Sea Glass...Jewels From the Sea: NEWS FLASH!

Dear Readers,

Beginning with this post, I am moving my blog posts to a new home—my author website:

http://www.kathrynlouisewoodauthor.com

The blog page can be found at:

http://www.kathrynlouisewoodauthor.com/blog/

With this move, I will post on a monthly basis. PROMISE!

Thanks for stopping by. See ya'll in my new home!

Warmest Wishes,

Kate

Snowfall...winter wonder

 
Here, in northeastern North Carolina, a hefty snowfall is a rare thing. And, so, we tend to celebrate with wide-eyed wonder and clicking cameras and bowls of snow cream, and some of us even wax poetic. Here is my poem inspired by snow and some photos of our most recent seasonal wonderment this past week, as well as a couple shots from winters past.

Snowfall

by Kathryn Louise Wood

Feathering through the ink of night,

Seeping into unseen cracks,

Swirling in mad circling eddies,

Drifting into slippery slopes,

Sweeping free across the open,

Deviling into sudden whirlwinds,

Clinging to eyelashes and to feet,

Smoothing over the rough and sharp,

Sparkling beneath sun and moonlight,

Melting into reflective glimmer,

Dripping silent, drop by drop,

Soaking darkly into earth,

Vaporing back to shimmering sky.

Is it snow...or memory?

Thanks for stopping by. Ya'll come back!

Kate

Crepe Myrtle...a most RevolutionaryTree

Backyard Crepe Myrtle Blossoms by KL Wood

When describing Edenton, I often refer to it as “dripping with history and crepe myrtles.” Whether you spell it, “Crape,” or “Crepe,” the Lagerstroemia indica is a gracious and beautifully ubiquitous member of our fair town. It’s a tree found only in warm climes (Hardiness Zones 7 to 9) so, although we tend to take it for granted, our more northern visitors are awestruck with its incredible beauty. Sometimes referred to as “The Four Season Tree,” we enjoy its bodaciously long-lived blossoms each summer, its flame-hued leaves in autumn, its smooth, polished bark and artistically twisting limbs in winter, and its fresh young leaves each spring.

From snowy white, to deepest fuchsia red, and all shades of pink and lavender in between, our exotic “Tree of a Hundred Days” (blooming for about 100 days each year,) is also uniquely appropriate to Edenton’s Revolutionary Spirit. Just as our ladies famously refused to purchase English tea in 1774, the Crepe Myrtle refused to thrive in the cooler English climes, when first imported there in 1759 from its native China. When Andre Michaux, botanist to France’s King Louis XVI, introduced the tree to Charleston, South Carolina around 1786, however, it breathed in the young nation’s warm air and burst into fragrant bloom! And the rest, as they say, is history.

Pardon me while I wax poetic, but such intoxicating beauty inspires me to toss out a few quick lines of verse.

Ode to Crepe Myrtles

Crinkly crinolines of Summer splendor,

they breathe in air and exhale flowers.

Autumn paints their leaves with flame,

while Winter bares their sculpted limbs.

Their delicate leaves of vernal Spring,

a prelude to their hundred-day reign.

In addition to their visual appeal, Crepe Myrtle flowers are a good food source for honey bees and other pollinators. Although they do not produce nectar (bee honey,) they do produce pollen (bee bread,) a necessary form of protein. As a matter of fact, Crepe Myrtles produce two different kinds of pollen. One for reproduction (the brown pad-like anthers,) and one just for the pollinators (the bright yellow anthers.) With the disturbing decline of honey bee populations, we can thank the Crepe Myrtle for doing its part to help keep this important plant pollinator alive.

Old Crepe Myrtle, Edenton by KL Wood

Oh, and one more thing--Please don’t be one of those well meaning but misinformed and misguided gardeners who commit “Crepe Murder” each year! The trend, started years ago, to annually chop off the lovely tree limbs to barren stubs, is unnecessary and just plain ugly. I’m gratified to see that most of Edenton’s trees are properly pruned and have been spared that particular botanical humiliation. If not convinced, please check out this link from an online Southern Living magazine article:

http://www.southernliving.com/home-garden/gardens/stop-dont-chop-crepe-myrtles

Now, won’t you join me as I go outside to sip a glass of lemonade beneath the inviting shade of the nearest Crepe Myrtle? We won’t have to go far!

