The Appalachian Voice
New river organic growers find themselves growing
Organic farming is one of the fastest growing markets in the agricultural industry, and the New River Organic Growing (NROG) cooperative wants to fill this niche. “The demand is here,” Charles Church, an original member of NROG, said. “People eat everyday and somebody has to grow food. That’s one thing you know people will buy.”…
Read MoreNew perspectives on a platter
The lofty vision of the Harvest Table Restaurant in Meadowview, Virginia can be served up in two different ways. One, you can catch the drift by reading some of the comments on the menu and getting into a heated debate with the restaurant manager. Or two, you can read the runaway bestseller, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle,…
Read MoreEditorial – End Game for King Coal
/images/AppalachianVoice/Mar_2008/Edit.cartoon.jpg The American coal industry has never been more profitable, and yet paradoxically, has never been more vulnerable. With the rise of coal prices to unprecedented levels, new coal mines of marginal quality are being forced online. The owners are squeezing small profits from big risks. Experts who have observed mine safety budget cuts expect…
Read MoreBook review – Lockjaw by Holly Farris
Lockjaw by Holly Farris Gival Press, Arlington, VA The language is fresh, the stories stimulating. Holly Farris’s first short story collection, Lockjaw, offers poignant glimpses into the interior lives of an array of diverse characters that linger in the reader’s mind. Her Appalachian narrators, though deeply rooted in Southwest Virginia, exhibit characteristics universally human. As…
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Hanging Out in Hanging Rock State Park
By Joe Tennis Among the picturesque plains of the North Carolina Piedmont, the Sauratown Mountains rise north of Winston-Salem. Capped by cliffs, these peaks on the east side of the Blue Ridge are known locally as the “mountains away from the mountains,” and take their name from the Saura Indians, who lived in this area…
Read MoreGreenest Holiday Gifts You Can Buy
By Sarah Vig and Melanie Bianchi It’s enough to turn anyone into a Scrooge! So many potential gifts ignore concerns about natural ingredients, fair labor, the carbon imprints of production and shipping, wasteful packaging, and so on… Enter Appalachian Voice’s Green Gift Guide! With nine suggestions for eco-conscious giving, your Christmas tree won’t be the…
Read MoreA ‘Greener’ Christmas Tree
Integrated Pest Management and Fraser Fir Farming By Sarah Vig For most people, the quest for the perfect Christmas is not so different today than it was 150 years ago. People have been cutting their own Christmas trees since the 1850s. At the time, trees were chosen from forest, not farms. The first Christmas tree…
Read MoreSaving Place: Art in Nature
Theresa L. Burriss is an assistant professor at Radford University. She is currently working on a book entitled Women of Change, Women of Courage: Appalachian Activists, to be published by the University of Tennessee Press. Natural beauty abounds in Appalachia, and it inspires artists and scientists equally. In a discussion at Radford University entitled “Saving…
Read MoreHiking in the Highlands: The Virginia Creeper Trail
You can hike it. You can bike it. You can take it by horseback or on cross-country skis. Zipping across most of eastern Washington County, the Virginia Creeper Trail is a multi-use recreational trail linking downtown Abingdon to the North Carolina border near Grayson County’s Whitetop community. The 34-mile-long trail is the former site of…
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