April 2014 – Into the Woods

Wild ramps, and ramp pesto

I have heard of ramps for many years, but not until today did I finally taste them. Ramps are members of the onion-garlic-leek family, and they grow wild all over the Appalachians. A friend gave them to me on a recent trip to Asheville. Ramps appear in April, I believe, and then they fade.

I made the tops of the ramps into pesto. Though the bulbs (which look like little onions) are as edible as the tops, I saved the bulbs to plant in the branch bottom where the May apples grow. There is a good chance that the ramps will naturalize here in the Stokes County foothills.

The tops have a mild oniony taste, much like leeks, but more tender. They made a delicious pesto.

Monticello

Click on images for high-res version

I was on the road for the past week. The first stop was Lynchburg, Virginia. Then I went on to Charlottesville, and from there to Asheville, North Carolina.

Partly I was checking out settings that I used in my novel, Fugue in Ursa Major. The book is still in the revision stage (new publication date May 30, I hope), so there was time to tweak descriptions of some of the settings, if necessary. Luckily, it won’t be necessary, though I may write in a few minor details. Google Earth, along with photos found on the web, are excellent resources for writers. An important scene occurs on the campus of the University of Virginia, so I spent a good bit of time there, seeing things with my own eyes and taking photographs. Also, when Jake, the young protagonist of the novel, goes stargazing, he drives south from Charlottesville on Interstate 81 toward the area of the Appalachians where the borders of Virginia, Tennessee, and North Carolina come together. I followed that route to Asheville.

Monticello is stunning. Photographs of Monticello usually fail to capture that the house sits on the crest of a small mountain, with amazing views in all directions. I also had never realized how Charlottesville’s hills are part of the Blue Ridge Mountains. The Blue Ridge Parkway extends north of Roanoke almost to Charlottesville, and I-81 shadows the route of the parkway for many miles.

The gardens at Monticello

The dome at the University of Virginia. The dome was visible from Monticello with a telescope, and Jefferson watched its construction from home.

Coping with screwy weather

A brief warm spell about three weeks ago gave us hope that we might be able to make an early start with the garden. It was not to be. A cold spell followed, and two nights with hard frost. Only the lettuce germinated decently. Even the broccoli and cauliflower, which we started from plants, had minor damage from the frost.

We decided to re-till the area where the seeds didn’t germinate and try again in a week or so when the weather is warmer. Ken took advantage of the downtime in the garden to apply some of the organic soil amendments that had been delivered late, including dried kelp, cottonseed meal, blood meal, bone meal, and lime.

The two new chickens have been transferred out of the bird cage in the house to the chicken coop. They were getting too big and too rowdy to remain indoors.

An apple blossom damaged by frost

Fried biscuits?

I have one bit of advice on making high-fat, high-carb, homemade fried biscuits: Don’t.

But seriously, in spite of their rusticness, there is something exotic about them, reminiscent of Indian breads.

No Fracking in Stokes: our new video

As regular readers know, I’ve been involved for the last two years with No Fracking in Stokes, a grassroots group fighting fracking in Stokes County and in North Carolina.

Our group has released a new video, filmed here in Stokes County (except for the shots of actual fracking in the Marcellus shale area of Pennsylvania). The actor is a retired schoolteacher, and the farm where this was shot is just a few miles from the abbey.

That’s the abbey’s garden in one of the photos near the end of the video, and the chicken perched in the Jeep window is an abbey chicken, Fiona.

The original music is by Rex McGee, a Stokes County musician.

Abbey moonset, April 16, 6:33 a.m.

What’s blooming at the abbey

Deciduous magnolia

Young cabbages

Bush cherries

I’m trying to identify this

It’s so sad when the daffodils fade.

Apple blossom

Grape vine

New growth on an arbor vitae tree

The day lily bank won’t bloom until May.

Young maple leaves

Hosta

Violets

Rose foliage

Blackberry foliage

More young maple leaves

Carolina jasmine

Baby chickens!

Printin’ Office Eatery

Fried oysters with salad and hushpuppies

One of the nicest new businesses to come on line in Stokes County lately is the Printin’ Office Eatery. It’s in Danbury, facing the main drag.

Part of the brilliance of the Printin’ Office is that the menu appeals to two sets of people — the locals, whose business of course is necessary if a restaurant is to succeed; and visitors, with somewhat more urban tastes, traveling through on their way to Hanging Rock State Park. They also have pizza, which is a good lick, because northern Stokes County is pretty much a pizza desert. The restaurant’s sign is a little hard to see, though, so look carefully to your right as you drive north through Danbury, just before you pass the old courthouse.

One of the beautiful things about a place like Stokes County (and one of the reasons I’m here) is that we don’t have the suburbanization and population density required to support fast food places. There are fast food places in King, far to the south, and a couple in Walnut Cove, but that’s it. Eateries out in the sticks are always small and locally owned.

The place gets its name from its location. The Danbury Reporter, a long-dead newspaper, used to be published in the printin’ office there.

I’m reproducing the menu here to share the local flavor.

P.S. They have free WIFI. Northern Stokes County is very poorly wired, but there is fiber under some of the main roads, including through Danbury, at least as far as the library and the county government center.