The bug that flicked me onto the blog

Category: gardens and old home renovation | Posted: Fri Nov 02, 2007 7:07 pm

To begin somewhat closely approximating the beginning...

As I dive mouselong into this blog business, I look at two right-off-the-bat questions. Why am I doing this? And why would someone read it and respond? Fairly succinct, if I do say so. The answers likely won't be.

On the gardening side of this blog, I can say that I am a gardener with a nice garden who likes to talk gardening, likes sharing his garden with others, and likes enjoying the gardens others have created. I've been out and about this gardening business for nearly 40 years, and my interest in plants and such predates the actual start of digging, planting, backaches, liniments, etc.

But, as circumstances have dictated, I only recently came to own a nearly two-hundred year old home that looks like it was lifted from the pages of "Gone With The Wind." It is a wonderful old place in the rural wilds of peanut-draped Eastern North Carolina, but like anything else its age, it's a bit weepy in the rafters, somewhat crackie in the walls and decidedly creekie in the floor boards. It also is reputed to have its own resident ghost, about whom I know very little and about whom I could stand to know even less.

But being a gardener with a full fledged garden, and owning a ancient pile-in-the-country in need of renovations great and small are only a part of the bug that has flicked me onto the blog. To be totally truthful, which one normally should avoid at all cost, I have a growing need to talk with others about these things and, if nothing else, to make myself more aware of what others are doing and thinking along these lines. If others enjoy that same benefit, it'll be pinto beans and collards for New Years.

It has been an interesting trip to an understanding of the need that I mention above. I begin with an admission that will likely stab my Irish maternal great grandfather to the marrow (assuming someone who has passed over minds being stabbed or has marrow for that matter), I must confess to being an Anglophile. Second, I am a closet Southern nationalist and fanatic, meaning that whenever the feeling overwhelms me, I go into the nearest closet to hum a few bars of 'Dixie' and to salute a picture of Robert E. Lee found on an antique fan I bought in Newbern, NC Indeed, the name of this blog, Southern Currents, is the same I gave to a radio program I had for five years in which I traveled via radio signal from one end of the south to the other,.

Because I am an Anglophile, I have for many years read a magazine titled Country Living (the English version, not the American model). If you have read Country Living, you already know that it promotes the English countryside in all of its manifestations, including gardens and old homes. The fact that it goes on to address such topics as the environment and saving small English villages, and that it features individuals and families who are moving to more rural settings, thereby simplifying their lives and making valuable contributions to rural lifeâ€“all of that and much more only makes me love the magazine. But when I read the articles each month, it also makes me ask "why not here?" Why are we not doing something like this?

When I read stories that put the spotlight on wonderful, almost always private and therefore less well known gardens, when I see people lauded for successfully starting small businesses in smaller towns and villages, increasingly I ask myself why do we not do something similar? Why we do not celebrate such things here in the South. No doubt, other regions of our country have so much to celebrate as well. But someone who is a self-described Dixie humming, R. E. Lee saluting fellow and who knows the difference between the Confederacy's battle flag and the Confederacy's 1st National Flag (now gracing the front bumper of my Mini Cooper), I'm best advised to keep my focus on the hominy and fatback side of the Mason and Dixon Line.

In my next outing, I'll let forth some thoughts on why renovation of old homes and SouthernCurrents go together

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Comments

Frank wrote on Sat Nov 03, 2007 2:53 am:

Welcome to GardenStew southerncurrent. It's not hard to comprehend why you are attracted to the English style of gardening, they have many beautiful examples.

Maybe you like to introduce yourself in our forums here also:

http://www.gardenstew.com/viewforum.php?f=29

Looking forward to following your blog.

// Frank

heathermt75 wrote on Sat Nov 03, 2007 3:03 am:

I haven't commented on much lately cause my 2 young sons keep me pretty busy.. but I just wanted to come and say I seriously enjoyed your blog!!My mom glendann called and read it to me and I just had to let you know I love your sense of humor and I have always been a sucker for plantation-style homes. Hopefully you will post a picture of your home soon.

glendann wrote on Sat Nov 03, 2007 3:03 am:

Well,I can say I have enjoyed reading your Blog
so much and laughed myself silly.I thoughly enjoyed reading it so much.I would love to see a picture of the house.I always wanted a home like in Gone With the Wind.
Thanks very much for the blog and please do snap some pictures as I would love to see them.

glendann wrote on Sat Nov 03, 2007 3:12 am:

Oh sorry I forgot to tell you I'm glad you joined our Stew.Welcome aboard.

Droopy wrote on Sat Nov 03, 2007 8:19 am:

Good morning, welcome to the Stew from another Anglophile. Love your entry, and hope you will share your home, garden and peanuts with us. *whistling dixie*