Indian Summer....

Yes, sonny, this is sure enough Injun summer.

Don't know what that is, I reckon, do you?

Well, that's when all the homesick Injuns come back to play. You know, a long time ago, long afore your granddaddy was born even, there used to be heaps of Injuns around here - thousands - millions, I reckon, far as that's concerned. Reg'lar sure'nuf Injuns - none o'yer cigar store Injuns, not much. They wuz all around here - right here where you are standin'.

Don't be skeered - hain't none around here now, leastways no live ones. They been gone this many a year. They all went away and died, so they ain't no more left.

But every year, 'long about now, they all come back, leastways their sperrits do.

They are here now. You can see'em across the fields. Look real hard. See that kind o' hazy, misty look out yonder? Well, them's Injuns - Injun sperrits marchin' along an' dancin' in the sunlight. That's what makes that kind o' haze that's everywhere - it's jest the sperrits of the Injuns all come back. They're all around us now.

See off yonder; see them teepees? They kind o' look like corn shocks from here, but them's Injun tents, sure as you're a foot high. See'em now? Sure, I knowed you could. Smell that smoky sort o' smell in the air? That's the campfires a-burnin' and their pipes a-goin'.

Lots o' people say it's just leaves burnin', but it ain't. It's the campfires, an' th' Injuns are hoppin' 'round 'em t' beat the old Harry.

You jest come out here tonight when the moon is hangin' over the hill off yonder an' the harvest fields is all swimmin' in the moonlight, an' you can see the Injuns and the teepees jest as plain as kin be. You can, eh? I knowed you would after a little while.

Jever notice the leaves turn red 'bout this time o' year? That's jest another sign o' redskins. That's when an old Injun sperrit gets tired dancin' an' goes up an' squats on a leaf t' rest.

Why, I kin hear 'em rustlin' an' whisperin' an' creepin' 'round among the leaves all the time; an' ever' once 'n a while a leaf gives way under some fat old Injun ghost an' comes floatin' down to the ground.

See - here's one now. See how red it is? That's the warpaint rubbed off'n an Injun ghost, sure's you're born.

Purty soon, all the Injuns'll go marchin' away agin, back to the happy huntin' ground, but next year, you'll see'em troopion' back - th' sky jest hazy with'm and their campfires smoulderin' away jest like they are now.

© Copyright 1907 John McCutcheon

Indian summer is an informal expression given to a period of sunny, warm weather in autumn in the Northern Hemisphere, typically in late October or early November, after the leaves have turned following an onset of frost but before the first snowfall.

Called циганско лято, tsigansko lyato) or Gypsy Summer in Bulgaria, In Sweden it is called "brittsommar", In Germany and Austria it is called "Altweibersommer", in Hungary "vénasszonyok nyara" (Old Ladies Summer or Crone's Summer) and also known as "Saint Luke's summer", as the saint's feast day is October 18.

Thanks to my Great Uncle Norman, who lied about his age to join the Army in 1944, and at the tender age of 17 was assigned to the 28th Infantry, Pennsylvania National Guard, and sent to the Huertgen forest. He survived hopeless odds; His unit had a 110% casualty rate, and in 2 months of fighting in Huertgen, the U.S. Losses were a little over 33,... Read More000 dead (That's almost as many as we lost during the entire Vietnam war). My Uncle received the bronze Star with V for Valor for his part in the Battle of the Huertgen forest. No one in my family knows why, and that in and of itself, is a very sad statement about our society.

When relieved in early December, the 28th-and my Uncle- were sent to a very quiet part of the front for R&R. It was so quiet, it was nicknamed "the Ghost front". The ghost front was right near a little Belgian town called Bastogne.

I was never allowed to tell you thank you Uncle Norman, and it is one of my only regrets in life.

Veterans Day parade 2009

Well, Saturday morning found Pack 49 in downtown on a bright, crisp, clear Autumn morning; perfect for being outside, and perfect for a parade! We were participating in the "Salute to veterans day" parade, as a part of the Mecklenburg council of BSA. Last year was the first year we were in scouts, and we marched then too, but there were only 15-20 of us. This year I started asking people in June from our Council to march, and by the time Saturday morning came around, we had close to 500 scouts in the parade! I dont have a ton of pictures just yet, but here are a few that I took.

We finally get moving!

Boudreaux, Thibadeaux and friend with a dough boy!

Learning how to properly fold a flag courtesy of the fine men and women of VFW Post 9488

"Happy Veterans Day", or "Thank You Veterans Day"??

