2. It takes a long time to make 62 wishes.

3. For most of our years as friends, my good friend Alwyn would never tell me her age, but once she turned 80, a few years back, she bragged about it to anyone who would listen.

4. The true origins of Mother’s Day began in America in 1870 when Julia Ward Howe wrote a Mother’s Day Proclamation calling for women to stand up against the unjust violence of war through their roles as wife and mother, to protest the futility of their sons killing other mothers’ sons. More HERE.

5. I can always tell when it’s my birthday by what is in bloom. In Massachusetts it was lilacs. Here it’s Iris.

6. When I leave the house in a loud print top, doubt creeps in and I begin to feel like a phony. If the loud print top is made of polyester it would be enough to send me back home to change.

7. Years ago my friends and I decided that something was missing from the triple Goddess archetype – the Maiden, Mother and Crone –which symbolizes the stages of the female life cycle and of the moon phases. Because we live longer and don’t believe we are crones till we’re at least in our 70’s, we decided to embrace the idea of the Maiden, Mother, Matriarch and Crone.

8. The last of the packing comes down to one question / should I bring extra shoes or make room for a book / Guide to a Happy Life? / I’m still looking for a good Sinatra recording / because he was to your generation / what the Beatles were to mine / and music is a memory that doesn’t skip … The rest of this poem can be read HERE.

9. For my 60th birthday I soaked in a tub of weightlessness. Floating on what felt like a heated cloud of jiggling jello, I had a cold cloth on my forehead and someone was massaging my feet. I had dinner with a Scottish man who was at John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s Bed-in for Peace, and breakfast with a renowned golf course architect and his wife. I sipped a St. Bernardus beer on tap in a pub with titled glasses that looked like they were falling over and tasted skate wing for the first time. Read the conclusion to my 60th birthday post HERE.

10. Maybe age is a clock to wake us from dreaming, or maybe it is the dream, like counting the number of pages in a book when we should be reading the story.

11. Top Ten Reasons to Ban Gay marriage HERE.

12. If he’s good enough for Betty White … HERE.

13. The best “give them a piece of your mind” letter should go to Lee Harper when she stood up for her Pulitzer Prize winning novel To Kill a Mockingbird after a school in Virginia banned it in the late 60’s for being “immoral.” She told them what she thought in no uncertain terms and with style and scathing wit that’s proved what a good writer she was. See HERE.

Thirteen Thursday

Off the Map

A Green-eyed Cat

Is the Grass Really Greener on the Other Side of the Fence?

In 2009 Floyd County High School’s graduating valedictorian and salutatorian both had educational roots in Floyd’s small independent Blue Mountain School (BMS). They weren’t the only ones. As many as ten students in the past 19 years who attended BMS and later enrolled in public school have received such honors.

This year BMS is marking its 30th year of providing pre-school through middle school education with a day long reunion to celebrate the efforts of the BMS community and the accomplishments of past students. BMS alumni have gone on to become computer scientists, engineers, a teacher, a lawyer, a physician’s assistant, a writer, an artist, a forensic biologist, an architect, chef and more.

Born out of the homeschooling movement in 1981, BMS has always provided a holistic and hands-on approach to education with a focus on critical thinking and the arts. For many years it operated as a parent-run cooperative and has early roots in Waldorf education, a philosophy put forth by the founder of anthropology, Rudolf Steiner.

One of the first BMS teachers was Alwyn Moss, a trained Waldorf kindergarten teacher who currently lives in Blacksburg. Moss describes the Waldorf educational philosophy as one that emphasizes the importance of sensory experiences, imitation and trusting relationships. “I was deeply convinced of the value of rhythms, creative play, fantasy and imagination, art and music, and nourishing a sense of the sacredness of nature and life for the young child,” Moss remembers.

Jayn Avery, a founding BMS parent/teacher, recalls that the school grew out of conversations amongst parents who wanted to be involved in their children’s education.

“Sometime around 1980 a food co-op started in an old mill (Epperly Mill) just outside of town. The ageing building was available and dreams of turning it into some kind of workable space started to emerge. The kids would play on the open wood floors as the parents sorted food orders of flour, dried beans, and other organic bulk items. So what kind of school? Who would be the teacher? Where—maybe here in the mill? Meanwhile another group of parents, who lived in the northeast part of the county, on adjacent land or a part of a land-sharing community called Riverflow, started similar discussions thinking they would create something there.”

Avery remembers the first incarnation of the school in 1981. It was called the Mountain Dove and was located in a rented house in town. From there it became BMS in 1982 with some classes being housed in the Old Church Gallery, which was located in the Presbyterian Church at the time. The school was also located in another rented house on 221, next to the now closed Moran’s Grocery Store, before relocating to the current main building on Christiansburg Pike, which was constructed in part by BMS parents and community members in 1985.

