Hometown

HOMETOWN

Repeat Offender

Sharpshooter with a ketchup packet

By Bill Fields

Around Labor Day, give or take, the long, free-range days of summer break in the Sandhills paused. Games played with everything from golf balls to basketballs, the construction of mighty forts and quenching one’s thirst from a garden hose gave way to the more structured schedule that came with the resumption of school. It was time to toe the line.

The threat of a keen switch (home) or a hefty paddle (school) was usually enough to keep me from misbehaving. My tendencies were to follow the rules and stay out of trouble, regardless of the season. I even received a DAR Good Citizens Award during a luncheon at the Country Club of North Carolina, a distinction I trumpeted on college applications as a counterpunch against terribly low math grades and board scores.

Had the fine ladies recognizing me done a more robust background check, however, someone else might have been feted over chicken cordon bleu at CCNC. They clearly hadn’t been aware of my checkered past, three occasions in childhood when I did not live up to my reputation.

We hung things on our clothesline to dry, but there were exceptions. Every so often, a trip to wash and dry bedspreads and slipcovers was necessary. There was a small laundromat located on South Bennett Street, near the rear of the A&P, not far from the intersection with Morganton Road.

One Saturday morning when I was in elementary school, I accompanied Dad there. Hearing the quarters tumble out of the coin changer was cool, but soon I was fidgeting in the plastic chair. I started to run around and loitered by the entrance, glancing at Dad.

“Don’t play by the doors!” my father said after taking a deep drag on his cigarette.

I returned inside to the heat and methodical whir of the oversize dryers and sat in one of those plastic seats that seemed to exist only in laundromats. But I returned to the glass doors, opening one side toward the parking lot. I did so a few times, until it collided with a car bumper poking over the curb. The ride home was as silent as the shattering of the glass had been loud.

Not long after that incident, I accompanied Mom and Dad to Greensboro, where one of my older sisters was going to college. She also had a part-time job, and she wanted to take us out, her treat. The restaurant of choice had two parts, fancy and casual. It being a special night, we went to the former.

I was in a brief hamburger phase, when that was my preferred supper, particularly on infrequent meals away from home. Well, the fancy side of the restaurant didn’t have hamburgers on its menu. I reacted by getting on the floor and having a tantrum, like some overwrought, overacting kid in a B movie. It is a wonder my sister ever spoke to me again.

Just months later, my good behavior went missing a third time. The setting was innocent enough as our family gathered around the kitchen table enjoying plates from Russell’s Fish House. It was a feast of flounder and all the trimmings: slaw, hushpuppies, French fries.

Aunt Blyn, my mother’s sister, was in town, visiting from her home in northeastern North Carolina. Mom to my three very cool older cousins, Blyn smoked Camels and drank Sanka, talked slowly, and dressed properly. She had sung and played the piano most of her life, and even though she couldn’t hit all the notes anymore, that did not stop her renditions of “Release Me” on the upright in our living room.

The evening we were all enjoying the takeout seafood, Aunt Blyn was seated across and slightly left from me. There was a bottle of ketchup on the table, but the meals had come with plastic packets of the condiment. I played with one as I ate, squeezing it and daring it to pop. My mother noticed and told me to stop. I did not and mashed it harder. There was presently a ketchup explosion, the red stuff shooting onto Blyn’s aghast face and the wall beyond.

“Oh, lawd,” was the last thing I heard her say as I shot out of my chair and ran from the house.

I sought cover behind a cedar bush at the end of our driveway. It wasn’t long before I looked up and saw my father. But, to my surprise and relief, he was wearing a grin instead of carrying a belt. I apologized and never squeezed another pack of ketchup.

Out of the Blue

OUT OF THE BLUE

A Case of the Whys

But without the wherefores

By Deborah Salomon

Several conundrums pertaining to recent events are driving me bats. Help me reconcile.

The Constitution stipulates an age requirement to run for president. I’m assuming an upper number wasn’t necessary because back then, life expectancy hovered in the 60s. Teddy Roosevelt and Calvin Coolidge died at 60, George Washington at 67, James Garfield at 49. Time to revise?

Why are cars built to achieve 80-plus mph in a few seconds when that speed could cost the driver dollars, points, license revocation? It’s like advertising burglary kits or frozen obesity entrees.

Why have the arbiters of women’s hairstyles decided to uglify their groupies with an oeuvre I call The Weedwacker, which starts with a severe middle part and devolves into angles that frame the face like a barbed wire fence? On purpose. But there they sit, six little TV anchorites in a row, fingers plugged into electric outlets to refresh the coif. To my knowledge, the last gal to get away with this austere look was Mona Lisa.

Looming large: the flight plight. Hopefully, the IT crash in mid-July was a one-time deal that shut down American, Delta and others, leaving passengers to sleep on terminal floors. I’m talking about frequent reports of tires falling off, fires breaking out, windows cracking, near mid-air collisions, turbulence injuries, spoiled food. Holy Biscoff! We’re way past recalling bygone days when meals were hot, booze free, “stewardesses” young and friendly, passengers dressed up and on their best behavior. Not even a double Bloody Mary would allay fears when an aircraft packed with 200 sardines drops 10,000 feet in 20 seconds. Maybe calamities were hushed up in the past. But c’mon: On a chilly flight, I was told blankets were only available in business class. So I wrote a letter to the airline’s “customer service” department. They replied with an apology and, of all things, two drink vouchers.