One week from today is Veterans day, and this weekend, the Mecklenburg Council of BSA will be part of the Salute toVeterans day parade. It's always a lot of fun, but this year promises to be a bigger parade than ever before. I kind of jumped up and down so much about it back in June, that I went and got myself "volunteered" to head things up. It has been a labor of love, but the men and women who have protected us all these years are worth it. I am not worthy of being counted amongst their ranks, but reluctantly, I am. If you have a Veterans day parade in your town, I would urge you to take that hour out of your day, and go down and participate. They gave at least 4 years of their lives up to protect us, is it really so much to ask that you give up one hour a year to say thank you?

If you are a leader in Cub Scouts or Brownies, heres a good project for you to do in the next week with your kids;There are a ton of Veterans Day coloring sheets found online that you can print out for your scouts to color. have them pick from a few different ones, color the sheet and write a small message to a veteran on the back. They can then send the picture to a family member who might be a vet, or who might still be serving. A nice touch is to take a picture of the den and send it along in the letters with a thank you on the back of it. We went an extra step, and got a nice Veterans Day card from hallmark, and had all the kids and leaders sign it, put a picture of the den in it, and then figured out who in the den had the oldest Veteran in their family, and mailed the card to that boys relative (in this case a Great Granpa who was with the 8th Army Air Corps in WWII).

You would be surprised how a simple "thank you" will touch a vets heart; I've seen men who braved the flesh shredding machine gun fire of Okinawa and Guadacanal well up with tears in their eyes because someone simply said thank you to them. Whatever you decide to do, at the very least find a veteran, shake their hand, and tell them you appreciate what they do every day for us .

Beauty for ashes

Okay one and all, if you are looking for my more theological ramblings, they can be found over at "Beauty for Ashes", my WordPress blog. I have decided that i need to keep the two seperate. and that it is time for meto start writing again, so it will be a little more active over there now than it has been in the past.

Our Haunted Halloween Hike to the Robinson Rockhouse Ruins.

Well wouldn't you know it, we went on a hike to a new site, and I forgot to bring my camera! Doh!Doh!Doh! Ah well, I knicked these pictures via Google to illustrate where we were ( I photoshopped them though)and what we saw. Forgive me for the thievery dear reader.

Anyway, Boudreaux, Myself and our fearless pup Molly decided that it was such a nice Halloween afternoon, that a hike through our closest nature preserve was a grand idea. Luckily, we live really close to a fantastic park that is complete with fishing, coyotes, Bobcat, deer, owls, all sorts of distractions, along a series of great trails. We had not decided on what we were going to do until we were at the trail heads, and it occurred to me that we had never been to the Robinson rockhouse. After consulting with my fearless viking, we headed off into the woods. The trail was rather easy, a few steep inclines and a little bit of mud (It had been raining for three days, after all), but aside from that it was a grand journey!

The Robinson rockhouse and the land surrounding it was originally granted to Robert Robinson by George Augustus Selwyn in 1767 and King George III in 1769, so the house itself is 240 years old, and for a Halloween hike, you couldn't have asked for more! To get to the site, you have to take a trail that gets progressively thinner, that farther into the woods you get. There are all sorts of deer trails interspersed along the way, and the only reason you know you are on the right path is by the little metal hiker signs that are on the trees every 10 feet or so. As you get closer to the ruins, you come across this massive orange tree that fell over a few years ago in an ice storm. The park rangers say it was planted by the Robinsons 200 years ago as a shade tree. it's probably a good 5 feet in circumference, just a massive, massive tree. despite being dead, it shows no outward signs of rot.
The ruins-just behind the felled orange tree- of the house are just that, ruins, but vastly impressive in their own right. The city of Charlotte has been going back and forth with historic preservation over archeological rights, as it is the oldest site of it's kind that can be excavated without damaging the remains. As such,it could give us great insight into the lives of some of our counties earliest settlers and their daily lives. There is supposed to be a cemetery somewhere around here too, but my son -6 year olds being the catious lot they are- decided that we weren't going to go looking for that any time soon. The stairs were easily 4 to 5 feet wide, and a foot and a half to two feet thick. No bricks here folks, these were just huge slabs of rock.
As we turned around and started back towards the car, it occurred to me that, what really got me about the ruins (that I did not attempt to explain to Boudreaux) was how much they reminded me of a movie I had seen a few years back about hikers in the woods.
Happy Halloween everyone!!

Our weekend in the clouds.