Bob Grubel, another founding parent, recalls clearing the land in preparation for the school’s construction. “After we purchased the property (8 acres of wooded land) someone had to cut down the pines to clear a site for the school building. I remember wading into the thicket of pines on a Monday morning with chain saw in hand and wondering where to begin? So I just started felling trees and limbing, and on it went for basically a week.” Grubel, a musician, played at BMS dance benefits and also headed up BMS fundraising projects, such as the BMS Art Auction.

BMS alumna Amara Franko Heller, who graduated from Floyd County High School (FCHS) as the valedictorian in 1993, says BMS was formative in the development of her enthusiasm for learning, which carried her through high school, college and beyond. “Learning was so well blended with creativity that it never got boring,” she remembers about her years at BMS.

Today Heller is an acupuncturist who runs a Chinese Medicine clinic in Harrisonburg with her husband. As the mother of a bright 20-month-old, Heller has been thinking about her alternative education again. “I want to give my child the opportunity to learn in that same kind of supportive and open environment.”

Some children currently enrolled in BMS are second generation students, like Leia Jones’s son Porter Sweeney, who has been attending BMS for the past two years. Jones, a professional dancer who studied dance and choreography at Hollins University, recalls that going to BMS allowed her to engage in imaginary play on a daily basis. “That formed the way I view the world today,” she says, noting that some of her favorite BMS memories include cooking meals, doing yoga, writing poetry and collectively building forts and play villages in the woods on the school property.

Jones, whose aunt and grandmother were teachers at BMS, also attended public school for some of her elementary and middle school years, before getting her GED and then graduating from Hollins. Her brother Van Jones, who also attended BMS, was homeschooled through high school. He attended New River College and Virginia Western College, and is now working on his PHD in Oceanographic Engineering at Virginia Tech.

Ananda Underwood, another BMS alumnus with a child currently enrolled in BMS, talks about the sense of community and acceptance that BMS provides. “I have a solid foundation of friendships that started at BMS, said the FCHS graduate and social-worker as she watched her son happily interact with others on the BMS playground.

BMS Development Coordinator and Service Learning teacher Jamie Reygle describes the school today as “a highly esteemed, at-capacity contemplative-progressive educational resource that continues to grow and evolve in positive directions.” The school is guided by director Shelly Emmett and a BMS school board.

As in the past, BMS continues to provide small classroom size and teacher-student collaboration for fostering the academic, social, and emotional growth of students. The school promotes critical thinking through experiential activities and a project-based curriculum. BMS also focuses on the school-wide development of awareness, concentration and insight through creative expression and contemplative practices.

Recent school projects include making volcanoes, creating books for publication, running a book faire and setting up a school store to learn about money. A unit about African History involved the creation of a play about the Underground Railroad. A puppet show of presidential hopefuls giving campaign speeches was part of a study on the U.S. electoral process.

Reygle has been coordinating the school’s 30th year anniversary celebration reunion, tracking down alumni, collecting old photos and stories and making general plans. “We want to celebrate our history, share memories and have this be our biggest reunion yet,” he says.

The reunion, scheduled to begin at 3:00 p.m. on May 19th, will include a potluck and pig roast, camping and bonfire, skits and stories and a pre-emptive book launch of a book detailing the school’s history. Live music will be provided by Spoonfight, a popular band made up of BMS alumni, as well as re-united members of “Just Jake,” an “in-house” band that performed for many BMS fundraisers in years past.

“Above all was the feeling of doing something that hopefully mattered in a positive way for those who participated, parents, children and teachers,” Grubel says about founding and running the school.

Moss sums it up like this: “As I look back these many years now since my own participation in Blue Mountain, I am so grateful to know, what a strong, long lasting and significant aspect of life the school has become in Floyd County as an educational source, and in its cultural and social contributions to the community as a whole.”  ~ Colleen Redman

Post notes: The first three photos are of the early years, 30 years ago, with the third photo depicting Alwyn Moss (on the right and who I recently wrote about HERE). The last three are current shots and show Leia and Porter on the BMS playground, Jamie Reygle in a classroom and  Shelly Emmett leading a gratitude circle, which is done each Thursday at the close of the four day school week. I wrote about my memories of Blue Mountain School when my sons attended and posted more old photos HERE.

Mother and baby.

It’s the biggest hanging basket I’ve ever seen!

And this is my favorite Mother’s Day card because my grandson Bryce helped pick it out. It shows his sense of humor and the humor we share together. Happy Mother’s Day to all!

Shadow Shot Sunday

Andy Kaplan of Dominion Electric Vehicles in Salem presented three vehicles for a Green Machine Expo at the 2^nd annual Land’s Sake Earth Day event, held at the Floyd County High School on Saturday.  Here, Kaplan, who sells American-made, all-electric ATVs, passenger vehicles and work trucks, shows William and Jacob Vrooman of Willis a Global Electric Mobile (GEM) vehicle. The GEM (which is also made closed in) is street legal and runs up to 25 mph, Kaplan explained.  William Vrooman said his son Jacob attends college at NC State, where students drive vehicles like the GEM around campus.

