A Girl of Uncommon Courage

   My eyes were racing across the winter scorched pasture lands, racing towards the west when loose gravel at the side of the road, grabbed at my tires.

“Sorry,” I said and focused again on the twisted indigo road. I slowed this time before looking back towards the west.  My eyes craved what was there, for my eyes burned and my soul felt scorched. A brush with family, where love and loyalty should have been certain, had ended with only a wounded heart. Across the last brown field to the timberline and up ...there at last, the fading shades of blue and gray mountains, fading into mist and distance. My eyes slid across them like a polished stone beneath finger tips. They cooled the eyes and promised to sooth the soul… but could not. The burning was too great. I looked back to the road, disappointed.

“I don’t get it”, I said quietly. “How can they be that way? They won’t stand up to what they know is wrong.”

My mother rode beside me. I had just been speaking out loud to myself, but she answered.

“It is very clear to me,” she said. She was looking towards the mountains as well, her white hair blended into the wisp of clouds that capped the mountains.  “There is right and there is wrong! And if you believe in it, then you need to be there- completely,” she stated.

 “Be there completely’, I had never heard those exact words from my mother, but I knew instantly of what she spoke. Something my father had told me. There was something deep and powerful that lived inside her that few knew of, for she was a quiet one. So quiet, that many did not notice her in a crowded room, for her words were few. But in her, was this thing, powerful, quiet thing, like granite beneath soft earth. This thing made me smile when nothing else could. I heard my father’s laughter from long ago.

“You should have seen her,” he laughed. “Nobody better tell that West Virginia girl how she should think. Not even a U.S Marine Corp F-ing sergeant” I was laughing now as I remembered, a day very long before I was even born.

When my parents had been living in South Carolina. My father was a drill instructor in the marine corp., my mother, just that, a young mother in a strange home, both of them just about 19 years old.

“I was a junior sergeant and I needed to stay in the good graces of my superiors.  It was how things worked, you know”, he had told me. “I had invited one of my seniors sergeants home for dinner. You were expected to socialize with them.”

  There were 2 senior drill instructors and a junior with every platoon. The seniors gave the orders, set the way things were to be done; the juniors did as they were told.  The seniors would make or break a new soldier, even more so for a junior D.I. The seniors were usually combat veterans of the toughest sort. ‘Salty’ as they said, which meant they were almost too tough and arrogant to even take orders from an officer. Most defiantly not going to take orders from someone they thought of as lesser soul.

So there they are, my mother had cooked dinner. A baby, my oldest sister played on the floor at their feet. The senior makes a huge mistake, he starts using the “N” word. I can only imagine that at this time in rural South Carolina, the senior D.I never thought he would meet objection to the use of this word.  It flowed from his lips as easily as his exhaled breath. He should have thought twice!

This is a word absolutely forbidden in our house. Even for the important telling of this story, it will not be used other then as the “N” word for it is considered a word truly evil to my mother and all that are part of her. Even to use it as the “N” word has only been done carefully, too educate our children of a word, that it represents that is not to ever cross their lips. A word they are not too tolerating from those around them, for it carries so much hate.

The senior starts using this word. He starts telling nasty stories, my father says. “I looked at Bev and I think Oh God!  I know I am in trouble! He’s my senior for God’s sake; he can destroy me, my father states. “Do you understand? He can destroy me when I go back to work on the base.  I have seen it done. If I make him angry I will be marched into the ground. I will be undermined in front of the troops till they have no respect for me and orders will no longer be followed. I will be run out of the marine corp. And I am looking at Bev’s face and she is already angry.

“It’s OK Bev,” I whisper to her. ”Just let it go,” but I know it is too late.

“We don’t use that word here,” my mother tells him clearly. The senior looks surprised.

“What” he asks? “All I said was …” and he says it again.

“That word,” my mother is now livid. “You will not use that word around my children,” she tells him. Now she didn’t mind cussing, that came with the Corp. But this talk of bigotry and hate was of another thing altogether.

“Well Jesus all I said was...” and he uses it again.

My mother is on her feet now.

“Get him out of the house Barclay,” she orders. She is just glaring at him across the table.

