Month: February 2013

Seddon Cemetery

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A modern tale of historic survival

Story by Carol Pappas
Photos by Jerry Martin

It would be more than a decade before the young, upstart town known as Pell City would be incorporated to its west. Riverside lay to its east. In the middle, thrived the timber town of Seddon. Population: 500.
The year was 1880 when Seddon Community was established — Georgia Pacific Railroad System to its north and the Coosa River on its southern side.
Named for Thomas Seddon, the first Secretary of War for the Confederate States under President Jefferson Davis, its place in Alabama history is well-rooted.
But the Seddon of today is little more than a shoreline on Logan Martin Lake, its most prominent remnant, the Seddon Cemetery that stands above it on a hillside.

Jimmie Nell Miller calls Seddon Cemetery, “A Survivor of the Flood Waters,” and she probably knows its history more intimately than most. She should. She has invested months into research and gathering supporting evidence to have the Pell City cemetery listed on the Alabama Register of Historic Cemeteries.

In October, her quest was successful. It joined only one other cemetery in St. Clair County, referred to as the old Pell City Cemetery, on the prestigious list of only 548 across Alabama.

“It has gotten me into a lot of history of the area I never would have gotten into, that’s for sure,” she said, noting that six generations of her own family are buried there. Her husband, Ray, serves as chairman of the board of trustees for the cemetery, and the couple along with others, are working to preserve it — and its history — for the future.

As you enter the cemetery, a nondescript black-and-white sign proclaims, “Seddon Cemetery — Established 1800.” The earliest legible marker is from 1840, some 40 years before the town of Seddon was founded.

In the narrative supporting Seddon Cemetery’s inclusion on the historic list, Mrs. Miller talks of the town’s history. “There were two churches built in the booming Seddon community. One was Fishing Creek Methodist Church, which was located on a hill and beside it was a graveyard.”

Fishing Creek, the Millers explain, was the name of a nearby tributary on the Coosa River. Close by was Ferryville, named for the ferry that crossed the Coosa from there en route to Talladega. Eventually, it would be known as Truss Ferry, its name coming from Maj. J.D. Truss, a Confederate officer who built the ferry and for whose family Trussville was named.

He had been a captain of the 10th Alabama Infantry. “He and his men mustered under an apple tree in Cropwell, Alabama, then marched to Montevallo (75 miles), where they took a train to join Gen. Robert E. Lee in Virginia,” Mrs. Miller wrote. A Confederate flag marks his grave in Seddon today.

The Trusses were a prominent family in St. Clair, many of their ancestors buried in Seddon Cemetery. They were among 92 whose remains were moved to Seddon when the Truss Family Cemetery and other gravesites were to be covered by water during the creation of Logan Martin Lake in 1964.

In all, some 1,400 gravesites had to be moved to other Pell City and Cropwell cemeteries to survive Logan Martin’s flood waters, just like Seddon. Homes and buildings were taken down to their foundation to make way for the lake as well.

As she tells the story, Mrs. Miller pores over documents provided by Alabama Power Co., which built the lake, noting how gravesites — marked and unmarked — were moved to neighboring cemeteries to be spared by the flood. Coosa Valley Cemetery, located in the Easonville area, experienced a similar fate with graves moved from an old part to a new one. But some of those buried at Coosa Valley were moved to Seddon as well.

Detailed reports from an Aiken, S.C., mortician note the number of graves moved on a single day, the grave number and name, if available, new number and location of the grave and even the weather that day — fair or cloudy. Many of the graves are unmarked, and older citizens tell stories of playing in the cemetery as children and remembering gravesites marked only with a rock or brick, Mrs. Miller said. Their stories are lost, but an effort to preserve the cemetery is aimed at protecting the rest.

Walking among the markers today is like turning the pages of a history book. Buried at Seddon are veterans of the Civil War, World War I, World War II, Korean and Vietnam wars.

The late Alabama Supreme Court Justice Eric Embry is buried there as is his father, Judge Frank Embry, who served in the Alabama House of Representatives. They are the only father and son to sit on the same Supreme Court panel — Eric as justice and Frank in a supernumerary post. Eric’s niece, Isabella Trussell, is one of those on the board of trustees seeking to preserve the cemetery so the memories of those buried there can truly be eternal.

