Walton Conway
Midnight Ride

I did not grow up with horses. But I did grow up dreaming of them.

Anse Maney's plow horse was the first I ever sat upon. We were visiting my grandmother in rural Appalachia. As he came in from plowing the tobacco field he spied me, 6 years old, standing behind the hedgerow, entranced to see his grey in full harness. The kindly old mountain man picked me up and set me on the horse’s back, while it enjoyed a moment's rest. That was fifty some years ago, and still I have such a clear memory of that momentous occasion. 

Midnight Ride
Walton Conway
Going with the Flow

We are having a winter! New snow has fallen upon old, and will be with us for some time…a phenomenon that hasn’t happened in recent years. Temps will remain below freezing for a week, or maybe longer, and are dipping into single digits each night. Aside from feeding animals and basic barn chores, these are good days to stay inside. They encourage contemplation.

Going with the Flow
Walton Conway
The Day Lily
The Day Lily
Betty Miller Conway
Frogs and Toads

I almost stepped on it during a misty walk with Piper the other night. Big as a dessert plate with brown and black mottling and bulging eyes, the toad was peacefully sitting on our rock sidewalk. His colors blended into the stone so artfully that at first, I thought that he was a stone. He blinked in the glare of my flashlight and then stared me down. Not in a confrontational way, or defensively. It was more of a “I’m here minding my own business waiting for a fly-by dinner, please do not disturb” kind of look. I didn’t disturb him, and luckily Piper did not put him in the chipmunk category and bother him either.

Frogs and Toads
Betty Miller Conway
Big Yellow School Buses

The line of traffic stretches all the way down King Street as hordes of SUV’s, many with luggage carriers, snake their way towards campus. It is a warm August day, and everyone has their windows rolled up to optimize the refrigerated air in their cars. But occasionally, I see an open window defying the heat and exhaust smell as asome enthusiastic young personl in an Appalachian State University t-shirt leans out and waves excitedly at someone else in the car line.

I sigh as I sit (not so patiently) in this long line of traffic. Apparently, I have chosen a bad day to go the feed store

Big Yellow School Buses

Midnight Ride

Midnight Ride

I did not grow up with horses. But I did grow up dreaming of them.

Anse Maney's plow horse was the first I ever sat upon. We were visiting my grandmother in rural Appalachia. As he came in from plowing the tobacco field he spied me, 6 years old, standing behind the hedgerow, entranced to see his grey in full harness. The kindly old mountain man picked me up and set me on the horse’s back, while it enjoyed a moment's rest. That was fifty some years ago, and still I have such a clear memory of that momentous occasion. 

Going with the Flow

Going with the Flow

We are having a winter! New snow has fallen upon old, and will be with us for some time…a phenomenon that hasn’t happened in recent years. Temps will remain below freezing for a week, or maybe longer, and are dipping into single digits each night. Aside from feeding animals and basic barn chores, these are good days to stay inside. They encourage contemplation.

The Day Lily

The Day Lily

by Betty Conway


Luke 12:27: Consider the lilies how they grow: they toil not, they spin not; and yet I say unto you, that Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.


She’s no violet, pressing her velvety softness shyly against a spring-warmed boulder.

Nor is she a climbing rose, tumbling over the grey fences of summer in a pink waterfall.

She is a lily—

Common, hardy, often forgotten—

Bordering the yards of abandoned home places,

Spilling over into the fields in a ragged line, 

An escapee, dancing jubilantly with the wild daisies.

Littering roadside ditches with slivers of orange sunshine,

No mowing machine can keep her down.

Knobby, gnarly, woody-brown bulbs

Holding the earth together 

On hillsides too steep to plow,

Green stems pushing through rocks and dirt

Too poor to grow beans, or corn, or tomatoes.

Unacknowledged and undeterred,

She shoots straight 

Up into the sky

Her own glowing star.