“I can’t kick him out Bev, he’s my senior”, he whispers. Whispers, even though the man is sitting right there.

“Get him out of my house,” my mother orders again.  

“Jesus Christ, Bondurant, what the hell’s wrong with her all I said was…” and he says it again.

“Out of my house”, my mother orders. She is on her feet and squared off to the senior and points for the door. “You will not speak that way under my roof, in front of my children.

“Jesus, Bondurant, can’t you control her?” the senior asks in astonishment.

“Control her”, my father had laughed and his eyes sparkled as he told me this story.

“Get the Hell out of my house,’ my mother ordered again. The man was on his feet now and not going. So she pushed the man for the door. He looked so surprised, my father recalled. No one had ever gotten away with talking to him this way.

“Out’ she shouted and shoved him out the door.

  Now at this point of the story my father paused and leaned closer to me, his eyes sparkled with pride and a smile turned beneath his mustache. He tells me, “Do you understand? This is a senior drill instructor for the best armed forces in the whole world! This is one of the men that make the toughest, best fighting warriors in the whole of earth and salty as hell. These seniors had just come back from combat and simply were not afraid of anything. Your mother kicked him out of the house! She was only 19 years old and tiny, and he is stumbling backwards into the yard in disbelief and he keeps saying to me “what the hells the matter with her Bondurant? Can’t you control her?’  My father laughs and shakes his head every time he repeats the part “Control her? “

“She’s standing on the porch pissed as hell and pointing at this man,” my father says.

“I wasn’t raised around talk like that and I am sure as hell not going to let you speak that way under my roof, around my babies, now you get the hell out of my yard and don’t come back”, she shouts at him.

“What did you do daddy,” I had asked?  

I told him, “You better leave. You don’t talk like that around her and you should know better than to piss off a West Virginia girl.”

“Well Jesus Christ, I can see that Bondurant,” he said and he left, shaking his head and mumbling to himself.

“Did you get in trouble,” I asked. My father laughed and clapped his hands in joy, when he spoke his words dripped with pride.

“He didn’t dare! What the hell was he going to do? Tell all the other D.I.s how a 110 pound, little West Virginia Girl kicked his Marine Corp. ass out of her house and off the property?”

 “I was so worried at the time, thinking Christ, what kind of trouble is she getting me into! I didn’t like how he was talking anymore than she did, but I didn’t think I could do anything to stop it. She was absolutely right in what she did!”

“How was she so brave,” I had asked? I tried to imagine myself in her shoes, when I was only 18 and the courage did not fit me.  I remember how my father got quiet then, and a faraway look came to his eyes.

 “She knew it was wrong. She just knew it was so wrong and that she had to stand up to it. That is how her daddy had raised her. Some things are just that important; that you have to be there whether you want to or not and do all you can to stop it.”

“Did you know she was like that, I mean before it happened?” I asked.

“I knew I had married a beautiful girl, I knew I had married a strong, smart girl, I did not know till that night that I had married a girl of uncommon courage”, he told me and laughed. “She taught me that if you believed in something you had to be there for it, no matter who you had to stand up to.”

 

Endless

Endless, swirling, deep blue cold. You could fall into its’ endless deep blue and swim forever, if only you could fall into the sky, I thought. I stood with my head bent back so far, I was close to falling over myself, as I tried to take in all of the ocean of sky at once. There were just some days when the sky could fool a person with how wet and blue it could look. This was one of those days. And the white, frothy clouds on the far western hills were the crest of giant waves. I straightened, feeling dizzy as my eyes made land fall again. I had no more time for “sky swimming’ today! We had burned most of the wood cooking the last run of sap and there would be little time to cut and stack the pile before bad weather came again. Snow was on its way, but for now the air was warm and the forest seemed to be wakening like a rowdy crowd to the sun and blue above.

I was walking down the East side of our mountain where the land fell steeply away, down to Dry River far below. We would cut wood on the roll of the hill, just before the land became too steep to carry wood from. From this spot the opposing mountain climbed abruptly up to tower above the river and our mountain. Second Mountain, this part was a no man’s land. I would often stop to glance across the air filled distance between my mountain and Second, to scan it’s rugged face for the distant shape of bear or deer. There were hardly ever any, so steep only boulder fields and strong, rooted trees could cling to its’ side.

