Every January I study on what I’d like to accomplish on the Blind Pig and The Acorn in the coming year. First and foremost I’d like to continue to celebrate and preserve my rich Appalachian culture and heritage. Come March I will have been blogging about Appalachia for 12 years, a length of time which is almost unheard of in the world of blogging.

Other plans I have for 2020

  • I’d like to get the girls and The Deer Hunter to contribute to the blog with their own posts like Paul does. This was on my 2019 list of wants too. Paul certainly contributed again during the year and one girl wrote one post so there’s that 🙂 Hopefully I can make better progress on this goal in the coming year even if I have to hog-tie them.
  • I enjoy talking about the language of Appalachia so I’m always wanting to figure out how to talk about it more.
  • I’d like to say 2020 will be the year I add a premium feature to the Blind Pig and The Acorn, but I’ve wanted that to happen for about three years now. I do aim to make progress on the goal this year. With the rising costs of managing a website figuring out how to make enough money to cover the costs has become a necessity.
  • I’m finally working on a cookbook. Or I should say the beginnings of what we hope will be a cookbook. Jim Casada is actually the workhorse behind the endeavor and he is generously pulling me along behind him for the ride. I’ll share more information about the project in the coming months.
  • I’m always hoping to meet more of you. I was fortunate to meet several Blind Pig readers in 2019.
  • I’ll be teaching at John C. Campbell Folk School in August of 2020 so be on the lookout for those details if you’d like to take the class. I promise we’ll have great fun and eat good food 🙂

I’m hope each of you will continue to visit Blind Pig and The Acorn during 2020. And if you know someone who might enjoy the blog, please send them my way.

Tipper

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20 Comments

  1. Tipper, I’m so glad to hear about the cookbook. I love them . Can’t wait to get one. Thanks so much for all the years you’ve given us. I’m just sorry i missed out on few those years. Love all your post. They are caring, loving, thankful and alot of them are just plain HOME. Thanks Tipper for everything you do. May God Guide you. God Bless!

  2. I remember me and Harold going over on Licklog to get a couple of shoats Daddy had bought. We took along a couple of tow sacks and some heavy cord to tie them. We climbed over into the pen, cornered and caught them little boogers. We tied their front feet together then their hind feet. Then we put them in the tow sacks and tied them shut. They squealed and squirmed while we was tying their feet but quieted down when we put them in the sacks. It was dark inside the sacks I quess is why they became quiet.
    I slung one across my shoulder and Harold got the othern. They weren’t too heavy and we only had a couple of miles to walk. You know, just a nice Sunday afternoon stroll except you had a pig in a sack across your back. Well, everthang was going along fine until I noticed my burden was getting a little wiggly. The further I went the worse the wiggle. That pig had managed to get his feet loose. And he was starting to climb my back through that tow sack. Little pigs like that have sharp hooves, you know. Not sharp enough to cut through that tow sack but sharp enough to hurt pretty bad when they was digging into your back.
    I didn’t know what to do! I couldn’t take him out and retie him. If he woulda seen daylight he woulda likely ripped hisself right out of my hands and been gone. That gravel road didn’t have no corners to trap him in. So, I carried him home like that. I offered to switch pigs with Harold but wouldn’t. He didn’t laugh because he was already laughing. He might still be laughing.
    I took a beating from that little pig that day but he didn’t stay little long. That fall he became some of the best pork I ever ate.

    Just in case you’re thinking “me and Harold” isn’t correct, it is!. I was in front, he was behind so yeah “me and Harold.”

  3. I am so glad I was fortunate enough to meet all of you except Pap (and I will forever regret not getting to meet him since we were about the same age and I like to think we were cut from the same bolt of cloth). I appreciate the prayers you sent upward to the “Great Healer” as did many more which I feel is a major reason I’m able to read your Blog every day and hope to be able to continue this for an extended time. Thanks so much for your friendship!

  4. Love your positivity and goal setting. And to think a random search for a pickle recipe led me to you and your beautiful family. Btw, we met at the Shook-Smathers House during Liz and June’s ShapeNote Singing School. Looking forward to 2020 and a “perfect vision” of continued success for the blog. Appreciate you and all your efforts. May you be richly blessed.

