I see you only with insight
in hindsight
in moonlight
that penetrates a dream
where the parts of you
that live in me
are cast in sand castle worlds
that wash away in morning
Love has amnesia
when it comes to storms
My love is a boat
that has saved me
________Colleen Redman / Poets United/ Imaginary Garden with Real Toads
-The following first appeared in The Floyd Press on July 18, 2019.
“Helping to build a resilient local economy through agriculture, energy and education” read the SustainFloyd booth banner at the 3rd annual Floyd Energy Fest at Chantilly Farm.
The daylong Energy Fest featured speakers, vendors and exhibitors, presentations on renewable energy and technologies, a tiny house tour and panel discussion, local food and kid’s activities, which included nature walks and cooking with solar cookers.
The event was hosted by SustainFloyd and Apple Ridge Farm, described by the farm’s facilities manager, Inge Terrill, as a 40+ year old non-profit with a focus on providing cultural and environmental experiences for under-served children through summer camps and environmental education.
Biologists Jane Cundiff and Fred First presented a power point talk on “Weathering Climate Chaos Where We Live & Climate Change.” “The carbon that we have taken out of the ground for the last 250 years and put in the atmosphere and ocean has caused a global crisis of unprecedented proportions in the history of humanity,” First told a crowd of attendees. “That’s been “determined by 97% of the authorities who have studied the climate and the earth and how they interact,” he added. He described the result of climate chaos as “colder cold, hotter hot, wetter wet and drier dry and spoke of local resiliency and the need for adaptation and transformation.
Extreme weather changes are happening much faster than first predicted, as reported by the U.N. and scientists across the world, Cundiff reported. The UK, Canada and other countries have issued Climate Emergency Declarations, she said, adding that Floyd will experience more heat, floods and storms, as well as migration from coastal citizens. “Get to know your neighbors, plant trees, garden and have a disaster plan,” she recommended.
SustainFloyd’s Solar Voltzwagon was on display. SustainFloyd member and Solshine Energy Alternatives owner Rick Brown said volunteers came together about six years ago to design and build it. “We’ve provided the sound system at the Rubber Duck Race, powered an electric griddle for solar power pancakes and provided the sound system at SustainFloyd’s yearly Farmers Market breakfasts. It makes the rounds,” Brown said. The money for the Solar Voltzwagon came from a USDA grant, he added.
Martha Sullivan, a Virginia Tech assistant professor of Industrial Design (ID) practice, presented student posters representing the results of the first ID program-wide competition on energy conservation. The competition was sponsored by SustainFloyd and Apple Ridge Farm and was spurred by a presentation that members of those organizations presented to the students.
Students split into groups of three or four across sophomore, junior and senior year and were given a week to come up with innovations for energy conservation that could create sustainable and meaningful change, Sullivan said. Winners, Kylie Quinn, Andrew Gibson, Chrisina Dunning and Elise Holford were awarded first place for their energy monitoring design for school rooms.
Electric cars and bicycles and tiny houses were on display. Solar-powered popsicles from Cocoa Mia were a popular treat of the day.
Speaker presentations that followed Cundiff and First included The Latest in Energy Efficient Systems for the Home, Solar Energy Answers and Updates, Geothermal Heating and Cooling: The Reliable Renewable, and Sustainable Materials and Product Development at Virginia Tech.
Check out the license plate. ______________Colleen Redman
1. My grandson Liam found this caterpillar that was perfectly camouflaged as part of the stick that it was on.
2. Sunset on the magic blue bus HERE.
3. When Liam’s dad was little he talked about driving around in a bus when he got older. Every night when I would kiss him goodnight I’d say “Sweet dreams about your bus.”
4. Did this guy really just say Yeehaw?
5. When I lost you in Paris / we were both naïve / not to have made a plan / Now there are secrets I’m not in on / And sometimes you don’t say word / I see you but you don’t see me / We still argue over who looked away first … read Objects May Be Closer Than They Appear in its entirety HERE.
6. I went to the Floyd Energy Fest last weekend and listened to a presentation on Climate Change where the speakers talked about us being in the 6th mass extinction, which made me want to know more about the other five.
7. “At least a handful of times in the last 500 million years, 50 to more than 90 percent of all species on Earth have disappeared in a geological blink of the eye. Dinosaurs appeared after one of the biggest mass extinction events on Earth, the Permian-Triassic extinction, which happened about 250 million years ago. The most studied mass extinction, between the Cretaceous and Paleogene periods about 65 million years ago, killed off the dinosaurs and made room for mammals to rapidly diversify and evolve.”
