December 31, 2003
Archy and Mehitabel
I remember checking out this book a long time ago. I cannot even tell you the decade, much less the particular "head set" I was in at the time that made me want to read it. Hmmm. Dialogues between Archy, a philosophical cockroach and Mehitabel the cat who once was Cleopatra, now on her ninth feline life. wotthehell wotthehell
Would I have read it in the Taoist-Zen and the Art of Motorcycle maintenance epoch? Or the existentialist Christian period of reading? Or the period when Casteneda's places of power was all the rage in my thoughts? Maybe the Karl Popper Brain-is-everything era, or the anti-reductionist thread from the late 70's?
And having read about Archy's typewritten words of wisdom, did I like it? Did I learn anything? Who would have told me about this book? It's all a blur. More and more memory recedes into the murky distance. So be it. wotthehell wotthehell
Lights Up!
Liska wins the prize for odd Christmas gifts this year (and thanks for the photo!) It should provide hours of fun, off and on.
It's the Happy To See Me David! Light switch cover!
Pup Floyd
I was home alone, me and the pup, and it was time to work on putting dinner together-- a great time for Fred's Music Unplugged. Crank that sucker up and let'er rip!
The music du jour: Pink Floyd's ~ Time-- all 13 some-odd minutes of it. A clock ticks, a heart beats, a desperate is man running, panting. There is fear. Bells jingle, gong, clang. Percussion! Doppler reverberation! At the end, a voice wails the pain of all humanity.
I've never seen a dog turn its head in quite so many anguished ways as Tsuga did while he listened mesmerized at every acoustic nuance by Pink Floyd this afternoon. It especially twisted his head around (like it used to do mine heard through headphones back in college) when the sound zoomed back and forth between speakers the way it does so effectively in this particular lamentation. I feel your pain, pup. Ain't it great!
|
Eeking away the moments that make up a dull day
Fritter away the hours in an offhand way
Sneaking around on a piece of ground in your hometown
Waiting for someoone or something to show you the way
Tired of lying in the sunshine staying home to watch the rain And you run and run to catch up with the sun but its sinking |
December 30, 2003
Fragments Sundry and Silly
Hoarded Ordinaries: -- "Mundane musings on nature, spirit, & time from a collector of the quotidian" is the brand new weblog of writer and naturalist Lorianne Schaub. She will be a regular visitor, I think, and hopefully a regular contributor over at Ecotone, and a welcome if hestitant new member of the blogging community. She voices some of her uncertainties, stepping into the unknown waters of writing naked, as it were, for the world to read. Stop by and tell Lorianne hello.
The Ecotone Biweekly Topic for January 1 is "Cemeteries and Place"
Happy Wedding Announcement to friends J and S who just let this cat out of the bag (to their ol' Blog Uncle Fred) yesterday. To which Ann Wife of 33 Years responded "well, there ends another good relationship." Just kidding, kiddos.
I opened the mailbox yesterday and found a package from a blogger buddy south of here -- some of her fermented fruity flavor from summer in a little canning jar. Recipes are forthcoming. Merry Christmas to us, and another blogger to blogger kindness bestowed. It warms the heart, it does, and the nose a little bit too, if tossed back in larger sips. Ahhhhh! And last week, in the same mailbox, a heartwarming story of black lab pups! Thank you blog buckeroos and buckerettes, for your thoughfulness!
Okay. Tell us your weirdest Christmas gift. I'll go first: The Hokey Pokey Elmo. Don't ask. Second weirdest: a sixpack of the cheapest redneck beer available locally (and brand of the can most likely found on the side of our road) and a camoflage hunting cap like all the Good Ol' Boys wear. My son wanted me to fit in. Thanks, buddy, I owe you one. That's a warning. And by the way, the dog found the cap on Christmas afternoon and roughed it up for me a bit. Now it really looks gen-you-ine.
I set out for a meeting in downtown Floyd last night. The last thing Ann said before I left after dark was "Watch out for the deer". Two hundred yards down the road, the neighbor's truck was crumpled up behind a massive pinetree off the side of the road, the emergency lights blinking. The airbag had inflated, no one was inside. I found him walking in the dark a quarter mile towards his house, holding his left arm. His hand had broken the windshield. He swerved to miss a deer.
Am I right in thinking the next MT version, due soon, will eliminate comment spam by requiring commenters to register? I sure am getting tired of banning IP's three or four times a day. How 'bout you?
Beauty of Beer
No wonder I prefer George Killian's Red. It is a most pulchritudinous brew, don't you think? Find your favorite and ponder it's unique look. You're not likely to find a better view of beer than here!
Welcome to the Molecular Expressions BeerShots website featuring digital images and photomicrographs (photographs taken through an optical microscope) of the World's most famous beers. We have arranged the beer images by country.
Tsuga Moves In
"Some day I want a house-- an two-story old house, with double porches, a walnut staircase just inside the front door, and a creek out back. And I've seen a name I want for our place. We'll call it 'HeresHome' -- all one word."
A. First 1975
When we found this place of Ann's dreams, even though naming little hobby farms seemed silly and too-cute to me, I had the sign made and gave it to her the month we finally grew grass in the front yard. Buster was there for the ceremony. This is Buster's place. We grew to know it as he grew from a tiny pup to a sturdy gentle giant of a dog. He was with us from the month after we signed the papers. He and I drove over here from the cabin on Walnut Knob every day for six months while the construction guys were working on the place and he and I did what we could to help. As Ann and I moved our lives into this house and these hills, Buster was as big a part of HeresHome as the valley itself. Now he is gone, but the sign still stands out front.
Tsuga is growing into his role around here. For a comparison of his first picture by the HeresHome sign, take a look here. As much as we miss Buster, I'll have to say, I can see his successor moving into the original owner's paws rather nicely.
December 29, 2003
Domestic Terrorism: Not Newsworthy
In our country, we have a free press and no governmental control of the media. As long as the message fans the flames of the right war and points in the direction of re-election. Shame!
Last month, an east Texas man pleaded guilty to possession of a weapon of mass destruction. Inside the home and storage facilities of William Krar, investigators found a sodium-cyanide bomb capable of killing thousands, more than a hundred explosives, half a million rounds of ammunition, dozens of illegal weapons, and a mound of white-supremacist and antigovernment literature. CSMonitor
Big story, right? Huge, right? John Ashcroft throwing the curtain over the naked lady statue so that he can crow at the top of his lungs about how his Justice Department is keeping America safe, right?