A tremendous sound rolled through the gorge between mountains, making me hesitate. Must be the river, still swollen from the recent rains, I thought. I gripped tight to a tree and leaned far out to peer over the cliff to the river below. Small rows of ripples moved along the gray rivers width, but it was much quieter than it had been a few days ago. The roar grew louder, faded then grew again. I looked up into the trees but no branches stirred above me. Perhaps a wind was rolling down from the western mountains and would soon sweep across the ridge I stood upon.


Sometimes the wind would roll across the ridge tops and if you waited, a few minutes later the cold breath would wash across your face and shoulders like an unseen wave. The sound grew louder and louder, I waited, anxious to feel the first touch of the cold wind. It would not be good to cut trees in a wind so mighty as this wind sounded. Yet nothing came, nothing moved. I spun around looking in all directions. Nothing! I began to scan from the gorges bottom, climbing up the far mountain. Letting my eyes climb where my body could not. Up, towards the low lying Oaks to the boulder fields. Nothing was moving! Up, up towards a great swath of emerald green that crested the mountains western face, and further up to the mountains highest point. My eyes stopped on the patch of green.The emerald, green that was made of huge white pines.

I suddenly knew, the pines were the source. They swayed and jerked violently as if they would be ripped from the Earth at any moment. Swaying in a terrible current of wind, that could not be seen. I raised a hand bare into the air as if I would be able to feel the great wind from where I stood. My air was still, My mountain still. The roar was steady now, and my heart raced as I watched the tremendous force rip at the pines. The current s of wind must be so much greater there then at the lower elevations. Surely they would give I thought . I pitied them. To be up so high upon a mountain top, rooted deep into the earth with no way to escape. They stood helpless at the most exposed ridge, where nothing could stop the great western winds that poured out across the Ohio River valley and through the West Virginia hills to slam into the first mountains of Virginia. Like a huge under water torrent of a mighty ocean, the current ripped between the mountain tops. It was thrilling and frightening. Then I realized, nothing else on the mountain was moving to the wind, anywhere. Only the pines, growing in a solid patch where only they could lay within the fierce winds reach. Laying in wait, to mob the wind.

They settled and all was quiet and still like nothing had happened. Then as suddenly the roar was back and the trees raised their green arms again and swayed and danced into the wind once more. I laughed out loud but the sound was lost to the crowd.” So you like it there “,I asked them? They roared and swayed crazily in response. I understood now. Sky swimming! The pines had always been sky swimmers.

Sour Dough Apple Cake

Honestly, I came up with this cake because I had way to many apples that needed used yesterday and more sourdough starter then three chuck wagon cooks could use.This cake is very good and makes up quickly! I bake it in a cast iron skillet and when done it looks really cool!

3/4 cup of flour
1 cup of sugar
1 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. cinnamon
1/4 nutmeg
1/4 tsp. salt
4 apples, peeled & sliced thick
1/3 cup butter
1 cup sour dough starter
2 eggs

Preheat oven to 350.
Mix together the flour,  1/2 cup sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg & salt.
Peel and slice apples and cover with the other half of sugar.
Place the iron skillet with the butter in the hot oven, careful not to burn the butter.
Beat eggs and sourdough together.
Mix the flour and sourdough egg mixture together, don't over mix.
Take the hot skillet from the oven and pour the batter into it.

Arrange the apple slices on the top of the batter. They will sink a bit. The batter will begin to bubble and rise right away as it hits the hot pan.
Bake for about 45 minutes or until the apples are tender and the batter test clean on a knife.

Let set for 15 to 20 minutes then serve warm.

