Stokes County – Page 3 – Into the Woods

A real monastery in Stokes?

While driving back from Cana, Virginia, today (a trip to get organic fertilizers — more on that later) I took a different route home on N.C. 704 through northern Stokes County. I was surprised to see a sign pointing to a Greek Orthodox monastery. I couldn’t resist driving part way down their long driveway and taking a couple of pictures.

It’s interesting how often one finds something unexpected in Stokes County. There’s a farming community of Hare Krishna devotees not far from me. The Greek Orthodox monastery is only about 12 miles away. Stokes is beautiful and is relatively unspoiled and undeveloped. With luck, maybe more alternative types will discover Stokes County in years to come.

I believe the building on the right is the chapel.

Almost as green as Ireland

I was expecting a miserably hot, dry August. But instead we’ve had a long run of rainy weather. About 7 inches of rain has fallen here in the last nine days. Everything is emerald green. The cloudy weather has held the temperatures down. The high for today was about 77. The meadows are boggy, just like Irish meadows. We’ve had several flash flood watches, but so far no serious flooding.

All these photos were taken in the Dodgetown area about 3 miles from Acorn Abbey.

The 2010 tobacco crop

Farmer's market, etc.

Tomatoes are not yet plentiful. When they are, the price will come down.

Ken and I went to the Danbury Farmer’s Market today. Ken took some photos along the way. Here are today’s photos, along with a couple of older catch-up photos.

As for the rainfall, one farmer said they got about half an inch last night. Another farmer got almost an inch of rain.

This is the stand of the farmer couple that this summer we’ve been calling our favorite farmers.

The vines at Oak Valley Vineyards, not far from Priddy’s General Store and about five miles from Acorn Abbey

The tobacco crop seems to have handled the hot, dry weather very well.

Ken built a firepit down at the edge of the woods. We had our first fire in it last Friday evening, a rare cool evening.

Ken with his last supper before starting a three-day fast. He’ll end the fast at dinner tonight, for which he has requested pizza and apple pie.

We're brown while California is green

After I moved to California, it seemed odd to me how the green seasons are almost reversed. In California (except for the mountains), the rainy and relatively warm winters bring the greenest season in March. Then, because it doesn’t rain from April to September, summers are brown.

Here it’s almost the opposite. It rains during the winter, but it’s too cold for anything green. Come March, the greening begins. Several warm, rainy days are forecast for the end of this week. That should get the grass growing.

This photo shows the side of Hanging Rock from Overby Road in Stokes County.

Over the river and through the woods

Round trip — more than 100 miles

I drove to Yadkin County today to visit family. It was good weather for photography, and the leaves were just beginning to turn, so I figured it was a good day to document the route from northern Stokes County, where I live, to the Yadkin Valley, where most of my family live, and where I grew up.

When I made the decision to move to Stokes County from California, it was after much deliberation. I weighed many factors. It’s hard to get to northern Stokes County. The roads are narrow, and crooked. Most people would need a map. It’s not a place where a commuter would want to live. But to me, these were positives, not negatives. I wanted to find a sweet spot between remoteness and access to commercial and medical centers. If I want to shop at Whole Foods, I can get to one (in Winston-Salem) in about an hour. If I needed to get to a major medical center, that’s also about an hour by road, but a few minutes by helicopter. And they do have helicopters.

If I want to visit family in Yadkin County, I have to drive for more than an hour. But what a drive it is. The route crosses two rivers (the Dan and the Yadkin), and runs through the shadows of the Sauratown Mountain range. Stokes County is so isolated that it has its own little isolated mountain range! It’s some of the best scenery to be found in the Yadkin Valley and the Blue Ridge foothills.

So here’s a photographic essay on the trip from my house to my mother’s house in Yadkin County. For the sake of photographic honesty, please be aware that I have focused on the picturesque and the historic. There’s plenty of plainness and a certain amount of rural squalor along the way. But why takes pictures of that?

Leaving home. Now that the house is done, I need to get started on the landscaping, don’t I?

The unpaved road above my house, past a neighbor’s horse pasture

Priddy’s General Store, which appeared in the cult film Cabin Fever

The Dan River at Danbury

This building in Danbury was once a church. Now AA meets there, according to the sign out front.

The old Stokes County courthouse

I believe this used to be the Danbury town hall. Now it’s a lawyer’s office.

A historic marker in Danbury

The entrance to Hanging Rock State Park, a few miles from Danbury. Just as in California, state parks are often under-appreciated, and awesome.

Hanging Rock, from Moore’s Spring Road

Hanging Rock, also from Moore’s Spring Road

Approaching Pilot Mountain. Do you know the word “monadnock”? Culturally, the thing to know about Pilot Mountain is that it was called “Mount Pilot” in the Andy Griffith Show. This is Mayberry Country, remember.

Old mill at Pinnacle. Pinnacle was the setting for the indie movie Junebug.

Pilot Mountain, looking over the roof of the Pinnacle post office

A pumpkin patch on the south side of Pilot Mountain

Coming into Siloam

An old storefront in Siloam. If agricultural tourism and the popularity of the Yadkin Valley Wine Region ever reach critical mass, what a great little restaurant this would make.