Thanks for stopping by...y'all come back now.  
Kate 

Road Food For Thought...a summer diversion

"1960" photo by author's father, G.C. Wood

August, 1960. The lush strains of “Theme from A Summer Place” drift from the radio of a sleek 1959 Oldsmobile gliding down two-lane Route 17 between Norfolk, Virginia and Swansboro, North Carolina. That balding, middle-aged man--white-knuckled fingers gripping the steering wheel--is my father, and that slender, raven-haired woman--arms crossed tightly across her lap--is my mother. Behind Daddy, my brother’s thirteen-year-old Carolina Blue eyes scan the passing countryside through his open window. Beside him sits a fat little pug named Pam, bulbous eyes lifted skyward above the skinny back of an eight-year-old girl whose hazel-eyed gaze searches the landscape on her side of the car. I’m that girl. The one who hates it when plump aunts shake their heads and tell her if she doesn’t eat more she’ll “dry up and blow away.

Sure is hot. No air conditioning beyond the warm wind blowing through the windows. A farm slides into view, a few cows grazing behind a barbed wire fence. One, two, three, four…five. “Five more cows!”

My brother turns my way, glancing at the field just beyond the farmhouse. “Graveyard.”

Shoot. Lost all my cows…again. Why is it all the cow pastures on my side of the road have graveyards beside them? “How many you got now, Terry?”

“Thirty-one. Nope. There’s a white mule. Thirty-six now.”

I heave a sigh and lean my head back against the seat. “Mama, I’m gettin’ hungry. We gonna eat soon?”

She snaps off the radio and faces my father, cocking one arched eyebrow. “Well?”

Daddy pulls a damp handkerchief from his pocket and wipes the back of his neck. “Like I told you, we could stop at the restaurant near Little Washington. It’s air conditioned,” he says, eyes glued to the road.

“It’s Saturday night,” Mama says through clinched teeth. “You know what that means.”

“It means they’ll be open,” he says.

Mama hugs herself tighter and stares out her window. I don’t think she’s counting cows. I rest my arm on Pam’s pudgy back and look at Terry. His wide eyes brush my way before squinting at our parents. I touch his arm and raise my eyebrows when he looks back at me. Shrugging, he returns his attention to the window.

The hazy sun is lower now, and I have to cup my hands around my eyes to shield them from its western glare. I feel something besides hunger gnawing at my stomach. “Mama? I think I’m gonna be sick.”

“You’re probably too hungry.”

“She’s probably too hot,” adds my father.

I think I’m both too hungry and too hot but verbalizing this seems like a bad idea. My brother reaches down into the jumble beneath his feet and hands me a paper bag. Seeing it makes me even queasier. 

“I don’t think I can hold it in.”

“Pull over,” says Mama and the Olds comes to an abrupt halt off the side of the road.

She opens the door and helps me out into the dry scratchy grass, gently guiding me toward the deep ditch bordering the highway. Her hand presses against my forehead and steadies me as I bend over and empty the purple vestiges of my Nehi Grape Soda into the long shadows of rustling tobacco plants. “I’m sorry, honey. We’ll get you something to eat soon.”

Back inside, I slump into the depths of the seat and stroke Pam’s plush back. Daddy starts the car but doesn’t move us back onto the road.

“The restaurant’s just a couple miles away.”

“It is Saturday night,” repeats Mama as though this means something other than the fact the restaurant’s open for business.

Daddy drapes his freckled arm over the steering wheel and peers at her. “I don’t see the problem.”

“Look at us!” she says.

I look down at my polka-dotted shorts and scuffed sandals and over at my brother’s cut-off jeans and sneakers.

“I am looking at us,” says Daddy. “What’s the problem?”