Ricky Lawrence helped build the chicken tractor that was on display at the free community event.   Lawrence, who works at the Floyd Eco-Village, said the portable coop cost about $100 to build.

Two women admire a pressed plant work of art that was donated by papermaker Gibby Waitzkin to benefit The Partnership for Floyd, host of Land’s Sake.  Proceeds from the sale of plants, pictured on the right, also went to benefit the Partnership and the development of the Warren Lineberry Park.

Mark Schonbeck stopped at the UBAN table in the high school gym to chat with UBAN volunteer Virginia Neurkirch.  UBAN is a local grassroots group that supports the current ban on uranium mining in Virginia and works to educate the public on the environmental and health risks involved in uranium mining.

Gunther Hauk of Spikenard Farm and Honeybee Sanctuary (left) gave a presentation titled The Mystery of the Honeybee, Her Needs and How You Can Help. Hauk, one of about 35 Land’s Sake vendors, was selling honey and Spikenard Farm T-shirts and distributing educational information about Colony Collapse Disorder, a global crisis in which large numbers of honeybees are disappearing from their hives.  Other speakers during the six hour event included authors Fred First and Barbara Pleasant, Michael Kovick with UBAN, Sue Marriott and Victoria Mack with Land Care International, and Lydeana Martin, who presented a panel discussion update on the Floyd County Task Force findings related to local farms, forest and water.

David Maren of Tender Grass Farm passed out samples of bratwurst made in Floyd to Land’s Sake attendees in the school cafeteria.   Tender Grass is an online store (tendergrassfarm.com) that provides customers with locally produced grass-fed and pasture-raised meat. This new and growing business has been shipping out of the Sweet Providence Farm Store, which is currently not in operation, Maren said.  Tender Grass is committed to the sustainability of small farms by providing more markets for farmers to sell their products.

Tara Orlando, a molecular hydration specialist and co-owner of Green Deva Body Products, spoke to attendees on the health benefits of drinking alkalized water and gave a demonstration that showed the acidity of some common drinks.  Orlando also sold a variety of Green Deva all-natural body products.

Janie Walters and her father take a spin in the GEM, which cost about $6,900 to purchase and runs on an electric charge.

Bill and Arva Coleman of Floyd stopped to talk to Jason Rutledge about his workhorses.  Rutledge owns 12 draft horses that he uses for personal use and for his business, Draftwood, which markets horse-logged, green-certified forest products, such as logs, lumber and beams.  Rutledge also heads up the Healing Harvest Forest Foundation, a nonprofit that develops, implements and supports community-based sustainable forestry initiatives through the use of animal powered logging.  Rutledge, who uses a “worst first” approach to logging, said he will soon be traveling to Pennsylvania, where he will be speaking on a panel with author/farmer Wendell Berry and others on restorative forestry.  ~ Colleen Redman

2. It’s interesting to me that Joseph is a poet with the name Harker and that “hark” means to hear with intention and to call back to memory.

3. Artist Peter Cook took eight years to grow his own chair. 

4. A seed of my poetry took root HERE.

5. I love the smell of scotch tape, which caused me to wonder why they call it “Scotch” and to do a little research to find out why. “The Use of the term “Scotch” in the name has a pejorative origin. A customer complained that 3M was manufacturing its masking tape too cheaply, and told company engineer Richard Drew to, ‘take this tape back to your stingy Scotch bosses and tell them to put more adhesive on it.’

6. I just discovered that some purple iris smells like grape Kool-Aid, some smells like root beer and some doesn’t smell like much of anything.

7. Wondering if we will see our deceased loved ones again or not, I found myself asking, “Is death a dead end?”

8. Poetry is to flowers what prose is to vegetables.

9. What does it mean that the definition of the word emergency is an “unforeseen occurrence requiring immediate attention” and that the the word “emergency” has the word “emerge” right in it, which means “to come out of or live through a difficult experience.”

10. There doesn’t seem to be any connection between May Day, the pagan spring festival, and Mayday the emergency word used as a distress signal that comes from the French venez m’aider, meaning “help me.”

11. Remember biofeedback? Joe has some new personal feedback and stress reduction software from Heartmath that records heart rate variability or heart coherence. When I was tested on it last night I averaged about 14% in heart coherence, but was able to bring it up to 98% in a few minutes by breathing and thinking happy thoughts. Then I tried just thinking happy thoughts and brought it up to 58%. Then I just did the breathing and it rose to 85%. Next I’m going to try dancing.