8. “Scientists have narrowed down several of the most likely causes of mass extinction. Flood basalt events (volcano eruptions), asteroid collisions, and sea level falls are the most likely causes of mass extinctions, though several other known events may also contribute. These include global warming, global cooling, methane eruptions and anoxic events–when the earth’s oceans lose their oxygen… Today, many scientists think the evidence indicates a sixth mass extinction is under way. The blame for this one, perhaps the fastest in Earth’s history, falls firmly on the shoulders of humans. By the year 2100, human activities such as pollution, land clearing, and overfishing may drive more than half of the world’s marine and land species to extinction.” From the National Geographic
9. “I saw my country in the hungry eyes / Of a million refugees / Between the rocks and the rising tide? As they were tossed across the sea? There was a time when we were them? Just as now they all are we/ Was there an hour when we took them in?? Or was it all some kind of dream? …” – A new Josh Ritter Song
10. If you’re thinking I’m out in the sticks, here’s the flip side of that – Read Life in the Rural Fast Lane, my 2005 WVTF radio essay and Floydfest program essay, HERE.
11. I did WVTF Public Radio essays on occasion from 2005 to 2007 when they stopped doing the local recordings. Besides Life in the Rural Fast Lane, other titles were The Best Part of Mowing My Lawn Last Weekend, Country Boy, Born to Blog, Let Me Clue You in about My Father, For Mother’s Day, Homegrown, Is it Summer Yet? HERE.
12. Extinct, extinguish or exit?
13. Lately Joe and I have been saying to each other, “You don’t know anything, Jon Snow.”
_________Thirteen Thursday
_______Wordless Wednesday
I can’t walk by OuterSpace on the way to dance at Dogtown without stopping.
I went inside Barb’s magic blue bus for the first time.
While I was on the bus Joe played piano.
The Buddhas live here.
There’s a free library and a space mail box.
We stopped on the way out after dancing too but it was too dark for pictures. Last week I took this clip of Erika making a smoothie.
Floyd is such a photo op!
Scrabble anyone?____________Our World Tuesday
The last thing you said to me
came in a dream
‘Where have you been?’ you asked
When I lost you in Paris
we were both naïve
not to have made a plan
Now there are secrets I’m not in on
And sometimes you don’t say a word
I see you but you don’t see me
We still argue over who looked away first
In the dream you were first at the door
You opened then closed it
saying, ‘They aren’t going to let us in’
‘How do you know?’ I asked
How can you be so sure?’
I don’t know how to find what’s been lost
by looking through a rear-view mirror
and even though I never found you in Paris
the door was opened and we did get inside
I apologized in that dream
and now wait for the next one
because death ends a life
but not a relationship
because objects are closer
than they appear
_____Colleen Redman / Poets United / Imaginary Garden with Real Toads
-The following first appeared in The Floyd Press on July 11, 2019.
After 19 years, Floydfest organizers have the festival down to an art, and art is what they spotlight, whether through music, performance arts, installations, woodsy ambiance or artisan food, crafts and libations.
Floyd-festers come to the festival’s 80-acre mountain for the music, but they also come for the communal experience, and for the special artistic touches that play into yearly themes. This year’s 5-day festival (July 24-28) theme is “Voyage Home” and features an old-school sailing ship with a mermaid at the bough as its logo. The theme figures into the larger-than-life main field art installation that festival-goers have come to look forward to.
“This festival is a pilgrimage and a sanctuary for so many people who have spent years coming back here, so it really is a voyage home,” explained Floydfest’s Chief Operating Officer Sam Calhoun at a recent work day on site.
“It’s more important than ever to have a space to come and connect,” he continued, noting that all sorts of people from all walks of life come together at Floydfest to share and connect. Some kids that grew up coming to the family-friendly festival are teenagers or adults now.
Speaking about this year’s music highlights, Calhoun immediately mentioned Thursday night’s headlining Grammy winner Brandi Carlile. “Brandi Carlile has been on this mountain four times now. We’ve watched her art and person grow. To see her, not only win a Grammy but enchanting the Grammy crowd, was such a kudos to what we create at Floydfest. We got behind Brandi before others did,” he said.
Another big Grammy winning headliner, Kacey Musgraves, plays on Sunday, along with Grammy nominated Margo Price, both outstanding country singer/songwriters. Sunday’s “female power line-up” will be capped with Lukas Nelson and the Promise of the Real.
Calhoun also mentioned Grateful Dead’s Phil Lesh (playing Thursday), referring to Lesh as a historic talent, and Friday’s Kentucky singer/songwriter Tyler Childress. “He’s going to be playing big arenas before we know it. He sells out across the country,” Calhoun said.
