March PineStraw 2014 by PineStraw Magazine

We would like to thank our clients who allowed us to enter their homes. We are happy to congratulate and announce the winners. We would also like to thank all of the designers and architects that we worked with, to make this possible. With years of experience, Bolton Builders can offer you award winning designs with attention to detail and quality construction at a competitive price.

Chuck & Mary Bolton

Home of the Year Silver Winner

Home of the Year Gold Winner

Home of the Year Silver Winner

$275,000-$325,000 1 Elmhurst Place

$450,000-$500,000 654 Ft Bragg Road

$350,000-$400,000 101 Pittman Road

Excellence E ll in i Remodeling R d li Silver Winner

Excellence E xcelllence in in Remodeling Remod delling Bronze Winner

Commercial C i lC Construction t ti Award of Excellence

House Additon $50,000-$75,000 44 Abbottsford Drive

House Addition $50,000-$75,000 H 0 Interior Remodel $25,000-$50,000 142 Deerwood Lane 1064 Seven Lakes Drive

GIVE US A CALL FOR A FREE CONSULTATION!

4317 Seven Lakes Plaza â&#x20AC;˘ 910-673-3603 www.boltonbuildersinc.com â&#x20AC;˘ boltonbldrs@boltonbuildersinc.com FIND US ON FACEBOOK

www.capefearvalley.com

PineStraw M A G A Z I N E

Jim Dodson, Editor 910.693.2506 • jim@pinestrawmag.com Andie Stuart Rose, Art Director 910.693.2467 • andie@pinestrawmag.com Kira Schoenfelder, Graphic Designer 910.693.2508 • kira@pinestrawmag.com Lauren Shumaker, Graphic Designer 910.693.2469 • lauren@pinestrawmag.com Serena Brown, Associate Editor 910.693.2522, serena@pinestrawmag.com Judi Hewett, Graphic Designer 910.693.2464 Brianna Cunningham, Graphic Designer contributing Editors Deborah Salomon, Staff Writer Stephen E. Smith, Staff Writer Mary Novitsky, Proofreader Sara King, Proofreader contributing Photographers John Gessner, Tim Sayer

capeable

Contributors Anthony S Abbott, Cos Barnes, Tom Bryant, Susan Campbell, Wiley Cash, Al Daniels, Annette Daniels, Kimberly Daniels, Mart Dickerson, Robyn James, Jan Leitschuh, Meridith Martens, Dale Nixon, Lee Pace, Jeanne Paine, Gayvin Powers, Toby Raymond, Sandra Redding, Noah Salt, Astrid Stellanova, Angie Tally

of beating cancer

PS David Woronoff, Publisher Advertising Sales

Pat Taylor, Advertising Director

Almost everyone who hears the words “You have cancer” has a moment of panic. Then you listen to your doctor lay out all the options. And you realize you can beat cancer. It takes teamwork, technology and know-how. You’ll find it at Cape Fear Valley’s two cancer centers – one on the main campus and one on the north side of Fayetteville.

• Support groups, social worker and dietitian • Complementary medicine program with art therapy, massage, reflexology, healing touch you can beat cancer. It just takes purpose, passion and precision. We bring all that to the table. You just bring the resolve.

• Cancer program accredited with commendation by the American College of Surgeons Commission on Cancer

Ginny Trigg, PineStraw Sales Coordinator 910.693.2481 • ginny@thepilot.com Deborah Fernsell, 910.693.2516 Terry Hartsell, 910.693.2513 Perry Loflin, 910.693.2514 Darlene McNeil-Smith, 910.693.2519 Meagan Powell, 910.693.3569 Darlene Stark, 910.693.2488 Johnsie Tipton, 910.693.2515 Karen Triplett, 910.693.2510 Advertising Graphic Design

Kathryn Galloway 910.693.2509 • kathryn@thepilot.com Mechelle Butler, Clay Culberson, Maegan Lea

• State-of-the-art radiation therapy: IMRT, IGRT, 3-D treatments, 4-D CT/Simulator • PET/CT for diagnosis and staging

Subscriptions & Circulation

• CyberKnife radiosurgery • Chemotherapy and clinical trials

cyberknife center

cancer treatment and cyberknife center purpose

passion

precision

Darlene Stark, Circulation Director 910.693.2488

PineStraw Magazine

145 W. Pennsylvania Avenue Southern Pines, NC 28387 pinestraw@thepilot.com • www.pinestrawmag.com ©Copyright 2014. Reproduction in whole or in part without written permission is prohibited. PineStraw magazine is published by The Pilot LLC

2 March 2014 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . PineStraw : The Art & Soul of the Sandhills

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March 2014 Volume 9, No. 3

Departments

9 Sweet Tea Chronicles Jim Dodson

12 PinePitch 15 Cos and Effect Cos Barnes

17 The Omnivorous Reader Stephen E. Smith

21 N.C. Writer’s Notebook Sandra Redding

23 Bookshelf 29 Hitting Home Dale Nixon

31 Vine Wisdom Robyn James

33 The Kitchen Garden Jan Leitschuh

37 Out of the Blue Deborah Salomon

39 Birdwatch

Features

41 The Sporting Life

49 Moving Sale

43 Golftown Journal

50 The Farrier’s Art By Gayvin Powers

74 Calendar 86 SandhillSeen 93 The Accidental Astrologer

54 Wiley Cash Comes Home By Wiley Cash

95 PineNeedler

59 March Almanac By Noah Salt

96 SouthWords

61 Moore County Homebuilders Association

Susan Campbell Tom Bryant Lee Pace

Astrid Stellanova Mart Dickerson Toby Raymond

Poetry by Anthony S. Abbott

Why a well-made horseshoe is bound to bring good luck A gifted writer finds his place of the heart

56 Love in a Yurt By Deborah Salomon

One man’s love affair with an ancient dwelling Miss Lawrence’s first flowers and other true signs of spring Special Section

Cover Photograph and Photograph this page by John Gessner 4 March 2014 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . PineStraw : The Art & Soul of the Sandhills

Where life just keeps getting better.

Living fully takes on a whole new meaning at Pine Knoll and Belle Meade. Our communities offer a virtual feast of opportunities to connect with cherished friends and make new ones. Delight in a past passion or learn something new. Enjoy a healthy lifestyle with just the right amount of indulgence in any of our excellent restaurants. Live secure in the knowledge the St. Joseph of the Pines continuum of care is there should you ever need it. Enjoying your retirement, your way has never been easier!

CALL TODAY – 910.246.1008

Where life just keeps getting better. Southern Pines, North Carolina • www.sjp.org • 910.246.1008 A member of the St. Joseph of the Pines Aging Services Network continuing the legacy of the Sisters of Providence.

Fine Homes . . . www.prudentialpinehurst.com

Old Town: Own a piece of Pinehurst, NC history! Enjoy magnificent entertainmet areas which boast 2-stone floor-toceiling fireplaces, beamed ceilings, hrdwd, columns, arched doorways & more. Owner will Sell or Trade. Linda Criswell 910.783.7374

“Shadowlawn”: One of the finest Old Town Pinehust estates! English tudor on over 1.5 private acres of lush grounds. 7-Fireplaces, Elevator, 6Bdrms, 7FB/2HB. Separate Guest Cottage. Quality & History define this home! Emily Hewson 910.315.3324

Mid South: Masterful blend of European architectural styles creates a timeless look on the 18th hole overlooking the lake. Extensive remodeling in 2010. 5BR/5FB/2HB. $1,750,000 Maureen Clark 910.315.1080

CCNC: Stunning blend of traditional architectural detail with

Pinewild CC: Elegant French Country Executive Home in

Linden Trails: Architectural detailing inside & out enhance this fine home! Spacious rooms are bathed in natural light. Gourmet Kitchen. 3BR/3.5BA. 5 Acres - Zoned for Horse. Maureen Clark 910.315.1080

Victorian Farmhouse: Historic 3-Story home surrounded by 5 large Paddocks, 14-Stall Barn w/2BR/2BA Carriage House. 12’ Ceilings in main house incorporating the best of old and new. $1,195,000 Maureen Clark 910.315.1080

“Liscombe Lodge”: Prime Old Town location, history, & charm.

“Edgewood Cottage”: Sunfilled vintage Dutch Colonial loaded with Pinehurst character and charm. Totally renovated. Heart pine floors throughout, 4-fireplaces, master w/sitting room. Pool & Pool House. Emily Hewson 910.315.3324 Eva Toney 910.638.0972

7 Lakes West: www.103CookPoint.com - 4BR/3.5BA exceptional lake front home & lot on Lake Auman! Magnificent lake view! Bulk-head, boat dock! Superior workmanship by Yates Hussey Construction. $975,000 Frank Sessoms 910.639.3099

prestigious gated golfing community. Serene setting with views of 2 greens, tee, natural pond & hillside water feature. Eva Toney 910.638.0972

Restored with quality, elegance and exquisite detail inside and out. Charming detached Guest Cottage. PCC to convey. Emily Hewson 910.315.3324

Pinehurst: 910.295.5504

a light, open floor plan creates elegant, comfortable living areas on two levels. Golf front; 5 acres; & overlooks pond. Emily Hewson 910.315.3324 Maureen Clark 910.315.1080

Southern Pines: 910.692.2635

Log on to www.prudentialpinehurst.com FOR OUR Easy Search OR “SNAP & SEARCH” by snapping a picture of the “TAG READER” with your smartphone.

in the Sandhills www.prudentialpinehurst.com

Fairwoods on 7: A certified NC healthy built home built to Green Specifications. Overlooks 2nd & 6th Holes of Course. Designed to caputre natural light! Gourmet Kitchen. 3BR/ 3Full+2HalfBAs. $950,000 Maureen Clark 910.315.1080

Pinewild: Classic Home with French Country Flair. Gourmet Kitchen. Two Fireplaces. Oval Screened Porch. 2 Waterfalls. Quality Construction. Fabulous Landscaping & 1.4Ac of Privacy! $795,000 Pat Wright 910.691.3224

CCNC: Charming French Country Home! Golf Front ranch with formal rooms, sun-filled kitchen, den, large family room w/fieplace, screened porch & deck. Very special home! 3BR/3BA. $789,000 Carolyn Hallett 910.986.2319

Pinewild: Fantastic View! A panorama of Pinewild CCs Holly Course #11, #12, #13 & Lake! Gorgeous open floor plan. Beautiful Study with curved wall of windows. 4BR/4.5BA. $774,500 Pat Wright 910.691.3224

Pinehurst: Fabulous Sunsets! Waterfront living on Lake

Pinehurst! Fantastic lake views from Living, Family and Carolina Rooms. 3Bdrms, 2Baths. 305 SW Lake Forest. $529,000 Bonnie Baker 910.690.4705

CCNC: Move-in Ready! Bright & beautiful w/hrdwd, tile, fabulous master bath; new roof 2012; new Carrier 2-zone HP 2011; Pella insulated windows; deck, screen porch. 1.62 ac. 3BR/3BA/Office. $495,000 Carolyn Hallett 910.986.2319

Cotswold: Luxury Townhome! www.9StantonCircle. com - Stunning home with fine architectural features and upgrades! Almost 3,000 sq.ft.! Fabulous gourmet kitchen! 3Bedrooms, 3Baths, and a Bonus Room. $465,000 Frank Sessoms 910.639.3099

CCNC: Villa with a view! Living wel & entertaining is easy: spacious rooms, great floorplan, lots of windows for view of stunning landscaping & Lake Watson. Watch sunset from under the deck’s awnings. 3BR/2BA/2HB. $440,000 Carolyn Hallett 910.986.2319

“Craddock Cottage”: REDUCED $45,000 - NOW $415,000! Owner ready for your offer! Orginal Tufts cottage built in 1896. Beautifully restored. Wonderful location! Emily Hewson 910.315.3324

“Joel’s Crossing”: A magical 1900s farm house with addition

Pine Grove Village: Beautifully updated 3BR/2.5BA, brick

Aronimink: Pristine golf front condo on Course #5 with views of #10 green, lush fairways & vistas of Lake Pinehurst. Uniquely perfect location! Screen Porch & Deck. 3BR/3BA. $269,900 Debbie Darby 910.783.5193

that includes a great room, master suite w/sitting room, library, office & entry. Beautifully landscaped 6+acres. 3BR/4BA. $359,500 Maureen Clark 910.315.1080

ranch w/stainless & quartz, hrdwd, 10’ ceilings, insulated windows, new roof & master bath, covered porch; Farm Life Schools. $348,500 Carolyn Hallett 910.986.2319

www.2014pinehurstgolfrentals.com © 2013 BRER Affiliates LLC. An independently owned and operated broker member of BRER Affiliates LLC. Prudential, the Prudential logo and the Rock symbol are registered service marks of Prudential Financial, Inc. and its related entities, registered in many jurisdictions worldwide. Used under license with no other affiliation with Prudential. Equal Housing Opportunity

The first round after a great round starts here. The Ryder Cup Lounge Just off the porch of the historic Carolina Hotel, the Ryder Cup offers a generous selection of draft beers, scotch and bourbon as well as a mouth-watering menu with everything from Jumbo Lump Crab Cake Sliders to Backyard Rib Stacks. So after your last putt drops, pick up a glass at the Ryder Cup.

Menu Features • Jumbo Lump Crab Cake Sliders • BBQ Pork Nachos • Campfire Salmon • Fettuccini Fra Diablo • Truffle & Herb Pommes Frites

Drink Features • Carolina Peach Tea • Eight beers on tap • Specialty martinis • Premium scotch and bourbon

The Carolina Hotel • Village of Pinehurst, North Carolina • 910.235.8415 • pinehurst.com

March 2014 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . PineStraw : The Art & Soul of the Sandhills

• Twenty bottled beers

sweet tea chronicles

Pure Gardenlust By Jim Dodson

One chilly, rain-swept morning last month,

the production staff at our magazine surprised me with a birthday breakfast of coffee and sweet rolls in the conference room, complete with a gift that warmed my aging teenage heart — a vintage copy of Playboy magazine. But more on that in a Hugh Hefner moment.

“So,” asked Kira, “did you actually see your shadow?” My birthday, you see, happens to fall February 2, aka Groundhog Day to a wider world that’s thoroughly sick of winter, a red letter day I rejoice in sharing with the likes of rocker Graham Nash, model Christie Brinkley, Irish writer James Joyce, TV philosopher Tommy Smothers, Dog the Bounty Hunter and the late actress Farrah Fawcett. We’re a jolly diverse bunch of G’hogs. Apparently, somehow, sweet Kira had failed to hear that Punxsutawney Phil had in fact seen his shadow at the annual public event that was only slightly less interesting than this year’s Super Bowl, presaging six more weeks of winter weather. Groans rolled round the table. “That takes us two weeks into March,” lamented someone over her cinnamon roll. “I’m sooooo cold! Rain. Sleet. Gray . . . ugggh!’ Though admittedly I am a true child of winter who loves all the above, including the occasional white-out blizzard, I sympathetically felt her psychic pain and pointed out that the beloved groundhog is often spectacularly wrong in his super-hyped forecasts, and that I — being something of a walking expert on February 2, with decades of experience to back up my observations — predict spring will be here before you can say “the taxman cometh.” This visibly lifted the spirits of the entire table, or maybe it was the sugary bear claws. In any case, that’s exactly the moment our clever art director Andie Rose presented me with my gift, the aforementioned vintage men’s magazine — the Special Eighth Anniversary Issue of Playboy magazine from December 1961. My late Southern Baptist grandmother would have been grandly appalled, but the student of the magazine world in me was delighted almost beyond measure. Compared to anything one can see in seconds on the Internet or simply a rerun of The Bachelor any night of the week, this

antique timepiece recalls a time when sex possessed an aura of respectable mystery and almost everything that mattered to a curious teenage mind was left almost entirely to the imagination. The issue featured only two discreetly bare breasts (that I could find) in 210 pages but also a poignant remembrance of Ernest Hemingway by his brother, a review of Miles Davis’ latest album, a tribute to slapstick comedy, a lone Vargas Girl and a chaste pictorial of Christmas at the new Playboy Club in Chicago where — egads — everyone kept their clothes on. Improbable as it may sound, many of us who came to love magazines like Playboy and Esquire during their peak years did so largely because of the great story telling and fabulous writers who graced their pages. In truth, it must be said, teenage lust did play a role in this cultural awakening. I was 12, after all, the spring I discovered a stack of Playboy magazines kept in perfect chronological order on a high and dusty shelf at the back of Mr. Winterbottom’s immaculate garage, which I was paid to sweep while the Winterbottoms went off to Carolina Beach for Easter. Mowing lawns along our block in 1966 for three bucks a shot was my first paying gig, and the garage job paid a dizzying bonus of ten whole dollars. The discovery of all those taboo Playboys was pure adolescent ecstacy. Foolishly, I told my best friend about the discovery and even spirited home a copy of the magazine for, ahem, closer inspection, which my mother later found hidden beneath the bathroom mat and occasioned an official conversation with my dad about the birds and the bees and the flowers and the trees and the sky up above. And you know the rest. It was, after all, sudden spring in Carolina, middle March in fact, and everything was either popping out or rising up voluptuously — azalea blooms,

PineStraw : The Art & Soul of the Sandhills . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . March 2014

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sweet tea chronicles

ACC basketball, tree sap, afternoon temperatures, the height of mini skirts on models in Life magazine, and so forth. For better or worse, crazy as it sounds, I will always associate the pleasant smell of a freshly mown lawn and the musk of trimmed boxwoods with my own teenage springtime awakening. My best friend’s mom, a song went some years later, really had it going on. Unfortunately, within hours of my extraordinary discovery at the back of the Winterbottom garage, half the neighborhood kids had gathered and done more damage pawing through Mr. W’s naughty archive than any dedicated hit squad of school librarians or my own Southern Baptist aunts most certainly would have done. Mysteriously, he never mentioned a word about the tattered editions, leading me to wonder if Mrs. W even knew of their existence. What a difference fifty years makes. Some years ago as another March appeared at our doorstep, my wife was amused to discover that I appeared more interested in the White Flower Farm spring planting guide than browsing her latest Victoria’s Secret catalog as I soaked weary bones in the tub after a long day working in the yard. “Don’t tell me you’ve finally outgrown your teenage lust,” she gently needled, bringing me a welcome Sam Adams beer. “It’s simply nature’s way,” I agreed. “Teenage lust is eventually replaced by middle-aged gardenlust. That happens to men as we age, science has shown — in my case, for better or worse, it’s stronger every March.” She smiled, only half buying it. “Gardenlust, eh?” “Yes. It’s a well-known seasonal human condition characterized by an uncontrollable urge, predominantly in males after a certain age, to get one’s hands on luscious mounds of virgin soil in an effort to grow something beautiful. Symptoms include, but are not limited to, coveting other people’s gardens, addiction to garden catalogs and a general longing to become a landscape architect.” “In other words, you’re more plowboy than playboy now.” Her amusement was complete. “I wouldn’t have put it that way,” I replied with a certain defensiveness soothed only by the bath and beer. “You could say as a fellow’s interest in Playboy magazine dims, his interest in serving nature grows.” She still looked skeptical. “Well, nature boy, can I get you anything else to sooth those weary bones?” “Another Sam Adams, perhaps. And, oh — could you hand me that copy of the Victoria’s Secret catalog? I care more than ever about the birds and the bees and the flowers and the trees.” And you know the rest. PS Contact editor Jim Dodson at jim@pinestrawmag.com

March 2014P�� PineStraw : The Art & Soul of the Sandhills

SOUTHERN PINES

$685,000

Gorgeous custom home sits high on a hill overlooking the 15th green at Mid-South Club, one of the best lots on the course! Every detail upscale, from wide planked hardwood floors throughout the house to the deep crown moldings in every room. Other outstanding features are the elegant and spacious master bedroom and bath suite, media room with high definition projection system with theater screen and seating, oversized covered patio area, 3 car garage, security system and much more! 4 BR / 3.5 BA Code 1077 225 Kings Ridge Court

SOUTHERN PINES

$189,500

SOUTHERN PINES

$535,000

“Talent, Technology & TEAMWORK” Moore County’s Most Trusted Real Estate Team

This gorgeous custom built home by Huckabee, one of the area’s finest builders is located on 2.81 beautifully landscaped acres just off Midland Road. This premium location offers easy access to both the Villages of Pinehurst and Southern Pines, yet affords complete privacy! The home has been recently updated and shows like a dream. The outdoor living areas are wonderful. Too many upscale features to list! 4 BR / 4.5 BA Code 1104 2137 Midland Road

ABERDEEN

$268,000

$258.000 $179,000 Southern Pines Pinehurst $199,900 Foxfire Lovely and pristine in Longleaf CC Lovely updated golf-front home Cute cottage w/nice renovations 3 BR / 2 BA 3 BR / 2 BA 4 BR / 4.5 BA www.205HunterTrail.com www.4DogwoodCourt.com www.17ChestnutLane.com Great 3 bedroom, 2 full bath family home with huge fenced yard, mature landscaping and lots of space for children and pets! Over an acre! Recent updates include freshly painted interior, dishwasher, garage door and vinyl windows. Huge screen porch in back, fireplace in the family room, covered front porch, separate laundry area, eat in kitchen and 2 car garage with workshop on a private dead end road in friendly neighborhood located close to Ft. Bragg. 3 BR / 2 BA Code 1107 803 N. Glenwood Avenue

SOUTHERN PINES

$1,100,000

Stunning golf front home located on one of the prime lots overlooking the 10th green in Mid South Club. Absolutely pristine with beautiful custom details throughout! Gourmet kitchen opens onto a charming keeping room with a fireplace and lovely golf views. Inviting patio area - perfect for entertaining! 4 BR / 4.5 BA Code 1098 28 Plantation Drive

SEVEN LAKES WEST

$289,900

$585,000 Aberdeen $145,500 Pinehurst Fantastic, all-brick golf front home Cute home on large corner lot 4 BR / 3.5 BA 3 BR / 2 BA www.80LakewoodDrive.com www.110RavenswoodRoad.com

Great buy on this lovely 5 bedroom/3 bath home in Sandy Springs! This home also offers tons of living space with a game room and loft area in addition to the spacious great room. Perfect for a growing family! Formal dining room with coffered ceiling and two piece chair rail. First floor study and a first floor bedroom with connection to guest bath. Roomy kitchen has great counter space, stainless steel appliances and granite counters! 5 BR / 3 BA Code 1108 105 Sandy Springs Road

Located at the end of a quiet, wooded cul-de-sac, this lovely home is absolutely charming with a light and open interior, vaulted ceilings, and hardwood floors. Enjoy the wonderful privacy of this secluded location from the spacious screened porch and deck. Immaculate home with great curb appeal! 4 BR / 3BA Code 1109 108 Rector Drive

$329,000 $890,000 Longleaf CC $449,000 Pinehurst $239,000 CCNC Pinehurst $75,000 Pinehurst Custom Built Villa Overlooking Water Custom built all brick golf-front home Brick single story w/view of 17th green Covered porch & large fenced lot Updated Immaculate Golf View Condo 2 BA 4 BR / 4 Full & 2WHISPERING Half Baths / 1 BA 7 LAKES1 BR WEST $565,000 3 BR / 2.5 BA PINEHURST 3 BR / 2.5 BA $279,000 PINES 3 BR /$349,900 www.16SteeplechaseWay.com www.110HearthstoneRoad.com www.8RoyalDornoch.com www.210StAndrewsCondo.com www.1340BurningTreeRoad.com

$1,295,000 $189,000 Pinehurst $269,000 Pinehurst $475,000 Pinebluff 7 Lakes West $635,000 Pinehurst Stunning custom home in Fairwoods on 7 Charming brick ranch home GorgeoustownhomeintheheartoftheVillage Open plan, gourmet kitchen, pool & more! Stunning All Brick Water Front 4 BAof&Pines 2 Half BA of the Whis3 BR / 2custom BA golf front with open F/P. Located4onBR7th/ green 3 BR /Construction, 2.5 BA one of the area’s finest build3 BR / 2.5 BALovely all brick custom home built by Breeden 3 BR / 4.5 BA Stunning Course Just like new describes this beautiful custom home on Lake Auman. Built by Bolton pering Pines Golf Course and custom built by Pinehurst Homes, this lovely home won the Builders, this home has been completely renovated on the interior withwww.6HollyHouse.com updated baths www.170InverraryRoad.com www.145SugarPineDrive.com www.105MastersWay.com www.135AndrewsDrive.com ers. Located on a quiet cul-de-sac in beautiful Pinewild, this home offers a spacious and

and kitchen, new flooring and interior painting. The screened porch has been enclosed to make a charming sun room with wonderful views of the water. The owners have also done extensive landscaping and added and oversized deck. 4 BR / 3BA Code 1110 103 Vanore Road

WHISPERING PINES

$315,000

open living area, split bedrooms, a great separate office and a large open deck overlooking a well landscaped yard. New roof in 2013. 3 BR / 2.5 BA Code 1111 23 Halkirk Drive

SEVEN LAKES NORTH

$155,000

Award of Excellence from Moore County Homebuilders in 2005. The all white brick exterior makes a stunning statement and the interior of the home offers an open floorplan with cathedral ceilings allowing lots of wonderful light throughout. Lots of special touches! 3 BR / 2 BA Code 1115 31 Windsong Place

PINEHURST

$350,000

$269,900 $187,900 Pinehurst $185,000 Southern Pines $225,000 Pinebluff Pinehurst $375,000 Foxfire Great home in family- friendly neighborhood Stunning new construction condo Golf front new construction in The Pines Immaculate all-brick w/golf views Elegant & luxurious w/spacious rooms 5 BR / 3 BA 3 BR / 2.5 BA 3 BR / 2 BA 2 BR / 2 BA 4 BR / 3 BA www.23BerylCircle.com www.100CypressCircle.com www.153LaurelOakLane.com www.18ShamrockDrive.com www.10StantonCircle.com

Beautiful custom one story brick home with gorgeous views of #4 green of the Holly course Great family home in super family neighborhood! With 5 bedrooms and 4 bathrooms, This well-kept home is attractive, affordable and located in the popular community of Seven at Pinewild Country Club. Perfect for entertaining, this home offers expansive living areas this lovely home lives big! Floor plan is open with a two story entrance foyer, hardwoods Lakes North. One of the great features of this home is that it backs up to a lovely horse farm that take full advantage of the impressive TheSouth spacious sunroom opening off the Sevenviews. Lakes $279,500 Seven Lakes West $298,000 Pinehurst $895,000 Pinehurst $241,000 Seven South throughout the Lakes downstairs, smooth 9ft ceilings,$199,000 stainless steel appliances in the spacious with pastures and rolling hills. Great views and privacy! Spacious screened porch. living room really opens up the whole back of the home. The 4th bedroom, currently being kitchen, whole house gutters, fenced back yard. Lots of attractive details Completely renovated golf front home Wonderful 2-story home on cul-de-sac Gorgeous the 1106 Old Town Great family home w/private back yard Charmingthroughout golf front viewdistrict! 3 BR / 2 BA home inCode used as an office has a full window wall and a wet bar. thew/panoramic home. Farm Life school 105 4 Fox Court 3 BR / 3 BA Code 1087/ 3.5 BA BR / 42.5 BABA Code 1103 3 BR 4 BR / 3BA BRRun / 3.5 BA 4 BR / 3 BA 35BR 75 Pomeroy Drive 7 Spearhead Drive

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Re/Max Prime Properties, 5 Chinquapin Rd., Pinehurst, NC 910-295-7100 • 800-214-9007

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PineStraw : The Art & Soul of the Sandhills . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . March 2014

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Picasso in the Sandhills

The David McCune International Art Gallery at Methodist University will present the exhibition “Picasso: 25 Years of Edition Ceramics from the Rosenbaum Collection” all this month to April 13. The exhibition presents a selection of the ceramics created by Pablo Picasso in collaboration with Georges and Suzanne Ramie and the artisans at their Madoura pottery workshop in Vallauris, Southern France, between 1947 and 1971. The exhibition consists of forty ceramic works in addition to posters and other memorabilia.

