Low Tech Person In A High Tech World!!!

I'm pushing myself too, TOO much. And I know it. Trying to learn all this technology is making my BRAIN hurt and my body ache. I'm taking an online social media marketing class that has been helpful but truthfully? I don't want to spend hours on social media marketing. Some of their methods can't see the trees for the forest.  Some of it I find useful, most I find a pain in the butt. If someone wants to do this marketing as a full time job, that's great. I don't...just pick up a few tricks and tools here and there to use and let this grow organically.  If I'd just post more and share those posts in links here and there, just what I've been doing, I think I'd accomplish the same thing. Alas I never post regularly and I forget to share what I do post!!  My bad.

Tonight I'm frustrated, I can't get their program to work...plus every time I learn a program, they change it!!! So I will do what I'm good at and that's put a blog update on here. People who are suppose to find me will. Still have to get this blog changed over to a website. Already have the name purchased. That will be another week in the future. These days it is just too much going on to shake a stick at. Friday night sat about 6 hours at the ER with my son. He's having vision and pain problems. ER's on Friday nights are really INTERESTING places. Bless those people manning those ER's. I'd of pulled my hair out I had to work that every weekend!!! Not sure what is going on with my son, he has a referral to an eye specialist. Blessings and prayers would be appreciated.

Wolf Creek Indian Village and Museum is having their 20th Anniversary celebration, Saturday September 17th and I've been trying to help on the history timeline and identifying pictures. Blasts from the past and realizing so much history because of this one little site.  Yep I've already caused an uproar with my Jenny Wiley posts. BUT dag gone it.... so many of the history books are WRONG and of all the stories that need to be told, the history of the early Europeans and Native Americans need MUCH more scrutiny in Appalachia than what has been written and taken as fact.  Especially when in fact, a lot of what has been passed as history of our area is absolute BS. WCIV is a place for those conversations and beginnings. So life goes on.

Next....When Appalachian Service Project crews were here, repairing my home, I felt so grateful, I made some corn husks dolls and such as gifts. They were not great and accomplished in a hurry and I used every dyed corn husk I had.  I had to get some more and dye them quickly!! I promised to try to demonstrate at the Mercer County Heritage Festival coming up here in a couple of weeks.  Here is one of the little ladies I made for a member of one of the crews.

This one went to a Pittsburgh Steeler's fan who saw what shucks were dyed in my box, wanted black and gold.  Did it, though the flash on the camera makes it look much lighter. Need to work on my photography too. 

So last week, I began the process of dying corn husks to replenish the supply. I'm trying to write a how to book on how I do this, and give directions on how to make all kinds of corn husk crafts. It's in progress!! Thus why I was interested in Social media marketing. I'm just not interested in going that in depth to spend days on it to do what I could figure out with a Google search! But it did get me to work on my twitter account, open a bitly account, get on Linked in and Klout and Hootsuite and explain the concepts which is a good background to know. I just don't like using the programs they want us to use. Big Data is a bit intrusive and scary...I just want to sell a corn husk craft book later! I'm one of those people that believe things will come to you when you want or need them. Don't need to push it, so much as let it be found. 

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Anyway, I use all kinds of things to dye shucks: Kool-aid, food coloring, cold water dyes, rit dye, natural dyes. The brownish black above was accomplished using black walnut husks.  What ever I have on hand. It's been so damp and humid, I was having a time after they were dyed, getting them to dry for storage on the dining room table.  Outside we kept having the "monsoons" every day so the ground was damp and the wind would pick up and then die down. Laying them out on the ground on black plastic usually works on a hot day....IF the wind is not blowing. I finally resorted and used the old pickup truck bed as a drying rack. THAT worked beautifully.  Hillbilly ingenuity.

I always use salt as a mordant. Think of dying Easter eggs, it is the same concept. So here are some pictures of that process and a flyer for the Mercer County Heritage festival. I'm going and will be demonstrating as long as I can hold out. I start getting veritgoey or washed out I will have to quit...but I think I'm in better shape this year than last. Last year I was VERY sick and I hope I hold up much better this year. 

BUT, I NEVER KNOW! Like I've said before, I can tell myself, "I'm going to do such and such today!" And my body replies, "HA! YOU WISH!"  Such is the life of chronic illness.  But it's always a good day.....I WOKE UP!!! Just have to roll with it. 

Took 3 days to dry these on the table.

Purple UNSWEETENED Kool-aid with salt as a mordant

Taking over the sink for a couple of days!

I use mason jars filled with water for weights.

Setting overnight.

BEST IDEA all year. Black Truck bed liner with sides, didn't blow away and dried in one afternoon.

End of POST. Blessing all and back to this CRAZY class. I'm so far behind.

Summer 2016 Update Last of the Appalachians?

Much going on at the old homestead. People have come to volunteer their time through a wonderful organization called the Appalachian Service Project and friends who have donated extra materials to help repair my house. It's been badly neglected and would be falling down if something isn't done. So far what has been done is amazing!!! Groups from all over the U.S. have helped.