“You remember what it’s like in Little Washington on Saturday night. We lived there long enough. People get all dressed up and go out to dinner. Dresses, hats, gloves, suits, ties. We’re in shorts and we’re sweaty!”

“But…there’s air conditioning,” says Daddy as though this makes up for our lack of fashionable decorum.

Mama’s shoulders look as though they’ll meet her earlobes any second now. “Let’s stop at the drive-in. They have chili dogs.”

Good. I like chili dogs.

“No air conditioning,” says Daddy as he glances over his left shoulder and pulls back onto 17.

Icy silence chills the front seat. Too bad we can’t tap into its frost. I close my eyes as the hum of the highway and the heat lull me into light sleep. Terry can have all the cows.

I’m jerked awake as the car jolts to a sudden stop. Pushing my knobby elbows against the seat, I rise up and peer out. It’s the drive-in. Without a word, Daddy gets out, slams the door, and marches to the outside order window.

Mama twists around toward the backseat. “Terry, go help your father carry the food.”

My brother heaves an adolescent sigh and hauls himself out of the car. I watch as Daddy exchanges cash for a bag of hot dogs and four Cokes, handing Terry two of the green glass bottles. Returning to the car, Daddy slides back behind the wheel and gives Mama the white bag. As she doles out the chili dogs, each wrapped snugly in waxed paper, Daddy starts up the Olds.

“We could sit here while we eat,” she says.

“Too hot,” says Daddy, his face glowing a violent crimson.

Soon, dusky summer air is flowing once more through the open windows as Terry and I settle back, cold bottles pressed between our thighs, juicy hot dogs dribbling chili through our fingers, Pam accepting her share from both of us. Daddy drives with one hand and fumbles at the chili dog wrapper with the other. After a few unsuccessful tries, he tosses it back into Mama’s lap. She carefully unwraps it and turns toward him, hot dog balanced in her right hand. Without a word of warning, she throws it against the side of his face, chili and onions streaming down, sliding over his ear and down his neck.

The earth stands still for a few heart-stopping moments as Daddy continues to drive, staring silently ahead, the disassembled hot dog resting on his shoulder. This is something new. We’re used to our parents bickering but it’s always limited to verbal sparring. Never anything approaching physical. Terry and I exchange wide-eyed looks of horror. The world as we know it must be over. Pam stands up and places her front paws on the back of the front seat, stretching her scrunchy neck toward Daddy, little pink tongue reaching for the aromatic trails of chili inching down his throat. Terry grabs her back before she makes contact, grasping her tightly against his chest like some kind of canine life preserver.

Then, a quiet ripple of sound breaks the tomb-like silence. I think Mama is crying. Her narrow shoulders twitch rhythmically as the sound grows louder. She turns to Daddy and I see tears spilling from her eyes but…but she’s laughing! Has she lost her mind? Daddy looks at her, wipes a red ribbon of chili from his glasses and bursts into laughter as he slows the car, pulling it to a stop beside the road. Mama removes the sticky glasses from his face as he collapses into a stomach-clutching belly laugh. Terry and I look at each other in disbelief then dissolve into laughter, ourselves. Curly tail wagging against her wiggling hips, Pam barks and slips from my brother’s arms, snatching the stray hot dog as it rolls down Daddy’s back. Reaching across the seat, Daddy gathers Mama into his arms, rocking her from side to side as the precious music of healing laughter fills the car.

Our world hasn’t ended after all. And I’ve learned an important life lesson about the power of good-hearted laughter and self-deprecating humor.

Years later, I hear it summed up in a quote by John Powell, “Blessed is he who has learned to laugh at himself for he shall never cease to be entertained.”

Thanks for stopping by...y'all come back now.  
Kate 

(This essay originally appeared as my contribution to the 2015 visual arts and literary review, Estuaries, published by College of the Albemarle.)