Strings Attached

On March 17 at 8 p.m. the Sunrise Theater will thrill to the sound of the fourth concert in the Arts Council of Moore County’s Classical Concert Series, a performance by violinist Bella Hristova. Hristova has performed at Merkin Concert Hall, the Kennedy Center and at the Isabella Gardner Museum as well as extensively as a soloist at the Orchestra of St. Luke’s and New York String Orchestra, and at the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival and Marlboro Music Festival. Doors open at 7:30 p.m. Cost: By subscription to Concert Series, or individual concert $27. The Sunrise Theater, 250 N.W. Broad Street, Southern Pines. Information: (910) 692-ARTS (2787) or mooreart.org.

Fine Print

Printmaker Denise Drum Baker’s work will be exhibited at the Hastings Gallery this month from March 7 until March 31. Limited edition prints will be on display and available for sale: collographs, etchings, screen prints, woodcuts and dry points. Baker has been a professor of visual arts and printmaking instructor at Sandhills Community College for the past twenty-five years. This show will exhibit her most recent prints from 2013-2014. The exhibition is free and open to the public. The Hastings Gallery is open Monday to Thursday, 8 a.m. - 9 p.m., Friday until 5 p.m. and Saturday until 2:30 p.m. There will be a reception with the artist on March 18 from 5 to 7 p.m. Hastings Gallery/Boyd Library, Sandhills Community College, 3395 Airport Road, Pinehurst. Information: (910) 695-3879.

The Sandhills Farm to Table Cooperative’s spring deliveries will start in April. Subscribe now for a weekly box of fresh seasonal produce grown on local farms. Pick up your box at one of more than twenty gathering sites throughout the Sandhills. For more information, visit coop.sandhillsfarm2table.com or call (877) 940-SF2T.

The British Are Coming

The 24th annual British Heritage Celebration will take place at The Squire’s Pub during the first half of March. There will be authentic recipe specials from the British Isles. The event includes St. David’s Day on March 1 and ends with St. Patrick’s Day March 17. There will be specials such as Scottish Bridies, Cornish Pasties, Scotch eggs, Roast Beef and Yorkshire pudding, Steak and Kidney pie, Irish Beef Stew and Corned Beef and Cabbage. Plans are afoot for live Celtic music on March 14 and 15 and a bagpiper, dancing leprechaun and a big St. Patrick’s Day party on March 17. The Squire’s Pub, 1720 U.S. 1, Southern Pines. Info: (910) 695-1161 or thesquirespub.com.

March 2014P�� PineStraw : The Art & Soul of the Sandhills

Free and open to the public. 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Fridays; 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Thursdays; 12 to 4 p.m. Saturdays. David McCune Gallery, Methodist University, 5400 Ramsey Street, Fayetteville. Info: DavidMcCuneGallery.org or call 910-GALLERY.

A Dance to the Music of March Playing this month at 6:46 p.m. at The Rooster’s Wife: March 2 Brett Harris March 9 Ameranouche March 16 The Kennedys and Toughcats March 23 Asleep at the Wheel (two shows, 1:46 & 6:46 p.m.) March 26 Kim and Reggie March 30 Catherine Russell The Rooster’s Wife, 114 Knight Street, Aberdeen. More information: (910) 944-7502 or theroosterswife.org.

Lunch with Legends

Artfully Draped

Glorious Threads is the third and final presentation of the Weymouth lecture series “Immortal Companions,” given by Jeffrey Mims. Apart from light itself, no other element from the entire history of painting or sculpture has commanded the power to define or transform the nude human figure more than the use of drapery in art. From swaddling to shroud, as covering or compositional device, this aspect of image-making has its own rich story to tell — and not always in a manner we might expect.

In celebration of Women’s History Month, the League of Women Voters of Moore County will present the sixth annual Lunch with Legends at the Pinehurst Members’ Club on March 11. The “guests” this year will be Clara Barton, first woman clerk in the U.S. Patent Office, founder of the American Red Cross and active suffragette, and Anne Dallas Dudley, suffragette and Southern leader who believed that a woman’s right to vote was “a matter of simple justice.” The actors portraying the Legends will deliver the moving and sometimes emotional words written and spoken by Barton and Dudley. Doors open at 11:30 a.m. with lunch served at noon. Pinehurst Members’ Club, Pinehurst. Tickets for the lunch and program: $30. For more information call Linda Burch at (910) 295-1935.

A Careful Outline

Cut along to The Country Bookshop on March 26 from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m. Silhouette artist Clay Rice will be there. Each profile silhouette takes Clay about one minute, and he estimates that in his thirty-two-year career, he has cut over 900,000 silhouettes. Clay’s nationwide following has families flocking to have this talented artist create keepsake silhouettes and to have him sign copies of his award-winning children’s book, The Lonely Shadow.

Stay on after the lecture for a buffet and libations.

Please call ahead for an appointment.

March 21 at 6:30 p.m. Tickets, $60. Weymouth Center, 555 E. Connecticut Avenue, Southern Pines. Information: (910) 692-6261 or weymouthcenter.org.

The Country Bookshop, 140 N.W. Broad Street, Southern Pines. For more information and appointments: (910) 692-3211.

Fit for a Prince

The Sunrise will screen the Met’s production of Borodin’s defining Russian epic Prince Igor on March 1 at 12 p.m. Dmitri Tcherniakov’s new production is a brilliant psychological journey through the mind of its conflicted hero, with the founding of the Russian nation as the backdrop. Star bassbaritone Ildar Abdrazakov takes on the monumental title role, with Gianandrea Noseda conducting. Take special note of those famous Polovtsian Dances. The Sunrise Theater, 250 N.W. Broad Street, Southern Pines. Information: (910) 692-8501.

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Wickedly Beautiful

From March 27 to 30 follow the floral brick road to the Weymouth Center for the North Carolina Flower Association’s second annual show titled “The Wizard of Oz” and “Wicked.” The house, front and side lawns and tent will be elaborately decorated. Don’t miss the speaker each day at 1 p.m. and the flower arranging demonstration. For a preview, there will be a party on Wednesday, March 26, at 6:30 p.m. The house will be open Thursday, Friday and Saturday from 10 a.m. until 4 p.m., Sunday 12 until 4 p.m. Tickets: $65/preview party; $15/daily rate. Weymouth Center, 555 E. Connecticut Avenue, Southern Pines. Information: (910) 692-6261. March 2014 13

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Cos and Effect

Remembering Isabel A true Renaissance friend

How do you want to retire?

! t n e v Rein

By Cos Barnes

She was not only

Photograph by Glenn Sides

the mayor of Cameron, she was its ambassador, its cheerleader, its spokesperson and its dearest citizen. My friendship with the late Isabel Thomas goes back a ways. When I wanted gourds to paint into Santa Clauses, she told me where to get them. When I needed directions to a writers’ meeting at Crain’s Creek, she showed me the way. When I dined at Miss Belle’s or shopped at the antiques and collectibles stores, she was there, giving me friendly advice.

Only when my daughter participated in a county beauty pageant did I learn of her musical prowess. When I recognized her at the piano accompanying another contestant, I said, “Why, that’s Isabel.” Little did I know then what an accomplished musician she was. My favorite story about Isabel must be shared. I am a Baptist, and Baptists always had mission study classes in the spring. Knowing the work involved in preparing for one, after I had promised to do one for my Southern Pines church, I told my mother I would come to her church in Virginia and do the study for her group. The study was on Africa. Isabel got wind of my trip and insisted I come and get her daughter’s many artifacts to enhance my program. Her daughter had just returned from a visit there and brought back many samples of the country and the people. I loaded my car with African mementos. I had drums, shakers, rattlers, rag dolls, jewelry, glass, carved wood and ceramic offerings. I had percussion, wind and stringed instruments. Everything that represented Africa’s cultural and historical past, I had. My mother lived in a retirement center, and afraid to leave these priceless treasures unguarded in my car, I lugged everything into her apartment. I can’t remember how many trips it took, but they were safe and I gave them not another thought. Remember I told you this was a long time ago. I was driving a 1968 Oldsmobile — one with the finest stereo I have ever heard — and when I went to the car the next morning, all my hubcaps had been stolen. But Isabel’s daughter’s collection was safe. How we laughed when I told her. PS Cos Barnes is a longtime contributor to PineStraw magazine. She can be contacted at cosbarnes@nc.rr.com.

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The Omnivorous Reader

Dixie Madness

How the 12-year run of the legendary Dixie Classic basketball tournament shaped and fueled the growth of the game in the South — sewing the seeds of “March Madness”

By Stephen E. Smith

You’d tune the old Phil-

co to a local AM station and hear a gravelly voice emanating from the great void: “This is Ray Reeve reporting from the Dixie Classic for the Tobacco Sports Network . . . ”

Not so many years ago such an announcement would have generated a level of excitement equal to, or even exceeding, the passions sparked by today’s March Madness. If you’re a rabid basketball fan, you should know — you have a responsibility to know — that the Dixie Classic is where it all began. Bethany Bradsher’s thoroughly researched and objectively written The Classic: How Everett Case and His Tournament Brought Big-Time Basketball to the South is the history of the popular post-Christmas basketball round robin which began in 1949 and ended in 1961 amid charges of point shaving and payoffs. Even if you’re not particularly fond of basketball — such creatures do exist — Bradsher’s history is compelling. And timely. Younger readers should understand that in the late ’40s, college sports in North Carolina generated little enthusiasm. UNC’s “Choo-Choo” Justice and Duke coach Wallace Wade briefly attracted national attention, but basketball was an afterthought at state universities and private colleges. Then Case, an Indianan by birth and a former high school coach, took over the basketball program at North Carolina State University, and within five years he had transformed the culture. Bradsher does an admirable job of offering up tournament stats and describing key games and plays, but The Classic is more than a mishmash of hairbreadth one-pointers and miraculous ball handling. During the twelve years the tournament enraptured basketball fans, the region was caught up in racial turmoil and the agonies of social change. Bradsher captures that anguish and still manages to convey the passion experienced by the fans who attended the tournament. And what a remarkable cast of characters she has to work with — the natty Frank McGuire, a frantic Bones McKinney, Oscar “the Big O” Robertson, William “Billy” Packer, Jumpin’ Johnny Green, and the Gray

Fox himself, the best coaches and hoopsters of the time. Add to this heady mix a greedy bunch of mob-connected New York gamblers and you’ve got yourself a classic say-itain’t-so story. What Bradsher tells us is that Case knew what he was about. As soon as he arrived in Raleigh, he began recruiting players from his native Indiana — known among State fans as “Hoosier Hotshots” — and named them the “Red Terror.” He dimmed the lights during the pregame introduction of his players, had his team warm up in red capes, and he cut down the nets after every win. His vision for the Raleigh-based Classic was straightforward: Have the best four teams in the region — UNC, Duke, Wake Forest and State — play in a tournament that included four exceptional out-of-state teams, and fill the new Reynolds Coliseum with cigarette smoke and screaming fans. To this end, he installed a Hammond organ and a row of lights dubbed the “noise meter” that seemed to react to the cheering of the crowd (the device was actually manipulated by a Coliseum employee). Within three years, the Classic was a roaring success, and every kid in the state was digging for tickets in his Christmas stocking. But the tournament had a built-in dilemma: location. The Classic was held in the segregated South, and the introduction of black players, who began arriving in Raleigh as members of invited teams, elicited a vehement reaction from local fans. Tournament organizers had to wrestle with Jim Crow laws. When Mel Streeter, a black player for the University of Oregon, was scheduled to play at Reynolds, Roy Clogstone, State’s chancellor, wrote to Oregon’s athletic director suggesting that his team would have a much more enjoyable trip to North Carolina if Streeter remained on the Oregon campus. Oscar Robertson was refused accommodations at a local hotel, and when he was greeted at the Coliseum with racial epithets, something had to give. And did. If contemporary college basketball is colorblind, the Dixie Classic helped make it so. But it wasn’t racism that brought down Case’s creation; money killed the Classic. And Bradsher excels at laying out the subtle sequence of events and detailing the various enticements — most of them monetary — used by New York gamblers to lure players into the fix. “The point spread,” she writes, “created ethical gray areas for players

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18 March 2014P�� PineStraw : The Art & Soul of the Sandhills

The Omnivorous Reader

drawn by the notion of making a quick fortune. It’s easy to pull off and virtually impossible to detect, the gamblers would tell them. You don’t have to lose the game — you only have to make sure that your team stays within the spread.” Which is exactly what the guilty players did. Basketball was Everett Case’s life, and he knew his teams better than anyone. He sensed that something was amiss on the hardwood and reported his suspicions to authorities. In March 1961, Sports Illustrated published “The Facts About the Fixes,” exposing the pointshaving scheme, which had also taken place at other colleges and universities. Only a few State and UNC players were involved, but it only took a few. William Friday, the president of the Consolidated University of North Carolina, stepped in and canceled the Dixie Classic forever: “When a kid’s life is threatened — and I know it was threatened, and the district attorney did, or he wouldn’t have been here — you had to eliminate the problem.” Careers were ruined, the gamblers were prosecuted, and in some cases, the names of innocent players were sullied. This much is certain: The publication of The Classic couldn’t be more timely. Sports and related academic programs at UNC are under scrutiny, and money is more of a factor in college sports than ever before. Talented athletes opt to go pro without earning a degree. Football players at Northwestern University are pushing for unionization. Warren Buffett has offered $1 billion to anyone who can produce a perfect March Madness bracket for the NCAA’s Men’s College Basketball Tournament. Where does this leave us? Bradsher quotes Friday: “The bad thing about the picture you see today is that it’s not only bigger, it’s worse. There’s so much more money involved. We’ve turned our universities into entertainment centers . . . . And strong voices have got to rise up and say, ‘No more of this. No more. Of. This.’ And maybe it will start to right itself.” Don’t bet on it. PS

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Stephen Smith’s most recent book of poetry is A Short Report on the Fire at Woolworths. He can be reached at travisses@ hotmail.com.

This just in…

Sports fans, make sure you’re at the Given Memorial Library on March 6 at 3:30 p.m. Bethany Bradsher will be talking about her book The Classic and her new biography of Bones McKinney. Given Memorial Library, 150 Cherokee Road, Pinehurst. Information: (910) 295-3642.

FRAMER’S COTTAGE 162 NW Broad Street Southern Pines, NC 28387 910.246.2002

PineStraw : The Art & Soul of the Sandhills . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . March 2014 19

Don’t miss these Bookshop events in March

Saturday, March 15th 11am Andrea Weigl

Sunday, March 23rd 2pm Anthony Abbott

PICKLES AND PRESERVES

Please join us on the Sunday following the Ragan Poetry Festival

Sunday, March 16th 2pm Erika Robuck FALLEN BEAUTY

Tuesday, March 25th 4:30pm Anne Barnhill QUEEN ELIZABETH’S DAUGHTER: A NOVEL OF ELIZABETH 1

Tuesday, March 18th 5pm Johnny Molloy

HIKING NORTH CAROLINA’A NATIONAL FORESTS: 50 CAN’T MISS TRAIL ADVENTURES IN THE PISGAH, NANTAHALA, UWHARRIE AND CROATAN NATIONAL FORESTS

Wednesday, March 26th 3-6pm Clay Rice SILHOUETTE ARTIST Please call ahead for appointment There is a fee for silhouette sittings

Saturday, March 22nd 2pm Ed Williams LIBERATING DIXIE

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The Country Bookshop 20 March 2014NW P��PineStraw : The Art & Soul of the Sandhills 140 Broad St., Southern Pines • 910.692.3211 • thecountrybookshop.biz

March Kudos

Poetry is the journal of a sea animal living on land, wanting to fly in the air. — Carl Sandburg Congratulations to Becky Gould Gibson of Winston-Salem. The North Carolina Poetry Society announced her manuscript, Heading Home, the winner of the Lena Shull Book Contest. Gibson will be honored on April Poetry Day at Catawba Valley Community College. This poet, frequently praising the work of others, calls Anthony (Tony) Abbott’s House of Cards amazing.

By Sandra Redding Words, words, words . . . Chisel them; hammer them; stack them. Kaleidoscopic in color or Quaker gray, they become forms to touch, taste, bite into, love. — Anonymous

This Month’s Readings

Barnes & Noble, Greensboro, CRM2795@ bn.com: March 6, 7 p.m., Mike Axsom, Making Memories Down South; March 20, 7 p.m., Anne Barnhill, Queen Elizabeth’s Daughter The Country Bookshop, Southern Pines, kimberlyddaniels@gmail.com: March 15, 7 p.m., Andrea Weigl, Pickles and Preserves; March 17, 4:30 p.m., Erika Robuck, Fallen Beauty; March 23, 2 p.m., Anthony S. Abbott, The Angel Dialogues Flyleaf Books, Chapel Hill, linnie@flyleafbooks.com: March 4, 8 p.m., Bruce Holsinger, A Burnable Book; March 25, 7 p.m., Michael Parker, All I Have in This World Pomegranate Book Store, Wilmington, (910) 4521107: March 29, 4 p.m., Lavonne Adams, What Matters UNC Greensboro, Friends of the Library, March 26, 4 p.m., Georgann Eubanks’ presentation: Why are There so Many N.C. Writers? Hodges Reading Room, Jackson Library

Many Returns

Our five-shamrock award goes to Jason Mott of Bolton. After earning a B.F.A. in fiction and an M.F.A. in poetry from UNC Wilmington, he published two successful books of poetry: We Call This Thing Between Us Love and “. . . hide behind me . . .” Mott gains inspiration from mythology, folklore and, gracious me, COMIC BOOKS. After he dreamed of his dead mother, an experience he found more comfortable than eerie, the novel The Returned evolved. No zombies here. Only people returning to help their loved ones. Are all the returnees good folk? Read the book to find out or watch Resurrection, the serial movie Brad Pitt’s production company developed from the novel. Tune to ABC on March 9 for the first episode.

Words can save us, especially if they are Tony Abbott’s. — Lee Smith The Angel Dialogues by Anthony (Tony) Abbott of Davidson debuts March 14. These skillfully crafted poems, describing angels fluttering through the poet’s imagination, combine humor with keen insight. “If I were allowed to choose my angel, I might embrace Gacie,” Fred Chappell says. “Solicitous, assured, understanding, cheeky (say what?), impudent (!), mischievous (?!), wiseacre (?!), she is the counselor who does not insist, the consoler who does not impinge; she is the One who will trust me when I cannot trust myself. . . . Thank you, Tony.” The emotional colors and complexities of the solitary life compel me. I imagine them seriously in my chapbook, Miss Havisham in Winter — by Mary Elizabeth Parker This cycle of poems reflects on adjusting to the last season of one’s life. A Greensboro writer, Parker has published extensively. Additionally, during eighteen years as chair of the Dana Awards, she has encouraged numerous writers with expert advice and monetary rewards. Several Dana winners have published books. For complete Dana Contest rules, go to danaawards.com.

Dates to Remember

Celebrate St. Patrick’s Day (3/17) by reading Irish verses. Wake Forest University Press (wfupress.wfu.edu), Winston-Salem, is “the major publisher of Irish poetry in North America.” No leprechauns up to mischief here. Instead, scholarly angels pass out poems and candy to stressed-out students dreading exams. On the first day of spring (3/20), get ready for summer magic. Register for a Writers-in-Residence Program offered to published N.C. writers by Weymouth Center in Southern Pines. Writers selected can stay up to two weeks to work on a project. For information and application, contact weymouthcenter@pinehurst.net. Be warned, some swear the ghost of Thomas Wolfe lurks in the halls of Weymouth. Wolfe, among many celebrated writers of the past century, visited this historical estate owned by James Boyd. Boyd, who loved fox hunting, penned five historical novels. “I’d rather ride than write,” he confessed to friends.

Winners All

What is your favorite novel by a North Carolina writer? We will feature the book receiving most votes in the June column. Have you won writing awards or grants? If so, send details to sanredd@earthlink.net. Writer’s Notebook would love to include you on our Winners List. What do you want on this page? What writerly events are taking place in your neck of the woods? Let me know at sanredd@earthlink.net Greensboro writer Sandra Redding’s first novel, Naomi Wise: A Cautionary Tale, has just been published.

