Patsy Pridgen

As I write on this late Thursday afternoon, September 5, it’s begun to rain where I live in the coastal plains of eastern North Carolina, but there’s no significant wind yet. We’re not to be fooled, though, according to the weather forecasters who are babbling nonstop on the local channels: Hurricane Dorian is coming.

Sooo, I’ve prepared, sorta. There were a dozen bales of pine straw I felt compelled to spread this morning to cover the bare earth left by a recent building project. My husband thinks this task was unnecessary and jokes that pine needles will be flying into the neighbor’s yard. My theory is the rain will make the pine straw heavy enough that gale force winds–should any arrive–won’t disturb it. Looked nice when I finished, don’t you think (other than the dead grass)?

On to more traditional hurricane prep, I took flower pots, chimes, and an orange bird house off my baker’s rack and plant stand on the porch. I gambled on not toting items to the new storage building or the garage but simply set everything on the porch behind the brick.

When there’s no wind stirring, it’s hard to imagine wrought iron chairs and a big gas grill becoming projectiles. I decided to leave the outdoor furniture and grill where they were and hope for the best.

I got a text from my candidate of choice for Rocky Mount City Council, Ward 5, asking that campaign yard signs be put away during the hurricane. I have complied. Don’t judge my messy garage.

And of course, I made a final grocery run. I’d already stocked up on milk and bread, but forgot water. Why do we need water? I really don’t know. Even during the worst of Hurricane Floyd, the taps worked. We had all the drinking water we wanted and just as important, could flush the commode. Still, the hurricane prep experts tell us to stock up on water, so I bought a 24-pack.

The rain’s picked up some since I started writing, and my cell phone just emitted a shrill tornado warning followed a couple of minutes later by another shrill flash flood warning. This morning, it was hard to believe a hurricane was approaching as I looked out over my peaceful backyard, spying an okra bloom under the crepe myrtle.

I hope as you read this, my hometown has been spared the brunt of Hurricane Dorian and my half-hearted preparations have proved adequate.

It’s a place called Fishing Creek. The name fits since Grandson Charlie, age eight, loves to throw out a hook there. Recently, he caught a big bass in its rain-muddied waters on a late Sunday afternoon.

Yeah, I know this picture is huge, but so is Charlie’s smile. Just this summer, he’s discovered the joy of fishing. He’s as hooked as this fish. I’m delighted that he’ll pause the Minecraft and Fortnite to go outdoors. For right now, there’s nothing he’d rather do than fish even though he insists on throwing  back everything he catches. Yep, even this bass that his grandma would love to have had for supper.

The above bass is not the first one he snagged at Fishing Creek. A few days earlier, he’d pulled in an equally large one only to have it escape before he could quite land it. To say he was upset would be an understatement. Eight-year-olds don’t always deal well with disappointment.

But Charlie learned a few lessons that day: Wanting something to happen doesn’t mean it will. Even attempting something doesn’t always guarantee success. Oh, and always be prepared.

If he’d had a net that day, the fish could possibly have been hauled in. From now on, when my husband takes him fishing, my dad’s old net (recently repaired by me) will be on hand.

Charlie also learned the value of perseverance although I’m pretty sure he doesn’t know the word. He lost a big bass on Wednesday and then caught a big bass at the same spot on Sunday. He had to try again. He had to wait four whole days for the gratification of catching a fish.

Video game gratification comes instantly. I’m glad he’s learning to be patient. And to try again. And to appreciate the great outdoors.

Charlie and his dad get a lot of their fishing equipment at a place called Nash Rod & Reel.

Charlie calls it Ray’s, after the name of the owner, Ray Matthews. Inside the shop, there’s a bulletin board where kids can post pictures of themselves with their big catches. It’s been Charlie’s goal in life to have his picture on Ray’s board.

His granddaddy took his picture, the one I led with today, and I had it printed. I thought he’d want to rush right down to Ray’s and pin it on the board.

Not so fast, Grandma. Seems there’s a picture of a large catfish Charlie caught that’s in contention for a spot on the board. Charlie’s got to mull over which to put up. I had to listen to the merits of each, how hard a catfish is to catch versus a bass, what a catfish looks like versus a bass, etc. etc.