Saturday’s headlining musical performance is The String Cheese Incident, “the torch bearer of the progressive jam band scene.” They’re scheduled to play two back-to-back sets, leading into the 4th edition of the Buffalo Mountain Jam collective. Buffalo Mountain Jam is special to Floydfest because they came together when Greg Allman, who died in 2017, was scheduled to perform but cancelled due to illness.
With eight stages and five days (30% of patrons arrive on Wednesday) there promises to be much music to discover and enjoy and so much more to see. Calhoun recommends getting tickets soon (at Floydfest.com), as they are close to selling out. Happy Voyaging.
____________/Colleen Redman
-The following first appeared in The Floyd Press with a smaller selection of photos.
The 2019 annual Independence Day Celebration went off without a hitch or a drop of rain.
Organized by the Floyd Merchants’ and Businessmen’s Association, the festivities were held at the high school grounds and parking lot, beginning at 6: p.m. with a firework display at 9 p.m.
Glo-sticks, Kettle Korn, live music and bounce houses were all part of the hometown fun. Many attendees donned red-white-and-blue colors and waved American flags for the occasion.
The Deep Water band was one of the live music acts.
The sand tray art table is always a popular attraction for kids. Proceeds of $1 per child go to help pay for the fireworks.
Dee Wallace of Chantilly Farm was passing out information about the 3rd Annual Cirque Du Floyd on August 16 and 17th.
A T-ball bounce house was a new addition to this year’s fun.
Displayed over the FCHS gym building at 9 p.m., the fireworks brought lots of oohs and aahs from the crowd.
1. My 8-year-old grandson Liam made a board game that says: “Choose to be good or bad. The bad take over the world. The good save it.”
2. “We do not care for what we do not know, and on the whole we do not know what we cannot name. Do we want an alphabet for children that begins ‘A is for Acorn, B is for Buttercup, C is for Conker’; or one that begins ‘A is for Attachment, B is for Block-Graph, C is for Chatroom’?” – From Oxford Junior Dictionary’s replacement of ‘natural’ words with 21st-century terms sparks outcry HERE.
3. Recent research for poetry I’m working on involves my dream journal and my diary from when I was 10 years old.
4. Joe recently called me “buttercup” in his sleep. When he’s awake he calls me “sweet pea.”
5. On Sunday he came home after being out of town for a family reunion. We were catching up when I looked at the clock and said, “Oh, I missed the news.” “I was the news,” he answered.
6. Anchorage Hits 90 Degrees for First Time in Recorded History … “We are in a climate emergency, America,” wrote meteorologist Eric Holthaus in response to the news.
7. “Save the Planet” / is a good slogan / Or is it a slow gun / we hold to our heads / a sound-bite to bypass our sins? / Is it a glossy sticker / on a gas guzzling bumper? / What does it mean to you?
8. I’m feeling pressure about canning beans in the pressure cooker because every time I do it I have to learn how to use the pressure cooker all over again and it feels like rocket science.
9. Today is my eldest son’s birthday. He has his own category side bar on my blog, Asheville Potter Son HERE.
10. I have a friend who just had a birthday and someone put butter on her nose, which is an Appalachian tradition based on the thought that if you get your nose greased, bad luck will simply slide off.
11. This got me looking into other birthday traditions, and I found that in Scotland, the UK, Ireland and Canada a common birthday practice is to give the birthday person “the bumps” or “the dumps,” which involves taking him or her by the arms and legs, and “bumping” them into the air and down onto the floor, with the number of bumps equaling the age of the person in years. In other countries, you get punches on your birthday for every year of your age. Where I grew up and in other parts of the US, the person with a birthday gets spanked for every year they are, which at least makes more sense than bumping, dumping or punching, since we are supposedly spanked at birth to get us crying/breathing.
12. When fireworks are flowers and boom is thunder HERE.
13. Lately I’ve been thinking of death as moving to a retirement home.
________Thirteen Thursday
Cool dip
Ladle of light
Illustrious toast
to the good night
_____________Colleen Redman / Imaginary Gardens with Real Toads
-The following first appeared in The Floyd Press on June 27, 2019.
OuterSpace – the collaborative Locust Street venue of John Beegle’s Bootleg BBQ, Erika Johnson’s Revolution Juice Yurt and Barbara Gillespie’s Grateful Bread Blue Bus – had its soft opening last weekend.
