In the Disney TV series on Dan’l Boone, Fess Parker spoke with a rural, Kentucky drawl. He said words like “Kilt him a ba’ar when he was only three.” The King of the Wild Frontier also said “a ‘fer piece” meaning a long way off. He was talking about driving from Charlottesville to Williamstown, which is indeed a ‘fer piece. The GPS lady said it was 692 miles and she was dead on. But … [Read more...]

I wrote recently about Spencer Sausage which I find on the Outer Banks and in Eastern North Carolina. It is good stuff. But there is another excellent sausage from down that way. When we were in Nags Head, I went to Food Lion and they no longer carried Spencer Sausage, but  they had a brand called Bass Farm Sausage. It looked good and I bought a package of 8 link sausages. Later, though, I found … [Read more...]

  By Matt Reilly   If you were to poll a group of anglers on their favorite times of year to fish, winter would likely fall at the bottom of the list for most. The month of February, in particular, can be a hard one to love. High water, sub-freezing days, and wild bouts of wind are all common occurrences during the second month of the year in the Old Dominion—but so is great … [Read more...]

    If you find yourself with nothing to do on a Saturday or Sunday afternoon, buckle up the kids and head for Liberty Mills Farm in Somerset and explore the largest corn Maze in  Virginia. While you’re at it, take a wheelbarrow out into the pumpkin patch and hand select a big, fat pumpkin for Halloween. This year, Liberty Mills has 12 miles of paths and has designed four trails … [Read more...]

    One of Virginia’s former great seafood restaurants is now out of business with no hope of recovery. Lowery’s Seafood Restaurant in Tappahannock has closed its doors for good. Years ago, I was headed to the Northern Neck and a fishing trip out of Lewisetta. A friend suggested that I stop in Tappahannock on my way and eat at Lowery’s if I was hungry. As it turned out, I went … [Read more...]

  By Sherman Shifflett   Most of us have places we would like to visit, but never got around to it. One of mine was the Cass RR in West Virginia. Finally, Ava Pippin and I made it happen on Thursday, July 1, 2021. Friends said we could go over there and back in a day, but it is a three-hour drive from where I live in eastern Louisa County (near Cuckoo), plus a four-hour train … [Read more...]

Everybody knows about the “blind spot” in their car – the view from the back left rear where a car may be between the side rearview mirror and the actual view outside the car window to the left. Always look back and check is the rule of thumb. But there is another blind spot that may be even more dangerous and because of it, I came within inches of typing my last article. I was in Ruckersville … [Read more...]

  Last week I wrote about the corn maze at Liberty Mills Farm, the largest in the nation at 32 acres. Last weekend, on a beautiful September day, Nancy and I decided to take a Sunday afternoon drive out to the sprawling farm near Somerset, but we decided in advance that we would let others do the corn-maze thing. Liberty has three mazes, the big one takes two hours (if you’re lucky), the middle … [Read more...]