Fourth Week of September: Something I've done--Pink Beds Loop Pisgah National Forest

This past weekend, my husband and I went for a long weekend to Brevard, NC.  It's a great town to explore with lots of options of outdoor activities, but also close to Asheville and Greenville if you want more "big city" adventure.  Brevard is in Transylvania County--also known as the "land of waterfalls" and home of the white squirrels--we saw 2 white squirrels! We always love to go to the mountains and sit in a cabin and hike--and nothing more. We don't go out to eat, but instead bring all the food we'll eat and grill.  I had heard about a great hike on websites and travel books called the "Pink Beds Loop" in Pisgah National Forest. Pisgah's "home base" is in Transylvania county and is a great place to go for all ages!  They offer a lot of activities, such as fishing, hiking, waterfall hunting, wildlife observation.  And all of this is offered on a variety of skill/active level.  It's also right off of HWY 276 which is a gorgeous winding mountain road that can take you to the Blue Ridge Parkway.  I had heard the Pink Beds Loop is a great hike because it's fairly easy, but has the option to be a long hike (6+ miles), so it's good for people who enjoy long half-day hikes, but don't necessarily desire to climb thousands of feet in less than a mile....

I'm going to take you on a picture journey of the Pink Beds Loop and describe what makes this place so wonderful, but before we go that far--I HIGHLY recommend visiting the Ranger Station in Pisgah National Forest off HWY 276.  The staff were so helpful to us--gave us a range of hiking options to choose from WITH maps, described the hikes and any obstacles and even shared a few secrets with us!  

To start, you go up HWY 276, past the Cradle of Forestry museum to the Pink Beds Loop picnic area seen here.

We had our lunch there and it was beautiful and peaceful.  This area is called the Cradle of Forestry in America, because back in the 1800s this was where modern forestry techniques were put into practice and a school was created to help teach people how to use one of the best resources God has given us, lumber--but how to manage it in a way that was least destructive to wildlife and helped forests to return and not die off. Therefore you get these random small fields in the midst of the wooded trail.  Here's me eating my picnic lunch:

A creek ran through most of the Pink Beds Loop.  This creek plays an integral part of the last portion of the trail. 

The first bit of the hike was varied, as you'd walk through a forest, then come out of it into a field.  Lots of butterflies were hanging out in these areas. 

Parts of the hike were absolutely breathtaking--you really thought you were in another word--completely surrounded by wildlife, the rhododendron and mountain laurel hung over you in a very mysterious way. As me and my husband say, it's like we're walking to Hobbiton or Narnia or something...

And then you got to these awesome areas--actually real-live fern gullies--or more like fern forests.  The entire floor bed of the forest was covered in ferns in some areas, even at 1pm when we were in the thick of hiking, there was a foggy mist in the air as if dawn had just broken.

I had heard the trail could be very swampy and muddy, so much that you would have to wade through water at points--this is where the Ranger was so helpful.  He said at certain times of the year the Pink Beds Loop is a muddy mess, but at this time of year it was perfect (though I was still glad in certain areas I had my hiking boots on and not just my every-day tennis shoes).  Recently made a lot of improvements especially at the latter part of the loop that made the trail possible. 

So the Pink Beds loop is a loop that is intersected by the Brushy Branch trail (it may not be Brushy--but it's something with a B and it's Blue Blazed).  If you are not up for a long hike, you can turn right onto the Branch trail and cut the Pink Beds Loop in half.  OR if you want to add a mile or two onto your loop, you do what we did--and what the Ranger suggested we do.--you turn Left onto the Branch trail and suddenly you start a very small, but steady incline.  This incline continues until you get to a service road.  Cross the service road and you find what looks like the rest of the Branch trail and you continue on up.  Suddenly the forest is dark, and frogs, crickets and all sorts of wildlife sounds can be heard--the forest becomes so dark, dank and think that you wonder if a storm is approaching.  Pink Beds is a fairly "bright" trail at points, especially with the random fields, so this is a total contrast.  The whole point of this dark woody adventure is to get to the "Secret" falls.  A gorgeous, tall but trickling waterfall hidden in the mountains.  

Transylvania County being Waterfall country means they advertise about 50+ of their waterfalls on maps.  These waterfalls and the trails that lead to them can often be crowded.  Though it's worth it to go waterfall hunting even for the most popular of waterfalls---it's very special to find your own secret waterfall.  (Even if the ranger tells everyone about this waterfall, it doesn't lose it's charm when you are there all alone with the crickets and the wind and the water.)

(I'm hoping this video will work.)

The forest was green and thick near the falls. 

So we re-traced our steps and walked back the branch trail to the Pink Beds Loop and turned left on the loop trail to continue on.  This is one of the best things about this trail--let's say you did hike to the Secret Falls and decided you were a little tired after the incline, you can retrace your steps back to the parking lot, or take the branch trail short cut to the end of the loop trail and still see a lot.  We however, wanted to do the whole loop--so we did. 

