July,
she will fly
And give no warning to her flight. . .

One of the excuses I was given for losing my job, apart from budget cuts, was that I was not forward thinking.  Clearly, some people are not traveling the same sort of forward as me.  Today, my forward gained new momentum.  I've embarked on a journey whose path I do not know, only having the knowledge that I can't go over, around or under.  I've got to go through.  My forward is not to bigger-and-better and more and getting.  It is to less and simpler and quality-over-quantity. 

I never believed that "not forward thinking" bit anyway.

It's hard to say what's in store, though I may end up in a part-time position back at my old workplace.  After all, on unemployment benefits, you must take any job offered to you or lose your benefits.  We'll see what the mail fairy brings over these next couple of weeks.  Suffice it to say, just when I thought pigs couldn't fly, some went flapping by the window as I packed up my worldly goods from my desk.  Sometimes I feel the insanity never stops.

But there is always home.  It is the one place where Mike and I can find peace, no matter what the outside world throws at us.  Our pace here is set by us, not by a society driven by greed and rushed by desperation.  Our vegetables do not shout vain commands and the berries grow sweetly in the grass.  Indeed, my forward is the blessing of time on my terms, infinitely many bathroom breaks, and the first cloth diapers drying on the rack.

Give me my forward any day. :-)

June, she'll change her tune,
In restless walks she'll prowl the night. . .

Simon & Garfunkel :: "April Come She Will"

It's a quiet morning here at the Blackberry Bungalow; just the little pumpkin and me are awake.  Mike and I have enjoyed a few days of peaceful living after a whirlwind month.  We went to see Indiana Jones at the drive-in and, as usual, I was appalled at the price of snacks (we're taking our own next time).  The movie was pretty good, though, when you take out all the stressful parts. 

Yesterday we went to Boone for our quarterly trip to Earth Fare and vegetarian food fix.  Mike ended up eating meat (at the place which has replaced Angelica's), I had tempeh, and we came home with $18 worth of gummy candies from the Mast General Store.  You've got to have priorities.  Really, though, that candy will last us for months.  I hope.

I'm glad it's June, but this month still holds some surprises. 

Monday, we'll find out just who's wiggling around in my tummy and laying on my bladder.  Yesterday, the baby got into such a position that I was nearly squirming with pain and screaming for a bathroom.  Just as quickly, the baby moved and I was able to make it a whole 20 minutes without a bathroom break.  Mike says I've gotten a lot bigger over the past week, and I feel it, too.  Of course, I'm always sizing myself up every time I walk past something reflective.  That's what happens when you have a house with no full-length mirrors. ;-)

My birthday is this month, right before the end of the fiscal year at work.  I'm sure, by now, that you've figured out that they might be downsizing me.  It's nothing I've done, but they blame the state budget cuts and somehow see it as okay to consider eliminating several real people instead of looking at other spending.  It's a big, hilarious mess.  That's all I can say.  Now that the shock has worn off, it's like M*A*S*H around work.  I talk about willing my office supplies to people and who gets my African violets.  Humor in dark times as we wait for a verdict.

Today, I've got a couple dozen napkins for the Fiber Frolic waiting for me in the Apiary.  There are also new curtains to plan for our room and Mike, as Quality Control on all my crafting, is keeping a close eye on the fabric selection.  We've come home with some that's he's just obsessed with.  I knew he was the one when he wore my knitting and was so concerned about, well, Quality Control.  I've also got two sizable custom orders for the shop and I'm so thrilled to have them.  Etsy seems to be working out well for me. :-)

Now, for some flower shots. . .



I'll start with peonies, for Emily. 



I've picked the best and fullest, just for you.



This is the bouquet from the other day.  See how full it's gotten?  I've since restocked with more flowers as the petals drop.



Moving along to the bleeding hearts in white. . .



. . . and tiny pink.  I think these are more closely related to Dutchmen's Breeches or maybe Squirrel Corn, given the leaves and flower shape.



Now, I've got to do shamelss plugs for the shop.  See this columbine?



And this one, too?



Notice how I like to take pictures of my hand?

I show all of these to say that they all came from the same plants, but came out different colors!  I moved these from the Old Davis Homestead our first year here.  For awhile, they stayed well-behaved and were all purple and ruffly.  This year, I don't know if they were carousing with other neighborhood columbines or what, but they've gone and gotten Variety.  I love all the different colors and lovingly collect the seeds each year, which are available for purchase over at Brandy's Fiber Frolic.

Okay, shameless plugs aside. . .



Gorgeous Rhododendron.  And at last:



Dwarf Iris.   Aaaah, love.

Happy Sunday!

April come she will,
when streams are ripe and swelled with rain. . .