Spectral Lovers...of the Great Dismal Swamp

"Lake Drummond in The Great Dismal Swamp
National Wildlife Refuge" photo by U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
 Northeast Region via Wikimedia Commons

One of only two natural lakes in Virginia is surrounded by 100,000 acres of deep, dark wetlands straddling that state's southeastern border with its neighbor, North Carolina. Lake Drummond sits in the midst of the Great Dismal Swamp and, along with its mysterious swamplands, is the source of many ghostly tales. As this intriguing natural wonder is central to my latest work-in-progress (a middle-grade novel entitled Zephyr Stone, Ghost Charmer,) and as this is the romantic month of 
February, I am sharing one of the swamp's most famous stories.

"Thomas Moore" by Martin Archer Shee

One of the oldest tales of the Great Dismal Swamp is the enduring legend of the Lady of the Lake. The earliest people to populate the swamp were Native Americans who are thought to have first lived there 13,000 years into the past. It is not surprising, then, that this long-lived tale features those early inhabitants. It is said that a young Native American woman died just before her wedding day and her ghostly image can be seen paddling a white canoe through the dark waters of Lake Drummond. While visiting Norfolk, Virginia in 1803, Irish poet Thomas Moore immortalized the Lady and her distraught bridegroom in his poem, "A Ballad: The Lake of the Dismal Swamp." This was part of Moore's book, Epistles, Odes, and Other Poems, written in 1806 about his experiences and impressions during his visit to Bermuda and the eastern region of America. His introduction to the collection is a scathing criticism of the people he encountered in the young nation. His poem about the spectral lovers, however, is the height of romanticism.

From the Sheet Music Collection of
Samuel S. Levy at Johns Hopkins University

A Ballad: The Lake of the Dismal Swamp
by Thomas Moore

“They made her a grave, too cold and damp 

For a soul so warm and true; 

And she’s gone to the Lake of the Dismal Swamp, 

Where, all night long, by a fire-fly lamp, 

She paddles her white canoe. 

“And her fire-fly lamp I soon shall see, 

And her paddle I soon shall hear; 

Long and loving our life shall be, 

And I’ll hide the maid in a cypress tree,

When the footstep of death is near.” 

Away to the Dismal Swamp he speeds— 

His path was rugged and sore, 

Through tangled juniper, beds of reeds,

Through many a fen where the serpent feeds, 

And man never trod before. 

And when on the earth he sunk to sleep, 

If slumber his eyelids knew, 

He lay where the deadly vine doth weep 

"Stained Glass of Dismal Swamp" photo by KL Wood

Its venomous tear and nightly steep 

The flesh with blistering dew! 

And near him the she-wolf stirr’d the brake, 

And the copper-snake breath’d in his ear, 

Till he starting cried, from his dream awake, 

“Oh! when shall I see the dusky Lake, 

And the white canoe of my dear?” 

He saw the Lake, and a meteor bright 

Quick over its surface play’d— 

“Welcome,” he said, “my dear one’s light!” 

And the dim shore echoed for many a night 

The name of the death-cold maid. 

"Beaver Dam, Dismal Swamp" photo by KL Wood

Till he hollow’d a boat of the birchen bark, 

Which carried him off from shore; 

Far, far he follow’d the meteor spark, 

The wind was high and the clouds were dark, 

And the boat return’d no more. 

But oft, from the Indian hunter’s camp, 

This lover and maid so true 

Are seen at the hour of midnight damp 

To cross the Lake by a fire-fly lamp, 

And paddle their white canoe!

    My husband and I visited the Great Dismal Swamp National Wildlife Refuge, today, with

"Tree in Road, Dismal Swamp" photo by KL Wood

the intention of driving to Lake Drummond. Unfortunately, a victim of this morning's wind storm blocked our path half-way, its long branches stretching across the narrow road, its large root base upended over the canal leading to the lake. Oh well. Another day. Who knows, perhaps the Lady of the Lake did not wish to be disturbed today.