Sour Dough Biscuits

Ingredients & Preparation

You will need
·         2 cups All Purpose Flour ·         2 cups Sourdough Starter ·         1tbsp Baking Powder ·         1tbsp Sugar ·         1tsp Salt ·         3tbsp Soft Butter	Serves: 20-30 small biscuits Preparation Time: 15 Cooking Time: 25-30 minutes Oven Temperature: 400

Unless you hang out with people that cook with Dutch ovens over campfires ( like our family)  or hang out with chuck wagon cooks, then you probably have not had biscuits quite like these. They are a great way to have fresh, hot bread while camping, cooked in a Dutch oven with coals from a campfire. When baked they look like a jig saw puzzle of sorts that break apart into small, golden topped, oblong biscuits with a tender snow white center.

 This recipe has no added fats, but they are best when served hot with a bit of butter to melt into the center. We have made these  biscuits for many years over the family cooking pit, for many a family reunion. Add them to any meal as the bread portion or as the main dish for a tasty breakfast served with butter, jams or apple butter.

Step 1:

 Preheat oven to 400.

Grease well a cast iron skillet, Dutch oven or casserole dish.

 Sift flour, baking powder, sugar and salt together into a large bowl.

Stir sourdough starter well, before measuring out your portion

.Pour the starter into the flour and mix well. Now rub soft butter on your hands and test a walnut size piece of dough.

The dough should be sticky and wet but able to hold a shape when rolled between the hands.

Adjust as needed with flour or a small amount of water or starter to get the right consistency.

 Step 2:

With hands well buttered begin to roll walnut size balls of dough between your palms. Place into the greased dish or skillet.

Crowd them in; they won’t stick together after baking.Now let them rest for 10 to 15 minutes before baking.

Step 3:

When the dish is full place in hot oven to bake.

Biscuits are done when golden brown on top and they separate easily.

Serve hot with butter

.If cooking in a traditional oven, it may be necessary to set biscuits under a broiler for a few minutes at the end of baking, to achieve the golden brown top that is easier to get with Dutch oven cooking.

Sour Dough Biscuits

Ingredients & Preparation

You will need
·         2 cups All Purpose Flour ·         2 cups Sourdough Starter ·         1tbsp Baking Powder ·         1tbsp Sugar ·         1tsp Salt ·         3tbsp Soft Butter	Serves: 20-30 small biscuits Preparation Time: 15 Cooking Time: 25-30 minutes Oven Temperature: 400

Unless you hang out with people that cook with Dutch ovens over campfires ( like our family)  or hang out with chuck wagon cooks, then you probably have not had biscuits quite like these. They are a great way to have fresh, hot bread while camping, cooked in a Dutch oven with coals from a campfire. When baked they look like a jig saw puzzle of sorts that break apart into small, golden topped, oblong biscuits with a tender snow white center.

 This recipe has no added fats, but they are best when served hot with a bit of butter to melt into the center. Add them to any meal as the bread portion or as the main dish for a tasty breakfast served with butter, jams or apple butter.

Step 1:

 Preheat oven to 400.

Grease well a cast iron skillet, Dutch oven or casserole dish.

 Sift flour, baking powder, sugar and salt together into a large bowl.

Stir sourdough starter well, before measuring out your portion

.Pour the starter into the flour and mix well. Now rub soft butter on your hands and test a walnut size piece of dough.

The dough should be sticky and wet but able to hold a shape when rolled between the hands.

Adjust as needed with flour or a small amount of water or starter to get the right consistency.

 Step 2:

With hands well buttered begin to roll walnut size balls of dough between your palms. Place into the greased dish or skillet.

Crowd them in; they won’t stick together after baking.Now let them rest for 10 to 15 minutes before baking.

Step 3:

When the dish is full place in hot oven to bake.

Biscuits are done when golden brown on top and they separate easily.

Serve hot with butter

.If cooking in a traditional oven, it may be necessary to set biscuits under a broiler for a few minutes at the end of baking, to achieve the golden brown top that is easier to get with Dutch oven cooking.

The Lost Pup Wine

 Old timers speak of the years the mountains take and then give. 

The summer drought that crushed nearly every garden in the mountains, to a brown powder, 

gave something back, a bumper crop of wild grapes.

  Fox Grapes as those old timers called them, and if you ever walked along a game trail in

 the Alleghenies in late fall then you would know why. In the frosted nights of fall, foxes move

 quietly beneath the high climbing vines, vacuuming up any tasty fruit knocked down by

 squirrels, bird or wind. Purple scat dots the ground. If you watch the ground for these signs

 you will soon know which trees hide the fruited vines.