So why haven't you heard about it? Well for starters, it could be because Ashcroft is not crowing about it, nor is anyone else at Justice. Not one press conference. Just a quietly issued press release. If that defies explanation, some Ashcroft critics think they have one: The suspects were named William J. Krar and Judith L. Bruey, not Mohammed or Omar or Khalid. They aren't Muslims, but alleged white supremacists. And they were caught right here in Texas. Austin Chronicle
Thou Shalt Not Covet...
... thy neighbor's telescope.
Oh, but I do! And especially this week. Saturn not only will be closer to Earth than any time since I was wearing bell-bottom pants-- it also will be tilted in such a way that the rings (which are about 300,000 miles across but only 30 feet thick in some places) are pitched towards our telescopes -- well, my neighbor's telescope-- for maximum visibility. At -0.5 magnitude, I will see the planet (but not the rings) shining brightly, especially on the evening of December 31, even without a crummy 'scope.
Tsuga Turns Six (Months)
Well, Tsuga had a big Christmas. He got a box of gourmet dog biscuits in a tin shaped like a bone, a collapsible travel water bowl, and a collar that lights up when he walks (for night romps down the road.) He loved the evergreen tree coming inside, and beneath it became his favorite place to curl up (and not infrequently lick pine-flavored water from the reservoir in the tree stand). The best part about Christmas was that he turned six months old on the 26th, and this has made him feel very mature and grown up indeed.
He has finally lost the last of his barracuda baby teeth. Maybe chewing the Christmas tree extension cord in two will be his last teething misadventure. Nah. Probably not. He has replaced licking for biting about 50% of the time; sometimes I'd prefer his gentle mouthful of teeth to a tongue-lashing. When we've had enough of his mouthing our hands in play, we tell him "Go get tiger-monkey" (this was his first soft toy with a monkey face and yellow and black stripes; from now on, all soft toys will be 'tiger monkey'). He goes off and searches until he finds it.
Well, we did get out yesterday to enjoy the warm afternoon, and managed to come in with a few keepable pup pictures. Of the three I'll post this week, this one was Ann's least favorite-- and the reason: she thinks it "makes Tsuga look like an old man."
Frankly, I find this rather odd, since older gentlemen -- especially those with close cropped silver beards -- have an air of nobility and wisdom, an unspoken grace and charm missing from the young. And they never, ever chew on extension cords, gloves or boots and do not expect treats for every good behavior. Well, the first part's true.
December 28, 2003
Gypsy Moths are Coming to Town
Actually, they must have already arrived on Goose Creek.
I had seen the little green cardboard lures wired in bush or two along the creek and was curious if they were finding any Gypsy Moth males. It seemed unlikely. Weren't they more of a northern problem, anyway? Well, yes, they were introduced somewhere near Boston around 1900, but these forest defoliators are spreading rapidly south and west and are in our woods already. Our area is scheduled to become part of the zone that will be treated this summer to "Slow the Spread".
Hot dang. Just what we need on top of the Hemlock Wooly Adelgid is another insect pest of forest trees. It seems they will defoliate about a million acres this year in Virginia alone. So I'm all for retarding their progress into the Smokies -- and they would be there by 2015 without intervention. The treatment involves flying over our region (consisting of 36K acres according to the map I got in the mail) and releasing Gypsy Moth female sex pheromone that will lead males on a unsatisfying wild goose chase and prevent successful mating. There's a public hearing nearby in January. I see they have already addressed one potential issue of possible concern. They state...
"Due to recent events, additional steps will be taken to ensure aircraft and treatment product security".
Winter Blahs
Yesterday we took down the Christmas tree. We put away ornaments and carried off the boxes and wrappings and ribbons that Ann didn't salvage for next year. The stockings came down from the mantle and the greeting cards off the piano, so the year is over. This last week on the calendar is an odd time, a misfit afterthought, a space between Christmas and a new calendar on the wall. But the year has ended and only awaits official recognition by those who are conscious next week while Ann and I sleep through the tick of midnight as we always do on New Year's Eve. With the shortest day of the year now past, it seems there should come a new surge of energy, but instead, I feel thick and stupid and uninspired. This too shall pass.
December 27, 2003
Do You Hear What I Hear?
I was looking for the lyrics to a Red Clay Ramblers tune called "Hiawatha's Lullaby" when I ran across Baby's Blow Dryer CD (and also the ever-popular Baby's Vacuum Cleaner and Electric Fan CD's). I thought at first it was a joke. But apparently these folks are making money on this, and I should be off to create these new CD's of ambient noise from Goose Creek:
1. Rain on a Tin Roof CD
2. Kettle of Water Hissing on the Woodstove CD
3. Dog Snoring in the Next Room CD
I've used the white noise serendity perservation concept myself, back when I was managing a PT clinic that served a large pediatric population. The hallway outside my office door was used for all sorts of (frequently unpopular and vociferously resisted) motor activities as the therapists worked with our young patients.
I resorted to using SereneSounds so I could hear myself think. It's a nifty piece of freeware that allows you to mix a number of ambient noises... a blizzard, a hurricane, waves, wind, a waterfall. You can mix them in any combination and control the volume of each independently. I got clever and substituted some of my digital recordings from around here-- a whippoorwill, a toad, the creek, a barred owl, the wind on the ridge... that sort of thing-- and had a Goose Creek White Noise Sanity Saver!
What sounds would your ambient noise mixer contain?
December 26, 2003
Trish and Other Travelers
LiveJournaler TravelerTrish has set up a new interior design on her site during the holidays -- same platform, different interface-- so that her site has all the usual features we've come to be comfortable with when visiting a weblog created with MT or TypePad, et cetera.
Be sure and stop by and give her some feedback on readability and design changes, and of course, content.
And let me add… Trish's family is now the first and only complete blogger/writer's family where I have met the whole clan, and the first case where we have exchanged mutual home visits!
Being the only blogger in Floyd County has been a lonely business. But really, there is a growing number of us within a 3-4 hour drive of here. And thots are already wafting around that come spring-- mid May, perhaps-- we need to think about a blogmeet over in our pasture. Check your calendars.
Cold Mountain
When the book first hit the shelves back in 1998, Frazier's Civil War epic, Cold Mountain, was immediately recommended to me by one of its earliest readers. It was the author's close attention to the details of terraine, vegetation and country my friend thought I would enjoy. And the book has its moments in that regard. But mostly, it was the geography -- trying to follow Inman's journey home by tracing lines on the map inside the front cover of the hardback-- that intrigued me. This was land I knew. I had backpacked that rough high country several times. A good hiking buddy of mine died on the trail -- with his boots on, the way he would have wanted to go-- in '94 on his way to Shining Rock, just a few trail miles from the unfriendly crag of Cold Mountain. I was interested as much in place as in the characters and plot.