“For me it’s about the vibe of Tulum, Mexico mixed with the vibe of mountain towns in Colorado, where things are cool, quirky and laid back. There hasn’t been enough outdoor hangouts with seating (including comfy chairs and hammocks) where people can use the wifi and free library and just hang out,” said Johnson, former Floydfest co-founder and original co-owner of Oddfellas restaurant.
Grateful Bread’s owner/baker, Gillespie added, “I’ve watched this over and over; people walk to the end of Dogtown, and they sort of look around, like what else is there? Well now there’s more.” Gillespie, whose father owns the land the venue sits on, will be featuring her art – metal work, batiks and painted Buddhas – as well as her baked goods at the bus.
They’ve already had people driving by pull over because it looks interesting, she said. “It’s all evolving. It feels good to have a place. We’ll be adding pop-up dinners and brunches and Grateful Bread donuts on Sunday,” she said. She and Johnson have talked about everything from firesides storytelling to a recording studio on the bus, and even pop-up massages. Gillespie is a musician and massage therapist.
Johnson’s is the first certified yurt restaurant in Virginia. Her smoothies, which have names like Nada Colada, Good Day Sunshine and Pink Floyd, are tasty and sweetened with dates. Some are high protein and some include CBD oil from Floyd’s Buffalo Mountain Hemp Company. CBD from the hemp plant is not psychoactive and has been shown in studies to be helpful for anxiety, insomnia, cognition issues, pain and more, Johnson explained.
Johnson and Gillespie recently took a welding class together and a metal venue sign being created by Gillespie is on the way, as well as a Grand Opening. “After Floydfest,” they both agreed. Along with having been a Floydfest founder and director for more than a decade, Johnson runs another Revolution Juice Yurt at Floydfest. Beegle is a Floydfest food vendor and Gillespie has been an ambiance director, busker and baker at the festival.
____Pictured in photo #1 is Pictured at the OuterSpace venue are Michelle Radford, who works at Bootleg BBQ, Erika Johnson and Barbara Gillespie. Bootleg BBQ’s Jon Beegle was out of town during the soft opening. More at Outta Space is Outta Sight HERE.
-The following first appeared in The Floyd Press on July 3, 2019.
The Buffalo Hemp Company (BHC) is up and running. With a focus on CBD (Cannabidiol) products, the company’s partners – Kerry Underwood, Patrick Sisk, Daniel Sowers and Derek Wall – are growing their first crop of premium organic hemp and planning for a late summer storefront opening on Main Street.
CBD oil is an active ingredient in cannabis derived from the hemp plant. Unlike marijuana, it is not psychoactive, having no (or negligible amounts) of THC. Preliminary studies have shown CBD to be helpful in the treatment of anxiety, insomnia, cognition issues and pain. Evidence suggests it can be helpful in curbing opiate, alcohol and tobacco abuse and preventing or reducing symptoms of withdrawal. Users have described CBD as having a calming and focusing effect that is fast-acting, non-addictive and without side-effects.
“The U.S. is pushing to be the third largest hemp producer, next to Canada and China,” said BHC partner Patrick Sisk. But Sisk admits that the industry is still evolving and that there remains some stigma around the cannabis plant. The agricultural production of hemp was legalized by Congress through the 2018 Farm Bill. CBD was first legalized in Virginia in 2015 for the treatment of epileptic seizures, but since then, laws have allowed its use and availability to be expanded.
Sisk, who grew up in Fauquier County, first came to the area through an agricultural scholarship to Virginia Tech. He said BHC would like to see the company be a boon to the area. The partners hope to eventually process their crop into CBD products on site, but the changing laws may have them going out of state for processing. BHC paid $50 for a grower’s certificate before breaking ground, but, so far, only a handful of companies in Virginia have been granted the right to process hemp.
“The demand for this product is growing quicker than it can be grown,” said partner Kerry Underwood, “but because of our farming heritage, we’ll be able to meet that demand.” In the mid ‘90s, Underwood owned and managed a Hemp store in Roanoke that sold mostly items made from hemp fabrics. He noted that hemp was grown by our founding fathers and that cannabis has been a safe part of our nature-based pharmacy for ages.
“To be able to grow this plant is an honor and privilege,” Underwood continued. “It can make a huge contribution to solving the ecological problems of the planet. An acre of hemp will consume over 1 ½ tons of carbon dioxide. And it’s a soil remediator, leaving the soil better than it found it,” he said. “But it’s not growing tomatoes. It’s a lot more complicated than that,” he joked.
Currently, the BHC has a 75 acre farm on Franklin Pike that they are leasing to buy, along with an 8,000 square foot building and out buildings that provide plenty of room for the business to grow. Their first field acre of hemp for CBD should be ready for harvest around October. Other plants have been grown onsite in greenhouses and some that will be used for free-roll CBD smokes is hanging in a drying room.