Across the road from the Siloam storefront. I have no idea what this little building is, but it must have some historical importance, because someone keeps it up.

Siloam will probably forever remain known for the night of Feb. 23, 1975, when an old suspension bridge across the Yadkin River collapsed, killing four people and injuring 16. This is the new bridge.

The Yadkin River at Siloam

The big house at Siloam. Grand farms were not the rule in this area. Small family farms were much more common. But Siloam clearly was once a hot spot. Not only was there fertile land in the river bottom, but there was also a railway line. It clearly was enough to make a few farmers rich.

Pilot Mountain again, when I passed it on my way home

The history of this area — at least the agricultural history — is best read in the remaining outbuildings. Certainly more than a few big barns like this one remain. More modest barns on the old family farms are common, and hundreds if not thousands of old tobacco barns remain. Still, an untold number of fine old outbuildings have fallen down and rotted away.

The south side of Hanging Rock State Park, on my way home

Scenic Stokes

Californians, note: Those are tobacco barns.Winston-Salem Journal

The Winston-Salem Journal has a story this morning on plans to expand the Hanging Rock Scenic Byway in Stokes County. The expansion would connect the tiny town of Danbury to the scenic loop.

Fifty years ago, parts of neighboring Forsyth County were scenic, with fields and barns and pastures. When developers come in, that kind of appealing terrain is their first choice of areas to slash and burn and suburbanize. Forsyth County still can’t agree on a tree ordinance, because a citizens committee wants to protect trees, and developers (in cahoots with the planning board) want to slash and burn as they please.

Let’s hope that what happened in Forsyth County doesn’t happen in Stokes.

Pickin' at Priddy's, Oct. 4

Every Saturday in October, Priddy’s General Store near Danbury has “Pickin’ at Priddy’s.” There’s a bluegrass band, and there’s always something homemade in a black pot. Dogs welcome. It runs from 3 p.m. until 5:30 p.m. Priddy’s General Store is three miles from my place.

Today’s band was The Plank Road. Oct. 11, Hubert Lawson & the Country Bluegrass Boys. Oct. 18, Henry Mabe and Friends. Oct. 25, Blues Creek. Nov. 1, The Jug Busters.

Taters a-fryin’

Brunswick stew

Pepper and crackers for the Brunswick stew

The Priddys’ Ferguson tractor

Good eatin’

The stage

Fried pies, $2.50

On the porch at the front of the store

Above the front door of the store. Note the Web site! Also note the reference to Frank Duncan, a local artist. Frank is a neighbor of mine.

On the porch at the front of the store

Inside the store

The address, 27016.

A San Francisco Jeep emigrated to Cheerwine country

Danbury farmer's market

The Danbury farmer’s market is a small farmer’s market, but they have a strict rule that if you sell it, you have to grow it. Today there were about eight vendors. Danbury, by the way, is the county seat of Stokes County, North Carolina. It’s a tiny little town.

For watermelons, or for potatoes or tomatoes by the peck, by ’em off the back of the truck.

Tomatoes — pricey but good.

A grower at the Danbury farmer’s market

Today: stalking trains, tractors and lilies

A diesel engine belonging to the Yadkin Valley Railroad stands idle on a sidetrack at Donnaha, right beside the Yadkin River. Yadkin Valley Railroad is a tiny railroad owned by Gulf and Ohio. It has two lines — one from Rural Hall to Mount Airy (48 miles), and another from Rural Hall to Elkin and North Wilkesboro (66 miles). Donnaha is on the Elkin/North Wilkesboro line. Rural Hall is in Forsyth County right on the Stokes County line.

That white Jeep gets around.

I’ve never seen a tractor I didn’t love. This one belongs to the railroad, and I have no idea what kind of work it does.

A day lily at Holden Gardens in Yadkin County. Holden Gardens raises a wide variety of day lilies. I put in an order for 300 fans of plain old roadside lilies. Holden Gardens is off Courtney-Huntsville Road about four miles from my mother’s place.

The homeplace at Holden Gardens.

The wellhouse at the Holden Gardens homeplace.

Day lilies with tractor at Holden Gardens

Day lily with beetle

One of the owner-operators at Holden Gardens

From Mama's house to my house

Mama’s roses

All these photos were taken yesterday. I let the GPS device pick a route from Mama’s house to my place in Stokes. I told the GPS device to pick a route that led past a particular place along the Yadkin River where I’d remembered seeing an old mill 30 years ago, and I told it to stay off the main roads. What a route! I knew some of the roads, but others were completely new to me. This was an amazingly scenic route that just happened to lead past the places where parts of three movies were filmed: Junebug (Pinnacle, Stokes County), Cabin Fever (Priddy’s General Store, Stokes County), and Leatherheads (Donnaha, Yadkin County). This area is rich in agricultural history. More posts on agricultural history another day. It took me along the foot of Pilot Mountain. The route also led past two old Stokes County resorts — Vade Mecum and Moore’s Springs — and it took me past the entrance to Hanging Rock State Park, not to mention downtown Danbury (the Stokes county seat) and Priddy’s General Store, where I stopped to get a Cheerwine and say hello to Jane Priddy-Charleville, who runs the store. It took me past a winery that I was not previously aware of, about which I’ll post another day.

Mama’s young grapevines