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Visitor # 7800 is.....my sister-in-law Maxine, in Texas. Maxine, I know you love bird houses, so I'm posting this photo of the one we bought at this year's Gypsy Caravan just for you. It graces our back yard perennial border. I wish you and Roy could come to visit us when everything is growing, so we could trade notes on gardening and cooking. Glad you stopped by tonight!
Today was cooler--high 80s--we went to the store, and Norm barbecued hamburgers and chicken tonight so we have some meals in the freezer now. Yesterday I worked on charity quilts with some guild friends--we have 16 more quilts sandwiched and ready to tie or machine quilt. It was a productive day. Tonight I made some brownies for church coffee hour tomorrow. They will go with the melons we got at the store. It is August tomorrow. If I were still teaching at the university, I would feel like summer is over. I still get those pangs sometimes. We have only one more week of water exercise, and then we are off until after Labor Day. This week I've hit the specials on school supplies because we are collecting donations for our church's local mission, Isaiah 58 ministries. I'm looking at all the plants I still haven't taken outside for the summer, or repotted, and shaking my head. But the truth is, the weather forecast for Tuesday is 99 degrees, so we still have some summer left. I'm going to do my best to enjoy it.
One of the attractions we enjoyed in our time on the Blue Ridge in June was the Moses H. Cone Memorial Park, just outside the town of Blowing Rock. An intact 3500 acres that was the mountain home of one of North Carolina's textile industry founders (Cone Mills may be familiar if you ever bought fabric or paid attention to hang tags on clothing in the 1960s or earlier) it preserves a beautiful chunk of land along the Blue Ridge Parkway. The veranda of the 20-room Flat Top mansion where Cone and his wife lived and entertained is an inviting, shady spot on a summer afternoon.
Moses Cone made his fortune in Greens- boro, and in his life time he donated a lot of money to charities there; a hospital is named for him. He supported education in Blowing Rock by offering a challenge of $4 for every $1 the locals could raise for schools. Cone died in 1908 and his wife, Bertha, kept the estate going until her death in 1947. The entire estate was willed to the hospital and the hospital transferred it to the United States Government to be used for the pleasure of the public.
The side approach to the manor from the parking lot gives little hint of the expanse of the place. But this view illustrates the tall trees, many benches, and laid back aura of the place. The manor's upstairs is open for tours on weekends. The lower floor houses several rooms of crafts produced by members of the Southern Highlands Craft Guild. We looked at wonderful weavings, pottery, baskets, stained glass, jewelry....like Thoreau, we owned everything we saw, but since we were going to be flying home, we weren't able to purchase what we admired. Norm said it was a treat just to see so much art in one place...photos were not allowed in the galleries, unfortunately.
This retaining wall, probably built or perhaps re-built in the 1950s, caught our eye. It is made of the typical gray rocks of the region, and stacked without mortar. The manor is built into a south-facing hillside and terraces and retaining walls like this abound on the grounds. The whole thing was anchored by a huge boulder at the right that eluded the picture.
The view from the veranda includes this one of a lake, one of three that Cone built on the property and stocked with bass or trout. This is Bass Lake, and it can also be accessed from a street on the edge of the town of Blowing Rock, which is down there somewhere in all those trees. One reason Cone moved to the mountains and left his brother in Greensboro to run the business was his fragile health. He built 25 miles of carriage roads on this property, and a 20-minute loop walking trail. He was 40 when he began acquiring the land, and he was 51 when he died.
One writer notes that Cone allowed the 30 or so small farmers whose land he purchased to stay on, and he hired them as tenants to help run the estate. This rail fence is an outstanding example of the rail fences used throughout this region. Most of the Blue Ridge Parkway, a two-lane highway that is also a national park, is marked along its right-of-way with fences just like this.
These roses blooming on the terrace below the manor are a remnant of the vast plantings that Cone estab- lished. One writer on this web site notes:
"An avid orchardist, he supervised the planting of apple varieties that matured from June through November. He replaced any tree that was cut. He obtained the help and advice of his friend Gifford Pinchot, governor of Pennsylvania and a noted conservationist, in planting extensive white pine forests and hemlock hedges. His tenants grazed his sheep and took care of his nearly 20 milk cows.... Rose gardens, vegetable plots, boulders, mosses, and ferns surrounded Flat Top Mance. Miles of carriage roads, smoothed out to a point of flawlessness, invited the pleasures of an early morning walk or an afternoon ride. Within a short time, 10,000 apple trees produced 40,000 bushels of fruit in a favorable season."
