A new section in the "Dew"

I want ya'll to please take a moment and notice a new section on the sidebar of the Dew. I've added "Weekly Specials".

These will change as time and space permit, but it's a section where I would like to share with all of ya'll articles and information from places other than the Dew.

You will see that right now I have two articles on the after-effects of last year's hurricanes, an article on the Kudzu Festival, followed by a weekly serial reader, weekly cartoon strip and finally the Spring Edition of another Ezine.

I hope ya'll will find these articles/spots to be of interest and visit one or two of them.

Idgie

Summers in Lafayette

When I was a child, I had the wonderful experience of being able to spend a week or so in the summer with two of the greatest ladies I have ever known. They were my Aunt Eva and Aunt Deva and they were my great-great aunts. Eva and Deva were not twins despite the rhyming names. Their full names were Eva Matilda and Laura Deva. Eva was older by I believe eight years.

Of course, as a child, I thought maybe they were twins that didn't look alike. These two ladies never married and spent almost all their adult life known as the spinster sisters. I didn't care, all I knew is that I loved to travel to Lafayette to spend a week or so with them. The lived on St. Patrick Street near the Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital in a green sided house flanked by the most beautiful fuschia azalea bushes I had ever seen. You pulled up in their driveway behind their one car carport. At one point they had a two tone brown sedan and later, a blue Buick. A wrought iron banister led the way up a few steps to the front door of this cute little house. As a kid, I thought this house was so big, but with hindsight, it was probably no more than 1000 sq feet.

Once you walked in, you came into their living room that had a blue recliner and a blue and gold sleeper sofa. I spent many hours on that sofa reading Gone with the Wind. to the left were two bedrooms seperated by a bathroom. I can remember that Aunt Deva had twin beds in here room, one of which was mine when I visited. Aunt Eva's room had a double bed and a jewelry box that I spent hours playing with. Today, that jewelry box and it's contents of beads is in my daughter's room upstairs. I can remember the smell of Aunt Eva's room, it smelled like Ponds cold cream, Jergans Lotion and Caress Soap. To this day, Caress makes me think of these ladies.

There was an alcove that houses a wooden picnic type dining table with the two bench seats on either side. The hutch housed tea cups including a commorative Royal Wedding mug that Aunt Deva brought back from London. The galley kitchen was such a novelty to me. Long and narrow, the smells that came out of this kitchen made my stomach grumble and my mouth water. Aunt Eva made the best smothered porkchops I have ever tasted. To this day, no one can replicate those porkchops. These two ladies drank Community Coffee all through out the day and the funny thing to me was that they made the coffee on top of the stove with the percolator sitting in a pan of water. They would make me a demitasse cup of coffee milk..more milk than coffee, but I felt like such a grownup! I have two of those white cups in my cabinets now.

We would either take the bus downtown or walk to the corner drugstore which was such an exciting thing for a country girl like me. Aunt Deva was still working, and Aunt Eva didn't drive, so it was the bus for us if we wanted to go anywhere during the week. That was just fine with me because Aunt Eva would point out all the different shops and buildings around town. On Sundays, it was time for church at the First Baptist Church of Lafayette, we never missed a Sunday. In fact, it was at ten years old that I "walked the aisle" at a Crusade preached by their pastor. I made friends their friends, including Miss Melacon who lived in the two story white house next door and a girl my age across the street who's name was also Christy.

When I was fourteen those visits ended as they moved just up the street from us. Deva had finally retired and both of them wanted to move closer to family. I was so fortunate to be able to be near them as long I had. When I had my daughter, Amanda, they doted on her. She was "their little girl" until the day they died. As all sisters do, they fought and ignored each other, and as they got on in years thought the other was crazy. One of the funniest things was when Aunt Eva had been bedridden after breaking a hip and proceeded to ignore Aunt Deva when thought Deva was being bossy. Deva would tell me that Eva must be losing her hearing, but when Amanda would say something in her little voice, Eva could hear every word she said. I called it selective hearing and Eva was just ignoring Deva's nagging.

Eva passed away at the age of 92 in January of 2001 and Deva followed that May at the age of 86. These two great ladies, the last of the great ladies,touched so many lives throughout their lives and I was fortunate to be able to spend the time with them. I like to think they they are up in heaven watching over my daughter and me, like guardian angels and when I smell something that reminds me of them, it's their way of letting me know that they're around.

Mama's Biscuits

By Bonnie Annis ©2006

When I think back to my childhood, I remember smells…smells of good things cooking in Mama’s kitchen. Back then, we didn’t have access to fast food restaurants like folks do nowadays so Mama would always be in the kitchen cooking. She was the best cook, too! Her southern fried buttermilk chicken was to die for, but most of all, I loved her biscuits.

I always knew when Mama was going to make biscuits because she’d pull out the big ceramic mixing bowl. She’d take a cloth dishtowel and spread over the countertop and then, she’d get busy mixing.

