|
|
See what Chitter found in the woods-the hump on the end of the stick-is alive! After googling around a little-I believe its a geometrid moth caterpillar.
It looked like a camouflaged inchworm to us.
Ever seen one?
Tipper
Appalachia Through My Eyes - A series of photographs from my life in Southern Appalachia.
| |
|
Remember the movie me and the girls are in? (if you missed all the hoopla you can go here to read about it) The film-If I had Wings To Fly will be shown this week in Asheville, NC. Here are the details:
What: The official premiere of Kazoo Films’ If I Had Wings to Fly
Where: The Fine Arts Theater in downtown Asheville, NC
When: Thursday, June 7th at 7pm (6:30 for music)
How Much: $8.75
Who: Directors Bruno Seraphin and Harrison Topp, Tipper Pressley, Chatter Pressley, Chitter Pressley, live old-time musical guests, you!
If you get to come-make sure to find me and the girls and say HELLO! Earlier this year the film won first place at an Appalachian Film Festival held in West Virginia, I hope its received as well in Asheville and beyond!
-------------------------------
Remember The Week Of The Crow? Later this summer I'll be hosting the Blind Pig & the Acorn's Week of the Fish. Got a fish story to contribute or maybe a photo of the best fish you ever caught? Send them to me at tipper@blindpigandtheacorn.com
I'm not promising I'll lay on my back and film fish for you like I did the crows-but I do promise it'll be a week of fun with a few giveaways thrown in too.
-------------------------------
Most of you have probably noticed the music player is no longer working. I do believe Playlist.com has crashed and burned forever. I'm trying to come up with an alternative-and will keep you updated on the results!
Tipper
p.s. I hope no one tells The Deer Hunter I used such a silly photo of him-but I know it's only a matter of time before he hears it from somebody.
Subscribe for free to Blind Pig & The Acorn by Email
| |
|
It's time to spread the love for the month of May. Each comment you leave makes the Blind Pig a better place to visit-and I thank you for that!
Janet, Just Jackie, Miss Cindy, Brenda Kay Ledford, Osagebluff Quilter, Warren, David Templeton, Martina, Glenda Beall, Fencepost, Rick's Whitetail Woods, B. Ruth, Vicki Lane, Eva Nell Mull Wike, Ph.D., Wanda, Lynn Legge, Pat in East TN, Jen, Sandra, Sheryl Paul, Kenneth M. Roper, Anastasia, Mike McLain, Nancy Simpson, Mamabug, Kat, Lonnie Dockery, Canned Quilter, Jim Casada, Don Casada, Charline, Bradley, Uncle Al, Teresa, Luann, Ethel, Melissa P Misplaced Southerner, Wanda Devers, Donna W, Janet Pressley, PinnacleCreek, Suzi Phillips, Debby Brown, RB, Lise, Mary Shipman, Shirla, Glynda, Sue Crane, Gary Powell, Ed Myers, Sassy, Baking Barb, Charlotte, Elizabeth K, Susie Swanson, Cee, Wayne Newton, NCMountainWoman, Tea4Too, Ron Banks, Tim Mc, Nancy M., Brenda 'Okie in Colorado, Carol Isler, Bill Burnett, Madge, Kimberly, Ed Ammons, Ethelene Dyer Jones, Patty Hall, Karen Larsen, Linda Kerlin, Brian Blake, Alica Happily Married To The Cows, Rechelle, Coffeemuses, Sandy Kalvaitis, Belva, Larry Proffitt, Darlene LaRoche, Jen Y, Dale Anderson, Pamela Moore, John, Marianne, Paul Certo, Bobby C, Bob Aufdemberge, Dolores Barton, Rachelle at Nanatahala Farms and Nursery, Angie Siddall, Kathryn Magendie, Judy Mincey, Sallie Covolo, Garland Davis, Tim Cuthbertson, Clint, Jo, Carol Killian, Quinn, Steve, Bill Dotson, Granny Pam, Susan Casada, Bernadette, Marylou Sweat, Jessie Improved, BF, Gorges Smythe, Jeanna Morgan, Richard Beauchamp, Charles Ron Perry Sr., Dorothy, Kenneth Hoffman, MmWriter1, Special Ed, Sally K- North Coast Muse, Mary Rutherford, Aunt Ruth, Lewis, Sandy Kueng, Georgie, Julie at Elisharose, Barb Johnson, Rose C, Terri, Mike, Ferne Kellow, Mary Holcomb Brock, Elithea, Rip Bradshaw, Laura Williams Musing, Joe, Paul from Saltcreek Life, Lisa Misener, Granny Sue, Jackie, Lisa, Dorothy Sanderson, Laurie Stone, Stephen Ammons, Diane, Julia, Tammy Fletcher, Barbara Gantt, Paula Rhodarmer, Mel, Downthelanegirl, John Ratterree, Jose' Luis, Smallgood, Tom, Marianne Lockman, Joe Mode, Joy Newer, Dee From TN, Jackie at Syrup and Biscuits, Kris Hicks, Jeanna, Peggy Lambert, Windy Gottfried, Sara Mock, Cheryl Soehl, Jenny, Rebecca Haughn, Rush, Sue From KY, Oregon Girl, Charlotte Woody, Debby Pucci, Mic, Sheila Bergeron, Betty Honeywell, Wink, Mary Jane Plemmons, Lynn, WV Whippoorwill, Rooney Floyd, Sandy, Harold Ammons, Cyndi, Abri B, and Connie Arnold.