This was just a neato tree that had been demolished by termites.

The most bizarre thing about the Pink Beds Loop is that it's really a mountain swamp.  It's a flat trail that follows a creek bed--but the creek has been recently dammed up by Beavers and completely changed part of the landscape.  It's very interesting to think that this area is known as the Cradle of Forestry and was a place for humans to practice forestry techniques, and 100 years later--Beavers are doing the same thing.

Near the Beaver Dam and Swamp area, it was quite bright and warm--very different from near the falls.

Below is a picture of the board walk over the swamp.  Without this, you would half to tread waist deep water.

I love how they keep it pretty wild still.

Lots of cool rocks near this part of the trail. This was the only part of the Pink Beds Loop that had a bit of a inclined hike--but it was still very easy.

Here's a picture of the boardwalk over the swamp.

Below is a great picture of the Beaver dam and how it's completely altered the landscape. This looks like something you'd see east of I-95 in North and South Carolina, not something in the middle of the Blue Ridge mountains....

So this is something I've done that I really suggest to all of you that find yourself in Brevard, NC.  Even if you don't want to hike, it's worth it to travel through Pisgah National Forest and discover the White Squirrels and waterfalls and see how our mountain forests used to look, how we've changed them, and how wildlife has changed them. 

Second/Third Week of September: Nature & Food-- Turning Wild Grapes into Preserves

I've had a crazy past couple weeks with work and vacation and all sorts of things. So I figured I would lump my 2nd and 3rd week posts into one, since they kind of go together!

Let's talk about Southern Grapes and Canning....

When we moved in to our new home a year ago, things were wild on the borders of our property.  One thing that was very wild was a grape vine that had woven itself through the chain link fence between our yard and our neighbors:  up and up and up through the trees and was then hanging down over our yard. (It still is.) I picked a few grapes.  Of course they are muscadine--but what variety I have no idea.  I noticed our neighbors have an arbor way in the back of their yard, so inevitably, a bird or squirrel or a strong wind carried a grape to our fence line and nature did it's thing.

In the south, most of your wild and crazy grape vines that people have in their yards, intentionally or not, are a muscadine grape.  There are many varieties of muscadine.  Learn more about them here.  (Note: if from another state, check our your own state's muscadine variety, as from my 5 minute google-research it looks like most muscadine varieties are kind of state-specific). I know mine aren't scuppernong because they are dark purple and small, not big and green.  It looks like they might be the "Thomas" or "Cowart" variety, because they are small-medium grapes and are pretty resistant to...well everything.

Here's a picture of the unintentional vine in my yard

And here's a picture of the fruit I've collected.

Because of the wildness of my vine, most of the fruit was way up out of reach.  So for about a week, I would go outside and harvest what I could from the parts of the vine I could reach.  All in all, I ended up with about a cup or 2 of grapes.

I've recently had the urge to can, but because I do not have a proper water bath--or even a large enough stock pot--most all my canning adventures have been freezer jams.  And that's really not that hard, you smush up fruit, add lemon juice and sugar and instant pectin, let it sit, then freeze.  Whoop-te-do!

I found a recipe from P. Allen Smith that was very simple for Muscadine preserves.  He doesn't add any additional pectin and spelled out simply how to make preserves for canning or freezing.  You can check his recipe out here.

If you are like me and have never made "proper" preserves, I took lots of pictures so you could see what each step looked like.  I probably had about a fourth of what Smith had, so I had to quarter the recipe.

First you have to separate the skin of the grape  from the pulp.  This was easy.  Smith says use a knife to open the grape and squeeze out the pulp.  My fruit was ripe enough, I could just squeeze it out with my fingers.  This was pretty messy, but fun--I think this would be a lot of fun for kids.  You end up with two containers--one with the grape skins, the other with the pulp that looks like green seedy-snot slime.

 Next you boil your snot-slime with a little water.  This breaks down the pulp from the seed.

While that's going, you take your grape skins and chop them finely in a food processor.   Eventually you will have to add lemon zest and juice to your pulp mix--so I went ahead and poured that on my chopped skins. 

After your pulp has boiled for a bit, you need to strain it to get the seeds out.  I had to use two strainers, because the first was too small. 

You should end up with mostly only seeds left in your strainer and the pulp has gone all through.   Discard the seeds.

So then back in the pot goes everything:  your strained pulp, your skins and your lemon juice and zest.  PLUS a bunch of sugar. 

 Bring this to a boil and let simmer for a while.  I did about 10-15 minutes.  It'll start to get thick and congealed slightly.  Make sure your stir it frequently!

And then, "wa-la":  grape preserves.  As you can see about a cup and a half of grapes only ended up about a half cup of preserves.  But they tasted fantastic.  It also made my kitchen smell amazingly perfumed.  

I recommend, if you have a grape vine, or know where to find one--to try this recipe out.  It doesn't cost a thing but the price of 1 lemon, some sugar (which most of us have on hand anyway) and about 20 minutes of your time.  Of course, if you are going to can them properly it'll take more time--but this is pretty easy if you're just freezing or going to use immediately.  This would be a good addition for anyone who is taking biscuits or scones to a party!

