The warmer temps we’ve had over the past few weekends have enticed the Blind Pig family to get out and about in the woods. A weekend or so ago we headed up the creek to see what we could see. The girls are always wanting to look for treasures in the form of rocks, old glass, or any piece of metal their dectector can pick up.
A cool breeze, sparkling blue skies, and the great outdoors what else can you ask for?
We didn’t have a real destination in mind when we left the house, but Chitter wanted to go to the area where Pap’s grandparents lived in the early 1930s. Pap calls the place the burnt down place-as did most folks from his childhood days. They gave the area the moniker because the house Pap’s grandparents lived in-did indeed burn to the ground.
I can remember when a piece of an old bridge still remained across the creek near the homeplace. A couple clumps of daffodils that bloom each spring are all that’s left to mark the homeplace today.
The girls like to visit the area because of the detritus left behind from the burned home. Chatter and Chitter are not picky treasure hunters-any rusty old piece of metal…
or shard of glass = success to them.
There were other treasures during the day-like sniffing a piece of birch bark-sigh…I wish my whole house could smell like that.
I watched the gang for a while, then when I got bored I walked around into the next holler…
where I found the most delightful underground creek. As the holler stretches up and away from where the water comes out of the ground-you’d never guess there was a waterway under foot. I laid down in the leaves and looked deep into the cave at the stream of water-all the while thinking this was a magical place indeed.
As you can see from this view the underground waterway moves merrily on its way once it comes out of the ground. About 50 yards on down the way the small branch enters the creek.
The best treasure of the day was simply being together.
I couldn’t help but wonder what Pap’s grandparents would have to say about 2 of their great great grandchildren plundering around their old homeplace…I guess that was sort of a treasure too.
Tipper
It’s very beautiful girls together with you enjoy family life, the sun of nature, to see a stream of clear water, and somehow venerate the place of their ancestors.
That is invaluable in these times where technology, cybernetics, with their computers and cell phones, etc etc, isolates people. Deer Hunter, Tipper, sincerely congratulate you and so do the girls also for being so healthy in mind and spirit, God Bless those girls ..
From Buenos Aires great affection for you all, José Luis.
I’m late reading this- but thanks for sharing your hike! Treasured times for you 😉
Sounds like a great time of exploring and making new memories. Before you know it the girls will be grown but they will always have these great times with family to remember.
That’s my kind of day!
Tipper,
What a beautiful day for a walk!
Wish I could have been there, rolling along. Is that Deerhunter’s “smoker” under your feet? I see those “boots” were put to good use around the creek! I love old flat rusty pieces, just great for collages and mixed medis. The girls should get them a “rock tumbler” and “tumble” those glass shards they are always finding to smooth up the edges. Then a good jewelry wire, pliers to wrap it to hold it, add a loop and a jump ring and you have a pice of “Appalachian Old Home Place Jewery”…I would buy a piece to hang on a chain around my neck, LET ME KNOW IF THEY MAKE SOME!…You see these made with “sea glass” all the time. A lot of sea glass is tumbled, it is not always found on the beach nice and smooth…LOL
I think those Jonquils are a newer variety…note how tall they are. I know they are still old, but my guess is the blooms are bigger than the real old, old ones…Then of course they could have been reaching for the sun…My little ones are in full bloom and have been even with the terrible cold weather. I love the Spring, (stream)…We have a wet weather spring/stream and walked to the beginning of it years ago. Your picture reminds me of the way it looks coming out of the rocky soil!
I looked at Don’s picture of the dove-tail logs…That looks like Partridge Berry growing under them, just beautiful!
Did you guys, just stop and listen to the quiet? Did you hear a critter, varmit, or see “painter tracks” by the creek in the mud?
Enjoyed this post Tipper,
Thanks,
PS…Did you get your onions and lettuce planted?
Tipper. you are the best to bring out good memories. reading Roy Pipes comments brought back some many good memories of Lizzie Elliot, when me and Linda Sue was little my sister Annie lee took us up to Lizzie home. She and her daughters was so kind to me and sue and gave us homemade cookies. I remembered an old rooster had his tail features plucked out that fascinated me. I had never seen a bear butt rooster.
One of my favorite things has always been digging up daffodils, roses, arborvetaes, etc., from what were once old homesteads that we find in the woods and bringing them home to plant in the yard of whatever home I’ve been living at the time.
I found many of them over the years at a place called Umstead/Reedy Creek Park adjacent to what is now the RDU Airport. There are many old foundations and cemeteries still there, but the homesteads themselves are long gone, except for the flowers and plantings that once graced the old homesteads.