12. “The usefulness of a cup is its emptiness.” Bruce Lee

13. And in the end the comments you take are equal to the comments you make.

 Thirteen Thursday

The last of the packing comes down to one question

should I bring extra shoes or make room for a book

Guide to a Happy Life?

I’m still looking for a good Sinatra recording

because he was to your generation

what the Beatles were to mine

and music is a memory that doesn’t skip

I’ve made a list of dinners I want to cook

I’d like to read aloud to you

or talk about how it felt to have a father

who favored his son over his daughter

and to be separated from your mother so young?

But it might make you uncomfortable to talk about that

like the time your voice shook when you told me about menstruation

and handed me a pamphlet with diagrams of the female reproductive system

I think you’d rather tell me that you don’t like Dr. Phil

but you do like the host of America’s Funniest Videos

(even though you hated him at first)

Our days of going on trips are over

We won’t go to Provincetown, Martha’s Vineyard or Nova Scotia

But I’ll push you in your wheelchair to the physical therapist

in the shopping plaza where Bobby was hit by a car and broke his leg

I want to ask you what it’s like to be waited on

after waiting on your father, your husband and nine kids

and what you think about when you’re alone in the middle of the night

Will we all end up in dining rooms turned into bedrooms?

In hospital beds that our grandkids want to wind up and down?

Ever since Jim and Dan died a month apart

I think I have to pack something black

Maybe we can visit their grave and get a tuna melt at the pier

Listen to the radio and watch the boats like daddy loved to

I’ll be patient when you panic at the top of the stairs

and berate yourself for not being able to walk without help

I’ll be gentle when I wash your hair

I won’t mention how hard you rubbed my scalp

with cheap shampoo that stung my eyes when I was girl

I’ll walk the beach at sunset and bring you a feather or a shell

I’ll water your plants, even the perennials

that I don’t think need extra watering, but you do

I’ll pick you gloriosa daisies from the patio

but not the dandelions growing between cracks in the stone tile walkway

I wonder if you have any hanging baskets this year

Have you stopped worrying about the weeds in your garden?

Can you see the flowering cosmos from your porch?

________________________

Read more dVerse poets at Open Link Night HERE.

I tend to be a homebody recluse, so I was shocked to look out my bathroom window and see a parking lot full of cars pulled up on the grass in my backyard.  I’m also not used to locking the door when I’m in my own house using the bathroom, but that’s what I did on Saturday because my house was full of people who had come to see the work of my Asheville Potter son, Josh Copus, and  his guest artist/potter Joey Sheehan for the 16 Hands Studio Tour.

The cars were in the front yard too.  When I returned home after covering an event in town for the Floyd Press just after noon, I couldn’t get into my driveway. “Gangbusters” is how I described the turnout to a neighbor.

I call this pre-studio tour photo “Let the Pot Stop Shopping Begin.” “They’re big enough to fit a couple of grandsons in,” I commented when I posted it on Facebook.  And that’s exactly what we did at the November Studio Tour when Bryce and Liam and their family came up the mountain to see the new pottery.

It’s an encore guest artist appearance for Joey Sheehan. He was here for last May’s 16 Hands Studio Tour and his work was very popular.  He was a great help because Josh was in Tasmania and I was standing in for Josh, selling his pots with Joey’s help. Joey, who also lives in Asheville, got his BFA from VA Tech, which is in our neighborhood.

Classic is how I described Josh’s wild clay wood-fired pots to an admirer. Classic doesn’t go out of style.  People were eating olives and sipping IPA.  I think I saw some wine and Joey’s parents, who came from Richmond, before I had to head out again for another commitment.  It was hard to pull myself away but I managed to do so, only because I know that Sunday is another Studio Tour Day.

Post Note:  Sixteen Hands is a twice-yearly artisan studio tour that takes place throughout the countryside of Floyd, Virginia.  My home along the Blue Ridge Parkway is one of the four tour locations and features the pottery of my son Josh Copus and a guest artist.  You can read more about Josh and other nationally known Sixteen Hands members (like Donna Polseno and Ellen Shankin pictured above talking to Josh Friday night), along with directions to studios at their website HERE. 

On a weekend drive in the country?  Stop by our log cabin home off  the Blue Ridge Parkway and see the work of my Asheville Potter Josh Copus son (aka Uncle Josh) and his guest artist Joey Sheehan for the Sixteen Hands Spring Studio Tour.   For a complete list of member artists and maps to their studios visit the Sixteen Hands website HERE. 

Straight out of the Camera Sunday.

1. We are getting smart faster than we are getting wise, says Fred at Fragments from Floyd.  He was referring to the Fukushima nuclear power plant accident and the fact that a former Japan ambassador recently warned that reactor #4 is vulnerable to collapse, which would create “a global catastrophe like we have never before experienced that would affect us all for centuries,” the ambassador said.

2. A little birdie told me: Have you been wondering?  A list of what Obama has done since he’s been in office is posted HERE.

