Blue Ridge blog

Leaning into the wind....

My husband poked me in the ribs last night and said, " I swear I just felt the house scoot an inch." The winds have been pounding and unrelenting. We haven't had electricity in over 16 hours. I'm not complaining for the winds have ushered in larger horrors recently than me being seen running about town with greasy hair...
On Hillbilly Savants Mike Mason wrote a poignant first hand post from the campus of Virginia Tech called, 'Ruination Day'. He ends it with two poetic writings which offer me food for thought. One, a meditation by John Donne another by singer/songwriter Don McLean. Go have a look-see.

As for me, I know the winds will eventually calm, but in the meantime I will keep leaning into the powerful winds of adversity, with my camera in hand, of course. Ya never know what the wind will blow and I want to be there to see, even if it ain't all that pretty. I take my cue from Bob Dylan who had it figured out when he said, "The answer my friend is blowing in the wind, the answer is blowing in the wind."

Hanging in there....

A good day begins with a roof over your head, as opposed to the unfortunate day when a roof is on top of your head. Our house quivered with every little 65 mph wind gust. I did not sleep well mainly because the wind blowing through the trees was plain noisy. I discovered a couple of trees fallen across our drive this morning. My husband had a delightful early morning date with the chainsaw. Anyway, above is a tranquil scene taken this morning on Frank Mast Road in Valle Crucis. I enjoyed believing this may be the last day Hanging Rock is frosted with snow this season**fingers crossed**. Note: I did tone map this photo. The contrast was too much to deal with on a deadline morning amidst gale force winds.
Below is my Jeep and one fallen poplar on our road.

On Snow and Junk...

This photo, taken at 3:30 pm today, is no longer accurate. Instead, the ground is now white. So it is snowing in Boone. Yawn. I'm bit weary of snow these days....
I would rather talk trash. Yes, trash. Because early this morning my youngest and I picked up several bagfuls at Watauga High School. Oh please. Don't applaud us for our dogooder-ness because frankly our hearts were not filled with joy and fuzziness as we anticipated the work. Youngest volunteered only because she needed to fill in one more blank in the whole college application circus. I did it because Youngest couldn't sell any other teenagers on the idea of helping her pick of their own litter on a Sunday morning. The town of Boone's 'Big Sweep' began today and it is the only day she has free all week. The nice lady with the town of Boone gave her bright orange trash bags, gloves and an orange safety vest. The bags and gloves were helpful. The orange vest is most definitely on Youngest's list of fashion 'don'ts.'
Our mission began in the flower beds near the entrance of the school. There weren't many flowers blooming, but man there sure was a proliferation of gum wads. I was concerned Youngest might not hang through the tedium of fingering 'abc' gum. Her sense of humor was clearly absent and was mixed with the abject horror someone might witness her being good.  The vision of a Bud Light can stuck in a bush right next to the 'Visitors' parking area did lightened her mood somewhat.
She held it up in triumph and said in a voice dripping with sarcasm,  "Go Watauga."
As the Sacred Heart Ministries church service let out, she started to panic. She gathered her orange sack and ran towards the upper parking lot.
"I don't want anyone to see me doing this," she said.
I followed her.
It was there we discovered the mother-load of all high school sins/trash over in a ravine between the lot and the school's main drive.

Watching me watching you...

These guys would barely gave me a second look. After securing several 'safe' shots from my Jeep, I had to get out of the car, walk closer towards them, wave my hand above my head and yell, " Hey y'all, look at me dammit." Finally they did. Snap. This shot.

Lots going on this weekend and next, but there are a couple of happenings that are near and dear to my heart so thought I'd share 'em with you:

1- Scott's newest book 'They Hunger' is on the bookshelves. It's like Deliverance meets Eric Rudolph meets Vampire bats. Read on...

2- Mark Smith is Valle Crucis' Hollywood connection. Smith is a screenwriter and director and his newest film is 'Vacancy' starring Luke Wilson and Kate Beckinsale. The movie opens on April 20th. Watch the trailer. On a personal note, Mark's wife is my friend and birthday buddy. We were both born on April 9, 1963. Our daughters also share the same birthday as well as being spin class fanatics.

3- The Appalachian Roots Revival is next weekend. My paper is sponsoring the event. I will be there.

4- The Boone Music Reunion is next weekend as well. It is a get together of Boone bands from the late 70's-90's. The organizers have worked hard to collect and archive mp3's from 28 Boone, North Carolina bands. Wish I could be at the Gamekeeper. On a personal note, my college roomate, Ruth B. married Opposition guitarist Dave Hubner. Last I heard, Dave had achieved the rank of Lt. Col and was the TF-1-77 Commander based out of Germany. He had served at least one tour in Iraq. Ruth and David have two boys and are living who know where? I bet Dave still plays the guitar and Ruth is right there swooning. She better still have my pink sweater I gave her...