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B oo k s h e l f

March Books

By Kimberly Daniels and Angie Tally The Lost Sisterhood by Anne Fortier Inspired by a childhood fascination with a grandmother who claimed to be an Amazon, as an adult Diana Morgan finds herself, an expert on Greek mythology and an Oxford lecturer. A mysterious foundation allows her to take the adventure of her life and team up with Nick Barran, a Middle Eastern guide, to follow the clues they find in a recently unearthed temple in North Africa. There is a treasure to find, salvaged by Amazons from Troy, and Diana does not know whom to trust on this quest for truth with danger at every turn. This is a fun novel that weaves history and suspense by the author who wrote “Juliet.” The Divorce Papers by Susan Rieger The story in this book is told entirely through legal correspondence. Emails between lawyers detail the entire movement of a divorce case and the case of a top doctor and the daughter of the firm’s largest client in particular. Despite the unusual writing form, the story is told without gaps, and the style provides interesting reading and insight into the workings of a law firm and a divorce case. Shotgun Lovesongs: A Novel by Nickolas Butler This novel captures rural Wisconsin and uses a small town to hold and release four men and a woman who have grown up together against this magnificent background. All the friends have reached adulthood by traveling different paths: a farmer, a music star, an ex-rodeo rider, a fledgling businessman. And all four are expressing the ties of their youth in adulthood. This is a beautifully written novel. If you ever wanted to armchair travel to Wisconsin and learn about the human condition in the process, this is your book. Gemini: A Novel by Carol Cassella Told in the voice of two women, one an ICU doctor in Seattle and the other a young mother from the Olympic Peninsula, this book is about the mother’s son. And it is a book about love and life and how survival depends on constant change. You will love learning the story of these two women and how their lives intersect and what brought them to that point in their lives. I couldn’t put this book down! I should make sure that all of our readers know that there are many new titles from some very popular authors coming out in March. James Patterson has NYPD Red 2,

and there is Missing You by Harlan Coban. Danielle Steele has a book called Power Play, Nora Roberts has book two of the O’Dwyer Cousins Mystery called Shadow Spell, and Debbie Macomber has, Blossom Street Brides. Be Careful What You Wish For is a new title by Jeffery Archer, and North Carolina’s own Jeffery Deaver has a third volume of his collected stories coming out called Trouble in the Mind. NonFiction Blood Will Out: The True Story of a Murder, a Mystery and a Masquerade by Walter Kirn More memoir than true crime tell-all, this book parses the convoluted relationship between writer Kirn and his Rockefeller friend, Clark, who turned out not to be a Rockefeller at all; instead, he’s a serial impostor, a murderous sociopath, and a con man of the highest order. Kirn unflinchingly reveals his own ambition, desperation and fixation with wealth and social status that derail his writer’s instinct and allow him to be bamboozled, even as Clark’s mask slips. A blistering character study of both murderer and writer, Blood Will Out sounds an alarm about the way our own flaws compel us to see what we most desire to see and the grave danger that might put us in. Caffeinated: How Our Daily Habit Helps, Hurts and Hooks Us by Murray Carpenter Carpenter has reported caffeine-related stories for The New York Times, Wired, “National Geographic, NPR, and PRI’s “The World” all while addicted to caffeine. This book compiles a lot of facts, figures and anecdotes as he crosses the globe trying to gain access to coffee planters, synthetic caffeine plants and more areas of interest. This book is not a pleasure read, but it arms us with information regarding something pervasive in our society. Read it for yourself or for conversational tidbits. Either way, this book contains great information. The Great Prostate Hoax by Richard J. Ablin, Ph.D., DSC (HON) and Ronald Piana Dr. Ablin identified PSA — the prostate specific antigen that is used as a test for prostate cancer — in 1970. He has fought against the misuse of his discovery for years. Currently prostate cancer kills 30,000 men every year, and about 230,000 new cases are diagnosed. Every year about 160,000 radical prostatectomies are conducted that leave men sexually impotent and incontinent in the face of scientific evidence that PSA levels do not correlate to cancer and that prostate cancer should

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TWO ARTISTS | ONE SPACE Noé Katz + John Beerman

April 11 - June 22, 2014

Noé Katz

Noé Katz, Fruit of Love, 2002, oil on linen canvas, 34 x 42 inches

Moving to North Carolina from Mexico City, Noé Katz is an internationally known artist with work in private collections and museums such as the Museo de Arte Moderno in Mexico City, the Tokoro Museum of Modern Art in Omishma, Japan, and the Museum of Latin American Art in Long Beach, California. This is the first time works by Katz have been on exhibition in North Carolina.

John Beerman, Grandfather Mountain, White Clouds, 2013, oil on linen, 30 x 36 inches

John Beerman John Beerman has exhibited widely throughout the United States and is represented in numerous public collections including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Brooklyn Museum, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, North Carolina Museum of Art, and Weatherspoon Museum. Included in this exhibition will be new oil paintings for sale from the Grandfather Mountain series.

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B oo k s h e l f be treated as a disease. Dr. Ablin teams up with science writer Ronald Piana to make the case for looking at prostate cancer in an entirely different way. My Gentle Barn: Creating a Sanctuary Where Animals Heal and Children Learn to Hope by Ellie Laks Ellie Laks adopted a sick goat from a run-down petting zoo in 1999. Some 200 animals later (including chickens, horses, pigs, cows, rabbits, emus and more), The Gentle Barn has become an extraordinary nonprofit that brings together a volunteer staff of community members and at-risk teens to rehabilitate abandoned and/or abused animals. As Ellie teaches the volunteers to care for the animals, they learn a new language of healing that works wonders on the humans as much as it does on the animals. The Gentle Barn weaves together the story of how the Barn came to be what it is today with Ellie’s own tumultuous journey. Filled with tales of daring rescues, unforgettable animal high jinks, and inspiring recoveries, The Gentle Barn is a feel-good account that will delight animal lovers and memoir readers alike.

Our British Heritage Celebration

The Book of Duels by Michael Garriga, illustrated by Tynan Kerr This short fiction collection is fun, darkly fun. It depicts historical and imagined duels, and “settling the score” provides a fascinating apparatus for exploring foundational civilizing ideas alongside fantastic illustrations by Tynan Kerr. Notions of courage, cowardice and revenge course through Michael Garriga’s flash fiction pieces, each one of which captures a duel’s decisive moment from three distinct perspectives: opposing accounts from the individual duelists, followed by the third account of a witness. In razor-honed language, the voices of the duelists take center stage, training a spotlight on the litany of misguided beliefs and perceptions that lead individuals into such conflicts. From Cain and Abel to Andrew Jackson and Charles Dickenson; from John Henry and the steam drill to an alcoholic fighting the bottle: The cumulative effect of these powerful pieces is a probing and disconcerting look at humankind’s long-held notions of pride, honor, vengeance and satisfaction.

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CHILDREN’S BOOKS Betty Bunny Wants a Goal by Michael Kaplan and Stephane Jorisch. Quirky fun Betty Bunny, star of Betty Bunny Loves Chocolate Cake, Betty Bunny Wants Everything and Betty Bunny Didn’t Do It, is taking to the soccer field in a big way. Declaring she will score ten goals in her first game, Betty is disillusioned when she fails to score even one, and now it is up to her family to convince her not to give up when things are hard. Ages 3-7

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PineStraw : The Art & Soul of the Sandhills . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . March 2014 25

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26 March 2014 P��PineStraw : The Art & Soul of the Sandhills

B oo k s h e l f The Worm by Elise Gravel. The second in a series of the humorous nonfiction beginning reader series “Disgusting Creatures” that also includes Gravel’s first book Fly, The Worm gives an in-depth look at the earthworm. Covering such topics as the worm’s habitats (sometimes they live inside other animals), its anatomy (its muscle tube is slimy and gross), and its illustrious history (worms have been on Earth for 120 million years) Worm is sure to delight young nature lovers. Ages 5-9 Feathers: Not Just for Flying by Melissa Stewart. Bird watchers young and old will enjoy getting to know sixteen different birds in this fascinating, beautiful picture book. Life-sized feather illustrations are accompanied by text both simple and descriptive featuring the many uses, characteristics and kinds of feathers. Ages 4-9 The Winner’s Curse by Marie Rutkoski. A pageturning adventure that has everything: forbidden romance, fancy costumes, knife fighting, betrayal, conquest, class warfare, slave uprisings, blackmail, siege, more betrayal, and a killer cliffhanger ending. This amazing new novel by breakout writer Rutkoski is both dark and funny and will thoroughly capture the attention of young adult readers and adults who appreciate the works of Scott Westerfeld, Cassandra Clare or Kristin Cashore. Ages 14 to adult. Storm by Donna Jo Napoli. Noah’s ark carried two giraffes, two pandas, two lions, two mice, two of every creature and also a stowaway 16-year-old girl named Sebah, who seeks refuge from the storm. Themes of family, loss and ultimately survival and love reign in this retelling of the Noah’s ark story from a very different viewpoint. Ages 14 to adult. Bedtime Math 2: This Time It’s Personal. This second book in the “Bedtime Math” series is filled with over 100 math riddles on topics from missing socks to personal running speed. With options for wee ones, little ones and big kids, bedtime stortytime can include math time for everyone! Join us Saturday, March 15, at 1 p.m. for the book launch of this fun new book and the opportunity for kids of all ages to build their own geometric creations with glowsticks and Styrofoam balls. This event is free and appropriate for ages 3-7. PS

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h i tt i n g h o m e

Daze

Who knew you don’t need a curling iron to go camping? By Dale Nixon

The Girl Scouts were founded over 100 years ago in March by Juliette Gordon Low. She formed a group of eighteen girls in Georgia and declared, “I’ve got something for the girls of Savannah, and all of America, and the world, and we’re going to start it tonight.”

Well, Juliette Gordon Low started something for me that I couldn’t finish. I offer her my deepest apologies. My daughter Edie was 8 years old when she brought a letter home inviting her to become a Girl Scout and for me to become a Girl Scout leader. We both accepted the invitation to be part of this fine program, and I signed up to be a Girl Scout leader for two years. Neither one of us will ever forget the experience. First, let me say I think Scouting is the finest program going for our youth. I would encourage anyone thinking of joining this organization to do so. As for me, I’m just not Girl Scout leader material. Looking back, that fact seemed fairly obvious to everyone but me. When I broke the news to my daughter, she burst into tears. When my husband heard that I had signed up, he rolled on the floor with laughter. I remember thinking to myself that I’d show them. I — the woman who had never fired up a barbecue grill, who sent Edie to school with crooked bows in her hair and who jumped on tabletops at the sight of a spider — would show them. I excelled in some areas of Scouting. I was great at scavenger hunts, skit writing, cross-stitching and refreshments. It was the camping trip that broke my spirit. Perhaps I should have told the twenty-two 8-year-olds and their mothers that I had never been camping. Somehow, it didn’t seem important at the time. I had my own plan. I’d seek experienced campers to accompany us on the trip. I asked four of my friends who had raved through the years about their wonderful camping trips. We decided to take the expedition to Tanglewood Campgrounds in Winston-Salem and make a weekend of it. We chartered a bus and loaded twenty-two Scouts, medical supplies and enough groceries to prepare 122 individual meals. I packed my makeup mirror, a curling iron, a pound of coffee, a box of wood

matches and a can of insect spray. I struggled with my one tent while two of my expert camper friends pitched eleven. (Pitched is a common camping term.) My tent kept collapsing, but I persevered and got it up. I spent an hour looking for the tent’s bottom only to find out it never had one. This meant we had to sleep on the ground. Horrors. I then tried to locate a table to jump on in the event a spider decided to be my tent mate. There were no tables in the woods. We hung around the campsite the rest of the day looking for little sticks and such. We had a contest to see who could build the biggest fire, tie the best knots and identify the most tree species. My team always lost. That evening, trouble knocked at my tent in the form of wind chill factor. The temperature hit a record low. This particular weekend was the coldest it had been in seventy years. You’ll recall our tents had no bottoms. There was a bright side. I never had to pull the insect spray out of my bag since Winston-Salem’s entire insect population was frozen. We built a huge bonfire and kept it stoked all weekend. (Is stoked a camping term?) The fire was our warmth, our light and our stove. We sang songs around it and told ghost stories by it. I liked the fire. The 122 meals that my experienced camper friends had planned consisted of stew and s’mores. I have a new respect for McDonald’s, and to this day seeing a marshmallow is nauseous. We took the girls on a tour of Old Salem, the Reynolda House and Gardens and Bethabara Church. Everyone enjoyed the sights, but I resented going everywhere with a red bandanna tied around my head. The last night of our trip was unbearable. It was so cold we slept in our clothes, coats, toboggans and gloves. When we found a sleeping position, we stayed in place because rolling over was impossible. The morning of our departure, I made a promise to myself. If I could just get these twenty-two little girls home safe and sound, I would never try to be what I’m not. I am not a Girl Scout leader. My red bandanna is off to those who can lead the troops, and if you ever need someone to plan a scavenger hunt, write a skit, teach cross-stitch or bring refreshments, then I’ll be able to help you out. Just promise you won’t ask me to go on one of your camping trips. PS Columnist Dale Nixon may be contacted at dalenixon@carolina.rr.com.

V i n e W i sd o m

Red Carpet Rosé How Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt got it right

By Robyn James

Celebrity association with

wine certainly isn’t a new phenomenon; there are a great number of movie stars, athletes and musicians who lend their names and endorsements to wines just as any other products to boost sales.

How involved, if at all, these celebrities actually are in the winemaking process is a good question. An educated guess would be not much to none. There is always an exception to the rule, and within the last year, the wine industry has found that exception with Château Miraval. As soon as I was told that Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie had crafted a wine from Provence I was the first skeptic. As soon as I tasted the wine my skepticism melted. Back in 2008, the Pitt-Jolie family was searching for a home in France where they could have privacy during the birth of their twins and then later turn the estate into a summer retreat. They fell in love with Château Miraval, one of the finest wine estates in France that covers an entire valley in Provence and is located in Correns, the first organic village in France. They leased the property for three years while the original owners controlled the vineyards. Once they decided to purchase the property for an estimated $60 million, their interest in the vineyards spiked. They assumed control of the vineyards with the idea of making a world class Provençal rosé. To my delight I read that they formed a partnership with the Perrin family from the Rhone region of France. Marc Perrin is their chief winemaker in charge of the operation. The Perrins, who are legendary in the wine industry, are committed to everything organic and sustainable. They are the proprietors of Château de Beaucastel, a property in Châteauneuf-du-Pape that sets the bar for quality. Their wines have always been the yardstick for the Rhône region. Frankly, the Brangelinas are very fortunate to have them on board. They are the best. And so they proved themselves because the very first vintage of Miraval dry rosé made the Wine Spectator’s Top 100 Wines of the Year for 2013. That says Miraval is the best rosé of the year. On the release of their first vintage of Miraval rosé, in only a few hours they sold out of the 6,000 bottles they produced. Some of those bottles did make their way to The Wine Cellar, and I have to admit, they made their way to my house as well. I am a huge fan of dry Provençal rosé, and this was one of the best I have ever tried. It is a blend of cinsault, syrah, grenache and rolle. The Wine Spectator described it as “Refined and elegant, offering pure and concentrated flavors of dried red berry, tangerine and melon. The focused finish features flint and spice notes, with a hint of cream. Drink now.” Rated 90 points, it is No. 84 in the Top 100 Wines Of The Year. And so it seems that Miraval is on a roll. The 2013 vintage has just been re-

leased, sold out in six hours and was reviewed by Jane Anson of Decanter Magazine as “Confident from the off. There is no need to hawk for customers with an overly seductive blush; this is all about pale, barely-there pink. There is a lovely floral nose, soft fragrant roses, and from the first taste there is a delicate structure that deepens on the palate. But, as the French would say, ‘il y a du vin’ – meaning that there is a sense of power alongside the elegance, a structure and a fresh acidity that gives the wine persistency, with a grip of minerality that gives a delicious mouthwatering finish. This marks a serious improvement on last year.” The gorgeous, historical Château Miraval also shares a connection to the music industry. It was formerly owned by French jazz pianist Jacques Loussier, who installed a first class recording studio. Sting, Sade, Pink Floyd, The Gypsy Kings and The Cranberries have all recorded hits at Miraval. The estate produces another rosé named Pink Floyd. Brad Pitt is reported to be very involved in the winemaking processes at Miraval. He and Angelina are wine lovers, particularly those of the Rhone region where the Perrin family has such a large presence. The wines are labeled Miraval, bottled by Jolie-Pitt & Perrin. They are committed to making the best wine they can and have been present at all of the blending sessions. They just recently released a Miraval Blanc produced from the rolle grape, also known in Italy as vermentino. I had the pleasure of tasting it and it had crisp acids, citrus-leaf aromatics, and pronounced minerality. It shows flavors of green apple and lime, heightened by refreshing acidity, good richness and medium body. There are plans to produce a red wine that would mirror the Super Tuscans of Italy. The spotlight is shining on Miraval’s beautiful selections. PS Robyn James is proprietor of The Wine Cellar and Tasting Room in Southern Pines. Contact her at winecellar@pinehurst.net.

PineStraw : The Art & Soul of the Sandhills . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . February 2014

Real Estate in the Sandhills

March 2014P��PineStraw : The Art & Soul of the Sandhills

T h e k i tc h e n gard e n

Cream of the Crop The small spuds of spring

By Jan Leitschuh

In these low-carbo-

hydrate times, the potato has gotten a bad rap.

Yet everything in moderation, no? This delicious, potassium-laden vegetable has long been nutrition for hard times, and is one of the very easiest spring foods you can grow. And now is the time to plant them. Why grow spuds when you can buy them so cheaply? Kitchen gardeners reap a flavor bonus. For the ultimate in gourmet taste, we can harvest our potatoes at a young stage, when the potato skin is thin and tender and the tubers are delectable, creamy and sweet. Gardeners appreciate the simple thrills. One of the best is slipping your hand under a potato plant and pulling out a few earthy, fresh creamers (baby potatoes) to roast or boil for lunch. This is a rich, garden-fresh taste that is hard to duplicate in store-bought potatoes. Commercial potatoes are also often sprayed heavily for pests, and dipped to prevent post-harvest sprouting and fungal deterioration. Your garden is unlikely to experience the pest load of a commercial mono-crop, and thus you can avoid the extra treatments. Potatoes are not usually grown from seeds. They sprout from the eyes of fully grown potatoes. You can find seed potatoes at a local garden store, or through seed catalogs for specialty varieties. Because of anti-sprouting chemicals, it’s best not to use potatoes from the grocery — even if they sprout, they tend to not develop well. However, if you keep some of this year’s harvest from your own garden to plant next year, you won’t have to buy them again. Seed potatoes come in a number of colors and varieties. Yukon Gold, as you can imagine, has buttery yellow flesh. Norgold Russet and Superior are earlymaturing types. Red Pontiac and Kennebec are other common offerings. I’d love to try some purple potatoes at some point. A person could grow a red, white and blue potato salad if so inclined. I like golf-ball or egg-sized seed potatoes, but you can cut a larger spud into two or three pieces. Do this the day before to allow the cut surfaces to heal. Look closely, and you will see “eyes” forming budding little sprouts. Don’t remove these; these will be the stems you want to encourage. For a jump start on the growing season, you can also pre-sprout your seed tubers in a cool, well-lit room; a dark, warm room will lead to thin, pale, weak growth and poor harvest. Plant outside when you see the green shoots just beginning Avoid fresh manure, although rich, well-aged compost and organic matter are just the ticket. Choose a sunny, well-drained area — easy to do in the

Sandhills. Avoid spots where you’ve grown tomatoes, eggplant or peppers in the last three years. I’ve had good success using the no-dig straw method. More on that later. Potatoes also adapt surprisingly well to container gardening. Some folks like to grow them in barrels, fivegallon buckets, old landscape planters, grow bags, temporary raised beds, tires and more. Look for a container that is at least 12 inches deep, though 15-20 inches is better since the new potatoes develop along the growing stem. Use a good potting soil for drainage, or you’ll end up with sodden mush. I like to plant in early March, about the time the crocus bloom, though some eager beavers successfully begin in late February. Our soil is so well-drained, I don’t worry about rot, and if a late frost does come though and knock back the new growth . . . oh well. It will regrow, even if the harvest is not as large. I don’t plant many potatoes anyway, just a few Yukon Golds plus any other interesting variety my garden/feed store might carry. My goal is a few baby potatoes now and again, with plenty to roast with rosemary for an Easter dinner. Dig a shallow trench, about 4 inches deep. Some folks in the Sandhills don’t even bother with the trench, but I think it’s useful. Make sure the soil on the bottom is worked. No need to add lime to this part of the garden this year, a little soil acidity helps prevent a disease scab. About every 10 inches, place a seed potato cut side down; if whole, and you can see the eye(s), orient the eye(s) skyward. Nestle them in and cover slightly, a half-inch or so. For the straw method, which makes harvest a snap and produces clean spuds, cover the seed potatoes with 6 inches of clean, herbicide-free straw. Water this all in. To avoid rot, don’t over-water in the weeks to come, but don’t let things dry out either if the spring is unusually drought-y. Soon, you will see vigorous sprouts poking up through the soil. Cover half the new growth with more straw. This smothers weeds, supports the new growth, keeps the sun off the young tubers, and prevents the skin from turning green. (Never eat greenish potatoes, as the skins contain toxins.) When the growth jumps up again, cover half the growth again with more straw. Potatoes are heavy feeders. When your spud sprouts develop their first set of true leaves, spray them with a foliar spray. It seems odd that something sprayed on the leaves would nourish the plant, but foliar sprays of fish emulsion or seaweed are becoming more popular and useful. They provide nutrients your potato plants need to produce tubers and stay healthy through insect attacks and disease. Spray once a week until all the potato plant flowers are in full bloom.

March 2014P��PineStraw : The Art & Soul of the Sandhills

T h e k i tc h e n gard e n

After fifty to sixty days, you can check for baby potatoes. What luck, the parsley is prime and abundant at this time as well! Other than the butter you will place on your spring morsels, harvest is the best part — just pull back the straw and take what you need. No digging, no garden forks, no cut-up potatoes. Recover, and let the others continue to grow. If saving seed for next year, let your spuds mature fully to develop a thicker skin, about eighty to 100 days. One medium-size potato is said to have just 110 calories and is fat-, sodium- and cholesterolfree. That same potato has more potassium than a banana, 18 percent of the recommended daily value (DV). Potassium is a mineral found in every body cell, and helps regulate blood pressure, nerve impulses and muscles. Be sure to eat the delicious, tender skin of your homegrown potato for full value. Folks that pay attention to the acid-alkaline balance will find that the minerals in potatoes alkalize things nicely. Potatoes also have more vitamin C (45 percent DV) than a medium tomato, as well as being a good source of fiber, iron and the water-soluble vitamin B6. What’s not to love? For a quick lunch, harvest a few creamers, scrub and microwave until easily pierced with a fork; top with any number of options. Fresh vegetables, Greek yogurt or sour cream, hummus and olives are all good, but simple butter and salt is hard to beat, since the creamy flavor of baby potatoes is exquisite. Creamers can be also grilled on skewers, but sometimes the simplest way is the most elegant. The easy recipe below will draw raves.

Roasted Baby Potatoes With Rosemary And Garlic

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Rinse and scrub your creamers. Place clean potatoes in an iron skillet, baking dish or pan. Brush with a mix of olive oil, chopped rosemary, a crushed garlic clove, salt and pepper, until all sides of the potato are covered; spread out to allow best roasting. Spice variations include parsley, paprika and/or cayenne pepper. Roast uncovered for 45 minutes to an hour, turning once or twice. Fresh asparagus is also abundant during babypotato season, and can go in the oven to roast at the same time. Baby carrots might be another convenient and seasonal side to pop in the hot oven as well. Potatoes are done when easily pierced by a fork and golden around the edges. Some folks like to “smash” each potato at this point and place them back in the oven for a little more crisping. Garnish serving platter with rosemary or fresh-picked parsley. PS Jan Leitschuh is a local gardener, avid eater of fresh produce and co-founder of the Sandhills Farm to Table Cooperative.

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March 2014P��PineStraw : The Art & Soul of the Sandhills

Out of the Blue

The New Normal Thing Everything is normal— until something else comes along

By Deborah Salomon

We are known by our slogans, our plac-

ards, our labels — the things we scrawl on cave walls, stone tablets and Facebook. To this day SPQR, affixed to official Roman artifacts, means this stuff belongs to us, so get your grubby hands off. Marie Antoinette goes down in history for “Let ’em eat cake!” FDR for the New Deal. Herbert Hoover for a chicken in every pot.

The American Dairy Association for “Got milk?” Are you Gen-X . . . or a millennial? Metrosexual? Sounds like hanky-panky on the Paris subway. But “new normal,” slapped on everything from T-shirts to magazine covers, bothers me most because the concept requires defining old normal. Let’s say the nuclear family represents the old normal, meaning two parents of different genders living with their children — or even a multigenerational unit. Within this “normal” exist nuances: single income, home ownership, traditional division of duties, no tats or tongue rings. Nuclear families do still function. One comes to mind: Elizabeth and Philip Mountbatten-Windsor, who live in the same city (perhaps the same neighborhood) as their children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren. They belong to the same church, wear the same styles, spend Christmas together and — goodness gracious — work for the family business. They may be uber-nuclear but hardly normal. Besides, nuclear smacks of toxic waste and a mushroom cloud, not altogether unfitting in some cases. Besides, who wants to be part of a family that Dubya can’t pronounce? Certainly not the Kardashians. So does new normal imply better-than or worse-than what came before? I think new normal is just an excuse for changing or lowering standards. We can dismiss the disappearance of cursive writing instruction as the new normal. No more phys. ed. or art classes? The new normal. Skyrocketing health care cost for dwindling services — ditto. Brand it normal, don’t fix it, move on. Not all new normals warrant criticism. The sloppy, scratchy new-normal four-day beard sported by metrosexuals frees up ten minutes per day. This

affords guys an extra hour per week to Swiffer the floor, Pampers the baby and zap the Jimmy Dean turkey sausage and egg whites breakfast sandwich, something the clean-shaven Windsor men can’t fit into their schedules. Second on my short list of annoying phrases adopted by politicians and pundits: “At the end of the day . . .” The etymology of this word group may be Biblical: “And it shall come to pass . . .” which evolved into old-normal “When all is said and done” — much more sensible because most situations to which this phrase applies go on for weeks, months or longer. At the end of most days, politicians repair to cocktail buffets put on by lobbyists serving very heavy, very expensive hors d’oeuvres. Then they go home, select ties for the morrow, confirm appointments with the barber and cosmetic dentist, tweet a few truisms, watch themselves being interviewed by Dana Bash, stick a white-noise CD in the Bose and get some zzzzs. And why not? These days, there’s a “natural” (a meaningless designation) chicken in every pot, a new deal on health care. With cutbacks in school funding and teaching staff, cursive, gym and clay sculpture are moot. Instead, the new normal: Let your fingers do the walking across the keyboard. I’m concerned about young adults who rev up the motor for stunts labeled “Professional driver on a closed course. Do not attempt,” which reminds me of handing a 4-year-old a spoon and telling him, “Don’t touch that bowl of ice cream with chocolate sauce and sprinkles.” The wildly popular “Let me be clear” was coined by the world’s worst obfuscators. Lastly, a requiem for the banner flown above the venerable New York Times: “All the news that’s fit to print.” I hardly ever hear this quoted, probably because the new-normal “fit” is “everything.” Even the Grey Lady won’t convince me that school shooters are not triggered (perfect word) by coverage. Why, ripped-from-the-headlines cases on “L&O: SVU” are practically how-to manifestos. So you have a choice when deciding whether to use Gen-now vernacular: Follow Nike’s “Just do it.” Or join me and Nancy Reagan, with “Just say no.” PS Deborah Salomon is a staff writer for PineStraw and The Pilot. She may be reached at debsalomon@nc.rr.com.

