 PineCone Down Home Concert Series 2025. To the kind person that took this photo secretly and sent it to me, thanks! I am forever grateful for the encouragement that I have received in my life. Again and Again I'm chirping in interviews and in shows, "encourage people when they are starting something, even if they have a long way to go, because you never know where they might end up." I'm a good example of this, because when I first took a serious notion to learn to play fiddle (and a bunch of other string-ed things), I had no aspirations to go anywhere with music except my own living room. I was content to sing away boredom from the saddle of a lawnmower. But I kept at it because I enjoyed it, and it brought my ADHD and Depression pressured brain some simple peace and joy. I also kept at it because kind soul after kind soul kept encouraging me. Kind soul after kind soul opened doors for me, or showed me a "lick" on an instrument, or connected me with someone who would change my life. This morning I was surprised to learn that a picture of me (heck a picture I took) was in Rolling Stone Magazine in a little article about ballad singing and climate change. Just a few days ago I was in Raleigh in a big theatre opening for iconic and grammy award winning Cajun band BeauSoleil (Thanks PineCone! Links Below). All this was on the heels of going up to Montreal with a few wonderful ladies to sing ballads from our neck of the woods. Fifteen or so years ago, if you'd told me I would be doing things like that, I would have rolled my eyes and laughed. (Actually I think that's still how I react.) None of that would be going on without encouragement, and generosity, and also a little bit of stick-to-it-ness. It absolutely wouldn't be happening without community. To have people that advocate for you and want to see you succeed is a very precious thing--never take that for granted no matter what kind of skill or talent you might have (and I don't claim to have either in great measure.) Here's my little mini set at PineCone this weekend. I hope it, and especially the song at the end, give you some encouragement. You can do this--we can do this. Give you friends and neighbors a lift. We'll land on the shore.
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 Photo by Sarah. One of many flood-buried beans that pushed through and sprouted after the storm. Anyone living in Western North Carolina, or any of the other areas devastated by Hurricane Helene, knows that there really are not words to express the feelings, and describe the impact of that terrible storm. Pictures and videos also fail, somehow, to do justice. We feel relatively spared in our little corner of Mitchell County even though we had a literal tornado pass by our house and level acres of trees. Our bridge somehow survived the onslaught when our driveway turned into a river and our creek into torrent. Sarah’s car was totaled by a maple tree, but our pond held, our old pole barn caught a hundred year old beech tree and was somehow *not* destroyed. My favorite apple tree was topped, and all the others were damaged heavily. My unharvested Sweet Potatoes in the “Ray Dellinger Memorial Garden” were either carried off to Tennessee or buried in feet of silt (I think I have enough to have seed for next year). But we feel so very lucky. It’s still all too much to put down into a blog post, even now that I have had time to turn it all over in my mind. The torn up roads and ruined buildings are starting to be familiar, the all new creeks and rivers startle my mind a little less every day. For so long, I would feel constantly confused–like I didn’t know where I was–in places I have known for my entire life. Strangely, when I go to “normal” and unaffected places, I feel eager to go back to where things are horribly scarred–or at least my little piece of devastated home. I dread going to parts of our area where I haven’t yet been since Helene. One place I have been, several times, is Marshall North Carolina. Being riverside and downstream of anything was a bad, bad place to be on any water that drained the Black Mountains or the Roan Highlands. Essentially those ranges poked a big hole in the bottom of the storm in what’s called orthographic lift, and the water biblically poured, and then raged, down. Marshal is down river from Asheville, and from the first time I ever visited that place, I was nervous about flooding there (I had already lived through one cloudburst flood as a child). It didn’t help that one building, the old jail, literally had 20some feet of a flood ruler on the side of it. That jail was, and is, and will be, the home of a wonderful restraunt/inn where us ballad singers would gather to sing old old songs handed down to us with care from generations past. In the last few months I sang a song there for the resonance sessions, and also shared in a pop-up concert to celebrate the resilience of that particular community. There’s an amazingly well done radio piece on Mutual Aid, Josh Copus and Marshall’s recovery, featuring some of our music. Please listen to it, because it captures a moment in a way few other attempts have. Along with Donna Ray Norton, Sheila Kay