The windmill on Howard's Knob c. 1983

This was the view of Howard's Knob during my college days at Appalachian State University. I dug these little gems out the other evening. Back then I used a pitiful Kodak 110 film camera. Here is a link to the Wiki which has a fantastic shot of the windmill which was taken down in 1983. In 1980, the Boone windmill was written up in Time Magazine and which referred to it as the not only the world's largest windmill, but the noisiest as well. I remember the windmill as my Boone compass/landmark. As I drove down old 421, there would be no mistaking which ridge was Howard's Knob. The majority of the time I remember the blades of the windmill locked. When ASU students weren't flocking down 321 towards The Rock for a drink at Holly's Tavern, Clyde's, or Mother Fletchers, they would head up to Howard's Knob to gander at the trailer sized office attached to the windmill. There was a fence built around the structure to prevent folks from 'riding' the blades. Dennis Scanlon, a professor at ASU has put together a PDF file which describes the Mountain Ridge Protection Act of 1983 as well other helpful info about wind and windmills in North Carolina.

A new word enters the hillbilly vernacular, sort of

Overheard at the Harris Teeter this morning:

Cashier; "I was only one minute late and my mom went totally Nifong on me. My weekend is gonna blow."

Bag Boy: "She did what now?"

Kathleen Parker is credited with the neologism using Nifong's name when she used it in this column :

"Now we can 'Nifong' someone when we want to trump up criminal charges based on flimsy evidence allegedly for political purposes. In short, when we want to screw up someone's life."

Personally, I thought it would take a bit longer to creep into our language. What's the next neologism?  It'll probably have something to do with Don Imus . The definition of Imus: "To publically put one's foot in one's mouth, resulting in loosing one's job."

Like he did.

The Cardinal Rules

I shot this little guy through the window while visiting my favorite Wanda on Saturday. Notice the colors in this photo--green, red with white snow in the background. It is like Christmas but at Easter. I bet those pretty green leaves are freeze dried by now. It looks like South Carolina peach crop and North Carolina apples took at hit as well.

My hair is my crown and glory...

Forty four years ago today I was born and still I have yet to experienced a respectable hair cut. My hair goes from fine, flat and straight as in this photo to especially wonky with those permanent waves I endured during the 1980's big hair days.
As my daughters and I were going through a few of our photo albums last night, I allowed them to pick out goofy photos of me to put on my blog. My youngest was horrified as she saw a photo of me at a 'Supertramp' concert in France.
"Mom has a mullet. You had a mullet. Look, Mom had a mullet. Oh my god, I can't believe you had a mullet." She kept saying this over and over all evening as if the idea was so unfathomable she just couldn't get her mind wrapped around it.
My eldest thought my attempt at a 'Bob' was particularly unflattering. "The angle of the photo doesn't do the ugliness of the haircut justice," she said as she took out a photo of me putting lipstick upon her. 
Frankly, I don't think my hair looked so bad in the photo above taken when I was 5 year old. But I'm curious as to the rationale of posing me next to the trash can. Mom, did it go through your mind that the trash can was looking particularly lovely that day so you said to Dad?
"Honey, the trash can is in full bloom today. Why don't you take Re Re out back and take her photo beside it."
You can tell by my expression I was thrilled with having my photo taken beside the trash can.
Anyway, I reckon being 44 makes me feel just fine with showing the internet what is most certainly my crown, but not so much my glory. Ehhh.  Click on the continuation if you want.

The dog who ate Easter

The Easter Bunny goofed. Instead of arriving at a more realistic hour fitting teenager's sleep schedules, the Easter Bunny was up and at 'em at the Freeman household around 8:30 a.m. I know because I watched out the window while it hopped about depositing shiny plastic eggs around the house. Harley was close on the heels of the Easter Bunny, following it and watching its every move. As the Easter Bunny finished his business, Harley retreated indoors via the doggie door. I drank my morning coffee in peace. About 20 minutes later I looked outside and noticed Easter egg debris scattered in the driveway. I ran outside and found Harley sitting under the dead Maple tree cracking open a blue egg in hopes of munching upon the Neapolitan Coconut Slice inside. Harley enjoyed Easter very much this year, thank you Easter Bunny. Fortunately for my girls, Harley cared nothing for the eggs containing dollar bills and it was quite entertaining to watch my daughters cringe as they picked up the plastic eggs covered in dog slobbers.

Onion Snow

So if you happen to find a frozen butt in this field off of Deerfield Rd., it is mine. I left it there, right after I got tangled in a mess of barbed wire and landed my arse smack down in the snow. Dang, I tore my favorite blue jeans, too. So glad you didn't see me and take my photo. Of course, if'n I had seen you do the same thing, I not only would have snapped the photo, but I would have also posted it on my blog...
I was attracted to this scene because of the green onions poking out of the snow. Here's a definition of an'onion snow' straight from the mouth of dude living in Plummer's Hollow, Pa. I reckon he ought to know...