3. Speaking of Floyd, a local family (who I photographed sledding in December) was recently on the Anderson Cooper Show.  Cooper was doing a show on creative ways to downsize and this featured family lives in a tiny house.  It’s so small that Cooper pointed out that the stage they were sitting on at the show was bigger than the square footage of their house. See HERE.

4. The mother’s name is Hari and she taught at the Blue Mountain School, the independent school that my sons went to.  Hari has a Tiny House blog where she writes about her family’s adventures and shares insights and tips on getting out of debt, downsizing, living frugally and sustainably.

5. I have to admit I think it’s strange that I stop at grocery stores to look for brussel sprouts the way others might stop for ice cream.

6. Maybe even more than brussel sprouts, I like information, which is how I end up perched at the computer so long.

7. I recently had the urge to search for the words to a favorite old Donovan song:   Color in sky prussian blue / Scarlet fleece changes hue / Crimson ball sinks from view / Wear your love like heaven. (Isn’t it cool that all those lyrics you couldn’t quite figure out back in the day when you sang along can be googled now?)

8. I’ve been enthralled with the wood thrush’s song coming from the wooded part of our property, which always reminds me Hans Christian Anderson’s fairytale The Nightingale, a story I recently re-read, aloud to Joe.  I like that the nightingale is part of the wood thrush family and that it’s also has been associated with poets and poetry over the years.

9. “A poet is a nightingale who sits in darkness and sings to cheer its own solitude with sweet sounds; his auditors are as men entranced by the melody of an unseen musician, who feel that they are moved and softened, yet know not whence or why.” Percy Shelley

10. Martin Scorsese on creating art:  “Your job is to make your audience care about your obsessions.”

11. “It’s not something you can do when you push a button. You sit down, and if you’re lucky enough, the planets have aligned to the point where that the anger and craft you’ve learned combines with whatever that mysterious X factor is that allows you to scoop some of it up.”  ~ Bruce Springsteen on translating his politics into his songwriting.

12. I love to photograph the golden finch but the wood thrush is my nightingale in shining amour.

13. I became a poet for the poetic license.  I also thought about being a cab driver.

Thirteen Thursday

Wordless Wednesday

Taken from my Asheville Potter son Josh’s Facebook page. That’s him in the drivers seat.  Today he is headed this way for the 16 Hands Art Studio Tour with one of the stops at my house.  I’m pretty sure he’ll be driving THIS.

1. The Other Woman

The “other woman” is Wendy

She’s co-dependent with Peter

She’s passive-aggressive with pirates

and sleeps with lost boys

She threatens to leave Neverland

because Peter won’t be her daddy

He won’t discipline the children

or stop seeing Tiger Lily

Wendy won’t live in Peter’s shadow

She wants to wear it as her own

She professes her love for Tinkerbell

but aims a poisoned arrow

Hooked on fairy dust

Confined by her storybook

Wendy is a lost girl

with a Peter Pan complex

 2. Wendy Wants a Bigger Island       

There are no cell phones on Neverland

So, Wendy emails Peter to say

that she’s joined a 12-step program

and is sewing new curtains

for the Darling home nursery

“Oh, and by the way,

bring some milk and bread home for dinner

Captain Hook is coming over,” she says

Peter wants a divorce

but can’t afford the alimony

He storms off the island

Takes a job in construction

He won’t wear a tie to court

~ Colleen Redman

 Read The Lost Adults of Neverland Part I HERE. And other dVerse poems at the Open Link Pub HERE.

Why does the Carolina wren announce its presence so loudly before ducking into its birdhouse to sit on its nest?  Is it meant as a threat?  More likely, it has alerted the neighborhood cats and black snakes and a birdwatcher on a lawn chair with her eyes closed like me.

I was in the middle of a fantasy of being on an island by the sea, trying to decide if I was hot enough to walk the beach or jump in.  I wasn’t sure I wanted to get up and get my camera from inside the house after working all morning to the point of feeling like Cinderella, but the wren was a call to action, and I found more to photograph than birds.

Meanwhile, Joe was being serenaded by the first wood thrush of the season as he planted the last row of corn.  I stopped in my tracks to listen to its crystal clear song that comes from the woods and seems to herald the coming of summer.  Back in my chair, I could still hear it sing as I soaked up the sun, thought about Anderson’s Nightingale, the Rumpelstiltskin gold of growing corn and waited for the yellow finch to come.

~ Listen to the wren as it leaves its nest HERE.  Hear the wood thrush HERE.

The people of Floyd were documented last Friday and Saturday by Norfolk photographer Glen McClure for an upcoming Jacksonville Center exhibit called A Portrait of Floyd.