Adams, her daughter Mel, and a host of other great singers, we’ve also taken our little Marshall Jail Ballad Singers to Floyd, Va, and the Grey Eagle in Asheville, and will soon go to Charleston, SC and the White Horse in Black Mountain. I really appreciate them having me along. I also want to thank the NC Music Office and Hometown Strong for having me down to the State Capitol to perform for Roy Cooper and the Rural Leadership Award. Also thanks to Bob Plott and others who helped find opportunities for my friends and I to share our mountain music when we were otherwise running chainsaws or pushing wheel barrows. I’ve been saying that we live in the “Heleneacene” now. There was Before the Storm, and then After. Every one of us is marked and made different by this experience. But I must say that all of it has only underscored how important community really is. Neighbors are everything, and in a world where it’s easy to retreat into digital communities, we must make every effort to invest in the people that live around us, no matter how they think, or vote, or look, or act. “Resilience” isn’t a buzzword, it’s how we survive and thrive. Resilience, the old, old seeds teach us, is not found in uniformity, but in variety. So here’s to sowing seeds of togetherness, here’s to gathering around old songs and new. May we join hands, “Circle up, Circle up” and move together into challenges and triumphs.  Margot and I at the Marshall Jail 2024, Celebrating Marshall's Recovery. Hey Folks, Jim Veteto asked me to put up some directions to our April seed swap (see flyer below). I wouldn't rely on GPS to even just get to Upper Browns Creek, there are some squirrelly ways to get into South Toe and it's best to just get to route 80 by going through Micaville. From Burnsville, NC take highway 19E east approximately 4 miles from the Ingles until you see a right turn at the stoplight toward Mt. Mitchell State Park/Hwy. 80S. The name of the road is Micaville Loop but the sign may be tough to see. That will take you into Micaville. Go to the intersection & take a right on highway 80S. Go approximately 5 miles past poplar grove gas station on the left and immediately past Shops at Celo take a right on Upper Browns Creek Rd. Go exactly 1 mile up Upper Browns Creek Rd. and take a left on Prairie Sky Ln. (gravel road, sign partially blocked by a maple tree). Pass a field on your right into the woods. There will be a trailer-type house (with a waterwheel) on the left, the road curves hard left just past a gazebo, but STAY STRAIGHT going up the hill. This will end at AIMS (you will see a beige house and a red barn). 120 Prairie Sky Ln. Burnsville NC 28714 (not google mappable!). [email protected] (take out all the "-"s from Jim's email address before sending him an email if you have questions. I just add those to confuse the email hunting robots.)  Cultivating Communities Through Seed Saving By Carolina Norman, June 2, 2022
Chelsea Askew, a farmer from Northwestern Georgia, grows many fruits and grains. By fostering a hospitable environment for their seeds to recreate, she can then collect those seeds, saving them for the next year. “Seeds contain all the DNA and essential first energy sources for that seed to become a plant,” Askew says. “All of that’s packaged in there — whether a tomato or corn kernel. It allows you to continue to grow that particular kind of plant. More of my focus...*Continue Reading Article at AppVoices.org* I'm not exactly sure how these folks found me, but I was asked to give some advice about container gardening for an article featured on Redfin|Blog. I don't do a lot of container gardening outside of my houseplants anymore, but I have had very good luck with Horace Pippin's beautiful "Fish Pepper." My seeds came from my friend Bob Alsup in Winston Salem, but they all track back to William Woys Weaver and his grandfather's seed collection and black painter Horace Pippen. In brief, Horace sought relief from arthritis, and using an age old (and effective) cure, he sought out a local bee keeper (H. Ralph Weaver) to borrow bee sting or two. In exchange, he brought along some of his stunning and flavorful little peppers. I like to grow them for a few reasons: 1) They have a great story 2) I got my seeds from a dear friend 3) they are beautiful and unusual 4) they are prolific and flavorful. You can read the Redfin|Blog article here.   Ray Dellinger on his Porch with Izzy, Courtesy of Jeannette Dellinger. I have (like many other people I'm sure) entered into this new year with deep trepidation, not to mention a nice complimentary wave of depression. The turn of the year has become especially tough for me as I have leaned more and more into the work of gardening and maintaining the special roots and seeds of friends. It's the time when I have to start really thinking hard about what will go into the limited ground in my care. So many deserving little sleeping frozen gems. There's also many trees to prune, (perhaps others to graft) This year in particular, I also have the added weight of many un-started projects--between Bobby McMillon's papers and books, my South Arts Emerging Artist program, and also a long-time-coming CD.