Frogs and Toads

Frogs and Toads

I almost stepped on it during a misty walk with Piper the other night. Big as a dessert plate with brown and black mottling and bulging eyes, the toad was peacefully sitting on our rock sidewalk. His colors blended into the stone so artfully that at first, I thought that he was a stone. He blinked in the glare of my flashlight and then stared me down. Not in a confrontational way, or defensively. It was more of a “I’m here minding my own business waiting for a fly-by dinner, please do not disturb” kind of look. I didn’t disturb him, and luckily Piper did not put him in the chipmunk category and bother him either.

Big Yellow School Buses

Big Yellow School Buses

The line of traffic stretches all the way down King Street as hordes of SUV’s, many with luggage carriers, snake their way towards campus. It is a warm August day, and everyone has their windows rolled up to optimize the refrigerated air in their cars. But occasionally, I see an open window defying the heat and exhaust smell as asome enthusiastic young personl in an Appalachian State University t-shirt leans out and waves excitedly at someone else in the car line.

I sigh as I sit (not so patiently) in this long line of traffic. Apparently, I have chosen a bad day to go the feed store

Doorknobs

Doorknobs

My youngest left for a new job in Idaho last week. I put my winter coat over my flannel pajamas and followed her to the barn as she said goodbye to Josephine the pig and gave the donkey a quick pat. Her dad handed her a can of corn, and she dutifully threw it to the chickens, the kernels making an orange arc in the air before landing in the muddy barnyard. Then I stood waving, shivering in the cold March wind, as she drove down the driveway and out of sight around the first curve on Willett Miller Road.

She left her doorknob collection behind of course…

The Weather Woman

The Weather Woman

The wind is howling, and the snow is whirling around my windows trying to get in. The forecast is ominous: a foot or more of snow and ice for the North Carolina mountains! But I am prepared. I have filled all the bathtubs with water, bought enough provisions for a winter in Alaska, charged all the phones, and replaced the batteries in our flashlights. I made sure that Walton brought in enough firewood to last at least a month and that he put the scraping blade on the tractor. The animals are safely in the barn with plenty of hay, and our matching set of insulated Carrhart coveralls is hanging in the mudroom, ready for wear. There will be no eggs today.

Oh Christmas Tree

Oh Christmas Tree

I could see it from the parking lot—a large skinny box precariously leaned up against my apartment door blocking the peep hole. ‘What on earth?” I wondered as I took my canvas bag filled with student papers out of the car and trudged toward my apartment. It was a gray December day in South Texas, and the breeze smelled of salt and sand as it peppered a few drops of rain against my face.

The Playhouse

The Playhouse

My father built the little plank house in our garage. My basset hound, Oscar, and I supervised the construction carefully. Oscar wiggled his entire long body with excitement as my dad, whistling as he worked, occasionally asked me to hand him a nail, hammer, or some other tool. I felt very important as I “helped” him assemble the playhouse. First, Daddy built the walls like a big box, then he cut a window and a door, and finally he added a floor and roof.

I must have been only four or five, but I remember it clearly. It was November and already cold in the North Carolina mountains,,,,

Neighbors

Neighbors

The rain was coming down in sheets, and the windshield wipers were struggling as I turned out of the hospital parking lot and headed toward home. To be honest, I was struggling, too. I had been keeping watch over my sick mother-in-law all day, and I was tired and worried. The heavy rain and wind, compliments of the remnants of hurricane Ida sweeping northwards across the North Carolina mountains, didn’t help any. But despite the rain, I stopped on the way home and picked up a few groceries –and a flashlight-- for my 99-year-old aunt who lived alone and was anxious about the flash flood warning that was being broadcast over all the airways.

Wide Open Spaces

Wide Open Spaces

It came the day I was at the Painted Desert--a strange kind of feeling that began with funny jitters in my stomach and then washed over me with an emotional slipstream of vague uneasiness. I attributed it to the heat. After all, it was 108 degrees in the desert! The sun shimmered off the multi-hued sand and rock formations that had been eons in the making. Salmon pinks, blue-grays, and beiges melded in a way that made me feel small and insignificant. The sheer magnitude of that wide expanse of beautiful earth was enough to make anyone feel strange.

