Watching a bewildering world from the middle of nowhere
So what if the Dow is down 360 points today and oil is at a new high? As I was just saying to a friend in email, when you’ve relocalized, and having a decent supper depends on it, nothing is more thrilling than a good downpour of unforecast, unexpected rain. I’m joking. But it’s still thrilling. And actually there are beautiful showers all across the South right now. This probably means that neither the Bermuda High nor La Niña is exerting an evil influence on us right now.
http://steampunkworkshop.com/keyboard.shtml
Finally, at last, I have an identity. I know what I am. I am a steampunk. I discovered this through one of the New York Times’ blogs.
How do you know if you’re a steampunk? If you do your laundry (as I have been doing) with buckets and a washboard and hang it up to dry, but you also have an iMac and are tempted to get an iPhone. If you want a house (as I do) with a gothic design, but you also want it to be as green as possible. If you want a real keyboard for your iMac, something like you might have found on an IBM terminal in 1972. If you understand that analog technology can never be made obsolete by digital technology, no matter how many smarty-pants young techies think otherwise (leave a comment and bring it on, if you dare, smarty-pants young techies).
As documentation of my steampunk credentials, below is a photo of today’s laundry and my iMac.
Actually I’m going to go ahead and respond to the smarty-pants young techies who think that analog technology has been made obsolete by digital technology. Your Wifi router, and your cell phone, use digital forms of signal modulation, but the underlying transmitters and receivers are analog, since radio waves are, and will forever be, analog. Your audio system may use digital sampling and recording methods. But your amplifier is, and will remain, an analog device, because sound waves are, and will forever be, analog. Your eardrum is an analog device. Physics and engineering will forever need differential equations to calculate, say, orbits and trajectories. All those equations are analog. The universe is analog. Any digital system that wants to interface with nature must do so in an analog way.
I decided against making a pie out of the Levering Orchard cherries. As much fun as it would have been to finish off a cherry pie in a couple of days all by myself, I didn’t think that would be too good for me. So I ended up making cherry preserves. That way I can put the preserves on pone bread and stretch it out for weeks.
The cherries that I bought yesterday at Levering Orchard have been washed and are out to dry while I try to figure out the best way to make a cherry pie in a little travel trailer kitchen, which isn’t well equipped for pie-making.
Good farming: here swaths of tobacco are alternated with swaths of rye, a nitrogen-fixing crop. This is near Sauratown Mountain in Stokes County.
By Mayberry, I mean, of course, Mount Airy, North Carolina. Mount Airy is Andy Griffith’s hometown, and they are mighty proud of that. On the other hand, they’re constantly ticked with Andy Griffith because he lives in Los Angeles and apparently doesn’t much like visiting Mount Airy. But that doesn’t seem to diminish Mount Airy’s pride. [Correction: Someone who knows more about this than I do tells me that Andy Griffith now lives in Manteo, North Carolina, on the coast.]
Mount Airy does a booming business in “Andy of Mayberry” tourism. Ground Zero for that tourism is Snappy Lunch on Main Street, because it was mentioned from time to time on the television show. Don’t even think of going to Mount Airy without stopping at Snappy Lunch for a pork chop sandwich. Bring some anti-acid. Californians, can you believe my San Francisco Jeep now has a North Carolina license plate and is parked in front of Snappy Lunch?
Behind the grill at Snappy Lunch — burgers and pork chops.
Barney also gets his due. I think Aunt Bee actually moved to Mount Airy after she retired and no doubt zipped straight to the top of the Mount Airy social ladder. This is nextdoor to Snappy Lunch. [Correction: I understand that Aunt Bee actually moved to Siler City, North Carolina, not Mount Airy.]
Checkers and souvenirs nextdoor to Snappy Lunch.
Mount Airy is truly blessed, because it is famous for not one but two things — Andy Griffith, and granite. Here’s a view of Mount Airy’s enormous granite quarry. Yes I go out of my way to take these pictures for you. I’ve seen all this stuff before!
You can even go for a tour, if you like. So that it gets indexed for Google search, the sign says “North Carolina Granite Corporation, World’s Largest Open-Face Granite Quarry.”
This cottage has seen better days, but once upon a time the granite was so inexpensive that Mount Airy cottages could be built from it.
A mighty cool bug-eyed tractor near Cana, Virginia. Cana is just north of Mount Airy, North Carolina.
Cherry-picking time near Cana, Virginia
Up a cherry tree. I asked if I could take her picture, and she said yes. Then she asked, do you know who I am? And I said no. She said good. So this must be the principal of the school, or a preacher’s wife — someone important in Cana, Virginia, who ought not to be photographed up a tree.
The Levering Orchard has been in business for three generations. It’s operated by the couple who do the Simple Living series for PBS. I stopped to buy cherries.
Inside the Levering Orchard shed
Fresh-picked cherries at Levering Orchard are brought to the shed to be sold.
Nature reclaims an old house in orchard country near Cana, Virginia. Gavin, do you recognize this place?
Another building goes back to nature near Cana, Virginia. I love things like this because it is the essence of art nouveau. It may take me a few years to get enough overgrowth, but I hope to get this overgrown look at my little place at the edge of the woods.