  They are almost hard, deep purple and no bigger than the tiniest blueberry. More seed then

 fruit, but as you roll them inside your mouth like tiny pebbles and squeeze out their small

 treasure of juice, you will know without doubt, the taste they will yield for jelly, juice and wine

 is unfound in private vineyards.

 We are very lucky!  The wild grape loves our sunny mountain top. In the back yard near the

 forest edge there is an old Dogwood tree that is a special tree to us. Beneath it is the final

 resting place for the dogs that shared our lives and guarded us here on the mountain.  In the

 spring it blooms white, four petal flowers and in the fall it supports in the crown a tangled wild

 vine of grapes.

 We pull down the vines thin ends to reach the clusters. Then the wisest of our old timers, my

 mother takes over to harvest the grape bunches, teaching her granddaughters as she works.

 Speaking to them of the things that they will need to know till they are old timers.

“…don’t harvest the grapes till after the last frost.”

“..the best ones are at the top of the tree, the hardest to get.”

“..Don’t eat the green ones or you’ll spit powder for a week.”

“…you must harvest what the mountain offers, it is a gift."

 From this gathering we will make 2 batches of grape jelly for morning toast. A batch of juice for

 eager young grand children and five gallons of wild grape wine. This wine we have always

 called “Our Lost Pup Wine’ and it will help to make the chilly, long nights of winter a little warmer.

Pretty Speckled Eggs

I raise coturnix quail for their eggs. Beautiful speckled eggs that are sold to 
restaurants  for gourmet  dishes.

They lay lots of eggs, more then I can sell.

A good farmer would butcher or sell them off till there was enough to 
just fill orders. But I just can't!

 You see, I raised them by hand.

They have known their friend hand since they were 3 days old.

They love Hand! They do not know the critter attached to Hand, they pay no 
attention to it. Only to their friend Hand.

Hand is a friend that drops by twice a day just to say "Hi." Hand brings them 
yummy food and fresh clean water.

Hand holds them when they are sick and pats their head sometimes, 
for no reason.

Hand tidies up their pen and gathers their eggs.

They rush to Hand when it comes inside the pen and talk to it, 
with soft happy chirps.

Sometimes Hand is a little rude and forgets to listen, so they peck gently 
at Hand till Hand pays attention again, then they go back to what they 
were saying.

So how can Hand hurt them?

It would break Hand's heart!

How We Have Changed Them

How We Have Changed Them.

When Thomas Jefferson had milk cows, he worked hard at changing them from what they were, to what he wanted. A cow made enough milk to feed a calf, a few pounds at most, from an udder small and compact. Through extensive breeding for the right dairy traits, he was able to bring the milk production of a cow up to five to six pounds of milk a day. This was an amazing amount for that time and something to be talked about amongst gentlemen farmers. A gallon of milk weighs just over 8 pounds.

We made them change to produce more milk for us, we wrestled their calves away from them to do this, calves they did not want to give up, a baby that did not want to be taken. We made them tame to make this all easier.

When I was a herdsman I had to make tough decisions. I had to decide who in the herd was worth keeping, which would be kept for another year, which would be sold to slaughter.  I would have to go to the field and take newborn calves from their mothers. It was a very sad business at times. Sometimes it was not.

We have changed them. We have made them wider to carry calves better.  We have made their udders bigger to make more milk. We have turned them into machines that are made to get pregnant, to make lots of milk.

I have seen cows with udders big as large duffel bags, large enough to carry a small adult inside. Udders so big the cows can hardly walk. A cow these days had better produce 80 pounds of milk a day. If she would slip in production to below 30, I would have to sell her. We now have cows that produce 125 pounds of milk a day. We give growth hormones to make them mature at a younger age and to make them produce even more milk. Then we give that milk to our children and wonder why our little girls are growing up to early.