Last year Virginia Living magazine featured McClure’s Endangered Species: Watermen of the Chesapeake, a photo series of fishermen portraits that was shown at The Mariners’ Museum in Newport News.  McClure has also done random portraits in Richmond and throughout the state of Virginia, traveling to 12 different locations to photograph people, including Roanoke, said Jacksonville gallery coordinator Lore Deighan.

“He didn’t want this to be a publicity piece or for people to put on their Sunday best,” said Deighan.  McClure is known for capturing the everyday diversity of people in their natural settings. He also does landscape photography.

The bulk of the random photographs of Floyd Countians were taken downtown.  The Friday Night Jamboree produced a guaranteed crowd.   On Saturday McClure, an assistant, Deighan and the Portrait of Floyd curator David Brown traveled to the studios of woodworker Ernest Bryant and artist Charlotte Atkins and fiddle maker Arthur Conner to further the scope of the project.  They also went to Ingram’s gas station and farm supply store and set up at a yard sale next to Slaughters Supermarket.

“We brainstormed about who would not be represented downtown and wanted to reach out to other parts of the county,” said Deighan, who noted that the photographs taken downtown were more diverse than she thought they would be and included people from all walks of life.

Deighan said McClure took upwards of 80 to 100 photographs for the upcoming show, set to open October 5 and run through November 24.  Some background information on each person photographed was taken by McClure’s assistant and will be used to caption the photos.   “Where were you born, what brought you to county, and what do you like about living here?” were some of the questions that the people being photographed were asked.

“The best part of the project so far has been getting to know the people,” said Deighan. She reported that people were hesitant at first to pose, but “once we got talking, they got on board.”

Deighan enjoyed the interaction that the project provided and is looking forward to the seeing the further interaction of the photos when they hang together on the walls of the Hayloft Gallery. “When you don’t know someone, you don’t tend to talk to them.  This reminded me to do that more.  It’s all about community and that’s what the Jacksonville Center is about,” she said.  ~ Colleen Redman

Weekend Flowers Floral Friday Fotos

2. Since the death of Dick Clark and my friend Naomi’s blog post about him, I’ve been watching old Bandstand clips on youtube and remembering how my older sister got me into watching the show after school.  There was nothing else like it on TV and it probably set the stage for my love of dancing at the Surf Ballroom every weekend in the beach town we lived in.

3. Naomi (who I recently visited in Hollywood) sang on Dick Clark’s Bandstand!   She also had parts in past TV shows, like a bank manager in a Police Woman show HERE.

4. A must-see, awesome teaching tool for bullying involving the photo posted above HERE.  Video demonstration HERE.

5. Is there someone in your past that you’d like to apologize to like THIS man did?

6. “If you don’t think you’re part of the problem, that’s part of the problem.”  ~ My Dharmacratic friend Will

7.  A must-see expose’ on how Wall Street got bailed out and Main Street didn’t: Watch Money, Power and Wall Street, a PBS Frontline special HERE.

8. A banker is someone who lends you his umbrella when the sun is shining but wants it back the minute it starts raining.  ~ Mark Twain

9. Samuel Clemens took the name Mark Twain from his experience on the Mississippi River boats. The old word twain means two. Mark twain means there are two fathoms of water under the boat.

10. While looking up the word “twain” I came across some unusual words, like callithumpian (a children’s parade, as on the Fourth of July, with prizes for the best costumes), flibbertigibbeta (a chattering or flighty, light-headed person) and ninnyhammer (a fool or simpleton).

11. The best description of Floyd (the one traffic mountain town I live in), found on the Jacksonville Center’s, webpage begins:  Floyd County has been a magnet for anti-establishment free-thinkers since the early 1700s. Independent-minded self-starters from Scotland, Ireland, and Germany said, “Just give me a spot of soil and some time, and I can do for myself.” They rejected urban offerings of the newly-settled New England and Eastern seaboard regions, and settled the remote Appalachians and Blue Ridge Mountains, which was the “frontier” of their time. This “do-for-myself” approach, well-rooted in the rugged Floyd geography for 250 years, brought a fresh wave of migration in the 1970s – not from farmers but from back-to-the-landers, entrepreneurs, artisans, and musicians trying to earn a buck on their own terms.  More HERE.

12. A kaleidoscope of poetry (sent by Pearl) HERE.

13. A kaleidoscope of color you can play with with your mouse HERE.

 Thirteen Thursday

The mantra

is the vehicle

that knows

the best shortcut

when my mind

is downtown traffic

~ Colleen Redman

More dVerse Open Link Pub readers HERE.

An early evening celebration of the new growing season took place recently at Plenty! headquarters on Webbs Mill Road, where the group’s office, food bank and community garden are located.  Recent food project developments and partnerships, including a new freezer, a new intern and a visit from a volunteer ministry group, were also reasons for celebration.

