Covered Bridge Festival

I was a lot more impressed with this costume before I learned that they sell them at pet stores. (I'd thought that the impatient lady at the other end of the leash had made it herself.) Still, it was cute, if you like clothes on dogs. He didn't seem to mind much.



The "Covered Bridge Festival" is held in Oneonta (Blount county) every October. I'm only two months late in posting these pictures. On the bright side, if you're sorry you missed it and are eager to attend the next one, well, now it's only ten months away.

That's the main shopping street in downtown Oneonta. Annie's old store was just there on the other side of Regions bank, just beyond that inflatable green turret. It's Fred's store now - the Eureka shop. (Eureka as in "aha", not vacuums.) I think it's the best shop on the street, but of course Fred sells my handmade soap there, so I might be a little biased.



The next street over, there's an antique car show. People in Alabama seem to hold antique car shows at the drop of a hat. I suspect that antique car people just like to socialize with each other.



You can see a video of one of the bridges, and a bit of the festival, and a cute kid, here. Not my video - it's from Thicket magazine, a very good new(ish) magazine about Alabama.

Another article about the festival is here. It includes photos of all the remaining Blount county covered bridges, as well as my friend Barbara (whose name people always spell incorrectly).

There were previously four covered bridges here, but one burned down. I should say, one was burned down. That's the scuttlebutt anyway: Ne'er-do-wells partying near the bridge were reported and forced to leave. The bridge suspiciously burned down shortly thereafter.

I'm not sure why the article refers to an "accident" that closed a bridge temporarily last year. According to the newspaper, there were deliberate, heavy-duty, meant-to-destroy acts of vandalism on two of the bridges. I'm not sure if rural areas have more than their share of misbegotten miscreants, or if the teenagers here are just really, really bored.

Cowheart

A cow with heart.

If this were my cow, I'd name it Taurhartt, though only rednecks familiar with ancient languages would get the joke.

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The cow lives on the mountain between us and Springville, but we usually only take that scenic route on Homestead Hollow (craft show) weekends.

I believe MountainMelody actually lives much closer to this cow. But if she can post photos of downtown Oneonta (see last April) I can show this!

P.S. to Fred: You should see this pic from May also. I keep forgetting to tell you about it.

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Updated:
A family member of the owners has commented and told me:
The cow is actually a steer, his name is Valentine (good one!), and he's a pet (not potential steak).

Bitternsweet

I was running around like a chicken with its head cut off (as usual), busy with last-minute preparations for a local craft show.

"Come look!" My husband was very excited. "I think it's a Bittern!"



My reaction involved trudging and muttering. I was busy. We had to leave soon. Not that I wouldn't love to see a Bittern; I'd only seen one once before, at the coast. They're secretive birds. But my husband, always a birding optimist, has a track record for thinking that other things are Bitterns.



He was right though. It was indeed an American Bittern, Botaurus lentiginosus.

"You can use the pictures for the triumphant return of Rurality!" I had to laugh, but it really was time to start back. It was October 4th, and I'd been rude for two and a half months already.

Then the next week I caught the crud that's been going around here, and was down, down, down, for way too long. I was in the clutches of a cold that had managed two years at Influenza Junior College. ("In the grippes of it," she said, going for the year's most obscure pun.)

And there was an insidious feature. Every day, I thought I'd be much better in just another day or two. I missed the trip to Georgia I'd been planning for months. I also missed the Native Plant conference that was the brightest thing on the calendar in five years, and that I'd already paid $100 to attend. (That I probably could have gotten a refund for, if not for the insidious feature.)

So anyway, when I finally could force myself to move around, I had a lot of catching up to do in a hurry, soapmaking-wise, before the last and biggest show of the year. So no time for Rurality. (All of this in explanation to those folks I told that I was just about to start back, and then didn't. Sorry!)

Where streamlets meander

Yellow Daisy

Sorry for the unexplained abrupt halt. I was busy preparing for and then attending the Yellow Daisy craft show.

We had a good show - the weather was warm, but thankfully not in the 100s and not too humid. And I got to meet Dr. Flowers in person!



I should have gone out in the evening and taken pictures of Stone Mountain, but my feet were always too tired by the end of the day. I did make it to the A-loop stage area one afternoon to watch the cloggers for a few minutes.



Girls of the flying feet.



Hillbilly themed dance.

MIA

I haven't fallen off the face of the earth, or into the inky depths of The Devil's Urn. I've just been busy.

After the craft show at Homestead Hollow this weekend things should settle down a bit.

I was quite a bit more cranky than usual around tax time. On one particular no good, horrible, really bad day, I felt an overpowering urge to punch something. (I did in fact actually kick something, which is not really my usual style.)

But I stopped at the mailbox on my way into town, and my bad mood fizzled away.



Because I got a present.



Ah... Better than a Margarita. Perfect timing.

Thanks Tom! (That's a link to his blog The Art and Farm Report, which he doesn't update a lot, so you'll probably have to depend on El of Fast Grow the Weeds for the actual Farm Report part.) Click here for pictures of Tom's art at the Foley Gallery.

Homestead Hollow

We are set up at the Homestead Hollow craft show this weekend.