The prize for the month of May is Volume Fifteen of the Journal of Kentucky Studies. And the winner is...Karen Larsen! Karen send me your mailing address and I'll send you the book!
Granny took her own sweet time-but she finally picked a winner from the list of Scarecrow names you suggested. She picked Joy Newer's name-Mr. Scatter Boo. In typical Granny fashion-she said to tell you-you were all really winners because you suggested some really good names.
Don't forget to click on a commenter's name above and go for a visit-all the ones in orange have a website of their own-I know you'll be glad you did.
Be sure to drop back by tomorrow for some movie news-and some Blind Pig news.
Tipper
Subscribe for free to Blind Pig And The Acorn by Email
| |
|
If you're not done putting in your garden-June has more than a few good planting days according to the Zodiac Signs.
Our garden is moving right along. Our radishes, spinach, and lettuce are gone-and we picked the last of the sugar snap peas today.
Or I should say-me and Chatter picked the last of the sugar snap peas while Chitter collected a herd of snails and had a photo shoot.
We're still eating green onions and beets from the spring garden. This is the first year I've tried Golden Detroit Beets-and I like them! They didn't seem to grow as well as the Detroit Reds-but they are so pretty-like a Georgia peach color. The golden beets don't seem to taste as strong as the red ones-and I believe they are sweeter as well.
Our tomato plants are just beautiful this year. The variety above is Mountain Princess a heirloom variety from West Virginia. Sow True Seeds (who is sponsoring my garden this year) said Mountain Princess was a prolific-and early producer. Seeing all the tomatoes hanging on my plants makes me think their description is right on the money. Now I just can't wait to see if they taste as good as they look.
Tipper
p.s. Don't forget: Rabbit, Rabbit, Rabbit!
| |
|
This Appalachian Grammar Lesson is all about the.. well.. its all about the all!
The grammar usages above are all very common in my area of Appalachia-and in my household. When I'm writing there are 2 words that I use way too often and one of them is all. I feel the need to put all in at least every other sentence.
Please let me know if the usage is common in your area too.
Tipper
| |
|
Chitter snapped this picture out her bedroom window. Mr. Cottontail stayed there for so long-prancing back and forth-that we decided he must have been posing for her.
I tried to remember all the rabbit folklore I knew to share with you, but only 2 things came to mind: the obvious- lucky rabbit foot; and you shouldn't kill rabbits to eat until after the first few heavy frosts in fall to make sure any wolves (parasites) on the rabbit are gone.
I checked with Frank C. Brown to see if he had any good ones to add:
Last summer the rabbits ate my sugar snap peas before they could even get big enough to bloom-this year-they've totally turned their noses up at them. I mean they haven't even nibbled on the peas-weird uh?
As more people are trying their hand at sustainable living, raising rabbits for meat is becoming popular. In fact the backyard rabbit is giving the backyard chicken a run for its money.
Tipper
Appalachia Through My Eyes - A series of photographs from my life in Southern Appalachia.
Subscribe for free to Blind Pig And The Acorn by Email
| |
|
The Blind Pig & The Acorn's 4th Annual Planting By The Signs Test kicked off last week. Sow True Seeds generously sponsored this year's test. 22 participants signed up to be part of the planting test. As I told them, it will be interesting to see if there is a difference in our good day and bad day plants-but mostly I hope we have fun and end up with a bumper crop of beans.
This year's test plant is a Heirloom Bean that is good for drying-around here we call them October beans-because that's typically when they are vine dried enough to be shelled out for later use. The following is a quote about the bean from Sow True Seed:
Rare Heirloom. Native American dry bean variety dating back to the 1830s from the Cherchei Nation in Tennessee. Prolific producer and a great winter staple. Bush habit. Direct seed after danger of frost has passed.
Each participant was given 8 seeds. 4 to plant on a good sign day; 4 to plant on a bad sign day. May 23rd and 24th both fell under the most fruitful sign of Cancer, so the good day seeds were planted on either the 23rd or 24th of May.
