Summer Surprise #1

A few weeks back, while we were visiting Dan and Sally (and sampling the Competition Flat Tail IPA) we talked about how the fruit trees didn't seem to set much fruit this year.

Last year we had a bumper crop from the old Macintosh in the front yard - the deer had a feast that lastest more than 6 weeks. Dan said he didn't see many blossoms on his trees this spring, though, and I only remember maybe 25 percent as many on ours.

Spring weather must have knocked many of the blossoms off. But as I was walking around checking the hostas for a previous post, I looked up and the tree. We'll have a smaller crop this year for sure, but we will have apples.

Land o' Hostas

Three weeks ago, I noticed that our Hostas had reached their prime, their flowers blooming in a lavender mist all over the yard at the cabin. Apparently one of the women that lived here a few years back was an enthusiast – now these things are everywhere.

Mary has even pulled some of them up and transplanted them back to Alexandria. We’ve also given a few of them to Sally and Dan and other neighbors. They are pretty hardy, shade tolerant plants…and the deer love them.

I found out the hummingbirds also like them, having seen the birds working over the blossoms. I am pretty sure that the hostas are sustaining some carpenter bees, too. One final story, the guy who came out to clean our septic said that copperheads like to hide under them – so far, we haven’t seen any copperheads, I think because the black rat snakes eat them all.

All these hostas got me thinking I should look them up on Wikipedia. Turns out:

• They grow from rhizomes or stolons (under grown connections to parent plants) – we have both happening in the yard;
• There are 3,000 registered and named varieties (I am sure we have at least a half dozen in the yard);
• Past names were the Corfu Lily, Day Lily, and Plantain Lily; and
• They are native to Japan, Korea, and China.
  

The Wikipedia article referred me to the American Hosta Society, where I learned:

• They were first imported and grown in Europe in the late 1700’s. By the mid-1800’s hosta were growing in the United States.
• Also, as they forage in residential communities deer frequently find hostas among their favorites, especially those hostas with the fragrant flowered parents.
  

I know the deer like ours, there are always a couple of plants where the leaves have been eaten completely back to the stems. No problem for us, though – we got plenty!

A Night at Shenandoah Speedway

Mary couldn’t join me at the Hawksbill Cabin last weekend; she had deadlines of her own to work on. So I was left on my own to try and get some writing done (I am having a horrible time getting a proposal done right now, total writer’s block – yet I still seem to be able to blog daily).

So on my own, I took off for the two short hikes I wrote about earlier this week. I checked in with Howard and the gang at Evergreen Outfitters – looking into catching a Wranglers game – but the team was on a road trip and wouldn’t be back until the next weekend.

I was settling into the thought of getting take out (from Momma Mia in Shenandoah), and sitting on the brick terrace with a fire, when I remembered we have racing in Page County, so I went down to Shenandoah Speedway (http://www.shenandoahspeedway.com/ ) to check it out.

This facility is just north of the town of Shenandoah along US 340. Massanutten Mountain – in fact, the motto is “Where the mountain roars!” – and Mary and I have been trying to take in a race for a while. I was sorry she missed it.

NASCAR this isn’t – it’s more of a minor league affair. But there is plenty of entertainment value to be had. The night I went, there were no less than six races on the “Fan Run Down:”
· INEX Legends (the two photos here) – 25 laps
· SVSRL Mini Cups – 25 laps
· UCARS – 30 laps
· Sportsman – 20 laps
· Street Stock – 30 laps
· Late Models – 75 laps

I sat down with a chili cheese dog and an ice cold Bud and enjoyed myself, from a seat right in front of the winner’s circle and the flagman tower.

We’re going to have to work on the ball game, but the summer season is only two months long (it is well covered by this blog: http://allthingsvalleyleague.typepad.com/, and it’s over by August. The town of Luray really turns out for the games, and we want to check it out. Mary also tells me she wants to check out the races…that’s a new one on me, but I am game for going back.