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March 2014P��PineStraw : The Art & Soul of the Sandhills

B I R D WA T C H

American Robin The return of Spring

By Susan Campbell

It is early spring

Photograph by Debra Regula

in the Sandhills and few migrants are this far north, let alone back and ready to breed. But flocks of American robins have been evident all winter, feasting on dogwoods, hollies and other berry laden shrubs. And now they are less interested in eating and ready to start a new family. They are, indeed, the “early birds.”

American robins are found throughout most of the United States and Canada. They are one of the most familiar birds on the continent. In winter, thousands from across Canada and the northern tier of states move southward, not as a response to the drop in temperatures, but in search of food. Although robins are insectivorous during the warmer months, they become frugivorous in winter. Flocks of thousands are known to forage and roost together here in the Southeast. Both male and female robins have long black legs, orangey-red breasts and dark gray backs. Males, however, have a darker head and more colorful breasts. Robins use their thin, yellow bills to probe the vegetation and soft ground for invertebrates in the warmer months. Spiders and caterpillars are common prey as well. These birds use both sight and sound to locate prey. It is not unusual to see a robin standing still and then cocking its head as the bird zeroes in on a potential food item just under the soil surface. Here in North Carolina, come March, male robins return to the territories they have defended in past summers. In bright, fresh plumage, they will

sing most of the day from the tops of trees and other elevated perches, attempting to attract a mate. Their repeated choruses of “cheer-i-o, cheer-i-up” echo from lowland mixed woodlands to high elevation evergreen forests as well as open parklands in between. Females will accept a male for the season, but once summer draws to a close, so does the pair bond. Females are the ones who select a nest site and build the nest. Suitable locations are typically on a branch lower in the canopy and support a hefty, open cup nest. Twigs and rootlets are gathered and then reinforced with mud, often the soft castings of the very earthworms they love to eat. The nest will then be lined with fine grasses before the female robin lays three to five light blue eggs. Constant incubation by mother robin takes about two weeks followed by two more weeks of feeding by both parents before the young fledge. Robins can potentially raise four broods in a season — although rarely do all nestlings survive. And fewer yet (about 25 perent) will make it through their first year, to breeding age. Surviving young of the year will wander, often with siblings or a parent, until late summer when they will flock up with other local birds. Small groups in North Carolina may move further south if winter food here is scarce or if competition with larger northern flocks is too great. But not long after the New Year dawns, the same birds will be on the way back. Increasing day length triggers their return journey. And thus, the cycle will begin anew. PS Susan would love to hear from you. Send wildlife sightings and photos to susan@ncaves.com or call (910)949-3207.

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March 2014 P��PineStraw : The Art & Soul of the Sandhills

T h e sp o rt i n g l i f e

Wildfowl Memories The perfect cure for an idle March day

By Tom Bryant

“Nobody ever got

any younger, because if they had I would have heard of it, and maybe bought some. So what a man has got to do is take a little time off as he grows older, and devote the waste space to remembering the things he did that he maybe won’t never do again. And when you get tired of thinking about all the things you’ve done, you can always use the time thinking about what you’d like to do in the future.”

Photograph Courtesy of tom bryant

“The Old Man And The Boy” — Robert Ruark

It was March, not my favorite month. Hunting season was over and it was too cold to fish. The only redeeming feature of the month was our annual trek down to the fish camp on Chokoloskee Bay below Everglades City in Florida. The sky was slate gray, supporting a northeast wind spitting a cold rain that would probably turn into sleet before nightfall. Most everybody who had any sense was hunkered down by a fire. It was as if winter was gonna give us one more blast, so we wouldn’t forget who’s boss. I had been working on the little Airstream camper, trying to get her ready for our Florida adventure, but when the cold numbed my fingers, I decided to retire to the den, build a fire and kick back for the rest of the afternoon. I picked up one of my favorite outdoor books, The Old Man And The Boy, by Robert Ruark, settled into my leather chair and just happened to turn to the chapter on memories. Not a bad idea, I thought, and decided to try a little experiment with one of my own memories, Canada goose hunting on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. January was the time, shortly after Christmas. My good friend and hunting companion, Tom Bobo, had organized the hunt for six of us at Bill Meyers’ farm, Plimhimmon, located on the Tred Avon River close to Oxford, Maryland. Meyers’ place was a classic Maryland plantation situated on about 400 acres. It was a working farm, raising crops for the market in the summer. In the winter, it became a Canada goose hunting location without equal, registering such notables as Bing Crosby, Ted Williams and Phil Harris. I considered myself to be in high cotton, hunting on the same farm as such celebrities. Five of us, John Vernon, Jim Lasley, Tom Bobo, Dick Coleman and I, left the home place early on a frosty January morning for the ride up the coast, over the Chesapeake Bay Bridge and then across the Eastern Shore of Virginia to Easton, Maryland. We were crammed into Coleman’s Blazer with enough shotguns and gear to outfit a squad of Marines. I remembered a photo made during the hunt and headed to the sunroom to see if I could find it in one of our albums. I got sidetracked hauling in some

more wood for the fire. I was burning seasoned oak, and it was toasty warm in the den. The photo was in the first album I pulled from the bookcase, and it is a classic. The picture shows the six of us; a friend of Bobo’s had also joined us. We were lined up after the hunt with our guides and the black Lab, Rebel. Bill Meyers snapped the shot. Outside the wind was really whistling, and sure enough, a little sleet mixed with snow was pelting the den windows. I put another log on the fire, made myself comfortable, looked at the photo made so many years ago and remembered that time on Plimhimmon when the six of us limited out on geese. We stayed at the venerable old Tidewater Inn in downtown Easton. The hotel was built with wildfowling in mind. The restaurant and bar had wooden carved ducks and geese along with paintings depicting waterfowling scenes. A huge walk-in fireplace anchored one end of the cavernous lobby. Walnut-paneled walls were also adorned with classic duck and goose hunting paintings. There was always a fire in the fireplace, usually with a sleeping retriever as close to the warmth as he could get. We ran into snow just as we crossed over from Virginia to Maryland, perfect goose hunting weather; and as soon as we registered at the hotel, Tom got in touch with Bill Meyers, who instructed us to show up at the farm the next morning at seven. He also said geese were everywhere so we should have a good hunt. And he was right. The guides placed us in two side-by-side hedgerow blinds, three men in each one. We barely had time to load the shotguns when our guide Renny said, “Get ready, here they come.” A group of twenty to twenty-five geese was coming directly at us over the cut cornfield. They were about thirty feet off the ground and were locked in on the decoys. Renny whispered, “I’ll tell you when to take ’em, and don’t everybody shoot the same goose.” We didn’t. Canada geese rained from the sky. One even fell in the blind almost coldcocking Coleman. The limits on Canadas in those days were three a day, and we limited out with that one flight. Back at the barn, Myers, who had been watching us with binoculars, said he had never seen anything like it. Plimhimmon is gone now. Meyers died, and the son-in-law broke up the farm for condos and vacation homes. I haven’t been back, but a friend who visited the area recently said the Tidewater Inn doesn’t allow dogs anymore. It’s just not the same. A strong gust of wind blew more sleet against the den windows, and I put another log on the fire. I’ve had my day with Canadas on the Eastern Shore, I thought. Now to think about things I want to do in the future, just like Ruark said in his book. Tomorrow, if the weather breaks, I’ll begin loading up the little Airstream. PS Tom Bryant, a Southern Pines resident, is a lifelong outdoorsman and PineStraw’s Sporting Life columnist.

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G o l ft o w n J o u r n a l

Marching Through Carolina A legacy of championship golf that stretches from the 1930s to today

By Lee Pace

Photograph courtesy of the tufts archives

In modern times the month of

March, the game of golf and the state of Florida are synchronized like a Swiss watch. The western swing of the PGA Tour is over, Augusta beckons from its Technicolor perch the second week of April, and the emerald fairways and white sands of Miami, Palm Beach and Orlando tease those north of the Mason-Dixon line still betwixt and between weather’s hades and heaven.

Yet there was a time less than a century ago when March and into early April was the purview of North Carolina, when golf’s touring carnival spent three and even four weeks in the Tar Heel State, running from Wilmington to Pinehurst, from Greensboro to Asheville, from Charlotte to Durham. Ben Hogan won his first three professional tournaments during the March swing through North Carolina in 1940. Byron Nelson knocked off three of his eleven consecutive tour wins in 1945 in North Carolina, winning in Charlotte, Greensboro and Durham. The Greensboro Jaycees launched a golf tournament in 1938, and today it’s the fifth longest-running

event on the PGA Tour. It was in March 1900 that the state got its first whiff of elite golf competition when English professional Harry Vardon played a series of exhibitions in America and played four rounds at Pinehurst, where just one year earlier resort founder James Tufts had built his first 18-hole course. His best score was a 71 on a course that played 5,203 yards, and the chance for Pinehurst’s “colonists” and hotel guests to watch a crack golfer in person stimulated interest in the game. “The visit was Pinehurst’s first taste of big-time golf,” Richard Tufts of the founding family observed. “The flavor was good and the new resort wanted more.” James Tufts soon heeded the advice of an advertising consultant and created a series of golf events for professionals and amateurs named the “North and South” as a way to generate hotel and course traffic and spread the Pinehurst name across the Eastern Seaboard. The North and South events soon became fixtures on the pro and amateur circuits, and the North and South Open along with the U.S. Open, British Open, PGA Championship, Western Open, British PGA Match Play and the American and British National Amateurs were among the group in the early 1900s loosely considered “major” championships. “The North and South had an immediate atmosphere of class and elegance,” historian and journalist Dan Jenkins wrote in Golf Digest in 1990. “Dress for dinner, veranda stuff. In fact, the North and South was the

G o l ft o w n J o u r n a l

Masters before there was a Masters (1934) and for many years before the Masters finally out-Southerned the North and South.” The golf vagabonds left Florida in early March, headed to Pinehurst and then on to Greensboro, where the Greater Greensboro Open was inaugurated in 1938 under the auspices of the Greensboro Jaycees and support from Greensboro Daily News sports editor Laurence Leonard, Starmount Forest Country Club owner Edward Benjamin and club pro George Corcoran, who was brother of PGA Tour manager Fred Corcoran. Those tournaments were a 1-2 punch through 1951, when Richard Tufts disbanded the North and South Open as he soured on the flavor of professional golf. But other cities probed and prodded to find a niche in pro golf as well. The Azalea Open was played at Cape Fear Country Club in Wilmington from 1949 to 1971 as part of the city’s annual Azalea Festival, usually running in late March or the first week in April in the slot prior to the Masters. The Azalea’s highlight was a young pro out of Wake Forest named Arnold Palmer winning in 1957. Asheville held an annual golf competition for some three decades from the early 1920s through the early 1950s, at times called the Asheville Open and at others the Land of the Sky Open. Six of the competitions are recognized as official PGA Tour events—1922 and ’23 and 1939-42. Charlotte had a five-year run and Durham a two-year run in the 1940s. The Charlotte Open was played from 1944-48 at Myers Park Country Club, and the Durham Open was held in 1944-45 with rounds split between Hope Valley Country Club and Hillandale Golf Club. Charlotte’s later involvement in pro golf would be inexorably linked to Palmer, who was invited in 1959 by friend and business associate James J. Harris to address twenty-five prospective members of Harris’s new Quail Hollow Club. A decade later, Palmer urged the PGA Tour to move the Kemper Open from Sutton, Massachusetts, to Charlotte and Quail Hollow, and it remained there for eleven years. Two decades later, Harris’s son Johnny had taken over the family’s business reins and hired Tom Fazio to mastermind a major overhaul of the Quail Hollow course. Once that was completed, Harris negotiated a sponsorship with Wachovia and a new date on the PGA Tour that commenced in 2003; that event is one of the most prestigious on tour today and is sponsored by Wells Fargo. Certainly one of the most memorable and historically significant chapters of the March swing through North Carolina occurred in 1940, when Hogan arrived in Pinehurst a powderkeg of talent and determination and a bundle of nerves at

March 2014P��PineStraw : The Art & Soul of the Sandhills

G o l ft o w n J o u r n a l

having spent nearly a decade in pro golf without a victory to show for it. Hogan was the second-leading money winner, with $3,038 to his credit, when the tour arrived in Pinehurst that March and had finished second six times — to six different players — in the previous 14 months. Hogan was in the clubhouse in Phoenix with what appeared to be a safe lead, but Porky Oliver shot a 29 on the final nine to edge him by one stroke. Jimmy Demaret beat him in another tournament by a stroke. So did Nelson. Hogan saw a sliver of hope in the narrow misses, however, reasoning to wife Valerie that if six different players were one shot better than him, there wasn’t one player head and shoulders above him. “One day I’ll get so far ahead no one can catch me,” he said. That’s exactly what happened March 19-21. Hogan birdied the first hole, holed out from a bunker on 11 for a birdie, and shot a six-underpar 66 in the first round, tying the competitive course record set the year before by Harry Cooper. A 67 in the second round gave him a seven-stroke lead over Sam Snead and Johnny Revolta. Hogan wrapped up his first victory by shooting 74 and 70 in a 36-hole finale, beating Snead by three strokes and setting a new tournament record with a 277 total. At the presentation ceremony, Hogan was offered the trophy and $1,000 in fresh, green bills by Edward J. Cheyney of Cleveland, a USGA official and friend of Pinehurst’s Richard Tufts. Worried about carrying so much cash with him, Hogan instead asked that a check be drawn and sent to him that weekend in Greensboro, where the Tour moved for the Greater Greensboro Open. “I won one just in time,” Hogan said. “I had finished second and third so many times I was beginning to think I was an also-ran. I needed that win. They’ve kidded me about practicing so much. I’d go out there before a round and practice, and when I was through I’d practice some more. Well, they can kid me all they want because it finally paid off. I know it’s what finally got me in the groove to win.” The Tour moved to Greensboro for the first two rounds at Starmount Forest Country Club, then a 36-hole finale on Monday at Sedgefield. Hogan and Clayton Heafner each shot 69 to open the tournament and tie for the lead, and then on Easter Sunday, March 24, it snowed four inches, postponing the second round until Wednesday. Rounds three and four would be played Thursday, and the Land of the Sky Open in Asheville had been set back and wouldn’t begin until Friday. Hogan was quiet during the delay, spending his days playing bridge, but his presence was felt now that he’d won a tournament. “He’s a fine golfer, he’s been long overdue,”

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March 2014P��PineStraw : The Art & Soul of the Sandhills

G o l ft o w n J o u r n a l

Heafner said. “He’s one of the best. He’ll be hard to beat in this tournament.” Hogan shot a 68 in the second round, with three birdies and no bogeys, and then lapped the field on the final day, shooting rounds of 66 and 67 for a tournament-record 270 and nine-shot win over Craig Wood. “The game becomes monotonous the way the slender man plays it,” newspaperman Jake Wade commented afterward. “He has all the shots and he tears into the ball with amazing power for one of such slight build. It is a straight, true and unwavering game.” Added Johnny Revolta: “It was easy to see we couldn’t catch that fellow, the way he is playing. You can’t beat perfection.” The players drove through heavy fog on the way up to Asheville that Thursday night for 18 holes at Asheville Country Club, 18 at Beaver Lake and 36 at Biltmore Forest. Hogan continued his stellar play with a 67, but was three behind Ralph Guldahl, Dick Metz and Lloyd Mangrum. Hogan and Mangrum were tied for second at 135 behind Guldahl’s 134 after two rounds. A pair of 69s on the final day gave Hogan a 273 total and three-shot win over Guldahl. In three tournaments, Hogan played 216 holes 34-under-par, breaking par eleven of twelve rounds. He broke 70 on all but two rounds. He three-putted just two greens, both in Asheville. Ten of twelve rounds were on Donald Ross golf courses (the exception being Starmount Forest). Hogan had now won $6,438 in three months, and he eventually won the 1940 top-money prize with $10,655 and collected the Vardon Trophy as well. Today the PGA Tour’s two annual visits to North Carolina come in early May, when the Wells Fargo is played in Charlotte, and in late August, when Greensboro and Sedgefield welcome the Wyndham Championship. Pinehurst is solidly in the USGA championship venue rota with the resort by this June, having hosted three U.S. Opens, one U.S. Women’s Open, one U.S. Senior Open, two U.S. Amateurs and one U.S. Women’s Amateur. “You’re in rarefied air when you talk about national championships and the state of North Carolina,” says former USGA president Jim Hyler. Indeed, and it never so rarefied as March back in the day. PS Find Lee Pace on Twitter @LeePaceTweet. His book, “The Golden Age of Pinehurst—The Story of the Rebirth of No. 2,” is available onsite and online at Pinehurst Resort & Country Club.

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Moving Sale

March 2014

I am parked at the top of the hill. The cars stretch all the way to the bottom. They don’t know me, these strangers who burst from the door of our home carrying what they can haul away in their white pickup trucks, their black vans. A woman in purple shorts waits to get in. I stand in the yard under the deodara cedar and watch the lamps and tables burst into the spring morning. The azaleas are almost gone, brown at the edges. Someone has even bought the doormat. I walk around the back, and hear the small waterfall empty into the pond. I climb the stairs to the deck and into the dining room where the gold chandelier still glows. My friends stand in line and hold their purchases up to me. Tell me the story of this one, a neighbor asks, holding the glass elephant my patient from dialysis gave me. Another has a tiger, and the two Kabuki actors I bought in Cambridge fifty years ago stride out the door in someone’s arms. Upstairs, a beautiful cherry bureau stands in the empty bedroom. No one has bought it. Not for sale, I scrawl on a scrap, and take the small brown bird with metal feet from a nearby shelf where twenty copies of my first book wait to be shoveled off to Habitat or to the trash. The Degas dancers still hang on the wall of the guest bedroom downstairs. At the end of the day I will come back for them. It’s hard to breathe the air of so much history. Our life parades on down the hall and out the door. A pickup truck backs up into the yard. The double bed is loaded in the back. The wheels spin and the truck leaves angry ruts in the soft spring grass. — Anthony S. Abbott Abbott served as president of the North Carolina Poetry Society from 2009 –2011. His newest book of poems, The Angel Dialogues, will be released this month.

The Farrier’s Art Why the mythical touch of a talented horseshoe maker can heal the body and spirit of the most wounded horse By Gayvin Powers • Photographs by John Gessner

he clang of iron striking an anvil reverberates across a patchwork of Irish countryside speckled with roaming horses, thatchedroof cottages and dewy trees. With each pound of hammer to metal, a euphony of sound, form and magic come together to create a horseshoe, imbuing the crescent shape with luck. It is the same luck that echoes in ancient Celtic legends and with Sandhills farriers today. Irish lore tells of St. Dunstan, an Irish blacksmith who later became the patron saint of blacksmiths, pausing from his laborious duties at the anvil to play an enchanting melody at his harp, only to attract the most unwanted of visitors. With centuries of misdeeds behind him, the Lord of the Underworld was in dire need of new shoes for his hooves when he heard the beguiling sound. The dark visitor quickly devised a way to surprise his unknowing host and thrust open St. Dunstan’s door, demanding new horseshoes. St. Dunstan, too afraid to deny him, hastily got to work. But he had a plan to ensure there were no more visits from the Lord of the Underworld. St. Dunstan nailed a red-hot horseshoe to the dark ruler’s hoof, leaving him in excruciating pain every time he stepped. He begged for St. Dunstan to remove it and swore to never visit a blacksmith again. The deal was struck, leaving blacksmiths exceptionally lucky to this day. The story of St. Dunstan added to the long list of mythical tales where blacksmiths forged godlike creations out of elemental fire and iron. Tales tell of blacksmiths making mighty gifts, some larger in size, such as Perseus’ helmet, charmed shields and legendary swords that carried the soul of its owner; other creations were modest in size, as simple as a humble shoe fit for an animal. The horseshoe, crescent in shape and sturdy from iron, was infused with the luck of the blacksmith who made it and the horse who wore it. In ancient times, there was a reverence around a blacksmith’s creations; the horseshoe symbolized magic and protection due to its shape and the numerology associated with it. The crescent shape of the shoe represented the moon,

March 2014P�� PineStraw : The Art & Soul of the Sandhills

Marty Finch

commonly used in pagan worship, and was mystical due to its association with the number seven. The sacred number, became associated with horseshoes because it was common practice to secure a horseshoe with seven nails. In ancient times, the number seven was divinely connected with heaven: There were seven ages of life, the seventh child was charmed, and the moon went through a sevenday cycle. While some of these fortuitous horseshoe associations have been forgotten, good fortune still resides with farriers wielding blacksmith skills in helping to heal horses today. In the Sandhills, which is home to a strong equine community, modern-day farriers use skill and knowledge, passed down through the ages, to keep horses healthy. In a sense, they make their own good luck. Aberdeen resident Marty Finch has shoed horses for thirty-five years and relished growing up at the track, watching his grandfather race horses. He tells his own story as a farrier, true in mythic proportion to ancient stories where a hero finds an elder to teach him the old ways. “I went to school and learned one way. The modern way,” Finch says. “Then one day, I met an old man who apprenticed an elder blacksmith who was trained from a forgotten Cavalry book.” When the old man told people the Cavalry way to shoe a horse, “They told him, ‘Get out of here, old man, you’re crazy.’” As a result, the old man only shoed his customers’ horses according to the current, preferred method. However, back at home where he was ruler of his own domain, he cared for his horses in the way he thought best — the way he was taught by the elder blacksmith. Years went by, the old man had a good business, and he was happy. Until he realized that his body was “too old to shoe his own horses anymore,” Finch says. “He asked me to shoe his horses the way he knew.” “Will you pay me?” Finch asked. “I will,” the old man said. True to his word, the old man paid the young apprentice and showed him how to shoe horses by Cavalry standards. “After he’d taught me, I brought my brother-in-law there, who owned about twenty horses or so.” “Want to try shoeing my horse?” his brother-in-law asked. “Sure,” Finch said, more confident than he was feeling. Finch’s brother-in-law brought over an old racing horse. The PineStraw : The Art & Soul of the Sandhills . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . March 2014

6-year-old mare had problems with her tendons and ligaments, there was swelling all over. Finch used techniques the old man had taught him, the same techniques that were passed along to him by the elder blacksmith. The result? “She went out and started winning races again,” Finch says. Every farrier is unique, just like every horse, and brings a particular blend of knowledge and skill. Many farriers, like Tom Smith, who grew up on a farm with horses and has owned TKS Farrier Service in Cameron for ten years, use a combination of blacksmith and veterinary skills blended with a bit of intuition. The result can turn a lame horse into a healthy one. A lame horse is an unhappy horse; painful hooves can make the kindest horse ornery, reactionary, rear up, bite or throw riders. Unbroken horses and stallions have the worst reputation. Even healthy, some are often unpredictable. Many stallions carry the distinct label of being just plain mean. Ever cautious of working with stallions, Smith retold a story of a particularly tenderfooted stallion that recoiled every time he came near. After initially gaining the horse’s trust and making him comfortable, Smith was able to shoe him, aware that lame horses are more prone to acting erratic, such as kicking a well-intentioned farrier. Fortunately for Smith, once he was done shoeing the stallion, “The horse laid his head on my head in gratitude. This particular stallion ended up being a gentle soul.” It wasn’t the first time that Smith was able to connect with an ailing animal. He fondly remembers a Quarter Horse from his childhood, Miyakyaking, that had been abused. As a result, she refused to let any adult ride her. Some may call it luck and others may say the gentle, innocent nature of children did the trick. Regardless of the reason, Miyakyaking’s wounded spirit was healed, enabling her to trust Smith and his brother to ride her, thus making her his favorite horse of all time. Finch, who is known for his uncommon methods, is used to getting calls when all other options have been exhausted. His most memorable experience shoeing was with a horse named “Mick JagN,” that was declared crippled by the jockey who rode him. Finch used the methods that the old man had taught him from the Cavalry book. The end result turned a horse only fit for pasture into a race winner. There are more superstitions about luck and horse racing than there is hay in a stable. Keith Logsden, a retired sergeant major from the United States Army who started his second career as a farrier in Raeford, began working with horses in high school at Churchill Downs. Logsden remembers some of the lucky rituals Fred Wirth, owner of the racing horse Mythical Ruler, required his employees to follow. “No one was allowed to wear green in the stables,” says Logsden. Employees needed to be vigilant about grooming a horse before a race because, he says, “It was bad luck if a horse went to the track with straw in his tail.” It pained Logsden to repeatedly see Biscuit, his horse, on and off lame for a year since the animal’s shoes didn’t fit properly. A situation like this can cause a horse to favor other legs, which may lead to bigger problems in the future. Fortunately, it inspired Logsden to get trained in farrier work himself. The experience was “gratifying and frightening all the same,” Logsden recalls. Lame horses are unstable, but he confirms the results of seeing Biscuit healthy was worth it. Beyond a healer’s touch, farriers have their own philosophies that they live by. Finch abides by the common racing motto “No foot, no horse.” Aligned with Finch, Logsden believes that it’s important to “treat the foot; be in the now.” Almost sounding like a mystic, he adds, “It’s important to listen to the horse. The horse will tell you what is wrong.” Smith, whose mentor was Bob Salanski, a farrier and member of