The catfish picture or the bass one? It’s a big decision. Something to think about other than video games.

I’ve been trying to put my finger on the source of my low-level anxiety this week, and I’ve figured it out. School’s starting back! The buses are rolling. It’s time to say good-bye to sweet summer.

It’s been six years since I started a fall semester as a teacher, fifteen since I sent a teenager to senior year of high school, ten since I packed up a young adult for the final year of college. So what’s up with my school anxiety?

Part of it is due to my DNA. You don’t spend 30 years teaching, plus all those previous years being educated to teach, without it leaving a permanent mark. For me, the new year will always begin in late August, not the beginning of January.

I see back-to-school supplies for sale, and I have to buy something myself. I feel like I need notepads to do lesson plans. Besides, what former educator can resist composition books for 25 cents apiece?

Another reason for my back-to-school jitters: the grandchildren have returned to the schoolhouse this week. Like a good grandma, I empathize with their uncertainty about the new year–although they look pretty happy in this annual first day of school photo posted to social media.

I don’t have very many first day of school pictures of my children–no Facebook to post to back in the 80’s and 90’s–but I did unearth this photo of my youngest daughter set to depart for day one of kindergarten in 1991.

Yes, that’s a much younger me, kneeling on the floor beside her. I’d need help getting up from that position now!

She was one of three daughters my husband and I helped through elementary school, middle school, high school, and college. A lot of time, energy, and money went into those years. Packing lunches, carpooling, supervising homework, attending sporting events, paying tuition–the list goes on and on.

There were good years, wonderful years, and quite frankly, some mediocre ones. But we –the girls, their dad (the lunch packer), and I–persevered. Young parents, there is a light at the end of the tunnel: one day they graduate! (Youngest daughter again, seventeen years later)

School is wonderful–I spent a good portion of my life there–but it’s also a little scary, especially at the beginning of a new year.

Remember the North Carolina tourism slogan: Variety Vacationland? Our state reaches from the coast to the mountains. Something for everyone!

Living in the eastern part of the state only two and a half hours from the Atlantic Ocean, my something has always been the beach. Until this summer.

My husband and I sold our Charlotte condo and invested the proceeds in a modest mountain house in Beech Mountain.

My daughter has a mountain home just a footpath away, so we decided to ignore the five-hour drive it takes us to get here from our eastern North Carolina home and enjoy the highland experience for a change. And the two young Charlotte grandchildren who walk through the woods to Grandma’s house for ice cream!

As you can see from the picture above, the front yard is full of plants (native ferns and other unidentified stuff), but I think I need a pop of color. Maybe next spring, I’ll put in some of these daisies I see growing all around Banner Elk and Beech Mountain. Evidently these flowers are one of the few plants the abundant deer here don’t eat.

One of the features that sold us on the house was the nearby mountain stream. We can sit on our back deck and hear the water trickling. There’s even a bedroom in the house where the soundtrack through the open window is this running stream.  I call it the Tranquility Room.

My favorite indoor feature is the stone fireplace in the living room. I’ve propped a picture with similar colors on the mantle to break up the vast expanse. I’ve also enjoyed arranging my books and knickknacks on the shelves to the right.

I need a bigger piece of furniture (and my husband says a bigger TV) to the left of the fireplace. I’m thinking some big old oak sideboard repurposed as a television stand would look cool there. I love an excuse to hit the secondhand antique shops. The farm truck bookends below came from such a store in Wilmington, NC.

I’ve done some painting to perk things up. The front door was a dull green that didn’t seem to match the house and did nothing to set off the stained glass insert. I went with a fun yellow, maybe to match next year’s daisies! Three coats later–which I applied myself, I’m proud to say–I have a happy door. Uh oh, is that my reflection in the picture?

A rusted weathervane came attached to the front porch. I went even funkier painting it. Hey, it’s a mountain house. Anything goes.

Yes, that’s a gravel road in front of the house. I feel like I’m kinda semi-camping in this house with no air conditioning–not really needed at our elevation- and abundant ferns everywhere I look.