Lands Run Falls - Another SNP Easy Day Hike

This afternoon, a review of the second of two little hikes I took over the weekend – yesterday was Snead Farm, and today will be Lands Run Falls. Both were selected from the “Best Easy Day Hikes – Shenandoah National Park” book, which you can find on Amazon here:Best Easy Day Hikes Shenandoah National Park, 3rd


The book’s review of the Lands Run Falls hike begins with the admonishment, “[The falls] is not especially high, nor can you see the entire falls from the trail.” I have been using this book for more than five years – long enough to have been disappointed in one or two of the routes, and this is the first one I’ve read that understates an otherwise excellent short hike.



Here are some examples of past disappointments:


· the Ivy Creek route describes the destination as a lovely pool – although the trail progresses through interesting terrain, it never gets far from Skyline Drive, or the sound of motorcycles; and the enticing pool at the end practically drives up during the summer;
· the Mary’s Rock route, while it does mention the 1,210 feet of elevation gain does not do a good job describing the actual steepness of the ascent; and
· the Limberlost review could use an update – this is a very crowded route due to its accessibility to the Parks main developments, Skyland and Big Meadows.

I guess that three out of ten disappointments is a lot for this little book of 26 hikes, but on the whole I’ve been happy with the experiences we’ve had. The short Stonyman interpretive trail is well worth taking; of course, I love the Hawksbill Summit (our mountain, as I like to call it, since it overlooks the hollow where the cabin sits); and there is the Dark Hollow Falls that Mary and I have gone back to many times.


So, despite the foreshadowing of disappointment, I decided to take a chance on Lands Run Falls nonetheless. This trail follows a fire road, so it is well marked. Like many others in the Park, the trail descends from the trailhead, so the return route is an ascent, and while short, it is steep.



Despite all of this, the route treks down through a forest of mature oaks and chestnuts, tucked away in a hollow. I don’t remember taking a lot of trails like this one in the Park – the photo above is of a spectacular group of oaks that is a short way down the trail.

A second photo here is of a new blow down, which was probably less than a month old (there was a recent storm with an F1 tornado in Stanley – I assume this tree came down then). The tree must have blocked the fire road because of the clean up that had been done. The reason I took the photo, however, is because of the long vertical split in the trunk that happened when the tree came down – there was a lot of energy when this happened, as the split is more than 30 feet long, vertical along the trunk!




Just a few feet from the fallen tree, the sound of the falls can be heard, even though it is still a bit of a hike away. The sound accompanies you, and gets louder as you continue downhill around a switchback in the road. Finally, there is a little stream on the left, uphill, side of the trail, which passes through a culvert under the road.




There is a spur trail that follows the stream a hundred feet or so to the top of a little bluff, over grown with ferns and mosses, and with that wonderful canopy of oaks overhead. This is where the stream catapults itself over in a small but beautiful little waterfall.



As I stood on the bluff looking down at this beautiful site, I pondered the hike book’s review. It’s funny that the description there set me up for something altogether different than what I experienced.

After a quick look at the Heatwole guide, it is appropriate to post his review here too:

"The falls are a series of small cascades that descend a total of about 80 feet in a narrow gorge. Except in spring, when the snows are melting, there isn't much water. There is no point from which you can see all the cascades at once. To see the first one, cross the stream to its left bank and cautiously work your way down through the rocks. If you've become attuned to small and subtle pleasures, this place has a great deal of charm. The rocks are covered with mosses, lichen, and polypody. But the hillside is very steep. The ground is carpeted with needles of pine and hemlock, and sometimes dead leaves, so that the footing is treacherous and the descent must be classified as difficult. As I said, this trip is not for everyone. We have bigger falls that are easier to see. This is for the very few hikers who are willing to go to a lot of trouble to find solitude beside a small pool on a mountain stream."

Now, neither of the two hikes here, Lands Run Falls and Snead Farm, is rigorous in any sense of the word. If you’re after “extreme” or “adventure” there are plenty more to choose from in the Park or nearby (you can start by checking the “Day Hikes: Moderate” label, or by taking a look at http://www.hikingupward.com/).

But I will say this about the two hikes – I enjoyed both of them, a lot more than I expected. They helped me with the writer’s block I have been having on the proposal I’ve been working on. And, just as I turned to start my hike back to the trailhead at Lands Run Falls, the young family with their two dogs I’d seen earlier at Snead Farm turned onto the short spur to have a look at the pretty little waterfall.