This carriage house is a short walk from the manor. Today it houses some farm implements and carriages, as well as the public restrooms for visitors. The trails are used by equestrians...we sat in the shade of some trees nearby and noticed the evidence of recent horse travel.
Here the Blue Ridge Parkway crosses the Moses Cone Park on the north side, and a carriage trail goes under it. These stone arches are a signature of the Parkway--instantly recognizable wherever the Parkway crosses another road or thoroughfare. The arches really are works of architectural art, built painstakingly by workers in the Works Progress Administration and Civilian Conservation Corps programs that provided life-saving employment for thousands of Americans in the 1930s.
As we left the park and headed back to Blowing Rock, we paused to take a photo of this bicyclist who was studying the signs and consulting with someone on his cell phone. People ride bicycles up and down the parkway and the climb seems grueling enough to help one train for the Tour de France!
There are many better known and advertised attractions in the Blue Ridge, but we enjoyed this gem of a park that provides a window into how the rich lived in the latter half of the 19th century and early part of the 20th, while at the same time conserving and preserving part of the natural and cultural heritage of the region.
Yesterday the family reunion quilt was put into the quilting frame by the group that is quilting it--and letting me quilt with them. Today I worked for two hours and finished one block--some of the quilting on it is visible near the bottom of the picture. The others have been working on quilting the border and wanted me to finish a block so it could be the example--saves having to mark the whole quilt ahead of time. From this angle, no way can I get the whole quilt in the photo. The finished size will be 97 inches square! I hope we can be finished before snow is on the ground---meanwhile, as of today, 1 block down, 63 to go!
Before our North Carolina trip fades into the recesses of memory, I thought I'd post more photos. This set is about wild flowers and domestic crops we encountered. The next set will look at the marvelous garden plants we found in Blowing Rock. Everywhere we went, the roads and lanes were lined with mountain laurel and rhododendrons. I'm not an expert at telling them apart, but I think this may be the rosebay or "great" rhododendron. Or maybe not. But they are all spectacular.
This little composite, maybe some kind of black-eyed susan, was growing literally out of a rocky side of a mountain. The Blue Ridge is comprised of granite--not the reddish granite we know in Oklahoma or even in Colorado, but a slate gray granite that lurks beneath the very thin soils in these mountains.
At one scenic overlook masses of these cheerful yellow flowers were growing next to a thicket of blackberries. They appear to be St. John's Wort, which is an herb some people use for depression, so no wonder they looked cheery.
At another overlook on the Blue Ridge parkway we found these giant specimens of common milkweed. No butterflies yet, though. 
As we moved into Yadkin County farm country in search of ancestral places, I saw my first field of tobacco growing. At first I though they were tall, skinny cabbages but then I looked at the big leaves and decided it had to be tobacco. What we noted was the sheer number of small tobacco fields in this area as farmers made the most use of the clearings in the forest--clearings that undoubtedly go back to the original settlers of the Carolinas in the 1700s.
Another common crop in this area was field corn, and we also saw many small wheat fields and even some alfalfa as well as lots of pasture. But we also saw a lot of this, which we think is some kind of cane, either molasses or sugar.
There were many fields like these, too. We aren't sure what this crop is. It grows low and is leafy like soybeans, but it doesn't quite look like soybeans. Since North Carolina is a major peanut growing state, we wondered if this was a peanut field. Still another crop we noted was Christmas trees. There were a lot of Christmas tree farms in the mountains and even in the Brushy Mountain area of Yadkin County. But all of the photos I tried to take of them are just a blur.
As we left the Yadkin area (then known as Surry County) where the McElyeas lived from 1787-1793 or so, as well as some of the Boones and Linvilles, we stopped at Belews Creek, now a lake, or a series of lakes, betweeb Stokes and Rockingham counties. Linville genealogy states that Thomas Linville, an ancestor of Norm's family, settled on Belews Creek for a time. We were able to find a boat ramp area to pull off and enjoy the shade and the sparkling water. This tree had littered the ground with these little black fruits. I think it is a wild black cherry. After leaving Belews Creek, we ventured on into Caswell County, where the McElyeas acquired land grants as early as 1779. I'll elaborate on that more when I write another post.
