A West Virginia hoe-down and a little nepotism....

We know how to have a good time in Appalachia. I was caught on tape recently flat-footing at the Cd Release party for my friends, The Fox Hunt. If you love traditional music, you'll love their new album. It can be ordered here.

I miss all of you and hope to be posting again soon!

With Love.... Blue

Saturday night and the moon is out

I wanna head on over to the Twist and Shout

Find a two-step Partner and a cajun beat

When it lifts me up, I'm gonna find my feet

Out in the middle of a big dance floor

When I hear that fiddle wanna beg for more..

-Mary Chapin Carpenter

Fiddlegirl asked me to help play for a square dance a couple of weeks ago at the local Senior Center. As there's not a whole lot going on most Saturdays and I enjoy playing (and dancing), I obliged her. I'm telling you, those retirees know how to have a good time.... they had more energy than me! When I would take a break from playing to dance, they wouldn't let me sit any dances out, even when I was exhausted. I'd get grabbed back up on the dance floor.

And since our hubbies wouldn't dance, Fiddlegirl and I waltzed together. I made her be the guy. :) It was a fun night.... a perfect remedy for winter blahs, which I think we all had.

Little Cabin in the Woods........

It was quite apt that Sir Laughsalot and I had been reading that first book by Laura Ingalls Wilder when we went to this Harvest Party at Fiddle Girl and her husband's cabin.... I could have sworn we went back in time and were at Half-pint's little house in the big woods....

The bounties of the harvest were brought by everyone..... canned and preserved, baked, or made into other tasty dishes.... the tables overflowed.....



Home-made chicken and dumplings were cooked in the kettle over the fire.....

Even Fiddle Girl's son got in on the action and showed his young entrepeneurial spirit by cooking up Hot Chocolate in his own little kettle..... 50 cents a cup, he said.... to go towards buying a steam engine. I guess you can't start dreamin' and schemin' too young....

And if you drank too much hot chocolate, or enjoyed the fruits of the harvest a little too much.... you had to wait your turn to use the johnny-house, as there was no indoor plumbing or electricity.....

We drew the evening to a close by getting our instruments out and playing by the light of oil lamps and candles that were scatterred about the cabin.... Even Sir Laughsalot played along on his harmonica.

Living history.... or maybe a more appropriate term would be 'Living traditions'......

"Smoke hangs like haze over harvested fields, The gold of stubble, the brown of turned earth.

And you walk under the red light of fall..

The scent of fallen apples, the dust of threshed grain

The sharp, gentle chill of fall.

Here as we move into the shadows of autumn

The night that brings the morning of spring.

Come to us, Lord of Harvest...Teach us to be thankful for the gifts you bring us ..."

Apple Butter time........

It's that time of year in the mountains..... time for making apple butter. On any given Friday or Saturday, you can drive the backroads of Appalachia and stumble upon families, churches, and community groups gathered around huge kettles, sitting in lawn chairs, tables piled with home-made food cooked by the womenfolk to sustain the workers through the 24 hour process.

This weekend, it was our turn for stirring the big pots at Sir Laughsalot's little, rural school. It was a perfect fall day for the venture.... cool breezes and blue skies.

Selling apple butter is our school's big fall fundraiser along with an ice-cream social in the spring. We feel extremely blessed to live in an area where the small, community schools have been able to remain open due to community and parental involvement. I am a strong believer in small class sizes and parental involvement.... there are only 13 children in the whole Kindergarten class at this school, which ensures a lot of individual attention and more time and energy for creative teaching.

For this particualr venture, we worked in shifts, parents and kids. It was a great opportunity to meet other parents and the kids enjoyed helping out.

When their arms got tired, they played

on the school playground or climbed the woodpile...

I cherished the morning.... the sense of community, coming together to support our kids and school.... the smell of woodsmoke and apples... kids helping and learning to work together.... stirring a huge kettle full of apple butter, outdoors, surrounded by the beautiful, fall-hued mountains......

Our mountain ancestors might have been doing the very same thing on a similar weekend, over a hundred years ago.

Connection, Community, Family, Simplicity......

Life is good!

If They Play It, I Will Come.......