SNP's Snead Farm: an Easy Day Hike

Frequent readers know that I’ve set an informal goal of hiking all of routes described in the “Best Easy Day Hikes – Shenandoah National Park” book, a Falcon Guide written by Bert and Jane Gilbert (Amazon link below). Mary, Chris and I have done 10 of the 26 in this book already (check the label “Day Hikes: Easy” for many of the reviews, we’ve done a few of them more than once). Over the weekend, facing writer’s block on a proposal I have been trying to finish for a few days, I decided to go out and take in one or two more of the hikes.

This will be the first of two posts on the hikes, which I combined with a drive up to Front Royal (lunch at Spelunkers) and also to check on the used equipment for sale at the Front Royal Canoe company, an outfitter up in that area.

At first, I was only going to do the 1.4 mile Snead Farm hike, with the option of extending it to 3.2 miles by taking some side trails and fire roads. Part of the route was a bit over grown with summer brush; having plucked off my share of ticks already this year, rather than trekking through the long grass, I came back and regrouped, deciding instead to combine this one with Lands Run Falls, an easy 1.2 mile out-and-back.

The description of the Snead Farm hike begins with the note that this is a relatively new addition to the Park – the 200-acre plot was procured in 1962. As such, there are a couple of buildings still standing to take a look at once you reach the farmstead – the old barn and the root cellar. There is also a stone foundation from the old bunkhouse back there.

For some of the SNP hike posts, I also like to pull material from the old Heatwole guide to the Park (on the web at http://www.ajheatwole.com/guide/ ). Here is an excerpt from the guide about this little hike:
…the house has been torn down, but the barn is in fairly good condition. The small structure in back may have been a root cellar.

The road continues beyond the barn to the site of the Snead house, on the right, where a wall and steps still remain. As you might guess, the owners of this property were not typical mountaineers. Originally it belonged to the Garter family, who were farmers and fruit growers in comfortable circumstances. They owned extensive orchards; and the land now occupied by the Visitor Center was, in 1930, Carter's cornfield. This property is now called the Snead place, although Snead, a Rappahannock County judge, owned it for only a few years. The Park bought the 200-acre property in 1962, in order to develop and protect the Dickey Ridge water supply.”

Both the Snead Farm route and the Lands Run Falls route follow fire roads, so they definitely qualify as easy ones. Along the road into the farmstead, there are three forks in the road, so hikers have to be careful to take the right ones – left, right left, like the old military cadence. I did make a wrong turn, and found myself at a dead end. The grass was mowed there (there’s some electrical infrastructure in this area) into the shape of a cul-de-sac, and there was a campfire ring in the middle (with ubiquitous beer cans, I might add).

After pondering, “this can’t be it” for a moment, I backtracked to the last fork and sure enough had taken a wrong turn, adding about a half mile to my little walk.

At that fork, there is a little spring that has been stoned in, the water trickles under the road through a conduit. There is enough of a flow to make a pleasant spattering where it comes out – but I was destined to see a really nice, real waterfall, later this day. Also, there is the trace of an old stone wall that follows the old farm road, marking the way. Much of this stone is the igneous rock that you find in the Park, it’s piled in places in addition to the trace of the old wall.

Although the Park was crowded, I didn’t run into a lot of folks on this trail, except for a family with two young daughters and two dogs. This was a cheerful group out having a good time – I ran into them again at the Dickey’s Ridge Welcome Center, and again on the Lands Run Falls Hike.

I’d really like to come back and redo the Snead Farm hike in the fall, with the foliage down and some of the grasses having died off, so it would be easier to get a perspective of the place.

SNP Best Easy Day Hikes

Mary's Container Garden

A few years back, Mary became friends with Herb and Odessa, and their dog Elmo, during walks around our old Linden Street neighborhood in Alexandria. At the time, they were in their late seventies; they had lived in the neighborhood since the late ‘40’s – she grew up here. Their house is built on two lots.

