BLUE RIDGE THANKSGIVING

Ursula is the Queen of all she Surveys

YESTERDAY WE TOOK A SUNDAY DRIVE—ALL THE WAY TO VIRGINIA. We picked up Ellis early early in the morning. Our youngest slipped out of his house and into the car. Ursula lay quiet in the way back, her tail thumping when she saw her boy descend his front steps, carrying his bags to the car. We drove across the flatlands of Illinois and Indiana and on to the hills of Ohio. We turned south at Dayton and continued on to the mountains. If only we'd left earlier, we would have seen some lovely scenery. But the sun set on us and we drove through a dark rain up and down winding roads. I learned how to use the braking gear. At home I forget that it's even there, but it came in handy as I was driving down the mountain roads. The fog descended and we made it to the last little town before our road home to visit Michael's folks. My in-laws live in a cozy hunting lodge on a mountain, and that last road was treacherous in the dark and the wet, but we made it.

A Clear Blue Day

This morning I woke to a clear blue day, but the wind blew in some weather from Charlotte and we were treated to changing skies, but finally settling on a clear sunny day with an occasional breeze. The whole family piled into two or three cars and drove into Floyd, where we walked up and down the main drag, going into the artful shops to look around and soak up the mountain culture. In the hardware store we found some lovely cutting boards, strips of warm wood making rosy stripes. The knitting store was unfortunately closed, but we will try again on Friday, when we go to the Friday Night Jamboree at the General Store. They have a cute lunch counter and barrels of old fashioned candy, and lots of kitchen gadgets. Last time I visited I came home with a pie bird. Now my covered pies are vented with a ceramic blackbird, reminiscent of the nursery rhyme.

Candy at the Country Store

 On Fridays they have live music with clogging and country dancing. I can't wait to go back in a few days to see the show.
 

We came home to walk around the mountain and see what projects Babs and Jack have worked on over the past year, building projects and landscaping projects and excavation projects involving a little backhoe that has Michael drooling. We walked up a path and found the stone chimney—all that is left from a long ago homestead. A tall chimney rises several yards in the air, a rustic arch frames the firebox below. A hearth of tan-colored stones sticks out in front. I got to hear again the story of how Michael's family spent the afternoon clearing away brush and ash from the old fireplace, building a patio of flat stones carted up from the stream below. When they finally finished they built a fire and no sooner did the smoke rise up the chimney, but the poor snakes who lived there decided to flee. Everyone was lined up for a picture with their backs to the fireplace, and the designated photographer cried in alarm. Everyone turned around to see a large family of snakes slithering from all the cracks and chinks of the chimney. To hear it told, the snakes were as big around as my wrist and taller than me, but there were baby snakes too.

Ellis in the 7 Sisters

The stone patio was covered with a layer of leaves and Ellis grabbed a stick and used it to rake the leaves off of the patio. We all joined in, and Michael's sister, Kelly found some logs and tossed them into the fireplace. We are all ready for our woodland picnic.

Ursula Climbs the Mountain

We followed the trail down to the stream and meandered with the rushing water back up to the house. Ellis throws a stick into the stream and Ursula dives in after it, her legs paddling. She grabs the stick and scrambles back up the bank. They do this over and over again, as if there were nothing else important in the world, and I guess there isn't. The sun sets early in the mountains in November, and we are gathered in the warm kitchen. I sit a little off to the side, typing into my little computer. I look over at my family, gathered around a came of cards. Danielle is beating her uncle Mikey, and several conversations are tossed around the table. I'm thankful for my mountain family.

Climb in Beauty; Rise in Peace; Blessed Be.

THE BEAR WENT OVER THE MOUNTAIN

Did the Bear leave these marks
as she climbed?

ON A PARTICULAR MOUNTAIN IN VIRGINIA, THE TREES ARE MAYBE NOT SO MUCH TALLER THAN WE HAVE AT HOME, BUT STRETCHED OUT, THE LIMBS THINNER, MORE SPACE BETWEEN THEM. The canopy is higher and the understory is more airy and full of light, not full of brambles like at home. Hickory, Various Pines, Tulip Poplar, and Black Walnut grow on the hillside. Spinneys of Rhododendron and Mountain Laurel fill out the landscape. Large ferns soften the mulch-covered ground. It's damp enough here that the streams still run and mushrooms still grow, popping up in bright colors from forest floor. Big chunks of quartz, sometimes bright white, sometimes tinged with a rusty color, peek out from the soil.

 

The canopy is higher...

We find plenty to explore on this mountain, one morning walking along the ridge until we get to the road, the winding, two lane highway that brought us here. We find bear scat and the prints of deer. Jack shows us how to tell the buck's prints from the doe's. My father-in-law is a hunter and knows these things, though we differ in opinion about whether my dog could catch a turkey if she wanted to. I sit on a boulder to enjoy the view for a moment and a slender lizard striped in bright colors slips like liquid into a crack in the rock.

...and the understory more airy
and full of light.

Later we put on water shoes and follow the stream that runs through the valley. Ursula runs ahead, joyously rooting in the bank and scaring up birds. My dog is a water dog at heart and she is in her element here. We find a pool in a crook of the stream and sit down for a cooling soak. We skip stones and pull limbs and other debris out of the water and throw it onto the bank to decay there and add to the musky humus of the forest floor. We take the stream all the way to the property line, then take a path up the hill that circles around before heading home to a ping pong tournament and dinner.

The next day we drive to a larger river and pile into three canoes, one for each generation. The river is wider than our stream, but no deeper and our boats scrape bottom pretty often. The drought is not so apparent here, but here nonetheless. The river is quiet and we enjoy the peaceful floating downstream, floating through the scenery as it unwinds with very little effort from us, just an occasional stroke to steer away from a place where ripples in the water reveal the shallows. Michael and I were in the first canoe, and at the bend of the river we came silently upon a Great Blue Heron standing like a statue until we were 15 yards away, then spread his magnificent wings and mutely lifted off to fly upstream. At another bend we came upon him again with his mate, and we followed them downriver for half an hour or so, creeping up to within a few yards before they flew. This repeated 7 or 8 times until eventually, they tired of our company and flew back upriver, the way we had all come, to be shed of our disruptions.

Later, up at the house, the kids found some scars on a tree—three sets of four parallel stripes cut into the bark and healed over. Did the bear leave these marks when she climbed the tree? We know the bear is in the neighborhood, because Jack saw her one day in the bottomland, chewing on a different tree. He showed us those marks, on a limb about 7 feet up. These, however, look more dramatic, and tell a different story. Is it fact or fancy? What dramas do these mountains hold?

Shadows on a Stone

That evening, in Floyd, we found a country store with an old fashioned candy counter. It was a blend of history with a modern, thriving arts community. On Fridays they host a Jamboree with traditional Appalachian music and clogging, the traditional dance. Sadly, we have to leave before Friday comes, but will plan the next trip to be sure we can make it for the festivities.

Dance in Beauty; Float in Peace:
Blessed Be.