Jan Karon wrote the popular Mitford series featuring Father Tim, an Episcopal rector in a small mountain town loosely based on Blowing Rock, which is only a half hour or so from Beech Mountain (http://www.mitfordbooks.com/).

I often think about the lovable Father Tim and his parishioners as I enjoy my simple life in a blue house on a gravel road atop a North Carolina mountain.

It’s been called the delicacy of the South, and garden experts say it thrives in the scorching heat of humid summers. My husband would disagree that okra is a delicacy, but I can vouch for the fact that it does indeed flourish in hot, humid weather.

For the second year in a row in these steamy Eastern North Carolina summers, I’ve had a bumper crop of okra from just four seedlings. It’s so fun to grow! Last year’s plants were even taller than these.

As noted above, I’m really the only okra lover in my house. My husband will eat it fried, but I don’t fix it that way very often because (a) it’s not the healthiest way to eat it, and (b) I’m lousy at frying it. The batter always falls off in the pan, and I wind up with a great big mess.

So, what to do with all this okra coming off these four plants?

I’ve been looking for recipes and found one submitted by Silvermarigold on allrecipes. Creole Okra calls for sautéing sliced okra with onion, green pepper, and tomatoes in a couple of tablespoons of olive oil. Spices to add include dried thyme, fresh parsley,  cayenne pepper, and garlic.

I rummaged through my pantry and refrigerator and found enough ingredients to make a modified version of this recipe.

In a large skillet, I sautéed the following in 2 tablespoons of olive oil: 1/2 large chopped onion, 1/2 thinly sliced green pepper, 1 tomato cut into chunks plus half a small carton of cherry tomatoes (again, what I found in the fridge; I put these in whole).

Here are the spices I added: 1 teaspoon of minced garlic (the kind in a jar),  3/8 teaspoon dried thyme, and 1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper. I let all this cook for a few minutes until the onion and pepper were close to tender. Then I added 6 okra, sliced into half-inch rounds. I cooked the whole shebang another few minutes until the okra was tender. The final product looked really pretty in the pan.

It tasted good too. I’d planned to use the gravy from the country-style steak I cooked on my rice, but instead poured the Creole Okra on it. That’s sautéed squash as another side dish…and another story.

I still had LOTS of okra left over, so I googled “Freezing Okra.” The process was easy. First, I boiled the large pods for 4 minutes and the smaller ones for 3 minutes.

Next, I quickly dumped the okra into an ice bath, letting the pods cool for several minutes.

It’s important to be sure the okra is completely dry before bagging it for the freezer.

I used quart-size freezer bags. The instructions said the okra will be good for 6 to 8 months, so I  need to cook it sometime before next summer. Maybe try my hand at a gumbo in January or whip up another pan of Creole Okra?

My mother used to can and freeze vegetables all summer. Our family had a huge garden behind our house out in the country. I have only a small plot in my suburban backyard, but I bet Mama would’ve been proud of me for “putting up” okra.

And, not to be bragging, but I do think my Creole Okra recipe beats just steaming the stuff the way she used to do. My husband ate his entire serving!

A person can travel far and wide but to see sheer geographical beauty and awesome sites, it’s hard to beat the good ol’ USA. I’ve just returned from a week-long swing through parts of South Dakota, Montana, Wyoming, and Utah–with a corner of Iowa thrown in–and I’m still gushing.

My husband and I signed on for Caravan’s bus tour called “Mount Rushmore, Grand Tetons, and Yellowstone.” On the first day then, no surprise, I checked off Mount Rushmore, an item on my travel bucket list. The sculptured faces of Washington, Jefferson, Teddy Roosevelt, and Lincoln are absolutely magnificent, indeed, an engineering and artistic feat.

My husband, always the official trip photographer, took a ton of pictures during our visit to Mount Rushmore. But here’s one I snapped of our view as we ate a bison burger lunch there. I don’t think I’ve ever had such an extraordinary background for a meal.

After touring Mount Rushmore, our group stopped at the Crazy Horse Memorial. Once it’s completed, this sculpture will be a match for Mount Rushmore. Right now, all that’s discernible is the famous warrior’s face.