Twelve members of Commissioned by Christ, an independent Catholic organization from Northern Virginia, were in town for the weekend working on Plenty! initiatives. Jessica Berrada, president and CEO of the non-profit, said she and other volunteers had been weeding in the community garden earlier in the day.  They also prepared vegetable beds for the Kids’ Wonder Gardens at Floyd and Willis Elementary Schools.

“We do short term ministry projects.  We mostly make international trips. Last year we went to the Dominican Republic and Peru and we’re going to Jamaica next spring,” Berrada said.  The missionary volunteers were being housed by parishioners of Floyd’s All Saints Catholic Church.

Plenty!’s new intern, Ananda Underhill (pictured on the left in the first photo with Coolidge and Bressler) a social work student from Radford University, was on hand to talk with attendees. Underhill will be helping to organize people and paperwork through July.  “I’d like to get a gleaning team together that can be on-call,” she said, explaining that after the farmers have harvested their crops, a team can go in and take what was left.   “I want to get more teens involved,” she added.

Last year’s intern, Alexis Bressler, was also in attendance.  Bressler still coordinates community and school garden projects. She became familiar with Plenty! founders McCabe Coolidge and Karen Day when the couple spoke at a Virginia Tech “Civic Agriculture and Food Systems” class that Bressler was in.  Bressler was impressed with Plenty!’s community based model, where neighbors get to know each other and share with each other.

The neighbor-to-neighbor people that Plenty! serves continues to increase, Coolidge said.   He reported that throughout the winter the group supplied mostly rice, beans, pasta and peanut butter to four church pantries in the county.  “We want to give them more produce,” he said, noting that fresh fruits and vegetables are so important for good health.

But the availability of fresh produce donations has been unpredictable, which is why Plenty! has partnered with Adam Bresa and Darbi Jewell of Crescent Farm (pictured above).   Bresa and Jewell recently moved to county from Green Bay Virginia, where they did market farming and Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) work.  They will be providing some fresh produce to Plenty!, as well as growing wholesale produce for Good Food Good People, a Floyd-based retail and wholesale distributor of farm fresh products that links regional farmers and consumers within a 100 mile radius.

As the evening sun set, people tapped to the lively beat of the Porch Loungers, a Blacksburg-based band that played on the Food Bank porch.  Attendees mingled, toured the Plenty! site and enjoyed good food and conversation.  ~ Colleen Redman

Post notes: Wildfire Pots by Plenty! co-founder McCabe Coolidge are pictured on display in photo #5.  Read about Plenty!’s Community Garden HERE.

“No, I can’t,” she answered with an impish smile.  “My neighbors would be upset if I kept it up all year because it’s not an American flag!” 

 If your or my home was on fire, or severely damaged, we would take action. We would put out the fire if possible, and we would do everything in our power to restore it. The Earth is our true home, the place in which our species found it possible to be born, to evolve as a species, to establish a civilization.

That’s what she wrote in a commentary that appeared in the Roanoke Times the same day we had salmon, apple pie and tea for lunch at Our Daily Bread, shopped at Kroger for cat food and groceries and stopped at the CVS so she could get the film in her old school camera developed.

Meanwhile, carbon emissions increase, glaciers and ice shelves weaken, ocean levels rise, global warming and other extremes of climate change are at least in part the cause of disastrous forms of storms, droughts, floods, while endangered and threatened species vanish at historically high rates beyond any in the past 65million years.… I read aloud from the booth we shared while eating lunch.

“Don’t you want to hold it up straight?” I asked, seeing that my camera was lopsided and dangling precariously from her hand.  “No I like it this way,” she said, with her artist’s eye studying me as she snapped.

She – a poet, environmentalist and Waldorf kindergarten teacher – talked about her teacher Thomas Berry and her cat Luci who had recently died.  I dubbed Luci the macho opera singer cat in a tuxedo when he first showed up when Alwyn lived in the trailer park on the edge of the Jefferson Forest.  We looked at pictures of Luci and she gave me a copy of the poem she spoke at his burial.   No coming, no going / No after, no before / I hold you close / I release you to be free / I am in you / And you are in me… 

More than once she called out the name of her 97 year old neighbor, but there was no reply.  We had walked over to see the garden her neighbor had created after the clearing of a storm felled tree revealed an opening in a wooded section of the property.  The garden involved mats hand-woven from recycled plastic bags, plants, poetry and prayers taped to trees, and rocks, tree stumps and chairs that her friend had placed in various places along a walkway in and out of standing trees. “She has created a relationship with the land,” Alwyn said.

Back at Alwyn’s garden we had a moment of silence and a hug.  It was a big day and we were both tired.  I tucked a phlox flower behind her ear and gave her a kiss goodbye.