One of the first things I do when I move to a new town, is seek out fellow old-time musicians. This was a difficult task when we lived in Maryland, as the Appalachian culture wasn't quite thriving there, even though we were still in the Appalachian mountains. But it didn't take long in our new town....

Old-time musicians are usually some of the friendliest and welcoming folks around... and they love to have other people sit in and play with them. Traditional music lends itself to group playing...sitting around and 'jamming'... and the more the merrier.

At the dawning of our second month here, I met my new friend, Fiddlegirl, at the church we've been attending. We immediately hit it off, and she gushed that I was an answer to prayer, as she had wanted to start an 'all-girl' group and had yet to meet many female musicians that loved traditional music. She already plays at local coffee shops and jams, but wanted some others to sit in with her.

We spent some time playing and picking on her porch in preparation for this Friday night jam and we made our big 'debut'. To tell you the truth, she's an answer to my prayers, too, as playing music feeds my soul... but I don't do it regularly. I only tend to play if I have others to play with.

It may not be the Friday Night Jamboree, but I am so glad to have found that the music scene is alive and kicking in our little community..... and will hopefully continue to grow!

Morning Visitors......
My first stop every morning (after the potty ), is my kitchen window. I always drink a glass of water first thing in the morning and gaze up at the early morning light playing on the mountain. Today, there was a strange silhouette on the window..... from a distance, it looked like a feather.

I approached and took a closer look and saw that it was a praying mantis.... one of my favorite insects. It brought back a flood of memories as they were abundant on our farm in Kentucky growing up. They are one of the more elegant species of the insect world. He was as curious about me, as I was about him. I don't have a good camera for micro shots, but you can see his little beady eyes checking me out.....

While I was out getting a photo of the little guy, I turned around and looked up at the hill behind us, and saw some of our regular morning visitors...... buzzards. We have two trees on the hill with dead branches, and they love to roost there at night..... sometimes I've seen as many as twenty at a time... their bald, bright red heads tucked into their chests in slumber.

Since I had the camera ready, I thought I'd go see if my other little morning friend had a productive night. I went to the front of the house, to our shrubbery, and saw she had been quite busy last night. She's always by the front porch when I sit and drink my coffee there in the mornings. Sometimes I give her a little treat by leaving the porch light on for a while in the evenings. :)


It seems I am surrounded on all sides.........
Some might find these creatures quite icky, but they all serve a purpose, and keep me company out here in the country....

Things that make me smile....

Small town parades....

Fall Fun .....

A taste of what's to come...


Forward Thinker...

Over-achievers...

End of season slump...

Trend Setter...

For some more Fall Fun, head to my new blogging friend, Brandy's, site for a fun fall give-away. And spend some time reading her delightful posts...she lives simply and is very creative and inspiring!

Provision.......

(an excerpt from an e-mail I sent to my family shortly after moving to our new town)

I had a wonderful night last night....just one of those nights where it seems the stars are all aligned just for you. We were invited to Vacation Bible School at a little country church up the road..... down a beautiful, winding, one-lane road following a creek. I stayed with Sir Laughsalot through the evening... went to his class with him. He made friends with the class clown right away, an onery little red-headed boy. They carried on, laughed, and played together the entire night..... Such a wonderful thing to see after having to leave all his friends behind when we moved.

Another mom was there and I sensed a kindred spirit.... and a familiar accent. We trepidly started conversing and realized we were both from the same area of North Carolina and she had also gone to college near my hometown in Kentucky. Before long, we were laughing, too.... and didn't stop talking until the evening was through. We even got some looks from the teachers to hush. As the evening wound down, we exchanged phone numbers, e-mails, and 'See ya tomorrow's!"

It was dark when we left..... and the cicadas and peepers were almost deafening. I had a euphoric feeling walking down the little road to the car, with the sounds of the country in my ear, the little white church's steeple lit up in the background, and the sound of kids laughing. A night of good conversation, a possible new friendship, and knowing my son is getting that gentle, fun introduction to Jesus that we had at our bible schools growing up. We drove home with the windows down, listening to the night sounds, and Sir Laughsalot softly singing the songs he had learned that night.

I believe Someone did line the stars up for me last night.......

Nature's Bounty.......