Tom Smith

March 2014P�� PineStraw : The Art & Soul of the Sandhills

Keith Logsden

America’s Team who finished third in the world, believes in “trimming and shoeing to each individual horse’s limb alignment. Each horse has its own limb combination and that affects how the shoe fits, feels and wears.” A shoe becomes lucky once a horse wears it. For it to carry over the good fortune to a person, the shoe can’t be purchased; it needs to be found or given. Once a blessed person receives the iron gift, it’s recommended to hang it above a doorway, allowing the luck to be shared among those in the home. Over the centuries, conflicting recommendations developed on how best to spread the luck throughout the house — it all goes back to the position of the horseshoe. The majority of people agree that if the ends of the horseshoe are facing up, then it collects the luck within it; if the ends are pointed down, it spreads the luck throughout the room and to the person entering the house. Both positions are considered lucky and unlucky, depending on whom you’re talking with at the time. Many farriers agree with Smith, who says, “It’s good luck for a farrier, blacksmith or other people that work with horses to have the shoe face up to collect the good luck; for other people it’s face down.” Other sources believe every imaginable combination, both good and bad luck resulting from the position and dictating to whether the luck is shared, spread or stuck. Despite modern-day notions, farriers still require a bit of magic, luck and a healer’s touch reminiscent of the ancient blacksmiths. After all, even though horses have been domesticated for centuries, they’re still large, unpredictable animals. Even the kindest of animals can turn when hurt. Within a farrier’s grasp is the power to lame or heal a horse, but that farrier must have something special within that allows him or her to get the animal to trust it will be healed. Blessed be the farrier; healer of sick horses, evader of evil and wielder of luck. PS PineStraw : The Art & Soul of the Sandhills . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . March 2014

Coming Home

Tracing the shape of the Old North State — and a gifted writer’s journey across the places of his heart — is both a painful and healing experience, marking one for life

By Wiley Cash

etting a tattoo that runs the interior length of your upper arm gives you a lot of time to think, and that’s what I was doing: getting a tattoo and thinking. It was September 25, 2013, my first full day as a North Carolina resident after five years in graduate school in Louisiana and five more years teaching at a college in West Virginia. Before that my life had spanned North Carolina’s geography. I was born in Fayetteville, and I grew up in Gastonia and Asheville. Now, here I was in Wilmington, getting a tattoo. My wife and I had chosen to move to Wilmington because it’s where she’s from, and it’s where we met. From the minute we planned to move back to North Carolina, I’d been telling her that I was going to get a tattoo of the state. And that’s what I found myself doing, shirtless and laid out on a padded table in a room that was a little too bright and a little too cold with a guy named Chris swabbing my arm with alcohol. It felt like I was at the doctor, but unlike being at the doctor I already knew that what was about to happen was definitely going to hurt. Once he’d cleaned my skin, Chris gently laid the stencil paper across the interior of my right arm, and after he slowly lifted it away it left behind a perfect outline of North Carolina. “So,” he asked, “why are you getting this tattoo?” I was cold and nervous, probably shaking a little, but I managed to lift my head and give what I thought to be a pretty good answer: “Because it’s permanent.” “We’re going to start with the far western tip,” Chris said. The needle began to hum, and Chris reached out and held on to my arm. I felt the pinch against my skin, and I closed my eyes. Cherokee, Jackson, Haywood and other counties where I’d spent years hiking, camping and exploring as a student at the University of North Carolina at Asheville. I envisioned Chris’ needle as it traced North Carolina’s border with Tennessee, drawing the western boundary of Madison County, where my first novel, A Land More Kind Than Home, was set. I’d visited Madison every chance I had while I lived in Asheville, and when I began writing the novel during my time in Louisiana, I’d chosen Madison as the setting because my memories of it spoke to the way I feel about western North Carolina: traditional and wild, both in the best senses of the words. The needle skirted Yancey County, where my sister, Jada, lives in Celo and where I spent a lot of cool summer days on the South Toe River, escaping the Louisiana heat. After he’d left North Carolina for New York City, Thomas Wolfe had also stopped to visit relatives in Yancey County in the mid-1930s. But his visit hadn’t been as peaceful as mine; he witnessed a shootout in downtown Burnsville, and in 1937, he was called back to testify in a murder trial. Once the needle rounded the northwest corner of the state, I imagined it dipping down through Surry County on Interstate 74, traveling the same path my wife and I took on our way home from West Virginia. It would always be dark by the time we’d made it that far, and we’d pass through Winston-Salem and see the city’s skyline from the highway. And then it was on to Greensboro, where I’d been a graduate student at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. I’d lived in an old house right off Tate Street, and I spent a year and a half eating hot dogs from Yum-Yums and walking back and forth past Fred

Chappell’s office, too terrified to pop in and introduce myself after his novel I Am One of You Forever had changed my life both personally and artistically as an undergraduate in Asheville. If the needle could have continued down I-40, it would’ve eventually run out of interstate once it reached the coast. My parents left Gastonia in 1998 and settled just south of Wilmington, and my brother followed not long after. I was living with him while we renovated a house during the summer of 2005 when I met my wife at a downtown piano bar. We were married five years later — and just a few blocks away — on a snowy Saturday in February. But Chris’ needle hadn’t headed down I-40, which would’ve been the shortest way to Wilmington. No, he took the long route, following the northern border with Virginia and heading south at the eastern edge of Currituck County. “I want to get the details of the Outer Banks correct,” he said. “So this may take a while.” Who knew that such a skinny chain of islands could take so long to draw or hurt so bad while being drawn? By the time he made it to Brunswick County I knew we were on the homestretch, and not just because he was literally passing by my parents’ house in Oak Island. I imagined my mom standing on the porch and suddenly feeling a strange vibration, only to look up and see the tattoo needle blotting out the sun. I figured she’d just shake her head and go back inside the house and tell my dad I’d made another questionable decision. It was also the homestretch because we were barreling toward Gastonia, my hometown and where my second novel, This Dark Road to Mercy, is set. It’s about a washed-up minor league baseball player who kidnaps his two daughters from a foster home, and I had a blast recasting all of my old haunts in fictional form: Tony’s Ice Cream, my elementary school, Lineberger Park, and the minor league stadium where the Gastonia Rangers played. While Chris followed the state’s southern boundary, my thoughts drifted ahead to January and February when I’d be on tour in support of the novel, and I’d have the opportunity to return to Gastonia for a reading, just as I would have the opportunity to visit many of the places I love in this state: Asheville, Shelby, Charlotte, Chapel Hill, Southern Pines, Raleigh, Pittsboro and Wilmington. I was already looking forward to all the different kinds of barbeque a trip like that would entail. And then it was over. Before I knew it, Chris had turned off the needle and was wrapping my arm in plastic to keep it protected, and he was telling me all about how to care for the tattoo over the next couple of days. I sat up, light-headed, and looked at my arm; it was exactly what I’d always wanted, and I couldn’t take my eyes off it. Chris must’ve sensed that my mind was somewhere else, because he tried to get my attention by stressing the importance of keeping my arm clean so it wouldn’t get infected or damage the tattoo. But I wasn’t listening. I knew I had already started to heal. OH Wiley Cash is the New York Times best-selling author of A Land More Kind Than Home. His second novel, This Dark Road to Mercy, which is now available wherever books are sold, tells the story of a washed-up minor league baseball player who kidnaps his two daughters from a foster home in Gastonia, North Carolina, Cash’s hometown. He and his wife live in Wilmington.

March 2014P�� PineStraw : The Art & Soul of the Sandhills

PhotoGraph by Tim Sayer

Story of a house

Gateway to the Sky

An ancient yurt finds a modern man By Deborah Salomon • Photographs by John Gessner

sst, buddy. Wanna buy a yurt? Yurt is not a code name for an illicit substance, a Himalayan pack animal or a Yoplait spin-off. Nor is it a Yugoslavian mini-car let alone a cola or a Scrabble stumper. Instead, yurts are ancient tickets to ride: portable circular dwellings used by nomadic tribes of Central Asia. Their walls — wood strips joined by rope or metal — collapse like a baby gate after fabric coverings have been removed. Spines radiate from a roof ring (also a smoke hole) left open to the sky, weather permitting. Yurts, ranging from 12 to 30 feet in diameter, may be erected on platforms or bare ground. Expect a door flap but no windows except in permanent installations. Genghis Khan traveled with a whopper. Herodotus, the Greek historian, described yurts in 484 B.C. Voyager Marco Polo wrote of them in the 1300s. Yurts still shelter Mongolians. Western North Carolina is studded with yurt campgrounds and posh yurt resorts, where clusters of “round houses” offer heat, AC, kitchens, showers, flat screen TVs, decks and queen-sized beds. Southern Pines resident Phil Hewett studies yurts, builds them, practically communes with them. “I get a special feeling when I walk through the doorway, a sense of security, like a hug.” Hewett blends into the yurt landscape. In another life, he might have been a Native American tribesman — hence the iron-gray waist-length braid and annual treks to North Dakota, with yurt stashed in truck, for Sacred Plains ceremonies. In a life before that, perhaps a Mongolian goat herder pitching his yurt in pastures covering the steppes. But in this life he is a potter, woodworker and mental health crisis intervention coordinator with law enforcement.

March 2014P�� PineStraw : The Art & Soul of the Sandhills

Photographs this page provided by Phil Hewitt

Anachronistically, Hewett discovered yurts online. His friend, a North Carolina Lumbee tribe firekeeper, sought round structures to accommodate solstice gatherings. Hewett Googled “round structures.” Yurts popped up. “I thought they were awesome.” So, in 2005 this son of a woodworker and grandson of a cabinetmaker decided to build one. First Hewett delved into the provenance and concept. He discovered the British brought yurts to North America, where they gained favor with outdoorspeople/ environmentalists. During the 1960s, Maine native and Harvard Ph.D. William Coperthwaite pioneered yurtbuilding in “A Handmade Life: In Search of Simplicity,” later establishing the still-active Yurt Foundation (www. yurtinfo.org/the-yurt-foundation). Yurts caught on in New England and spread west among the likeminded. Soon, yurting (also called glamping) crept into greenspeak. A portable yurt leaves little or no footprint. Hewett recognized that yurts satisfy more needs than a tepee or tent, meant primarily for sleeping. Properly equipped, they are suitable as offices, guest houses, ski shacks, boutiques, studios, classrooms and kiddie play space — a terra firma treehouse. Yurts can be linked to permanent dwellings with a docking station. A yurt employs forces of tension, gravity and compression. The frame and rafters may be willow, both flexible and lightweight, with strong (also light) cedar roof rings. Hewett buys 2-by-4s and 2-by-6s from Lowe’s, cuts them in his shop. He joins the strips into the characteristic lattice pattern with rope rather than hardware, which would add considerable weight. The frame is covered with industrial-grade canvas; elsewhere, yurters hang blankets and carpets. Nomad potentates decorated their yurts with paint and carvings. “My friend put a Barcalounger and an air conditioner in his,” Hewett notes. “That’s not the way the world works.” A simple yurt can be assembled or disassembled in less than a day. Inside, fabric partitions are possible, although not for purist Hewitt. “This is an open space, where families lived and slept together.” Some have enclosures for composting toilets, also fire pits or stoves in the center, with the exhaust pipe rising through the roof ring. The circular shape prevents wind from buffeting walls. Insulation may be added to cold-climate yurts. Generators and propane tanks won’t be far away. BYO water. Netting protects yurters from mosquitoes but nothing deters snakes and inquisitive woodsy creatures. Depending on size, ready-to-assemble yurts cost $3,000$10,000. Plans ($25-$75) are available through the nonprofit Yurt Foundation. Obviously, the more frills, the less the yurt appeals to Hewett. He hungers after the Zen. A circle, he comments, is the universal symbol for God, therefore cathedral domes: “In a round structure, the space is soothing, sacred. There are no corners, no place to hide.” Hewett continues, in hushed tones: “I lay on my cot and look through the roof ring. When the moon is out the roof glows like a nightlight. “I have a sense that this is a gateway to the sky.” PS

“The first day of spring was once the time for taking the young virgins into the field, there in dalliance to set an example in fertility for nature to follow. Now we just set the clocks an hour forward and check the oil in the crankcase.” — E.B. White, One Man’s Meat, 1944

By Noah Salt The month of March, with its violent winds that signal change of season, takes its name from the Latin Martius, the first month of the early Roman calendar named for Mars, god of war but also guardian of agriculture. The new Roman year began with the vernal equinox on March 21, observed with food and wine festivals in honor of Juno, the goddess of home and garden, to celebrate the lengthening of days and start of the growing season. The practice ended with the Western world’s adoption of the Gregorian Calendar in 1752. For what it’s worth, the Almanac gardener has long maintained that the arrival of spring would make a far better moment to commence the New Year than the traditional January start — a nice glass of fresh-squeezed orange juice on the sunny terrace in place of an Alka-Seltzer on the rocks and a driveway to shovel. Besides, in place of all those pointless bowl games and diet ads, we’d have basketball’s March Madness for the New Year.

Harbinger of Spring Eight years ago the AG and his bride and three bossy dogs moved into a rambling old house whose principal charm was a woefully neglected back terrace presided over by a pair of trained Savannah holly trees. The house’s previous occupants clearly weren’t gardeners, evidenced by a surrounding border that had been left to grow wild with weeds and brambles. In the midst of cleaning out the beds, however, we found a small waxy-leafed mystery plant struggling for life that looked familiar. I decided to look it up and discovered it was a very young hellebore, Helleborus orientalis, better known as the Lenten rose. All our foundling needed was a shovel of good organic matter and a bit of room to grow, quickly spreading and establishing itself as the undisputed star of our backyard shade garden. The delicate white blooms of this hardy gem first appear in late February and typically last almost into early summer. Hellebores actually belong to the buttercup family but have been popular in cottage gardens since the Middle Ages, when monks used their mildly poisonous blooms for making purging toxins. Few garden plants have such a romantic heritage. In Christian lore, the five-pedaled blooms supposedly sprang from the tears of a poor girl who had no gift for the baby Jesus. According to another legend, Alexander the Great may have died from being treated with a purging tonic made from hellebores, though the facts remain a mystery. No mystery about our garden’s hardy survivor, though. Come March, long before the dogwoods and azaleas begin their show, our Lenten rose rewards us with glorious blooms that last a small eternity — the true herald of early Southern spring.

Miss Lawrence’s First Flowers With us, daffodils are in bloom by the middle of March. They bloom before the leaves are on the trees, and the shrubs that bloom with them are leafless too. Very early in spring, the purple-leaf plum is in flower with the saucer magnolia, Japanese quince, forsythia, and Thunberg spirea. By this time the common primrose is in bloom with perennial candy-tuft and black-purple pansies. Dutch hyacinths bloom with daffodils. I often wonder why they are not generally more planted. The soft tints are charming in combination with early spring flowers, and they are a welcome change from so much yellow. In late March, the silvery blue of the hyacinth ‘Electra’ is delightful with yellow primroses of the Munstead strain and white candytuft. — The Home Garden, by Elizabeth Lawrence, 1943

A Brief Garden To-Do List 1. Last chance to prune, divide and shape shrubs, before leaves appear. 2. Rake out perennial beds and supplement with fresh organic material. This is the time for planting tender bulbs such as dahlias, tuberous begonias and gladiolus. 3. Garden shops and nurseries are at capacity with their broadest offering of late summer perennials, plants like coreopsis, coneflowers, autumn sedums, and asters. Now’s the time to plan and shop. 4. Sew leaf lettuce and spinach as soon as the soil is ready, carefully spacing plantings to assure continual harvest. 5. Apply a good organic spring fertilizer to your lawn. Clean and replenish bird feeders.

Garden Beasties “If you can leave a little corner of your garden to grow wild, this will please the fairies, and many little animals will visit by day and by night. Some of these may partake of your seeds and flowers, yet this is only nature’s wise plan, for moles improve the soil and birds assist pollination. Each insect and animal plays its part in the Great Scheme, and its soul has mystery. Even the humble crawling beasts bear secrets within them to which we should pay reverence.” — Garden Spells, By Claire Nahmad

March 2014P�� PineStraw : The Art & Soul of the Sandhills

2013 Mo or e C ou n t y Hom e B u i l de r s A s s o c i at ion Hom e

Huntley Design Build 130 Ponte Vedra Drive

of the

Ye a r Awa r d s

Place: Gold Group: Home of the year Category: $800k - $900k

A new home designed to fit a neighborhood with many different styles and ages of homes, the exterior elevation includes brick, vertical board and batten, and horizontal siding. The outside also includes stained cedar porch timbers, pine tongue-and-groove ceilings, stone porch floors and standing seam metal roofing, giving the house a feel of a previous era. The nostalgia continues on the inside with reclaimed materials and simple interior trim. Reclaimed antique heart pine floors, stair treads and mantle, wrought iron handrails and a knotty alder island countertop are a few of the unique features that take one back in time. Aside from the ageless look and feel, the house is very contemporary with its energy use and insulation qualities.

Place: Silver Group: Home of the year Category: $800k - $900k

McLendon Hills Construction 705 Broken Ridge Trail

A new home built in West End is a custom European design that reflects good taste and vision, a â&#x20AC;&#x153;dream come trueâ&#x20AC;? home. The generous floor plan offers the feel and refinement of a cozy cottage. The list of amenities and quality components include a media room designed for theater seating, a guest apartment with separate entry, a screened porch, geothermal heating and an outside patio.

2013 Mo or e C ou n t y Hom e B u i l de r s A s s o c i at ion Hom e

Place: Gold Group: Home of the year Category: $650k - $700k

of the

Ye a r Awa r d s

Master’s Properties 25 Master’s Ridge Place

Built to suit a challenging lot in Mid South Club, this home was designed by Anderson Nichols Designs. The home is an entertainers’ dream. A hand-painted, coved ceiling is just above the foyer. Traditional hardwoods are featured in the living areas of the main floor. A six-sided living room has a granite fireplace and custom wood mantel. The “cook’s kitchen” contains custom wood cabinetry, stainless steel appliances, a large center island, a serving bar and three ovens. The area stays warm and cozy with a hearth room that showcases a stone fireplace and mantel. The master bedroom features a triple-trey ceiling with chandelier. The master bath has a floor-to-ceiling tiled shower and a custom closet. Two additional bedrooms with private baths and walk-in closets finish the first floor. Downstairs, the walk-out basement is finished with dramatic hand-scraped, dark chocolate wood floors. The large entertainment area includes a fireplace, as well as another full kitchen and bar. Just off the living space is an enormous movie room. A guest suite with a private bathroom completes the downstairs. Outside, there is a large screened porch as well as a concrete stamped open air porch that features a firepit.

Place: Gold Group: Home of the year Category: $500k - $550k

Master’s Properties 20 Prestwick Court

This beautiful 4,000 square foot home features a three-car garage and beautiful open air porch with views of the 13th green on National GC. With a warm, rustic exterior, you are welcomed in via a two-story foyer with hardwood floors and a catwalk above that overlooks the foyer and living room. The living room features built-in cabinetry and a fireplace, with French doors to access the outdoors. The eat-in kitchen has a bay window, painted cabinetry and a center island and serving bar. French doors open into a study. The master bedroom is the crown jewel. The room features French doors to the outdoor living area and a sitting room surrounded by sunny windows. Two walk-in closets and a master bath with shower and whirlpool tub finish off the master retreat. Upstairs are three bedrooms, two full baths and a bonus room. The bonus room is highlighted by a bar area with granite counters, wine fridge, microwave and tile floor.

March 2014P��PineStraw : The Art & Soul of the Sandhills

2013 Mo or e C ou n t y Hom e B u i l de r s A s s o c i at ion Hom e

Place: Silver Group: Home of the year Category: $650k - $700k

of the

Ye a r Awa r d s

Place: Silver Group: Home of the year Category: $500k - $550k

Bartlett Construction

Masterâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Properties

60 Plantation Drive

703 Tufts Vista

A new home with open floor plan allows spacious views overlooking a golf course. It consists of four bedrooms and four-and-a-half baths with custom trim work throughout. Solid maple floors, built-ins, exposed beams and multiple fireplaces are just a few of the special features. The kitchen has custom cabinetry, granite counters and an oversized island. The large master suite has a walk-out balcony, dual walk-in closets, walk-in tile shower and garden tub with custom columns.

This custom country home was designed to have custom features from an era gone by but updated with green features like a geothermal HVAC system. Reclaimed heart pine flooring runs throughout the entire first floor. An open living room and kitchen with study are the heart of the main floor. The master bedroom completes the first floor with a fireplace and private deck. Upstairs are two large bedrooms with a custom tile bathroom.

Another Quality Built Home

from LAKEVIEW CONSTRUCTION

Lakeview

Masterâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Properties Ad

New Homes & Renovations Serving Moore County since 1982

Built with local products by local craftsmen. Finished on time for the price quoted.

910.673.4800 PineStraw : The Art & Soul of the Sandhills . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . March 2014

2013 Mo or e C ou n t y Hom e B u i l de r s A s s o c i at ion Hom e

Place: Gold Group: Home of the year Category: $450k - $500k

of the

Ye a r Awa r d s

Bolton Builders 654 Fort Bragg Road

This traditional home was designed by Bolton Builders and Artiga Design and is approached by a long winding drive. Entering the home one is greeted with a beautiful staircase leading to the second floor, with three bedrooms, two baths and a game room. The main floor is open and showcases a stone fireplace. Rich custom cabinets grace the entire house. The utility room has a useful drop zone for coats, shoes and groceries. The master suite is on the main floor, with a bathroom that features dual walk-in closets. Energy consumption is reduced with a geothermal HVAC system, and the exterior is maintenance free.

Place: Silver Group: Home of the year Category: $450k - $500k

Place: Bronze Group: Home of the year Category: $450k - $500k

BVH Construction Services

Master’s Properties

113 Glen Cove Lane

160 Eagle Point Lane

This beautifully appointed spacious custom home was designed and built to be extremely energy efficient. The home is heated and cooled with a geothermal system. An energy management system ensures peak energy efficiency. This nearly 3,500 heated SF home is energy efficient and beautiful, with breathtaking lake views. The home includes a screened porch on the second floor and a boat dock with remote lift.

In the entry, the two-story foyer is flanked by a dining room and study. Hardwoods run throughout the first floor. The kitchen features a hearth room with a doublesided stone fireplace. A finished bonus room and landing area complete the upstairs. Outside, there is an open air porch and a screened porch with slate tile flooring accented by a fireplace for year-round outdoor living.

March 2014P��PineStraw : The Art & Soul of the Sandhills

2013 Mo or e C ou n t y Hom e B u i l de r s A s s o c i at ion Hom e

Barlett Construction 7 East Magnolia Court

of the

Ye a r Awa r d s

Place: Gold Group: Home of the year Category: $350k - $400k

The beautiful combination of colors and materials used on the entries highlight the exceptional appearance of this four bedroom, and three and a half bath house. The open floor plan consists of high ceilings, giving the home a spacious atmosphere. The exquisite kitchen features beautiful cabinetry, granite counters and an island with sink. The built-in fireplace in the great room offers an inviting touch to the home. Custom woodwork and trim are just some of the many details in the house.

Bolton Builders 101 Pittman Road

Place: Silver Group: Home of the year Category: $350k - $400k

This beautiful Craftsman-style house has over 2,700 square feet of heated living space. It features three bedrooms, each with a private bath. The master suite has trey ceilings and dual walkin closets. Crown molding and beautiful trim run throughout the home. A great loft/recreation area promises entertainment ease. The large kitchen has lots of storage space and is filled with top-of-the-line appliances. The garage is oversized to fit a boat or large vehicle. The inviting covered front porch offers beautiful water views. Initially designed by the builder for himself, this home is filled with every amenity: custom cabinetry, granite counters, hardwood flooring, tile baths, and a gas fireplace with extraordinary stone surround in the family room.

2013 Mo or e C ou n t y Hom e B u i l de r s A s s o c i at ion Hom e

Place: Gold Group: Home of the year Category: $275k - $325k

of the

Ye a r Awa r d s

J&R Residential Construction Company 285 Wiregrass Lane

Designed by Anderson Nichols, this 3,000 square foot home is the essence of versatility. The majority of the living space is on the main floor, including the master suite and two additional bedrooms. The upstairs includes a large bonus room with a bath, and a sizable walk-in attic space for storage. The attic space could also be finished out for additional living space. A large screened porch adds significant living space during favorable weather. The home is built for easy maintenance, too.