Inflation comes in many sizes. Tucked in the back of my linen closet was a small box of tissues. Must have been there quite a while because the label read 115 tissues. The box I usually buy lists 85 but felt a bit light recently. Sure enough, only 70. The price, however, had crept up. Reduction in contents without shrinking packaging is an old trick now evident in dozens of items, like cookies. Caveat emptor and read the fine print, not that knowing makes a difference.

Thou shalt not drag politics into an “art and soul” magazine. Agreed, but fashion isn’t electioneering. Ever wonder why the vice president prefers pant suits? Hillary Clinton’s situation doesn’t apply. One theory has her being taken more seriously in male attire. Poppycock. European potentates alternate skirts and pants, no problem.

Say it isn’t so. The mighty Charlotte Observer will reduce print editions to three days a week starting in September. Some eras end with a bang, others with a whimper, others with the sad rustle of newsprint.

“Elocution” or “diction” training should be a given for cable TV’s talking heads. Once off teleprompter they wallow in “well . . . uh . . . ah.” At that salary level I expect not only fabulous ties and interesting earrings but complete sentences.

Whew! Feels good with those pesky conundrums off my chest.

2024 Department Out of the Blue

Sporting Life

SPORTING LIFE

Game Time

What’s your favorite part of the squirrel?

By Tom Bryant

“Well, I really do have a question, Mr. Bryant. Do you actually eat all those little animals you kill?”

I knew that question, or one like it, would come when I agreed to speak at a women’s club. Some of my hunting partners that hang out at Slim’s Country Store had warned me when they heard through the grapevine about the speaking commitment. Ritter expressed it best when he said, “Bryant, those ladies gonna skin you like a possum. You know they’s against guns, hunting, fishing or almost any outdoor sport.”

The meeting with the ladies took place several years ago in a small but prestigious town right across the border in Virginia.

“Yes, ma’am. My grandfather was a stickler for eating anything we brought home. He would stress that the Good Lord gave bounty from the streams and fields for us to use and do so responsibly.

“Also, as I mentioned earlier, right after the War Between the States, folks in the South especially, used wild game to supplement food for the table.”

There was a follow-up. “What animals did you cook and eat, and how old were you?”

It looked as if it was going to be a long question and answer period. I sighed inwardly.

“I started hunting the woods on my grandfather’s farm when I was about 9 and fishing maybe 6 or 7. My first wild game was squirrels. I’d clean ’em and Grandma would cook them in a wonderful rice dish.” I could hear the muted groans in the audience of ladies who had just finished a wonderful chicken lunch.

“As a matter of fact,” I continued, “I brought this along.” I held up my well-worn wild game cookbook from L.L. Bean, simply titled The Game & Fish Cookbook. “Unfortunately, it’s out of print but can still be found, if you’re lucky, in usedbook stores. There are probably 10 or 12 great recipes in this book for squirrel, but one of my favorites is Brunswick stew.”

Turning to a well-marked page where the recipe was underlined, I quoted from the lead-in to the ingredients.

“Technically this stew is made from squirrel, but it can be made with other meats: rabbit, muskrat, beaver or combinations.”

I held the book open so the ladies of the highest social order sitting on the front row could see that I wasn’t making it up. There were considerable murmurs from the women sitting in the back rows. I didn’t know if they were accepting my story or getting ready to walk out en masse.

“Speaking of Brunswick stew,” I continued, “I have a couple of friends who, in the Southern vernacular, are good ol’ boys, and they make the best stew I’ve ever eaten. They make one that’s really got some shoulders on it. Edwin Clapp and Bandy Herman are what you think of when you picture hunters and fishermen who live deep in the country far away from tall buildings and sidewalks.”

One of the ladies sitting near the back raised her hand, stood up and said, “Do they use what you call wild game in their cooking?”

“I’m gonna be honest with you,” I replied. “Once, when Edwin invited me up to his farm to participate in the annual Brunswick stew cooking, he told me they would be whipping up their concoction in a 30-gallon stew pot. I told him there’s not enough squirrel in Chatham County to fill a pot that size.

“Edwin said they were giving away most of the stew, and that some of his city friends frowned on eating squirrel in anything, even Brunswick stew. So, on that occasion, just to suit the city folk, they were using grocery store fare.”

I had my iPad with me to show photos of some of the places where we hunted, and I knew there was a good shot of Edwin and Bandy cooking stew, if I could find it. The little computer was new to me — a gift from my bride, Linda — and I had yet to figure out all its intricacies.

It looked as if the ladies were in no hurry to leave, so I directed my next statement to the last questioner. “Ma’am, somewhere in this little machine I’ve got a photo of Edwin and Bandy cooking up one of their big batches of Chatham County Brunswick stew. It shows the huge stainless steel pot they use and the wooden paddle for stirring.”

Not a soul had left, and a couple of the ladies got up from their chairs and edged closer.

“Here it is. Look at the size of that pot,” I said. “And it’s almost filled to the brim.” I passed the iPad around for everyone to see. Several took a closer look before handing it back to me.

