Rural Heritage

I had some interesting experiences yesterday. I went to a Rural Heritage Festival in the next town over here in SC, and later went to a meeting with co-members of an environmental group concerning "mountain top removal" in WVA and SC responsibility for it. One of he major commonalities of them for me, was that the majority of folks that I talked to at both were farmers. We'd expect that at a Rural Heritage Festival, but at a meeting about coal mining?

Most of us here living in the United States do have rural heritage, although further back than this festival was celebrating. Up to the 1910s, most people in the US lived in rural areas. Currently 21% of the United States is still rural, with 4 states mostly rural (Mississippi, West Virginia, and Maine and Vermont). My father's family were farmers from at least the time they moved to North Carolina (around 1795 from Virginia), up to my grandfather. My father used to say that it's good that my grandfather was a "hobby farmer", because the farm never made any money. I grew up in a rural area (and still am in a rural county), the neighbors farmed - we didn't. I read my grandfather's copies of "Progressive Farmer" and "Organic Gardening and Farming" and later my own copies of "Organic Gardening" (they had spun New Farm into its own magazine) and "Mother Earth News" - but I never really developed my own green thumb. I do remember the neighbors plowing with mules, and the smell of spring: organic fertilizer on the fields. In my 20s, I spent five years leading month-long wilderness trips, such things as being able to build fires during a snowfall - while rural, its not what we think of as "rural heritage". Because, RH is nostalgia talk for farm life.

We bought some things at the RHF, wine from a "local" winery (is 76 miles local?), rice from the local rice farm (22 miles, less if we could go as the crow flies). The rice farm uses renewal energy, and is organic. The local organic sheep farm (15 miles) will be in town next week at the marketplace (bringing more items), so will buy our cheese then (no, its not sheep cheese). Other exhibits including "marsh tacky horses", fishing rods casting, medicinal plants, birds of prey, bluegrass, "water watch" , tips for gardening, recycled water barrels, boiled peanuts, and BBQ sauce (vinegar based for Eastern Carolina folks). The big tech thing was growing switchgrass for bioenergy and the hopes for farmers for that. the local papermill is building biofuel (corn however) mills.

the environmental meeting was held on Saturday night, at a home not that far distant so that I was able to go. There was someone down (literally) from the Appalachians to talk about Mountain Top removal - strip mining removal of mountains. and the removal of said coal here to SC (and various other places, SC is not in the top 5 - just the top 10), and what we can do about it. Informative, but i want to continue to talk about farmers - because i spoke with a couple of farmers there. Yes, farmers there to hear about non-farming environmental news. I listen to their concerns - and yes,as farmers they have big concerns : their lives and livelihoods depend on it. I find fascinating the farmers who have web pages and those who ship their products direct to consumers. Carbon footprints? Depends - at least from farm (to processor) to you makes it at least somewhat more direct, without the wondering the food goes through otherwise.

books bought from library sale

The small local library had an off-season booksale today, to lessen the amount of stock they had in their closet... The books were semi-separated, but not too well...

Here's what I got (for a total of $4.25) - keep in mind that these are impulse items, and that by rules of the this house for every two books in, three go out.

THE GOSPELS OF MARY - by Marvin Meyer with Ester A. DeBoer (2004 Harper Collins) - can one have enough gnostic Gospels? well, probably one can....but this book says it takes the gnostics and the gospels to give the real story of Mary Magadalene, Jesus' closest disciple.

NORTHWEST OF EARTH - By C. L. Moore (2007 Planet Stories) - short stories written in the 1930s by Catherine Moore in the 1930s for Weird Tales, Planet Stories, etc. This should be swashbuckling space opera - she's best known as the co-writer of Mimsy_were_the_Borogoves.

ALBERT SCHWEITZER: AN ANTHOLOGY - edited by Charles R. Joy (1947 Beacon Press, Harper and Brothers) this is an "relgious book club" edition of the book. a recent discsuuion on the Unitarain Universalist Historical Society email list, reminds me of his connection with UUs and his influence on the mid20th Century. He apparently hasnt aged well - but it still should be interesting to read his words.

AROUND THE WORLD WITH THE NATIONAL JEWISH OUTREACH PROGRAM - by Shimon Apisdorf (2000 National Jewish Outreach Program, Jewish Literacy foundation). The Jewish Calendar and Jewish Holidays

EXPLORDING JUDAISM: A RECONSTRUCTIONIST APPROACH - By Rebecca T. Alpert, Jacob J. Staub (1988 the Reconstructionist Press) this is a book about what it means to be Jewish to the Reconstuctionist - the 4th major group of Judiasm in the USA.

THE GREAT STILLNESS: TAO MEDIATIONS VOLUME 2 - By Bruce Frantzis (1998, 2001 North Atlantic Books, Energy Arts)

MAGIC TIME by Doug Marlette (2006 ) this is an autographed Advanced Reading Copy. Marlette (1949 -2007) was a pulitizer prize winning editorial cartoonist. I read his work and met him when he was the cartoonist for the Charlotte Observer (1972-1987) - I confess that Ive not read his fiction.

UNCLE SILAS by J. S. LeFanu (1899 - this edition by Dover) actualy publsihed in 1864 - this is considered to be one of the major works by one of the major writers of ghost stories in the 19th century. What I've read recently of LeFanu, I admit to enjoying. We'll see if I say the same for this.

so does anyone see the themes in all this? ;-)
and no, I wont be posting on what 10-11 books are removed from the house.....