David Kennard, far left, stands with a team of Student Conservation Association volunteers in 1981 in Great Smoky Mountain National Park.

EDITOR'S NOTES: Greetings from the Appalachians 

By strict definition, I am a tree-hugger, that is to say I have in the past hugged a tree … just before cutting it down.

I should qualify that.

If you are reading this column in today’s Robesonian, there is a good chance I’m somewhere in the backwoods of the Appalachian mountains — yes, by choice.

Years ago, the summer of 1981 to be precise, I had a high school counselor convince me to volunteer with the Student Conservation Association, a nationwide group of young people involved in conservation work throughout America’s public lands.

Each summer, small teams of young people, led by an adult “trail boss” head into the wilds to cut trails, improve damage from overuse, and generally create and maintain places for the public to enjoy.

If you’ve ever hiked along a nice section of backcountry trail, there’s a good chance a group of young people was there before you. If you’ve ever leapt over a muddy bog only to slip and fall, covering yourself in muck, there’s a good chance that a volunteer with the Student Conservation Association will at some point come along and put some riprap (Definition: A permanent layer of large, angular stone, cobbles or boulders) down to keep the next person from suffering your fate.

In 1981, as a recent high school graduate, I packed my waffle stompers and raincoat, boarded a plane and landed in Knoxville, Tennessee ready to meet my team of volunteers who had made similar trips from high schools across the country.

Together, we shared laughs, scratched mosquito bites, dodged timber rattlesnakes (Yes, the Great Smoky Mountains has rattlesnakes) and chased away raccoons and black bears.

We also managed to improve about five miles of the Deep Creek Trail in the Great Smoky Mountain National Park.

Part of those improvements included cutting down trees — hugging them first to thank them for their sacrifice — peeling off their bark and cutting them into eight-foot sections for use as water bars along the heavily rutted trail. The idea was to replace what rainstorms had turned into slippery, muddy streams, with usable foot paths for hikers heading into the backcountry.

It’s been 41 years since I’ve set foot on that section of the Appellations, and I’m anxious to see if any of the work I did as a 17-year-old kid still remains. I’m especially anxious to see if the crude bridge we constructed over a small creek still exists.

My hope is to see a much bigger bridge built by SCA-volunteers where a log bridge built by Seth, Ellie, Regina, Julie and I once stood.

KENNARD: Harvest time signals change in the seasons  

I was out in the country earlier this week enjoying the “cooler” weather, driving with my windows down and the radio turned up when I found myself in the middle of a small dust storm — well sort of.

A corn harvester was working through a section of field corn and had made a turn just as Neil Diamond and I happened along.

I realized it must be harvest season — again, sort of.

Harvest season really depends on what’s growing at any given time around here. The wheat harvest is all pretty much done by now. Soybean fields are still looking pretty green and won’t start coming in until October; cotton and peanuts, too.

Tobacco, which has a rich history in North Carolina, began its harvest in July and will last through September depending on the weather.

Speaking of tobacco, when I was compiling the “Our History” column this week I found a fun little story about the once very lucrative tobacco crop. You can find it on page 3A today.

It seems that in 1922 — that’s 100 years ago — a kid from Washington D.C., heard about North Carolina and the money being made in tobacco. He put on his walking shoes and headed south with enough money to rent three acres of farmland. A few months later, he harvested his crop and made a small fortune; at least enough that the 19-year-old farmer didn’t have to walk all the way back to D.C.

Years ago when our family of six was just a family of four and I was just a baby journalist, we rented a little white cinder block house in the middle of a corn field in central Washington. The man we rented from used the building as housing for migrant labor — which I supposed we were since we lived there less than a year until we could find a home with few bugs and dependable plumbing.

Despite what my wife called primitive living, I enjoyed the place for its simplicity, the smell of rain as it fell on the dirt roads, the sound of distant farm equipment working the fields, even mowing the grass in the small yard that was shaded from the hot summer sun by tall poplar trees.

More than once during our stay, we’d wake to the roar of aerial applicators (crop dusters) seemingly dive bombing our little home in the country.

The kids would watch as they’d circle around, then come in fast, diving under the powerlines and letting loose with the pesticide spray or fertilizer or whatever it was the corn needed.

Just inches above the field crop, those pilots flew in fast toward our little white shack, then pulled up just in time to miss the tallest branches of the poplars that stood like centuries around our home.

Over the years, I’ve wondered just what kind of lasting health effects we might have from whatever spray may have drifted over home. But now that my two youngest are fully grown and living full lives, I can only surmise that it must have been good for both us and the sweet corn.

Nowadays, on my drive in to work, I’ll occasionally get stuck behind a tractor or some other piece of farm equipment. But I’ve found it doesn’t bother me so much; it gives me time to look out over the fields and appreciate the annual change in season from an agricultural point of view.

David Kennard is the executive editor of the Robesonian. Contact him at dkennard@robesonian.com.

EDITOR'S NOTES: Odds are hurricanes headed our way  

Hurricane Matthew in the fall of 2016 was my first hurricane.

I know, worse storms have pounded the East Coast, but we had just moved to the Charleston, South Carolina, area the previous year and seemed to have missed any of the “big ones.”

Then Matthew came along.

As a journalist, I was “exempt” from any evacuation orders. That’s in quotation marks because I was only exempt depending on which law enforcement agency I happened to encounter.