A lady on the front row said, “But Mr. Bryant, if you keep killing the animals that you hunt, will they eventually go away? I mean will you deplete the resource?”

“That’s an excellent question,” I replied, and I pulled out my Ducks Unlimited membership card and held it so they could see. “This organization is the world’s leader in wetlands and waterfowl conservation, and yet they value and enjoy the sport of hunting. The beauty of all this is that we hunters, over 700,000 of us, are the supporters of this institution.” I passed my membership card around the nearest row of ladies.

Our host, a small white-haired matron, stood, raised her hand and took over. “I believe we’ve taken enough time from Mr. Bryant,” she said. There was a smattering of applause and the ladies slowly left the room.

I grabbed my stuff, thanked the ladies in charge and exited the building posthaste. I was surprised to find the elderly matron, the one who asked about eating game, on the steps waiting for me.

“Mr. Bryant, I surely would like to get a taste of Mr. Clapp’s Brunswick stew,” she said, to my surprise.

“I’m afraid this year’s batch is probably all gone,” I said.

She handed me her card. “Well, tell him to put me on the list for next year,” she said and turned to go. “Oh,” she paused as she headed down the stairs, “you can also tell him I wouldn’t mind if it had just a taste of squirrel.”

2024 Department Sporting Life

Birdwatch

BIRDWATCH

Southbound and Down

Grasspipers forage on farms and fields

By Susan Campbell

As the long days of summer wane here in the Piedmont and Sandhills of North Carolina, we have scores of birds preparing for that long southbound journey we refer to as fall migration. Thousands of birds pass by, both day and night, headed for wintering grounds deep in the Southern Hemisphere. Flocks of medium-bodied shorebirds, dropping down to replenish their reserves, are one seemingly unlikely sight. They may stay a few hours or a few days, depending on the weather and the abundance of food available to them. At first glance, you might think these long-legged birds are lost — far from the coast where a variety of sandpipers are commonplace. But once you take a good look, you will realize these are birds of grassland habitat, not sand flats.

Referred to as “grasspipers” by birders, these species forage on a wide variety of invertebrates found in grassy expanses. They breed in open northern terrain, in some cases all the way up into the Arctic. They are moving through as they migrate to grassland habitat in southern South America. Although some may be seen along our coastline, they are more likely to be found in flocks or loose groups at inland airports, sod farms, playing fields and perhaps even tilled croplands.

Come late August and early September, armed with binoculars or, better yet, a powerful spotting telescope, you can find these cryptically colored birds without having to travel too far from home. They are indeed easy to miss unless you know where to look at the right time. Flocks often include a mix of species, so be ready to sort through each and every bird, lest you overlook one of the rarer individuals. When it comes to shorebirds as a group, many of the dozens of species are tricky to identify so, if you’re relatively new to birding, I suggest you arrange to join a more accomplished birder to start.

The most common and numerous species without a doubt is the killdeer. Its dark upper parts contrast with white underparts, but it’s the double neck ring that gives it away. This spunky bird, whose name is its call, nests (if you can call a rudimentary scrape in the gravel a nest) on disturbed ground such as unpaved roadways and parking lots throughout North Carolina. Flocks of hundreds of birds are not uncommon. Frequently other species are mixed in as well. In the Sandhills, the sod farm in Candor hosts large numbers of killdeer around Labor Day. Check them all and you will likely be rewarded with something different mixed in.

The plover family, to which the killdeer belongs, consists of squat, short-necked and billed birds of several species. The semipalmated plover is a close cousin. This slightly smaller species sports only a single neck ring and curiously, individuals have slightly webbed (or palmate) feet. They can actually swim short distances when in wetter habitat and are thus more versatile foragers.

The most curious are the obligate grassland shorebirds, which include the well-camouflaged buff-breasted sandpiper and the upland sandpiper. Both nest in the drier prairies of Canada and spend the winter months mainly in the pampas of Argentina. “Buffies” are a buff-brown all over and have delicate-looking heads, short, thin bills and a distinctive ring around the eye. “Uppies” are brownish and have small heads as well, but with larger eyes and both a longer bill and longer legs. These two species are thought to be declining — most likely due to habitat loss on both continents. If you miss the chance to get out in search of inland shorebirds this fall, don’t fret. They will move through again come spring, although in smaller numbers. Winter will take its toll, but those who do make it back our way will be in vibrant plumage as they wing their way northward to create yet a new generation of grasspipers north of the border.

2024 Birdwatch Department

Omnivorous Reader

OMNIVOROUS READER

A Sense of Time and Place

By Stephen E. Smith

Writers have twitches and tics of style and substance that identify them as distinctly as their DNA — and writers of exceptional talent are possessed by obsession, a focus on subject matter that elevates their work to a purity that establishes a commonality with their audience. North Carolina’s Thomas Wolfe was such a writer. So is Bland Simpson.

Simpson has earned a reputation as the chronicler of the North Carolina coast and sound country. His books include North Carolina: Land of Water, Land of Sky, The Great Dismal, and Into Sound Country, books that demonstrate his love of the state and the region where he was raised. He has appeared in numerous PBS (WUNC) documentaries, and his familiar voice graces the soundtrack to travelogues exploring the coastal region. In short, he’s the go-to guy when it comes to the history and evolution of coastal North Carolina. For many years, he’s been the Kenan Distinguished Professor of English and Creative Writing at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

In his latest book, Clover Garden: A Carolinian’s Piedmont Memoir, Simpson remains in familiar territory — he’s writing about the state — but he’s moved his focus west to an area outside Chapel Hill where he’s lived for the last 50 years.