The reviews of the movie are all over the map this week, but I'll have to see it regardless, seeing as how it is from 'round here. The language and rhythms, if the Hollywood affects approach the genuine, should seem familiar to a local like me who has lived his entire long life in these southern mountains.
The tale is more or less historically grounded. Elizabeth Hunter follows Inman's steps by talking to surviving relatives who still live in the Waynesville area. Their assessment of the accuracy of the story and the notoriety it is bringing the area are mixed. You can read part of her article on Cold Mountain from Blue Ridge Country Magazine here.
This reviewer writing from a town very near the mountain itself was not impressed with the portrayal. And, she created a new word. Can you find it in the following clip?
"Law’s Inman is soulless, his bumpkinism turning decent prose into lines delivered with laughable earnesty, and later quipped in smart-mouthed moments of caricature. Kidman’s Ada bears a faltering Lowcountry accent, consistent fashion-plate status and the emotional warmth of trout dip. Together, the couple’s passion barely registers. The burning, longing, unquenchable thirst one would typically think would be required to wait four years for an unrequited love to return simply is not there."
Waste Not
On the top of the ridge that forms the eastern boundary of our land, after a thirty minute huffing climb we stand panting for breath two hundred feet above the creeks and pasture. Dead and down-- locusts, oaks, hickories-- lie heaped like pickup sticks after decades of lightning strikes, gale force winds, ice storms and natural tree mortality. Countless cords of good, solid wood are heading for decay because it's just too steep to get up there with anything short of a dozer to bring it out. I'm especially tuned in to potential firewood this time of year when it is disappearing into the stove by the cartload every winter day. All that heat, wasted.
Ann said with a smirk after we caught our breath yesterday, walking the ridgeline-- "if all this wasted wood here is really bothering you that much, you could backpack up a chiminea and use up at least a little of it."
So, if you see a little trickle of smoke coming from the rim of the pasture, it's me-- singing camp songs, eating s'mores and feeling warmly frugal. Come on up. Bring more marshmallows.
December 25, 2003
Christmas in the Trenches
...The cannons rested silent, the gas clouds rolled no more
As Christmas brought us respite from the war
As soon as they were finished and a reverent pause was spent
"God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen" struck up some lads from Kent
The next they sang was "Stille Nacht." "Tis 'Silent Night'," says I
And in two tongues one song filled up that sky. by John McCutcheon
If you need a new Christmas tradition at your house, let me suggest including a reading or a listen to one of the most powerful Christmas stories from our great grandparents' age. Christmas in the trenches is a true account of an amazing, if shortlived, outbreak of peace. Conditions that night were worse than you can imagine from the lyrics of the song, as you'll read in the story link.
Miracles do happen. Let's pray for one, in our times.
Listen to the words and music.
Read the lyrics by John McCutcheon.
A Look Back
From Last Year's late December Thaw
In town, the street is outlined in cinders and salt, marking where the gray mounds of snow have finally disappeared down the city drains, heading now for Little River, then north through the New River, the Kanawha, the Ohio, then south to the Gulf of Mexico. There it will retire on a beach with a sweet orange drink in a tall frosted glass with a saffron paper parasol. Meanwhile, a few shortsleeved human types busy themselves in the tiny heart of Floyd, finding excuses to step outdoors onto the solid surfaces of sidewalk in the warm afternoon, to greet a neighbor before the real winter comes.
Cars and trucks along the street are gray-brown, the color of lost dogs. They seem embarrassed to be seen looking this way, but what's the point in taking a bath, they ask? In this in-between chapter between pre-winter and real winter, the mud falls on the godly and the ungodly alike, so the Lexus and the farm-use truck next to it don't look all that different, mud being a great equalizer in Nature's homogenizing justice.
Last years Christmas Card at Fragments
Snowflakes Go and See!
From Lifestyles of the Plain and Simple
We have never felt the need to invest heavily in our interior space. The outdoors has always been where we wanted to be, and in most cases, why we moved to where we moved. I suppose this priority shows in our relative lack of attention to what we have inside. As much as I value color, texture, the play of shadow and light outdoors, we really have very little artwork adorning our walls. It seems silly to pay huge sums for framed art when we can step outside and see the three dimensional real thing, with a frame as big as our field of view, zenith to horizon, and complete with smells, sounds and wind! Or something like that.
So. Inside: practical, yard-sale, worn, plain, comfortable. I don't quite understand why I feel I have to apologize for that. It seems that even in our happy eccentricities, there is still the undercurrent of 'keeping up with the Joneses'. But I can tell you, I wouldn't think of trading my creek for their thick carpets and Broyhill living room suite.
From last year's Christmas Party:
Kodak Moment: During the peak of the hooting and so-called singing, eight year old Madonna steps stage center and announces "I'm not going to sing this time. I am going to say something, some Bible verses I learned". And after some brief moments of eye-squinting toward the corner of the room where she could see the memorized verses, she commenced, in total self-posession and poise, pausing only occasionally to peek up at the corner for the next verse. The cacophony of party chatter hushed; you could almost see the shaft of light illumine the little angelic messenger. The passage about the shepherds especially animated her expressive tiny voice, with a cresendo at the word "terrified".
And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night. An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. But the angel said to them, Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord. This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger. Wow.
Kodak Comment: During the music, Jean brought out the autoharp and we were fishing around for simple songs to sing, being simple musicians. We got to talking about rounds, and Jean offered that one beautiful but simple round appropriate for this time of year would be Dona Nobis Pacem. Totally serious, low-church Jennie retorts "what kind of a song is Donna No Peach Possum?" I will never be able to hear this melody again without thinking of marsupials.
December 24, 2003
A-caroling We Go
A few of you (who I trust will not block future emails from me as a result) have received the message below today. It contains a small a capella recording of our carol (Lo How a Rose E'er Blooming) son Nathan and I will try to sing in church tonight. If any of you out there want to listen (and no critiquing is required, it is a joyful noise at best), drop me a comment or email at fred1st@swva.net and I'll send the sound file.
This seems like a nice way to send special messages-- this free HandyBits program. Think about using it for family and friends this holiday season!
A wild hair, folks. Indulge me.Nate and I were asked at the 11th hour to "sing something" together at the Christmas Eve service tonight. We've been messing with it some this morning, and I thought I'd send a snippet (mercifully short) of a very old carol along as our Seasons Greeting to some of you who might perhaps not consider this audio intrusion as the worst spam possible. It is sent with the best of intentions, and may your holidays be filled with music and perhaps a few snowflakes.
