Good for the owners.

I recently re-watched the three parts of Tolkien's Lord of the Rings. My son, Daniel, commented that he is reading through the 900+-page one-volume edition at present with his two daughters (9 and 7) -- an inviolable nighttime pattern in their house that has already taken them through The Chronicles of Narnia, numerous George MacDonald fantasies, and others. The great thing about reading is that the author's story gets re-created and re-set in as many different ways as there are readers and listeners. Every reader's imagination has free reign to imagine what a Tolkien Ringwraith actually looks like. For me, I'll have Peter Jackson's version forever in my mind. And a great one it is. But mine (or yours) could actually be as good or better. And likely more satisfying since we saw it in our own mind's eye.

In some writing lately I was reminded of the difference between Greek logos (word, idea, concept) and rhema (saying, specific word). The Bible is the written logos of God, Jesus the living logos, while rhema is that word-in-time that jumps off the page and quickens the heart and enlightens the eyes—the "sword of the Spirit which is the word [rhema] of God" (Ephesians 6:17).

So, good on all the parents who read to their, and other, children the logoi, God's and others, setting the stage for rhemata to jump from page to person, thus creating a reading life.

Ashe County II

Made another day trip to Ashe County, NC, today -- this time to take a second look at a house and property I've been studying for the last two weeks.

This was one of the highlights of the trip -- a circa 1932 Ford roadster. My brother and I used to build models of these when I was young.

We built models of engines just like this: a Chevy (probably) small-block V-8 with a blower (supercharger) and twin 'quad carbs. (Street talk, 'ya know.) When you goose the throttle, the three round discs on the front of the intake open and force huge amounts of air down through the carbs and the mixture is compressed by the paddles inside the blower (the big chrome unit underneath the two carburetors) so as to force larger amounts of gas/air mix into the engine, thus providing greater combustion and more speed. Oh, man . . .

I've been captivated by this house for years. It's on Highway 16 north of Wilksboro, headed toward West Jefferson. It's been sitting exactly like this for the five years I've passed it. It sits in an odd place -- on a slope in a pasture. I've always liked the wrap-around porch and the obvious, ample square footage. I can't help but wonder about the people who called this house "home" and why they are no longer there. The world is so full of stories that no one will ever know.

They did have a nice view . . .

I first got acquainted with West Jefferson, NC, when my son Daniel and his bride, Jennifer, bought a ROUGH but classic (i.e., old, traditional) mountain cabin just north of the town after graduating from Appalachian State. Pure mountain water came into the cabin through a plastic pipe from a spring that bubbled out of the earth a couple hundred yards up the mountain behind the cabin; the grey water from the kitchen sink ran out into the side yard, which I came to find out was not unusual for old mountain cabins. Their first baby, Ellen, was born in a giant water-birthing pool they set up in the cabin, assisted by a mid-wife. Such is life in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Ashe County.

West Jefferson today is growing -- new restaurants, art galleries, and shops are filling the main drag in the old storefronts, and a thriving farmer's market runs two days a week. This is West Jefferson's main street coming into town:

West Jefferson is known for its Appalachian-themed murals painted on the sides of buildings in the downtown area:

Jefferson Station is a former furniture factory in the heart of downtown WJ. The factory shut down years ago and sat empty until a developer bought it five years ago to turn it into a combination condo/commercial/office space -- not a bad idea. The condos were loft-type, with 24-foot ceilings. I read about the development on the web site of the Mountain Times newspaper published in nearby Boone, NC, and called to see what was the deal. I drove to West Jefferson the next weekend and put down a deposit on a small condo -- they were just beginning to build them out. I hired an architect to draw blueprints for adding a second-floor loft to my condo where I would have my office/work area. It was an awesome floor plan -- about 1,350 square feet total (900 downstairs, 450 in the loft). My plan was to sell my house in Charlotte and move into the condo in WJ for a couple years so I could continue to look for a farm to buy in Ashe County. Long story short -- a couple of family complications developed in Charlotte and I decided it wasn't a good time to move, so I got my deposit back. And the developer put my condo back on the market the next day for $20,000 more than the contract I had signed. So I left 20 G's on the table. A year ago, I saw an ad on a WJ real estate web site for a condominium like mine in Jefferson Station for $40,000 more than my contract had been. I know -- I should have moved, lived there 2-3 years, and sold. HIndsight is a killer:

I always laugh when I pass this "store" on the way out of town. This guy specializes in Appalachian cultural miscellany:

His specialty -- for years -- seems to be old bathtubs. These may be the same ones that were sitting there five years ago. Who buys old bathtubs? Mountain farmers use them as watering troughs for livestock, I know. Other than that . . . ? I'd buy the bell in a heartbeat.

I was a bit early for my appointment to see the house, so drove through Warrensville toward Creston on Highway 88 and stopped to look at this power-generating station on the North Fork of the New River.