Where is Clover Garden?

Head west out of Carrboro until you hit N.C. 54. Drive northwest into gentle farmland until you pass the old White Oak School. If there’s a sign for Swepsonville, you’ve gone too far. You can try that, but you won’t happen upon the place name that serves as the title of Simpson’s memoir. According to Simpson, Clover Garden is closer to Carrboro than Graham. He describes it as “a small, four-square-mile country community to the old Porter Tract of the low Old Fields, lying beside the Haw River just a few miles west of Chapel Hill and Carrboro. . . .” But in truth,readers will suspect that Clover Garden is anywhere in North Carolina’s vast rolling Piedmont, any plot of land inhabited by neighbors who live harmoniously in tight-knit communities.

“Memoir” in the title is used in the loosest sense. There’s maybe a thread of chronology at work, but Simpson takes an impressionistic approach to his writing, à la Manet (not Monet). Readers who remember their art history will be reminded of the details in Music in the Tuileries and The Café-Concert, images in which all the specifics matter to the whole.

Clover Garden is divided into 45 segments — short narratives, random observations, anecdotes, even gossip — that, when taken together, comprise the “memoir” and give the readers a sense of a particular time and place. These independent segments are skillfully illustrated and enhanced with photographs by Ann Cary Simpson, whose keen eye for specific and illuminating images has enhanced Clover Garden and her husband’s previous books.

If the impressionistic comparison seems a trifle pretentious, the narratives Simpson shares are not. He writes of pool halls, pig pickings, snowstorms, country stores, great horned owls, folklore, boatwrighting, cafes and bars, stars, and riderless horses, all the bits and pieces, practical and impractical, that comprise our daily lives. And if you’ve lived in the Piedmont, there’s a good chance you’ll know a few characters who contribute color to the storytelling. If you don’t recognize any of the characters, you know them well enough at the conclusion of the memoir, or you’ll recognize their counterpart in your circle of friends and acquaintances.

Simpson’s descriptions embody an easy blending of history with a touch of nostalgia as in this sepia-tinged recollection of old friends and poolhalls (one of which was frequented by this reviewer): “In time, Jake Mills showed me his two favorite pool halls, Happy’s on Cotanche Street in Greenville and Wilbur’s on Webb Avenue in Burlington. After school in the 1950s, he and Steve Coley used to play quarter games with the textile mill hands coming off first shift and drifting into Wilbur’s straight from work. The cigarette haze hung low below the green shades, and the cry of ‘Rack!’ was in the air, and the balls clicked and clacked, and, like many a youth before them, Jake and Steve picked up pin money in this Alamance County eight-ball haven.” Even Neville’s, a long established Moore County watering hole, receives a passing mention in Simpson’s narrative explorations.

Above all else, Simpson is a master prose stylist, a poet at heart. His sentences are graceful and well-tuned — thoroughly worked on to get that “worked on” feeling out — and laced with continual surprises to save them from predictability. Simpson is always a pleasure to read, and he can transport the reader to familiar ground as if it’s being seen anew. “. . . alongside dairy cows, beeves and horses in pastures meeting deep forests of white oaks and red oaks and pines, copses of them around country churches, and straight up tulip poplars and high-crown hickories, American beech and always sweet gum, muscadine vines everywhere, willows close to the waterlines of ponds where big blue heron stalk and hunt, ponds full of bass and bream, shellcrackers and pumpkinseed and catfish prowling the bottom . . . .”

Thomas Wolfe would approve.

2024 Department Omnivorous Reader

Focus on Food

FOCUS ON FOOD

Late Summer Blooms

Cream cheese with a figgy twist

Story and Photograph by Rose Shewey

Many of my childhood summers were spent with my mom’s side of the family on the Adriatic coast in Croatia, where lush Mediterranean gardens grow fig trees taller than a Sandhills dogwood. In the late summer my family would harvest several pounds of figs every day from just a single tree. Those of us visiting from north of the Austrian Alps ate figs until our bellies ached.

Figs are, hands down, my favorite late-summer fruit. Or, to be botanically more accurate, inverted flower. Each seed inside a fig corresponds to one small flower contained in a bulbous stem. Call it what you will, figs, with their sweet, jammy texture and signature crunch, are darn exquisite, whichever way you want to categorize them.

To this day, I am surprised to find pricey, imported plasticcased figs in the produce aisles of food markets in North Carolina when our very own state — our own county, in fact — has proven to be an excellent host for fig trees. A local farm on the outskirts of Aberdeen has been successfully growing an entire fig tree orchard for several years, which begs the question: Why isn’t every farm growing fig trees in Moore County? My family would single-handedly keep them in business.

Even if you can’t get fresh figs, you can still enjoy them in other ways. Dried figs make an excellent addition to a homemade cream cheese. This year, I’ve used everyone’s favorite, pimento cheese, as a basis and inspiration for a cream cheese which holds all it promises — a honey- and fig-sweetened, tangy goat cheese and sharp cheddar blend that melts on your tongue. Spread it on sandwiches and crackers or eat it by the spoonful.