Suggestion: get a copy of this free software and send a Christmas hello to your grandkids, old classmates who haven't heard your voice in decades... You get the idea... Perhaps a more personal greeting that a text email message.
Best of everything,
Fred and Nate (bass and tenor respectively), Ann and Tsuga (pharmacist and NiceDog Pretender respectively)
Blogging The Music
Reader Tim (whose entire comment is appended in the "continue reading" at the end of this post) has been kind enough to wonder what brings readers back and what sends readers away from a weblog that they visit with certain expectations. The issues he raises have made me revisit what Fragments is, and who I am, and how the two of these entities -- in words and pixels and flesh and bone-- live together and make up parts of the whole of life.
The blogger behind Fragments wears many hats. They include 1) the formerly-repressed creative writer seeking to find his voice; 2) the photographer with an audience from around the world now for his "slides" of the things he sees; 3) the father and grandfather wanting his offspring to have a slice of life from his times and place; 4) a grateful owner of five (or more) senses who celebrates the beauty just beyond his doors and encourages others to see and hear the familiar and ordinary in new ways; 5) the field trip leader and teacher who loves learning and can't repress his impulse to share; 6) as many have noted, blogging is an antidote to the existential loneliness we all feel, some like me in more cloistered surroundings than others, and the bonds of community certainly figure into the "hats" worn-- like you, I want to belong, be known, care and be cared for.
These threads predominate the stream of consciousness style that Fragments has become. It is a polyglot, a goulash, a "soup" if you will, of all these parts of me. But living in a world, beautiful and marvelous and full of good and excellent things as it is, it is permeated by greed and hubris and arrogance that threatens the undoing of all those hats listed above. To remain silent in the face of that which would poison the wells that we drink from is to be complicit in these acts. To restrict my vision to puffy clouds and soft puppies and snow flakes would be to create Musak and not music. There will be discords here from time to time because I feel threatened and those I care about, the planet and places I love and ways of life I cherish are at risk.
One of my favorite sayings states: A hungry man does not refuse the fish because of the bones.
I hope my readers and friends, finding here the occasional heartfelt bleat that exposes my political or spiritual biases and concerns, will simply eat around them to find bits that are palatable and nourishing.
Below, some snippets from comments and emails in response to the post earlier this week called Blog Expectations. And in the "continue reading" section, Tim's comment.
From Bill at PrairiePoint
So as it turned out it was the gardening that I most enjoyed writing about. That became the core of my blog and it attracted the interest of a few others who also blogged about gardening. Now I feel a certain obligation to write on that subject…
Quite a lot of people with gardening blogs do keep a separate blog on other topics. I've decided for the time being though to adopt as my subject matter "this is how the world looks from the perspective of a backyard gardener," which will allow me to write about just about anything.
From Trish
Thanks, Bill, because that is just exactly how I feel. These are words and pixels from a quiet corner of the world...that's the same world the rest of us live in, the one with George Bush as president and everything else that's going on. Maybe if you were more right-wing, Fred, I'd be grouching...or looking elsewhere. But I want to hear just anything you have to say.
From LoriAnne
Fred, you've found your metaphor. Several entries below this one, you wondered about blog branding: should blogs be focused on one topic (e.g. politics, place, etc), or should they focus on several.
Blogs should be like soup. They should stir together a tasty mix of randomness: a little bit of politics, a dash of daily observations, a sprinkle of childhood memories, all simmered in the broth of the present moment. Blog readers aren't looking for essays: we're looking for the lightning spark of recognition when thoughts about soup bump into memories of toothpaste commercials.
Logically, these don't belong together. Our magical minds, though, make these connections continually, and blogs should be true to that.
From Reader Evelyn
… The blog IS yours. YOU set the rules. Whatever you post, I shall continue to check your blog nearly every day because I like the "you" that I've perceived through your writings (blog and e-mails) and I like the way you write.
Some time ago I observed to you that you were braver than I. You are brave enough to post your very thoughts in your blog. Many of us do not have enough gumption to do what you routinely do. My perception of your attitude is not "Full steam ahead--damn the torpedos!" but "This is where I'm going folks--you're welcome to come with me!" I like that!
From Fragments reader Tim...
I'm wondering about your decision to include so many "political" posts lately. not angry, not happy... just thinking about it (and would invite others to join in!)
Now, on the one hand, I feel I come here to visit Floyd County once or twice a day, check out what the weather's like, and see how you've been interacting with the landscape. If nothing else, seeing something "political" is a bit jarring and seems sort out of place from the rest of the stuff you usually post.
On the other hand, I'd hate to pigeonhole anybody; I don't want to be the city boy forcing the country Southerner to talk only about the rhododendrons and ice. ("Hey, you! You can't talk about the outside world! Get back up in the mountain!")
And, of course, in some ways I feel that the more places that post about what's going on with Bush, et. al., the better. At the same time, if I didn't agree with your politics, I wonder if I would be put off by it.
One more conflicting thought and then I'll stop: I guess part of me comes here because it's usually a place un-like 99% of the other sites I visit on a daily basis - it has no political flame wars. Generally, here and my Red Sox message board are the places where I find respite from a barrage of Bad Bush News that is necessary but very depressing. The other side of that is THIS IS YOUR WEBLOG. If that's what you're thinking, who am I to stop you?
I suppose I just wanted to sound out my thoughts on this and see if anybody else had responses (Fred, in particular). I guess the important question is: what does it mean to have a genred blog? If you've chosen to have a specific format (i.e. fragments from Floyd county), does that mean things should be somehow outside the realm of relevancy; and don't take that statement out of context... politics are, of course, always relevant. But are there things that aren't? Are there things you thought about posting and then decided didn't fit? I know, for example, that Marie over at the Blue Ridge Blog often mentions that there is a particular thing she wants her blog to be, and tries to avoid bringing other things into it.
[Oh, one last thing. These questions have nothing to do with the quality of the political posts, because it's always stuff I find fascinating.]
Why Blog? She asks.
I know some of you out there have right there in front of you a response to the questions being asked by potential-blogger Lorianne (see below). Or you may know of places where bloggers have compiled a list of their reasons for blogging, or things that have worked or not worked for them in their blogging efforts. Can you folks help me lead L. to some answers?
She has a great thing going in her biweekly emailed essays, but I think she needs a way to make them (or at least blog-post-length snippets from them-- fragments, if you will -- more publically accessible. For this she will need to know more about how blogs have (or haven't) worked for other writers.
