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“Springer Barn” Photo by Carl Johnson
I met Evelyn Johnson in 2006 while speaking out in support of saving the barns at Maple bay during a city council meeting. She was full of energy and described herself as “the barn lady.” Later, I purchased her book, The Barns of Old Mission Peninsula and Their Stories, and found myself immersed in a delightful series of stories stored for years beneath the rafters of these great structures.
Earlier this year, as I began research for my own historical narrative on Old Mission, I received and invitation from the barn lady to work on quilt barn squares for some of the historic barns out on the peninsula. Quilt barns can be found throughout the Appalachian States, where they originated as a way for people to tell the story of their community and family history and display it proudly on the side of their barns. These barns are found traditionally off the beaten path and quickly spur the most adventurous to explore less traveled roads to learn more about the region.
We’ve been painting all week alongside some wonderful people from our own community, all committed to sharing our story with future visitors to the Grand Traverse Region. Yesterday, my mother-in-law, an artist, accompanied me and helped detail a square featuring cherries at its center. It’s wonderful to see this coming together and in the next few weeks, as the remaining squares ascend, we’ll see the beginning of a new chapter in our history – a manifested adventure for people from young to old.
Photos by S. Tengelitsch
A vision takes shape.
Anne and Christy demonstrate their technique to Popo.
Evelyn, Tina and Samantha work to finish the first coat on a square.
Windmill pattern.
Choosing yellows.
Popo at 2Ladds Winery overlooking East Bay
Stacia works on the cherries.
The tape still adhered, two squares take shape.
Yesterday afternoon, we headed over to Empire to witness the release of an adolescent eagle back in to the wild. Despite not having the characteristic coloring of an adult eagle, she was still a beautiful, powerful presence. A few hundred people were there and we all cheered as the magnificent bird soared skyward.
Following the eagle, Erick and I took the girls over to the big lake and collected stones and watched a lone freighter pass quietly in the distance. The water was a vibrant hue – a turquoise blue.
The sun was setting as we left for Boones in Glen Arbor (yum). And on the way back, I captured my farm at dusk. The wind turbine moved slowly on a light breeze. Love that place.
The girls were sleepy on the way home.
And finally, a photo of Grandpa and me at Thanksgiving.
Today we visited the Riverbank Zoo in Columbia, SC. The girls rode ponies and saw a hatchling flamingo. They also sang with monkeys, fed goats, petted tortoises and heard a tiger MEOW. (And I even had the opportunity to see several leopard sharks up close and personal). The zoo is also somewhat self-sustainable with massive gardens full of veggies and herbs.
This was our first visit in the daytime to the neighboring city to the south and I was impressed with how tropical it felt. In only an hour and 45-minutes, we went from the mountains to a place that felt much like Florida with its native vegetation unlike anything I had seen before, as varied and bountiful as the tropics (there was a tree with leaves far larger around than the length of my hand).
The all-time cutest exhibits were the koala bear and meerkat habitats. The koalas were napping and had curled themselves up comfy into the arms of tree-branches. One meerkat took a fascination with me and I swear behaved as if we were doing a Vogue photo-shoot.
When asked what the girls enjoyed most, for the older two it was the pony trail-ride (although milking the fake cow was right up there).
Our littlest giggled when the goats literally climbed the fence to eat out of her hand. They were sweet-natured and beautiful goats with shaggy colorful coats. And what personality!
We crossed a bridge over the Saluda River (Columbia marks the convergence of the Broad and Saluda) and saw the old stone foundation of a bridge that was burned during the Civil War. In the peace and shade on the other side, we rested (and remembered the automatic features of my camera).
Afterward, we visited the elephants, giraffes and the sea-lion a little boy emphatically suggested we see. I was certain the elephants were Asian elephants for their size, but through the crowds, I read something about Africa on the signs. We were on some kind of deck above the enclosure, so perhaps the elephants appeared smaller. Regardless, they were gorgeous creatures caught red from bathing in the Carolina clay.
And how difficult it must be for a giraffe to eat grass when it feels so inclined! We saw first-hand how they do it.
We concluded our day with a visit to Erick’s uncle’s 18th century stagecoach house where the girls enjoyed tractor rides around the property while we sat on the front porch sipping iced-tea.