How'd you like to live in that house and fall asleep listening to this every night?

The house I've been looking at is 6-8 miles north of West Jefferson in a VERY small crossroads called Warrensville. The house was built around 1920 by the Roten family who were prominent farmers and business folk in Ashe County. It's been upgraded quite a bit since, and has gone through several owners, but the bones are original and solid. It's one of the most uniquely designed old farmhouses I've seen in terms of the interior layout. All the original wood remains unpainted: solid wood floors and beadboard on the walls and celing. (Pictures of the interior of the house are here.)

The house sits on 4.6 acres with two streams running through the property. Its water comes from a spring that runs into a 500-gallon cistern and bladder system that supplies the hose, with propane and wood-fired boilers (use either/or) for heating the water that runs through radiators in the upstairs. The downstairs is heated by a propane forced-air furnace in the crawl space. Their is a flu in the living room where a traditional wood stove once sat and which could possibly be re-opened. The current owners have a horse that is pastured in the primary open area in front of the house. I would use this rich pasture area -- fertile mountain land with eight years of horse manure mixed in -- for food production:

Another view with the larger of the two creek's bed visible in the foreground. The owners showed me a beautiful photograph of the house taken during last year's snow -- you'd think you were looking at a Currier & Ives print, it was so gorgeous:

Another view of the creek. The owner said his daughters spent many happy summer days playing in the creek when they were young:

The back of the house:

The back and deck from the opposite corner:

The owner, Ken, loves this: a tire on the adjoining property had a seedling growing up through it when they bought the house. He decided to let it lay, and now the tree is 20 feet tall, begging the question: "How'd that tire get around that tree?"

The spring box, full of perfectly-clear water that comes out of a spring over which the box sits. It has about two feet of ice-cold water in it. Ken slid the cover off and cleaned a handful of tree roots off the filter (growing from the large tree in the upper right of the picture). The water runs through a pipe about a hundred yards to a cistern near the back of the house.

There is a seven-stall barn with a second-floor hay loft -- perfect for little kids to create a fantasy world and for barn-cats to have their litters:

This is the propane boiler that heats water that runs through radiators to heat the second floor of the house. The 750-gallon wood-fired boiler is to the left -- either can be used to heat the circulating water -- wood or propane. You can't see it very well in this photo, but the propane boiler is sitting on top of the concrete spring race -- a long narrow trough that most farmhouses had -- a step up from the traditional spring house -- through which ran ice-cold spring water to keep milk and other foods cold before refrigeration was common. The spring race hasn't been used in years, and would require relocating the propane boiler. But the idea of that cold water running through the race is a HIGHLY romantic notion to me -- one I would love to restore. I have seen them active in two other farmhouses I looked at a few years ago in Ashe County:

In talking with another West Jefferson couple who lived in the house for 19 years, selling about 20 years ago, the wife told me about a huge stone under the house that had some kind of "carving" on the face of it -- possibly from Indians or settlers many years ago. The house was built over the stone and the stone served as a base for a pier supporting the house's foundation. Ken was kind enough to go into the crawl space and show me the stone. The area where the light is shining is the carved portion -- difficult to tell what it represents. They've never had it examined by an artifact expert -- but it would be fun to explore:

And the requisite farm cat cuddled up next to the scarecrow in the swing on the front porch:

Driving back on Highway 163 outside West Jefferson, saw another of the traditional quilt blocks painted on the side of a barn, part of the Quilt Trails of Western North Carolina project. (It was almost dark -- not much light on the picture.)

What do you think? The house is being shown by realtors almost daily -- five showings this weekend. It's historic, priced fairly, and in move-in condition (the bathrooms and kitchen have all been seriously upgraded -- one-year old stainless appliances in the kitchen, etc). I don't see it lasting very long.

This is what keeps me going back to the Blue Ridge Mountains:

Milk

The human body has no more need for cows' milk than it does for dogs' milk, horses' milk, or giraffes' milk.

~ Michael Klapper, MD

(Thanks to thesoulfuleye.com for the quote.)