Get this: The memorial, a monument to the great Sioux Lakota Indian leader Crazy Horse–the one who wiped out Custer and his men at the battle of Little Big Horn–is the world’s largest sculpture in progress. The carving was started over 50 years ago by  Polish-American sculptor Korczak Ziolkowski. He’s now deceased, but his children and grandchildren are carrying on the work.

Below is a model of what the completed monument will look like. As you can see, Crazy Horse is on a steed, his left arm outstretched, pointing. At what? Maybe the future, a sad one for Native Americans as they eventually surrendered a way of life they’d known for centuries.

Yellowstone National Park was another highlight of this trip. Old Faithful, the geyser that erupts approximately every 90 minutes, is probably the most recognized feature of this first national park, established in 1872.

But there are other fascinating elements as well. My husband and I had our picture taken at Yellowstone’s Grand Canyon, location of Yellowstone Falls, which is twice the height of Niagara Falls. The scenery here is so perfect it almost looks like one of those cheesy backdrops sometimes used in photography studios, doesn’t it?

We saw beautiful mountains in South Dakota and Montana, but the third headliner of this trip, Wyoming’s Grand Tetons, was the most majestic. Oh my word. Snow-capped, jagged, soaring: adjectives fail me. I promise you the picture below is one I took; again it looks too pristine to be real.

The tour ended in Salt Lake City, where the main attraction was Temple Square, the headquarters of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, aka the Mormons. The temple there is lovely, but I was equally amazed by the beautiful grounds.

Flowers galore! The bed below is just one of many. I was especially jealous of the luscious petunias; mine at home died of thirst when I was away one weekend while temperatures soared to the 90s.

There’s so much natural beauty in South Dakota, Montana, Wyoming, and Utah. Even the view at the gas station was worth photographing!

I love my backyard this June. With the recent rain and milder temps, the grass is green, the flowers are blooming, and the “garden” is growing. I enjoy the view as I sit on my back porch with my early morning coffee and listen to the birds sing. Come along with me for a virtual tour.

I see cardinals, wrens, and doves, but my favorite to watch are the tiny hummingbirds. They’re attracted not only to a feeder I fill with sugar water but also to the blooms of the blue and black salvia (pictured in the bottom left corner above) and the flowers of the larger hosta.

This year my hosta on the left in front of the gazebo is so much bigger than the other one in front of the gazebo on the right. I don’t think the smaller one intends to bloom either. Last year, both were about the same size, and both had flowers. Mother Nature can be moody.

But I can’t complain. The hydrangea that always has lovely foliage but never has flowers? Drum roll, please: It’s blooming!!

True, these flowers aren’t huge and there aren’t tons of them, but to finally see some color on this hydrangea that I’ve had for more than a decade is a triumph. Until this year, I’d had one, yes, just one bloom. I feel like celebrating!

 As I mentioned, the garden, if I may call it that, is growing. I have four hills of cucumbers and four of squash, planted along the edge of the shrubbery. I don’t think the landscaping looks bad with the addition of the vegetables, do you? I’ve already picked my first cucumber. Sooo much tastier than what’s in the grocery store.

The rest of the garden is behind a wire fence to prevent the resident rascally rabbit from helping himself (or herself?). For some reason, this critter doesn’t eat squash and cucumbers, but I have to protect my okra, tomatoes, and the couple of zinnas I throw in for fun.

I also try to deter my rabbit by providing it with scattered bird seed. It’s quite entertaining watching the bunny eat. It’s pretty brave and doesn’t hop away as long as I stay on my porch.

I’m not sure where the rabbit lives–maybe in this bed of liriope (monkey grass) that’s growing like crazy. Yes, those are deer antlers (I’m married to a hunter) gracing my planters. I also went wild this year with a can of bright pink spray paint, adding color to a pair of rusty yard-art birds.

I used the same paint on a brown decorative bird cage that had seen better days. The pillows on the bench and the blue chair pads were bought last summer at Walmart for only $5.00 each. They spent the winter in the garage and are now good for a second season.