On August 24th, 79AD, one day following Vulcanalia, the Roman festival for the god of fire, Mt Vesuvius erupted and buried the town of Pompeii in layers of ash and pumice. At the time, those living in Pompeii were not even aware that the beautiful mountain dominating their horizon was an active volcano. In fact, the hadn’t even a word yet for volcano in their vocabulary.
Charlotte, NC was one of only four cities in the United States granted permission to display for the next few months artifacts and the body casts of people, pets and even livestock uncovered in Pompeii.
Today I took the girls to the exhibit. I knew I couldn’t fully explain the devastation, so I did my best to help them understand what we would be seeing once we entered the exhibit by showing them a BBC film about the disaster and also by talking about what life would have been like for people living 2000 years ago.
Inside the museum we saw frescos – (and we learned the word fresco translated into English means “fresh” and described the method of painting murals while the plaster was still wet, or fresh) – preserved by the hot ash ovens with bread still inside, jewelry, currency, and several types of amphorae which were large ceramic vessels that held oil, wine, fish or grain. Inscribed on one of these amphora was the Latin word “Auctus” which gave rise to our English word meaning auction. The writing also described the day the piece was sold at auction, “under a blue sky” and the name of either the buyer or the seller. This information was relayed to us by a scholar and actress dressed as if she had just walked out of the first century.
I didn’t realize we would be seeing the body-casts. We were lead down a dark hall into a darkened room where only the eerie white casts of bodies could be seen. These casts were made by Giuseppe Fiorelli who excavated the site during the nineteenth century. According to Wiki, “During early excavations of the site, occasional voids in the ash layer had been found that contained human remains. It was Fiorelli who realised these were spaces left by the decomposed bodies…” Fiorelli devised a way of injecting plaster into the molds thus preserving the bodies of victims of Vesuvius down to the expressions on their faces.
Even I was not prepared for the emotions that swept through me. And my youngest begged to go home. The sight was both compelling and humbling: The dog chained and without hope of surviving; the couple holding each-other in one final embrace; the slaves whose legs were bound; the woman who tried in vain to cover her face with a cloth against the toxic plume; the pig whose ribs shown through patches of thick skin. The images will haunt me for some time. Not in the bad way you might imagine, but in a way that reminds us of our own mortality and keeps us present in the moment. These casts are the ghosts of our history and they tell their own stories to us individually.
A walk through uptown concluded our day in Pompeii where our cityscape, though taller, is not all that different. We still build monuments to ourselves of marble and adorn these buildings with art and sculpture. We walk the crowded streets full of bustling commerce. And we walk among those more or less fortunate than ourselves in that imaginary hierarchy that means little in the scheme of things; for the slaves of Pompeii are remembered and revered alongside the wealthiest and most influential members of their society.
Above: Bronze statues at Trade and Tryon, the Hearst Tower (my favorite building)
And I can’t leave out the gals who had a splendid adventure. I love that Wolfy is just fixated on the Bank of America tower. You can’t see the top when your standing at street level – it’s pretty magical for a little person.
I’m so sick of being treated like a lesser woman because I’m not gainfully employed while working as a mother to three children. I’m not a SOCCER MOM (what the hell does this mean, really?!), or a STAY AT HOME MOM (I get out of the house plenty to walk the dog, get groceries, a walk in the park, etc.), or UNEMPLOYED (for tax-purposes only – if I were paid for the job I do, I’d be making six-figures), I used to write STUDENT as my profession because I was embarrassed to say MOTHER.
When you get right down to it, what career is more important than motherhood? We’re shaping the future. Of course, I am not going to ask women not to work outside the home, but I would appreciate some RESPECT for the work I do as both a mother and person.
I mean even those women labeled “soccer moms” whomever you are – I can only picture an AYSO soccer bumper-sticker on the back some mini-van – are individuals first before they fall under some broad-umbrella title. We all share the same concerns over our children’s future; we all worry about things like global climate change, dental health, schools and education, crime-stats, time and yeah, even stuff like soccer schedules.
Anyway, I just needed to vent. I’ve not experienced much of this in Charlotte. Actually quite the opposite! A man behind me in line practically balled me out the other day when I apologized for taking too long getting my bags out of his way. He said, “We should be helping you! You’re the one balancing six bags of groceries and three children.” No, I didn’t check for a ring. :-)