Fig, Honey and Goat Cream Cheese

INGREDIENTS

3-4 fresh or dried figs, minced (see notes)

2 cups freshly grated extra sharp cheddar cheese

4 ounces goat cheese

4 ounces cream cheese, cut into 1-inch cubes, room temperature

1 teaspoon honey

1⁄4 teaspoon garlic powder

1⁄4 teaspoon onion powder

Freshly ground black pepper, to taste

Salt, to taste

DIRECTIONS

In a large bowl, combine the finely minced figs with cheddar, goat cheese, cream cheese, honey, garlic powder, onion powder, and several twists of black pepper. Beat the mixture together with a hand mixer or by hand with a sturdy wooden spoon until thoroughly combined. Taste, and add more black pepper if desired, and/or salt for more flavor. Transfer the mixture to a serving bowl and serve immediately, or chill it in the refrigerator for up to 1 week. This cheese mixture hardens as it cools; let it rest for 30 minutes at room temperature before spreading it.

Notes: Dried figs work best; fresh figs can be used but the cheese will be softer overall. In a pinch, you can use 1-2 tablespoons of fig preserve instead of dried or fresh figs.

2024 Department Focus on Food

Dissecting a Cocktail

DISSECTING A COCKTAIL

The Green Beret

Story and Photograph by Tony Cross

Almost a decade ago, I began piddling around with a cocktail to honor my father. He served 20 years in the Army as a Special Forces medic. I knew before creating the drink that I wanted to call it The Green Beret. My next thought was that it seemed appropriate to include green chartreuse in the mix. And whiskey had to be the base. That was a given, since it’s my dad’s favorite spirit. I decided to create a spin on the Boulevardier using equal parts TOPO’s (a Chapel Hill distillery that is sadly no longer with us) Eight Oak Whiskey, cacao nib-infused Campari, and sweet vermouth, rinsing the inside of the rocks glass with the chartreuse. Even though the drink was a hit on our cocktail menu, I wasn’t completely happy with it — the chartreuse wasn’t adding anything to the cocktail.

So, I decided to revisit The Green Beret. This go-round, I switched a few things up. First, the whiskey. Rittenhouse Rye is a go-to when I need a whiskey with a backbone, but one that will still let other flavors come through. Next was the chocolate. Instead of infusing cacao into Campari, I opted for Angostura’s Cocoa Bitters, which wasn’t available when I originally created the drink. I fat-washed the Angostura with brown butter. This gives the bitters a creamy texture and adds nuttiness to the chocolate. Lastly, I took organic espresso beans — about one barspoon — and added them to my glass vessel when stirring all of the ingredients. That allows the oils from the espresso beans to make an appearance in the drink. I’m happy to report that The Green Beret earned its promotion.

SPECIFICATIONS

1 1/4 ounces Rittenhouse Rye

1 ounce Campari

1 ounce Carpano Antica Sweet Vermouth

4 dashes brown butter-washed Angostura Cocoa Bitters*

1 bar spoon organic espresso (or coffee) beans

2 dashes saline

Garnish: orange peel

*Brown butter-washed bitters: You can do this to regular Angostora bitters, too. Pour a 4-ounce bottle of bitters into a small glass container. Place 2 tablespoons of unsalted butter in a pan, bringing to a simmer. Continue to cook the butter until it turns brown. As soon as it does, take it immediately off the heat and pour it into the glass container. Give the bitters/butter mixture a quick stir and let cool. Once cool, seal the container and place it in the freezer. Let it sit overnight. The next day you will notice the butter has solidified. Use a knife to break a hole in the butter and strain the bitters out through a cheesecloth or coffee filter (using a coffee filter will take much longer). Pour butter-washed bitters back into its original bottle.

EXECUTION

Combine all ingredients into a chilled mixing vessel, add ice and stir until your gut tells you that it’s cold enough and properly diluted. Strain into a chilled rocks glass over ice. Express oils from an orange peel over the cocktail and place into drink.

2024 Department Dissecting a Cocktail

Tea Leaf Astrologer

TEA LEAF ASTROLOGER

Virgo

(August 23 – September 22)

We appreciate your pragmatism. We really do. That said, it’s time to occupy the rooms in your Fifth House of Pleasure. (Note: Reorganizing the Tupperware doesn’t count.) What if there was no one to impress, no one to “fix,” nothing to accomplish? Try not trying so hard for five seconds and experience what can only be described as actual, factual joy. The Tupperware will be the icing on the cake.

Tea leaf “fortunes” for the rest of you:

Libra (September 23 – October 22)

Try clicking refresh.

Scorpio (October 23 – November 21)

Eat your greens.

Sagittarius (November 22 – December 21)

The aftertaste will be complex.

Capricorn (December 22 – January 19)

Embrace the imperfection.

Aquarius (January 20 – February 18)

There’s no going back.

Pisces (February 19 – March 20)

Conjure your own plot twist.

Aries (March 21 – April 19)

A full-bodied month with a buttery finish.

Taurus (April 20 – May 20)

Hint: The underdog wins.

Gemini (May 21 – June 20)

No need to spill all your secrets.

Cancer (June 21 – July 22)

One word: remediation.