Post notes:  On this Earth Day, I invite you to let the conclusion to Alwyn’s Roanoke Times commentary sink in:  Changing an entrenched economic system that continues to operate on an earlier assumption of the Earth as an infinite resource of goods seems almost impossible at this time. Yet I believe, as do many others, that simplicity of lifestyle and an economy of enough, not of excess, one that meets everyone’s needs, are aspects of an economic healing that makes sense in this third millennium for the sake of the Earth’s long-term well-being and our own.  You can read the commentary in its entirety HERE.

Shadow Shot Sunday

The Red Queen and the White Queen argued. The Mad Hatter and the March Hare made no sense, and Alice ate heart shaped cookies with children who attended the Mad Hatter Tea Party fundraiser for the Young Actors Co-op (YAC) Saturday evening.

A cast of costumed characters served tea and crumpets and hors d’oeuvres upstairs in the Black Water Loft and downstairs in noteBooks bookstore. The strawberry tarts, baked by YAC mom Rebeka Hicks, were worth the price of admission ($5) alone. Wearing hats was encouraged. Many were zany, and it was hard to tell attendees from the actors, who recreated scenes from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland throughout the two hour event.

The Tea Party was held to raise funds for an upcoming YAC trip to New York.  YAC mom Pat Woodruff, wearing a two of spades costume, said the actors were looking forward to their trip, where they will perform selections from their latest production, Wind in the Willows, at the invitation of Kickstarter, a fundraising platform for creative projects in Manhattan that YAC has successfully used in the past.

YAC is looking for a new director because the current director, Rose McCutchan, will be taking a break, Woodruff reported. She explained that McCutchan founded the group as The Young Actors Project in 2005. When McCutchan moved to New York in 2006, the group was restructured as a cooperative and YAC productions were done under the direction of Laura Byler.  When McCutchan returned to Floyd she resumed her role as director.

McCutchan said she is planning to devote more time to her home-life and family businesses at the Loft and Red Rooster Coffee Roster.  She hopes the trip to New York will mark her years as YAC director on a high note.  While in New York, the young actors will tour Mary Mount Manhattan College, where McCutchan received degrees in theater and where she first directed children’s theater classes.

Many local artists, crafters and businesses donated items for the Silent Auction to help offset the cost of travel, food and lodging for the young actors’ trip.  Auction items included a “Cantankerous Teapot” by potter Mud Bailey, gifts from the Bell Gallery, Red Rooster, Black Water Loft, Republic of Floyd and the Shwenk Family Farm, a free night at Ambrosia Farm B&B, a massage by Kimberly Basham, cheesecake by Kevin and Renee Dipietro, art by Lore Deighan and Pat Woodruff, a hand forged calla lily by Cameron Woodruff, a paper-mache white rabbit signed by YAC actors and pottery by Rick Hensley, Donna Polseno, Eric Bolling, Hona Knudsen and Justine Barrett Figura.

For those who missed the well-received November production of Wind in the Willows, there is a new opportunity to see the show.  Billed as a simple story about friends and home, about overcoming adversity and temptation, the play is scheduled for an encore performance at the Floyd Country Store Monday, April 23, Tuesday, April 24 and Wednesday, April 25 at 7:00 p.m.  The Country Store has donated the venue for the purpose of helping YAC raise funds for the upcoming trip.   Proceeds from tickets, $8 for adults and $5 for kids 12 and under, will help fund the trip.   Donations can also be dropped off at The Black Water Loft, Woodruff said.  Colleen Redman

Note: Watch a video of the Mad Hatter Tea Party HERE and HERE.

2. When I was a girl, loafers had slots in them for pennies, but most people put dimes in the slots in case they needed to make a phone call.  A thin dime, that’s all a pay-phone call cost back then.

3. Song I made up when my two sons were young that I get to sing again to my two grandsons:  “I got 2 boys … and their bundles of joy!”

4. I have a collection of miniature plastic frogs that my grandson Bryce and I have named: Hop and Pop, Tip Top, Don’t Stop, Flip Flop and B-bop.

5. Poets are the nutty professors of words.

6.  Funny Belated April Fool’s News Bloopers HERE. 

7. When I was a girl I once had 80 cents in change and felt rich. I decided I was going to keep it in my pocket to jingle it around with my hands like I watched the men in my life do. Then I went out to play, forgot about it and I guess it fell out.  I never saw that money again and still feel the loss.

8. I have an imaginary blog called Loose Change: How a Writer Spends Her Time.

9. Sometimes I wonder what Thomas Paine would think of blogging.

10. Yesterday I googled myself into writing a poem. See HERE

11. “You can use a computer, but I always say you should be able to write with a pen, because someday your computer might break, or you might not have access to electricity. It’s sort of like driving: you still have to know how to walk.”  ~ Natalie Goldberg

12. Isn’t it ironic that I spend so much money at restaurants looking for the kind of food I cook at home?

13. A penny for your thoughts?

Thirteen Thursday

I think this would make a nice Get Well Soon greeting card.  The inside would say “I hope you feel better and can get out soon for a spin.”