Mike Stafford
Member
- Messages
- 2,351
- Location
- Coastal plain of North Carolina
My father bought 37 acres of land when he moved in Winston-Salem although we actually lived right outside in Forsyth County. He gave his mother and father one acre of that property where they built a house not far from ours.
It was a long and narrow piece of land which included some open areas, old farming plots and heavily wooded areas. Daddy found out when he picked a spot to build that there was a granite deposit that extended all the way to China which made it difficult to bore a well. Our well had to be located over 800 feet away below a large open field which we used for a vegetable garden.
I know most people envision a vegetable garden as some small well-tended plot of land loaded with fresh vegetables. Our garden was probably 2 acres scratched out of hard red clay. It was not unusual for us to plant 100 tomato plants in a single row along with equally long rows of corn, beans, peas, okra, green peppers, squash, and melons etc. if that will provide a sense of scale. Of course this garden was not only for our family but also for my grandparents and their two youngest boys who were the uncles I never called uncle except to embarrass them as they were only 2 and 4 years older than me. We all spent many hours hoeing that garden together which seemed more suited to growing weeds than vegetables.
My dad’s father we called “Pop” and he faithfully helped tend the garden. He worked tirelessly in the garden and had the green thumb my Grandmother did not. Grandma and Mom canned and froze the bounty from our garden and we ate well during the summer as every night we had butterbeans, string beans, peas, okra, tomatoes, corn, and squash. We had new potatoes, green peas and onions in the spring and collards, turnips and mustard greens in the fall. I did not have an appreciation for how well we ate until I was an adult and sat down at a table without benefit of a garden.
Along one side of this “garden” was a heavily wooded area with the rotted and crumbling remains of an ancient saw mill surrounded by large piles of decaying sawdust covered in leaf litter. So old was this sawdust trees grew up through the rotten black piles. The thick tree canopy made the area dark, dank and spooky in that part of the woods and walking through that area was like walking on a deep carpet of sponges.
Grandma liked to plant flowers and ornamental plants. She was always bringing home a cutting of this or that and planting it in the front yard. About the only thing she was able to keep alive were some straggly hollies and sickly looking Nandina bushes. Her flowers never seemed to survive our summers. It probably didn’t help that the red clay in which she was planting her flowers was only a few inches deep over the giant granite boulders upon which the house was built.
Every spring she had a job for me and my uncles. Grandma would send us to get several wheelbarrow loads of rotted sawdust and spread it around her plants. In retrospect I think this is what killed her flowers and ornamentals as the sawdust robbed the plants of nitrogen. My uncles did most of the work as I was too little to push the wheelbarrow back up the hill from the decayed saw mill.
So down the hill we would go with a rumbling old wheelbarrow that Pop had built. It was made entirely from wood except for the axle shaft and a solid iron cart wheel. The sides of the barrow could be removed so that it could haul wood or anything else that did not require sides for containment. Pop even shaped the handles with a spoke shave so they were round and somewhat comfortable to hold.
It was hard to push the wheelbarrow through the spongy rotten sawdust and the sawdust itself was hard to shovel as tree roots and vines grew freely throughout its richness. But we dug and eventually filled the wheelbarrow with as much sawdust as my uncles thought they could push back up the hill.
As we were starting to leave we noticed some movement in the sawdust in the wheelbarrow. There were baby snakes in the sawdust! And not just any baby snakes, baby copperhead snakes! Copperheads were known by a variety of different names depending on who you talked to but most included words along the lines of rattle-headed-copper-leafed-moccasin-snakes. Some of my family members identified every snake as a moccasin.
All of us boys were very familiar with copperheads. We had had problems with them on our property throughout the years and it was not uncommon to see them sunning in the garden, driveway or on our patios or porches. Pop had been bitten by a copperhead on the little finger on his left hand while he was picking vine tomatoes and ended up losing the use of his finger as the operation that was performed to save it probably did more damage than the snake bite.
My mother once brought a small copperhead back to the house in an old rusty and holey galvanized 3 gallon bucket filled with tomatoes. We surmised that the snake crawled from under the tomato vines into a hole in the side of the bucket. She was in the process of washing the red dust from our red clay garden off the tomatoes when she saw the snake in the bucket and it moved. Mom screamed and I had to run down to the garden and get Pop who dispatched the unfortunate snake before it was canned.
Well, we looked down and the ground was fairly swarming with baby copperheads and here we were barefooted and in shorts. We made a hasty retreat and ran back up the hill to tell Grandma that there were snakes in the sawdust. Grandma was afraid of snakes and for sure that was the end of our annual job of hauling sawdust to smother her flowers.
Pop listened to our story and had one thing to say, “Boy, if you know what’s good for you you’ll stay out of that old sawmill.” Well I knew what was good for me and I never went back into that section of woods ever again. Besides I had no desire to push that heavy wheelbarrow loaded with sawdust back up the hill.
It was a long and narrow piece of land which included some open areas, old farming plots and heavily wooded areas. Daddy found out when he picked a spot to build that there was a granite deposit that extended all the way to China which made it difficult to bore a well. Our well had to be located over 800 feet away below a large open field which we used for a vegetable garden.