Well, early Saturday morning found us "city-folk down in the flatlands" with a rained out soccer game, and a rained out football game, so we decided that we'd take a chance, and drive on up to Zirconia, home of Sky Top orchards. It's between the towns of Saluda (where I want to move) and Flat Rock, just N.E. of the DuPont State Forest. (I had a link for the Forest, but it came up as malicious, so if you google it, be warned!).

The day started off cloudy, and as we got closer to the mountains, the clouds gave way to a beautiful Autumn afternoon of sunshine and 70 degrees. Hardly what we thought it was going to be! Apparently, we weren't the only people who had cancelled soccer games, because the parking for SkyTop was thronged. After navigating thru the crowds,we made our choices (Pink Lady for the Cajun princess and sons, and Stayman Winesap for me), got some Apple cider and 1 dozen fresh hot apple cider donuts (they mix fresh pressed apple cider into the batter), and bid farewell to Sky top until our next trip.

We decided that perhaps we'd do a little "leafing", by driving up the Blue Ridge Parkway for a stretch, to see if the color was any better higher up. If you were planning on going up the BRP anytime soon, the next few weeks should be spectacular! We saw good color higher up, but as we climbed the trees changed from Hickory and Oaks, to Spruce and fir, so we lost a lot of the color.... We also lost the sun and the 70 degrees. as low lying clouds lumbered in and the temperature started to cool off. By the time the picture below had been taken, the temperature had dipped to 50.

We watched the clouds come in with some excitement, as the boys chattered about telling classmates on Monday that they had driven thru the clouds. I dont think they had any idea how right they'd be!! The farther up we drove, the heavier the clouds got, until we had visibility of about 5 feet and had slowed down to a respectable 5-10 mph as the winds howled and the temperature dipped even lower...
By the time the picture below was taken of me (at the only rest stop we found that was still open) the temperature had dipped to 38 degrees with a guesstimated wind chill of probably 22 or lower.Suffice it to say, i was not prepared for such a drastic change in the weather, and it is a good thing that we had earlier decided against a short hike we were thinking of doing. I seriously dont think I'll ever go to the mountains again without an extra layer or two stashed in the back of the car.

As we drove along towards home, we caught glimpses thru the trees of mighty Mt. Mitchell, the Highest peak in the U.S, East of the Mississippi.There was no place that I could pull over to get the images I saw, but they were magnificent. the Clouds were below us, the setting sun reflecting golds and reds off the top of the clouds, the top of Mt.Mitchell just peaking up from beneath this fluffy white blanket .

As we drove further down the parkway, the clouds eventually swallowed all of Mt Mitchell in a blanket for the night. I can only imagine how cold it really got up there, and I worried about the bicyclists we had passed on our way down the mountain. I hope they had cars near by, because this was a classic example of how quickly the weather can turn against you if you aren't properly prepared for the unexpected. I've got more pictures, and I'll add them later, but I thought this initial batch would be a good start. Am I planning on going back any time soon? You betcha! Soon, hopefully within the next few weeks, I plan on making a camping trip to Pisgah or the Smokies. I'd love to go to the smokies to see the Elk rut, but I have to see how things pan out.

Finally!!

Well, were off in the morning to go apple picking at Sky Top Orchards!! It's not a hike thru the smokies, but it's outside, in the mountains in October, and so I'll take it!! Hopefully, I'll be able to get some decent pictures to share. If you want fresh NC mountain apples, let me know, maybe I'll send you some!!

The Southern Appalachian Creature Feature

The Southern Appalachian Creature Feature is a short morning radio show broadcast on the best radio station in Western North Carolina(& the only decent one in central NC to boot), WNCW 88.7 . I felt that it is worthy of your time to read about, and definately worth your time to listen to, and is available via the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service's website, as well as iTunes. I have included an MP3 here as an example for you to check out.

The trout economy of western North Carolina The North Mills River, in North Carolina’s Henderson County, is one of Western North Carolina’s most popular trout rivers. I took some time one Friday to enjoy the river and as I was getting ready to head home, I struck up a conversation with another man in the parking area who was arriving. The man was from Texas. His wife had come to the area on business, and when he saw you could trout fish here, he decided to tag along with her. Trout money.mp3 (MP3)

Back entrance to Carl Sandburgs house
~Photo by Me~

Autumn Movement

I cried over beautiful things knowing no beautiful thing lasts.

The field of cornflower yellow is a scarf at the neck of the copper
sunburned woman, the mother of the year, the taker of seeds.

The northwest wind comes and the yellow is torn full of holes,
 new beautiful things come in the first spit of snow on the northwest wind,
 and the old things go, not one lasts.

~Carl Sandburg~