* * Playing hooky on a frigid winter day

Last Tuesday, I played hooky.  My daughter is a freshman at Virginia Tech studying Animal Science and is on her holiday break.  My dad is now in his early 80s and he is retired.  The three of us went together on a little excursion along The Spine of the Virginias.  The weather was extraordinarily cold even for midwinter. 

Our first stop was the Confederate Memorial in Union, West Virginia which has provided inspiration for both of my books.  This monument is literally situated in a cow pasture just north of downtown.  Atop a 14 foot granite pedestal is a marble figure of a Civil War soldier, standing peacefully with his rifle held in front of him.  My goal was to get a high-resolution photograph of this monument using my dad’s camera.  Dad is an exceptional photographer, mostly of wildlife, specifically birds, and he owns several nice cameras.  He took several pictures himself and gave me the camera to take several of my own.

The scene was stark and chilling with a stiff, cold breeze from the west.  The temperature was perhaps 20 F.  The snow-covered pasture and the sky were both a featureless white.  Nobody had shoveled snow from the concrete walkway.

At one point, I jumped the fence to get the angle I wanted for my photograph.  Finishing up, I saw a tractor being driven towards us.  I scurried back and hopped over the fence, hoping not to have been noticed.  Unfortunately, the farmer had driven his tractor over specifically to scold me for my misbehavior.  I apologized profusely and swore to never do it again, not indicating the purpose of my indiscretion.  My daughter teased me about it, noting that I am in trouble more often than she.

Fifteen minutes later, we were back in town having lunch at the Korner Kafé with my friend Craig Mohler who is the editor of the Monroe Watchman, the weekly newspaper.  My dad worked for most of his career in the commercial printing industry and he enjoyed talking with Craig about printing and publishing. 

At one point in the conversation, I told Craig about my recent scolding.  He said, “I don’t know why that farmer should have been angry.  For decades, there was no fence around the monument at all and everyone who visited it simply walked across the pasture.”

After lunch, Craig took us to his mother’s farm where he fed her sheep.  My daughter has never met an animal she didn’t like so she was excited about this visit.  I spent time looking over Craig’s family’s collection of antique tractors.  One of them was a 100 year old wood-fired steam tractor.

Craig dropped us off back in town and we drove to Sweet Springs where we looked over the grand Sweet Springs Hotel.  We drove over Peters Mountain back into Virginia, and then though Paint Bank and New Castle.

Our next visit was with a friend who runs a farm in Craig County.  He is notoriously publicity shy so I will not mention location or real name.  Instead, I’ll call him “Peter.” By this time in the afternoon and at the higher elevation, the temperature was probably only 15°.  My daughter rode with Peter in his tractor and dad and I walked to the field where he unwraped a cylindrical bale of hay across the snowy pasture for the cows to eat.  We went inside to warm up and Peter served us slices of a delectable pecan pie he had baked that morning and a warm cup of tea.  Peter and Dad changed exchanged notes on birds he has seen on his property.  Peter spoke to us about his theories for living a healthy life and eating natural food.

Once bundled up and outside again, we trudged across a frozen field and wandered inside Peter’s calf barn.  The inner portion of the barn was built of logs and it predated the Civil War.  The bulk of the barn was more contemporary and was literally built surrounding the earlier construction.  We talked about the perils of farming in an era dominated by corporate agribusiness.

We also visited his enclosed chicken coop.  The chickens were all being kept indoors due to the extreme cold.  They generated enough heat to fog the coop’s windows.  Peter collected a dozen or more eggs in a basket and took them back to the house.  He told me via e-mail the next day that “Due to the continued confinement from the cold weather a couple of hens were aggressively pecking others.  The sentence is a quick neck wringing. No trial. But there is nothing better than good herbal chicken soup.”

Peter explained to us the process of helping a cow deliver a calf.  Sometimes the farmer must literally pull the calf from the tight birth canal by reaching deep inside.  He said the birth canal puts great pressure on the farmer’s arm, making the process very strenuous.  He invited us to visit again in March during the calving season.

The textures of the day were dominated by life images, of the beautiful auburn hair and wet, coal-black nose of one of his bigger cows, the striking plumage of the chickens, and subtle brown and green colors of the eggs. 

My daughter enjoyed her day as well.  She said, “I had a wonderful experience getting to see a small town and meet some very nice people. I got to see how a farm runs first-hand, like what breed of cows Peter had and what part he played in the integration of the beef industry.”

The textures and congeniality of the day were painted on a frigid white canvas.