In addition to walking Elmo, they kept in shape by tending a large “truck garden” in the backyard, where they grow tomatoes, corn, summer squash, peppers, eggplants, cucumbers – just about anything you’d expect to find at a farmers’ market in Alexandria or Luray – right there in the middle of their suburban yard, two hundred yards from the subway. Odessa puts up the bulk of the produce so they have it year round, but they often gave us some of whatever was fresh – big piles of tomatoes, eggplants, peppers – all that is good. We pair it up with the summer grilling, but once Mary even made a ratatouie!

Our friends are still with us, now in their eighties. They've scaled back some this year so the little truck garden isn’t as big as it used to be. Mary checks in with them sometimes to make sure all is well, and sometimes I'll pick up a zucchini bread or carrot loaf at the Arlington farmers’ market that she can take by to them.

Being friends with Herb and Odessa has inspired Mary to try her hand at growing some of these vegetables. It’s an upgrade for her – she used to only grow a container of cherry tomatoes every summer, in addition to herbs and spices. This year she has broken away from that tradition, and has quite a few things coming up in the containers.

Cherry tomatoes, as always, are the basic crop, but she also has two varieties of regular-sized tomatoes, a red one and a yellow one. As the photos show, she also has peppers and squash going, and there is a basil plant mingling in there.


Soon, one night not too long from now, we’ll have an appetizer of tomatoes and fresh mozzarella (I’ll pick it up from Whole Foods if we don’t find any fresh made in the markets), drizzled in olive oil and balsamic vinegar, with fresh basil leaves plucked right from this plant. We’ll pair that up with some “Big House Pink” if it is a warm evening, and dine al fresco in the back yard. What’s not to like?

I Ate Mr. Burner's Cow

After posting those two notes on sustainability and diet, and also after thinking a bit more on the role of agriculture in the Page County economy, I wanted to do a post on a couple of local farmers that I’ve met in the Farmers’ Market out in Luray.

In the spirit of the “Buy Fresh, Buy Local” campaign, a Virginia agricultural outreach program that aims to strengthen the local food and farm economy, connect buyers to local growers and processors, foster a growing relationship among all the stakeholders in the food chain, and find ways to communicate the positive impacts of local agriculture (you can find details here http://www.buylocalvirginia.org/ and here http://www.buylocalshenvalley.org/ ) – I wanted to highlight two of the Luray area farms.

The first is a group of three farmers that have an enterprise called Skyline Premium Meats. Whenever Mary and I are out, we drive past one of the farms on Business 340. We’ve bought steaks and cuts from them a few times now, and enjoy visiting with them on those sunny Saturdays at the market. Here’s an excerpt from their website about the enterprise.

Skyline Premium Meats, LLC was formed by three Virginia farmers, to bring to you, the consumer, the very best in quality consistent, all-natural and safe beef. Our selection process is detailed and strict. The cattle that we harvest are conceived, managed, and fed by us with your complete satisfaction as our ultimate goal. Only our highest quality beef earns the name "Skyline Premium."

Your purchase of Skyline Premium Meats ensures you of several things:

• A Virginia's Finest Product
• No Antibiotics
• No Added Hormones or Steroids
• No Chemical Alteration of Any Kind
• Genetically Selected for Quality
• Corn Fed to Perfection
• Harvested to an age that optimizes taste and tenderness
• Processed by one of Virginia’s most trusted custom facilities under complete USDA inspection
  

While we enjoy a lot of the products we see out at the market, a second one I wanted to highlight today is Public House Produce, which is a family-owned and operated produce farm located one mile from downtown Luray, VA in the scenic Shenandoah Valley.

From their website: Since 2006, we have been growing vegetable plants and planting an ever larger vegetable garden. In 2009, we began a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) program to help share the bounty of fresh healthy vegetables with our neighbors.

I took some photos of these folks before in a post last summer (http://hawksbillcabin.blogspot.com/2008/09/scarecrow-and-yellow-moon.html - title is a reference to "King Harvest" by the Band) Here are some facts about the farm they had on a sign at the market recently.

The CSA program at Public House was a new concept for me. Families can work with the farm to buy produce – if I have it correct, you buy a share of the crops coming in over the course of a season. Then there is a weekly harvest and you get fresh vegetables. Here are a couple of photos from their site of the shares for recent weeks.


The websites for these two farms are: http://www.skylinepremiummeats.com/
http://www.publichouseproduce.com/