See, I both love the work of gardening, and also strangely dread the responsibility of caring for a garden. I also dread the disappointments and frustrations that seem to be largely absent from the oh-so-cultivated-and-perfect gardens that people share on instagram. Please, show me your errors, your messes, your mistakes. What "eyesore" is left out of frame? Today I made my way down to the lower garden, hoping against hope that a very special plant had pulled through--despite my rather poor care of them. This fall I had dug up a few roots of my dear friend Ray Dellinger's horseradish plants. They had always been there at his place beside the camper. A neat strip contained by mowing. I dug them up before the old place sold, determined to keep up a little connection between me and a dear friend taken by 2021 and Alzheimer's. But In my scattered state, I promptly forgot them for a week or more in the root cellar. I knew Horseradish to be survivors, but they looked terrible (and for the forty billionth time in my life I was furious with my absent-mindedness). But I hoped hard, put them in a tender hill in the bottom, and covered it with a blanket of straw. Nothing much happened after that despite this global weirdness warm, and I grieved losing another little part of Ray. Today, as we were moving an old chicken-coop-turned-tool-shed down to the lower garden. I risked a look at my little straw-covered row and was filled up with joy to find that every bit of root I stuck in the ground had sprouted a beautiful little fractal crown of horseradish. I was reminded then of that sister emotion to grief, and close kin of Joy: Wonder. And how good wonder-surprise-joy feels when it pours into those holes left by grief pouring out. It is dangerous to love. There's a grief-price you must be willing to pay. I will let some of my plants down this year, bugs and varmits will eat others, tornado winds may rip through the holler again and flatten half my corn, and I may lose out on the seeds for something that just can't be replaced. There's no seed catalog for the things I grow. It hurts, it's embarrassing, and frustrating, but goodness is it worth it when those little sleepers burst through the clay and open up their arms. And good food is just a healing thing. They say hunger is the best spice. But "I grew that" is damn delicious. So here's to wonder, joy, and grief. Can't have one without the other. And Jeannette, thank you so much for this picture, of Ray in his element with two of his favorite joys. There's really not words to describe how grateful I am for it.
Tuesday, March 16th, I'll be appearing on the Gateway to the Smokies podcast. Listen live at 6pm Est. on Facebook or https://www.TalkRadio.nyc/listen-live  It's been a little bit since I've written an "ethnobotanical" (the study of a region's plants and their practical uses through the traditional knowledge of a local culture and people) song. Recently I was working our Sylva Candyroaster page and I even wrote "I still need to write a song about candyroasters." Then I thought, maybe I should just write one right quick--and I did! A few years ago I submitted an article about this fabled Appalachian Squash to the NC Folklife Food Blog. Their Food Blog is really worth a gander! A little bit of old news here, but I was very pleased to participate in a great little online program with Mars Hill College and the Appalachian Barn Alliance late last year. There's lot's to learn here about old barns and also the Farmers Federation (which historically had a huge role here in WNC). To see the virtual mountain farm tour *click here* Lots of great photos and information there! |
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