First came the flour. That white fluffy powder would float up into the air leaving a foggy haze as she opened the bag. She always tried to be as neat as possible when she was cooking, but try as she might, the flour would get on everything. A little salt, some baking soda and baking powder were next. Next came the lard, (that’s Crisco for your civilized folks or you might call it shortening). Mama would cut that in with two forks and then came the buttermilk. Now Mama never measured anything, but she knew just how much to put in to make a perfect batch of biscuits every time.

After she’d gotten her dough all mixed up, she’d take that huge mixture and throw it on the floured countertop and start kneading it, that’s where the hip action came in. Mama wasn’t thin by any means and when she started making her biscuits, the whole kitchen would start to shimmy.

When we were smaller, we’d walk up behind Mama when she was making biscuits and laugh. All we could see was her bottom just a shakin’ from one side to the other. Her apron strings would be swinging as she shifted side to side to get that perfect hip action while she was making her biscuits.

She’d take out Grandmother’s old wooden rolling pin and roll out the dough nice and thick. Then she’d take the lid from a ball canning jar and tenderly cut out each biscuit. As she cut them out, she’d lay them one by one on the baking pan. Our mouths were watering even before she put them in the oven.

When they were all cut out, Mama would put the pan in the oven and warn us not to touch that oven door until they were done. As those heavenly little things cooked, we could smell the love coming from the oven.

When I first got married, I tried to make Mama’s biscuits. I asked her for her recipe and she said “honey, I don’t have one really. I just throw in a pinch of this and dab of that.” Well, I tried that and it didn’t work. My biscuits came out flat and hard. To this day, I think it was all in the hip action. I just didn’t have the right swing. I did find a recipe that’s pretty close to Mama’s if you care to try it. Put a little hip in it and I’m sure they’ll turn out just fine!
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Southern Buttermilk Biscuits:
2 cups sifted flour
1 tsp salt
1/4 tsp baking soda
2 tsp baking powder
1/3 cup lard or vegetable shortening
3/4 cup buttermilk (or 3 tbs buttermilk powder and 3/4 cup water)

Sift dry ingredients (including the buttermilk powder if you're using it), cut in the lard and fresh buttermilk (or water if you're using the buttermilk powder) and mix. Knead lightly, using as little flour as possible. Roll out 1/2 inch thick. Cut with floured cutter (or a rim of a glass works in a pinch). Place on baking sheet and bake at 425 degrees F for 10 to 15 minutes. Makes 12 to 15 biscuits.

Instead of the baking sheet you can do it like my grandmother and I do it: grab some pie pans, pour about 1-2 tbs of vegetable oil in the pan, swirl it in the pan to coat, then put your biscuits in the pan to bake.

Don't forget to put one in the center, for some unknown reason, that one is always the best.

Bonnie Annis
http://www.berrymom2005.blogspot.com/

Limbertwig

You know you are an old timer if….. you remember the Limbertwig apple. It was abundant here in the mountains two generations ago. Over the years, it has slowly given way to more modern apples; the pretty to look at, wax covered, cardboard tasting supermarket apples of today. Once you have tasted the flavor of an old fashioned Limbertwig, its flavor stays with you and its juiciness returns in your mind as you think of the almost extinct delicacy.

Granny always used the limbertwig for storage through the winter. She said it kept better and the longer you stored it, the more flavorful and juicy it became. I don’t know if it was that, or just getting one out of the apple hole when it was cold and snow was on the ground and being able to eat a fresh tasting, crisp apple. The limbertwig I remember wasn’t a pretty to look at apple, like the hybrids of today. It was sort of greenish yellow with big brown spots on it, but after it was cooked or just eaten raw, you never forget the flavor. Granny would get ready to store the apples in the fall, when the air started to be crisp and you could feel cold weather in the air. She always let me (after I begged and begged) gather the apples for storing. This way, I got to climb the tree and easily pick them off so they weren’t bruised as they would be if they fell off the tree and you picked them up off the ground. They kept better if they weren’t bruised. I never used a ladder to climb up and get the apples for fear of being called a sissy for using a ladder. I had to climb up to live up to my reputation as being a “tomboy”. Besides, the limbertwig got its name from being just that, its branches were thin and limber which gave an overall weeping growth to the tree. You had to be careful and stand on the stronger limbs and reach way out to pick the apples off the more delicate limbs. On occasion, though, I learned that, like the apples, the human body will also bruise when picked up off the ground after falling from the apple tree.

Granny had an apple hole behind the barn on the north side. She said the ground on the north side stayed colder in the winter and was better for storage. The hole was already there as far back as I remember, cleaned out each year as a bird does it’s nest in a birdhouse. There was a deep layer of dried grass on the bottom, with a layer of apples one deep on top of that. Then the first layer was covered with a layer of dried grass, then another layer of apples, on up to about four layers. On the top of the last layer, after the apples were covered with the dried grass, the dirt was placed back on top. It was a treat to go out there and very easily dig down and bring out a fresh juicy apple, or two, or three if an apple pie was in order.