Place: Silver Group: Home of the year Category: $275k - $325k

Place: Bronze Group: Home of the year Category: $275k - $325k

Bolton Builders

Brown & Son Construction

1 Elmhurst Place

1125 Thrush Drive

This lovely Craftsman-style home features one-level living with a retro feel. Notable in the design is the master bathroom, showcasing a huge walk-in shower. A split bedroom design allows privacy for guests and provides an excellent use of a “Jack and Jill” bath concept. The living room is open and features a cast iron stove, which blends in nicely with the retro appliances.

A ranch-style home with curb appeal, the house has quality materials throughout. The living area is accented with trey ceilings, a gas fireplace with custom mantel and cinnamon maple hardwood floors. A large bay window in the dining room overlooks a screened porch, patio and backyard. The kitchen has a large open bar with seating and a separate breakfast nook.

March 2014P��PineStraw : The Art & Soul of the Sandhills

2013 Mo or e C ou n t y Hom e B u i l de r s A s s o c i at ion Hom e

Yates Hussey Construction

of the

Ye a r Awa r d s

Place: Gold Group: Excellence in Remodeling Category: Whole House Remodel $125k - $150k

525 Orchard Road

This was a 1929 Weymouth Woods cottage renovation. Architects Stagaard & Chao were hired to redesign the floor plan. Prior to 1974, the house was extended off the back end to create a master bedroom suite. Aside from that, no renovations had been performed. Major changes included relocating the kitchen and dining room to the former master bedroom suite and vaulting the ceiling; converting the old master bath to a new powder room; and opening up the floor plan from living room to new kitchen and dining room. The master bedroom was relocated to the former dining room and kitchen, and the side porch was made into the master bath. The laundry area was moved from the basement to the former master bedroom closet, and a new side entry was constructed. All windows were replaced, insulation was added everywhere possible, and part of the old cypress shiplap siding was replaced with Hardie plank. A new HVAC system replaced the old furnace.

Place: Silver Group: Excellence in Remodeling Category: Whole House Remodel $125k - $150k

Congratulations!

to Our Pinehurst Homeowners on another

Award-Winning Year!

Pinehurst Homes 80 Whinhill Court

The challenge on this project was to remove the traditional feel of the home and introduce a contemporary look. The kitchen was gutted and replaced with new everything, the master bath modernized, ceilings were altered, walls removed and a new walk-in closet created in the master bedroom. A new fireplace and mantel were installed, as well as new trim throughout.

Special Thanks to Our Clients for Your Continued Support. 6895 NC HWY 211 WEST WEST END, NC 910.295.5400 www.pinehursthomesinc.com

2013 Mo or e C ou n t y Hom e B u i l de r s A s s o c i at ion Hom e

Place: Bronze Group: Excellence in Remodeling Category: Whole House Remodel $125k - $150k

of the

Ye a r Awa r d s

Award of Excellence Group: Excellence in Remodeling Category: Whole House Remodel $100k - $150k

Daniel Adams Construction

Bartlett Construction

840 Lake Forest Drive SE

405 St. Andrews Drive

The lovely Pinehurst Lake home was an architectural dream in the ’70s, but it was time for a reconfiguring and an updated feel. The house was made over with a new kitchen design for better entertaining, hardwood floors, and new lighting fixtures. The master suite got a makeover too, creating a “spa-like” feel. The exterior also got a rework, with new decking, siding, windows and paint.

The project renovation consisted of adding a sunroom, along with interior renovations including a new kitchen, new master bedroom and closet, laundry room, half bath, along with a new deck, sunroom and screened porch.

Let us build your dream home...

CUSTOM HOMES REMODELING METAL BUILDING Proudly supporting the Military, ask us how you can receive your custom home plans for FREE.

Award-winning Builder Certified Green Professional NC Housing Hall of Fame

Daniel Adams, Owner

Phone: (910) 295-1504 • Fax: (910) 295-1549 Email: Danny@danieladams.com PO BOX 3090 • Pinehurst, NC 28374 www.danieladams.com

March 2014P��PineStraw : The Art & Soul of the Sandhills

2013 Mo or e C ou n t y Hom e B u i l de r s A s s o c i at ion Hom e

Award of Excellence Group: Excellence in Remodeling Category: Whole House Remodel $1mi - $1.5mi

of the

Ye a r Awa r d s

Award of Excellence Group: Excellence in Remodeling Category: Whole House Remodel $200k - $250k

Bowness Custom Homes

Pinehurst Homes

15 Carolina Vista Drive

35 Short Road

The owners had fallen in love with Pinehurst and found the perfect home in the center of the village. The “Little Hovse” (sic), beautiful in its own right, needed an update. Preserving the entire front half of the home “as is,” the owners worked with Bowness and Lynn Anderson, AIA to design and build rooms in the rear that complemented the charm of the original home.

Here a 1950s brick home gets a total makeover in the historic district of Pinehurst. Walls were removed to open up the house and create better flow in the living area. All of the bathrooms were totally updated with new tile, cabinets and fixtures. The front of the house got a new entry for a more modern look. The original galley kitchen had no natural light, so a large stained glass window was engineered to fit into an exterior wall.

2013 Mo or e C ou n t y Hom e B u i l de r s A s s o c i at ion Hom e

Place: Gold Group: Excellence in Remodeling Category: House Addition $50k - $75k

of the

Ye a r Awa r d s

Integrity Builders of the Sandhills 350 Sandhills Circle

The purpose of this project was to enlarge and modernize the master bedroom, closet and bath by adding 185 square feet to the rear of the house, while adding comfort features such as a heated floor, furniture vanity, ceramic wainscot, new fixtures, and a solar tube for natural light. Special glass doors were added to the curbless shower. The owners occupied the house during construction, making timing and logistics critical.

Place: Silver Group: Excellence in Remodeling Category: House Addition $50k - $75k

Bolton Builders 44 Abbottsford Drive

This beautiful addition is located off the master suite and serves as a sitting room for the clients. The addition offers great natural light and lets the homeowners enjoy the beauty of the outdoors while comfortably inside. Having built the home originally, Bolton was able to match the exterior for a seamless transition from old to new.

Place: Bronze Group: Excellence in Remodeling Category: House Addition $50k - $75k

Bolton Builders 142 Deerwood Lane

This project was done in two stages: a conversion of a screen porch into a sunroom, then a deck turned into an elegant new screen porch with vaulted ceiling. The sunroom has lots of natural light and has become a favored spot for relaxing and socializing. The exterior of both areas is maintenance-free and blends well with the existing home.

March 2014P��PineStraw : The Art & Soul of the Sandhills

2013 Mo or e C ou n t y Hom e B u i l de r s A s s o c i at ion Hom e

Daniel Adams Construction

of the

Ye a r Awa r d s

Place: Gold Group: Excellence in Remodeling Category: House Remodel $70k - $100k

180 Tamarisk Lane

An inherited home for a young couple became a family retreat following a retrofit face-lift. The house had great bones, but needed work to create an open floor concept to meet today’s active lifestyles. The kitchen got the most focus and the space was opened to the dining area, while getting all new energyefficient appliances, storage and counter space. The remaining rooms got a basic up-fit with new paint, flooring and hardware. No more popcorn ceiling look. Much of the yard was overgrown with mature landscaping, much of which was trimmed and shaped. A new stamped concrete patio replaced an underused deck, leading to a new pool in the backyard. Can a pool house and tiki bar be far behind?

Place: Silver Group: Excellence in Remodeling Category: House Remodel $70k - $100k

Award of Excellence Group: Excellence in Remodeling Category: Kitchen Remodel $70k - $100k

Cribbs Construction 15 Oak Meadow Road

This kitchen renovation project existed of cabinets and countertop replacement, along with flooring, appliances and lighting. Walls were painted. Cabinets were custom made with custom molding in each door, drawer front and end panel.

Custom cabinetry to fit your lifestyle...

Pinehurst Homes

Kitchens • Baths • Built-ins

74 Brook Hollow Drive

This was a “cost conservative” makeover of a dated kitchen. Cabinets and floors were refinished to preserve the original quality materials. Tiles were resealed and preserved for continued use. An exterior porch that had earlier been enclosed was retrofitted to look like the rest of the interior. Granite countertops replaced the older version. A beautiful, practical remodeling job.

Travis Alfrey

Woodworking 9 1 0 . 6 3 9 . 3 5 5 3 • taw o od w or k i n g . c o m

2013 Mo or e C ou n t y Hom e B u i l de r s A s s o c i at ion Hom e

Award of Excellence Group: Excellence in Remodeling Category: House Addition $300k - $350k

of the

Ye a r Awa r d s

Sarah Faucet Presents....

The Best Seat in the House! Let it be the Star of YOUR Bathroom!

Lakeview Construction Company 168 Foxfire Road

The Washlet is a very luxurious toilet seat. It is a revolutionary personal cleaning system that uses warm, aerated water to clean (similar to a bidet). While it has been available for years, we think it’s time for you to personally discover how the Washlet’s innovative personal care system enhances your comfort, keeps you feeling refreshed and is much more hygienic than toilet paper. The Washlet pampers you with a heated seat and guarantees a natural, purifying experience that will leave you clean and happy. Visit Hubbard Kitchen and Bath Showroom and check out a washlet for yourself!

A large addition of 2,800 square feet included a side loading garage to the right side of the home. A spacious bonus room is above the garage. Access by an oak staircase opens to an entertainment area, which includes a bar and specialty lighting. Beyond the great room is a new master suite with a 14’ X 14’ walk-in closet loaded with shelving.

Award of Excellence Group: Excellence in Remodeling Category: Exterior Remodel $75k - $100k

BVH Construction Company 10 Firestone Drive

This Stagaard and Chao designed remodel included replacement of all of the existing sliding glass doors and windows and complete replacement and redesign of the oversized terraced deck.

Congratulations to the 2014 MCHBA Home of the Year Award Winners!

Award of Excellence Group: Excellence in Remodeling Category: Exterior Remodel $25k - $50k

Pinehurst Homes 11 Ballybunion Lane

Adding a copper-covered terrace roof to an existing patio was the heart of this project. Attention was given to balance the look and provide adequate space for outdoor living. Great care was needed to make sure the roof could be installed in a single day.

CLEAN IS HAPPY.

115 Davis Rd • Southern Pines, NC 28387 910-692-2210 • hubbardkitchenandbath.com

March 2014P��PineStraw : The Art & Soul of the Sandhills

2013 Mo or e C ou n t y Hom e B u i l de r s A s s o c i at ion Hom e

Award of Excellence Group: Commercial Construction Category: $1mi - $1.5mi

of the

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Award of Excellence Group: Commercial Construction Category: Interior Remodel $600k - $750k

Bowness Custom Homes

BVH Construction Services

8 Regional Circle

205 SE Broad Street

Doctors Lam, Jameson and Manzo wanted a new medical facility that would be bright, cheery and efficient for the patientis. The doctors worked with the builder and architect Robert Anderson to build a great new space. One of the most prominent features is how the inside is integrated with the landscaping.

Award of Excellence Group: Commercial Construction Category: Interior Remodel $75k - $100k

The general scope of work included updating the exterior and interior of the bank, including replacing the existing leak-prone flat roof with a low sloped hip roof with steel trusses and a metal roofing. The existing teller stations were updated and the tile and carpets replaced. The most challenging part of the project was maintaining day-to-day operation of the bank.

Award of Excellence Group: Commercial Construction Category: Interior Remodel $25k - $50k

Bowness Custom Homes

Bolton Builders

145 W. Pennsylvania Avenue

1064 Seven Lakes Drive

The Pilot had a vacant warehouse and two company organizations: PineStraw magazine and the Moore Co. Telephone Book, located in separate offices. Seeking to bring these organizations into the same facility as the newspaper, Bowness created bright and colorful office space in the warehouse.

The dental office was completely renovated to create an inviting feel to the office space, with a home-like atmosphere. The builder retrofitted the interior with new trim and wainscoting, new flooring and a repainting of the walls. New granite tops were installed, along with new hardware and new doors.

Arts Entertainment C a l e n d a r

All Things Seussical

Mardi Gras Masquerade

March 1

•

St. Patty’s Day Parade

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ALL THINGS SEUSSICAL. 10 a.m. – 5 p.m. All day the Library will have craft tables full of Dr. Seuss-inspired fun. This kicks off the week celebrating Read Across America. Southern Pines Public Library, 170 W. Connecticut Ave., Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-8235 or www.sppl.net.

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MEET THE ARTIST AT WORK. 12 – 3 p.m. Carol Rotter. Hollyhocks Art Gallery, 905 Linden Road, Pinehurst. Info: (910) 2550665 or www.hollyhocksartgallery.com.

OPERA AT THE SUNRISE. 12 – 4.30 p.m. The Metropolitan Opera’s performance of Borodin’s Prince Igor . Cost: tickets $25, available online at www.sunrisetheater. com or at the door. The Sunrise Theater, 250 NW Broad Street, Southern Pines.Info: (910) 692-8501.

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MARDI GRAS MASQUERADE. 6 p.m. – 10 p.m. An evening of fun with the North Carolina Pottery Center: New Orleans-style dinner, drinks, music, dancing, raffle, auctions and door prizes. Dressy attire and masks encouraged. Pinewood Country Club, 247 Pinewood Road, Asheboro. Info and tickets: (336) 873-8430 or www.ncpotterycenter.org.

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Moroccan Cooking Class. 6:30 p.m. Learn how to cook in a tagine and enjoy a fabulous recipe. The Flavor Exchange - 115 E New Hampshire Ave., Southern Pines. Info: (910) 725-1345.

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24th annual British Heritage Celebration at the Squire’s Pub. Authentic recipe specials from the British Isles, with live Celtic Music on March 14 & 15, and a bagpiper, dancing leprechaun and a big St. Patrick’s Day party on March 17. Info: www. thesquirespub.com.

March 2

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ROOSTER’S WIFE CONCERT. 6:46 p.m. Live pop music with Brett Harris. The Poplar Knight Spot, 114 Knight St, Aberdeen. Seating is by general admission. Doors open at 6. Cost: $12. Tickets available at the door and online. Info: (910) 944-7502 or www. theroosterswife.org.

March 3

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READ ACROSS AMERICA DAY. 10 a.m. – 7 p.m. The Library will celebrate with a Dr. Seuss photo booth, interactive stations, and more! Southern Pines Public Library, 170 W.

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10th ANNUAL BENEFIT GOLF TOURNAMENT, DINNER AND AUCTION. 10.30 a.m. check in, 12p.m. shotgun start. For the benefit of the children at Boys and Girls Homes of North Carolina, Inc. Entry deadline February 24. Cost: $200/ per player; $750/team (foursome). Info: Ron Jones (910) 295-1819, Carolyn Register (910) 295-2352 or www.bghncsandhills.org.

•

MOORE REPUBLICAN WOMEN’S MONTHLY LUNCHEON. 11:30 a.m Registration; 12 p.m. Lunch. Speakers will be Republican judicial candidates. Pinehurst Member’s Club, 1 Carolina Vista Drive. Reservations: Dawn Wehrum at (910) 823-6881.

March 3—April 13

•

PICASSO CERAMICS EXHIBITION. Hours vary, Tuesdays through Saturdays. The David McCune International Art Gallery

March 2014P��PineStraw : The Art & Soul of the Sandhills

Dance/Theater

Film

Literature/Speakers

• •

Connecticut Ave., Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-8235 or www.sppl.net.

• •

Music/Concerts

• •

March 1—17

Key:

Art

•

Workshop on Growing Vegetables in Containers. 10 a.m. – 12 p.m. An opportunity to learn all about vegetable gardening in containers. Led by Jan Leitschuh. Attendees will go home with containers of vegetable plantings. Cost: $20/ Sandhills Horticultural Society members; $25/ non-members. Sandhills Community College, Steed Hall/Stephens Laboratory, 3395 Airport Road, Pinehurst. Info and reservations: Tricia Mabe (910) 695-3882.

Family Movie Night Under The Stars 3/

Fun

History

•

Sports

at Free and open to the public. David McCune International Art Gallery, Methodist University, Fayetteville. Info: (910) GALLERY or www.DavidMcCuneGallery.org.

March 5

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LUNCH AND LEARN. 12:30 - 1:30 p.m. “New Year with NuDerm” with Barbara Dixon from Obagi Skin Care. Gift bags and specials. The Laser Institute of Pinehurst, 80 Aviemore Court, Pinehurst. For info and RSVPs: Victoria Conner (910) 295-1130.

•

BEGINNERS DANCE CLASS. 6:30 p.m. Learn the basics for the exciting tango and the fun club swing. No pre-registration necessary. Cost: $10 cash. Pinehurst Dance Studio, Pinehurst Executive Center, 300 Hwy 5, Pinehurst. Info: (910) 331-9965.

•

RUTH PAULEY LECTURE SERIES. 7:30 p.m. The Search for Josef Mengele. Featuring David Marwell who served as the chief investigator in the hunt for Nazi war criminals Klaus Barbie and Josef Mengele. Free and open to the public. Owens Auditorium, Sandhills Community College, 3395 Airport Road, Pinehurst. Info: (910) 245-3132

March 6

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FINE ARTS LECTURE SERIES. 10 a.m. American Art & the Creation of a National Identity by Molly Guinn. Founding Fathers: Portraits by Copley, Stuart & Peale. Cost: $10. Weymouth Center, 555 E. Connecticut Avenue, Southern Pines. Info and reservations: Arts Council of Moore County: (910) 692-2787.

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GATHERING AT GIVEN. 3:30 p.m. Sports author Bethany Bradsher will be sharing colorful stories about an era in college basketball--a time when organ music enriched the environment in smoke-filled arenas and when head coaches and referees became front-page news with their antics. Free and open to the public. Given Memorial Library, 150 Cherokee Road, Pinehurst. Info: (910) 295-3642.

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FINE ARTS LECTURE SERIES. 10 a.m. Molly Guinn with New American Art Series. Cost: $10. Weymouth Center, 555 E. Connecticut Avenue, Southern Pines. Info and reservations: Arts Council (910) 692-2787.

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PASTA MAKING CLASS. 6:30 p.m. Hands-on pasta making along with a great sauce. The Flavor Exchange, 115 E New Hampshire Ave., Southern Pines. Info: (910) 725-1345.

March 6—28

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YOUNG PEOPLE’S FINE ARTS FESTIVAL. 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. weekdays; 2 to 4 p.m. Saturday, March 15. Showcasing the artistic talents of students in grades K-12 from all Moore County public, private, charter and home schools. Free and open to the public. Campbell House Galleries, 482 E. Connecticut Ave., Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-2787.

March 7

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PASTA MAKING CLASS. 6:30 p.m. Hands-on pasta making along with a great sauce. The Flavor Exchange, 115 E New Hampshire Ave., Southern Pines. Info: (910) 725-1345.

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site. Cypress Bend Vineyards, 21904 Riverton Road, Wagram. Info: (910) 369-0411 or www. cypressbendvineyards.com.

March 7—31

•

ART EXHIBITION. 8 a.m. – 9 p.m. Monday – Thursday; 8 a.m. – 5 p.m. Friday; 8 a.m. – 2:30 p.m. Saturday. Lasting Impressions On Paper. Works on Paper by Denise Drum Baker, Printmaker. Free and open to the public. Hastings Gallery, Boyd Library, Sandhills Community College, 3395 Airport Road, Pinehurst. Info: (910) 695-3879.

March 8

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SPRINGTIME HOLIDAY SHOPPE ART AND CRAFT SHOW. 9 a.m. – 6 p.m. Southern Pines National Guard Armory, Morganton Rd, Southern Pines. Info: (910) 528-7052.

Picnic in the Park

•

CHILDREN’S ART CLASS. 9 – 11 a.m. Artist Jane Casnellie will lead a special children’s painting class. No experience necessary and all materials provided. $35 per child. Ages 9 and up. Hollyhocks Art Gallery, 905 Linden Road, Pinehurst. Info and registration: Jane Casnellie (910) 639-4823.

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MEET THE ARTIST AT WORK. 12 – 3 p.m. Michele Garret Laster. Hollyhocks Art Gallery, 905 Linden Road, Pinehurst. Info: (910) 255-0665 or www.hollyhocksartgallery. com.

•

OLD-TIME FIDDLERS’ CONVENTION. 4 p.m. Entertainment begins. 3 – 5 p.m. Registration. The 79th Annual Highfalls Old-Time Fiddlers’ Convention. Many oldtime musical categories. Concession stand. Bands can participate without preregistration. Tickets: $7. North Moore High School (Auditorium), 1504 North Moore Road, Robbins. Info: (910) 464-3600.

•

PASTA MAKING CLASS. 6:30 p.m. Hands-on pasta making along with a great sauce. The Flavor Exchange, 115 E New Hampshire Ave., Southern Pines. Info: (910) 725-1345.

•

DANCE! 7 – 10 p.m. Carolina Pines Chapter 6091 of USA Dance invites you for an evening of fun, music and dancing. No advance tickets. Cost: $10 cash at door. Beginner lesson is available 7-8; dancing 8-10. Enjoy a smoke-free and alcohol-free event. 105 McReynolds Street, downtown Carthage. Info: (510) 863-2623.

•

Junior League of Moore County Charity Gala. 7 – 11 p.m. Food, entertainment, music and dancing with the Swing Street Band. There will be a silent auction, valet parking and coat check. Cost: $50 per person, cash bar. Pinehurst Members Club, Pinehurst. Tickets and info: (910) 6031743 or www.jlmcnc.org.

March 8—9

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SOUTHERN PINES HORSE TRIALS I. 8 a.m. – 5 p.m. Free and open to spectators. Carolina Horse Park, 2814 Montrose Rd, Raeford. Info: (910) 875-2074 or www.carolinahorsepark.com.

March 9

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CONCERT AT WEYMOUTH. 3 p.m. The North Carolina String Quartet. Weymouth Center, 555 E. Connecticut Avenue, Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-6261.

•

CAROLINA PHILHARMONIC. 3 p.m. Behind the Music: Remembering Rubenstein, David Michael Wolff in recital. Owens

Key:

• • Art

Auditorium, Sandhills Community College, 3395 Airport Road, Pinehurst. Info: (910) 6870287 or www.carolinaphil.org.

•

PERFORMANCE AT THE LIBRARY. 3 – 4 p.m. Blues singer, storyteller, and scholar Lorenzo “Logie” Meachum. Though a part of the Explorations Series for Adults, this will be a multi-generational event and is family-friendly. Sponsored by Friends of the Library: free and open to the public. Southern Pines Public Library, 170 W. Connecticut Ave., Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-8235 or www.sppl.net.

•

ROOSTER’S WIFE CONCERT. 6:46 p.m. Live gypsy jazz with the award-winning Ameranouche. The Poplar Knight Spot, 114 Knight St, Aberdeen. Seating is by general admission. Doors open at 6. Cost: $16. Tickets available at the door and online. Info: (910) 944-7502 or www.theroosterswife.org.

March 9-15

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TEEN TECH WEEK. Celebrate at the library with this year’s theme DIY @ Your Library! A week-long celebration with activities and events. Southern Pines Public Library, 170 W. Connecticut Ave., Southern Pines. More info: (910) 692-8235 or www.sppl.net.

March 11

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6TH ANNUAL LUNCH WITH LEGENDS. 11.30 a.m. Hosted by the League of Women Voters of Moore County. Clara Barton and Anne Dallas Dudley are this year’s legendary guests. Lunch and program: $30; cash bar. Pinehurst Member’s Club, 1 Carolina Vista Drive, Pinehurst. Reservations: Linda Burch (910) 295-1935.

March 12

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GUEST LECTURE. 6 p.m. The EnglishSpeaking Union welcomes Mary Alice Monroe. A Conversation with Mary Alice Monroe – Conservation, Dolphins, Sea Turtles and More. Cocktails with dinner to follow. The Country Club of North Carolina, 1600 Morganton Road, Pinehurst. Info: Hope Price (910) 692-7727; reservations (910) 692-6565.

•

BEGINNERS DANCE CLASS. 6:30 p.m. Foxtrot to Frank Sinatra and learn the basics to the cha cha! No pre-registration necessary. Cost: $10 cash. Pinehurst Dance Studio, Pinehurst Executive Center, 300 Hwy 5, Pinehurst. Info: (910) 331-9965.

Music/Concerts

•

Dance/Theater

• • Film

March 13

•

FAMILY FUN NIGHT. 5:30 p.m. For NC Arbor Day! Kids in grades K-5 and their families are invited to come and celebrate trees with the library. Southern Pines Public Library, 170 W. Connecticut Ave., Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-8235 or www.sppl.net.

•

BALLROOM FOR BEGINNERS. 6:30 p.m. Carolina Pines Chapter of USA Dance offers classes for $10 per person. 105 McReynolds Street, downtown Carthage. Info: (510) 863-2623.

•

PASTA MAKING CLASS. 6:30 p.m. Hands-on pasta making along with a great sauce. The Flavor Exchange, 115 E New Hampshire Ave., Southern Pines. Info: (910) 725-1345.

March 14

•

PASTA MAKING CLASS. 6:30 p.m. Hands-on pasta making along with a great sauce. The Flavor Exchange, 115 E New Hampshire Ave., Southern Pines. Info: (910) 725-1345.