Things are picking up over here in the Forgotten Virginia.  Mike and I mapled ourselves at the Whitetop festival this past weekend.  Spending the day reading and napping, we celebrated the Earth Hour from eight to nine in the light of candles and the oil lamp.  Sunday was church and then I started to cut out my next new dress.  The last one was so successful, I gave it another go with some simple modifications.  I finished it last night.  What a difference some experience and a new sewing machine makes!

I'm feeling more energetic these days and have started to take my walks at work again.  Cold doesn't keep me down, but lack of energy does!  Today was very warm, around seventy, and VERY windy.  I enjoyed being out in the weather and seeing all the budding trees getting ready to bloom.  We've been getting a steady amount of rain and things are really looking greener and the streams are fuller than they have been in many months.  What a blessing!

Because I'm pregnant and allowed to be slightly selfish, I have two shots of my dress that Mike took out in the yard.  I can't help but feel proud and so excited about most every good thing lately. :-)

Winter seems to have taken a vacation 'round these parts.  While it might have been three degrees a couple of weeks ago, today's forecast is for seventy.  Tired piles of snow still sit in parking lots and Hungry Mother Lake was still mostly frozen when we were there on Sunday.  We've been blessed with lots of rain and with it, lots of fog.  Mud season has officially started.

We traveled out to Miller's Creek today for a bit of addressing work and it was a good thing I didn't try to go alone.  The road was solid, squishy mud in many places and it was a bit of a challenge to navigate some of the hills.  It was wonderful, really, to see everything so moist and refreshed.  We're still what you'd call "below normal" but the rain and snow have been coming frequently.  Miller's Creek looked a lot more hopeful than it did back in the heat of summer.

I've been reading a lot about Appalachia and the Blue Ridge range lately, and it's got me thinking about where we're going.  Used to be muddy roads were all we had, long ago in some time I can only dream about.  In those days we were what you'd call "isolated".  But the interstate came through and we've been changing and growing ever since.  Towns are still small, but some are growing in ways that make me nervous.  Wytheville is getting a Starbucks.

When Mike and I were thinking about where to live and before we had real jobs, we decided to live in Marion.  Wytheville, we thought, had too much going on.  Real estate is higher there, too.  We would have paid much more for our house if we'd chosen Wythe County.  Turned out well for us.  We're near my family and the hospital (should the need arise) and away from the traffic.  Well, the kind of traffic a town of 8,000 can bring. :-)

With all the hotels and proposed shopping areas in Wythe County came a Sheetz--Gas Station of the Future.  I went there today for a soda and was rather surprised.  They have a counter where you can get various hot dogs and hamburgers and coffees.  You don't talk to a person to order your food--you punch it in on a computer screen.  One look at that told me I didn't need a cappucino.  It's the middle of nowhere!  We're supposed to be known for down-home, personable service.

Makes me think of this poem.  I've posted it before, but it still rings true.  Makes me think of Blue Mountain Mama and her work against mountain top removal. . .

It's changing here.
I know it.
Everywhere you look
somebody's putting in
a new road,
a new house,
a new business,
a new something-or-another,
and I know we're growing,
we need some of that . . .
but we're changing the beauty out of things.

It's not like
you can't tear down
a mountain.
Anymore, you can
and people do,
more or less?
So what's one mountain,
more or less?
Level off the tops,
we might have something to farm.

I never thought much about progress
until now,
and I certainly never thought of myself
as against it,
but it's turning out I am against it.
And it's not because progress is bad.

It's because progress--
the way we're doing it--
is so ugly.
A mountain is beautiful.

I'm young
I know that,
and probably rash,
but I swear
I hope I die
before the only thing that's left
that takes your breath away
around here
is the smell.

From Jo Carson, collected from her life in Appalachia

I'm out here a thousand miles from my home,
Walkin' a road other men have gone down.
I'm seein' your world of people and things,
Your paupers and peasants and princes and kings.

Hey, hey Woody Guthrie, I wrote you a song
'Bout a funny ol' world that's a-comin' along.
Seems sick an' it's hungry, it's tired an' it's torn,
It looks like it's a-dyin' an' it's hardly been born.

Hey, Woody Guthrie, but I know that you know
All the things that I'm a-sayin' an' a-many times more.
I'm a-singin' you the song, but I can't sing enough,
'Cause there's not many men that done the things that you've done.

Here's to Cisco an' Sonny an' Leadbelly too,
An' to all the good people that traveled with you.
Here's to the hearts and the hands of the men
That come with the dust and are gone with the wind.

I'm a-leaving' tomorrow, but I could leave today,
Somewhere down the road someday.
The very last thing that I'd want to do
Is to say I've been hittin' some hard travelin' too.