Send suggestions in comments, I'll be sure our future blogger reads them. Thanks! Lorianne writes:
I'm interested in hearing others' comments about how they started blogging, what they do/don't like about keeping a blog, what (if any!) advice they'd have for a neophyte blogger, etc. I'm toying with the idea of starting a blog in addition to my current column--the blog would offer "raw" entries whereas the column would "cook up" the tastiest bits--but I'm mindful of the time commitment a blog must demand. Am I crazy to think about starting a blog considering that I already teach full-time, write a semimonthly column, am finishing up a dissertation, etc?
Measured Out in Spoons
We live in a two person household of spoons.
In putting away the silverware, the thick-handled knifes stick up prominently and come out of the dishwasher rack first. That pretty well leaves nothing left there but the beaters from the blender (from the last bottomless batch of cookies that Ann always has going) and nested spoons of various sizes waiting to be redrawered and readied for another go-round: the stirring of coffee; the spooning of amorphous meaty goodness into the cracked dish that in thick faded magic marker is labeled CAT FUD so we won't get it mixed in with dishes that will feed people. But mostly spoons are for the eating of soup-- the ubiquitous semi-liquid sustenance that is our family food.
Soup is the path of least resistance in the never ending process of meal planning. We've never met a leftover we didn't like, but typically what's left over from our occasional solid meal is only a spoonful of rice, a half cup of beans and a half-dollar porkchop-- too little for tomorrow's plates. What else to do with smidgens but soup? Of course, we never, just the two of us, eat ALL the soup, and so still more remnants join those that have preceded them in the pot-- never all consumed, always amended with anything organic that can be successfully swallowed.
Our soup-pot is an historical archive of all the meals we've ever had. In our current batch of Leftover Soup are scant traces-- perhaps mere molecules-- of the first bowl of soup we ate when we moved into the house four years ago. I like to think of it as Homeopathic Stew with two hundred "similars" in vanishingly minute dilution meal after meal-- a microgram of lentil from last July; a speck of split pea from September-- so that this potpourri of picoparts per million must surely confer immunity to every disease known to man! Still, I have to wonder: if a person ate nothing but soup, and their progeny likewise for generations, would these lineages become permanently altered physically in some way, like fish and salamander species that have become blind and eyeless after living lives in caves for the ages? It gives one pause.
If this is our fate, we should at least try to add some variety to our diets by means other than the choice between Zatarans or Tobasco for our soup du jour. There is a world of choice out there! Consider Joy of Soup. We won't be needing our forks or plates. With all these choices, we may just go ahead and give them away to a family of chewers while we evolve every liquid meal further and further towards becoming a race of jawless soupsuckers.
December 23, 2003
Happy Tooth
It just came out automatically. The cashier the other day had very prominent front teeth, and somehow the epithet "Bucky Beaver" jumped into my head. With a little digging, I remembered Bucky was the mascot for some kind of toothpaste. Beyond that, I had to Google out the facts.
Bucky Beaver - The friendly big-toothed rodent mascot who starred in a series of successful Ipana Toothpaste commercials created for Bristol Meyers Company in the 1950s.Brusha, Brusha, Brusha. Here's the new Ipana with a brand new flavor, It's dandy for your te-eee-eth.
Ipana disappeared from drug store shelves in the US, but-- little known fact--In 1991, things took an odd twist. The new owners of the Ipana brand, Procter & Gamble, launched a joint venture with a Turkish company. Ipana is now a leading toothpaste in Turkey.
Well, here we go. All sorts of toothpaste memories rose to the white-foamy surface, crying for equal time.
- How many remember the Gardol Invisible Shield?
- And: "You'll wonder where the yellow went"… (complete the phrase, boomers).
- Where is the following from, and to what tune do you sing these words?
Brush your teeth Round and round Circles small Gums and all A small soft toothbrush the round and round way Will keep your gums healthy and stop tooth decay So clean very carefully three times a day Go round and round Round and round
Blog Expectations
It was wonderful to see Blogger Susanna Cornett sitting on our couch again, crocheting the latest in neckware-- a red and white candy-cane colored scarf that just happens to be the colors she will want to sport in her soon-to-be new home of Alabama. After years of being a Kentucky country girl trapped in the concrete jungle of Jersey, she'll be living soon in more hospitable hills of the south, and we are so happy for her!
Last summer when I was a very new blogger, I met Susanna through her weblog, Cut on the Bias. The majority of her well-crafted words dealt with issues related to her area of expertise-- criminal justice-- and ranged widely over topics seen through a lens more conservative than my own. But her strong roots to place showed through her writing, sometimes overtly in a post now and then where she longingly remembered her homeplace in Kentucky or talked about her family who still live in the south.
I bring this up both to wish Susanna the best in her new life in the rural south and to raise a matter briefly that has come up in comments at Fragments recently. The issue has to do with weblog "branding", blog readers' expectations and the role that demand should play in a blogger's scope and content. And I broach this subject because I truly am interested in knowing the feelings of those who come here and want to learn how you as a blogger (if you are) have made the judgment about what subject matter you will and will not post, and why.
Had Susanna confined her words strictly within the limits of "criminal justice and conservative politics" at Cut on the Bias, I would never have had a glimpse of the Kentucky side of her. From time to time, she takes off her political hat and shows up in a handmade shawl singing harmony to an old gospel hymn. Her readers would not have known of her attachments to the land and the role that "roots and place" play in her life if she did not come out of her 'COTB persona' to reveal the full picture of who and what she is.
I think that's all I'll say about this now, and come back to it later-- maybe even after the disruption of the holidays. Today, Nate and I will be heading down to see our LiveJournal blogger friend and writing comrade, TravelerTrish, two hours south of us in Carolina. Too bad we have to be gone from Goose Creek today. Blogger David StL and his lovely wife were going to drop by to deliver a Christmas gift he made for me to give to Ann-- a cherry-wood quilt rack that he makes in his new woodcrafting business up Charlottesville way. (Post us a link to a picture of that beauty, Dave!)
Well, on to other things. And by the way: Susanna, you left your sweater. Should we keep it until you come back in the spring, or send it to your brother's place in 'bama?
December 22, 2003
Fragmentation
Friday, the webmaster for Fragments host server chose a most inauspcious time to upgrade-- during prime blog-writing time for me (from 7:00 to almost 11:00). The weblog was inaccessible for an agonizing eternity, this a source of great wailing and gnashing of teeth here on Goose Creek (did the neighbors hear me?) The credits at the end of my little radio essay during those hours on Friday gave the URL to Fragments from Floyd so that those few who were interested could potentially have found me here and come to visit. And I was lost in space, page not found. I do appreciate those who persisted and emailed or commented later in the day. Building bridges to Virginia readers is the best part of the radio bits. Later this week, the "Best Christmas Pageant" story from the radio spot will be read in at least one nursing home and one Sunday School class in neighboring cities, and that is a nice thought. Thanks for new visitors to these pages!
Sunday morning-- also during normal blogging hours-- the power was out here (I suppose due to the 10 degree cold putting a heating burden on the grid.) So, it has been a disjointed few days in the rhythm of things around here. Hopefully, the routine will return to what passes for normal for a few days, but then the posting schedules of bloggers everywhere will be disjointed by the holidays. Things won't seem just exactly right in the blog writing and reading world until the Monday after New Years.
And this morning, a mystery guest sleeps in the Veranda Room-- a well known blogger on her way home to another southern state-- who is spending her THIRD NIGHT overlooking Goose Creek! We turned the world of blogging and writing this way and that in a most wide-ranging conversation over dinner last night. More details to follow.
This in the way of an explanation for the voids in postings lately. Be warned. I'll make up for lost time. Even though readers are all gone over the river and through the woods… I'll bet some will read their blog lists even from grandma's house. Eh?
Good Hunting
"The best way to find things out is not to ask questions at all. If you fire off a question, it is like firing off a gun - BANG, it goes, and everything takes flight and runs for shelter. But if you sit quite still and pretend not to be looking, all the little facts will come and peck around your feet, situations will venture forth from thickets, and intentions will creep out and sun themselves on a stone; and if you are very patient, you will see and understand a great deal more than a man with a gun does." Elspeth Huxley, via whiskey river via OlderAndGrowing
The Ice Age
From last year's adventures with ice. Read more....
December 20, 2003
Time Zoned
Never ever send your kids from the Eastern Time Zone to colleges in Pacific Standard Time. It makes for all sorts of problems when they come home to visit. We are thinking of asking for a partial refund from the airlines that brought Nathan to Goose Creek from Vancouver on Tuesday. We only see him for about eight hours a day, so we should get some money back, I'll argue.
His typical college student bedtime is 1-2 a.m. PST or 4-5 a.m. local time. As he finally winds down and his biological clocks send him off to bed at his usual time, we are just getting up. And so this morning we are tiptoeing around, doing last minute cleaning before neighbors drop in this evening -- weather permitting-- for a very informal to-do here. How does one vacuum quietly? Or clean ashes from the stove into a clangorous metal bucket? Or hammer a nail to hang greenery on the front door?
Later today, we'll have to bite the bullet and try Tsuga in the same room with wrapped gifts under the tree, of which "many parts are edible".... including the extension cord. Thankfully, it was not plugged in at the time of chewing. We are making the shed cozy for Himself, as his social skills around strangers are most embarrasingly lacking. He isn't mean-- just goofy with excitement, wiggling in epileptic fits of happiness with the attention he feels he so richly deserves. Ignored, he has been known as well to chew the eigrets off the tips of shoelaces while the wearer is saying his hellos to the resident humans. We will most certainly endure an evening of tortured wails from behind the little chain-link gulag out back. Good fences make good neighbors and we'd like to keep the kind regards of ours. He'll get over it.
On Tradition
We were at a small gathering of friends, all parents of older children but people in their own rights nevertheless, talking-- as we typically do-- of our children's lives, less of our own; and now in season, the conversation turned to Christmas past and those odd expectations and routines that grow up with us at this time of year. The host family shared with us that every December 25th going back thirty years, they play "A Child's Christmas in Wales" written and narrated by the poet, Dylan Thomas. And they hushed the crowd, and played the story for us right then.
It took some paragraphs to adapt to the poet's thick slur over words not all familiar and from another age. But it quickly became clear the poetry in the prose of the piece, and the humor, and the common experience we, too, shared of Christmases, each in our own odd ways. I can imagine, hearing this peculiar but pleasant tale year after year, Mr. Thomas would take on an avuncular familiarity, and his words might become part of our vocabulary of winter and Christmas.
I can't find audio online (though it apparently once was) but you can read it all here. A small snippet....
"And the presents?"
"Bags of moist and many-colored jelly babies and a folded flag and a false nose and a tram-conductor's cap and a machine that punched tickets and rang a bell; never a catapult; once, by mistake that no one could explain, a little hatchet; and a celluloid duck that made, when you pressed it, a most unducklike sound, a mewing moo that an ambitious cat might make who wished to be a cow; and a painting book in which I could make the grass, the trees, the sea and the animals any colour I pleased, and still the dazzling sky-blue sheep are grazing in the red field under the rainbow-billed and pea-green birds."
December 19, 2003
Hubble's Replacement Opens Its Eyes
The Spitzer Space Telescope -- Hubble's successor-- is just now beginning to send back images with a clarity never before seen. Not many pictures are available to the public yet, but stay tuned. NASA/JPL will surely be promoting this great accomplishment in the coming months by showing us what Spitzer can do for our tax dollars.
My favorite Spitzer image so far is this one, which of course, is of a speed-skating bunny who is headed off-image/left. Hey. If you can see things in the clouds, why not in the cosmic clouds, too?
Season's greetings...
...from the American empire (from Sojourner's SoJoMail)
According to the Washington Post, the Cheney family holiday card this year features this quote from Benjamin Franklin: "And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without His notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without His aid?" A quick look at the full context of the original quote shows that Franklin, who was poetically calling for daily prayer at the 1787 Constitutional Convention, was in no way claiming divine sanction for military imperialism (of the sort that the new country had just thrown off). In fact, one of Franklin's worst fears is that humanity might "despair of establishing Government by human Wisdom, and leave it to Chance, War, and Conquest."
(I thought this quote about the dove was especially poignant and touching given Mr. Cheney's recent pheasant massacre. That certainly gave God a lot to notice, don't you imagine?)
George W. Bush's family Christmas card also carries an intriguingly out-of-context quote: "You have granted me life and loving kindness; and your care has preserved my spirit." This verse from Job (which the White House press release calls a "psalm") comes immediately before a 10-verse accusation that God is persecuting Job: "Yet...bold as a lion you hunt me...you bring fresh troops against me" (Job 10:13-22).
Read more about the religion of the Bush administration in Sojourners:
Dangerous Religion: George W. Bush's theology of empire
The Project for a New American Empire: Who are these guys? And why do they think they can rule the world?
The Slippery Slope Revisited
More snow last night. On top of ice. On top of snow. In fact, it occurred to me that I've been there, done that-- I had described this very winter wonderland last year, telling the true story of the One That Almost Got Me. I can laugh about it now.
"Not a snow for frolicking, this one. There is a sharp, brittle crust on a half foot of dry powder so that each step is like walking on an endless eggshell. At the last instant before stepping out with the right, the left foot sinks suddenly through the white veneer into an icy pit, and conversely with the other foot, step by ponderous step across the yard and pasture. The road is not much better. Scraped, packed, melted, refrozen and rutted, it threatens harm to auto and foot traveler alike. But this slickeryness is nothing compared to the worst-case ice storm a few years back that almost got me for good. I almost died -- laughing. ... more
December 18, 2003
Moment
Life pulses and glows in pink orange blindness behind the pulled curtains of my eyes. Branches and webs in shadow and glory dance. Brighter waves warm my face like a day at the beach. I may be at the beach-- I am uncertain. And don't care. Where.
Breath lifts and lowers, I rise and fall on an inner salty sea. Warm is around me, on my chest, coming and going. The sun through the window dodges clouds that slip south, dark-bright. I drift--the tether of awareness pulled from the solid bottom of time. Not thinking, not dreaming, content.
The woodstove ticks like a cat purring. Wind scratches the butterfly bush against the house and shakes a blur into maple boughs. In the next room, the dog too is full, safe, rooting softly in his own happiness or oblivion.
How we live our moments is how we live our days.
December 17, 2003
A Christmas Story
An audio essay from Fragments archives. Listen to a short, true story told by yours truly.
Regional broadcast: 89.1 - Roanoke; 89.5 - Lynchburg; 88.5 - Charlottesville 89.3 & 89.7 - Charlottesville, Waynesboro & Staunton; 91.9 - Marion, Wytheville, Galax & Abingdon
Date: Friday 19 December
Time: Live by radio or RealAudio (see link) immediately after the regular short Civil War piece that airs at 6:50 and again at 8:50 a.m., EDT
Listen via Real Audio: HERE (Live, real-time only)
Nursery Rhymes: The Health Risk
Take for example the following case history:
..."The case of the "old man" who "went to bed and bumped his head and couldn't get up in the morning" that is documented in "It's Raining, It's Pouring" is worthy of CSI. There are 2 versions. The first version is presented above, but the second one changes the sequence of events so that the old man "bumped his head" then "went to bed." Obviously, establishing the exact sequence of events is crucial to the creation of a differential diagnosis. If the elderly gentleman bumped his head after retiring for the evening, one is forced to entertain potential foul play, seizure activity or even a postcoital MI (there is no evidence to confirm the commonly held belief that he was alone). Also, it should be noted that he was "snoring." ... more, link via Quantum Tea.
The Twelve Days of Inflation
No, it's not just your imagination. The cost of everything has gone up since this time last year.
“The low inventory of calling birds and swans this year, combined with a resurgence in demand, has boosted prices – a sign of consumer confidence returning,” she added. All told, the swans, geese, calling birds, French hens, turtle doves, and partridges cost over $4,100, representing about 25 percent of the overall Index."
The Wright Stuff
Today, aviation continues to merge art and science, mystery and mathematics. It has brought the world closer together, nearly eliminated geographical isolation, brought tourism to the masses, expanded and speeded up commerce, and widened the horizons of everyone from poets to politicians and inventors. But it has also transformed warfare, making it more lethal, and handed to terrorists a new and awful weapon. And for all its practical feats and flaws, it has retained a magical hold on the human imagination. from CSMonitor
Thank you, brothers Wright, one hundred years ago today.
However, as we sat at the airport last night-- travel weary son and I, waiting for one final search of the Roanoke terminal for his missing luggage-- the miracle of air travel did not seem so magical. Earlier in the day, along with three hundred other would-be travelers, all of a sudden he had become a flightless bird helpless in Seattle. But all's well that ends safe on the ground, somewhere. Only because of his traveler's ken did he outmaneuver enough others to get a berth on the last flight to Atlanta and now he had made it as far as baggage check in a western Virginia airport, and we were thankful for that.
With all its unpredictability and aggravation, I had to realize that in less than a half day, Nathan had been whisked with relative ease and relatively small expense from Vancouver to Virginia. For shear speed, there is nothing to match those more-or-less straight high lines between points that air travel provides. I considered the historical context.
A hundred years ago, in 1903 when Orville and Wilbur were busily creating the aviation industry at Kitty Hawk, a week-- maybe two-- to travel between B.C. and Virginia would have been break-neck speed. The traveler would have encountered a long succession of coal-fired sleeper-trains and still then have placed great reliance on coaches and taxis and baggage carts pulled by horses.
Two hundred years ago, the only way from British Columbia to our place here would have involved a long sea voyage down the west coast of the America's (there was no canal at Panama then) down under Cape Horn and eventually-- in several months-- to an Atlantic port like Charleston.
Beyond that in 1803, I'd have to do some enlightened speculation to figure what route on foot or horseback our time-traveling son would have taken to get to Goose Creek. I'm thinking from Charleston, he would travel into the North Carolina Piedmont, pick up the Boone Trail north from the Yadkin valley up to Roanoke. Even early in the 19th century, he could have reached Shawsville traveling west for twenty miles on the Wilderness Valley Road (where most everybody on the road in those days would have been bound for the new land of Kentucky.)
From the valley village of Shawsville where the burned out remnant of Fort Vause still stood, the only way to our valley would have been to follow the South Fork of the Roanoke River (in many places walking in and not beside the river) south for seven miles. Beyond that-- after the river splits into its two main feeder creeks including Goose Creek-- only the most determined trapper would have persisted against the steep rocky ravine thick with Rhododendrons and much of the winter covered in ice and snow.
So. This midnight daydream at baggage claim is how I mollified my frustration with modern day air travel's perils and aggravations while I considered its blessings-- all of which became possible a hundred years ago today on windy dunes in Carolina.
December 16, 2003
Wayback Machine: "Mauuuwage...."
I was planning on the second annual installment of "Christmas on Goose Creek"-- an audio CD I made for family and a few friends last year that consisted of a a dozen poems and stories from Fragments, a couple of favorite guitar and vocal tunes rendered by yours truly, and a Maurice Sendak book from the kids' past read by the old codger himself. No go. The audio editor didn't survive the upgrade to XP, so I don't have the tools I need for CD #2. Small blessings, kids.