First Week of September: Reading--Ellen Glasgow's "Vein of Iron"

Didn't quite get this one in on the first week of the month, but oh wells...

Let me start out by saying that I really enjoyed this book. It has a lot of merits and I recommend reading it.

However, I'm about to get critical--very critical of this book and I feel bad about it, because I enjoyed it thoroughly. Glasgow is a beautiful writer; however, I think her structure is lacking and I'll try to explain why (while probably being unstructured and super tangent-y in my post).

Ultimately, Vein of Iron is a novel with conflicting main characters.  Not that the two main characters of the book fight a lot, but you don't know which one is "in charge" of the story.  Is this is a story of a man who lost his faith and struggles to be a brilliant "Philosopher" in the Appalachians during the early  20th century, or is it a story about his daughter and her struggles with love and a changing world?  You get this very tight tension between this being a romance novel or  actual "Big L" literature.  You can do both of these at the same time (i.e. Austen or Bronte to name a few), but the way the structure and characters are presented in Glasgow's work makes this crux hard to get over.  The majority of the novel's plot is about Ada and her relationship with her family and "the love her life", poor old Ralph.  But randomly, almost abruptly you get these chapters sporadically placed in the novel that concentrate on Ada's father, John Fincastle.  Even though, I found these chapters of the novel some of the most brilliant in the entire book, her father's sporadic place in the novel becomes a bizarre contrast to Ada's romantic story line.  The book continually mentions how Ada and her father are alike, the connection they both have--yet  you never really see it played out.

John Fincastle, at his core, is compelling (more so than Ada's in my opinion).  He's a Presbyterian minister who is removed from the church because of (I guess?) his giving up the faith.  He becomes a philosopher who continually questions the nature of God and people.  But you never really get to know what his philosophy is.  You just know he's a philosopher and is brilliant and is writing a book, but because you never learn what it is that he believes, you never really know who he is.

I feel as if Glasgow had connected Ada with her father more or if she had given her father a more substantial role in the book,  the question of whether this is a romance novel or literature wouldn't even need to be asked and it would weld those two types of fiction together.  In comparison with one of my favorite books about Appalachian women: Fair and Tender Ladies does much of the same plot-wise as Vein of Iron.  It centers on the life of a woman who is poor and living in the Appalachian Mountains throughout the 20th century.  But Fair and Tender Ladies is grittier.  Maybe this has to do with the education of the families of the main characters.  Of maybe because Ada lives in a Valley and in FTL the characters live (for most of the book) high up on a mountain--much more remote.  Or maybe because Lee Smith knows her book will be middle brow, she doesn't try too hard.  Her plot is amazing, and through that plot she's able to smack you across the face with ideas, themes, and "human truths." That's the genius of a lot of middle brow novels---they can be almost, if not just, as effective culturally as major literature, without being scary or too hoity-toity for the Average Joe to pick up, read and really GET something out of it.

I feel I've gone off into a tangent.  So let's pull back and look at the great things in this novel, what makes it worth reading....

Glasgow's use of language throughout the novel and her descriptions of the land and the place are very beautiful.  I continually felt like I was looking at the mountain valley town of Ironside through "soft light", as if it were a dream.  A book that can make a character out of the setting is always interesting to me.

Certain scenes that were breathtaking:

• Ada's heartache over Janet crushing her dreams
• The heartache and jealousy Ada felt in this scene is so richly written that you feel as if Ralph and the stupid "rules of society" have broken your heart as well
• Ada and Ralph's romp in the forest
• Instead of being smutty, or even too vague, Glasgow walked a line of, again, keeping these scenes very dream like.  You understand that Ada and Ralph are up on the mountain, having a weekend of consummating their relationship.  However, it's important enough to the novel that Glasgow doesn't just write it off with a dot-dot-dot at the end of the chapter and have the characters think back on it later. 
• Ada giving birth
• I got very choked up when Ada's grandmother "rescues" her during her labor.  Ada's grandmother shuns her and has her own heart broken because of Ada's pregnancy out of wedlock.  How emotional it was when her grandmother comes to help her give birth and how heartbreaking it was that even though her grandmother helps her during this moment, it doesn't deter her grandmother's demise and heart-ache over the situation.
• The Death Scene of Ada's Father
• Rambling and scary, beautiful and peaceful, when John Fincastle lays down in the grass outside of his family's dilapidated home, you understand how important place and land is to people who don't have much.

3-3.5 out of 5.  A great read, especially if you enjoy books about the south, place, and the changing landscape of the world in the 1920s and 30s.

Other quick notes:

• I think Glasgow does a good job of portraying what we would now consider "PTSD" in Ralph, or if not that, how war can bring out the dark side of someone, even way after the fighting is over.
• Simplistic moral of the story:  If you have a home, a garden and family, nothing else should matter.