Storytelling Road Trip: At Camp

Peace, friends, music and relaxation were the goal for the weekend and we met it in spades. These are photos from the cabin that belongs to a good friend, where we stayed:

 Green and peaceful, 

with quite a few four-legged visitors:

Larry named this guy Buddy--he came visiting regularly in search of the apples dropping from the trees around the cabin. Munch munch!

And then he was so scared of us he had to lie down. Right.

He had a shy female friend who tended to keep a little more distance between herself and us.

And there was an even shyer young buck who was probably trying not to get in the way of the bigger guy.

Those apples were attractive to this ol' groundhog too. He would come out, eat his fill, and then go stretch out on the roof of a low shed to sunbathe. Honestly!

I took this through the kitchen window--can you see the squirrel? He was also coming after the apples. I didn't know squirrels liked them.

We enjoyed watching all this activity. At home our dogs keep the wildlife away, which is their job so we can have a garden. But at this camp, we can share the space with them, and no one minds at all.

Copyright Susanna Holstein. All rights reserved. No Republication or Redistribution Allowed without attribution to Susanna Holstein.

Afternoon Visitors

We've had a small herd of deer coming around all summer. Our dogs pay no attention to them; they don't even bark. Right now the deer are after the apples that are falling from the trees, and they've done a very good job of keeping the ground cleaned up, I must say. No worry about yellow jackets swarming around under the trees this year.

Yes, he's drooling as he eats that juicy, sweet apple!

Today our visitors arrived in mid-afternoon, sauntering down to the yellow apple tree to do their clean-up duty. They ignored me in the window, snapping their picture. I guess they knew I wasn't going to jump down on them.

We have had to wrap some young trees in gauze to keep the deer from eating them, and today Larry spread chicken wire on the ground under a tree of Arkansas Blacks to keep the deer from literally standing on two legs and pulling down the branches to get the apples. I've seen them do this, really I have. I don't mind sharing, but we seldom get any apples from this tree because of the deer so I am hoping we'll have some to store year, as the tree is loaded.

They are pretty, aren't they? Even when they're a pest, who can help seeing their beauty?

Copyright Susanna Holstein. All rights reserved. No Republication or Redistribution Allowed without attribution to Susanna Holstein.

Wordless Wednesday: Lone Traveler

This little beaver was making waves in the muddy waters of the Joe's Run watershed lake yesterday evening.

Traveling to Pocahontas

It was a wet and drizzly day when we made out way to Pocahontas County recently.

When we headed towards Richwood through Muddlety Valley, the skies had not yet lowered. Or perhaps more accurately, we had not yet ascended into the clouds. The trail to Pocahontas is pretty much all uphill from home.

On top of mountains the fog was so thick we could barely see where we were going. This is a photo taken as we started up Snowshoe Mountain.

The view as we climbed up the mountain.

Rain and fog, rain and fog...

and then suddenly it cleared, and look who was ambling alongside the road!

I have to admit, Snowshoe is not my kind of place. If you are a skier and like a remote setting complete with Starbucks, fine dining and luxurious lodgings in buildings that look like they've been lifted straight out of the suburbs of northern Virginia and dropped on top of a mountain in West Virginia, then you'll love it there. For me, wilderness and mountains is about quiet, little log cabins, many tall trees, streams and a good bit of roughing it. No one, I'm pretty sure, has it too rough at Snowshoe.

I am glad I saw Snowshoe Resort, however. It is yet another place in this state I had not visited, and now I know what it is. My son who skis said that for a family vacation, it's great. Good food right outside your room, the lifts right there, fireplaces (fake, but hey) in the rooms, kitchenettes, lots of things to do. I can see that. But for this countrywoman, I'll take a cabin in the pines for my relaxation.

Skinks in the Sink, Chokecherries, Firewood, Vegetable Soup, Storytelling, Music and Songs

This Labor Day was different from the past two--in the past we made cider over this holiday, but this year the apple blossom frosted in early spring so there are few apples available. That means no cider, unfortunately. We found other things to get into, however.

We started at Derek's on Saturday. He's working on a patio using large cut stones given to him by a neighbor whose field Derek has brush hogged for free for the past five or six years.

It was son Jon's birthday this weekend, so although he couldn't join us, our granddaughter Hannah made a cake for him anyway. The numbers? Well, he might be a little younger than that...

