Blue Ridge Life
Reading Time: 3 minutesIn England, ramps are known as ramson; in France, they are ail sauvage. Native Americans in the Great Lakes area called the plants Chicagou, for which the city of Chicago is named. Elsewhere in the world, they are known as wild leeks, wild garlic, and spring onions. In the Blue Ridge Mountains and throughout Appalachia, the plants with the pungent […]
Reading Time: 2 minutesBluegrass music and flatfoot dancing go together like bread and butter. Go to any event with live bluegrass music, and someone will set up a dancing platform or throw a piece of plywood on the ground and start flatfooting. Flatfooting, also known as clogging, foot-stomping, or buck-dancing, consists of dancing alone or in groups to up-tempo music, using enthusiastic footwork […]
Reading Time: 2 minutesPorta-Potty, Johnny-on-the-Spot, Outhouse, Portable toilet. Whatever you call them, they all have one thing in common: they stay put once you set them up. They don’t go anywhere. Unless you are in Independence, VA, on the second Sunday in October, when you will see outhouses running down the main street. The running outhouses are part of the Grand Privy Race […]
Reading Time: 2 minutesKing Kudzu is on the move. A Kudzu vine can grow a foot a day, sixty feet a season. Residents of Georgia have been warned to close their windows at night to keep the dastardly weed out of their houses. Left uncontrolled, it will grow over any fixed object, including cars, houses, equipment, and your lazy brother-in-law. The Japanese introduced […]