Thanks for stopping by...y'all come back now.  And Happy Valentine's Day!
Kate

Clary Sage...beauty and brains in one package

"Clary Sage Field" photo by KL Wood

May is the month in which many fields in my part of northeastern North Carolina burst into lovely purple and white bloom. Flowering spikes of blossoms begin to peek above their green leafy bowers and assail the senses with their beauty and pungent scent. The source of this botanical extravaganza is a plant unknown to the fields of my Carolina childhood, one that in many cases replaced tobacco. Welcome to the world of Clary Sage. 

"Salvia Sclarea" photo by H. Zell via Wikimedia Commons

The Clary Sage grown in our neck of the woods is used for extracting sclareol, refined into sclareolide, which is added to scented soaps, cologne, shampoos, detergents, etc to greatly extend the life of their fragrance. It takes the place of ambergris which used to be extracted from sperm whales. Local farmers have embraced this plant which is temperamental to grow and harvest, but well worth the effort, making North Carolina the unofficial Clary Sage Capital of the World! Please read a great article in Our State magazine for fascinating information about its history and processing.
https://www.ourstate.com/clary-sages-smell-success/

Beyond its use in the fragrance industry, Clary Sage produces an essential oil used for centuries in a variety of treatments. Purchase only therapeutic grade oil for the following benefits:

• Painkiller – Helps relieve headaches, back pain, muscle stiffness, and cramps.

  

  "Purple Clary Sage" photo by KL Wood

• Eye Health –Known in the Middle Ages as "Clear Eyes."
• Antiseptic – Used to cleanse wounds and may help protect the body during surgery and against other infections.
• Aphrodisiac – Boosts libido and may improve sexual performance. 
• Blood pressure regulator – Helps reduce blood pressure by relaxing the arteries.
• Hair treatment – Believed to stimulate hair growth and can also limit the sebum produced in the scalp to treat dandruff.
• Skin health promoter – Regulates oil production and reduces inflammation that contributes to dermatitis.

How to use Clary Sage essential oil: 

"Salvia Sclarea" Kurt Stueber via Wikipedia Commons

• To soothe eye problems, soak a clean cloth in a mixture of warm water and a few drops of clary sage oil. Lay cloth over closed eyes for 10 minutes.
• To relieve anxiety and emotional tension, inhale with the use of diffusers and burners.
• To relieve muscle pain and menstrual cramps, mix with a carrier oil and massage into affected areas or add a few drops to your bath water.
• To regulate the production of sebum in your skin, add a few drops to your moisturizer. 

-A word of caution, Clary Sage essential oil is known to increase the sedating effect of alcohol and other sedatives.-

Clary Sage figures prominently in my work-in-progress novel, Essentially Dead. My main character's beagle, Betty, has an obsession with its highly aromatic scent and likes to stop, drop, and roll in it if given the opportunity!

Have a good couple weeks, dear Reader. Thanks for stopping by...y'all come back now! 

(As always: this post is for information only for adult use and does not replace medical advice. Тest out an oil first by placing a small diluted amount on your arm as a patch test. In particular, those who are or could be pregnant should always refer to their physicians before using any essential oils.) 

Witch Way to Enter the House...and where to store your broom

"Witches Hut" photo by Sunblade 1500 via Wikimedia Commons

Today I am writing this post to the sound of workers installing a new front entry door on our old house. Since most everything about our century-plus-old Buttercup Cottage is just a wee bit crooked and out of plumb, installing a twenty-first century door is like pounding the proverbial square peg into the round hole. It can be done but it takes a lot of time, creativity, and a fair dose of stubborn willpower. So...drawing from this inspiration, I researched the role of doors in legend, lore, and superstition. I ran across a wonderful resource in the form of a book you can read online: 
The Frank C. Brown Collection of North Carolina Folklore-- Popular Beliefs and Superstitions from North Carolina. Duke University Press, 1964.

https://books.google.com/booksid=Oudc1sjV6cgC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false

Read and heed these important rules relating to home doorways. There is a surprising number of rules involving witches. Apparently North Carolina witches are a particularly wicked group. Not one word about witches bringing good luck or granting wishes. 

"Broom" photo by Schmidti via Wikimedia Commons

Hang onto your hats. Here we go!