The mountains and valleys and meadows grew an abundance of apple trees back then. We usually started out with Early Harvest and June apples. These apples made the best applesauce. They were cooked with the skin still on because the early ones had a very thin skin and cooked up real nice. My aunt Texa could make the most mouth watering applesauce stack cake. It had about eight very thin layers of a sort of molasses cake, with spiced applesauce in between the layers. The cake got better each day as the layers became more and more soggy. She also made the best applesauce pie. I have never been able to duplicate this pie, nor find a recipe for it. I wish I had watched her make one and remembered how to. The applesauce was thick and sliced like pumpkin pie, but it was a two crust pie. I can taste those applesauce pies now, what a great memory!

There were so many kinds of apples that granny had specific apples to do specific things with. She had a cider apple, which was usually a Pippin. She used Wolf River for a canning and drying apple. Another good old apple is the Sheepnose (or Crow’s egg). The Sheepnose is a rough skinned apple that becomes dry when it gets too ripe, but it was good for sulfuring or bleaching. Granny used the apples with the tartest flavor for making apple butter. She had a big copper kettle that we would fill and cook for hours outside on an open flame. She had a big wooden apple butter paddle that she kept the apple butter stirred with after she had put the spices in. The apple butter had to cook very slowly, over a small fire, nearly all day long, stirring and stirring. One old apple tree near the barn she called a “horse apple”. I always thought it was only to feed the horses, but found out it was good to eat too.

The bleached (sulfured) apples were as good as a fresh apple, all white and crispy. They never turned brown and wrinkly. Granny would peel and slice usually Winesap apples. She had a wooden barrel with a cast iron pot in the bottom. She had an old axe without a handle that she used just for bleaching apples. She would heat the axe in the woodstove until it was red hot, take it out and put it in the cast iron pot inside the barrel. On top of the hot axe, she would put about a teaspoon of sulfur that she had gotten from the drugstore in either Greeneville or Marshall. This created a smoke and it would fill the barrel. It didn’t smell too good right at first, but the apples never had a smell when they were done. She would then take about two gallons of the sliced up apples and suspend them in a loosely woven sack inside the barrel, running a stick through the tied end so you could put a lid on the barrel and the apples wouldn’t touch the bottom. The apples smoked in the sulfur smoke for about 30-45 minutes and then they were taken out and put in a dry cotton feed sack. We always kept these apples in a cool place, most times in the same sack. Then the procedure was repeated with another hot axe and another run of cut up apples. These bleached apples also have a flavor and crispness that you can never forget.

Gone is the art of bleaching apples, almost gone is the Limbertwig, which is now listed as an “antique” or heritage apple. The good old apples are gone in favor of bigger, better, prettier, genetically modified versions….as most things in our society have “progressed”. The late Henry Morton of Gatlinburg, Tennessee had the forethought to preserve this wonderful taste from our past. He grafted the Limbertwig and over the years he had preserved several different varieties. We owe him a debt of gratitude. If you ever get a chance to taste this treasure, please do not pass up the opportunity. It will be a taste you will never forget.

A couple in Ashe County have devoted their lives to growing, preserving and selling the old mouth watering varieties of mountain apples. Without them and their efforts, future generations would never be able to taste and witness the delightful delicacy of a heritage or “antique” apple. They own Big Horse Creek Farm (www.bighorsecreekfarm.com). The pictures shown here for the Black Limbertwig and the apple blossom are credited to them.

The old Limbertwig apple tree on the farm is long gone now, but the memory of it is stored in my mind….in a hole under a layer of cold earth and dried grass, that I can take out when I want and smell or taste a bit of yesteryear.
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Written by: Judy Ricker
judyr5554@charter.net

St. Patrick’s Day in Savannah - 1978

St. Patrick’s Day was for many years a very special day for me. It was a parade, a party and a chance to watch others make complete fools of themselves. It was like Mardi Gras… with all the required trappings, compressed into a single 24-hour time span.

Savannah has (or had) the second largest St. Paddy’s Day celebration in the country, one step behind New York. It was the one time during the course of the year when all the rules where dumped into the Savannah River… along with the green dye, and you could let the rest of it hang out wherever you pleased.

Now, I don’t want to appear to be making excuses for a full-blown drunk. Heaven knows, there is always the day of reckoning that follows when you wake up. But somewhere on the ledge… that narrow space between prudish extremism and extreme indiscretion is a land of thorough satisfaction that comes with the added virtue of being able to remember it all in exacting detail.


