10 Years Ago
Week of October 15, 2015
SUGAR GROVE
Abandoned Houses Hold Childhood Memories of Past
October is the month when leaves begin to blow in every direction, leaving abandoned farmhouses to look so lonely.
Perhaps there is no accessible road, and the land is boggy and usually flooded due to the rain water coming down from the mountains. Mother Nature seems to have a way of reclaiming her territory and soon the entire structure is overgrown, leaving behind a scene that can be described as alluring.
This scene could also be described as an eyesore, dangerous and creepy by folks who are not fans. Were one to ask the owner for permission to enter the lonely structure that has been empty for decades, one would be welcomed with thick layers of dust covering the entire inside.
Perhaps there are dust-laden shelves, filled with empty bottles and organized in a ramshackle fashion against a moldy wall. The peeling walls, patches of dampness and the thick layer of filth shroud everything in the room.
Did the walls hear a lot of laughter and crying children? Were there big family dinners served here? Was this grandpa’s and grandma’s house where children ran with delight into their arms? Was this a sight of a wedding for a young woman?
Were there flowers around the abandoned homestead, and who planted them?
Perhaps there were cooked suppers, planned family events, welcomed visitors, sitting up all night with sick children, the wash hung out, birthdays celebrated and fighting and making up.
These owners were perhaps so happy and proud.
They must have had many hopes for their future. One could step over rusty nails or encounter loose hanging glass and walk on floors that could be a great trap door for someone to fall through, never to be seen again. So, with that, the new rule is “If you don’t own it, don’t go near it”—Shane.
With that goes the memory of a different life and a different world out in the middle of nowhere. There is a problem with time as it flies by so quickly, and photography is the only way to stop it.
So many of these houses have been left in heirship and no one wants to agree on what’s the best thing to do…sell, rent or just let it fall down to disrepair. “We couldn’t tear down grandma’s house! We can’t sell it because those re our memories and anyway, someday we’ll have the money to restore it!”
There seems to be more abandoned buildings than there are people to tear them down so it will be an issue for generations to come.
And yet, the empty house sits there as a reminder that the last tenants were called away by job, location, death, or who knows what. These old houses have a story of memories. Sad and just another reminder that everything changes.
Farm Drones To Be on Display At Ag Showcase
It’s a bird…it’s a plane…it’s Superman!…no, it’s Old Mac Donald’s precision farm drone measuring the moisture and swamping in his fields. Once the exclusive gadget of spy games and surgical air strikes, unmanned aerial vehicles are rapidly developing as versatile tools that can deliver productive benefits to the family farm.
“Getting imagery beyond visual sight is nothing new,” Chad Colby, founder and principal of Colby AgTech in Goodfield, IL., points out, and the challenge has always been getting useful data in a very timely manner. So many things can change in your field if you have to wait 24 to 48 hours for the imagery.”
New drone technology that “works like a dream” processes data during flights,” Colby emphasizes, so the farmer can receive “actual imagery beyond visual sight very shortly after.”
Drones can gather “hundreds of photos” and assemble them “automatically during flight, creating a seamless aerial map.” The technology “eliminates the long processing time,” he says, and delivers “stitched and geo-referenced images to your internet connected device in minutes.
Consultants estimate that drones can fly a quarter section in less than 15 minutes, down-loading the data to software that guides tractors through the fields. Sophisticated drones that identify and relay the geographical coordinates of the troubled sectors can guide precision soil management and nutrient revitalization conservatively and where necessary, not wasting resources on healthy areas.
Perhaps recognizing the huge economic potential the technology offers farmers and others, last spring the Federal Aviation Agency proposed new rules for drones that it said it would finalize by next June.
In a sign that the FAA might be heeding the practical needs of farmers and others, in May it announced a partnership initiative with drone manufacturers to explore commercial UAV operation further. That project includes testing of drone operation in rural areas beyond visual line-of-sight.
Based on the rapid advances and innovations over the last three years, Colby endorses the “excitement around the world about this technology in agriculture use. Today, we are moving toward the fact that drones will be another tool in the farmer’s toolbox.”
20 Years Ago
Week of October 20, 2005
North Mountain Tree Crowned West Virginia’s Largest White Oak
Along with its neighbor to the north, Hardy County, Pendleton could lay claim to the title of West Virginia’s land of big trees.
As listed in the state’s Division of Forestry’s excellent publication, the “West Virginia Big Tree Register,” Pendleton County is officially the home of the state’s largest sugar maple (the state tree), white pine, black cherry and black birch trees.
It is also home to the second largest red oak in the state.
Hardy County is home to nine trees known to be the largest of their type in the state, and Jefferson and Harrison counties each are home to ten trees that are the largest of their type in West Virginia.
But now Pendleton County can also boast that it is home to the largest white oak tree in the state.
It is on the property of Mason and Sue Hinkle, who live on the western side of North Mountain near US Rt 33, near the turnoff to the Guy Bland Road.