Leo (July 23 – August 22)

Bring some cash. PS

Zora Stellanova has been divining with tea leaves since Game of Thrones’ Starbucks cup mishap of 2019. While she’s not exactly a medium, she’s far from average. She lives in the N.C. foothills with her Sphynx cat, Lyla.

2024 Department Tea Leaf Astrologer

All in a Day’s Work

ALL IN A DAY'S WORK

All in a Day's Work

Shady Maple Farm glows with color

By Claudia Watson

Photographs by John Gessner

On the outskirts of Carthage, a nondescript dirt road leads to a hidden gem. Surrounded by a tapestry of pines, native oaks, vibrant sassafras and fruit-laden persimmons, the landscape is a remarkable sight in late summer. A weathered sign bearing the word “Flowers” hints at the destination: Shady Maple Farm.

Farther down the long road, you get a glimpse of what is ahead — a breathtaking wildflowers-filled space. And in the heart of it all, a woman in a big straw hat tends her flowers. When Jennifer Donovan and her husband, Aloysius, moved to this parcel of land in 2021, it was a blank canvas. The 67-acre farm inspired them to follow their love for the outdoors and simpler times.

Decades ago, the 80-year-old homestead was timbered. Still, it held great promise with two natural ponds and nearby wetlands that drain into Dunham’s Creek. “I didn’t have a grand plan, and so it evolved,” Donovan says. “It started with a small plot that I planted and filled with summer annuals just so I could learn.”

Weeks later, while driving through the country, the couple spied three, “unused,” envy-inducing hoop houses in a distant field. They finally mustered the courage to ask the owner if they could buy them.

“He agreed, but on one condition: We had to dismantle and transport them ourselves. They were a fraction of the original cost and certainly worth it,” says Donovan, recalling the first hurdle in their journey to expand the farm.

It took some effort, but they assembled the largest of the three hoop houses, providing 2,000 square feet of protected growing space for her spring crop for the past three years. “It’s a joy to work there in the winter. It’s warm and full of sunlight, and I can roll the sides down if it gets too cold and still get work done,” she says as she nips a flower stem.

Working in the dirt has always been part of Donovan’s life. A native of Carthage, she graduated from Union Pines High School before attending East Carolina University. During the summers, she’d mow greens and fairways on local golf courses, a job she enjoyed, leading her to transfer to N.C. State University, where she obtained a degree in agronomy.

“I wanted to understand the soil and how it needed to be healthy, so I focused on environmental stewardship classes. That education, and later, earning my N.C. Cooperative Extension Master Gardener certification, gave me a sincere appreciation for our living soil,” she says. “Putting down roots here led to my flower farm dream. I knew when we bought the land that I’d grow something, but I didn’t know what until I saw information online about cut flower production. I love flowers, and they are a product that’s needed year-round.”

So she signed up for an online course in fresh flower production. “I was hooked, obsessed, consumed,” she says. “I couldn’t wait to get started. As soon as I could break ground, I planted that small plot of flowers.”

Donovan never looked back. She started seeds in late fall of 2020 and began selling flowers in the spring of 2021. Despite COVID, she forged ahead, setting up her floriculture business plan and website, and finding novel ways to sell her flowers in a market segment that will generate $52 billion in sales in 2024.

Driven by people’s increased use of flowers and beautiful plants to liven up their homes and businesses, cut flowers dominate the floriculture market. North Carolina is one of the top 10 states in the U.S. in their production, indicating the enduring appeal and demand for floral beauty.

“Flower farming takes a lot of planning and physical work to succeed,” Donovan says. “I reach my market in a variety of ways, including offering flower subscriptions and joining the local farmers markets. During COVID, when there weren’t many farmers markets, we salvaged what we could from the remnants of the old farmhouse and repurposed them to make a self-serve honor system flower stand.” Donovan points to the stand next to the wildflower garden and their home. “People were very happy to come here to buy flowers to brighten their days.”

Surprisingly, she had not grown anything from seed until they moved to the farm. Donovan laughs at it, too. “I never thought I’d be a flower farmer, but it makes sense with my love of the outdoors and my interest in caring for the environment. For me, it is a perfect match,” she says.

The small-scale family flower farm is no-spray, no-till, and focused on organic growing practices. “December and January are my two months to try and get the farm straightened out,” she says, anticipating the work ahead. After a harvest and before transplanting or seeding another crop, she cuts back or mows down the stems of the season’s plant material and covers them with silage tarps for two to three weeks. She removes the tarps and adds a layer of heavy compost on top.

Another part of the process is determining the number of flowers needed for each season. Donovan uses succession planting to ensure she grows a specific number of stems to fulfill her subscriptions and customers at the farmers market.

“As a one-woman show, efficiency is key,” she says. “Once the season begins it’s like being a hamster on a wheel.”

Flower farming is a time-sensitive operation, and if planned and executed correctly, all those long days in the dirt bring a steady stream of thousands of fresh flowers for her customers. Spring brings the first flush of colors: David Austin roses and the overwintering veronica, salvia, sedum, yarrow, sweet peas and mountain mint — which gets its own box to keep it manageable.

Her 2 acres of flower fields are a veritable candy shop of colorful choices. Versatile plants, including biennial Canterbury Bells (Campanulas) and snapdragons, provide an informal cottage look when intermixed with other plants.