Over the years and the various St. Patrick’s Day blowouts, I saw some pretty good live shows down on River Street. One that was particularly good starred a band called the Dixie Dregs. They were (and may still be) a jazz/rockabilly ensemble that produced an album called “What If” about the same time.

Anyway, on this same St Paddy’s Day, March 17, 1978, and as the Dregs were playing, my friends and I met these two GIs who had come to town from Ft. Stewart for the celebration. Along with them they brought a half a gallon of Southern Comfort. (Oh… and for those who may be too young to know this, Southern Comfort, each and every bottle, used to weigh in at 100 proof.)

Yessiree Bubba! 100 proof and these two soldiers, from Ohio and Michigan respectively, began working their way to the bottom of that bottle. All we did was watch… and wait for the inevitable whilst sipping on our green beers.

About halfway down, one of them decided to take a dip into the Savannah River. The day was chilly… maybe 55-60 degrees and the river? Well, you’d have to know the Savannah River to also know that was one body of water you did not want to swim in. Not only is it laced with deadly rip currents and undertows, the thing is polluted enough to breed 9-eyed catfish! We tried to tell them. The bottle was speaking louder than we were though. Splash.

Yup, splash went the guy into the water. Then splash went his tag team partner… but not in the swimming sense. We thought this might be coming when the dry one laid himself out on the pavement and started making gurgling sounds. His buddy in the water, meanwhile, had thought better of the swim and wanted to get out but for some reason, he’d get about halfway up the pier before falling back in again. Imagine.

By the time the cops fished drunk #1 out of the river, drunk #2 was swimming in a pool of his own making. Both smell equally bad so we moved a respectable distance to observe as they were, literally, poured into the (aptly named) paddy wagon and carted away.

The remainder of the jug of Comfort was still sitting where they left it and to be honest, we were tempted to take it and make merry. But you know, we had already seen the damage this grand old drink of the south had done to those two poor and unsuspecting Yankees boys. We wanted to survive and, like I said, to remember the day. And to that end, we succeeded.

Well, at least I did.

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Written by Redoubt

A Little Ways Down the Road from Mars Hill

A little ways down the road, about 60-70 years down the road, was a wondrous and memorable icon in the White Rock section of Madison County, in the form of Mr. Earl Rice’s rolling store, better known to us as the “Peddler”.

Wednesday became our favorite day when we could sit out on the porch and listen for him to make the turn from the main road and start up our remote, rocky and bumpy road. As he came by Jesse Wallin’s house, he had to change gears to start up the hill. The engine would roar and the gears would grind as he shifted into “bulldog”. By the time he got to Rankin and Emily Wallin’s house, he was coming on pretty strong. There was a huge rock that crossed the entire road between Rankin’s house and ours that years of rain and wear had made quite a step up if you were coming up the road. When it rained, the water would stream down the road over that rock and make a small waterfall that fascinated us into standing barefoot and letting the cool water splash over our feet. But when Mr. Rice’s truck hit that rock, it started a racket that you could hear for miles. Galvanized pots and pans were tied to the sides of the truck on nails and they would clatter and clang together as the truck jolted from side to side. The chickens that were in the coops would squawk and cackle and we knew we would have time to get from the porch to the road before he stopped in front of our house. Granny never seemed to be filled with such a wonder as us and kept on working until she heard him stop. Then she would come on down to the road with her trading goods. She had a little black leather change purse that she kept in her apron pocket. It was worn from many years of opening and closing, and we knew we were in for a treat when she opened that metal clasp on the top that opened and closed it. I think she knew Mr. Rice wasn’t going anywhere with a bunch of youngun’s standing in the middle of the road yelling and waving like a bunch of banshees.

That truck was so filled with wonders that it would be impossible to list them all without leaving something out. The bed was all weathered wood with a tin roof, so tall it swarped the low branches of the trees as it swung by. On each of the outside walls hung galvanized pots and pans of all sizes and shapes. They were hung on nails and tied with hay baling string. There were cast iron skillets and stove eye lifters, shovel handles and axe handles. The chicken coops were tied to the bottom where there was a small running board that he could walk down and get things off the side of the truck, or to put a chicken in a coop if someone had one to trade. He had enamel pots, but he kept them inside as they were easy to chip and everyone knew an enamel pot would leak after it was chipped. As we came nearer, the more wondrous the smells became. There was a big wooden 55 gallon barrel of coal oil that he had strapped to the back. The coil oil was used to start fireplace fires and wood cook stove fires and huge fires at hog killing time to heat the water that scorched the hair off the sides of the hog so you could scrape it. Granny had a gallon tin can with a little spout on the top and a screw lid to pump the oil into. She kept a corn cob in the spout and when time came to build the fire, the cob was used as a starter as it was most already soaked with oil. Once we got the coal oil out of the way, we could concentrate on all the other goodies that lined the shelves once you passed through the “golden” door that was swung wide to display all his wares. There was an aisle down the middle of the truck with a wooden floor. The floor planks were wide oak with tongue and groove, sturdy to hold all the weight of the goods. Shelves lined each side from bottom to top with the back of the shelf slanted downward to keep the wares from sliding off in the floor as he made his way across the rough and rocky roads of Shelton Laurel. All the wonderful smells and aromas, filtered through the lens of childhood, make me think of soap and camphor and horehound candy and peppermint and leather all rolled up together. There was a 25 pound cake of hoop cheese with a red rime around the edges. It came in a round wooden box with a lid and special people got first choice of that box when it was empty. Granny had two of them, one she kept her yarn in and the other was filled with quilt scraps. Flour came in 25 pound sacks, sugar in 100 pound sacks and salt usually in 10 pound sacks. The sugar came in bigger sacks because sometimes the sugar was used for more than just making cakes (especially when mixed with corn).