With its many branches and huge, beautifully symmetrical crown, the magnificent white oak can be seen from Rt. 33.
That vantage point is about one-tenth of a mile past the Guy Bland Road turn-off for motorists traveling from Franklin towards Judy Gap or, obviously, shortly before the Guy Bland Road for those traveling from the North Fork Valley towards the county seat.
That tree surpasses a white oak in Fox’s Hollow, Hampshire County, as the state’s largest.
The Pendleton County white oak stands 107 feet tall with a circumference of 223 inches (a little more than 18.5 feet) and an average crown spread of 114 feet.
The Hampshire County white oak has a slightly larger circumference (224 inches) but falls short in height (100 feet) and average crown spread (109 feet).
Thus, the Pendleton white oak has a score of 358.5, using the point system devised by the DOF. The Hampshire white oak’s score is 351.
According to the “Big Tree Register,” the most famous big tree in West Virginia history was the Mingo white oak, which died in 1938.
That tree grew to a circumference of 27 feet and four inches, a total height of 145 feet and a crown spread of 96 feet. More than 10,000 board feet of lumber were estimated to have come from the Mingo County white oak.
The white oak—its scientific name is quercus alba—is one of the state’s most valuable timber trees, with wood that is perfect for making veneer, lumber and whiskey barrels.
The white oak’s acorns are the most preferred by wildlife because of the presumed “sweetness” of their taste.
Although slow in growing, the white oak is one of the longest lived of the oak family, with some having a life span of more than 500 years.
The tree is found at lower elevations in the Mountain State.
Its leaves turn red or brown in autumn and often stay attached to the tree in winter.
The county’s red oak that is the state’s second largest, as well as the state’s largest sugar maple and white pine, can all be found in the North Fork Valley, between Cherry Grove and the Riverton area.
The state’s largest black birch is on Dickenson Mountain Road, and the biggest black cherry is on land belonging to the Nature Conservancy on Pike Knob.
Pendleton Is A State Leader In Local Emergency Preparedness And Response
Bob Grimm, the president of the county commission, makes no bones about it.
Speaking of the emergency services infrastructure that has been developed here, Grimm says, “We’re so far ahead of a majority of counties. We’re on the leading edge.”
The individual most responsible for that “leading edge,” Grimm declared, is Curtis Crigler, who, the commissioner says, has done “a fantastic job. He knows where to go to get things, and he is so persistent at it.”
Building on a foundation that Ruskin Murphy, his predecessor, Crigler, who has been the local emergency management director for less than a year and a half, has shrewdly and astutely milked the acquisition of equipment from federal programs—what Crigler calls “free stuff that’s out there”—and grant funding from the Homeland Security program to build up an impressive emergency services operation in this county, a county that knows all too well the meaning of the dreaded words “natural disaster.”
The “free stuff” Crigler has scavenged ranges from several generators and computers to numerous vehicles.
“Ruskin started the ball rolling,” Grimm said. “Curtis has just continued that and raised emergency preparation here to a high, high level.”
40 Years Ago
Week of October 17, 1985
Upper Tract Water System Construction On Schedule
Construction of the $968,000 Upper Tract public water system is moving ahead of schedule, Pendleton County Coordinator Tom Painter said yesterday.
Already more than 85 percent of the 9.3 miles of water line has been installed, and site preparation is underway for the 100,000-gallon water storage tank and the pump house.
Work is also being done on the spring and pump house site on the Smoke Hole Road north of Route 220. The spring, which flows some 1200 gallons a minute and is the source of water for the system, is on US Government land.
When the system goes into operation, water will be pumped from the spring north of Route 220 several miles to the 100,000-gallon storage tank and it then will move through the lines by gravity to the users.
Some 20 or so hydrants are being installed along the entire length of the system to provide fire protection.
The system will serve 210 families and business establishments in the Upper Tract Community who have been dependent upon private springs and wells. Most of the water in the area contains a large amount of sulphur and other minerals.
Construction work on the system began last August 23, and it is expected to be completed in December.
Painter said he probably will begin signing up users next week for the proposed Brandywine water system. He said it is necessary to have at least 208 users to get financing for the project.
The Brandywine water system is expected to cost in the neighborhood of $1,760 million.
70 Years Ago
Week of October 13, 1955
EDITORIALS
Too Many Hunting Accidents – – –
Some 125,000 hunters will take to the woods in West Virginia on Saturday, October 15, for the opening of squirrel season, the state’s biggest and most hazardous hunting event.
And, according to the West Virginia Conservation Commission, if the accident trend set last year continues more than a score of hunters will be carried from the woods on opening day, dead or wounded through accidental shootings.
Hunting is a great sport. Time spent in the woods can be soothing and relaxing, but it also can be tragic. Let’s resolve to be especially careful this season so we can all come back and brag about our marksmanship and hunting prowess.