As a lawyer in the 1960s specializing in civil law, Eric Embry was retained by the Saturday Evening Post, CBS and New York Times. The Times case led to the historic Sullivan Decision, still a key precedent in arguing Constitutional law for Freedom of the Press. Frank Embry not only served in the Legislature, he was a two-term mayor of Pell City and a councilman. As a circuit judge for Blount and St. Clair, he was appointed along with two other judges to intervene in the Phenix City racketeering scandal of 1954, where hearings struck down local elections.

The old monuments hint at when the plagues came through Alabama. One family lost a child every year for seven years. Seven little monuments in a row mark the tragedies.

Preserving the past for future

The Millers and other volunteer trustees of the cemetery don’t want to see this precious history lost. There were no provisions for perpetual care, and they are working toward charity status to receive tax-free donations.

The only sources of income are lot owner donations and fund drives. Land has been added to the original cemetery, and plans call for future expansion if funds become available.

An application has been made for an historic marker to be erected at the cemetery, which will say:

SEDDON CEMETERY
Established — early 1800s
Seddon Cemetery is recognized
as having historical
significance in this area
and is added to the
Alabama Historic Cemetery
Register by the
Alabama Historical Commission
October 17, 2012

“Seventy years ago, there was still a lot of interest in Seddon Cemetery with memorial days and ‘dinner-on-the-ground’ events, all centered around the cemetery,” Mrs. Miller said. “Since then, there has been a slow and steady decline of interest due to the old families dying off and their younger generations either moving away or having no interest in keeping up old traditions.

“I could foresee the humble little cemetery and its 200 years of local history becoming grown up and forgotten,” she said.

Her husband agrees, and that’s why he is working to save it for the future. “Many members of St. Clair County’s prominent pioneer families are buried in Seddon Cemetery. These people were instrumental in helping make St. Clair County the vibrant, successful county it is today.” They deserve a final resting place that is “dignified and well maintained.”

Calling it a “huge first step,” Mrs. Miller noted that the cemetery’s inclusion on the Historical Cemetery Register should help in gaining interest and funding “to preserve this site for generations to come.”

Lovejoy Slingshot Hunt

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Creating a most unusual tradition

Photos by Jerry Martin

The T-shirt peeking out from the opening of the camouflage jacket read: “Alabama: So Many Squirrels. So Few Recipes.”

If you’re making such a fashion statement and others are envious of your attire, chances are that you are participating in the annual Lovejoy Slingshot Hunt.

This most unusual family reunion/good ole’ boy gathering features men and women, adults and children hunting squirrels with nothing more than slingshots. Participants from across Alabama and the South come to Lyman Lovejoy’s farm in Ashville each year to witness the decades-old family tradition firsthand.

The annual event has been celebrated for 38 consecutive years, and it continues to grow in popularity thanks to nationwide publicity in major outdoors magazines like Outdoor Life and Southern Outdoors. The annual hunt has been featured on outdoor television shows across the Southeast as well as on the ESPN and Mossy Oak websites. The news of the Lovejoy family being so deadly with their slingshots has appeared in hunting blogs as far away as England.

“It can all be traced back to my dad, Sim Lovejoy,” Lyman Lovejoy explained. “He was one of 16 children in a family that couldn’t afford a shotgun when he was a young boy. They hunted with slingshots to put food on the table in those days.”

Sim Lovejoy, who passed away in 2006 at the age of 92, was known for both his expertise with a slingshot and his handshake that would crush bones. Folks who had the opportunity to hunt squirrels with the patriarch of the family knew better than to refer to their weapons as slingshots.

“Don’t be telling nobody that this is a slingshot,” Sim Lovejoy was quoted saying in a 2001 Birmingham News article. “A slingshot is what David used to slay Goliath. This is a flip. Everybody calls them slingshots, but they are really called flips.”

Webster’s Dictionary doesn’t really agree, but what does it know about hunting squirrels in St. Clair County with such a crude weapon? Webster defines a slingshot as a “forked stick with an elastic band attached for shooting small stones, etc.” Under “flip” in the dictionary, nowhere does it mention a flip being a weapon. When that was explained to Sim Lovejoy once, he just scoffed.

“If you don’t flip it forward at the end of a shot and you let one of those steel ball bearings hit your finger or your thumb you’ll understand why it is called a flip,” Sim Lovejoy said with a laugh.

Most of the Lovejoy kinfolk are excellent marksmen with their slingshots, but none have ever reached the iconic status of Sim Lovejoy.

“He was a legend by age 7,” Lyman Lovejoy said. “By that age he was already shooting running rabbits and squirrels running in trees.”