Some work got done on the patio, a lot of food got cooked and eaten, a large bonfire was burnt, and an incredible red full moon graced us into the night.

Sunday morning found me in my kitchen starting clean up of some dirty dishes to get ready for a day of canning. As I took the last dirty cup out of the sink, I saw something that woke me right up. A young blue-tailed skink (also called a five-lined skink) was looking up at me.

First thought: "One of the kids threw their toy in here." Second thought: "Nope, it just moved."

What to do? Fortunately my son's girlfriend was here; she keeps reptiles as pets.

"Anastasia!" A sleepy voice answered me. "Yeah?"

"Would you come here a minute, please?" She came in, took one look, plugged up the drain so the skink wouldn't run down it, and quickly had him resting on her hand. She carried the little guy outside and he seemed quite happy to be back in the flowerbed. How did he get in the sink? I suspect he came in with some dirty cups from the porch.

Moral of the story: Look inside or you might get a big surprise.

Later in the day, we worked on the wild chokecherries we had picked at Derek's the day before. These wild cherries are very tiny and many people think they are poisonous, but it is the seeds, leaves and stems that are toxic. The cherries themselves make a delicious jelly. (This is not the recipe we used, but I think I would like to try this one--the almond extract would enhance the cherry flavor, I think. You can also stretch your cherry juice and get more jelly by mixing with apple juice.

Did I cut myself? Not. Just cherry juice. My friend found that the juice made a lovely lip stain too, like lipstick but more natural looking.

It takes a lot of these small cherries to make jelly, so stretching it with other juices is a good idea. We made it with cherry juice only and ended up with 3 pints.

While the guys were busy cutting firewood, we moved on to the next project: vegetable soup.

When I'm canning I often find that I have an odd amount of something left over--there ends up being eight quarts of green beans, for example, and the canner only holds seven.

When this happens, I bag up the leftovers and freeze them. Come fall, I raid the freezer for these bags, cut up some potatoes, and make vegetable soup. This year we're fortunate enough to have all the needed vegetables grown in our garden: onions, carrots, celery, green beans, corn, tomatoes and potatoes.

This year my daughter-in-law Jaime wanted to learn to make and can soup, so she was here to help. Actually, she did most of the work. A friend cut up potatoes, Jaime and I found the frozen vegetables and other ingredients we needed and we were set. We needed beef bouillon. I didn't have any, so we improvised and used chicken bouillon and vegetable bouillon. We didn't follow the recipe exactly of course--we used what I had on hand, added some red pepper and adjusted to suit ourselves. The end result was very good.

Here is the finished soup ready for the canner. We ended up with 16 1/2 quarts, and the canner only holds seven quarts at a time. What to do?

Easy answer--make biscuits and have the remaining two and a half quarts for dinner. With a houseful of friends and family the soup didn't last long. Jaime made some killer biscuits (her recipe varies a little from mine but not by much) and I mixed up a batch of honey butter to go on them. De.li.cious.

The work done, we gathered by the fire with more friends to talk, sing, tell stories and listen to Odie play. It was a pleasure to hear Anastasia tell a story about a selkie, her first attempt at storytelling (I think she has the gift, too).

The night had to end, unfortunately. Today the house is quiet. Gentle rain fell in the morning, and now the sun is trying to peek through the clouds. I am doing wash and housework and thinking how blessed we are to be able to share this life with our friends and family.

Unlikely Friends

This young deer (I think it's a buck, but it is difficult to tell from this photo) has been seen a lot lately in the company of a large flock of wild turkeys. Here they are eating the drops from one of our apple trees, just as the sun was setting. This seems to be part of their daily travel route.

I wonder why he has chosen the turkeys as friends. Is it because they know where to find food? or because they raise such an alarm at any remote sign of danger? Where is his mother/siblings--deer usually travel in family groups, so why is he alone?

Morning Drive to Work

Turkey family--or perhaps this is an extended family?--in the ridge road. How many can you see? I think I counted 12, but it was hard to count because they kept moving.


I have no idea why these photos have such an odd appearance, except that it was very misty that morning, after a light rain.



Quiet morning on Joe's Run, as the sun breaks through the mist to light the way.



A bright blue flower on a Tall Bellflower plant caught my eye, and posed for a good photo. It's a funny name considering that the flowers of this member of the bluebell family are actually rather flat. These pretty flower spikes love the rich, moist soil along Joe's Run.