Most of the time, I’m not sitting on my back porch looking at the yard by myself. My husband of 42 years is there as well. I was thinking of him the other year when I bought this plaque in a garden shop in Wilmington, NC.

The next two lines are nice, too: “The last of life, for which the first was made.” Pleasant thoughts as we look out over a June backyard. I hope you’ve enjoyed looking too.

Cigars, classic cars, and mojitos? I went to Cuba expecting to find these, and I wasn’t disappointed.

In fact, I was quite impressed at the production I saw in an un-air-conditioned cigar factory where workers sat rolling cigars by hand. They worked with leaves of dried tobacco quickly but methodically, aiming to meet a daily quota.

We people-to-people visitors weren’t allowed to take photos inside the factory, so I had to settle instead for a picture of the finished products for sale in a nearby cigar shop.

I’m not a smoker and Cuban cigars aren’t cheap (unlike a lot of things such as restaurant meals and souvenirs), so I didn’t purchase any cigars to take home. I was given a couple, however, by the young man who taxied my husband and me to dinner in a 1954 Dodge convertible the last night we were in Havana.

Classic 1940s and 50s cars are everywhere in Cuba, but especially in the larger cities such as Havana. Here’s a fleet of brightly painted convertibles, waiting, I suspect, for tourists interested in tooling around in retro-style.

Cuba produces a lot of rum–and a lot of rum drinks. At almost every lunch and dinner sponsored by our tour group, we were greeted with a virgin mojito. A waiter came around with rum for those who wanted the alcohol added. Make mine a double!

Along with cigars, classic cars, and rum drinks, I saw famous sites such as Hemingway’s Cuban home, Finca Vigia (Lookout House) outside of Havana. The official line is that Hemingway donated the house and its contents to Cuba when he was urged by the American government to return to the United States after the revolution.

According to Mary Welsh, Hemingway’s wife at the time, the Cuban socialist government confiscated the property. Looking at the fully furnished rooms filled with personal items, I tend to believe Hemingway left quickly, perhaps believing he would be able to return to Finca Vigia. He never did, committing suicide in Idaho in 1961.

Another famous landmark I visited in Cuba doesn’t look like anything special, just an expanse of sandy beach on the south coast. It was here, however, at the Playa Giron that the Bay of Pigs invasion took place. Nearby is a museum, which, as you can imagine, gives a definite pro-Castro slant to the events surrounding the CIA-backed, failed military invasion to oust the new communist government.

Speaking of Castro, I expected to see his picture in government buildings and perhaps on billboards. In fact, he was all over the place along with his buddy Che Guevara. It was a little unexpected, though, to find his picture nestled with the pottery at the King Ranch, a 35,000-acre cattle spread seized by the government in 1959 in the Camaguey Province.

At the ranch, our American group was invited to see a few rodeo acts, where I encountered another surprise: the display of the American flag alongside the Cuban flag before the show began.

Since 1959 Cuba has been a socialist country which, under Castro, declared itself an atheist state. But all which hearkens back to a Catholic past has not been lost. I was surprised to find a church as magnificent as the Cathedral of San Cristobal with its baroque façade in Havana’s Cathedral Square.

An interesting fact I learned: the cathedral held the remains of Christopher Columbus from 1796 until 1898, when they were taken to Seville Cathedral in Spain.

Cuba, a country of contradictions, where I saw the expected and the unexpected.

I’m home from Cuba and people are asking, “What was it like?”

I hardly know where to begin. I found Cuba backward but lively, poor but happy, decaying but beautiful. It’s a country of contrasts.

Cuba still struggles under a socialist government. Even our Cuban tour guide, whose company is government-affiliated, admitted the flaws in state-run establishments. For example, he pointed out this sleeping employee in an empty government-owned bar.

Wouldn’t anyone rather have a cocktail in the lounge of this privately-owned restaurant (called a paladar)? I was told the bar has been restored to look as it did in pre-Castro days.

Incidentally, my husband and I, along with our travel buddies, ate dinner at this establishment, called Restaurante 1800, in Camaguey. We enjoyed excellent paella, shrimp pasta, and lobster entrees, which ranged in price from only six to eight dollars. I kid you not.