I know most people envision a vegetable garden as some small well-tended plot of land loaded with fresh vegetables. Our garden was probably 2 acres scratched out of hard red clay. It was not unusual for us to plant 100 tomato plants in a single row along with equally long rows of corn, beans, peas, okra, green peppers, squash, and melons etc. if that will provide a sense of scale. Of course this garden was not only for our family but also for my grandparents and their two youngest boys who were the uncles I never called uncle except to embarrass them as they were only 2 and 4 years older than me. We all spent many hours hoeing that garden together which seemed more suited to growing weeds than vegetables.
My dad’s father we called “Pop” and he faithfully helped tend the garden. He worked tirelessly in the garden and had the green thumb my Grandmother did not. Grandma and Mom canned and froze the bounty from our garden and we ate well during the summer as every night we had butterbeans, string beans, peas, okra, tomatoes, corn, and squash. We had new potatoes, green peas and onions in the spring and collards, turnips and mustard greens in the fall. I did not have an appreciation for how well we ate until I was an adult and sat down at a table without benefit of a garden.
Along one side of this “garden” was a heavily wooded area with the rotted and crumbling remains of an ancient saw mill surrounded by large piles of decaying sawdust covered in leaf litter. So old was this sawdust trees grew up through the rotten black piles. The thick tree canopy made the area dark, dank and spooky in that part of the woods and walking through that area was like walking on a deep carpet of sponges.
Grandma liked to plant flowers and ornamental plants. She was always bringing home a cutting of this or that and planting it in the front yard. About the only thing she was able to keep alive were some straggly hollies and sickly looking Nandina bushes. Her flowers never seemed to survive our summers. It probably didn’t help that the red clay in which she was planting her flowers was only a few inches deep over the giant granite boulders upon which the house was built.
Every spring she had a job for me and my uncles. Grandma would send us to get several wheelbarrow loads of rotted sawdust and spread it around her plants. In retrospect I think this is what killed her flowers and ornamentals as the sawdust robbed the plants of nitrogen. My uncles did most of the work as I was too little to push the wheelbarrow back up the hill from the decayed saw mill.
So down the hill we would go with a rumbling old wheelbarrow that Pop had built. It was made entirely from wood except for the axle shaft and a solid iron cart wheel. The sides of the barrow could be removed so that it could haul wood or anything else that did not require sides for containment. Pop even shaped the handles with a spoke shave so they were round and somewhat comfortable to hold.
It was hard to push the wheelbarrow through the spongy rotten sawdust and the sawdust itself was hard to shovel as tree roots and vines grew freely throughout its richness. But we dug and eventually filled the wheelbarrow with as much sawdust as my uncles thought they could push back up the hill.
As we were starting to leave we noticed some movement in the sawdust in the wheelbarrow. There were baby snakes in the sawdust! And not just any baby snakes, baby copperhead snakes! Copperheads were known by a variety of different names depending on who you talked to but most included words along the lines of rattle-headed-copper-leafed-moccasin-snakes. Some of my family members identified every snake as a moccasin.
The deadly rattle-headed-copper-leafed-moccasin-snake.
All of us boys were very familiar with copperheads. We had had problems with them on our property throughout the years and it was not uncommon to see them sunning in the garden, driveway or on our patios or porches. Pop had been bitten by a copperhead on the little finger on his left hand while he was picking vine tomatoes and ended up losing the use of his finger as the operation that was performed to save it probably did more damage than the snake bite.
My mother once brought a small copperhead back to the house in an old rusty and holey galvanized 3 gallon bucket filled with tomatoes. We surmised that the snake crawled from under the tomato vines into a hole in the side of the bucket. She was in the process of washing the red dust from our red clay garden off the tomatoes when she saw the snake in the bucket and it moved. Mom screamed and I had to run down to the garden and get Pop who dispatched the unfortunate snake before it was canned.
Well, we looked down and the ground was fairly swarming with baby copperheads and here we were barefooted and in shorts. We made a hasty retreat and ran back up the hill to tell Grandma that there were snakes in the sawdust. Grandma was afraid of snakes and for sure that was the end of our annual job of hauling sawdust to smother her flowers.
Pop listened to our story and had one thing to say, “Boy, if you know what’s good for you you’ll stay out of that old sawmill.” Well I knew what was good for me and I never went back into that section of woods ever again. Besides I had no desire to push that heavy wheelbarrow loaded with sawdust back up the hill.
Cool story, Mike. Actually, copperheads are moccasins. Same family. Agkistrodon if I remember my herp stuff well. I have a variety of welcomed critters in my shop as it is open in the front and has a dirt and rock floor. Which is why I keep the shavings bagged up and stored for garden use by myself and other family members. If they want shavings, they gotta come get them and feed me tamales. That's the deal. I am constantly being supervised out there by rough back lizards, birds of all kinds, and of course my rat snakes. Sometimes I find it amazing that I get anything done.