A sudden shower yielded this faint rainbow just outside of Ripley and before I reached the interstate. I got some strange looks from other commuters as I stood in the rain in my dress clothes, taking pictures. This is the best of the photos I took, conditions being what they were.


A good day for pictures--and I managed to not be late for work!

Visits from the Reptilian World: Pop Quiz

What is it? Long, slender, striped and blue-tailed, these little critters like our deck and sidewalk.








This one left quickly, apparently being camera-shy.

Sometimes they lose their blue tails, and then they are very odd-looking indeed. This happens when a predator attacks. The skink can shed its tail, and the tail, according to at least one source, will continue to wiggle after it's detached, which distracts the predator. Well, I reckon. That would get my attention. Imagine grabbing someone's arm and it just comes off in your hand!


This big guy showed up at Derek's house--which is located on a hill in a fairly dry location.

Where was he going, and why? We noticed him because of the racket he made crawling through the dry leaves by the fence.












A past encounter with one of this species taught me not to get too close. I saw one crawling beside the road, and stopped to look. The smell was overpowering, and he looked like he was in a bad mood.

I opened the door and was talking to him when he suddenly lunged at the car. I just had time to slam the door before he struck it, hard enough to leave a dent. I figured he hadn't had his morning cup of coffee yet.








And last, this visitor in the garden has had a very successful career keeping rabbits at bay.



Can you identify these critters?



**Note: there is a not-too-honest one included!

Rabbit Wars

The rabbits and I are at war. Right now, I think we're even, but if I don't do something radical the rabbits will eat everything in my gardens.

Wednesday night I went out to check on my beans. It's been raining so much for the past two weeks that no garden work has been possible. You couldn't even step into the gardens for fear of losing a shoe in the soft mud.

Apparently that doesn't bother rabbits (who don't wear shoes anyway).

The Tenderette grean beans were nipped down almost to the ground. It's obvious that rabbits don't like the Royal Burgundy beans because most of those have little damage. But the Tenderettes are nothing but little sticks now. It's infuriating.

Ditto the beets. All tops were nibbled off. Oddly, the rabbits never bothered the lettuce or the peas--two vegetables I'd think would be high on their list. But broccoli must be a dessert from the way they gnaw on it.

My husband took action--he got out the .22 and took out two rabbits in one evening.

Leave them in the garden, I said. I doubt other rabbits will come in there with dead bodies lying about.

I know that sounds cold, but when the rabbits are not playing fair, well, you know the saying, "all's fair..." and this is war, declared by the rabbits. With acres and acres of woods, meadows and pasture surrounding them, surely they have enough to eat without bothering my gardens.

So we left the dead rabbits, added the rubber snake that worked so well in the strawberry patch and a few plastic grocery bags anchored with rocks (these flutter around and make noise, and seem to deter critters).

In the morning, one dead rabbit had vanished. No tracks to indicate the thief, althugh I'd suspect it was an owl that picked up the rabbit very soon after it was shot--I don't think owls would eat it unless it was a very fresh kill. That's only a guess, but with no tracks in the soft ground, it had to be a bird thief. But there was no new rabbit damage to the garden. Score one for us.

When we returned home last night, the remaining rabbit had been dragged out of the garden and almost completely gutted. Again, no tracks. What the...?

That mystery was answered this morning when I opened the door and saw two large crows flap away, dropping the remains of the rabbit. Aha!

So today I am on a mission. Buy temporary fencing and put it around all three small gardens to keep the bunnies out. It's a pain, but if I want any beans and such, it's a necessity. Larry and his trusty .22 can only do so much. There are just too many rabbits and not enough of us here during the day to keep the battle an even fight.

I think my beets will recover. I'm not sure about the Tenderettes. I suppose I'll have to replant. With Royal Burgundy.

(Which, by the way, is a very cool bean. The plants have a purplish tinge, the flowers are purple, and so are the beans, although they are green inside. When cooked, the beans turn bright green and taste like Blue Lake beans. They're a fun crop to grow with kids because of their surprising color.)

Wild Turkey on the Hoof

This shy visitor was spotted running up our driveway two days ago.
Yesterday, she was here again, in the field below the drive. Her behavior was very odd--she did not attempt to run when I stopped and took her picture. I wonder if she has a nest nearby?