Our meadow is as lush as I’ve ever seen it. Thick grass reaches past my knees and spreads in a green swathe from fence row to fence row, sparkling with buttercups. The elusive meadowlark, my favorite songbird, trills sweetly from secret places hidden in the green. Rarely, I catch a flash of yellow as it flies, just before it tucks down again. Sandy brown killdeer dart around the edges of the pond on long legs, sounding that wild funny cry peculiar to them.

Green-blue water fills the banks of the pond, painfully parched last summer. Migrating mallards and ruddy ducks ripple over the surface, bobbing bottoms up. The air fills with gossipy quacks. Ducks are contented creatures. Not so our plump gray and white barnyard geese. Their honking clash and chatter punctuates life on the farm, more or less, depending on their current level of hysteria.

Some of these geese have been here time out of mind, waddling about with broken useless wings. They remind me of nervous old ladies who can’t find their glasses and are forever misplacing their grandchildren. More than once we’ve rescued a frantic gosling inadvertently left behind by its addled elders in a hole wallowed by the cows. Silly, silly geese. I chide the dogs when they’re tempted to chase and annoy them--too easy and it doesn’t seem fair. Our dogs aren't nearly as bold around the Canadian geese that also nest here. The gander fiercely defends his young and doesn't accept excuses.

There’s a country saying about the number of foggy mornings in August being an indicator for the amount of snows we will have this winter. A great many, at this rate. But this weekend a cold front blew through and a crisp north wind chased away the clouds that had hung over us for days. The van was making disquieting noises, so my husband and I borrowed our son’s truck and headed up to the Blue Ridge Mountains along the Skyline Drive. The ridges were free of their hazy shroud and every tree stood out with clarity in the beautiful green-gold light. It was one of those clear blue, see forever days and we gazed out over miles and miles of the lush valley and the Massanutten Mountain range. The Alleghenies loomed in the far distance.

Lunch at the Big Meadows lodge was a delight with a seat by the window overlooking the magnificent panorama. Then we hiked the rocky path up Bear Fence Mountain, stepping on a bit of smashed up rattlesnake tail on the way. It was my fervent hope not to encounter any living relations as we climbed from stone to stone. The sign that told about the trail had advised caution, but said it wasn’t a dangerous trek. Well, no, not if you don’t fall to your death.

As we neared the summit, the arrangement of the jagged rocks reminded me of the fence that early settlers built around their pig pen to keep the bears from snatching the bacon and must be where that unusual name comes from. My husband ventured farther up the pinnacle than I did, but he’s part mountain goat. The gaps between the jutting stones kept me to the initial level. He wanted to pull me up to his vantage point but that would have meant letting go of my tenuous hold with at least one hand. Even so, I absorbed enough of the dizzying vista below for my spirit to soar with the eagles. As we drove back out of the park we saw a line of stopped cars and people pointing to something hidden back in the trees––our third bear sighting this summer. Must be a good sign. Bears are mystical creatures with much power, according to the Shawnee.

©2007 Beth Trissel from Shenandoah Watercolors

Photo by John Churchman

Shenandoah Watercolors: Hiking in the Blue Ridge Mountains at Milam’s Gap

By Beth Trissel

The sun was low in the sky and the woods dusky as my husband and I hiked the Milam’s Gap trail in the Blue Ridge Mountains. How green and still it was among the hay-scented fern, and the twilight mild and sweet, like a melody softly played. Few birds called. The flutelike trill of a thrush sounded overheard and a robin flew into the ancient apple trees that mark the beginning of the walk. Gnarled, lichen-encrusted, branches thrust high above us.

Milam’s Gap apple trees are far removed from the modern day dwarfs. These relics from the past were planted by the mountain people who once lived here and were coveted as the apples for cider and apple butter making. An old mountain woman told me. The ridges and hollows still bear the names of these stalwart souls, like Lewis and Dean Mountain, Hensley, Kemp and Corbin Hollow, Hannah Run Trail, and Mary’s Rock.

More menacing names, Rattlesnake Point, Dark Hollow and Ghost Forest also remain. The invisible presence of these people seemed to linger in these woods where their log homes once nestled, smoke rising from the old stone hearths, corn cakes sizzling on the griddle. What must life have been like for those hardy folks? Cold much of the time, and hard, I should think.

I envisioned the women and girls in calico dresses, the men and boys in worn pants and overalls, gathering chestnuts, hazelnuts and wild berries, clearing patches of ground to grow corn and vegetable gardens, sorghum for molasses, struggling to keep a few pigs, chickens, and cows alive. A bear snatching the pig the family had been fattening to supplement their winter diet must have been quite a loss. Trips to town would have been arduous and rare, the supplies purchased slim: perhaps flour, sugar, salt and cornflakes for a special treat, cloth, gun powder and shot for hunting. Timber, orchards, livestock and the lucrative moonshine trade helped to supplement what was quite a self-sufficient lifestyle.

Doctors were hard to come by and the people often doctored themselves. Anyone who was a healer, whether with plants, charms or incantations, would have been highly sought after. Some healers specialized in one thing, like wart removal, or in the stopping of blood from a gushing wound. Others claimed to have special stones called mad stones to cure the dreaded bite of a rabid animal. We can only imagine this long gone time.

©2007 Beth Trissel