A recent, overcast day found us picking wild blueberries just a short distance away from where we live. A tip from a local park ranger led us to just the right spot.... a huge blueberry bog in the midst of a nearby designated wilderness area. The dirt road leading to the area was windy and steep and we drove slowly up it. After about 20 minutes of driving through a thick canopy of trees, the landscape suddenly opened up and I was amazed to see the immense, wild bog.

The blueberries were at their peak, and the whole time we were picking, I thought to myself, "How lucky am I?", while gazing out at the misty mountains and harvesting nature's gift. The slight drizzle and low-hanging clouds lent to the magical feel of the day.....

The end results of our harvest proved delicious.......

Seasonal Fruit Muffins

(you can use peaches, raspberries, or blueberries)

- 2 c. flour (i mix wheat and white)

-1 T baking powder

-1/2 t. salt

-1/2 cup sugar (i use raw sugar)

-1 t. cinnamon

-1/2 t. nutmeg

-1 egg

-1 cup milk

-1/3 cup melted butter

-1- 1 1/2 cups fruit

Preheat oven to 400*. Combine first 6 ingredients (for peaches, replace cinnamon and nutmeg with 1/4 t. mace). Beat egg lightly, add milk and melted butter. Make a well in dry ingredients and pour in liquid mixture. Stir just enough to combine and then add fruit. Sprinkle with topping and cook 15-20 minutes.

topping

-2 T brown sugar

-1/2 t. cinnamon

-1/4 teaspoon nutmeg

Jammin' at the DQ........

Our local Dairy Queen is the place to be on Tuesday nights. Old country and traditional Appalachian music can be heard floating out the windows and door as you walk up.

Whoever says that America doesn't have any culture just needs to find a small town in Appalachia. On any given night of the week, you are guaranteed to find a group of old-time musicians sitting around picking and singing..... carrying on the traditions and old songs that their mountain ancestors sang hundreds of years ago.

Our town has two gatherings..... One at the Dairy Queen and one on the sidewalk of Main Street every Monday and Friday night. Some musicians play at both, but some refuse to play at the DQ because they play those drinkin' and cheatin' songs....and the good Baptists they are, they just can't participate in that type of debauchery! :)

Dave, the fiddle player, is a little more open-minded. He plays at both. He doesn't talk much and is pretty serious about his fiddle playing. I like to tease him when I play with the group on Main Street, and occasionally I can get him to crack a smile......

Hazel, pictured dancing here, is 89 years old and comes every Tuesday and dances when they play the fast songs. She's been coming to the jams ever since they started. She has lived in this county her entire life and her daughter brings her so she can enjoy her favorite music. Maybe Hazel knows the key to a long, healthy life...... you reckon? Old-time music and dancing?

A Little Local Flavor.........

One philosophy I subscribe to in life, for many reasons, is buying local. It is not only more environmentally friendly, as so much gas and diesel fuel is used shipping food and other products in from the outside....but it supports small businesses and farmers and puts money back into the community. We buy our eggs, meat, and grains from a local mennonite grocery that carries these products from local farmers who don't use hormones and whos animals are free-range....not raised on a factory farm. We also try to purchase most of our fruits and vegetables from our farmer's markets and roadside stands during the summer months. Living in a rural, farming community, we have an abundance of resources for fresh, whole foods.

We have a little mom and pop toy store that carries high-quality, albeit a little more expensive, toys that engage the imagination and don't require batteries. I always go there instead of Wal-mart when I need to buy a gift for a child.

And one of my favorite specialty shops is a converted train depot that sells handicrafts and food that is all made by local artisans and craftsmen. It is a treat indeed to look around this shop......from gourmet coffees to handmade rugs to handblown glass. This is also a place I frequent when I need a gift for someone. I like to get gifts that are meaningful...so it's fun to be able to send a gift and let the person know it was handmade by a local artisan.....

Two good websites about buying local are Sustainable Table

and Local Harvest . These two are mainly about buying your food locally. But, if you look around, usually there are a lot more products that are made locally and are available to purchase. Yes, sometimes it is a little more expensive than going to a big box store, but I think the service done to the environment and your community outweighs the extra expense.

I'll probably feature all these "favorite" stores of mine at different intervals. The photos on this post are all from the Depot gift shop that I mentioned.

Anybody up for a little shopping? :)