Sim Lovejoy continued to hunt with his slingshot until 2005, a year before his death. At age 91 he was still mowing down targets from 35 feet away and knocking holes in soft drink cans tossed into the air.

Sim Lovejoy was responsible for getting thousands involved in the hobby he so enjoyed. His family estimates that he made as many as 10,000 slingshots for others in his lifetime.

Among the crowd at this year’s hunt was Donald Hulsey of Odenville, a student of Sim Lovejoy’s in the art of making slingshots. Hulsey continues to find the forked sticks in the woods and whittle them to hand size to make them for anyone interested in having one. It’s yet another way of carrying on the tradition.

Sim Lovejoy was just a local legend most of his life until 2000 when a Birmingham News story featuring him went world-wide via the Associated Press.

“TV news crews and newspaper and magazine writers came out of the woodwork,” Lyman Lovejoy said. “He got calls from Alaska and Missouri and everywhere else from people who wanted a handmade Sim Lovejoy slingshot. He made a slingshot for every one of them and never charged a penny.”

Sim Lovejoy was buried in his trademark overalls with one of his slingshots in his bib pocket. Never once did the family consider ending the annual event following his death. They now use the event as a tribute to the man who started it all. “We wouldn’t have dared ending the hunt when he died,” Lyman Lovejoy said. “It definitely isn’t the same without him, but Dad would have wanted us to carry on.”

The annual hunt draws as many as 100 participants and features breakfast and lunch cooked over an open pit. It draws all walks of life, including judges, lawyers, bankers and just the plain curious. Many bring their kids or grandkids to give them a glimpse into how hunting was once done in Alabama.

The Lovejoys supply the slingshots and the ammunition, which consists of ½-inch ball bearings which they specially order. The ball bearings come in 50-pound boxes, and the hunters typically go through 150 pounds of the steel balls each hunt.

It is not unusual for the hunters to kill nine to 11 squirrels on a hunt.

“It’s not as tough as it sounds,” Lyman Lovejoy said. “We have dogs that tree the squirrels, and when you have 70 or so people on the ground firing away at them somebody is going to nail one.”

In the beginning … Ashville

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A look back at how St. Clair County got started

Story by Jerry Smith
Photos submitted
Photos by Jerry Martin

A wagon train set out from Georgia in late autumn of 1816, headed westward-ho toward Shelby County, Alabama, to settle with other recent migrants from North Carolina. Among these latest emigrants were John Ash, his wife Margaret, daughters Jane, Samita and Betsy Ann, Margaret’s parents and seven slaves.

Alabama Heritage magazine relates that in January 1817, the travelers stopped for the night at a spring in St. Clair, near the old Creek Indian town of Cataula. Once encamped, the family decided to explore a bit by driving their wagon down an Indian trail (now Beaver Valley Road). While his family was admiring the scenery, John spotted a deer and shot at it.

The noise made the horses bolt, and little 3-year-old Betsy Ann was thrown from the wagon. She died from her injuries a few days later. Understandably, everyone in the wagon train was totally devastated.

Although Shelby County was not far away, the Ash family decided they could never drive off and leave their daughter buried alone in the wilderness, so they bade farewell to their fellow pilgrims and settled in.

Margaret’s father, the Rev. Thomas Newton, built a dogtrot cabin near Betsy Ann’s grave. Now known as the Ash-Newton Cabin, it’s listed as the oldest standing house in St. Clair County.

John Ash was the first white man to officially settle in the area. He homesteaded some property in 1817, acquired legal title in 1820, and built a fine, two-story home which still stands, albeit in pitiful condition, just 1.5 miles west of the present-day junction of US 411 and US 231.

John became the county’s second judge, served three terms as state senator, and still found time to sire and support a family of 15.

In History of St. Clair County, historian Mattie Lou Teague Crow relates that, when organized in 1818, St. Clair County “… reached to the Cherokee Nation, well beyond what today marks the city limits for Attalla and Gadsden.”

Thus, the new city of Ashville would fall near the exact geo-center of St. Clair, making it an obvious choice for a future county seat. The first courts, according to Crow, were held at the home of Alexander Brown, near the Indian village of Littafuchee, about four miles south of present-day Ashville.

The town itself was established on a huge land patent granted to a local investor, Philip Coleman, who laid off a plat map of some 30 acres, including a courthouse square. First known as St. Clairsville, the town was incorporated shortly after Alabama became a state in 1822, and its name was changed to honor its founder, John Ash.

