Appalachian Mountain Dreams

I have been following Fred’s posts on sustainable forestry (links here and here)the past week or so, so when I say a link to the following on The Appalachian Voice Front Porch Blog it forced me to follow the story…to Greensboro, North Carolina. Eric Schaefer wrote the story for the News & Record there. “Why not selectively cut?” I asked, “That

A mind that is stretched by a new experience can never go back to its old dimensions. – Oliver Wendell Holmes.. I am sitting here looking at a blank screen and finding I have no ideas this morning. I have made my way through my emails and other than the White House slowly burning to the ground, nothing causes me

“Perhaps the truth depends on a walk around the lake.” – Wallace Stevens Barbara Damrosch has a new column out. It seems to be timed to remind all the gardeners out there to start thinking tomatoes. Particularly the small pop’em in the mouth kind. Cherry bombs, the exploding kind, must have been named after cherry tomatoes, the edible kind, which

And we need to stay here why? When the police start killing people in revenge… BAGHDAD — Shiite militants and police enraged by massive truck bombings in Tal Afar went on a revenge spree against Sunni residents in the northwestern town today, killing as many as 60 people, officials said. The gunmen began roaming Sunni neighborhoods in the city, shooting at

Today for lunch I joined a friend I’ve never met. We walked along a creek with no name under hemlocks in a valley I’ve never seen. We passed a barn I’ve only envisioned in painted light upon my screen. The sun I couldn’t see glistened on grasses in the field to dry the dew I did not feel. I wasn’t

Since I didn’t mention the weather earlier today, I found this bit of trivia interesting. Boone set another record high Wednesday: 74 breaking the old record of 71 set in 1949. Today, valley locations should make it into the 70s once again. That will make it 6 days in a row with valley highs in the 70s. So yesterday, I

I empathize with the sentiment if not the actual want… Costal Farmlet“A man wants nothing so badly as a gooseberry farm.” —ChekhovI want a costal farmlet.I desire it very much.I saw it advertisedin the classifieds and I presumethat coastal means our landcomes right downto the sea with the whitecapslashing romantically, and farmletmeans we can growgnarled trees on our headlandand let

With all of the rhetoric flying around Washington these days, with the President claiming that if you don’t support the surge you don’t support the troops, with Congress fighting over when to end the fighting (or if to end the fighting), is it any wonder that the American People are getting confused? I have been continuing my informal survey and

Ok, I know that everyone in NW North Carolina and SW Virginia are quite happy with the temperatures after this past winter…But (you knew there would be a but), what’s this with it being just a 2 degree difference in the forecast high in Houston and Floyd. That ain’t natural for this early in the year. They keep telling us

An observation started to penetrate my thick skull last week. Because of this vague, nagging feeling I was missing something, I started this week a little more aware of my surroundings. It could be just coincidence, but you tell me what you’ve seen. After Bush pushed the Iraq War down our throats I was decidedly cool on the way this