The Wolfpen Notebooks: A Record of Appalachian Life by James Still

Author:James Still
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: The University Press of Kentucky

Mountain Horse Sense

“Yellow poplar makes good coffin lumber.”

“The balk between the corn rows should be the width of a mule's rump.”

“Corn meal that's not dried out proper makes stubborn bread.”

“Goose grease is the main-est thing for waterproofing shoes.”

“Plant ’taters when the signs are in the feet.”

“When I was a boy I used to have headaches. I don't know why. I'd crumple up black walnut leaves and fill my cap full. I was told that would do some good.”

“The time to plant beans is on the hundredth day of the year.”

“Jimson weed grows in rich dirt, the reason it loves barnyards. As bad as it stinks, it's good for something. The Man Above didn't put anything here on the earth for nothing. Hit's good for asthma. Lovel Thompson got kicked off the Short Dog bus for smoking it, though.”

“As Hiram Gibson used to say, ‘If you don't pick the goose, you won't have any feathers.’ ”

“O, that Queen of the Meadow! The best herb medicine for children. Cures a bunch of things.”

“On the north side of the hills the white oaks grow the slowest. They make the best splints for baskets.”

“To cure a ruptured child, split a sugar tree sapling and pass it between the breaks.” —Melvin Amburgey

“Bread dough turns sad if it's left to sit too long.”

“I make my own chewing tobacco. I select me some cured leaves and spread honey on them. And then I prize open a beech log part way and stuff the tobacco in and let it cure a couple of months.”

“Every July I lay-by my corn, chop out the crabgrass, goose grass, careless weed, and foxtail. Crabgrass is the worse. Whoever created it didn't know the mischief they were making.”

“A dry June makes good crops, it's regular been said.”

“When the ivy blooms, it's time to rob your bee-gums.”

“I had a pear tree that quit on me. Barren two years straight. Astor Amburgey told me what to do, said, ‘Make it mad. Kick it, drive nails into it, cuss it.’ I did. Every since hit's come across.”

“We call these hard maples either ‘whiskey trees’ or ‘sugar trees,’ depending on what you need them for. Sugar trees if you're up to boiling down the sap for sweetening. Whiskey trees to make charcoal to use at the ’still. Charcoal don't make all that smoke for the Law to spot you at your business.”

“Grow dogticks in your garden and the moles will never plow it for you.”

“Corn is not ready to grind into meal until it's as dry as an old maid's kiss.”

“The way to catch a fly is to charm it. I can trap a fly in my hand. All it takes is know-how. I've never wasted a dime on fly-slappers.”

“Blinky milk—that's sour milk. Turning milk creates eye-bubbles. When the bubbles start winking at you it's ready to churn.”

“If you come on a time when you think you've got nothing to live for, it's the end of the line for you and you might as well be dead,

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