Loose Leaf Notes

1. Bedrock 2. A Goatee? 3. Sun ripe 4. The Potter is in 5. Walking off into the sunset Post Notes: Taken from last weekend’s visit to my son Josh’s Carolina Kiln Build. Pictures and video clips of that are HERE.

~ The following was published in The Floyd Press on August 13th and online HERE. The words action, pan, zoom, and cut were recently heard at The Coffee Mill in Radford where a team of local filmmakers were shooting scenes for an independent film called Boots, named for one of the film’s featured players: a [...]

This is the Carolina Kiln Build team twelve days into the build, taken five days ago. It consists of ten potters from all over the country and two facilitators (Josh Copus, center, and Eric Knoche, far left), living and working together in a three week intensive workshop, building two woodfire kilns on my son Josh [...]

1. This is the time of year that I’m up to my nostrils in pesto making. 2. After the transition to HD caused a more than few TV channels to disappear and a new one to appear, I’ve started watching Sex in City reruns for the first time and have found myself wishing they’d do [...]

A month with a trackhoe on two acres of land in rural Madison County brings a whole new meaning to the term “rock and roll.” My son Josh (pictured on the left below) said he started feeling that the industrial strength excavating machine was an extension of his body and admitted to feeling god-like moving [...]

The Wedge Microbrewery in Asheville reminds me of an ice cream parlor. At the soda fountain-like bar people sit and sample flavors before deciding on a favorite, before bartenders pour glass tumblers of amber gold and cocoa brown with frothy cream-like tops. Light and dark beers, like vanilla and chocolate, have names like Iron Rail, [...]

This morning I woke up to a rooster going off like a Big Ben clock tower. Will it crow 6 times for 6 a.m. and then 7 for 7 a.m. and 8 for 8 a.m.? On the top of a mountain in a dormitory room in a guest house full of pottery and art, overlooking [...]

I felt like a failure with my recent attempt to enjoy some time at the pool because after finally getting there for only the second time all summer, I was only there an hour before I got restless and left. More recently, and after finishing the three stories I was working on back-to-back, I returned [...]

1. A rattle under my car turned out to be a heat fan loose on my catalytic converter, which I like to call a “Cadillac converter.” 2. I like to call the spots and blemishes that appear on skin of a certain age barnacles because they remind me of the way barnacles grow on old [...]

When they look like this Or this Or this Note: I pulled over for the first car in Roanoke. The others lured me in Blacksburg.

I learn best through self-reflection and meaningful dialogue, an exchange of authentic living language spoken without agendas. I value independent thinking and resist formula and dogma. I recently attended an event for a touchingly human cause. At the end of the day more than a hundred people gathered together in a circle of solemn solidarity. [...]

The literary flavor of summer’s Floyd County Moonshine is as striking as the bright red wildflowers on its cover and as local as the next door neighbor … That’s how the story I’m working on about the latest issue of the Floyd-based literary magazine begins. The issue spotlights Floyd writers with a special tribute to [...]

The best thing about yesterday was something small and unexpected. I had just read a “Ladies Who Lunch” blog post at Naomi’s in which princess crowns and bags full of whimsical party toy-things were featured. From there I began my daily walk to the mailbox and found myself thinking about my trip to the pool [...]

~ Blue Mountain School is hosting an Open House on Saturday, August 15th from 11 — 3. The following story was published in The Floyd Press on 8/13/09. There are big changes at Blue Mountain School (BMS), the independent school on 8 acres off Christiansburg Pike in Floyd. Although the school will no be longer [...]

1. Hey, where is everyone? I went through my sidebar blog links and discovered that half the people on the list aren’t blogging anymore. 2. Words and phrases heard this week: “a hoot called Boots,” “a pseudo sonnet,” and someone used fracus in a sentence. 3. I grew up calling corn “cawn” and shorts “shots.” [...]

Landing at the pool for the first time in August and the second time all summer, feels like visiting another planet. I’ve been trying for days to get here and now here I am all geared up and ready for take-off. My tankini, flip flops, beach bag, and sun visor feels like an astronaut pool [...]

The following was published in the summer issue of All About Her, a regional newspaper insert. When Gretchen St. Lawrence and her husband David moved from the Charlottesville area to Floyd in January 2006, they were looking to escape the traffic and congestion of city life. The couple, who had previously worked high tech jobs [...]

A cloudy day isn’t good for washing and hanging laundry, but it’s great for photographing flowers. Some flowers remind me of fireworks. Others remind me of women’s hats. Flowers have such personality. I call this one Freckle Face. I’m partial to purple, so much so that I have a garden of mostly purple flowers that [...]