Elegant Bupleurum ‘Griffithi’ with its bright chartreuse blooms combines well with jewel tones, the simple, clean white, of False Queen Anne’s Lace (Ammi majus), and Bells of Ireland. Highly fragrant stock (Matthiola incana), forget-me-nots, poppies and spiky delphiniums are prized plants that thrive in cooler weather. And magical ranunculus, born from small octopusshaped corms that continue to generate stems after being cut, are among her spring favorites.

Donovan loves tulips, but not standard tulips. “I’m drawn to the unusual types that are showy and make a bouquet stand out, with fringed or pointed petals, and the double-flowered,” she says. “Some are so ruffled and full they’re mistaken for peonies.”

Donovan points to a recently weeded row marked with pink flags in the middle of the flower rows. “I’m cultivating 10 to 12 varieties of herbaceous perennial peonies that are suitable to our climate. There are 100 in that row and 1,000 in the ground. I flag them, so I don’t need to find them each time I use my stirrup hoe to weed. I don’t want to cut off the little eyes on the crowns,” she says, noting those eyes generate a mass of new upright shoots.

For the past two years, she has disbudded the peonies to allow a young plant (aged 1-3 years) to strengthen. The most important part of the disbudding ritual is timing. “As soon as I see a bud, I cut it off,” she says. “It’s a sacrifice, but what’s needed to get those deep tuberous roots to focus on storing moisture and food. That growth will chug out the thick foliage and the large bountiful blooms I’ll have in another year or so.”

Early summer brings the dramatic globes of allium, perennial phlox (Phlox paniculata) and black-eyed Susans (Rudbeckia). Once the ground is warm, she plants 600 sunflower seeds every Monday. “Who doesn’t love a sunflower?” she says, spying ladybugs and hovering dragonflies on her healthy crop.

Late summer is usually when a garden runs out of steam. But that’s when the flower harvest at Shady Maple Farm hits its crescendo. It is a breathtaking display of color and abundance, a true testament to the farm’s thriving nature. Zinnias, celosia, amaranth, marigolds, summer snapdragons, heirloom mums and another succession of sunflowers brighten the landscape. But it is the dahlias that elicit a strong emotional response from many.

“Dahlias are so unique, with all shapes, sizes and colors imaginable,” Donovan says. “Plus, one dahlia tuber makes many more tubers in the first season. They never disappoint and are the workhorses.”

Her favorite dahlias include ‘Cafe au Lait’ and ‘Break Out,’ renowned for their creamy blooms in soft pink, beige and peach that make romantic summer bouquets. ‘Lavender Perfection’ is a fully double flower with huge lavender-pink blossoms that can grow 40 inches tall. Dahlia ‘Platinum Blonde’ resembles doubleflowered echinacea with fuzzy buttercream centers surrounded by bright white petals. Pollinators like bees, butterflies and hoverflies are drawn to dahlias’ vibrant colors and diverse forms, finding sustenance from mid-summer to frost.

In May she plants a mass of dahlias to take her through the fall farmers markets, where she sells flowers from her vintage-style bus that she’s named Bloom. “I love this bus,” Donovan shouts while unloading buckets of freshly cut flower stems and wrapped bouquets. “It keeps me efficient. Farming is figuring out how to make it work, understanding where to put the cover crop and get the succession right for smooth transitions.” It requires tough decisions, she notes, adding that the farm’s outdoor capacity has by no means reached its limits. Next year, she will add more rows and 3,900 more plants.

“This farm makes me appreciate the wisdom of farmers who’ve been doing this for a long time. For me, to finally get a system in place feels good,” she says as the sun begins its descent and the flower fields take on a golden glow.

After a long silence, she smiles, grateful for the day. It takes energy, determination and sensitivity to nature’s flora and fauna. Still, for Donovan, it is all in a day’s work — a day that makes her proud.

2024 All in a Day's Work Feature

Golftown Journal

GOLFTOWN JOURNAL

A Century In Linville

History in the high country

By Lee Pace

Back in the day when the summertime temperatures in the Sandhills inched into the 90s with humidity to match, and before Willis Carrier’s apparatus for cooling air had become mainstream through the handy and affordable window unit, back when you could fire a niblick or a rifle down the fairways of Pinehurst No. 2 in July with no worry of striking golfer or squirrel, the place to be was Linville.

It was 200 cooling miles northwest from the sandy loam, longleaf pines, white clapboard sidings and green trim of Pinehurst to the rocky outcroppings, rhododendron thickets and grayish buildings made of chestnut bark in Linville.

“Spend the week in Linville and make it a real vacation,” Pinehurst proprietor Richard Tufts advised in a 1942 letter to golfers promoting the Carolinas Amateur Championship, set for Linville Golf Club. “You need the rest, and there is no better place than Linville to take it.”

Pinehurst, Linville and Wilmington were three of the earliest bastions of golf in the state of North Carolina, and the names MacRae, Tufts and Ross are threads that tie them all together. In the late 1800s the MacRae family of Wilmington was instrumental in importing golf from its Scottish homeland, and after Donald MacRae Sr. developed extensive mining interests in the mountains, he believed a recreational menu that included golf would work well at the base of majestic Grandfather Mountain. MacRae and a partner named Sam Kelsey were officers in the Linville Land, Manufacturing and Mining Company, a corporation formed in 1888. Soon the company spent $22,000 to build the Eseeola Inn, which debuted amid the fanfare of bagpipe music and oxen races during a lavish grand opening on July 4, 1892.