Fiddlin' Around in Ashe County

This past Saturday I took a day-trip to Ashe County, NC, for two reasons: to view a small property (100-year-old farmhouse on just under five acres) and to meet Audrey Hash Ham, a well-known fiddle maker in the mountains and daughter of the (late) legendary fiddle maker, Albert Hash. More about the property in another post --

Leaving the Charlotte area at the crack of dawn, heading north:

On Highway 421, headed west toward Wilksboro, you come over a rise and catch the first sight of the beautiful Blue Ridge Mountains rising in the distance. A gorgeous sight:

The Ashe County imitation of a Swiss mountainside collection of cottages. Who says the sides of mountains aren't valuable? This was taken between West Jefferson and Warrensville. On a trip to the area a few years ago, I saw a beautiful painting of this very collection of buildings with the Virginia Creeper running along the tracks at the bottom of the mountain. The Virginia Creeper was a steam locomotive rail line that was built in this area in the early 20th century to haul out the massive virgin timber that was being cut off the mountains. The painting was contemporary—the artist had painted these houses and inserted the Virginia Creeper train into the picture as it would have looked a hundred years ago. The owner of the painting told me that an elderly local resident once saw the painting and said, "That's not right." She pointed to one of the buildings in this photo and said, "That house right there wasn't built when the Creeper was running through the area. It was built later." That's the kind of priceless information that passes out of existence with the patriarchs and matriarchs of the world:

Mountainsides in Ashe County are now used to grow Christmas trees by the millions:

The route to Audrey Hash Ham's place led me through Lansing and a fresh look at the old Lansing School. This noble structure was built of stone back in the New Deal days when Roosevelt put people to work all over the country building things, some of which weren't needed. Ashe County was even more sparsely populated then than now, yet this school was built and used by the children that could make their way to it. I was soon to learn that Audrey Hash Ham, living in Grayson County, VA, just over the NC-VA border, attended this school through the 8th grade. When I first saw this silent memorial standing empty 4-5 years ago on my first trip to Lansing, I immediately wondered if it could be bought and put to some good use -- a craft center or community center or some such thing. It now houses a winery, so at least it's being used for something. What a gorgeous building -- I remember looking in the broken windows at the HUGE, high-ceiling classrooms and solid wood floors and thinking, "What a shame." The handrails in the foreground of this picture are for stairs that go down to a tunnel bored under the highway so children could have safe passage to the ball fields across the road:

To find Audrey Hash Ham, I was headed for a gravel road north of Lansing called Bear Wallow Road -- seriously -- that looked to be almost on the NC-VA border. It was a good weekend to go -- the heart of the Appalachian leaf season:

The roads were paved into the seriously-high mountains until I hit Bear Wallow Road, which was gravel. It climbed up and up and up until this kind of view was possible:

I went past Audrey's place and stopped twice to ask directions from a couple of lovely mountain folks. Houses are about a half-mile apart, the road being single lane until you reach a driveway where you can turn around. I eventually found Audrey's (and husband Bob's) double-wide sitting beneath a HUGE maple. The NC-VA border runs through their front yard, their trailer and barns being in VA, the front yard and driveway being in NC. That's Audrey's workshop to the right, requisite mountain barn in the background:

Albert Hash built instruments on the side. He was a founding member of the Whitetop Mountain band, one of the earliest of the now plentiful old time/traditional bluegrass mountain bands. It's still in existence today, though with different members. His fiddles were highly sought after, and he was an instrument-making mentor to legendary guitar-maker Wayne Henderson who lives and builds guitars in Rugby, VA, in Grayson County (pop. 7). Eric Clapton wanted one of Henderson's guitars a few years ago and Wayne put him on the list along with everybody else who wanted one. And he finally got it 6-7 years later. Pre-owned Henderson guitars (if you can find one) now sell for around $15,000 or more.

Albert's daughter, Audrey Hash, began building instruments as a young girl, making about a hundred dulcimers before turning to fiddles, of which she reckons she has made about 80-85. She only has one of her father's fiddles -- but it's beautiful:

Maple is the standard wood for fiddles, this one remaining unstained with a beautiful one-piece back:

A signature "H" is carved into the neck's heel:

And an eagle's head in place of the traditional scroll:

Audrey Hash Ham, holding her father's fiddle (on the left) and one of her own built in 2009 -- stained a reddish mahogany color (I came home with this one):

In this video, Albert Hash, Audrey's father, is playing a fiddle that looks very much like the one Audrey is holding above (the light, maple fiddle, on the left):

Audrey told me in our conversation that she wasn't the greatest player: "I can play well enough to clear a room in a minute." She took a few strokes on the red fiddle and said, "Told you I could clear a room:"

We spent a couple hours talking about music, the Bible, life in the mountains, and instruments. It was a pleasure to meet Audrey (and Bob) and be able to acquire one of her fiddles -- she doesn't build much any more, so the one I bought will likely be one of less than a hundred by the time Audrey is promoted to heaven.

Inching my way back down the mountain, stopped to marvel at this beautiful setting -- a cross-shaped farmhouse sitting down in a valley. When you are in the mountains, there's not a sound except the wind and the occasional crow. The silence is startling at first:

On the way back to Lansing, saw this barn and quilt design. It's part of the "Quilt Trails of Western North Carolina" project, an effort to reproduce traditional Appalachian quilt designs on the sides of barns and buildings throughout Western North Carolina:

Left with the dawn, returned in the dark -- following the harvest moon from the mountains back to Matthews: