Appalachian Mountain Dreams

Snake Tails

In South Texas where my Grandpa Sewell was raised, snakes are a big deal…A really BIG deal. Western Diamondback Rattlesnakes of six feet and longer are common. In the summer and fall 0f 1972, when I lived with my grandparents, we tanned a rattlesnake skin that was over eight feet long and about eighteen inches wide at the widest point.

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Edges and Order – New York Times

From Verlyn Klinkenborg of The New York Times comes this paragraph today… Nearly every image of nature I have ever come across misses the sense of intricate confusion underfoot in the woods, the thickets of goldenrod collapsing into each other along the roadsides, the rotting tusks of fallen beeches broken against the western hillside. It almost never makes sense to

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Christmas Morning Muse

“‘Tis the morning of Christmasand all through the housenot a creature is stirringnot even my spouse” As I sit this morning drinking my coffee and enjoying the still, quiet house I can’t help but remember Christmas’ past. Back before the youngest member of this household was 16 going on 25…In those days you were up half the night helping Santa

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Building Communities

For some reason, it always amazes me to stumble across someone who understands the internet (or at least the way I think it should work). Dick Eastman, who writes online genealogy articles, pointed the way to Burr Morris of Morse Farm Maple Sugarworks and deserves the thanks for this find. After reading Dick’s post I wandered on over and discovered

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George F. Will – Full Esteem Ahead – washingtonpost.com

Is it jut me or is George Will seeming a bit testy over blogger? Have too many bloggers (both us amateurs and the his professional colleges) called him to task over his reporting on the Webb and Bush “conversation”?  Richard Stengel, Time’s managing editor, says, “Thomas Paine was in effect the first blogger” and “Ben Franklin was essentially loading his persona

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