He also had various kinds of animal feed, like cow feed and horse feed in 100 pound sacks, but we usually grew our own feed, kept in the corn crib beside the barn. In the winter time, granny would add a cup of molasses to the corn to give the cows and horses a little extra energy to weather the snowy days. The flour and sugar sacks had special cotton prints that were saved and sewn into aprons and pot holders and dresses for some. I remember one lady who had made a dress out of a feed sack and it had “100 pounds net weight” written right across her behind. Below the bottom shelf on the floor were wooden kegs with screws, nails, horse shoes, horse shoe nails. He also had a keg of crackers that he sold by the pound. That was before saltine crackers came in a plastic tube inside a square box. There were jars of liniment, tins of salve and various tins and bottles for all cures and ailments.

Granny did the bartering for most of the goods. She would have a big fat hen already caught with its legs tied together to trade. Mr. Rice would take the hen and hook the legs on a hanging scale to tell how much it weighed so he could give an equal amount of goods for the weight of the hen. Granny had already crossed the chicken’s wings and tied them so she wouldn’t flop about and squawk. He then would put the hen in one of the cages on the outside of the truck if there was room, but he also had a trap door in the middle of the aisle that led to a coop beneath the truck and sometimes he would put the hen in there. Granny had big fat Dominecker hens and also had several red hens, Rhode Island Reds, but we laughingly called them Red Island Rhodes. She kept these hens because they laid big brown eggs with thick yellow yolks that made the cakes richer and gave a golden color to her pound cakes. If we had been especially good, and granny always led us to believe we had, even though we knew we hadn’t, we would each be given a big brown egg and Mr. Rice would trade the egg for a bag of candy. But first, he had a rolled up tube of paper, kind of like a paper towel holder in nowadays times. He would hold that tube up to his eye, hold the egg to the other end and hold it up to the sun to see if it had a chick in it. Of course, he couldn’t sell an egg with a chicken in it, so granny always made sure our egg was fresh and wouldn’t be hatching out no baby chick when someone was getting ready to bake a cake.

We stared with wonderment at the ribbons and lace and thread and sometimes wanted to trade our egg for some of that just so we could look at it, but granny said you can’t eat ribbons and lace, so we didn’t trade for that. She would trade shuck beans or “leather britches”, ‘cause some city folks didn’t have the chance to grow beans for leather britches. Shuck beans are green beans that have been strung and broken into pieces and sewed onto a thread and hung in the attic to dry. It takes five pounds of green beans to make one “mess” of leather britches, but after they are soaked in water all night and cooked with a piece of side meat, there is no other taste like it. She always said a green bean without a string on it ain’t worth a lick. Granny usually traded for a piece of camphor that she would put in a jar of alcohol and use to rub on your chest for a cold or sore throat. She would trade for some Garrett’s Sweet snuff, salt, and sometimes flour and baking powder, cinnamon and sugar. After all the trading was done, granny would buy some extra candy and take it in the house to hide from us so she could dole it out on special occasions, but we always found her hiding place and thought she didn’t miss the pieces we had taken.

Then he was off on up the road and we were content and happy with our wares, our mouths all sweet and sugary and blowing bubble gum bubbles that would burst and stick all over the front of our face. We’d see who could blow the biggest bubble, then reach over and make it pop all over their face. We would be content and happy and wait until the next Wednesday when we would sit on the porch and wait again.

Written by: Judy Ricker
judyr5554@charter.net
Judy started writing 3 years ago and is a new addition to the Dew. She does not have a webpage so if you wish to contact her, her email is included.

High Noon in the Garden of Pain and Pleasure

By Redoubt
http://www.sincityq.com/blog/

When I was considering subject matter for this article, my first choice was to detail something unique to life in the southern states. I scanned my memory for something that stood out and it was here that I found not one but quite a few recollections worthy of some degree of examination.

Before I get into that, though, let’s first recognize that when a southerner speaks of things southern, he or she is speaking first hand.