So, I had planned to have our son take mom and dad's picture (dad is always behind the camera) and send along for the daughter, and particularly for the granddaughter who lives 1500 miles away and knows us only as occasional voices on the phone.
Granny Annie thought that was too boring (and she's right) and maybe they would get a chuckle out of something a bit more historical (hysterical?) like a picture from our wedding back in the Paleozoic Era. So, I got out the old photo album and ditalized Granny Annie and Grampa Grumpy in the original Red Baron VW Bettle just slightly prenuptial. Three days after the picture was taken, I began grad school and we set up housekeeping in the Married Students Village at Auburn.
Book Ends
Outside my college years I've probably never done more reading than I have this past year. So why is it that, when I was asked recently to suggest a "best book of 2003" I drew a total blank? I had to think about it to come up with an explanation.
This time last year, the focus of my intentions was to see if there was anything for me to sink my squishy mental teeth into in the realm of "Appalachian Studies". In January I enrolled as a "special" graduate student at Virginia Tech taking one course in contemporary issues called "Appalachian Identities". For the next five months, when I wasn't reading blogs (and I wholeheartedly insist that I should get credit for the two hundred thousand blog-words I've read in '03) I had my nose in one textbook or another dealing with race, gender, history or politics of the southern mountains-- or researching for my paper that dealt with the consequences of cultural tourism in Floyd County. From all that reading, I haven't a "best of" to offer.
At the same time I was playing the role of the oldest student on the Tech campus, I was also doing 'self study' in the meat and potatoes of writing and photography, wanting to take both of these little hobbies to a higher if not very high level. While the half dozen books by writers on writing were beneficial and the Photoshop 7 book has some great technical tips, I don't know that I'd throw any of these into the ring of contenders for the '03 book prize.
Come June, I enrolled in my first writing workshop-- the two week Highlands Conference on Appalachian Writers and Writing at Radford U. It was a most beneficial exposure to a wide variety of voices from the southern mountains. The class texts consisted of two anthologies of Appalachian writing edited by Dr. R. Jack Higgs who taught one week of the workshop and afterward has become a friend and mentor. During the workshop I sat across the dinner table from author and visiting speaker, Ron Rash and bought his book, "One Foot in Eden" which now has the official Readers Digest Advertisement tear-out bookmark prominently placed between chapters two and three. There are bookmarks also in "Gap Creek", "Rosewood Casket" and a half dozen others by authors met through their writing at the Radford workshop. When I finish them--if I ever finish them-- I'll be able to say if one or another is a "book of '03". However, it is too much to expect that I read something actually published in the current year. Get outta here!
Inspired by Jack Higgs to write with greater purpose, I began looking at Fragments as the basis for a seasonal natural history-memoir and revisited (but have not entirely re-read) Sue Hubbell's "A Country Year", Aldo Leopold's "Sand County Almanac", Dillard's "Pilgrim" and "Teaching a Stone" and many more on my shelves gathering dust now for years since their first reading-- many of them, BC-- before children. And of course there has been copious reading about the mechanics of getting something published-- involving countless thou-shalt-not writer's guidelines as well as perusing some of the nature-related offerings of potential publishers I might submit a manuscript to one day.
November: Nature Writing at John C. Campbell Folk School. Another shelf of dusty books cracked, scanned, sampled-- none newer than 1990. I came home from the week at Campbell with a new list of authors never read who are "must read" nature writers and poets. I have six borrowed books of Mary Oliver's poetry lying about now. John Murray's "Nature Writing Handbook" and the "Norton Book of Nature Writing" are sitting on my desk next to my coffee cup. Books everywhere. Nothing to nominate here.
Obviously, many of you are oh so up to date in your book-a-week reading of the latest fiction. I applaud you. I'll suck off of you when you review them on your weblogs-- it's like reading the Cliff Notes version. I get partial credit for having read the books if I read good reviews. Right? At least I can pretend at social gatherings that I know these books and have erudite opinions if I borrow your opinions. Now. If I only had some social gatherings.
Please carry your nominations over to Judith at RedWingMarsh. She's looking for 'what's been hot' in your world of reading this year. I'll forgive her for putting me on the spot. And I promise: at the end of '04, I'll have read an entire book that is more current than the birth year of my eldest child. Promise.
December 15, 2003
ScratchPad
Ever had one of those days... when everything seemed to be going so right?
Andy at Older and Growing is wondering where he is: Wandering in a fog able to see only a step or two in any direction? Playing a part in a movie? Involved in a paint-by-numbers adventure where some steps are known but the big picture has yet to appear; or on a Quest where he knows what he wants but doesn't know to find it? Where are you? Check the grid.
Jon at Conservation News writes --with a West Coast perspective-- about Place and place writers at Ecotone.
Varicosities of Human Traffic. North America: How Many Roads...
Baby Pictures of the Appalachians and Blue Ridge Mountains
I can't imagine using a single windowed browser. I've used multi-tabbed Netcaptor for years, paid for the full version, and dang. Now I find the same functionality and more in slimbrowser. Very impressive. And free.
And finally, it's fascinating to me, odd duck that I am, that the forest and vegetation I see out my window would also look familiar to someone from parts of China! The mixed mesophytic forest is "now represented by relictual ecosystems in eastern North America and eastern China. The related forests of the Appalachians and central and southwestern China share a large number of higher taxa and relict groups. Many genera and some species and families have disjunct distributions in these distant regions. Over 50 such genera of plants include magnolias, hickory, sassafras, ginseng, mayapple, skunk cabbage, several orchids, jack-in-the-pulpit, coffee-tree, stewartia, witch hazel, dogwoods, persimmons, hollies, sumacs, maples, and yellowood. Several animal taxa also show unique affinities with East Asian relatives, including copperheads (Agkistrodon spp.), hellbender salamanders (Cryptobranchidae family), some land snails, and paddlefish (Polyodon spathula). The taxonomic similarities between these two regions are paralleled by ecological similarities." from WorldWildLife
Succession
When we saw this place we call home for the first time almost five years ago, we discovered that its eighty acres was bisected by a state road. I immediately lost interest and drove on past. Our vision had always been to have a piece of land (thirty acres would have been plenty) with a long, private lane to the house nestled in the very heart of the land; we would have the ideal buffer from road noise and other intrusions-- our private, quiet hide-away. But there it was: a road that ran smack between the house and the old barn. The road dividing the land was only part of that initial disappointment. The steep north face of the valley had been most unkindly cut for timber less than ten years before. It lay pitched and bare like an open book, propped up conspicuously at an incline for all to see the standing gray bones of pine trunks, strippe