"Song to Woody"~Bob Dylan


A year ago in the mountains, I set to work on homemaking and peacemaking and blogmaking determined to be the change I wished to see in others.  It's been quite a journey to learn more about people who don't think like me and the surprising number that do.  This week's been a real retrospective on the past while and it's got me waxing all sentimental about where God's taken me in the first quarter of my hundred years.

I've talked about my hundred years before, and I really do mean to live one hundred years.  The women in my family have lived to be ancient pillars, setting the precedent for those of us who've followed.  Great-great grandmothers and great-great aunts have lived well into their nineties.  Now my great grandmother sits on a hillside finishing up her hundredth year, reading tatting patterns with a magnifying glass, praying she'll be taken before her eyesight is.  I want to be like these women, to have a hundred years to spread love and skills to those around me.

This past week our simple living group met with Bill Nickle of the Narrow Ridge Earth Literacy Center.  Mainly he and our pastor reminisced on their days of civil rights work while I asked questions for handling those who think peace is merely a "nice idea."  I wonder sometimes, if David and Bill know how much their time with us, learning simplicity and environmental stewardship, has really impacted me personally.  I've been able to learn what matters in our lives and how to weed out the things (and most of them are things) that don't.  I've been blessed to see the joys of a peaceful home and have learned to be an instrument for peace in others' lives.

What a blessed year.  I guess this is the Thanksgiving entry--thanks for the gifts of simplicity, thanks for the hard work of peace and thanks for teaching me that the world is full of different kinds of people who all have an interesting story to tell.

Come Little Leaves



"Come, little leaves" said the wind one day,
"Come over the meadows with me, and play;
Put on your dresses of red and gold;
Summer is gone, and the days grow cold."

Soon as the leaves heard the wind's loud call,
Down they came fluttering, one and all;
Over the brown fields they danced and flew,
Singing the soft little songs they knew.

"Cricket, good-bye, we've been friends so long;
Little brook, sing us your farewell song-
Say you're sorry to see us go;
Ah! you are sorry, right well we know.

"Dear little lambs, in your fleecy fold,
Mother will keep you from harm and cold;
Fondly we've watched you in vale and glade;
Say, will you dream of our loving shade?"

Dancing and whirling the little leaves went;
Winter had called them and they were content-
Soon fast asleep in their earthly beds,
The snow laid a soft mantle over their heads.


~George Cooper

When I was young in the mountains,
a cold October day brought me outside
to feel the Earth.

I stepped down a side street
and watched a black cat
climbing into the broken window
of a ramshackle house.

I called to it,
and it came to me.
We touched for a brief moment,
and then it disappeared into the brambles.

Peace in Role-Play

for Clara of Celo

Somewhere in a field of feral strawberries
A scene of eight five-year-olds opens.
In moments, young testosterone ignites the group.

As if to give perspective, a young girl enters the scene.
She darts toward the erupting fight
Like a prophet child come to sing the devil into a long sleep.

She plucks a white straw flower from the three-leafed plant,
Halts in the center of the battle field,
And holds her flower in the air.

~Maggie Hess, recipient of the Leidig Poetry Prize, 2006



Can one person? Yes.  I've seen it.
Imagine peace.

When I was young in the mountains a young man told me I seemed like I was a country girl.  That was true.  It was a compliment, and probably an icebreaker, until I mentioned my fiance. ;-) 

Being born into a family that was half-Appalachian and half-Midwestern, my identity always seemed a little mixed to me.  My mother's family was the Atkins from Atkins.  They'd been such a strong presence there that the community was named after them.  Mike and I drive through it every day on our way to work.  My dad's family came from out on the prairie of Missouri and Minnesota, the land of blizzards and black flies.  Grandma Lois' family came from Norway--the stereotypical Minnesotans.

Somewhere in the amalgam was me.  Half of my family talked with nasal Midwestern accents, don't you know, and the other half had the same accent of everyone else 'round these parts.  My grandad told me that when I went to preschool at the church that I immediately picked up an accent, and that before that I had been "normal."  I was twelve and vain at the time of this telling, so I set to eliminating any Southern or Appalachian-ness.

When I went to work in the National Forest I had a few more years on me.  I was determined that I ought to be personable and so I found myself speaking with accents tailored to the forest visitors I encountered.  People got more comfortable and trusting and that was always my goal in the woods.  'Round these parts, my Midwestern nuances never fit in anyway.  "You're not from around here, are you?" was something I got all the time. 

Over time, I've come to see the certain wonderful vanity of coming from a place where things are unique, where folks don't talk like the man on the news.  And I've come to be a little nasal and a little twangy.  Now I talk like Elizabeth from the Waltons.  Someday, when I'm 100, I guess I'll have the perfect accent.

Where I'm From, for bluemountainmomma:

I am from dish rags, Gunni Sax, and crates for sitting in the garden picking beans in the gloaming.