May 26th and 27th both fell under the unfruitful sign of Leo. So the bad day seeds were planted on either the 26th or 27th of May.
I'll keep you posted on the test as the season progresses.
Tipper
| |
|
Today's guest post was written by Jim Casada.
FRANK YOUNG: AN ANGLER FOR THE AGES written by Jim Casada
With Memorial Day at hand, my thoughts turn, as they invariably do, to all the patriots who have served our country over the generations. Each of us needs to recognize and remember these men and women, not merely on Memorial Day but throughout the year. We owe them an incalculable debt and should never forget the sacrifices they made and continue to make.
With that train of thought in mind, I would like to pay tribute to one solider—a simple man of the Swain County soil who also happened to be the finest fisherman I've ever known. I first became acquainted with Frank Young when I was just a teenager. Fishing was my life during the summer, and day after glorious day would find me wading the waters of Deep Creek or one of its major feeders, Indian Creek. Both lay within hard walking or easy biking distance of my boyhood home, and their sparkling waters drew me in irresistible fashion.
My path seemed to cross that of Frank Young on an almost daily basis, and gradually we made the transition from exchanges such as "howdy" and "any luck today" to serious discussions of fly fishing. Frank worked at the same place as my father, Carolina Wood Turning Company, but he would hasten home when the whistle signaling the end of another work day blew at 3:30 p.m. He would hastily change clothes, rush to a nearby stream, and get in a few hours of fishing. Over time realization gradually dawned that he was a master angler, and with the eagerness of an eternally curious boy I constantly picked his brain.
Our friendship ripened, and eventually we would take fishing trips together, including one especially memorable backpacking trip in the Smokies. Frank was by that juncture in his life troubled with a bad heart, and in truth he probably shouldn't have made the arduous trip. Yet he enjoyed himself immensely and those days astream, along with four nights beside campfires talking and telling tales, were filled with magic.
Although I knew Frank had seen military service, it was only during this backcountry adventure that I learned he had been in action in both World War II and the Korean War. Clearly his experiences were traumatic, because he refused to talk about them—not just with me but even with his wife and stepdaughter. All he revealed to me was summed up in a single sentence: "Jim, I came home to fish, forget, and find my soul."
That's precisely what he did for decades, right up until his death. Year after year Frank averaged fishing better than 250 days astream. Week days he would be in the water from the time he got off from work until can't see, and often in the height of summer come can see he would get in an hour or so of fishing before heading off to work. On weekends Frank headed out into the backcountry, usually by himself, with the simplest of equipment. His "tent" was a sheet of heavy-duty plastic; his cooking kit a lightweight frying pan; his sleeping gear a single blanket; and his grub some salt and pepper, corn meal, lard, dried fruit, and dried beans or pasta. Mostly though, he relied on trout and nature's bounty in forms such as ramps, wild berries, branch lettuce, and the like for sustenance.
Even when it came to fishing gear Frank was a minimalist. Although he owned some wonderful bamboo rods (I am now the proud possessor of two of them), the gear he used was, not to put too nice a turn on it, basically junk. He had taken bits and pieces of fly rods picked up in junk shops or at flea markets and cobbled together his outfit. The reel he used was of the cheapest sort, and he made his own leaders and tied his own flies. Never a man who had much money, Frank was frugal and believed in using what worked—not what cost a lot of money.
A great example came with some of the flies he tied. Certain types of popular tying material have always been expensive, and one of the priciest is "kip tail" --white hair from the tip of a calf's tail. Frank, in typical fashion, found a perfect substitute. Instead of using the high-priced, store-bought material, he turned to the hair from 'possum bellies. When he needed material and saw a recent road kill 'possum, he simply stopped and took what was available. Frank used to laugh as he showed a Royal Wulff, perhaps the most popular of all trout flies, tied with 'possum belly fur. "If you can't find plenty of this tying material," he would chuckle, "then you aren't driving mountain roads."
Of all the many things Frank did associated with fishing though, one stands out above all the rest. He always carried a capacious wicker creel with him, and it had uses beyond simply being a place to hold trout he caught. On day trips the creel functioned as a lunch bucket, but its most frequent use involved neither trout nor tucker.
Every time he went fishing, Frank kept an eye out for unusual or attractive sights. This might be spotting a turkey or deer, perhaps seeing a mink swim a creek or a beaver at work, enjoying blooming spring wildflowers or noting ripe serviceberries or blackberries. Or maybe he would catch a big brown trout or break off a good fish. It didn't matter what occurred. Anything which seemed special to Frank led him to pause, ponder, and reflect on the moment in a thoughtful, unhurried fashion. He was taking an active, carefully thought out approach to something all of us do, but not in quite so orderly or noteworthy a fashion. Frank was making and preserving memories.