To those who have never experienced any of it for themselves, the ability to relate is only as good as whatever southern stereotype they’ve chosen to embrace. To wit, who can truly grasp the flavor of say… southern fried chicken or a fresh pecan pie when in fact, they’ve never had a single bite of the real deal?

For those of you north of the Mason-Dixon or maybe west of the Mississippi, the distance between perception and understanding is your loss. So to bring you a little closer to the goodness, we are going to offer up a little education and some… uh, pain too.

Yes, I said pain… but first, the education.

You see, the southeastern United States’ climate is mostly subtropical with some areas along the coastlines and down in Florida being nearly… entirely tropical. In these tropical and subtropical environments grow all sorts of bugs and weeds that breed in what could be referred to as nature’s urban landscape. Life ain’t easy and as such, they are very adept at doing whatever they have to in the way of feeding, breeding and survival.

Alrighty then, now on to the pain…

I was born on the Florida peninsula and spent my first, tender years there. Back in those days, Florida was like a third world country with dirt/sand roads and an abundance of natural, tropical flora and fauna. One of the former was a weed that we knew as a ‘sandspur’.

The sandspur (Cenchrus longispinus) is a bane to bare feet as well as bicycle tires. The things grow anywhere and everywhere, even amidst the best-manicured lawns… and if you find yourself happenstance amongst a whole mess of them, you know it’s going to hurt before you even step in them. Not only that, even if you were lucky enough to be wearing shoes, your britches are likely to be loaded with them. If you don’t pick ‘em out before washing said pants, someone is likely to get hurt handling them either going into or coming out of the family Maytag.

Sandspurs are criminally inclined, masterful torturers that have no mercy. If you should ever become an unwitting victim, the memory will be with you for a lifetime, guaranteed.

After graduating from the 3rd grade… and the sandspurs, we moved from Florida to coastal Georgia. In fact, our family has many of its roots in Savannah so it was more of a homecoming than a migration.

One of the first things I found about my new surroundings was that the local species of sandspurs were there called ‘stickers’ and that they weren’t nearly as mean. Yes, they stuck and sometimes hurt but compared to what I had already been through, these guys were as benign as a broke shotgun. A little due caution and you could avoid any serious injury.

But before I really got a chance to heal and regain my childhood, there were new foes to fight and these guys were out for blood!

The salt marsh mosquito (Aedes taeniorhynchus) is found along coastal areas from Maine to Texas but honestly, I never got to know them until I moved to Savannah. On one particular occasion when I had gone over the (old) Tallmadge Memorial Bridge into Jasper County, South Carolina along route US 17A, there was an accident and I stopped to see if I could be of assistance.

What had happened was that some tour bus had gone off the road shoulder and into the marsh immediately next to it. Back then, US 17A was just a 2-lane roadway with little or no shoulder to buffer it from those marshes. Anyway, it was a pouring rain that day and as we all sort of helped the passengers wade through the muck and up to the roadbed, we were fallen upon by kazillions of those thirsty marsh bugs who saw us… this gaggle of hairless, soaking wet bipeds, as a dinner buffet.

Here’s a few things I learned that day…

One, these suckers are HUGE! They are about twice the size of most any skeeter you’ve ever known and the spikes they jab you with to get at your blood are probably made of some form of biological carbon steel.

Two, they can and will bite through your clothes… and in July, we weren’t wearing too doggone much so while no one was injured from the actual event of that bus skidding off the road, it was nevertheless… a very bloody affair.

Okay, we’ve gone from Florida to the coast of Georgia and now finally, let’s go west to the banks of the Chattahoochee.

Far less tropical, the Chattahoochee Valley is a glorious land of rolling hills, tall pines, lazy oaks and hickories all bedded in red clay. The pace of life is substantially less hectic here but there are still dangers lurking and if you don’t known just a tad about the potential, you could be in for a world of hurt.


Meet the little, red fire ant (Solenopis Invicta), a true pain in the… uh, whatever part of the anatomy they become attached to.

Fire ants are hell on wheels and they are ready to die en masse in the course of ruining your day… and complexion. If you’re not careful, they’ll impose their death wish upon you without a second’s hesitation.

I taught my younguns early on how to identify a fire ant mound and more to the point, how to avoid them. We made a weekly ritual of scouting our property for the red invaders and when we found them, we either used a good ant killer or the old standby: a shovel, a gallon of regular gasoline and a match.

On one occasion, we had a big old Sweetgum (Sycamore) tree that was infested with these communistic insects and of course, accidents did happen. We all had the experience of having a mess of the little sadists attached to us on various, unfortunate areas of our bodies.

Well, that’s about it for now. In truth, I could have gone a few more days without recalling any of this but it’s the contrasts that stand out when relating a story. Or put another way, it’s easier to imagine the joy of a fresh pecan pie when contrasted with having a sandspur embedded in your foot. Don’t you agree?