I always get a kick out of watching broadcast news folks standing out in the storm as they get battered by cats-and-dog rain. That may make for great TV, but as a newsroom manager, I want my team far away from danger.

As a relative newcomer to the area — and a recent single-wide community resident — I’ve been keeping a close watch on Atlantic weather forecasts. A few times a day I pop onto the National Hurricane Center’s website just to see what may be brewing out there in the Atlantic.

So far, there have been a few tropical waves, which has nothing to do with ocean waves, but is a weather phenomenon considered to be the earliest state of tropical storms. When tropical storms develop at sea, there is a chance they could develop into a hurricane — assuming all other conditions are right.

Earlier this month, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) acknowledged that “oceanic conditions still favor an above-normal 2022 Atlantic hurricane season,” according to NOAA’s annual mid-season update issued on Aug. 4.

NOAA forecasters are calling for 14-20 named storms, 6-10 hurricanes and 3-5 major hurricanes.

Here is another fun fact: North Carolina has been hit by more than 50 hurricanes since the mid-1800s, making it the third most hurricane-prone state in the Country. And while it’s anyone’s guess what we can expect from this season, history shows we’re likely to be a target this year as well.

“I urge everyone to remain vigilant as we enter the peak months of hurricane season,” said Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo. “The experts at NOAA will continue to provide the science, data and services needed to help communities become hurricane resilient and climate-ready for the remainder of hurricane season and beyond.”

While we are now 10 weeks into hurricane season without any hurricane threats, we are far from making it through the end of November unscathed.

With that in mind, and the fact that I now live in a home that may or may not float, I’d urge that we get ready, you know, just in case.

A good place to start is a list provided by the Red Cross. I’ve shared this before, and you’ll probably see this list again in one form or another here in The Robesonian.

Here is their short list:

• Build an emergency kit that will last everyone in your family at least three days.

• Talk with household members and create an evacuation plan and practice it.

• Learn about the community’s hurricane response plan.

Here are a few that I’ll add from experience.

• Know where you’re going to go when the evacuation order comes.

• Get the car tuned up and keep it full of gas and ready to go.

• Have enough cash on hand to get you wherever you need to go to find high ground and shelter.

• If you plan to stick around, fill your outdoor grill’s propane tanks now. And maybe pick up an extra tank now before they disappear.

• Put up three days worth - or more - of drinking water. We use those clear 5 gallon jugs and keep them in an out-of-the-way closet.

Stay safe this season.

David Kennard, who plans to bug out when the weather turns blustery, is the executive editor of The Robesonian. Contact him at dkennard@robesonian.com. 

EDITOR'S NOTES: Deer season is just weeks away  

When the late summer nights start to feel cool again, I know deer season is right around the corner.

If you plan to be outside on any public land, you’ll want to keep the following dates in mind.

In North Carolina, hunting season begins on Sept. 11 for bow hunters only. Muzzelloader/black powder hunters can head out on Oct. 2 and rifle season (technically called “Firearm” season) begins on Oct. 16.

Although I’m a relative newcomer to the area, I always get a little nostalgic when I start to see ads for blaze orange clothing, ammunition and other hunting gear.

I’ve got an overnight hiking trip planned into North Carolina’s backcountry in a couple of weeks, and I am sure that once I step off the blacktop, I’ll encounter a hunter or two, at least it’s a very real possibility.

Hikers and backcountry enthusiasts — some of the friendliest folks you’ll ever run into — sometimes are disturbed when they see rifle toting hunters on their beloved trails and wandering through their unspoiled forests.

Most of my hunting these days is done with a telephoto camera lens, and most of the wild food I bring home has been handed to me through the window of a Wendy’s drive-thru.

But I’ve found over the years that there’s plenty of room for everyone in the woods, whether you’re hunting with a long lens or a long gun.

When I was still in my teens living out West, my Boy Scout troop decided we would all go get hunting licenses and see if we could bring home a deer or two.

Five of us boys, including one of my best friends, Evan Jackson, his dad and our Scout leader Dennis Scott ended up in Mr. Jackson’s 1975 Chevy station headed for Craig, Colorado. After a couple of days of walking, scoping and walking, we packed up for home.

It was late in the day when we set out on the rural state highway headed for home. It wasn’t long before I heard Mr. Jackson say, “Now what’s all this?”

I looked up to see what I thought was a small fog bank ahead and a car with its flashers pulled over on the side of the road. It was cool out, so it made sense that there might be some patchy fog, but then I saw the huge deer on the side of the road and realized what had happened.

All that fog was a bunch of deer hair. That stupid buck had decided to cross the road at the exact same time as the car ahead of us was traveling along that backroad highway in the middle of nowhere.

We pulled over as well, just to make sure everything was OK. When it finally got to its feet, the deer took off down the highway, broken legs and all.

Three of us quickly found the guns from the back of the station wagon, dug out the ammo from the trailer and began jogging down the side of the road.

Mr. Scott was the first to shoot. Miss. Between the three of us we got about four shots off before the animal finally dropped.

It was a memorable trip for us young hunters, but I have to say one of the best parts of the trip was driving through the Wendy’s restaurant on the way home. And so a tradition was born.

Every year I enjoy the start of the deer season, and I have no doubt that beginning with North Carolina’s Youth Hunt on Sept. 25, many more memories and traditions will be born that are every bit as rich as mine.

David Kennard is the executive editor of The Robesonian. Contact him at dkennard@robesonian.com.