I am from the old Howell homeplace that suddenly burned and the shifty man searching for treasure with his shovel in the night.
I am from parents who saved up for every door knob and tile, the fancy house built on the old farm, and the funny looks from the kids on the bus.

I am from pole beans, goldenrod, and fotter twine, the dust of a barn swirling in the late summer sun.
I am from Christmas breakfast at Grandy's and short little women, from Grandma Lois and Virgie and the big oaks that sheltered our home.
I am from the self-sufficient and good cookers, and I am from Grams who don't cook no more.

I am from United Methodists and Lutherans, pow'r in the blood and shaped-note singing.
I am from Pearl's suppers at 3:30 and "Here, eat this!", from Grandad's same old story about working in the post office before the War.
I am from books about graveyards and using Windex to clean the stones, from crackers given to the dog to bury, and from the bleeding hearts who refuse to make inheritance something that is enjoyed with grief.

I am from the most generous people I know.

Tell me Autumn will come.
Tell me the leaves grow weary,
And the Earth is tired.
For a child who never liked naps,
I do rather like it
When the land sleeps.

The old-timers, and a few of us new ones, say that the number of fogs in August will be the number of snows in January.  Call it wishful thinking, but it sure has been a foggy nine days.  And HOT!  I can understand why the Department of Social Services provides air conditioners to those in need.  The word on the street is that the city of Bluefield, VA provides free lemonade to everyone on days when the temperature gets above eighty degrees.  I guess they've been busy.

Yesterday I went to Virginia Tech for part two of last week's workshop.  I felt like the ant that was trying to haul off a leaf sprinkle that fell off of one of my cookies at lunch.  The campus was gigantic, the architecture was beautiful, parking was horrible, and a strange man yelled at me.  I had abandoned my car to try to get directions and answers.  He was unhappy with my blocking a parking lot exit and let me know it.  I burst into tears from my frustration, but it's all over now.  I can now understand why my mother was not a fan of her time as a student there.  A place with 26,000 students is too much for a country girl like me.

I can see signs of Fall all around.  The locust trees have turned brown, the first to change their leaves.  Joe-Pye Weed and Ironweed are blooming in the fields and the farmers are out picking their corn.  Last night I pruned the tomatoes, which took quite awhile.  I've got one German pink plant that has 27 tomatoes--all huge!  Sorry, wetkneefarm, it wasn't one of yours.  However, your mysterious yellow tomatoes--Tommy Toes--are going crazy.  The plant is about seven feet tall!

I'm holding out hope for September, that it will be like last year--a cool balm after a steamy summer.  I long to sit on the side of the hill on the Elk Garden Trail and eat supper cooked on my little camp stove.  We're excited about the Apple Festival, Grayson Highlands Fall Festival, and the Molasses Festival.  Only six more weeks.

Get your mind off wintertime,
You ain't going nowhere.--Bob Dylan

It's changing here.
I know it.
Everywhere you look
somebody's putting in
a new road,
a new house,
a new business,
a new something-or-another,
and I know we're growing,
we need some of that . . .
but we're changing the beauty out of things.

It's not like
you can't tear down
a mountain.
Anymore, you can
and people do,
more or less?
So what's one mountain,
more or less?
Level off the tops,
we might have something to farm.

I never thought much about progress
until now,
and I certainly never thought of myself
as against it,
but it's turning out I am against it.
And it's not because progress is bad.

It's because progress--
the way we're doing it--
is so ugly.
A mountain is beautiful.

I'm young
I know that,
and probably rash,
but I swear
I hope I die
before the only thing that's left
that takes your breath away
around here
is the smell.

From Jo Carson, collected from her life in Appalachia

From Jo Carson's stories i ain't told nobody yet:

Mountain people
can't read,
can't write,
don't wear shoes,
don't have teeth,
don't use soap,
and don't talk plain.
They beat their kids,
beat their friends,
beat their neighbors,
and beat their dogs.
They live on cow peas,
fatback and twenty acres
straight up and down.
They don't have money.
They do have fleas,
overalls,
tobacco patches,
shacks,
shotguns,
foodstamps,
liquor stills,
and at least six junk cars in the front yard.
Right?
Well, let me tell you:
I am from here,
I'm not like that
and I am damned tired of being told I am.

When I was young in the mountains
I found pig noses down by the creek.

Imagine my fear to think
there were loads
of pigs without noses.

Imagine my delight to find
they were merely
walnuts.

The world is too much with us; late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers;
Little we see in Nature that is ours;
We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!
This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon,
The winds that will be howling at all hours,
And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers,
For this, for everything, we are out of tune;
It moves us not. -Great God! I'd rather be
A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn;
So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,
Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;
Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea;
Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn.

William Wordsworth