•

JAZZY FRIDAYS. 7 – 10 p.m. Enjoy wine and dancing with friends under the tent with live music by The Mike Wallace Quartet. Gates open at 6 p.m. Admission: $10. Reservations and pre-payments are required for parties of eight or more. Food vendor on site. Cypress Bend Vineyards, 21904 Riverton Road, Wagram. Info: (910) 369-0411 or www. cypressbendvineyards.com.

March 15

•

NC GLASSFEST AT STARWORKS GLASS STUDIO. 10 a.m. – 2 p.m. Cups, bowls, pitchers, sweet tea sets, glasses, vases and more in many colors, shapes and sizes for your home and every day enjoyment. STARworks Center for Creative Enterprise, 100 Russell Drive, Star. Info: (910) 428-9001.

March 15

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AUTHOR AT THE BOOKSHOP. 11 a.m. Andrea Weigl with Pickles and Preserves. The fantastic food writer for the News and Observer has written the latest edition in the Savor The South Cookbooks. She will be at The Country bookshop with samples of her cooking and stories to share. The Country Bookshop, 140 N.W. Broad Street, Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-3211 or www.thecountrybookshop.biz.

Literature/Speakers

• • Fun

History

•

Sports

SENIOR LIVING, WITH AN EMPHASIS ON “LIVING.” While our later years can present many challenges, they also offer their share of joys. At Elmcroft, we’re committed to enriching the lives of the elderly by offering the compassion, dignity and independence they deserve.

Schedule your personal visit!

910.692.4928

Senior Living | Memory Care 101 Brucewood Rd | Southern Pines, NC | elmcroft.com

March 2014P��PineStraw : The Art & Soul of the Sandhills

ca l e n d a r

•

PINEHURST ST. PATRICK’S DAY PARADE. 11 a.m. - 2 p.m. Everyone’s Irish and Pinehurst will continue the celebration of a grand tradition with the 13th Annual St. Patrick’s Day Parade. A day of green festivities in the Village Center. The parade begins at 11 a.m. sharp with fun and entertainment following the parade. Pinehurst Village. Info: Alan Riley, Dugan’s Pub (910) 295-3400.

• •

MEET THE ARTIST AT WORK. 12 – 3 p.m. Phyllis Andrews. Hollyhocks Art Gallery, 905 Linden Road, Pinehurst. Info: (910) 255-0665 or www.hollyhocksartgallery.com. PASTA MAKING CLASS. 6:30 p.m. Hands-on pasta making along with a great sauce. The Flavor Exchange, 115 E New Hampshire Ave., Southern Pines. Info: (910) 725-1345.

March 16

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AUTHOR AT THE BOOKSHOP. 2 p.m. Erika Robuck with Fallen Beauty. The author of Receive Me Falling and Hemingway’s Girl will be at The Country Bookshop with another fantastic novel. The Country Bookshop, 140 N.W. Broad Street, Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-3211 or www.thecountrybookshop.biz.

•

CONCERT. 2 p.m. The Moore County Concert Band will perform in the Grand Ballroom of the Carolina Hotel in Pinehurst. The theme of the concert is March Madness. Free and open to the public. The Grand Ballroom, The Carolina Hotel, Pinehurst. Info: www.moorecountyband.com.

•

SUNDAY AFTERNOON MOVIE. 2:30pm Come and see Dusty, the high-flying racer, overcome his fear of heights. With the help of Skipper, a veteran fighter plane, Dusty is able to reach his dream of competing on the world aerial race circuit as he qualifies for the Wings Across the World race. Southern Pines Public Library, 170 W. Connecticut Ave., Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-8235 or www.sppl.net.

• •

MUSICAL PERFORMANCE. 3 p.m. Performance by the finalists of the Youth Music Festival. Weymouth Center, 555 E. Connecticut Avenue, Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-6261.

ROOSTER’S WIFE CONCERT. 6:46 p.m. Live music with The Kennedys and Toughcats. The Poplar Knight Spot, 114 Knight St, Aberdeen. Seating is by general admission. Doors open at 6. Cost: $16. Tickets available at the door and online. Info: (910) 944-7502 or www.theroosterswife.org.

March 17

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ACMC CLASSICAL CONCERT. 8 – 9 p.m. Acclaimed violinist Bella Hristova will perform as part of the Arts Council’s Classical Concert Series. The Sunrise Theater, 250 NW Broad Street, Southern Pines. Ticket prices vary. Tickets and info: The Arts Council of Moore County (910) 692-2787.

March 18

•

LEAGUE OF WOMEN VOTERS OF MOORE COUNTY MONTHLY MEETING. 11:30 a.m. NC District 52 Representative and Vice Chair of the Appropriations Committee Jamie Boles will speak. Cost: $12. Everyone welcome, reservations required. Table on the Green, Midland Country Club, Pinehurst. Info and reservations: Charlotte (910) 944-9611.

•

EXHIBITION RECEPTION. 5 – 7 p.m. Lasting Impressions On Paper. Works on Paper by Denise Drum Baker, Printmaker. Free and open to the public. Hastings Gallery, Boyd Library, Sandhills Community College, 3395 Airport Road, Pinehurst. Info: (910) 695-3879.

•

AUTHOR AT THE BOOKSHOP. 5 p.m. Johnny Molloy with Hiking North Carolina’s National Forests: 50 Can’t Miss Trail Adventures in the Pisgah, Nantahala, Uwharrie and Croatan National Forests. The Country Bookshop, 140 N.W. Broad Street, Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-3211 or www.thecountrybookshop.biz.

•

Young Adult Readers’ program. 5:30 p.m. A Night of Improv: An exercise in perspective. (Grades 6-12).

••• • •

Key: Art Music/Concerts Film Literature/Speakers Sports

• • •

Dance/Theater Fun History

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March 2014P��PineStraw : The Art & Soul of the Sandhills

ca l e n d a r Come step into someone else’s shoes as we act our way through character scenes. For writing inspiration, acting fun, and lots of laughs. Let the games begin! Southern Pines Public Library, 170 W. Connecticut Ave., Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-8235 or www.sppl.net.

March 19

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THE KELLY CUP CHAMPIONSHIP. 12:30 p.m. Shotgun Start. A championship played on Pinehurst No. 8, The Centennial Course, to benefit the Sandhills Children’s Center. Best ball of four; full handicap. Teams of men and/or women. With dinner provided by Outback Steakhouse, dessert by Cold Stone Creamery. Trophies by Old Sport and Gallery. Cost: $800/team of four; $1000/team of four and a hole sponsorship; $300/hole sponsorship. Info and registration: (910) 692-3323 or http://sandhillschildrenscenter.org

•

BEGINNERS DANCE CLASS. 6:30 p.m. Come try the rumba, a slow romantic Latin dance, and have some fun with the swing! No pre-registration necessary. Cost: $10 cash. Pinehurst Dance Studio, Pinehurst Executive Center, 300 Hwy 5, Pinehurst. Info: (910) 331-9965.

March 20

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MOLES & VOLES. 10 a.m. Peter Hertl of NC State University will give a presentation on how to cope with moles and voles in the garden. Co-sponsored by the Sandhills Horticultural Society and the Sandhills Council of Garden Clubs. Free, reservations required. Sandhills Community College Horticultural Gardens, 3395 Airport Road, Pinehurst. Info: (910) 695-3882.

•

BALLROOM FOR BEGINNERS. 6:30 p.m. Carolina Pines Chapter of USA Dance offers classes for $10 per person. Learn to slow dance. 105 McReynolds Street, downtown Carthage. Info: (510) 863-2623.

March 21

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WEYMOUTH LECTURE SERIES. 6:30 p.m. The third and final presentation in the Arts and Humanities Fine Arts Illustrated Lecture Series with Jeffrey Mims. Immortal Companions III: Glorious Threads. Buffet and libations to follow. Cost: $60. Weymouth Center, 555 E. Connecticut Avenue, Southern Pines. Info and reservations: (910) 692-6261 or www. weymouthcenter.org.

•

Moroccan Cooking Class. 6:30 p.m. Learn how to cook in a tagine and enjoy a fabulous recipe. The Flavor Exchange, 115 E New Hampshire Ave., Southern Pines. Info: (910) 725-1345.

•

FAMILY MOVIE NIGHT UNDER THE STARS. 7 – 10 p.m. A free family movie under the stars, games and face painting. Movie begins at 8 p.m. Bring your lawn chair and blanket. Concessions will be available for purchase with proceeds benefitting Pinehurst Elementary School’s PTA. The Village Arboretum, 395 Magnolia Road, Pinehurst. Info: (910) 295-2817.

•

BEACH FRIDAYS. 7 – 10 p.m. Enjoy wine and dancing with friends under the tent with live beach music by The Sand Band. Gates open at 6 p.m. Admission: $10. Reservations and pre-payments are required for parties of eight or more. Food vendor on site. Cypress Bend Vineyards, 21904 Riverton Road, Wagram. Info: (910) 369-0411 or www.cypressbendvineyards. com.

March 22

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BIRDS IN THE SANDHILLS. 10 a.m. A brief narrative of birds before hiking, bird watching, and constructing birdhouses for youth to take home. Participants should bring their own hammer and/or portable battery screwdriver! Youth will need a helping hand from parents. Free and open to the public. Weymouth Woods Visitor Center, 1024 Fort Bragg Rd, Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-2463.

Key:

• • Art

Music/Concerts

•

Dance/Theater

• •

MEET THE ARTIST AT WORK. 12 – 3 p.m. Linda Griffin. Hollyhocks Art Gallery, 905 Linden Road, Pinehurst. Info: (910) 255-0665 or www.hollyhocksartgallery.com. AUTHOR AT THE BOOKSHOP. 2 p.m. Ed Williams with Liberating Dixie, a collection of writings from Ed Williams’ 50year newspaper career, from his start as a reporter in Mississippi in the 1960s to his 25 years as editor of The Charlotte Observer’s editorial pages. The Country Bookshop, 140 N.W. Broad Street, Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-3211 or www.thecountrybookshop.biz.

•

STORYTIME WITH THE NORTH CAROLINA SYMPHONY. 4 p.m. The North Carolina Symphony will be visiting the library for a special storytime. A symphony member will host a musical storytime, then children will be allowed to have hands on time with an instrument “petting zoo.” Preschoolers of all ages are invited (birth to 5 years old). Southern Pines Public Library, 170 W. Connecticut Ave., Southern Pines. More info: (910) 692-8235 or www.sppl.net.

• •

FEATURED CHEF AT THE FLAVOR EXCHANGE. 6:30 p.m. Matt Hannon of Ashten’s. The Flavor Exchange, 115 E New Hampshire Ave., Southern Pines. Info: (910) 725-1345. NC SYMPHONY. 8 p.m. “Sketches from Pinehurst.” Ticket prices vary. Robert E. Lee Auditorium, Pinecrest High School, 250 Voit Gilmore Road. Info: (877) 627-6724 or www. ncsymphony.org.

March 23

•

AUTHOR AT THE BOOKSHOP. 2 p.m. Join poet Anthony Abbott on the Sunday following the Ragan Poetry Festival. The Country Bookshop, 140 N.W. Broad Street, Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-3211 or www.thecountrybookshop.biz.

• • •

OLDIES & GOODIES FILM. 2:30-4:30 p.m. Randolph Scott, Joel McCrea, and Mariette Hartley star in this 1962

Film

Literature/Speakers

• • Fun

History

•

Sports

FIND OUT HOW to MAKE LIFE a BREEZE ALL Y E A R L O N G. JOIN US for LUNCH on MARCH 10th and 27th Join us at 10:30 am for one of our March luncheons at Penick Village. With 50 years of excellence behind us, enjoy a great neighborhood of new friends and a carefree lifestyle, more opportunities to do the things you love, and peace of mind for you and your family. To RSVP for the luncheon date you prefer, call soon as space is limited, at (910) 692-0449.

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March 2014P��PineStraw : The Art & Soul of the Sandhills

ca l e n d a r Western about two aging gunslingers who sign on to transport gold from a remote mining town. Southern Pines Public Library, 170 W. Connecticut Ave., Southern Pines. More info: (910) 6928235 or www.sppl.net.

•

ROOSTER’S WIFE CONCERT. 1:46 p.m. and 6:46 p.m. Live Texas swing music with Asleep at the Wheel. The Poplar Knight Spot, 114 Knight St, Aberdeen. Seating is by general admission. Doors open at 6. Cost: $75. Tickets available at the door and online. Info: (910) 944-7502 or www.theroosterswife.org.

March 24

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SANDHILLS NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY MEETING. 7 p.m. Katie Walsh, Board Member of the Walthour-Moss Foundation, will be presenting on the spring wildflowers that can be found on this 4,000+ acre property. Visitors Welcome. Weymouth Woods Auditorium, 1024 Fort Bragg Rd, Southern Pines. Information: (910) 692-2167 or www. sandhillsnature.org.

March 25

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CITIZEN’S ACADEMY. 6:30 - 8:00 p.m. A session conducted by the Southern Pines Recreation and Parks Department. Attendees will get a behind the scenes look at operations of the Recreation Department. Spaces may still be available for drop-in at this session. Southern Pines Public Library, 170 W. Connecticut Ave., Southern Pines. Info and reservations: (910) 692-8235.

March 25-26

•

AUDITIONS AT THE SUNRISE. 6 – 8 p.m. Open auditions for SunStage’s spring play. The Sunrise Theater, 250 NW Broad Street, Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-8501.

March 26

•

SILHOUETTE ARTIST AT THE BOOKSHOP. 3 – 6 p.m. Please call ahead for an appointment. Clay Rice’s nationwide following has families flocking to have this talented artist create

keepsake silhouettes and to have him sign copies of his awardwinning children’s book, The Lonely Shadow. The Country Bookshop, 140 N.W. Broad Street, Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-3211 or www.thecountrybookshop.biz.

•

FLOWER SHOW GALA PREVIEW PARTY. 6:30 p.m. Preview party for The North Carolina Flower Association’s second annual show, titled “The Wizard of Oz” and “Wicked.” The house, front and side lawns and tent will be elaborately decorated. Cost: $65. Tickets available at the Weymouth Center, at Botanicals, Bennett Street and on the door. Weymouth Center, 555 E. Connecticut Avenue, Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-6261.

•

ROOSTER’S WIFE CONCERT. 6:46 p.m. Traditional folk performers Kim and Reggie. The Poplar Knight Spot, 114 Knight St, Aberdeen. Seating is by general admission. Doors open at 6. Cost: $20. Tickets available at the door and online. Info: (910) 944-7502 or www.theroosterswife.org.

March 27

•

SUMMER & FALL BLOOMING BULBS. 10 a.m. – 11:30 a.m. Hilarie Blevins, horticulturalist at CCNC, will present a program on the selection, planting & care of summer and fall blooming bulbs. Cost: $5/Horticultural Society members, $10/ non-members. Sandhills Community College Horticultural Gardens, 3395 Airport Road, Pinehurst. Info: (910) 695-3882.

•

BALLROOM FOR BEGINNERS. 6:30 p.m. Carolina Pines Chapter of USA Dance offers classes for $10 per person. Learn waltz and salsa. 105 McReynolds Street, downtown Carthage. Info: (510) 863-2623.

•

PASTA MAKING CLASS. 6:30 p.m. Hands-on pasta making along with a great sauce. The Flavor Exchange, 115 E New Hampshire Ave., Southern Pines. Info: (910) 725-1345.

March 27—30.

•

FLOWER SHOW. 10 a.m. – 4 p.m. Thursday through

Key:

• • Art

Music/Concerts

•

Dance/Theater

Saturday; 12 – 4 p.m. Sunday. The North Carolina Flower Association’s second annual show, entitled “The Wizard of Oz” and “Wicked.” The house, front and side lawns and tent will be elaborately decorated. There will be a speaker each day at 1 p.m. and a demonstration of arranging flowers. Cost: $15. Tickets available at the Weymouth Center, at Botanicals, Bennett Street and on the door. Weymouth Center, 555 E. Connecticut Avenue, Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-6261.

March 27—30

•

STEEL MAGNOLIAS. 8 p.m. Thursday through Saturday, 2 p.m. matinees Saturday and Sunday. Dawn Wells (Gilligan’s Island) stars in Judson Theatre Company’s production of Robert Harling’s hilarious and heartwarming story. Ticket prices vary. Owens Auditorium, Sandhills Community College, 3395 Airport Road, Pinehurst. Info: (910) 585-6333 or www. JudsonTheatre.com.

March 28

• •

PASTA MAKING CLASS. 6:30 p.m. Hands-on pasta making along with a great sauce. The Flavor Exchange, 115 E New Hampshire Ave., Southern Pines. Info: (910) 725-1345. JAZZY FRIDAYS. 7 – 10 p.m. Enjoy wine and dancing with friends under the tent with live music by The Mike Wallace Quartet. Gates open at 6 p.m. Admission: $10. Reservations and pre-payments are required for parties of eight or more. Food vendor on site. Cypress Bend Vineyards, 21904 Riverton Road, Wagram. Info: (910) 369-0411 or www.cypressbendvineyards. com.

March 28—May 17

•

AFRICAN AMERICAN ART SHOW. Hours vary. The John & Vivian Hewitt Collection of African American Art is coming to Fayetteville from the Gantt Center in Charlotte. See one of the nation’s most important and comprehensive collections of African-American art for free. Arts Council of Fayetteville/ Cumberland County, 301 Hay Street, Fayetteville. Info: (910) 323-1776.

• • Film

Literature/Speakers

• • Fun

History

•

Sports

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March 2014P��PineStraw : The Art & Soul of the Sandhills

ca l e n d a r

March 29

March 31—April 26

Wednesdays

PICNIC IN THE PARK. 11 a.m. – 2 p.m. Pinehurst Parks & Recreation invites you to bring your blankets and picnic baskets and enjoy an afternoon with friends and family at the Village Arboretum. (Rain Date: Sunday, March 30th; 1 – 4 p.m.) Pinehurst Village Arboretum, 395 Magnolia Road, Pinehurst. Info: (910) 295-2817.

ART EXHIBITION.12 – 3 p.m. Monday through Saturday. Mary O’Malley’s exhibition Big Brushes, Soft Edges. Paintings of people and animals, plus scenes from the Sandhills area and landscapes from Wisconsin. The Artists League of the Sandhills, The Exchange Street Gallery of Fine Art, 129 Exchange Street, Aberdeen. Info: www.artistleague.org or (910) 944-3979.

Preschool Storytime. 3:30 – 4 p.m. for infants and toddlers (ages birth through 5 years) will be held Wed., Feb. 5, 12, 19, & 26. Join us for stories, songs, and fun, and then stay for playtime! Southern Pines Public Library, 170 W. Connecticut Avenue. Info: www.sppl.net or (910) 692-8235.

•

March 29

• •

MEET THE ARTIST AT WORK. 12 – 3 p.m. Jane Casnellie. Hollyhocks Art Gallery, 905 Linden Road, Pinehurst. Info: (910) 255-0665 or www.hollyhocksartgallery.com. PASTA MAKING CLASS. 6:30 p.m. Hands-on pasta making along with a great sauce. The Flavor Exchange - 115 E New Hampshire Ave., Southern Pines. Info: (910) 725-1345.

March 30

•

OPENING RECEPTION. 2 – 4 p.m. A reception for the opening of Mary O’Malley’s exhibition Big Brushes, Soft Edges. Paintings of people and animals, plus scenes from the Sandhills area and landscapes from Wisconsin. Show runs through April 26. The Artists League of the Sandhills, The Exchange Street Gallery of Fine Art, 129 Exchange Street, Aberdeen. Info: www. artistleague.org or (910) 944-3979.

•

ROOSTER’S WIFE CONCERT. 6:46 p.m. Live music with contemporary jazz and blues vocalist Catherine Russell. The Poplar Knight Spot, 114 Knight St, Aberdeen. Seating is by general admission. Doors open at 6. Cost: 34. Tickets available at the door and online. Info: (910) 944-7502 or www.theroosterswife.org.

•

CAROLINA PHILHARMONIC. 7 p.m. Jazz: The Three Divas. Owens Auditorium, Sandhills Community College, 3395 Airport Road, Pinehurst. Info: (910) 687-0287 or www. carolinaphil.org.

•

April 4

•

April 5

• •

PINEHURST ART ON THE GREEN.10 a.m. – 5 p.m. Fine art and craft show in the village. Village Green West, Pinehurst. Info: (910) 528-7052. STONEYBROOK STEEPLECHASE. 1:30 p.m. first race. The official rite of spring in the Sandhills. The thrill and beauty of horse racing as well as enjoying a day with family and friends. Carolina Horse Park, 2814 Montrose Road, Raeford. Info: (910) 875-2074 or www.carolinahorsepark.com.

Weekly Happenings Tuesdays A.A.R.P. Tax Help. 10 a.m. – 1 p.m. At the Library on Tuesdays and Saturdays, February 4—April 15. Clients must register onsite, and there are no prior appointments by phone. Southern Pines Public Library, 170 W. Connecticut Avenue. Info and to sign up: (910) 692-8235.

Key:

• • Art

Music/Concerts

•

Dance/Theater

Fridays COOKING DEMO. 5 p.m. Quick cooking ideas for you to get your weekend started. The Flavor Exchange, 115 E New Hampshire Ave., Southern Pines. Info: (910) 725-1345.

Saturdays A.A.R.P. Tax Help. 10 a.m. – 1 p.m. February 4—April 15. At the Library on Tuesdays and Saturdays. Clients must register onsite, and there are no prior appointments by phone. Southern Pines Public Library, 170 W. Connecticut Avenue. Info and to sign up: (910) 692-8235.

Art Galleries ABOUT ART GALLERY inside The Market Place Midland Bistro Building, 2160 Midland Road, Pinehurst. The gallery features local artists. Open Monday-Friday 11 a.m. – 2 p.m. (910) 215-596. ART NUTZ AND RAVEN POTTERY, 125 SW Broad St., Southern Pines. Come see the potter at work. Features art, pottery from local potters, handmade jewelry, glass and more. Monday-Saturday 10 a.m. – 5 p.m. (910) 695-1555, www.ravenpottery.com. Artist GAlleRy OF SOUTHERN PINES, 167 E. New Hampshire Avenue., Southern Pines. Features art and fine crafts from more than 60 North Carolina artists. 10 a.m. – 5 p.m., Monday-Saturday. (910) 692-6077. Artists League of the Sandhills, 129 Exchange St. in historic Aberdeen. Exhibit hours are noon – 3 p.m., Monday-Saturday. (910) 944-3979.

• • Film

Literature/Speakers

• • Fun

History

•

Sports

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March 2014P��PineStraw : The Art & Soul of the Sandhills

ca l e n d a r Broadhurst Gallery, 2212 Midland Road, Pinehurst. Showcases works by nationally recognized artists such as Louis St. Lewis, Lula Smith, Shawn Morin, Rachel Clearfield, Judy Cox and Jason Craighead. Meet-the-artist opportunities available. Monday-Friday (closed Wednesday), 11 a.m. – 5 p.m., Saturday, 1 – 4 p.m & special appointments. (910) 295-4817, www.broadhurstgallery.com. The Campbell House Galleries, 482 E. Connecticut Avenue., Southern Pines. Monday-Friday 9 a.m. – 5 p.m. and every third weekend of the month from 2 – 4 p.m. (910) 692-4356, www.mooreart.org. The Downtown Gallery inside Cup of Flow, 115 NE Broad St., Southern Pines. Ever-changing array of local and regional art, pottery and other handmade items. (910) 693-1999. Exchange Street Gallery, Artists League of the Sandhills, 129 Exchange Street in historic Aberdeen. “It’s Southern, Ya’ll,” works of Pat McMahon and Betty DiBartolomeo. September 2-28. Regular hours noon to 3:00, Monday-Saturday. (910) 944-3979. The Gallery at Seven Lakes at the St. Mary Magdalene building, 1145 Seven Lakes Drive. Just nine miles from the Pinehurst Traffic Circle up 211, this gallery is dedicated to local artists. Wednesday-Thursday 1 – 4 p.m. Hastings Gallery in the Katharine L. Boyd Library at Sandhills Community College, Pinehurst. Gallery hours are Monday-Thursday 7:45 a.m. – 9 p.m., Friday 7:45 a.m. – 5 p.m. and Saturday 8:30 a.m. – 2 p.m. HOLLYHOCKS ART GALLERY, 905 Linden Road, Pinehurst. Features artwork by local award winning artists, Phyllis Andrews, Diane Kraudelt, Linda Griffin, Carol Rotter, Jessie MacKay, jeweler Michele Garrett Laster and artist/owner, Jane Casnellie. Monday-Saturday 10:30 a.m. – 9:30 p.m. (910) 2550665, www.hollyhocksartgallery.com. Lady Bedford’s Tea Parlour, 21 Chinquapin Road, Pinehurst. Features local artist Jude Winkley’s original oil paintings. Tuesday - Saturday 8 a.m. – 4 p.m. (910) 255-0100, www. ladybedfords.com. The Old Silk Route, 113 West Main St., Aberdeen. Specializes in Asian original art, including silk paintings, tapestries, Buddhist Thangkas and Indian paper miniatures. Monday, Thursday-Saturday 11 a.m. – 4 p.m. (910) 295-2055.