“The Eden of the United States, a Fairy Land without a peer,” crooned an early advertisement for Linville and the Eseeola.

Linville originally had a 14-hole course that was redesigned and expanded to 18 — beginning in 1924 and reopening in 1926 — by Donald Ross, another Scotsman ensconced at Pinehurst since 1901 as its head golf professional, and who also made a tidy sum on the side in golf course design. The club and lodge were managed at one time by the Tufts family, who sent some of their staff to Linville to work when Pinehurst closed for the summer.

Wilmington native Isaac Grainger, a leading official in the Rules of Golf and USGA president in 1954-55, remembered his first trip from the coast to Linville in the early 1900s.

“By train from Wilmington to Goldsboro to Hickory to Lenoir and Edgemont, 24 hours, and then a six- or seven-hour drive by horse and buggy over the mountains at night,” he said. “That began a long series of exciting sojourns in the delightful spot which is synonymous with the name MacRae.”

Hugh MacRae II, great-grandson of the Linville founder, remembers seeing Ross as a child of 7 or 8. “He was a fine-looking man with a tweed cap and tweed suit and knickers and long stockings,” MacRae says. “He had a mustache. He was very pleasant and kindly. His Scottish brogue was very thick and difficult for a child to understand. He was very impressive.”

Though Linville is more than 4,000 miles from the western shores of Scotland, there’s more than a passing connection to the homeland of golf. Scots with names like Kirkcaldy served as early professionals. Today you can get a good breakfast or lunch just up the street at the Tartan Restaurant, and the Scottish Highland Games are an annual summertime staple. Sleep in on a Sunday morning at the Eseeola Lodge and you might be roused by the bagpipe music heralding services at the tiny Presbyterian chapel across the street.

“Little has changed at Linville from the early days,” MacRae says. “The first hole and 18th hole look nearly as they did in those days. You can drive back into Linville today and almost turn the clock back to the ’20s and ’30s.”

Today Linville Golf Club and Eseeola Lodge retain much of their Old World charm. There are neat rows of cottages lining the fairways to the first, second and 18th holes, each with the ubiquitous “Linville look” of chestnut bark siding. Grandmother Creek crosses the course a dozen times, and the fifth hole kisses against Lake Kawana, the 7-acre lake built for fishing and recreation.

There are few bunkers on the course (two holes have no sand traps at all), and the greens are small and quite the challenge. The blend of poa annua, bent, clover, blue and other indigenous strains is shaved to lightning-quick speeds in the summer, and the dips and hollows around the putting surfaces make chipping and pitching a mental and physical test of planning the angles and then executing the idea.

“Playing at Linville was always a thrill,” famed amateur Billy Joe Patton once said. “It’s a great course, one of my all-time favorites. Like all Ross designs, it’s a fine test; a wonderful, classic course that everyone can enjoy and appreciate.”

The club held a centennial celebration on June 9, marking the day a century earlier when Hugh MacRae felled the first tree as construction began on the course. Members hit balata balls with hickory shafted clubs from the plaque that rests on the right side of the first fairway.

“The slopes, the streams, with wide skies over all,” the founding MacRae said. “And here, content in pleasant sport, we meet our friends and ‘foes,’ and find them hard to beat.”

The golf course is getting a centennial tweaking at the hands of golf architect Andrew Green, who has become one of the go-to guys in the industry for classic course restorations. Green worked for 15 years in course construction, went off on his own in 2017 and was lauded for unearthing Ross’ architectural features at Oak Hill East in Rochester leading up to the 2023 PGA Championship. In a subsequent project at Scioto Golf Club in Columbus, Ohio, he met director of golf Bill Stines, who moved in 2020 to take the same job at Linville Golf Club.

A year after moving to Linville, Stineswas discussing the issue of the severely canted 10th green with Linville general manager Tom Dale and club officers, and how to solve the problem of too many putts rolling off the front of the green, 40 yards down the fairway.

“I said I would get the best expert in the business, someone who knew design, construction, agronomy and history to take a look,” Stine says. “That would be Andrew Green.”

The club retained Green in the fall of 2021 to start making plans. Working from Ross’ original course plan in 1924, Green identified the features, dimensions and undulations that had been lost over time and could be restored, ever mindful of equipment and maintenance evolution. The work needed to be done in the off-season so as not to close any part of the course during the height of the summer, so Green worked on seven holes from September 2023 to March 2024. The club is going to double-up on the construction crew this fall and knock out 10 more holes this winter. A more extensive restoration of the 17th hole to adjust fairway and green elevations is planned for the 2025-26 offseason.

That will leave the club with a course offering the ideal combination of Ross’ original design tenets paired with modern agronomy and playability in time to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the conclusion of the great architect’s original work.

“Other places, no matter what age they are, are trying to create history,” Dale says. “That happens on its own. You can’t manufacture it. You just end up with it if you’ve been around long enough.”

2024 Department Golftown Journal

Author: pinestrawmag