Man of Constant Sorrow, My Life and Times by Dr. Ralph Stanley

The year is 1935. In the backwoods of the Virginian Blue Ridge mountains a congregation of Primitive Baptists gather in a small country church house. At some point in the service, elder Lee Stanley lays a hand on his eight year old son’s shoulder and asks him to lead the church in the hymn “Salvation, O! The Name I Love.” In a high lonesome voice that would become synonymous with bluegrass the youth belted out the first line of the song. As the congregation chimed in little Ralph Stanley knew his voice was a gift from God. With his brother Carter they would go on to define the sound that we know as Bluegrass. In his newly published autobiography "Man of Constant Sorrow", (Gotham Books, 2009) Dr. Ralph Stanley candidly retells his life story in his own charming and colloquial words. Ralph is one of the last progenitors of bluegrass left with us and this glimpse into a lost world should be poured over and cherished. *****

A Plan

Well it's about time to start a plannin' the garden. Which this year's going to be a whole lot more work than normal. The first step is deciding what to grow. I think we'll try just about everything this year. We've so much more area to work with that anything is possible so a little experimentation is in order. Whatever works we'll do more of next year, and whatever doesn't we'll keep trying but in a smaller scale. I don't like to give up after just one try. In addition to veggies were gonna try grains this year. Wheat, oats, millet, quinoa, spelt, rye, and barley. Also on the agenda is poultry. Laying hens, meat chickens, and turkeys. Next is shopping for seeds. My favourite part! We will invest a lot of money into seeds this year in hopes of saving seed for years to come. So we'll have to carefully lay out the garden in order to keep strains pure. That's a lot to think about at once so now is the time to start. I'm getting exited just thinking of the possibilities.

Domestic cane

After a couple of months of badgering we finally got some Florida Crystals. They are the only producer of domestic organic cane sugar, plus they are a sustainable business. They no longer ship 25 lbs. bags to the west, so we had to settle for a case of six two pound bags. Thanks to Healthy Solutions for tracking it down for us. If your gonna buy sugar, ask for Florida Crystals.

Deepness

"An aged Christian, with the snow of time upon his head, may remind us that those points of earth are whitest which are nearest to heaven." -Edwin Hubbel ChapinThe snow's finally pilin' up around here. Got a couple of feet over the last week.

Made it up to buff yesterday for a couple hours to play in the deepness. You can't see it but Jenny's grinning from ear to ear.
Getting some!!!

Normality

"We have normality. I repeat, we have normality. Anything you still can't cope with is therefore your own problem."- Douglas Adams
Well back to "normal person" hours workin' in the ski shop. It's a weight off the shoulders to only be responsible for running a $30 waxing iron as opposed to a $300,000 snow cat.
We went snowboarding on Christmas eve day. Here we are at Rendezvous. There was about a foot of new snow for us to play in. Powder day!!! A little on the chilly side though, -8F ,90% humidity, and 20mph wind.We cooked a nice Christmas dinner together. Turkey.Potatoes
Rolls
Apple Pie. Have a wonderful new year everyone!

Oh Christmas Tree

Our Christmas tree.

Long nights

These longest nights of the year are even longer when your out a workin' in um. Here we are feeling the burn around 6:00 a.m. at the end of a twelve hour shift. Just gotta unload that 2000 feet of frozen hose and ten ratnick snowguns and we can go home.
Usually get home just in time to see the sun rise, then off to bed to sleep the day away. Sure am glad I've only three more graves to pull for the season.