April is the Cruelest Month

April is the Cruelest Month

It’s the time of the year that we hold our breath. In mid-April, the farm is on the very cusp of spring. The days are getting warmer, but the nights remain chilly. The trees are still mostly bare, but the first murmur of green is visible in the lower valleys. The sarvisberry, wild cherries, and crabapples splash the still-brown countryside with delicate pinks, whites, and reds. The pears, peaches, then apples follow close behind, their tiny buds opening to the bright sunshine. The blueberry bushes redden in preparation for the growing season ahead.

2020 In Review

2020 In Review

A classic Christmas Eve blizzard brought in a white Christmas this year--postcard picture perfect! A second snow of the winter has fallen this first week of January: a blanket of snow covers the farm and mountain, giving the world a clean slate, a fresh start for the new year. After 2020, we embrace the chance for a new beginning

Winds of Change

Winds of Change

It’s December, and the wind is howling on Willett Miller Road. As usual. We don’t get much of a break from the wind during the winter here on the farm. It starts at the top of Old Field Bald, gathers up momentum as it hurtles down the side of the mountain, and then hits the sides of our house and barn with a reverberating wallop. It is not unusual to have gusts in excess of fifty miles per hour on our side of the mountain!

A Profusion of Blooms

A Profusion of Blooms

September has finally arrived on the farm accompanied by a chorus of insect song and a profusion of flowers announcing the end of summer. September is one of my favorite months here in the mountains—it features the warm days of summer but without its fiery thunderstorms, and it rivals the beauty of October without its leaf-fall heartbreak. The days are quiet, the nights cool and calm. I love how the soft breeze ruffles the tops of the tall grass and whispers through the tree leaves like a promise.

Donkey Love

Donkey Love

Penelope got out the other day. After frantically searching for her all over the pasture, I finally found her on the other side of the fence in the fairy forest, standing peacefully among the tiny doors and houses like a big, long-eared garden statue. “Does Penelope think she is a fairy?” I wondered. I couldn’t help but laugh. Penelope was not amused; instead she stared at me as though I were an intruder in her space. When I attempted to approach her, she became coy—tossing her floppy ears, switching her tail, staying just out of reach, and giving me that determined donkey look that said, “I’m in charge—I’ll go back when it suits me.”

Rocky Road

Rocky Road

Back when I was a kid, somebody gave me a book about stones. It was well-used before I ever got my hands on it, a nondescript grey book with a book jacket long gone. It was called The First Book of Stones and even though it was not my usual type of reading material, it transformed my childhood playhouse into a museum of rocks.

I’m not quite sure why I suddenly decided to become a collector of rocks.

Katydids

Katydids

t’s the middle of August and like clockwork, the katydids have started to sing. Their repetitive, raspy chorus echoes through the valley.  Accompanied by the hum of the crickets, they provide a late summer symphony as we sit on the porch in the cool evenings, watching the fireflies light up the sky.  For me it is both a mesmerizing and lonely sound.  It always makes my heart hurt a little to hear them announcing the end of summer and the transition into fall.  My Aunt Margaret always says that once the katydids start to sing, there are only 40 more days until frost

That seems hard to believe, here in the heat of August on the farm.  During the day, summer is bursting out of her seams with beauty…

Fairy Gardening

Fairy Gardening

Walton tells me that I am getting carried away with it.  I get his point. I do wonder about myself as I sit on the ground in the woods, painstakingly creating a tiny ladder of twigs that leads to a fairy door in a hollow tree.  Most grown women have better things to do, and I know it.  Indeed, there are lots of chores to do on the farm.  It’s grass growing season, so the yards and pastures perpetually need mowing, the weeds grow faster than I can pull them up, and the herb garden beside our house clearly needs tending and watering.  (Let’s not even talk about the inside work that need doing!)  But it is a pretty day, and I am interested in a different kind of garden, one for the most elusive and treasured of guests—the fairies.

Willet ponds farm, LLC

 
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Located in Todd, NC
(828) 297-6573

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