These hormones use up a cow early. A cow can be in production for many years, but if on rbst (bovine somatotropin) for an extended time the cow will burn out her life in short order. The FDA has made it very tricky to label the milk containers. After all rbst is also a naturally occurring hormone and there are trace amounts in the milk from untreated cows. Therefore why should the milk plant be required to admit that there is even more hormones in the milk, its all natural after all!. But nature does not mainline large amounts of hormones straight into the cows tail head, as I did.

We could avoid these added hormones all together by only buying organic milk. But that would mean buying organic yogurt, butter, sour cream, cheese, ice cream and on and on. That can be very expensive, so only buying organic is not an option for many people.

We have changed the dairy cow in so many ways. We have changed their bodies, their milk and how they act. Today the herdsman can go the field to get a new calf from the mother. The mother does not even challenge the herdsman. Sometimes the cow has not even cleaned the calf. She calves, the calf hits the ground and the mother turns her back on it. The calf turns its back on the mother. Their connection is broken with the umbilical cord. The cow may not even want to nurse the calf, she will just wander off towards the milk parlor to be milked. With her udder so big she waddles.

How we have changed them is obvious. What we have changed in doing so, is a little sad and more then a little worrisome!.

I Like to Chop Wood!

    I like to chop wood.  Sometimes when I feel stressed and my mind is overwhelmed with too many worries, I will go chop wood till my muscles are tired and my mind is calm. Sometimes I have to chop wood when I don’t want to, when the weather is very cold or the rain is falling, but still I like to chop. My father gave me a small ax when I was about 7 and taught me to use it carefully, to make kindling for starting the fires. While I nibbled away at my small pieces of wood, he would smash huge logs apart with a single swing and a sound like lightening cracking through rock.

He did it so easily, with hardly any effort.

I wanted to chop just like him, someday. I wanted to see big logs fly apart as a great crack of thunder split the air. I practiced a lot, taking on big logs and swinging with all my might. I watched him closely trying to learn his secret.  He tried to teach me.

My logs would not split, my ax would bounce off and I would swing again and again till my arms shook and I wanted to cry from frustration.

“Just do it easily,” he would tell me. “You are trying too hard, take easy swings, let the handle slip easy through your hands.”

I tried. It did not work!

“It is because you are so strong,” I said.

“No,” he assured me. “It is not strength. You can do it,” but he did not know what to tell me, to make me able to split the wood.

 I swung with anger! I swung with frustration!

It did not work! It was easy for him, he was powerful. I could split smaller ones; I could make piles of kindling.  I tried and tried and only failed to split the big logs. I tried for many years.

One day my mother watched me try. I groaned and cursed in frustration.

“You will get it,” she told me.

“I will not! I have tried everything,” I said angrily.

“You will,” she said. “Because I am going to teach you the one thing you need to know that no one has told you. Pick up the ax and close your eyes,” she said. I did as she said.

“Now imagine that the wood is not there, only the Earth,” she told me. I did as she said.

“But how will this help,” I asked.

“Now imagine that you are going to split the Earth,” she said.

I was reluctant, but I swung. The wood gave some but not enough.

“It did not work,” I told her.

“That is because you are still thinking of the wood,” she said.

“How can I not,” I asked? “The wood is still there, I still see it.”

“The wood is only in the way. You don’t care about the wood, you will only pass through it on your way to split the whole Earth in two. Now imagine it in your mind.” I closed my eyes for a moment and imagined the swing of my ax, the piece of wood melting apart like a smoky shadow as my ax sliced through it on the way to the Earth. The Earth splitting into two hemispheres, that fell apart into outer space.

My ax was already swinging through the air as I opened my eyes; the ax head sliced through the wood and fell apart into two pieces.

I remember that I shouted and jumped into the air. I remember the triumph that filled my chest like a choking powerful force. Finally, after all these years, I had done it!

“You will never forget how to do it now,” she told me and I never have forgotten.

 So I like to split wood. It relaxes me. It calms me. I have a huge noisy, hydraulic splitting machine that can split wood so easily, but I do not use it, only my ax. When I use it I can hear the birds singing, the wind in the pines above. I can hear the voice of my father giving me advice, when he no longer walks this Earth with me. When I chop, I can think and remember and I can hear my Mothers quiet words that finally let me hear the Earth split in two.