It’s sure enough an abstract concept but for those who don’t live in the south, it’s as close as they may ever get to either… and missing any of it would just be a sin.

85 Shopping Days until the 2006 Atlantic Hurricane Season

It's half past Apocolypse in New Orleans and the Gulf Coast (credit to MSNBC), and there are 85 shopping days until the 2006 Atlantic Hurricane Season.

Before I moved to Florida, the count down to shopping days was more associated with shopping for Christmas presents and not batteries, plywood and bottled water. 2004 changed that for me when Florida was hit with four major hurricanes in six weeks. Then, last August, Katrina roared ashore and change the landscape and psyche of nearly every person who lives anywhere near the water. When Katrina was first a blip on the radar, it was out in the Atlantic and came ashore near Miami as a Catagory 1. Floridians barely notice a Cat 1 most of the time. In fact, some businesses don't bother to close. This time, Katrina walloped Miami and caught everyone off guard. Floods, power outages and surprising damage came along for the ride. Once she was out in the warm August waters of the Gulf, she picked up steam and plowed into the unprepared Gulf Coast. Katrina wiped entire towns off the map and contibuted to the breaching of the New Orleans levee system exposing just how incompetant and corrupt the Louisiana government is. Katrina unleased horrors on American soil that we thought we were more likely to see in a third world country.

That brings me to this season. What can we expect? Will it be as bad? Will it be worse? Will we escape? Pretty soon, we'll be seeing hurricane preparedness guides and evacuation maps in our local newspapers and in racks on our grocery stores. The local news and the Weather Channel will begin to air retrospectives of last years season and compare it to the 2004 season to see if they can extrapolate enough data to give them insight to this years' season.

Already, 86 days out, I can sometimes catch snippets of conversation about hurricanes. It's almost taken for granted here, that you have your box of supplies, a stack of plywood and everything important ready to go should the evacuation order come down. It's also this time of year that you can almost feel the beginnings of anxiety tenticles slowly wrapping it's slender bands around your stomach.

I hope that the main lesson that people have learned from Katrina is this. When you see a massive hurricane headed toward you, get out. Don't wait for the evacuation orders, leave if you feel unsafe. It's not fun and games anymore. It's not all about hurricane parties, or Pat O's potent drink. As anyone of those people who survived the Super Dome and the Convention Center. I'm sure if they could call "do over" they would get out of town. Walk if you have to. Beg a ride if you have to, but get out of harms way. I'm sure if you could ask those 50,000 or so people stuck in New Orleans during during and right after Katrina, they'd tell you the same thing. The last thing we need is a repeat of last August. Never again should we to have to turn on the news and see the people having to be plucked off roofs after they have chopped their way to safety.

The Gulf Coast will rise again, of that I have no doubt. We are a people with a deep sense of history and have strong bonds to the land. It's going to take more than two storms named Katrina and her sister Rita to keep the people of Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas from coming back stronger than ever.

Springtime in the Smokies

The lives of wealthy Victorian era Americans were filled with parties, travel and leisure. One notable name of this Gilded Era was Vanderbilt, a family that made its fortune in the railroad industry.

In 1888, George Washington Vanderbilt, grandson of railroad magnate Cornelius Vanderbilt, visited the mountains of western North Carolina with his mother and fell victim to the lure of the Blue Ridge and Great Smoky Mountains.

Not yet married, George had a dream of building a vast country estate and he found the ideal location in Asheville, North Carolina. The area boasts breathtaking scenery and a climate that’s relatively mild for a mountainous area.

With a bankroll rivaling the gross national product of a small country, George purchased 125,000 acres of pristine wilderness area and set about to create a self-sustaining estate such as those he’d seen in his European travels.

He named his holdings Biltmore Estate from his ancestral Dutch town of Bildt and the English word Moor, which is an open, rolling landscape.

His next decisions were critical ones: who would design not only the house itself, but the gardens that would surround it?

Richard Morris Hunt, the first American to study at the prestigious Ecole Des Beaux-Arts in Paris and one of the founders of the American Institute of Architecture, was selected to design the house. Hunt is also know for his design of The Breakers in Newport, Rhode Island, the pedestal base of the Statue of Liberty and the Tribune Building in New York City, one of the first buildings with an elevator. Together, Hunt and Vanderbilt decided on a French Renaissance chateau design with a limestone façade and a steeply pitched roof.

Vanderbilt and Hunt not only created an architectural wonder, but a technological one as well. Biltmore House had all of the latest technology of its time. Central heating, indoor plumbing for all thirty-four bedrooms, electricity, mechanical refrigeration and two elevators are but a few of the amenities afforded Biltmore’s residents and guests. Some of Thomas Edison’s first light bulbs illuminated Biltmore’s passageways and the house contained an electric calling system for servants in addition to a newfangled gadget called the telephone.

A two-lane bowling alley with equipment by Brunswick and an indoor swimming pool with underwater lights provided indoor recreation for the Vanderbilts and their guests.