In 1823, Coleman sold Ashville for $10,000 to its five town commissioners, which included Ash. By the following year a log courthouse and jail had been built, not on the square, but across the street, because they were meant to be temporary structures. Nevertheless, these log buildings stayed in use until 1844, when the present day courthouse was built on the square. Crow tells that, until then, the square was used as a “village green” for socializing, horse hitching, local produce marketing and an occasional hanging.

One of the most impressive additions to Ashville was the Dean/Inzer house. Built in 1852 by Ashville merchant Moses Dean, the beautiful Greek Revival home became occupied in 1866 by John Washington Inzer, who would have a marked influence on the development of Ashville, St. Clair and Alabama.

Like Ash, Inzer was a vibrant, ambitious man. Born in 1834 in Gwinnett County, Georgia, his family eventually moved to Eden, near Pell City. At age 20, Inzer studied law, was admitted to the Alabama Bar one year later, and moved to Ashville to practice his profession in 1856. At the ripe old age of 25, John Inzer became St. Clair’s probate judge.

In 1861, he represented St. Clair in the Secession Convention, which was held to decide if Alabama would secede from the Union. Only 27 years old, Inzer was the youngest man to attend this convention, and was the last surviving delegate at his death 66 years later.

John had voted against secession, but like many of his day, willingly joined the Confederate Army. He was quoted as vowing, “… if Alabama should secede … I would go with her and stand by her in every peril, even to the cannon’s mouth.”

From the rank of private, he quickly rose to lieutenant colonel in the 58th Infantry Regiment and served in many bloody battles, including Corinth, Shiloh and Chickamauga.

Taken prisoner at Missionary Ridge, Inzer was held at Johnson Island in Ohio for 18 months. His journal reads, “The Yankees here guarding us have been keeping up a regular fire on us a large portion of the time since we came here. … Such shameless cowards the Yankees are.”

Colonel Inzer’s strength, boldness and intelligence had not gone unnoticed by his enemy. During Reconstruction he was again appointed probate judge, this time by the Union, then later reappointed by popular vote. He became a state senator in 1874 and again in 1890.

Inzer was a trustee of Howard College when it was originally located in Marion, Alabama, serving in that capacity until after the college moved to East Lake in Birmingham. Howard College is now in Homewood and known as Samford University.

A tireless public servant, Inzer was a also a trustee for the Alabama Insane Hospital in Tuscaloosa, later known as Bryce Hospital, and served as Judge of the 16th Circuit Court in 1907-1908.

Colonel/Judge/Senator John Inzer, also known as the Grand Old Man of Alabama, died in 1928 at age 93, a remarkable lifespan for that era.

He lies at rest today in Ashville’s “new” cemetery, a few hundred feet behind his home.

Members of his family occupied the Inzer home until 1987, when it was willed to Camp 308 of the Sons of Confederate Veterans. The home has been diligently restored and currently serves as a living museum in honor of Inzer and his beloved Confederacy. Mrs. Crow published Inzer’s journals as Diary of a Confederate Soldier, now available at Ashville Archives.

Notable figures in Ashville history

Ashville’s first merchant was Archibald Sloan, postmaster and proprietor of a mercantile business on Lot 22 of the new town. Others quickly followed, including merchants, lawyers, doctors, preachers and teachers. Ashville’s first school was established in 1831 as Ashville Academy.

According to Crow, the Academy’s host building was known as Mount Pleasant Meeting House, also shared by Methodist, Presbyterian and Baptist congregations. There was a Methodist church in Ashville as early as 1818, well before the town had a name. Now known as Ashville United Methodist, among its early congregants were many names familiar to St. Clair historians, such as Byers, Robinson, Cather, Box, Embry and its circuit-riding minister, O.L. Milligan.

The two-story Masonic Lodge building, built for Cataula Lodge No. 186, was later used jointly by this Methodist congregation and by the Masons until 1892. The lodge building has an incredible history of its own, having been moved across town twice when its space was needed for other buildings. Both moves were momentous occasions to the townsfolk.

The Baptists built their own sanctuary in 1859, across the road from the Meeting House. Among its clergy were James Lewis, Hosea Holcomb, Sion Blyth and Jesse Collins. The sanctuary was built by Littleton Yarbrough, the same man who designed and built the courthouse and town jail.

According to Mrs. Crow, Yarbrough cut its timbers from his own plantation, hand-planed and shaped each board, hauled it all to the site by ox wagon, and assembled the entire church without a single nail or screw by using hand-carved wooden pegs. Each peg was marked by a Roman numeral matched to its hole.