  5. So excited about this New Year, and especially excited about your cookbook! I am still looking for a good tea cake/cookie recipe. You inspire and touch lives in ways you may never understand. Thanks for all your hard work, and thank you for sharing your family. P.S I have really enjoyed A FOXFIRE CHRISTMAS. It is the most favorite thing I have ever won, even though (as my husband reminded me) it is the only thing I have ever won. LOL P.P.S. Also, hope to be still enjoying Paul and Jerry’s CHRISTMAS CD till next Christmas. & to you and yours, the McIntyre’s

  6. …as a thought to generate additional cash flow… My thought is that since you want to write more on Appalachian life and ways…perhaps coordinating with some of the local chamber’s of commerce to promote surrounding area’s towns’ history’s and going’s on throughout the year might provide some additional revenue…you could also include a hotlink on you blog to their respective websites…. Just a thought…
    PS…Brasstown made the local news here in the Philly area regarding the Possum Drop not occurring this past New Year…!

  7. I want a Blind Pig and the Acorn t-shirt and a cookbook too! I’m ready to place an order. I’ve purchased a lot of your daughter’s jewelry and I always get compliments when I wear it.

  8. My wife and I are new readers of your blog and regret that we did not know about it years ago. Even though we grew up in VERY rural West Georgia, many of your terms, sayings and descriptions are most familiar. They take us back to our childhoods in the late 1940s and 50s – much better and happier times.

    As a fiddler, I’ve either met of seen most of your family at the Folk School over the years. The girls are one of our favorite Morning Song entertainers.

    We’ll support whatever you do to to keep the blog alive and the cash flow going. Consider at least one cookbook sold. If, as Shirl recommended, it has a down-home recipe for chocolate gravy it will sell out in a week!

    Keep “writin'” and we’ll keep “readin'”

  9. Survivalcommonsense.com has been around ten years, and believe me, I totally understand the need to generate income to pay the bills. There is no such thing as a free lunch! If you can find a way to increase the cash flow, that would make a fantastic post!

  10. “”if I have to HOG TIE them””
    What is your meaning of ‘hog tie’ ???
    I heard it many times in my younger years….

      1. when I think of hog tie I think of the victim on his/her belly with a rope between their tied up legs and arms. They were sort of rocking on their belly! I wonder why it is called “hog” tie–don’t think I’ve ever heard of a pig being tied up.

    1. …back in the day…we use to grab a pig…throw’m on the ground then tie their front feet to the back ones… Then off to Pops to get slaughtered…

  11. Advertise that your cookbook will include the recipe for chocolate gravy and then just sit back and wait for the money to roll in. It’s amazing that your blog has lasted 12 years. That speaks volumes! I’m sure all your readers are looking forward to the added dose of Appalachian language. Looking forward to 12 more years!

  12. Seems to me your ideas pretty much set up a full year seeing as how we know what, or rather who, is in the details of big projects. They tend to get bigger and more complicated.

    If I am right about how I think the publishing world works, (Jim knows of course) you will be called on to ‘plug’ your cookbook. If so, that will add time demands. I hope you are able to use a lot of your own pictures in it, and not just of food. (As I’ve mentioned recently here, if pictures have people a release is needed from each of them so there is a complication.) I think in particular of the picture of the three guys sharing a story and the one of Pap and his friend by the pickup truck as just two examples.

    Congratulations on 12 years. I am not surprised that you have outlasted many others. Your passion is the major part of it but a second big piece is your ability to form a community of interest. Difficult to put into words but we readers know.

    If I can help somehow please let me know.

  13. I’m in line for the cookbook! It’s probably just me (and don’t tell Kim) but I need a Blind Pig t-shirt.

    I’m so glad for this blog. Looking forward to a new year with all y’all.

  14. I’ll be with you every single day Tip. I feel like I am the grandmother to this blog just like I am to the girls!
    I’m glad to hear that you are working on a cookbook, you are a wonderful cook always searching for new old recipes and ways.
    It’s gonna be a good year!

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