Historical Sites Bethesda Church and Cemetery. Guided tours for groups by appointment. 1020 Bethesda Road, Aberdeen. (910) 944-1319. Bryant House and McLendon Cabin. Tours by appointment. (910) 692-2051 or (910) 673-0908. Carthage Historical Museum. Sundays, 2 – 5 p.m. or by appointment. Located at Rockingham and Saunders streets, Carthage. (910) 947-2331. House in the Horseshoe. Open year-round. Hours vary. 288 Alston House Road (10 miles north of Carthage), Sanford. (910) 947-2051. Malcolm Blue Farm and Museum. 1 – 4 p.m. Wednesday-Saturday. Group tours can be arranged by appointment. (910) 944-7558 or (910) 603-2739. North Carolina Literary Hall of Fame. 10 a.m. – 2 p.m., Monday-Friday, at the Weymouth Center for Arts and Humanities, 555 E. Connecticut Avenue., Southern Pines. (910) 692-6261. Shaw House. Open 1 – 4 p.m. Tuesday-Friday. (910) 692-2051. Tufts Archives. 9:30 a.m. – 5 p.m., Monday-Friday, and 9:30 a.m. – 12:30 p.m. Saturday. (910) 295-3642. Union Station. Open 8 a.m. – 5 p.m. Located in downtown Aberdeen. (910) 944-5902. Sandhills Woman’s Exchange Log Cabin. Open 10 a.m. – 3 p.m. (910) 295-4677. PS To add an event, email us at pinestraw@thepilot.com by the first of the month prior to the event. Or go to www.thepilot.com and add the event to our online calendar.

Solution:

Seagrove Candle Company, 116 N.W. Broad St., Southern Pines. Showcases art of the Sandhills and Seagrove area. Monday, Wednesday-Saturday 10 a.m. – 5 p.m., (910) 695-0029. SKY Art Gallery, 602 Magnolia Dr., Aberdeen. Tues.-Sat. 10 a.m. – 5 p.m. (910) 944-9440, www.skyartgallery.com. Studio 590 by the pond in Dowd Cabin, 590 Dowd Circle, Pinehurst. This historic log cabin is the working studio and gallery of artists Betty DiBartolomeo and Harry Neely. Fine oil paintings, commissions and instruction. (910) 639-9404.

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C H A T

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B L A D E

S O N I C

M E S A

O V A L

N E R O

9 4 5 3 8 7 2 1 6

Nature Centers Sandhills Horticultural Gardens (32 acres of gardens). The Sandhills Horticultural Gardens are handicappedaccessible. Daylight hours year-round. (910) 695-3882. Weymouth Woods Sandhills Nature Preserve (898 acres). 1024 Fort Bragg Road, Southern Pines. (910) 692-2167. VILLAGE ARBORETUM. 35 acres of land adjoining the Village Hall on Magnolia Road, Pinehurst. (910) 295-1900.

Art

Music/Concerts

•

Dance/Theater

Winter Hours: Wed.-Sat. 10AM-6PM and Sun. 1PM-6PM

It'sfromnot easy being green..... page 95

T O G O

White Hill Gallery, 407 U.S. 15-501, Carthage, offers a variety of pottery. (910) 947-6100.

• •

910-692-0855

www.WindridgeGardens.com

March PineNeedler Answers

SANDHILLS WOMAN’S EXCHANGE, 15 Azalea Road, Pinehurst. All merchandise at the Exchange is handmade by consignors who live in the community. 10 a.m. – 3 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday. Lunch served 11.30 a.m – 2 p.m. (910) 295-4677.

Key:

1650 Valley View Road • Southern Pines, NC Adjacent to Hyland Golf Course on US 1

• • Film

T S U A M M I C D E J D A V E R E T E D D U E D G E Y R F I A E D

7 6 2 5 4 1 9 3 8

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A P S H E B I S A R G E R U S U N S P W O L N A E M R B A S

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• • Fun

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History

•

Sports

SandhillSeen

Shellie Sommerson, Paul Striberry, Mary Cremmins

Craig Stokes, Tia Chick

Hunt Ball Moore County Hounds Saturday, February 8, 2014 Photographs by Jeanne Paine

Diana Farr, Dr. Doug Jackson, Janet Dubar Dr. Fred and Janie McCashin

David & Cathy Carter

Gary Lergner, Jan VanFossen

Dr. Lee & Barbara Sedwick

David Raley, Trevie Cato

Wayne & Billie Ann Peterson

Anne Webb, Dick Cavedo, Mary Schwab

Chrissie & Peter Doubleday

Effie Ellis, Corine Longanbach

Jane Nelson, Alex & Tucker Dow

March 2014P��PineStraw : The Art & Soul of the Sandhills

SandhillSeen

Kiricka Yarbough, Anne Friesen

Women Helping Women Luncheon Tuesday, January 28, 2014 Photographs by Al & Annette Daniels

Kirby Tyson, Boo Devane, Betty DeVane, Betty Pope

Mary Ellen Meade, Jackie Williams, Kay Porter Mary Hopkins, Jan Fisher, Phyllis Hinman

Catherine Norton, Carol Butler, Jerrell Seawell

Janeen Lee, Kim Disney, Nikki Locklear

Maggie Simmons, Kathy Hodges Pam Martin, Carol Dye, Helen Moeser

Rachel Kilgore, Anne Krahnert, Mary Garland Knott

Lynn Neal, Cynthia Strickland

Marsha Southers, Denise Grandolfo, Bev Miles

Sandy Lampros, Margaret Page, Marilyn Neely Dale Saenz, Lynn Dunn, Judy Mulvihill, Darlene Luppino, Sally Emerine

CUTLER TREE

Tree Pruning • Removal Plant Site Consulting Stump Grinding • Shrub Care Tree Conservation for New Home Sites Free Estimates Geoffrey Cutler Fully Insured 910-692-7769 910-690-7657

BUYING GOLD & SILVER HIGHEST PRICES PAID!

We Are Buying: www.PinehurstCoins.com • Rare Coins & Bullion • Scrap Gold & Silver

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PCE

Pinehurst Coin Exchange Inc.

1420 Highway 5 | Pinehurst, NC

910.235.COIN (2646)

Whispering Pines Animal Hospital Compassionate Care for Cherished Pets E. Lyerly, D.V.M • E. Pelkey, D.V.M Wm. McDuffie, D.V.M • D. Hobbs, D.V.M K. Andrews, D.V.M

Call to schedule an appointment!

(910) 949-2111

March 2014P��PineStraw : The Art & Soul of the Sandhills

SandhillSeen

Gina and Eugene Kim

Kim and Dr. Joe Tozzi, Stephanie Whitney

O’Neal School’s 43rd Annual Auction Saturday, February 1, 2014 Photographs by Al & Annette Daniels

Cynthia Nelson, Noelle McIntyre, Amberly Langley Lauren Delaporte, Vrnda Bailey

Dawn and Mark Wehrum

Cindi Carr, Pamela Guest, Konni McMurray, June Gunter Maggie Nicoll, Penny Vest, Eddie Phillips

Linda Lucks, Mickie and Stoney Lindsey Nancy and Dave Williamson

Brandon and Jenell Copeland, Janet Trent Ricky Taylor, Lori and Donald Andrews

Laura and Mitch Poole

Jessica Trost, John Fessenden, Damara and Birche Meese

Fabulous Finds in Fayetteville

this is what peace of mind looks like warning

these premises protected by

(800) 426-9388

the sign of quality security 127 Hay Street • Fayetteville, NC • 28301 (910) 483-1196 • www.HolmesSecurity.net

March 2014P��PineStraw : The Art & Soul of the Sandhills

SandhillSeen

Clown “Bee” Mary Kay Reynolds, Pilot publisher David Woronoff

Lenny Zorcik, Mary Novitsky, Helen Kirk

10th Annual Spelling Bee for Literacy Thursday, February 6, 2014 Photographs by Al & Annette Daniels

Fred Woodruff, Elizabeth Prevatte, Adam Faw, David Theune

Sandy and Lynn Waterkotte, Andrew Lyons, Tim Burgess

Hogan and Karen Triplett

Bonnie Underwood, Dana Shook, Anna Edwards Jeff Shepard, Gary Strohl, John Wittenstrom

Macy Armstrong, Caroline Polley

Barbara Mellinger, Barb Lamblin, Ellen Airs (The NAMI Team)

Clowns Buttercup (Cathy Renner), Numbers (Ed Renner), and Lollipop (Peggy Sue Hawkins) Dermot and Barbara Kelly

Cora Prude, Rebecca Shepard, Ana Lorentz

Clown “Dancer” Mary Scott Arnold, Mike Cummins

Seth Buchanan, Trish Harris, Wendy Dodson (SCC Spellbinders team)

i n i n g

Gui

d e

The Ice Cream Parlor Established in 1976

Downtown Southern Pines 910-692-7273

195

sandwiches

burgers

salads wraps

soups

american fusion cuisine

floats

lunch tues-sat 11-3 dinner wed-sat 5:30-9:30

coffee

supporting local farmers

chef prem nath

195 bell avenue southern pines 910.692.7110 www.195americanfusion.com

ice cream

check out our daily specials on facebook

The

DiningGuide of the

Sandhills

March 2014P�� PineStraw : The Art & Soul of the Sandhills

T h e A c c i d e n ta l A st r o l o g e r

Have Free, Will Travel By Astrid Stellanova A client spotted me at the P.O. and the poor old thing was a little pouty, claiming my astral forecast got her down. Lordamercy, ole Astrid is a straight-shooting truth teller, but free will is free will, and that don’t just apply to the Baptists. The world’s best actor, Kevin Bacon, once said, “The fault, dear Reader, lies not in our stars . . .” Which means, it ain’t Astrid’s fault if sometimes I laid some bad news down. Anyhow, this month you’ll hear only from Good News Astrid. I don’t want no moping around when I get to the P.O. window to pick up next month’s Hair, Nails and Karma Secrets shipment.

Pisces (February 19–March 20) Birthdays are like Spanx. They may take some getting used to, but once you get your groove thing on, things look pretty doggone good. You’re wearing them birthdays well, too. Looks like a little sunscreen and lipo went a long way. Here’s how Pisces is going to roll for 2014: If you like icing, lick it. If you like cake, have it. Do it your way, my fishes, and make your wishes. This spring brings a transit through Pisces in Venus by April 5 till early May, bringing you straight to the golden-plated gates of love. Brace yourself for a good time.

Aries (March 21–April 19) By now, everybody who knows you knows how much you like action and traction. Guess what? With both a lunar and solar eclipse in the same month, you get your wish: all the action you can handle. Just be sure your loved ones can handle you. If money feels tight, open your pockets. More’s coming. Don’t hock that gold chain yet. You are working a whole new attitude, which might even get you to a new latitude. (Sometimes astral vibes slide straight in on the FM channel via my back molar! It’s like dental Sirius — one bicuspid over I can hear Jimmy Buffett.)

waiting. Refresh your beverage and get back to whatever magic elixir you’ve been drinking. Honey, it’s working.

Virgo (August 23 –September 22) Beginning March 2, Saturn is retro in Scorpio till late July. What that means is you go full retro all the way — you will be tempted to second-guess everything from family ties to whether a neighbor tried to poison the cat. But you have more friends than frenemies, and just chalk this mess up to the stars messing with your mojo. One very tempting offer is coming your way; take it slow and serious but it is probably to your benefit to say yes, and thanks, much obliged. This is the universe offering you repayment for something nice you did in the fourth grade. It’s that retro thing working in your favor, see?

Libra (September 23–October 22) Beware the Ides of March. Ole Astrid is just kidding — it’s just a few uhohs. By the 17th, Mercury is in Pisces so you will have a replay of events from back in January. (OK, I don’t know how to say this like it’s good news.) The uh-ohs of March are all about work — lots of work details in play, but nothing you can’t handle, Dumpling. The flip side: Your love connection is a lotta fun. You could use the balance, get it? Take that windfall, or bonus, and treat you and someone special to a couple’s massage. Y’all deserve it.

Scorpio (October 23–November 21) When Kim Kardashian and Kanye West named their Scorpio baby “North,” Astrid was not surprised. I reckon they wanted to remember which end of the baby was South. Scorpios are big on feng shui. You may want to rearrange the furniture, because you need an outlet and you like doing things your own way. Energy is flowing, but in March you will feel your best in your own space just chilling. Move the sofa but don’t move outta town. My hunch is to trust your hunches. You’re a natural intuitive, but you already knew that, right?

Taurus (April 20–May 20) A bull doesn’t have to take any bull, so let that be your motto. With a new moon in Pisces, Taurus may want to do like my celestial guidebook says and write a novel. (Or not. How many Taurus novelists do you know right off hand?) You’re skeptical, I know, thinking, Astrid consults with a celestial guide? But then, a Taurus couldn’t imagine a red, white or blueblooded Taurus bull with inertia. You got enough forward momentum to take charge of the arena, pasture or office, and that, for certain, is no bull, Baby. Gemini (May 21–June 20) A transit in your sign this month is sure good for business, Sugar. But what business are you in, exactly? That’s what the universe is asking you. Clarity, little twin, is the main aim. This month is such a blur, too, complicated by not one, not two, but three lunations. When you are awake and conscious, you have great opportunities. You got more wishes and dreams coming true than a toddler at Disney World. Save a little magic, and spread it around. Not everybody has your good luck — and this month you get second, third, fourth and fifth chances.

Cancer (June 21–July 22) Busy is your middle name right now. But you kinda like it like that, don’tcha? On the 1st and 16th, take time out when a full moon occurs in Virgo. A full moon in Virgo happens again on the 30th. If you want to travel, try something creative. Dollywood is a personal favorite. You can plug in or drop outta sight, or just do what Astrid does. Sit real still till it gets clear, figure out your wardrobe and accessories, then fill the tank and pack the Samsonite. Sometimes all you need is a thong and a prayer. And leopard print goes with everything.

Leo (July 23–August 22) There’s busy, and then there’s wild. You, Child, are dialing full tilt toward wild. If you have the strength by the middle of the month, go on a trip with your one-and-only and make some memories that don’t require clothes. (Honey, when Astrid talks about skin in the game, she ain’t talking about football, either.) If you wait till the 16th, there’s a full moon in Virgo, which means money. Check the soda machine — you might find some quarters

Sagittarius (November 22–December 21) You’re probably glad February ended without another incident, and March is going to be a whole lot smoother. The big drama is over. Ole Astrid sees a nice situation building from March 5–April 5 when a transit in Aquarius enters your third house. Suddenly, after everybody and his brother wanted you to come to dinner, or go shopping, or just hang out, things got quiet. Don’t freak out, Sugar. A connection was made, so enjoy what’s coming round the bend. Just you wait; destiny has you on speed dial. Capricorn (December 22–January 19) Coming out of a retrograde may leave Capricorns a little undone. Now you may feel like you are living life backward, but that is almost never true. Unless, of course, it is. (Astrid ain’t Einstein, but honestly, sometimes I do think we are living parallel lives.) If you apply for a loan, you’ll get it. If you are in the market to meet somebody, you will. When you count your Chicken McNuggets, there will be an extra one. In short, there might be a few hiccups to weather, but you are a lot luckier than most of us this month. Aquarius (January 20–February 18) Well, with a new moon at the beginning of March in Pisces, another water sign, you get a chance to just ride that big old creative wave like David Hasselhoff on Baywatch. This month it don’t matter if you’re catching a wave or playing poker. Everything is lining up for you just the way my boyfriend Beau likes it when he’s got silver in his pocket and a cue stick in his hand: resources, talent and opportunities. Rack up, and get ready to address the ball, cause you got an astral chart even Minnesota Fats woulda loved this month. No win-lose nowhere, Honey, just win-wins. PS For years, Astrid Stellanova owned and operated Curl Up and Dye Beauty Salon in the boondocks of North Carolina until arthritic fingers and her popular astrological readings provoked a new career path.

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Pine Straw Mar 2014 final.indd 2

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March 2014P�� PineStraw : The Art & Soul of the Sandhills

March PineNeedler It'sIt’snot easy not easy beingbeing green . . . green.....

pineservices

By Mart Dickerson

21 24

3 4 5 6 7 8

33 38

9 10 11 12 13 21 23 25 27 28 29 30

45 49

52 55

60 66

34 31 Newsman Rather 60 Dubbed ACROSS 35 loosen the buttons ACROSS 41 32 Serving of corn 64 Always 1 Discretion blue-penciled 42 33 Not easy being made 65 Slapstick, absurdity 37 5 Sifter discretion break in two 1 45 into soup 67 Restaurant listing 39 10 Association (abbr.) 43 sifter island of a min. 47 Part 36 Not easy being four68 Indian garmet 14 5Hawaiian leafed 44 association (abbr.) 48 Flop, failure69 ‘Love’, French 15 10Not easy being an 38 President Ford 45 hawaiian island Cooking meas. 14old farm sit-com 50 70 Boulevard (abbr.) 40 Neck hair on 46 not easy being an old farm to be 15 51 16 Not easy being the 71 Healing plant Young’s Rd. state tree 49 sit-com 52 tense, jumpy 72 Doctrine or tenet 41 tree Loosen the53buttons 50 17 16Metric weight unitthe state not easy being don't show up, at Fort bragg 73 Eyelid ailment 42 Blue-penciled 52 18 17GetMetric onto weight the Traffic unit 55 not easy being folded in your 45 Break in two pocket 54 Get onto the traffic circle 18Circle DOWN 19 19Not easy being 55 not easy being slopped47 on Part of a min. 58 super bowl assoc. slopped on the hot 1 Drive-through order, 56 48 Flop, failure the hotdog or bbQ dubbed 60 dog or BBQ 2 words 50 Cooking meas. 57 Visual, 64 always 20 20Visual, of of thethe eyeeye 2 Retired persons 51 To be 59 seasoning found in chinese slapstick, absurdity 22 65 association (abbr.) 22 Seasoning found in 52 Tense, jumpy 61 food food listing 67 restaurant 3 Chinese Make small talk 53 Don’t show at assists Japanese dress 68 up, 23 23Assists 4 Swollen, enlarged, 62 Fort Bragg69 'love' ,french cancerous 63 24 24____ vuvu 55 Not easy being 5 Uncle _____ 65 Wading bird 70 boulevard (abbr.) 26 26Wading bird folded in your pocket 6 “The ____ cometh” 66 stomach muscles, (abbr) 71 healing plant 28 28Stomach muscles, 58 Super Bowl assoc. newsman rather tenetGoofs in baseball 31(abbr) 72 doctrine or 7 32 serving of corn 33 not easy being made into soup 36 not easy being four-leafed 38 President Ford Fill in the grid so 40 neck hair on young's rd.

73 ____ and abets

Interested in Advertising?

Call 910.692.7271

Sudoku:

every row, every column and every 3x3 box contain the numbers 1-9.

(abbr.) Make small talk 8 Not enlarged, easy beingcancerous on a swollen, healthy plate (slang) uncle _____ 9 Dir. to the beach "the ____ cometh" 10 Church niches Goofs in baseball 11 Window ledge not easy being on a healthy 12 Not easy being this platebean (slang) dir. to the beach 13 Nightly TV show Church niches 21 Surrender to Window ledge 23 Employ not easy being this bean 25 Glass mason nightly tv show container surrender 27 Paper to or plastic employ 28 Peaks Glass mason 29 Knife partcontainer Paper or plastic 30 Where to get a good Peaks foot-long on 15-501 Knife part and white bear 33 Black Where to getborn a good 34 Oldest, firstfoot-long on 35 15-501 Love intensely black and white 37 Animal docbear oldest, born 39 Turn tailfirst love intensely 43 Stream swirl animal doca hole 44 Made turn tail to Georgia 45 Dir. stream 46 Onswirl top of Made a hole generator 49 Electrical dir. Ga.powder 50 to Bath on top of 52 Spooky electrical generator 54 Baby sheep bath powder 55 Plateau, butte spooky 56 Egg-shaped baby sheep 57 Roman emperor Plateau, butte 59 Not easy being egg-shaped Kermit roman emperor 61 Thaw not easy being Kermit 62 Not easy being thawjealous not being 63 easy Ranch guy jealous ranch guy trend 65 Passing Passing 66 Timetrend period time period

DOWN

1 drive-through order, 2 wds 2 retired persons association

8 2

5 4 7

7 6 7 1 6 4 3 9 6 8 3 7 3

Puzzle answers on page 85

Mart Dickerson lives in Southern Pines and would welcome any suggestions from her fellow puzzle masters. She can be reached at gdickerson@nc.rr.com.

9 1

s o u thw o r d s

Home at Last

By Toby R aymond

I landed on Lakebay Road in Horse

Country, just over the Southern Pines line into Vass, from South Londonderry, Vermont, the last day of April a year ago, and I just about pinch myself every day that I’m really here. With my two horses and cat Sneakers in tow, I think we all heaved a sigh of relief when we said goodbye to the trials and tribulations of mud season forever.

Winter aside, for those who have not experienced the rigors of Vermont living from March through May, let me start by explaining that the “mud” in mud season is the final insult to what is supposed to be a time of new beginnings. We rely on delicate wood-bound ephemerals to make a cameo appearance and returning song birds to herald their tribute to the rite of spring, but more often than not, it’s about bone-chilling, overcast days and freezing rain that coats all it touches with a ghostly sheen. And, if you have horses, it’s about iced-over water pumps, gate latches, and stiff-as-a-board turnout blankets. Not to mention, everyone is constantly slipping on everything. Then there’s driving on the stuff. The locals call it “black ice” — ice so sheer you can’t see it until it’s too late and you’re sliding sideways down the equivalent of a black diamond ski run. The real trouble begins, however, when the sun makes a sudden entrance, with its warmth on your face so inviting you believe the promise of easy times ahead — swimming in the rock quarry, tag-sales, flip-flops, in a world gone from black and white to color — lupine, foxglove, sunflowers, hollyhocks. It’s all so enticing you daydream your way into your car and onto a dirt road that’s turned from frozen solid to pea soup in a matter of hours, and where you’re startled out of your reverie to find yourself irretrievably stuck in fender-deep mud. Even if you’re firmly rooted in reality, the likelihood of negotiating your way around 12-inch, crisscrossed ruts and emerging unscathed is just short of a miracle (I’ve lost parts from the underside of my car that 96

were never found despite slogging through the primordial ooze in knee-high muck boots). But when the towing guy recognized my cell number, and without preamble grumbled, “You again?”, after seventeen years I hit the wall, or should I say, “hit the mud” for the last time. I had had a brief flirtation with the Sandhills, the Harness Track in Pinehurst to be exact, where I groomed trotters during a long-ago spring break. I’ll never forget the intoxicating scent of the night-blooming jasmine that greeted me before first light each morning as I headed to the barn to tend to my charges. Even though the work was demanding, I look back on those times with fond memories, memories that played a part in my accepting an open-ended invitation from friends who have a twenty plus acre piece of heaven in the middle of “Horse Oz.” I was so ready for a change that even the drive from the airport seemed magical; however, it was when we made the turn onto Youngs Road, with one more perfectly manicured farm after another that the magic really kicked in . . . “Look at that farm, and that farm, and that farm . . . Ooooo . . .” And everyone I met was so warm and welcoming I practically made up my mind to stay from Day One. I joined fifteen like-minded horsewomen for their weekly Wednesday breakfast, had barbecue at the Pik N Pig as a prelude to an evening of bluegrass where three young boys played music that would have made Doc Watson and Merle Haggard proud, and on my last night in town, gathered up the troops for a farewell dinner. What sealed the deal, though, was the trail ride I took on the Walthour-Moss Foundation with my new-found friends. A dressage rider, I also love ambling about in the woods without a plan, “on the buckle” (long rein for the uninitiated), and what could be a better place to do just that? With thousands of acres of unspoiled trails, riding here is like having a religious experience. So, I returned North to close the book on my Vermont adventure, and am now ensconced in my new world, complete with a voter ID card and a driver’s license, thanks to my friend who gave me a heads-up to read the manual. And with happy horses that graze on green grass almost all the time, I’m finally home at last. PS Toby Raymond is a writer specializing in branding and PR to the equine world. Toby can be reached at tlraymond2@gmail.com.

March 2014P�� PineStraw : The Art & Soul of the Sandhills

Illustration by Meridith Martens

Farewell to mud season, hello Sandhills spring

Purveyor, Buyer & APPrAiser of fine And estAte Jewellery 229 NE Broad StrEEt • SouthErN PiNES, NC • (910) 692-0551 • In-House RepaIRs Mother and daughter Leann and Whitney Parker Look ForWard to WeLcoMing you to WhitLauter.

Mark Stewart named

2013 Certified Green Professional of theYear by the National Association of Home Builders

â&#x20AC;&#x153;The CGP is one of the premier green building designations in the marketplace. CGPs are dedicated to building homes that perform to the highest standard,â&#x20AC;? -Erik Anderson, chair of the NAHB Education Committee.

Visit us at the Spring Home and Garden Expo at Pineneedles Resort March 7-9, 2014. As a designer, builder, and developer Mark creates custom energy-efficient homes and businesses that will save you money and protect the environment. Let Mark design and build your next energy-efficient home or business.

Call for a free consult today!