Whenever something noteworthy happened, he would immediately look around him in the stream and pick up two or three rocks which were particularly colorful, had unusual shapes, or appealed to him in some other way. Frank then placed these rocks in his creel, carried them for the rest of the day, and took them home with him. There he deposited them in a homemade frame the size and shape of a cement/cinder building block. When the frame was full to overflowing, he would rearrange the rocks, leaving those he found especially appealing sticking out or perhaps organized to make some type of design. He then filled the frame with cement, allowed it to dry, and set the resulting block aside. In that manner, rock by rock, block by block, Frank Young built a house which surrounded him with memories. To me it is a remarkable example of mountain ingenuity as well as a testament to one man's love of fishing, the mountains, and the good earth.
As a trout fisherman, Frank was simply the best I have ever been privileged to witness in action. He was a wizard with brown trout and had a special knack for catching trophy-size fish. He could cast like nobody's business, used all sorts of unorthodox techniques, and brought a keen analytical mind to angling. He was also a great fisher of men, or more specifically, boys. Although he never had children of his own, once he returned from the wars Frank devoted untold hours to Camp Living Water, a youth retreat originally founded by Reverend W. Herbert Brown as part of the Smoky Mountain Bible Conference. In fact, that is how I came into possession of the treasured bamboo rods mentioned above.
Somehow my eyes caught a tiny classified ad in the Smoky Mountain Times offering the two fly rods for sale. Intrigued, I called the phone number, which I thought looked familiar. When Frank answered and we had talked for a few moments, I asked: "Why in the world are you selling those wonderful fishing rods?" His response was a moving one to the effect that he didn't need them but that a couple of projects at Camp Living Water could sure use an infusion of cash. I was more than happy to buy the rods not only as cherished angling items but also because of the wonderful man they came from and the use to which he put the payment.
Frank Young was not perfect—far from it. He had a fierce temper which he battled mightily(and for the most part, successfully)to control. He was haunted by untold demons from the war years, at times he harbored suicidal thoughts, and he could be mulishly stubborn to a degree only someone equally obstinate could understand. A case in point was our protracted argument about whether or not the so-called "Road to Nowhere" in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park should be built. Frank felt that the government's 1943 promise should be honored. While I sympathized with his vexation over the broken agreement and the wrongs the government had wrought, my view was that constructing the road would be an ecological disaster with one of its biggest negatives being the manner it would affect some of Frank's beloved trout streams.
Frank persisted in bringing the matter up almost every time we saw one another, and it became a sore spot in our friendship. Finally I called him on the issue. "Frank," I said, "you aren't ever going to change your mind and I'm not going to change mine. Why don't we just agree to differ and drop the whole issue?" For a full 30 seconds I thought he was going to explode. His face reddened and an uncomfortable silence screamed. Then he sort of shrugged his shoulders, shook his head, and stuck out his hand saying: "You know, Jim, for once you are right on the Road to Nowhere. We'll speak of it no more." And we didn't.
If the measure of a man comes in accumulation of wealth or in widespread renown through recognition of grand achievements, Frank Young didn't amount to much. Yet to me he was a great man—a patriot and member of the aptly named "greatest generation," a mountain fellow of peculiar yet manifest genius, an individual with an abiding love for the high country, a person with a warm and caring heart, and an angler for the ages. Never do I set foot in a trout stream when I don't think of him and all the lessons he taught me by example and through quiet instruction. In this Memorial Day period I thought others might enjoy sharing a bit of the saga of a splendid son of the Smokies.
Jim Casada
-----------------------
I hope you enjoyed Jim's post as much as I did!
Tipper
| |
|
*Written on Saturday-May 26, 2012
I am sitting in the backyard under the hemlock tree listening to Gene Watson blare from The Deer Hunter's open truck windows. I am thinking what an amazing singer he is-I am thinking he sings the most romantic songs.
I am watching The Deer Hunter bang nails on new digs for our baby chicks while Miss Cindy hangs out clothes with Chatter's help.
I am tired from hoeing corn, plowing, and weeding beans.
I am impressed with 2 girls who work willingly alongside their Momma and Daddy without complaint.
I am thankful for Blind Pig readers who brighten my day-who give me treasures I can hold close in my heart and ponder.
Tipper
| |
|
Have you ever noticed small white spots on your fingernails? I tried to take a picture of one on Chatter's finger you can just barely see it. I used to have the small white spots on my nails all the time-but it doesn't seem like I have them much anymore.
When I was little Granny always told me the number of white spots on my nails = the number of boyfriends I had.
A few other bits of folklore about white spots I've heard:
Got any folklore to add?
Tipper
Appalachia Through My Eyes - A series of photographs from my life in Southern Appalachia.
| |
|