Hundreds of local workers and skilled European artisans were hired. Tons of Indiana limestone was brought in as well as imported Italian marble. To facilitate the transportation of these raw materials, Vanderbilt had a private three-mile-long rail spur built from the estate to a neighboring village. A woodworking factory was built on the estate to produce the ornate trim seen throughout the house and a kiln was erected that would produce 32,000 bricks per day.

Construction of Biltmore Estate took six years and while still incomplete, the house was formally opened on Christmas Eve, 1895. The finished product is a mansion that contains 250 room encompassing 175,000 square feet. Biltmore’s size earned it the title of “America’s Castle” and to date it remains the United States’ largest privately owned home.

The design and construction of Biltmore’s gardens were entrusted to Frederick Law Olmstead, considered by many to be the father of American landscape architecture. He is credited with designing the U.S. Capitol grounds in Washington, D.C. and the campus at Stanford University in Palo Alto, California. But his most notable design is New York City’s Central Park.

The various gardens cover sixty-five acres and include a shrub garden, walled garden, rose garden and conservatory and Italian garden. Each features various trees, shrubs and flowers, which provide an array of color and texture throughout the seasons.

When Biltmore Estate was completed in late December of 1895, George realized that he had a dream home, but no one to share it with. In 1898 he married Edith Stuyvesant Dresser and their only child Cornelia was born in 1900. Cornelia married the Honorable John Francis Amherst Cecil in 1924 and their children share ownership of the Biltmore properties.

Not content to simply sit back and enjoy his home, George and Edith Vanderbilt dedicated their lives to helping others. They purchased a nearby town where most of the estate’s employees lived and renamed it Biltmore Village. The town, with buildings and a church designed by Richard Morris Hunt, grew and is today designated as a historic district.

The Vanderbilts also founded the Biltmore Forest School, the first school for scientific forestry in America as well as Biltmore Estate Industries, an apprenticeship program to teach traditional crafts like woodworking and weaving. Edith founded the School for Domestic Science where young women were trained in housekeeping skills, which would give them a distinct advantage in the job market.

Biltmore House is filled with priceless artwork and custom made furnishings and was the scene of many social galas. But despite its grandeur, George strove to make Biltmore a warm, inviting home for his family.

In March 1914, Vanderbilt was rushed to a hospital in Washington, D.C. with appendicitis. An emergency appendectomy was performed. The surgery, however, was not successful and George Washington Vanderbilt died on March 6. He was buried in the family mausoleum on Staten Island. His wife remained at Biltmore until 1925 when she remarried. She left the management of Biltmore Estate to her daughter and son-in-law.

Biltmore Estate operated its own dairy, which provided products for not only the estate, but eventually all of western North Carolina. In 1985 the dairy operation was sold and the dairy barn on the estate was remodeled and turned into a winery, which is the most visited winery in the United States.

William Amherst Vanderbilt, grandson of George W. Vanderbilt, owns the estate today and accepts no government funding to maintain the house or grounds. Imbued with the same “can do” attitude of his grandfather, Cecil defied those who told him that the estate could not be profitable. Cecil, who had a background in New York banking, returned to Asheville in the 1960s to find it in economic trouble. He rolled up his sleeves, wore many hats and began to market his childhood home. By the end of the decade, Biltmore was showing a profit, a trend that has continued to this day.

Biltmore Estate is open to the public every day except Thanksgiving and Christmas. During the Christmas season, the house is decorated in authentic Victorian tradition and special candlelight Christmas evening events are planned. Springtime is especially beautiful at Biltmore.

For more information, visit www.biltmore.com or call 800-624-1575 to discover the magic that is Biltmore Estate.

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Some material used from the following sources:

http://gardening.about.com/od/gardendesign/a/BIltmore_2.htm

www.romanticashville.com

www.biltmore.com

www.blueridgehighlander.com

Southern Dew

I sit on my porch, smelling the morning air. I feel the gentle morning breeze very softly flittering thru my hair. It whispers thru the tiny blooms on the Flowering Pear tree right off the porch.

The air smells so very good. Spring is coming and the air smells of rebirth and bloom. I smell the grass beginning to sprout. I smell the trees waking up. I smell the South coming back to life and readying itself for a new growth season.

I smell hope and dreams in this morning air.

I draw my finger down the porch rail and feel the dew bubbles pop under my skin. The dew smell pours over me. It also is like Spring and hope and wonder.

I settle onto the porch swing again. I nestle deeper into my robe, wrap my hands around my steaming coffee cup and take a big sip. I watch the birds come to the lawn, drink the dew and seek their breakfast among the seedlings and living creatures buried under those seeds.

I stand up, take one last long indrawn breath, absorbing all these thoughts and wonders into myself, and go into the house to prepare for my day.

It's going to be a good one I think.