If you want to support a group truly helping Appalachian people here is a link to their website.Appalachian Service Project. Now with the WV floods, more help will be needed than ever. While we are trying to figure out what to do to increase our economic development, it helps us to maintain homes we have.

I've been about useless in this endeavor. First, I screwed my foot up tripping into the hearth. This new development of Meniere's Disease, I keep forgetting I can't move or turn too fast. I have to let my ears catch up with my head or I stagger.

I keep telling people, those wild times I had in my twenties and thirties actually was a training ground for this.  I could walk straight, drunk, though if I moved too fast, or bent over, I fell then too.

Myself and bestie Sherri. I asked for a million dollars
She asked to, "get out of trouble". I think she made a drive through out of a restaurant.

Well it's that way now but constantly and none of the fun of drinking. What is up with that?  If I actually get drunk will it make it better? Too chicken to try it and with everything else going on...I do good to move. Woke up with the vertigo yesterday. THAT I HATE! I know how to treat it, so it's not as scary but another day lost on BS illnesses. Sigh...work with what ya got! It's a good day....I WOKE UP.

Enough of the illnesses I can't do a thing about but learn to live with them. There is this wonderful facebook page you should check out called the Appalachian Project, or TAP. A few days ago Shane one of the admin's posted this:

The Last of the Appalachians?

"We have discussed at length on TAP the fact that many traditional Appalachian practices have waned and some have almost completely disappeared. From canning our own food to observing certain deeply held superstitions and everything in between, a lot of our cultural traditions are clearly beginning to be lost on new generations. I have observed it in my own children who have little to no interest in learning the beliefs and skills of our forefathers.

My personal belief is that the world at large is becoming more homogenous in large part due the widespread use of the Internet. Information is literally at your fingertips and exchanges with folks from different areas of the country and world are quite common. My son has made friendships with people from Peru, New Zealand and the UK. They routinely discuss the geopolitical impact of Brexit and the upcoming US presidential election on world events. The closest I would have come to a similar experience would have been to put a message in a bottle, throw it in the Clinch River and hope it floated all the way to Ecuador.

I see all these rapid changes and then think how different my childhood was from my parents and how much their childhoods were different from their parents, and so on. Very few people truly want to be drastically different than their peers so some of this "Appalachian assimilation" is inevitable as people see how the mainstream of society live.

My question is what can, or even should, be done to preserve our culture? Change isn't necessarily a bad thing but I personally don't relish the thought of becoming the new Mohicans. - Shane

I'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments."

This is something I have pondered forever. We have changed. Just in our speech that has changed so much. I was demonstrating at an event once and I do what we call as "cross switching". When I'm with other Appalachians I revert back to our dialect in a BIG way. The way we speak among ourselves is much different many times than when we are in public. Especially if we are in any professional capacity. SAD but if you don't, people treat you like you are ignorant.

Last year a the Mercer County Heritage Festival demonstrating corn husk crafts,
I will be there again this year, hopefully. Lord be willin and the creeks don't rise,

When I'm in public I speak not so much with a twang or the sing song of our language. Many say they can't understand what I'm saying if I speak with the dialect. Feller came up and watched for a time heard me speak and made the comment, "So by your speech, you are not really an Appalachian? Did you learn all this from the Fox Fire books?"  He got a mouthful of Appalachian then. I told him, "How'd ye like to go snipe huntin' and I lose yer ass in these mountains?" Got my red up then. He ambled on to insult someone else.

I didn't learn my skills from the Fox Fire books. The Fox Fire books were one of the first to write down some about our culture, our skills and became popular. Here is what I posted in response to Shane and the Appalachian Project post:

"I'm sharing this one on my page Shane and with your permission on my blog too. As someone who is descended from a LONG line of Appalachians and still living here I question this all the time. I worked in the tourism industry and helped people with their genealogical research in Appalachia for 25 years. I demonstrate and STILL demonstrate some of the old skills.

I get pissed off when people put down the Fox Fire books. I didn't learn my skills in the Fox Fire books, I was taught like the kids that wrote it down....BUT IT'S written DOWN and preserved that way. I know people who are not from here that know more of our culture and skills than our own people do today. That's the sad part!!! Getting the younger generation proud of who they are, where they come from and interested in learning these things, that is the challenge.

In my county there was a high school history teacher, John Dodson, who 20 years ago, developed a program that the high school students went out and interviewed family members. Kind of like the Fox Fire tradition but with a twist. They put it all online and maintain the database, even today. It's called the Bland County History Archives. Wonderful project because they learn computer skills while preserving history and culture at the same time. Here is a link to their project. Bland County History Archives

The reason I started my blog was to share some of the little knowledge I still know before I'm gone. It is said, it takes a thousand voices to tell a single story. Appalachians should be sharing and writing down their own history. Appalachia is always changing but I think it is the sharing of our culture and our history that will keep it alive."

I'd love to hear your comments too.