I’ve always tried to discover how that land was taken, what happened to the people who once had lived there, but there’s just nothing in the historical Raleigh records to show it – and I’ve always wondered if there wasn’t a bit of chicanery involved in the way the land was taken from those people possibly by some of the old politicians who knew from insider information that the airport would be going there one day, but who knows…
God bless.
RB
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Tipper,
Ain’t it a good feeling to stand on
the very spot where family once lived?
Back a few years ago, before my brother
passed, we visited the old homeplace
where our mom and dad lived. I stood
in the creek where mama washed clothes
on a rub board. (She told me about all
the hard times but at the same time
what a blessing it was.) We should
never forget where we came from…Ken
You are lucky to be able to walk the earth of your ancestors. What a wonderful thing to share: simple pleasures, time to observe, time to wonder, time to think, time to just be . . .
The woods are where I find the most peace. I love to walk along the creeks and just enjoy God’s creation. I feel closer to him there than anywhere else. I also enjoy old home sites and love to find an old rock chimney and let my mind wander about who they were and what their life was like. Then there is the old liquor still sites that are abundant in the hollers of Appalachia. We spent yesterday afternoon exploring the woods around here and the weather was perfect.
I wonder if that underground creek served as a fridge or source of drinking water for Pap’s family. The daffodils are just peeking out of the ground here.
My wife and I recently took a walk through the woods behind our house. The trail had grown over since our last walk. Alan and Jeff used to keep it clear when they rode their dirt bikes, but Betty and I had to climb over fallen trees and other obstacles. I showed her where Frank (Duck) Davis used to have a Moonshine Still. We continued on until we came to long gone Lizzie Elliott’s old house, and from there we took the Lizzie Elliott Road home. But like your family’s journey, it was a great hike.
This was truly a beautiful afternoon of togetherness. The daffodils readied themselves to produce their flowers of the season. I especially enjoyed watching the underground spring, so restful. Last, but not least, grandparents were watching from their resting place, knowing that their family was enjoying their former earthly home.
Fantastic! Hard to beat a springtime walk in the woods!
For a brief respite you walked the paths known to your ancestors. How firm the tread, how sweet the memories. And there, amidst debris, came a promise bright: daffodils abloom shedding fragrance on the air. Like these flowers, reminders, fragile and passing, were carried from that sacred vale where waters roil and tumble and where ties bind the heart anew.
Tipper: Must be FUN! Such walks or hikes are wonderful. We ‘did’ our family hike when our grandsons were much younger from their mountain home on Rich Mountain all the way around to Cades Cove! The trek must have been too long or those long legged boys may have gotten ‘too grownup’ to hike with Gpa and Gma. Naw! They would make the trek anytime – it is I that would slow up the pace!
Eva Nell
Did you catch any spring lizards? I bet you could have caught a lunchroom bucket full back up in that hole.
I love to explore places like this. There is always something different to see or find.
Years ago I took my detector and my son to an old abandoned cabin. I kept getting hits, but only found old spark plug washers. Still was fun walking down the little creek to get to it. Everything you find is treaure.
Tipper, there is such peace found out among the trees. They are a quiet testament to the passing of time. People come an go but the trees stand always. There is something so healing about the mountains, the creeks, and the trees. I feel it every time I am in the presence of their splendor!
Sounds like you all had a great time. Hiking out in the woods is a great treat. So much to see and the variety is endless.
Sweet times.
Sounds like a great day. Being out in the fresh air with the ones you love can’t get much better.
A great trip.
One of the really neat things about these trips to old home places is how often you trip across something new – no matter how many times you’ve been there before. Yesterday, I went by several home places high above Indian Creek along the Thomas Divide. One of them was the Joe Thad Queen / John Elander Davis place, the cabin of which now resides at the Lufty visitors center above Cherokee. Although I’d been to it around ten times previously, yesterday I discovered a couple of hewn logs with dovetail joints which were used in a small outbuilding – perhaps a crib. A photo is here:
http://home.comcast.net/~doncasada/Pictures/JTQlogs.jpg
So I’d encourage you all to make many returns – especially since you have family roots there.
Now those kinda days is what memories are all about, enjoy them while you can.. My wife and I use to get out a lot and roam in the woods especially in the March, April, and May months, she enjoyed the wild flowers over in the holler, things like Dutchmans britches, Indian Pink, Soloman Seal, False Soloman Seal, I could go on and on…