--"If you want to keep witches away, lay a straw broom in the doorway."
     -Don't leave a broom propped up beside the door because a witch might take it to ride on.
     -If you have a witch in your house, lay a broom in the doorway and she can't budge.
     -Apparently, witches can enter your house by stepping over the broom so if you visit a neighbor and see a broom in the doorway, don't step over it or you might be accused of witchcraft. (Yes, it seems to negate the whole witch-barring-doorway-broom thing to me too.)
    -Along those contradictory lines: if you are bewitched, lay a broomstick in the doorway and the first person to pick it up and enter is your witch.

--"If anybody comes to your house and acts crazy, go out to your front door and scatter salt, for he's a witch and it will keep the charm away."
    -If you sprinkle salt in front of your door, a witch cannot enter.

--"By hanging a sieve on the door of your home you could be assured a witch could not enter while you were asleep, because she had to go through every hole in the sieve."
    - If you fill the sieve with dirt, it makes it even harder for the witch!

"Clitheroe Museum Lucky Horse Shoe" photo by 
Clem Rutter via Wikimedia Commons

--"If you are shown a piece of hair near the door and you do not pick it up, the witches will overtake you soon."

--"If you find a horseshoe in the road, cover it with tin foil and hang it over your door. This will ward off witches."

--"If a door opens of itself, a ghost is the operator."

--"If a rooster comes up to the front door and crows five times, it is a sign of death in the family."

"Cockadoodledoo!!" by Steve Selby via Wikimedia Commons

     -There are many variations on this theme and it doesn't seem to matter whether the rooster crows at the front door or the back door, head in or head out, once or many times. Anyway you look at it, a rooster at your door is ominous!

--"If you make a window out of a door, one of your family will die." (Doesn't appear to be a time limit for this one so it's probably true. Might just take a while...)

--"If someone dies in the family, it is bad luck for everyone to go off and close the front door." (There are many rules about leaving doors and windows open following a death at home so the deceased person's spirit is free to leave the house.)

I know there are many more superstitions and "rules" regarding doors but I think this is enough to keep me and my new door busy. (Now...if you hear me complaining because I can't find the sieve to strain the tea, just remind me to check the front door.)

Have a good couple weeks, dear Reader. Thanks for stopping by...y'all come back now! 

Kate

The Hills are Alive...with the Little People

Emerald Green Forest, Roan Mountain, photo by K. L. Wood. 

Spending this week hiking the beautiful wooded trails of the North Carolina and Tennessee mountains, it's easy to imagine otherworldly beings hiding among the craggy rocks and moss covered trees. Walking the paths through the natural rhododendron gardens and emerald green forests of
Roan Mountain State Park, my mother described them as "enchanted" and "fairy land." Seems most civilizations have their own legends involving fairies, dwarves, elves, pixies, leprechauns, etc. The Cherokee, some of whom still live in the mountains of North Carolina, have their own race of lilliputian forest dwellers, the Yunwi Tsunsdi  (pronounced: yun-wee joon-stee,) translated as "Little People."

Rhododendron, Roan Mountain, photo by K. L. Wood

The Yunwi Tsundi are considered benign beings...in most cases. They are usually helpful to humans but do not suffer fools gladly especially if they treat the Yunwi Tsundi with disrespect. If you find a knife or trinket in the woods, you must say something like, "Little People, I would like to take this," (since it may belong to them) or you might feel stones being thrown at you all the way home. They like to be left alone and if you hear drums far off in a lonely stretch of forest, do not follow the sound for it may lead you to the Yunwi Tsundi's home. If they discover you on their land they may throw a spell over you to

Young Cherokee Woman Pointing to Smoky Mountains, NC, 1942, AP

disorient you and if you do manage to find your way back home, you will feel dazed for the rest of your life. 

They are said to love music and dancing and resemble handsome Cherokee men and beautiful women and are either black, white, or have the golden skin of the natives. They stand about eighteen inches tall and have hair so long it nearly brushes the ground. The Yunwi Tsundi are divided into three groups: the Laurel People, the Rock People, and the Dogwood People. 

