Cape Fear

Growing happens in The South. Our garden growing season goes on and on. Here, in October, we're still eating okra, eggplant,swiss chard and peppers. Overlapping into the summer harvest we have broccoli and lettuce. We continue to eat vegetables from our kitchen garden every home cooked meal.

Dicie Ivey demonstrated how tobacco was put on "sticks" for curing at the Cape Fear Botanical garden "Old Timey Day". We're members and go about once every season. It's right off I-95 in Fayetteville, NC where I work. My thanks to Dicie for letting me "hand" one last time. My childhood was all about tobacco. Tobacco drove my parents off the farm, paid for me to go to college, and has crippled more than a few of the people I've known and loved. Witness: I am a reformed cigarette addict. I quit in my 20s after my husband begged me to please start back. I shoulda been hospitalized. I went crazy! I talked for three days straight and was as mean as a cottonmouth. Quiting can be done but it sure isn't fun. I wish there was some productive use for the stuff because the golden leaf really does smell good. Not burning,just a barn full of it.The hit of the day wasn't Dicie though, it was the bluesey bluegrass band, The Parsons of Gray's Creek, NC. Caroline Parsons has a voice words cannot describe and their CD didn't quite capture.