Date: 1/128 It's the beginning of spring in Southern Virginia and time to think about planting. I planted my first garden four years ago and haven't planted since. So this will be my second go at it. Thank you for watching.
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Date: 0/988 In the olden days, a 30 mile trip riding a horse would take nearly all day, seven hours or more, going 4 miles per hour. Today in a car, around 35 minutes. Walking? Ten hours at least. So what? That’s about how far it is from where I live to where I want to rent a little office for the newspaper. My van is acting up and needs a good once-over by a mechanic. Aside from that, I am convinced you don’t really know a place until you’ve walked it. So this morning, I’m wondering if I could make it to Alberta by dark. On the other hand, why rush it? I’ve walked 400 miles across the Mohave Desert and over 200 miles through Maine, but have never walked through my own county. Why is it we always think other places are more fascinating than our own back yard? I don’t know how safe it is to walk along logger roads, so don’t get your hopes up. But don't be surprised if some pictures of rural Virginia pop up here sometime soon. Date: 0/985 My plan was to visit the little town of Alberta, Virginia to find where the planned 45,000-square-foot organic vegetable processing and packing plant written about in the September 29, 2021 edition of Produce News was going to be built. When I arrived, the town office was closed and nobody seemed to know anything about the vegetable packing plant. I did, however, meet the hair stylist at Joan’s Place who is also the owner and curator of the town museum located next to her salon. Joan Glenn, along with her husband, son and a few friends transformed the local tobacco barn into a beautiful little museum. For those unfamiliar with tobacco farming, Virginia tobacco is flue-cured, which means green tobacco leaves are hung to dry in curing barns with a chimney-like flue and an externally fed tinder box. The barn air is heated slowly so as not to produce smoke. This process of drying the leaves creates a mildly sweet tasting tobacco. Many Virginia tobacco farms have closed now,the number reportedly dropping from 6,000 tobacco farms in 1997 to just 306 in 2017. So now the Alberta tobacco barn is a museum. Thank you, Joan, for your hospitality and allowing me to video your museum. Can't wait to see your before-and-after pictures of the tobacco barn. |
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