(Yes, I do realize that the cows below are black and white.)
I took a ride through a few country vales this past weekend with an old friend. Although the company was excellent, the late January dusk gave the end of the day a dreary visual juxtaposition.
The first three shots here are a bit blurry, but I’m including them anyway — they have an Edvard Munsch quality that’s kind of neat.
That first shot reminds me of Alfred Hitchcock’s “The Birds.”
Roanoke College.
College Lutheran Church.
I keep telling people on my native Long Island how hilly it is in Southwest Virginia. Depending on where you live, you might need to walk up or down just to visit your nextdoor neighbor. It seems like nothing to people who raised here. But it can feel utterly strange at first to anyone who grew up in a region that is almost uniformly flat.
The lingering pinks are burning away before they recede into smoldering violets.
The clouds over them have grown implacably slate.
Fellow native New Yorkers, if you haven’t seen the mountains of Virginia, then you must do so at least once in this lifetime.
Off I-81 North from Roanoke, maybe? Or was it I-64 East?
Given my lifelong penchant for getting lost, I’m probably lucky I made it home to sit here struggling to remember …
My buddy raises hens. It’s frikkin’ awesome. (This post’s headline refers to the black chicken in the fourth photo. She looks like she wants to fight me.)
Hens are safe to hold, too — though they might try to get away, so you’ve got to hold their wings in place, gently but firmly. It’s the roosters that can hurt you; they have large, lateral claws called “spurs” that can be sharp, and they’ll act aggressively to protect the hens.
Most of Southwest Virginia is really beautiful, but this one backyard I visited is totally for the birds.
Eric Robert Nolan, Author 