Even with generous wine drinking and tip, our bill was less than thirty dollars per couple, probably a third of what we’d pay for that kind of restaurant meal at home.

Paladars are not the only sign of private industry trying to make a go of it in socialist Cuba. This flea market in Havana had plenty of trinkets and vendors who were just as eager to sell as any I’ve seen in the Caribbean.

A potter in Camaguey showed us his technique before we visited his salesroom. (To his left is our Cuban guide for the duration of our people-to-people trip.) I couldn’t resist buying some of this beautiful handmade earthenware, especially when it was so reasonably priced. I paid only two and three dollars for a couple of nice pots.

Life appears hard for many in Cuba, a country that seems to have missed the progress and prosperity of modern times. For instance, horse-drawn transportation was common everywhere. In cities, horse and buggy outfits were used as taxis. This fellow here seems to be a farmer.

Another sign that Cuba lives in the past is the method of drying rice–spreading it on the highway. Yes, that’s rice in the picture, not sand. Our tour bus stopped so we could get out for a closer look. I would think the rice would get dirty from traffic rolling over it but evidently not.

The average Cuban makes about thirty pesos a month, which translates into thirty American dollars. Of course, many supplement their paltry salaries by working in the tourist industry, picking up tips as waiters in paladars or employees in hotels. Some Cubans have relatives living abroad (think Florida), who send money.

It sounds like a hard life to me, yet the Cubans I saw in various cities as well as the countryside seem like a happy lot for the most part. They’ll certainly burst into song or dance in restaurants, on the streets, or anywhere they think a tourist may tip.

For more about the contrast that is Cuba, check out my column in the Rocky Mount Telegram: http://www.rockymounttelegram.com/Patsy-Pridgen/2019/05/19/Cuba-Is-a-Country-of-Contradictions.html

Stay tuned for the next blog, Cuba, Part II, where I’ll share more photos of this fascinating country.

One of the many good things about being in the Rocky Mount Garden Club here in my hometown is that every April we go on some sort of field trip.

This year we visited the Vollis Simpson Whirligig Park in Wilson, a nearby city here in eastern North Carolina. I’d heard of this place for quite a while but had never taken the time to drive over and check it out.

What a sight! I didn’t count, but the Whirligig Park website says there are thirty giant metal whirligigs–the largest collection in the world–twirling here, all created by farm-machinery repairman turned folk artist Vollis Simpson.

Mr. Simpson began making whirligigs at his farm in Wilson County when he was near retirement age and kept at it until a few months before he died in 2013 at age 94. Before his death, a plan had been hatched to preserve his work by moving it to downtown Wilson.

The visitors that once flocked to Mr. Simpson’s farm to view the whirligigs now come to Wilson, helping to revitalize downtown.

The day of my visit, I wandered for quite a while in the whirligig park under an almost-hot April sun, taking picture after picture. Beneath each windmill-like sculpture, a title is posted, related no doubt to features of the whirligig. Do you think these whirligigs are aptly named?

Reflector Box

Christmas Tree

Dive Bomber Duck

Tricycle Globe

Somehow I missed the name of one of my favorites. I’ll call it Sawing Logs. A lady in our group said she’d seen this whirligig in a stiff breeze with the crosscut saw moving briskly back and forth and the dog’s tail wagging.

There’s an interesting urban legend connected to the whirligigs. When my daughters were in high school, I’d hear them talk about visiting a place called Acid Park. They were cruising over to Wilson to view the whirligigs, which at the time were at the Simpson Farm.

They thought the whirligigs had been created to honor a daughter who’d died in a car wreck after having done LSD. The story was that Mr. Simpson had dreams of what his drugged daughter had seen on the night she died and set about creating these images. In reality, Vollis Simpson did have a daughter, but fortunately she is alive.

The truth is the whirligigs were created by a man who had a lot of spare parts left over from his days as a farm machinery repairman combined with a lot of spare time when he retired. Add to that a whopping talent for creating fascinating, gigantic, outdoor folk art.

The Vollis Simpson Whirligig Park is definitely worth a trip to Wilson.