Woodstock is just the other side of the mountain from me. Have you ever been to Woodstock Tower? I'm just down from there. You can see my house from the tower.
We consider country ham to be real ham and the other kind ham like food stuff. LOL
LOL on the Apple Blossom parade. I spent to many May days stuck covering Apple Blossom events as a reporter. I hate Apple Blossom. I got my revenge by writing the TRUTH about the Bloomers Luncheon - lots of ladies in pink and green dresses getting very, very tipsy on pink wine.
Doll hospital? You mean dolls like dolls you play with? That's so cool!
Got snow???
One of the few really wild black bears was seen by my now wife and I when we visited the Woodstock Tower when she was my guest of honor for the 1958 Military Ball.
The doll doctoring mentioned in my case was 75% antique bisque with German hand blown glass sleep eyes from 1920 back into the 1600's. 20% American Composition (sawdust and animal hyde glue) from 1875 through1945. 5% were other materials but always of the older variety. The state of Virginia has a Doll Doctor's Association which is compromised mostly of students I helped teach the trade to.
Smithfield was the Virginia ham I could not remember earlier. There are many other local country hams in Virginia that are very good. Never had a bad ham cured the old fashioned way. Most of my family and friends today will not eat it.
I've seen bears a few times while driving and have seen signs they were in the yard but never saw one here. Lots of wild turkeys and other critters up there too. You and your wife were childhood sweethearts? That's so sweet.
Wow, you are THE doll doctor. Those old dolls are so beautiful. How did you get into doing that for a living? Did you always love old dolls?
Felts is another really good brand if you can find it. We still always have country ham at Christmas and other holidays. When my mom was growing up on a tobacco farm down in Southside Virginia (tobacco, peanut and ham country) country ham was their staple. They had it at every meal. Grandpa cured his own hams from the hogs they raised. She still talks about how much she hated hog butchering day but she loves her country ham.
It is an acquired taste and most people who have never eaten it don't know how to properly soak and cook it either.
Did you ever run across Mrs. Fearnows canned Brunswick stew? That's another Southside specialty and it's pretty darned close to homemade Brunswick stew.
Just a dusting--nothing like some of you have seen. I love all these beautiful winter pictures, especially like it if I don't have to drive in it. I lived in Orlando for 25 years.
Editing to send my picture.
This message was edited Feb 3, 2009 10:59 AM
Here it is
Beautiful blue sky! I bet that's hidden today.
docgipe= The Johns Hopkins of doll docs
Sally, I just took that picture this morning. Yesterday was beautifully sunny in the morning with the temp reaching almost 60. We walked over to our neighbors for a couple of pails full of their horse's best composted poop, then a couple of pails of leaf mulch from the woods, and put it on top of our latest no-till 4 foot sq bed. At a couple of pails per trip, I can see it taking the rest of our lives to get enough. Using horse poop is a first for me. I've always used bagged composted stuff. The difference in aroma is noticeable, although not ewwwwy like I thought, just earthy and a little amonia. I never thought I'd be talking about horse poop let alone gathering it in a pail.
LOL Pam, We had horses for 18 years and most of my veggie garden and most of my flower beds are mostly all Road Apples. That's Horse Poop to you. Since we no longer have horses I had to beg a couple of trailer fulls last summer for the new beds. No blue skies here today it's all overcast and the green is finally starting to show thru the grass.
great snow today not sticking to the roads but everywhere else
WOW.......just went over 40 degrees. The ice in our spouting is going out for the first time since a week before Christmas. We are not out of this white stuff yet but we have it going the right direction....finally.
Good sign.........We have an organizational training meeting tomorrow..."HOW TO GROW GIANT PUMPKINS". That is another sign of spring.
Doc, I'm glad to hear you're going to grow the big ones again. Your thread on growing giants was one of the first I followed when I got my DG membership.
another pic of today
Jen, That's my kind of snow, not on the roads, but everywhere else! Then melt by noon. Right now we are into the "Dirty Snow" piled up along the sides of the road. UGH!
Still snowing tonight here in main line Philly (I'm not home, I guess they didn't get near as much there). This was this afternoon:
This morning I saw these two li'l piggies, tearing up a rhododendron
Just peeked out the window, it is snowing again! I don't have to go very far tomarrow, just to the local bank and maybe the local grocery store for a few things. Not working tomarrow, yea!
Clay, haven't seen many deer this winter, I guess the snow is pretty deep and they are staying put in the woods and not coming out in the open and crossing the roads. Once the snow melts in the fields I'll probably see deer and turkey all over the place. Not picture by the way! You caught them in the act! BUSTED!
Still snowing like crazy here! Great photos everyone.
VaWRose, I had the same thoughts as Doc when I saw your photo. Green???? What's that? But when I came home from the Poconos we had green for a day too! It's now a white world again!!! Our roads are covered now, even the main ones.
All of this ham talk has made me want a country ham. Haven't tasted one in years.
Doc, you are truly a man of many talents!! Did everyone see Doc's Cookie Wreath thread?
http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/t/936218/
Isn't that pretty! Gosh, I used to have over 100 cookie cutters, most of them for Christmas because I made cookies to hang on the tree every year. I also made big gingerbread men and ladies for all the neighborhood kids with their names on them and a gingerbread house.
My first introduction to good 'ole real honest to goodness smoked country ham was back on the farm of my uncle somewhere about 1940 when I was a four year old. I remember little before that time. There was no electric in our village at that time and certainly nothing better than a real ice box. At that time the ice man hauled ice on a horse drawn delivery wagon using ice cut off the area creeks. We had a country store that was somewhat like an inside year-a-round local goods market and evening gathering place around the pot belly stove come winter. Most farms had butchering. Those farms were the source of smoked country hams. It was a luxury indeed to have a whole ham or two hanging in your own attic. Otherwise the cook went to the store and bought fifty cents worth for a ham and beans dinner.
By about 1950 the federal government made such historical ham smoking places like Smithfield Hams in Virginia line their hundreds of years old smoke houses with stainless steel....and steam the smoke off the lining to keep it clean. That was the end of the famous smoked hams because the flavor came from the saturated timbers and wood of the smoke houses. From that point forward it has been chemical smoke out of a bottle and the good 'ole hams 'aint no more.....unless you know a farm that still does real smoke cured ham for family use. We do and we are not telling anyone! You will have to find your own black market.