Garden area

The Deer Hunter often jokes that we live on a goat bluff. We’re on the north side of the mountain and like many homes in Appalachia we lack flat ground.

Last weekend after we had weedeated and mowed we set in the backyard and surveyed our work. Everything looks better after you’ve trimmed it up, but this time of the year it really looks good since you can see the thriving green plants throughout the garden areas surrounded by the new foliage of the woods.

As we sat eating a popsicle and trying to cool off under the shade of an apple tree an old song, “Looking for the Stone,” popped into my mind.

I heard several people sing it when I was growing up. Pap never sang the upbeat tune, but for a few folks it became sort of a signature song for them.

Paul Ray and Linda Morgan walked around the front of the church looking behind the benches and around the pulpit as they sang the words. I always enjoyed hearing and seeing them sing it. Paul Ray has one of those voices that has unbelievable power behind it. Almost like he has a built in microphone.

The song tells about the stone (Jesus) which was hewn out of the mountain and came tearing down earthly kingdoms as it rolled along as well as stressing the importance of looking for that stone.

I’m not sure who wrote it, but I wonder if its a traditional song with an unknown author because there’s so many variations of the lyrics.

The catchy chorus will become embedded in your mind and pop up at random times like it did to me.

Our mountainside garden produces an awful lot of food to feed our family and it was most definitely hewn out of the side of the Appalachian mountains.

If you’d like to hear the song go here. It’s not the same lyrics I’m used to hearing but it’s still good.

Last night’s video: Making Granny’s Oven Potato Chips.

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18 Comments

  1. That is a beautiful garden. I hope you will post pictures from that spot weekly so we can see the garden grow and mature.

    The photo has upset my mental image of y’all’s place. I had envisioned that if I stood in the front, the parking area and driveway would be on the left – facing the house – and lead downhill. to the left Now I have to rearrange that image as it appears that the driveway and parking pad are on the right and downhill is to the right. Where is Granny’s house? Behind the camera?

    Funny how one’s mind can so easily draw the wrong conclusions.

    Do you have land in front of the house where you and Matt could make another bench for gardening?

    Larry, get well soon.

    Blessings to all!

    1. RH-thank you! Granny’s house is down the hill below the garden 🙂 Our land is steep on all sides, but we’re always trying to hew out a little more flat space by building terraced garden beds or pushing farther into the woods and backfilling as we go.

  2. I love the peaceful picture you posted of your garden & porch. My image of heaven. You were saying you live on a sloped area, so I had a question. Do you & folks in your area ever have mud slides & do y’all worry about that happening?
    I plan to try Granny’s oven potatoes today! They looked delicious!
    AWGRIFF, I prayed for you to have a good day today, and I hope you are. May God hold your hand & have an arm around your shoulder.

    1. Cheryl-I’ve never known of a mudslide happening in my general area, but there has been several in Western NC over the last few years.

  3. What a beautiful picture of your garden! To be able to sit out on a porch swing and see that would be pure heaven! I know ya’ll are so proud of it. Also, we love oven potato chips too!

  4. That song was lovely! I’d never heard it until now. Thank you for sharing it with us. The old gossip hymn type songs always bring back good memories from the church I attended as a youth and had given my heart to Jesus during a Sunday evening service alter call. Sweet memories!

  5. That is a beautiful picture and clearly shows all the hard work you and Matt have accomplished. When I was younger, I could have run down those wooden stairs with my feet hardly touching them but now-a-days, I look for a railing to hold on to:) Tipper, your oven baked potato chips look delicious although I’ve never tried to make them, I might give that a try.

  6. Your garden and yard too look really really nice! The pride and respect for what you have shines through in all you and Deer Hunter do. Going to check that song out too- sounds just like the ROCK I’m established on and ain’t I glad about that???? If it ain’t wind and cold here, it’s rain. I really have never seen assault like this on my world in every way the devil and his hinch demons can think of… (btw, devil, you lost and lost miserably to heaven- the ROCK crushed green beasts head. I thought I’d remind the old green rotten stinky ugly thing that he’s got a severe ego problem…)

  7. I love this picture you posted. I can imagine sitting on the porch overlooking the garden, spending time in solitude and praising Jesus for the bounty you are about to receive from it and also for what He did for us.

  8. One glance at your all’s place tells a story that a knowledgeable eye can plainly read. It looks a picture now but you all have had to put extra work into your situation. Your choice of the word “hewing” is very apt. But in the process, you all have learned more and now know more than those with easier circumstances. And you get a harvest of greater gratitude when the hard work pays off than those who invest less. (As we each do in life.) I don’t say it well but I know that you know what I mean.

    Coping with that difficult area gives you real insight into how the pioneers had to search for land and plan for a farmstead. They had to figure on food for themselves and for livestock and time and energy to put all the pieces of clearing, plowing, planting, building, fencing, cutting firewood etc together within; for one example, last and first frost. No wonder cabin and barn raisings were a folkway. Even if they could have done it themselves as far as skills, they didn’t have time in the beginning. The first three years the outcome hung in some doubt.

  9. I use to hear that song in church many years ago but for the life of me I can’t remember who sang it. I did enjoy their verson but the lyrics were different.

    The farm I, my brother and sister now own has come down through the family from my great grandparents. It’s not really much of a farm but is special to me. On the north side of the hill there is a bench about 1/3 of the way to the ridge. That bench was hewn out and one of my uncles, all gone home, told me about hoeing corn on that flat bench. That bench is now grown up in timber. Well anyways, he would tell of all the copperheads he killed while hoeing.

  10. Your garden really looks beautiful as does your yard with all the hostas growing. I hope you have an abundance of vegetables to reward yall for all the hard work that goes into it. I listened and enjoyed Looking For the Stone. I’ve never heard it before but hope to keep the melody and words tucked away in my head for a long time. ❤

  11. Bless you, Tipper. We live on the side of a mountain too and it’s a wonder that anything I plant will poke its head out of the ground but it does.

    Thank you for mentioning that song. I remember my great aunt singing it while she worked out in the garden.

  12. Tipper, you and the Deer Hunter have made a wonderland out of the side of the mountain, and that’s a fact. You produce more than many flat ground gardens. It’s about your intentions! You two made a decision together to grow a garden, against all odds, on the side of the mountain and you have done exactly that…for several years now.
    My hat is off to you both. I just love how you made the decision then did it!

  13. Your garden is absolutely beautiful…tell the Deer Hunter that the work both of you have done is picture worthy, framed and on the wall to remember. I am experimenting with some raised bed, not easy to plant as it used to be, an so far I am preparing for next spring already. Thanks also for your kind words…looking forward to Friday already. God Bless

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