But we are not in our normal spot - they moved us.

We are in space "Barnyard 201", which is nearer the front of the show than we normally are.

This picture is from a couple of years ago, but our booth looks pretty much the same.



Just look for the royal blue tablecloths with the white lace covers.

Yellow Daisy

We're back!

The Yellow Daisy craft show was lots of fun, as always, and I managed to not quite spend all our profits buying other peoples' crafts. (There were three coffee mugs I couldn't resist though.)

Reminders of Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath were everywhere. Driving to the show, we saw several military convoys and an armada of Power Company trucks heading south. When we arrived at Stone Mountain, I realized I'd forgotten to pack some essentials, so we headed out to Walmart for pens and a toothbrush. The young couple with a toddler ahead of us in line turned out to be hurricane evacuees. Then the cashier turned out to be one too. She said that the employees could continue their jobs at any Walmart in the country. I thought that was pretty nice. She said her house was underwater, but that she felt blessed to be alive.

At the show there was a large jar at the entrance, for donations to the Red Cross. One customer wrote them a $2000 check!

Hubby and I are both bird nuts, and have been birdwatching at Dauphin Island many times in the past. The island, especially the west end, got hit hard by the hurricane. Boardwalk Realty has been doing a great job chronicling the changes on the island. They seem in remarkably good spirits too, considering that their office was destroyed, 37 of the 90 houses they manage are gone, and most of the remainder sustained heavy damage.

They posted some interesting pictures of the hurricane damage (including an alligator under one of the houses), and are keeping a journal of the island's recovery.

A soapmaking colleague's husband sent these pictures from an oil rig near New Orleans.


Damage on the rig.


Snakes! Big snakes!


For comparison, that's a 12-inch pipe the water moccasin is on.

Handmade Soap

Life's on hold while I make soap!

Soapmaking by the cold process method involves patience. After the liquid soap is poured into the molds, it is insulated and left to harden for 24 hours. Then the soap is unmolded and air-hardened for one or two days before being cut into bars. After another few days the bars are trimmed. Then the bars "cure" for at least a month, to allow time for the excess water to evaporate.

Handmade soaps are perishable goods; they don't last forever. Soapmaking is a delicate balance of trying to meet demand with the freshest product possible. Make too little and customers have to wait. Make too much and you'll end up throwing it away.

I hate throwing soap away.

I also hate not having a particular soap in stock when someone wants it.



With my current equipment, I can make almost 400 bars of soap a day. But I prefer using only my newer molds (and saving my back), so normally I make about half that.

Our next craft show is Yellow Daisy, in September at Stone Mountain, Georgia. It's the best traditional craft show in the country. About 250,000 people will pass through the festival over the course of four days.

Hollow

We were at the Homestead Hollow Spring Festival over the weekend. Sold a bunch of soap, ate too much, heard some good music, scoped out everyone else's cameras, and met several blog readers. Thanks for coming by!


There's a sheep under there somewhere.

One of my favorite parts of Homestead is watching the Burrells' demonstrations. I forgot my camera and thought I'd missed the sheep shearing, but they did another one on Sunday.


The proverbial black sheep, Malachi.


Fleeced!


The previous days' work.


She was clearly trying to tell me something, I just don't know what.


Their eyes are fascinating.


The uncorrupted offspring of the ewes and rams.*


Nothing to do with sheep, I just loved this rhododendron.

*Every time I saw the lamb it reminded me of this line from a John Wesley Harding song.

Magic City Art Connection

What I bought at the art show that I said I wasn't going to attend.




I loved all their large pieces, but this is the one that I could afford. Their website is Studio A Pottery but there's not much there yet.




You might guess that I have a little handmade-mug collection going on.




For the wooden spoons, by the same guy who made the second mug above. The most inexpensive pottery that I've seen in ages. No web site but if you fall in love with this I can send his phone number.

This print is among the things I might have bought if we were not short on discretionary funds (and even shorter on space for more art).

And something from Works of Man. I love this style of jewelry. There was a beautiful necklace with a sun's rays (not on his site unfortunately) that was really speaking to me. I wanted to converse, but the artist had customers, my pockets were empty, and hubby was tired and itchy to head home.

This is a fun show to visit - it's fine art and fine craft so of course no workaday soapmakers like me (sob sob). But for artistes it's good show and (apparently) good dough - they come from near and far. Our pottery above is from Minnesota and North Carolina.

Bloomin' Festival

I made one too many jokes about being at the right hand of Jesus.



We got moved to a new space. Under a nice magnolia, but not where I'd told everyone we'd be. I thought it was a punishment, but it turned out that lots of other people were in new spaces too.

The weather was perfect. The monks didn't look like they were sweltering as much as usual.



There was a lot of cool stuff, but I managed to not spend more than we made.







It was a show that allowed dogs.







The people selling dog hats were happy about that.





We sold out of several scents, so now I've got to make soap like crazy.

Nice place for a craft show.





I took several pictures of the statue of Jesus. It was a little disconcerting to answer "yes" to the computer's "Are you sure you want to send 'Jesus' to the recycle bin?"