The coming of spring at our house is not measured by length of day or temperature. It is not the blooming of Coltsfoot (come far too early this year) or pinking of the buds at the tips of trees along Nameless Creek that signals spring to us. The first day of spring at my house is marked by the afternoon or evening of our first meal of the year on the front porch. (more…)

Yes, I know the saying says otherwise. And I have known people, jobs and towns where, the more I learned about them…. well, we do sometimes come to despise that which has become too comfortable, too familiar. But maybe it is more often true in my experience that ‘familiarity breeds respect’, and this has entered my thoughts this week as I have pondered how answer a sincere question posed to me by a regular Fragments reader. (more…)

The building that had once been a sprawling grocery store was now a brightly-colored entertainment megaplex called “the Children’s Fun Palace”. The parking lot was filled with cars. None of us knew what to expect on this first visit, but it was obviously the place to be on a warm, April day in the Midwestern town where my daughter lives.
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My friend Bobby and I were deposited one Alabama summer afternoon at his Aint Tink’s and told to “go play.” Though neither of us really knew how, we decided to fish in a small creek nearby. We figured it out as we went along and used what we could find close by–a crooked stick, a few feet of sewing thread and a safety pin scrounged from a bedroom dresser drawer. For bait, wild blackberries. Surely fish liked fruit. (more…)

The Women’s Resource Center of the New River Valley

Crisis Hotline 639-1123
Help when you want it. Hope when you need it. 24 hours a day. (more…)

At first I thought my husband, Joe, had sold his soul to the FloydFest devil.

Since he took the job of coordinating parking at the festival, I hadn’t seen him for days. For the past five years, he’s volunteered his time in exchange for a weekend pass, but this year, as the Floyd High soccer coach, he signed on to head up one of the hardest behind the scenes jobs. In exchange the FF promoters will make a substantial donation to the soccer program. (more…)

Here are some images from Floyd Fest 6, a 4-day music festival which was held in July of 2007 right off the Blue Ridge Parkway in southwest Virginia.

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It is a beautiful late spring day in Floyd County and though it feels like summer, the Summer Solstice is still ten days away.

A storm cloud approached, the trees swayed and leaves blew in the wind. The storm blew over so we continued with our outside chores; Scott mulching an asparagus bed and red raspberry patch, while I removed all traces of bindweed from a long row of flowers. (more…)

Win a Handmade Quilt, a Night at Hotel Floyd or a Handcrafted Teapot. (more…)

Let me say at the very beginning that our dog is generally a well-adjusted, self-assured, yellow lab of normal intelligence and disposition. This is not to say that, like all of us, he doesn’t have his own eccentricities. I must tell you that he is obsessive about butterflies. (more…)