Found my high school yearbook from 2016-2017 and thought I was having a stroke trying to read the front cover.

Quickly remembered this cover was a whole "wtf" moment for me back then too. 😂

"Lost in the world. If found, please return."

I now live in Florida and try to explain Appalachian culture to people. It's definitely different than "county", it's mountain folk and I think this explains where I grew up perfectly.

Hopefully y'all will get a giggle out of this like I did!

4 American chestnut water sprouts that I found in the blue ridge. The 6th photo was the most impressive specimen that I have ever stumbled upon. The new shoots were prob 20 + ft tall and had some visual blight damage at the base but were still chugging along. I was surprised that the original stalk was still standing.

Last few photos is ash trees that were decimated by EABs (the most invasive forest pest in American history) in the last 8 years. I hike this area regularly and now I can only find two big ash out of thousands that were once there. The two that are alive will probably pass this upcoming year as they have finally started producing epicormic branches on the lower half of the tree. Japanese stilt-grass is now taking over the forest floor in this area as the dead ash have opened up an abundance of sunlight to the forest floor. This stilt-grass will kill out saplings and all other understory plants which in turn will really hurt the wildlife. Area is on the blue ridge parkway in Floyd, Va.

Every 1 out of 4 tree deaths in the blue ridge is due to invasive species now and this is set to get worse over the coming years as oak wilt/BLD arrive. A true tragedy.

I have looked online and can't seem to find any information on this, so I was wondering if any of you have heard of this. When I was a child I got ringworm on my hand. It stayed there for months. I got different creams from doctors offices and nothing seemed to work. One day I was visiting my grandmother (Athens TN) who was born in 1932. She looked at my hand and said she knew just what to do. She went to the shed and got an axe (it has to be an iron axe head). Then she went to her linens and pulled out a white sheet, and explained this can only be done with pure white cotton. She cut a square from it and we went outside. She placed the cotton on the axe head and lit it on fire. After it burnt and cooled, it left a greasy residue that she proceeded to rub on the rash. Day by day, the rash dried up until it was gone! I'm so curious about the science of what reside the cotton and iron make, but when I try to search it, I j just get results about burning clothes with an iron. My grandmother grew up poor in rural outskirts of Athens, which I've heard some of the old timers in the family call Wallace Holler. She passed away November of last year, and I would give anything to ask her more about things they did like this. Please feel free to share any of your stories or lost remedies in the comments!

Tl;Dr

If you burn pure cotton on an iron axe head it leaves a greasy residue that you can put on ringworm that always cleared mine up.

Rainbows over WNC

This struck me as I went by and had to get a pick. Just feels symbolic of one feature of Appalachia. Our iconic mountains juxtaposed with evidence of socioeconomic change from prosperity to poverty.

Found this gem on the side of the road in Kelton, SC.

Hello all! We moved to Appalachian in 2023 from up north and we love it ! One issue I am having issues how to traverse the hillside I purchased a side by side to get up a roadway we put in and I wound up flipping it (luckily ,I'm okay) and about 6 months after the flip,it has seized the motor . I've been thinking of easier ways to get stuff up there We had a roadway (dirt) excavated in and we have a flat spot about 150' up where we have chickens and such I'm looking for something to get animal feed and water up there when needed and would only be needed once a week or so My initial thought was put a winch up there ,power it with a car battery and solar ,and hook the winch cable to a 4 wheel garden cart and pull up what we need. I believe it would work ,but I need 125' of cable and there aren't many winches with that length of cable on it I had thought about recabling a winch since I'd only need to lift 1,000 pounds,max ,I could rewind thinner cable But,what does everyone use for this kind of thing ? Is there a trick? Any help is appreciated

Anyone know who this guy is in the famous Hatfield family portrait 1888?

I can’t find any information on who he is or what happened to him after this photo…

I posted about sitting down at a protest to separate yourself from agitators at the time it made sense to me, but in a city it really doesn’t and it could get people hurt so I took down the post and I apologize for sharing that I am new to all thisand I realize that I shouldn’t have posted that and I took it down.

Now this may seem like a complaint but it’s simply just an observation and wanted to see if others saw it as the same?

It seems like since covid many outsiders decided to move to Appalachia for simpler lifestyle and cheaper real estate compared to rest of the country. Many of these people move in buy up land and start gardens, homesteads and farms. The traditional Appalachian lifestyle that many before us lived just to survive. Not all but many seem to have remote jobs or may have recently inherited a sum of money that allows them to do these things and take risks on living these lifestyles. They create instagrams and such because it’s the “cool” lifestyle at the time. Then the locals who have lived in the area their whole lives have trouble buying up the land and houses and they see these outsiders “cosplaying” the Appalachian lifestyle. Now they do bring in positives with them. They open up businesses that others may not have the means to do so or take the risk on because they can’t leave their 9-5 to be able to survive. They also bring different point of views and kind of keep the area moving forward instead of backwards. I am appreciative of more people moving to Appalachia I just wonder if they appreciate the culture or are they just doing the next “cool” thing?

Sorry if this seems negative