Each of the BHC partners own other successful businesses and their entrepreneurial spirit can be traced to that. Sisk and Underwood are owners of 5 Mile Mountain Distillery, Floyd County’s first distillery since Prohibition. The business features micro-distilled moonshine with Appalachian roots and houses a tasting room and gift shop. Daniel Sowers owns and operates On The Water, a Floyd kayak, canoe and tube outfitter along the Little River. Derek Wall is co-owner of the Thomas and Wall Real Estate firm.
Together, the four partners manage logistics, marketing, retail, as well as getting their hands in the dirt. “We have a great team. I can’t imagine doing this without any one of us,” Sisk said. “We all bring something to the table.” – Colleen Redman
1. Did you hear the pin drop? Listen HERE.
2. I sew in black and white, thread that is.
3. Keep the path through needles open / Don’t thread them in the dark / Don’t worry about the knots / They hold the seams together / They tie the worthy bonds / And mark the place to stop – Read in its entirety HERE.
4. If you were told you had six months to live, how would you spend it? I would probably stop the time-consuming discipline of daily blogging. I would write letters to each person I love and tell them how I feel and why. I would stop collecting stuff and start giving stuff away. I would hire a house cleaner and eat out more (only in the best restaurants), so I wouldn’t have to spend so time doing daily chores. I would contemplate what it means to be human, travel to places of beauty, and spend more time at the ocean. I might plan my own death rite of passage. I would spend as little time as possible in a hospital and as much time as possible in the presence of those I love. I would kiss my adult sons like they were children again and make Joe play Scrabble with me. – from a 2007 bloggers meme That’s a good question HERE.
5. Grief is like a wound bleeding out. If you close it up too quickly, it’s more prone to infection.
6. I’m not really much of a seamstress, that would be my sister Kathy and her daughter Beth. My sewing comes from the fact that I am petite and not much off-the-rack fits me without hemming, taking things in or moving buttons over and such. My sewing of late has increased and comes from my thrift shop habit. Clothes have piled up everywhere and sorting through them, I see that many need alterations.
7. At five foot and one inch, I’ve hemmed many pants and skirts. Maybe if I was taller, I would have read more of the classics.
8. Always taking in the excess / and shortening the length / stitching childhood together / with famous last words / I don’t make something new / but make do with what is / I sew backwards to go forward / and feel every prick Now I have more alterations / than time left to wear them / than places to go / to be seen…
9. I was laying on a lounge chair at the GREAT OAKS Country Club pool on Monday and a tree was in the way of part of the golf course sign, which made it read “EAT OAKS.”
10. What could be more summer than watermelon, Frisbee and a neighborhood baseball game in the yard? The Score? Everyone won!- More at Now I Know It’s Summer HERE.
11. My craft beer pub “practice” has fallen by the wayside. My new practice is living the pool life. I try to practice for at least an hour every nice day.
12. The thought has to drop / like a pin to the floor / in a bottomless dream / where it stakes its claim / With a prick of interest / that doesn’t draw blood / it won’t wake you up / until morning… Read The Art of Dream Writing in its entirety HERE.
13. Your absence has gone through me like thread through a needle. Everything I do is stitched with its color. – W.S. Merwin from the poem Separation
_________Thirteen Thursday
Did you hear the pin drop?
Did you see how she embodies the music she makes?
Who knew what a harp could do?
_____________Look for a story and photos in an upcoming Floyd Press.
What could be more summer than watermelon, Frisbee and a neighborhood baseball game in the yard?
!*##&&?
Liam’s first base ace.
Ryder’s fast ball.
Bryce’s Boom!
Joe bowled us over with his pitching.
Kaitlin’s kick off!
Waah! I wanna play more baseball.
Best seat in the house.
Or maybe this is.
Luna was everyone’s best out fielder.
Olivia’s smile was as wide as that.
Score? Everyone won!________Our World Tuesday
-At five foot and one inch, I’ve hemmed many pants and skirts. Maybe if I was taller, I would have read more of the classics.
Sew a straight line
Let divergences be gradual
Unravel tangled threads
and clip loose ends
Don’t cut corners
Repair what matters
Don’t hold up hems
with safety pins
Take up worthy causes
Only wear what fits
Make custom alterations
Don’t follow outdated patterns
Keep the path through needles open
Don’t thread them in the dark
Don’t worry about the knots
They hold the seams together
They tie the worthy bonds
and mark the place to stop
_______Colleen Redman / Poets United / Imaginary Garden with Real Toads
