Otway by Ivaylo

Whitney Brasington sent in this photo taken by her buddy Ivaylo Gueorgiev.  See more of his amazing work at http://ivaylo.org/

Your Moment of Zen (peepers)

From a woodland correspondent

Sharp-eyed Sue Wasserman sent in these exquisite photos of two of our spring ephemeral wild flowers.

Dutchman's Breeches  Dicentra cucullaria

Bloodroot Sanguinaria canadensis

The year of moss

Miika has been social distancing in the woods and she reports that this is the year of moss.

Precious cargo?

Keep 'em safe!

Homeplace takes it out

Pretty sweet. For the time being, Homeplace/Hog Hollow has set up curbside service at the edge of their parking lot. You can call ahead for takeout from Hog Hollow, and Homeplace is filling growlers and selling cans of their flagship Faith Healer beer.

Menu and details are on their Facebook page.

Shit gets real

OK, this is getting serious. They've taken all the ramen!


Please read Jeff's post titled "None of us is as strong as all of us."

The cutest place

I'm going to see if we can post something every day for a while just to reduce the distance between us a bit while we are distancing. I'm following Jeff's beautiful post below (if you read this one, you have to read that one or I will feel bad) with my nomination for the cutest place in Mitchell County. The Sunny Brook Store is on Hwy 19 just past Mayland Community College. I don't have any idea when it closed.

It was the Sunny Brook Store, but apparently it was also a bit of a book store, specializing in the work of local author Gloria Houston. It also says No Candy, which may account for it being closed.

None of us is as strong as all of us

I have been thinking a lot about Miles these days. We need this more than ever.

Last week, as everything seemed to change, I was with a group of students in Copal AA, Guatemala, a small Mayan village formed by 86 refugee families in 1995 in the wake of the genocide in Guatemala. When we got back in internet range and the scale of what was happening in the US became apparent, I kept thinking about how our experience in Copal AA could be useful in this time of social stress. They so embody the sentiment expressed on Miles' headstone.

For example, I was deeply moved by the micro-hydroelectric project the community is working on -- with families donating labor. Since I was there last summer, they had dug a 3/4 km long trench - 1 meter x 1 meter in cross section, with walls and floor of reinforced concrete -- along the contours of a steep jungle slope. Every bit of concrete and rebar had to be hauled in on their backs up a 1 km long muddy road (after the 3 1/2 hour kidney-jarring drive from Coban, the nearest city) and mixed and formed on site. Here's a photo of the mayor of the community telling us about the project and the way they have designed it to protect the river behind. Below is an image of the channel that will carry the diverted water to the turbine. None of us is as strong as all of us.

Donna Jean

My beautiful mother, Donna Jean Dreyer, let go of her life a little after midnight on March 5. Her mind and body had been slowly shutting down for months, a transition she weathered with grace and dignity. Her body was kind enough to show signs that the end was near, so she had some extra visitors on Wednesday and I was able to be in the room with her when she stopped breathing. The lovely people of Yancey House and Compassionate Care were never far away. It was quiet and peaceful in the middle of the night. 

She was a great person: kind, modest, good humored, sensible, with a keen intelligence and an ability to get to the heart of things. She spent her life in service to others—her working life included stints with the American Friends Service Committee, Penland School of Craft, the University of North Carolina School of the Arts, Carolina Theater Company, and Spruce Pine Community Hospital, and she served as a volunteer and advisor to many other organizations.

She was devoted to her family: her husband Bill Dreyer, her three children and their families, her grandchildren and great grandchildren, her parents and siblings, Bill’s parents and siblings (and one special cousin), and her many nieces and nephews.

She was a friend and mentor to many, and her house was always a place of tea and sympathy, not to mention good advice and the occasional hard question. In her latter years she was given help, care, and attention by many of those friends and relatives, and Tammy Hitchcock looked after her in hundreds of ways.

Mom and I were in it together for the long haul. I don’t know when I’ve had a better friend.

(Those last words are from Gordon Lightfoot.)

We’ll have a memorial later in the spring. And special thanks from our family to the folks who helped her for many years through the "laying on of hands": Liz Peverall, Margot Rossi, Astra Coyle, Rachel Swinney, Tom Kaluzynski. Healers, all.

A Hole in Micaville

Remember that old general store in Micaville? No, not the cool looking one that got turned into a gallery. The other one, just past the post office. The one where I used to go looking for Morris Murphy when one of the coolers at the co-op was broken (because that's where he was when he wasn't on a job). It's a hole now.

A hole with a crazy rock wall on the backside.