If you have been following the story of Kim and Patrick Bentrott, missionaries in Haiti who survived the earthquake, the latest blog by Kim has finally shown up in the feed although she wrote it a few days ago. The Bentrotts have resigned from Global Missions because they could not get the appropriate paperwork from our government to let them and their adopted children travel back and forth between the U.S. and Haiti as would be necessary if they were to continue their service there. They are looking for jobs in Colorado, and a place to live. Prayers for them as they seek a new, domestic mission, are welcome. Here's the link to her post: it is also on my blog roll at the right of this page.
New Mountains
Nothing but hot, hot, hot and dry weather is in the forecast for at least the next week. It is pure July in St. Louis and it feels like what used to be called the "dog days," supposedly because the Dog Star (Sirius, to us amateur astronomers) was at the highest point in the daytime sky. (Please don't ask me how people know where a star is in the daytime. It involves mathematics, something I was not ever good at.)
Anyway, we are having our own Dog Days celebration as Miss Ava came across the driveway for the rest of the week to keep us company and help guard our place against baby bunnies and feral kittens. She looks much too solemn in this photo, but then, she doesn't like to pose for pictures, either. Before I could snap another one, she became a blur heading for the kitchen to see if it was time for supper yet.
Some quick highlights of our last week...hopefully there will be more to come soon. I thought about titling this photo, they don't call it the Blue Ridge for nothing! This view is from one of the many dramatic overlooks along the Blue Ridge Parkway near Blowing Rock, where we stayed.
Grandfather Mountain is the biggest attraction in these parts, next to Linville Falls. We didn't go to the top and try the mile high swinging suspension foot bridge. We are brave, but not that brave.
One place we did visit at length was the Moses Cone estate just out of Blowing Rock. A textile magnate, Cone donated over 3000 acres to the state to preserve its 19th century character. There is a Southern Highlands Craft Guild gallery on this site, as well as miles of trails and wonderful views. Very peaceful.
This inn, which is NOT the one where we stayed, was the garden showplace of Blowing Rock. The Inn at Ragged Gardens, it is called. When I have time to sort them, I will post an album of all the gorgeous flowers that were in bloom on these grounds.
The time came for us to leave the Blue Ridge and head for the Piedmont, which is the central part of the state where both our families have 18th century roots. I took a quick photo from the moving car of this creek, which I think is the south fork of Deep Creek in Surry County, where both Laughlin McElyea and later his son Hugh McElyea owned property between 1787 and 1809. When I get all of my family history story sorted out, I'm going to post it with pictures on Thursday's Child, my other blog.
This trek was also involved in tracing Linvilles. Part of Norm's family settled on Belews Creek in the Stokes/Forsyth County area in the 18th century. The creek has been dammed to create electricity and recreation, and this lovely lake on the middle arm could be near that original family site.
Toward the end of our long day on Thursday, we arrived in Caswell county, where Laughlin McElyea brought his family from Pennsylvania around 1777. He first filed for a land grant in 1779. At the commons in Yanceyville, the county seat, this preserved log cabin is one example of the square log structures that dot the entire county. They look old enough to have been built by these early pioneers.
Our last stop was at the grounds of the historic Griers Presby -terian Church, established in 1753 a mile or so from the present site. It is located on North Hyco Creek, the site of Laughlin's land grant. I can never know where on the many branches his land actually lay, since the deeds talk about measuring from one black oak to a hickory bush to somebody's line, to a pine, etc. But we stopped at the church and walked around, savoring the peace of the graveyard behind it. Suddenly there was a loud squawk and Norm discovered he had nearly stepped on this kildeer who was guarding her clutch of 4 speckled eggs. She didn't move a feather while I took the photo with my zoom lens.
This view from the church shows how much of the land was cleared by early settlers and has remained farmland. The crops include tobacco, cane, corn, alfalfa and soybeans. Much of the land in this part of the state is pasture and we saw a couple of large cattle operations. Not many hogs, which surprised me. While we were here a woman who was raised at the farm across the road and her husband stopped by the church yard. They are in their 70s. She could tell us a little bit about the area but didn't know the past history that well. We still enjoyed talking with her.After meandering across 6 or 7 counties on Thursday, we arrived hungry at our hotel in Raleigh and settled in for our trip to the State Archives on Friday. That trip was fruitful, too, and we'll post more about it later. For now, these photos will have to stand as a teasing sampler of the whole story we have to tell.
Visitor # 7800 is.....my sister-in-law Maxine, in Texas. Maxine, I know you love bird houses, so I'm posting this photo of the one we bought at this year's Gypsy Caravan just for you. It graces our back yard perennial border. I wish you and Roy could come to visit us when everything is growing, so we could trade notes on gardening and cooking. Glad you stopped by tonight!