The Laurel People are fun-loving and enjoy playing little harmless tricks on humans. It is said that if you are fishing and feel a strong tug on your line, sure that it is a huge fish, only

Mountain Laurel, North Carolina, photo by K. L. Wood

to reel in a stick, it is the Laurel People pulling your leg and having a laugh. Their hope is that you will laugh, too, and not take life so seriously. The Cherokee say that if children are laughing in their sleep, it's the Laurel People at work (or play, that is.)

The Rock People are considered the mean-spirited ones, even to the point of stealing human children. They are expert at "getting even" but are said to be that way because their space has been invaded. They are the manifestation of what can happen to you if you do not treat others with kindness and respect.

The Dogwood People are the kind and helpful ones. If you wake one morning to go to work in your fields but find your crop has already been harvested and stacked in your barn, it must have been the Dogwood People spreading their goodwill. They like to remain anonymous, however, so you mustn't go out and watch the Yunwi Tsundi at work because the price for such a sight may be death.

So, what do we learn from these Little People? Live life joyfully--always ready to laugh at yourself-- treat others with respect because "what goes around, comes around," and treat others kindly and generously, never looking for recognition of your good works.

Have a good couple weeks, dear Reader. Thanks for stopping by...y'all come back now! 

Kate

I Scream, You Scream, We All Scream For...Snow Cream!

"Snow Mist," original photo by the author, 
copyright,  Kathryn Louise Wood

(*Author's note: I prepared this post several days before the Northeast got blasted with the blizzard. We even got a little dusting here in Edenton; more like powdered sugar than snow. See my photo at the bottom of the post of our little winged porch pig. The photo to the left at the top, is one I took along the Blue Ridge Parkway of Virginia, several years ago.)

I think one of the most depressing weather conditions is a 38 degree rainfall. It just makes you cold to the bone and isn't even pretty. I realize I am speaking as an eastern North Carolinian, far away from the lands of winter-long frozen tundra, but I do wish we could have at least one lovely snowfall this winter. Just one. Maybe two, but any more would just be over zealous and take some of the magic away. Growing up in eastern North Carolina and Virginia, a snow day was always an exciting event and we celebrated by making Snow Cream. I used to think Snow Cream was a confection limited to the South but my research has found its consumption all over the country.

Looking for the oldest written recipe I could find for the fluffy fabulousness, I found the following from Elizabeth Ellicott Lea of Ellicott City, Maryland. Her cookbook, Domestic Cookery, Useful Receipts, and Hints to Young Housekeepers was published in Baltimore in 1841 with later editions in 1846 and 1851. You can see the original text and all her other recipes at: http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext05/cookh10h.htm

-Snow Cream (19th century style)-

“Take the richest cream you can procure, season it with a few drops of essence of lemon or syrup of lemon peel, and powdered white sugar, and if you choose a spoonful of preserve syrup, and just as you send it to table, sitr in light newly fallen snow till it is nearly stiff as ice cream.”

"Snow Cream!!!!!!" by Chris Breeze, via Wikimedia Commons

I grew up with Snow Cream made with fresh, raw eggs whipped into the mixture but concerns about salmonella poisoning from consuming uncooked eggs has put a damper on that childhood memory. So...here is a modern (egg-free) recipe which is still delicious and appropriately celebratory. (As with ice cream flavors, variations are endless.)

-Snow Cream-
Ingredients:
1 gallon of clean, fresh, fluffy snow (if you can, set out a bowl to catch it as it falls)
1 cup sugar (powdered makes for less graininess but some of us enjoy granulated's crunchiness)
1 tablespoon vanilla
2 cups milk (or cream or half&half or canned evaporated milk, etc)
Directions:
Stir sugar and vanilla into snow to taste, then stir in enough milk for desired consistency.
Serve immediately! Quick, before it melts!

"When Pigs Fly" Edenton Snowfall Photo by the author, Kathryn Wood

Have a good couple weeks, dear Reader. Thanks for stopping by...y'all come back now!

Kate