Now we have climbed the Blue Ridge around Bell Spur, Virginia, altitude around 2500 feet. We are looking down, and south, toward Stokes and Surry counties, North Carolina.
Tractor and sickle near Laurel Fork, Virginia
The Marshall home place at Laurel Fork, Virginia. This was one of the closest neighbors to my great uncle Barney Dalton.
The road to Uncle Barney’s. My great uncle Barney Dalton’s place has always seemed magical to my siblings and me. Children often don’t like visiting relatives, but we loved to visit Uncle Barney. He had a farm of about a hundred acres, as self-sufficient as it was possible to be. Barney was an old man when I was a child. He was born in 1876 and died in 1972. When I think about relocalization and living close to the land, it’s Uncle Barney’s place I always think of. They had everything — cows, a huge barn, pigs, a trout pond, pasture, grain fields, gardens, and places to store what they produced. There was even a water-wheel-driven mill owned, I think, by the Marshalls on land adjoining Barney’s. Barney’s place has stayed in the family. His grandson continues to maintain the place, though he doesn’t live there and the place is unoccupied. The place is almost a family shrine, a testament to the enduring high esteem in which we all held Uncle Barney. The land is worth a fortune now and is surrounded by a resort, but the Dalton heirs, bless them, refuse to sell because of promises they made to the older generations. Above is the road to Uncle Barney’s. It’s almost a mile long. When I was a child, it crossed several pastures, and one had to stop and open several pasture gates on the way in. Uncle Barney’s place is near Laurel Fork, Virginia.
Uncle Barney’s. It has changed, but not drastically.
Aunt Rosie’s food cellar
Uncle Barney’s backyard. When I was a child, I walked with Uncle Barney and my father to the upper pasture to get the cow, which Barney brought to the backyard here for his daughter to milk.
Uncle Barney’s kitchen window. What I would give to sit down to a meal in that kitchen again!
This is just a little field now, but 50 years ago it was the kitchen garden.
An upstairs window at Uncle Barney’s
The side yard at Uncle Barney’s, looking toward one of the pastures. When I say that, when contemplating relocalization, my reference is how my older relatives lived, Uncle Barney’s place is of course one of the places I think of. Yet most of my older relatives lived like this, on largish, self-sufficient farms. I was very lucky to have witnessed this when I was boy. I had no idea how practical such references would be for a retiring, relocalizing, boomer like me.
Uncle Barney’s barn is gone now, but it used to stand at the far end of this meadow.
Very old electrical apparatus still feeds Uncle Barney’s place.
A while back I promised that I would look in on the cabbage crop in Carroll County, Virginia. It’s coming along! I’ll be eating it in a month or two. The road at the top right is the Blue Ridge Parkway.
Cabbage!
Nature reclaims an old trailer near Meadows of Dan, Virginia.
Turnips at a roadside produce stand near Meadows of Dan, Virginia. Once upon a time I was served turnips at a fancy restaurant in San Francisco. I said to the waiter, “Man, it takes confidence to serve turnips.”
I’m so excited you’d think I was the first person to ever have a little garden. By the way, when green tomatoes have some sort of blemish that makes them look like they won’t survive until they ripen, just pick ’em and cook ’em. I’m still waiting for my first fully ripe, fully proper summer tomato. The two tomatoes here are just cherry tomatoes. When I get that first tomato, I know exactly what I’m going to do with it. Photo to come in a week or so, I hope. Hey, it’s not fancy San Francisco Chronicle food photography, but it makes you hungry, doesn’t it?
A friend tells me that I should clip my herbs before they bloom. Oh well. I’m learning. Here are oregano, sage, and catnip. I’ll dry the catnip and give it to some cats I know. I have a good stand of basil, and from that I had my first fresh pesto a few days ago.
A squash bloom
Bee balm
Near Westfield on N.C. 89
The Dan River begins in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains in Virginia. The area includes Stokes and Surry counties in North Carolina and Patrick County in Virginia. I took a little road trip through this area today. It was hot, but I just couldn’t take another day of sitting inside with the air conditioning running. The Jeep has no air conditioner, but it’s nice and cool if you take the windows out and keep moving.
The Dan River headwaters in Google Earth
A farmstead near Claudville, Virginia
Outbuilding near Claudville, Virginia
A cherry tree near Claudville, Virginia
A church near Claudville, Virginia
Theological innovation near Westfield, North Carolina. If you can’t read it, the sign says “Chestnut Ridge Progressive Primitive Baptist Church.”
Artistic innovation — a yard art factory near Mount Airy, North Carolina
Butterfly weed near Claudville, Virginia
A majestic poplar, as big as an oak, near Francisco, North Carolina
A cottage on Virginia Route 103
A cottage on N.C. 8 near the Virginia line.
Hay work is going on everywhere right now. With the price of grain sky high, the hay must be really valuable to the local farmers. These days, most of the hay goes into big, industrial-size bales.
Still, some people still make old-fashioned hayride bales, and boys still learn how to do it.
The big ones would be useless for hayrides!
Baby squash
Baby tomatoes