The Presbyterians built their own edifice in 1879, the Cumberland Presbyterian Church, now a Church of Christ. Its congregation and founders included Rogans, Curriers, Newtons, Fulghums, McCluneys and Oldhams.

When these churches vacated the Academy building, a new school was built in another part of town. John and Lydia Hardwick Vandegrift bought the old building, moved it across town, and converted it into a fine dwelling. Ashville Academy became St. Clair College in 1896 and Ashville High School in 1910.

Mrs. Crow wrote that during Reconstruction after the Civil War, all St. Clair Episcopal churches were closed under martial law because Bishop Richard Wilmer had refused to pray for the President of the United States.

Ashville comes of age

Ashville remained a fine little settlement during its maturing years, according to retired Judge Charles E. Robinson. He tells that, during his childhood, he and his buddies would freely roam around town from early morning until dusk. In fact, he credits his chats with old folks and local lawyers for much of the wisdom he later used on the bench.

Charlie and his cohorts were an inquisitive band, seeking out adventure at every turn, often spying on gypsies who had camped nearby, and sometimes watching the town drunk in the throes of DTs. Robinson said they routinely visited several homes around mealtime and ate where the food looked best. The boys also frequented Teague Hardware and Teague Hotel, as Robinson is related to that family.

Judge Robinson comes from a St. Clair pioneer family of judges and lawyers, and he and son Charles Jr. have a law office in Ashville, where they now serve as third- and fourth-generation attorneys. His father served in the state Legislature in the 1940s, and his namesake grandfather was a US attorney around the turn of the century.

He describes a place northwest of Ashville where his grandfather grew up, called Robinson Hill by the locals, “… There was a fine spring about 250 feet up that mountain. It had a concrete trough which fed water all the way down the hill to the house, where it collected in yet another large trough. … There was a dipper hanging beside it for drinking water. … The overflow ran into a livestock corral, then Lord knows where it wound up.” He adds that his grandmother would catch fish in Canoe Creek, keep them in the trough, then dip out a few when they wanted fish for supper.

Robinson says when his father was practicing law, the courthouse had no air conditioning. During high-profile trials, local folks would congregate outside its open windows to eavesdrop on the process of justice. He also tells of a place just southwest of town called Gallows Hill, where hangings were once held.

Among prominent early Ashville family names known to the judge are Glidewell, Davis, Frazier, Adkins, High, Sullivan, Bowlin, Montgomery, Philips, Embry and Cobb, many of whose descendants are still in the area. Other sources list Ramsey, Tucker, Hodges, Coker and Lonergan.

The 73-year-old Robinson describes the Ashville of his boyhood as a purely-Alabama country town, where relatively few people moved in and, once there, even fewer moved away. Most local folks were farmers, although many worked in Gadsden at Republic Steel and Goodyear. He says they were all decent folks who loved the South, worked hard and respected people of all colors and walks of life.

Historic Ashville today

Like most small towns, local lore abounds. One of the best-known sights is the “Upping Block,” a huge, rectangular chunk of sandstone on the west side of the square that was once used as a stepping stone for ladies to mount horses, a community meeting place, a soapbox for local orators and politicians and, according to local legend, a place where slaves were once displayed for sale.

World-famous archer Howard Hill is buried in the town cemetery, where he lies beside his wife, Ashville’s Elizabeth Hodges. Hill, originally from Vincent, Alabama, did all the fancy bow and arrow work in old movies like Robin Hood, starring Errol Flynn, and other lesser-known films. His archery feats using extremely powerful English longbows of his own making are legendary and unmatched to this day.

Those who wish to pursue Ashville and St. Clair history have a great friend in Charlene Simpson, long-time curator of Ashville Archives, next to the Robinson Law Firm, facing the square. This amazing lady presides over several rooms full of documents and museum pieces. She can guide you through almost any genealogical or historical quest pertaining to St. Clair, with an unrivaled knowledge of historical resources in the area.

Today’s Ashville retains much of its mid-century look as well as plenty of scenic antebellum buildings, historic markers and other souvenirs of simpler days.

It’s well worth a visit.

Edibles Everywhere

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St. Clair forager finding culinary fame in Birmingham restaurants

Story by Graham Hadley
Photos by Jerry Martin

Where you see weeds, St. Clair’s Chris Bennett sees valuable food.

So valuable that he has been able to make a successful side business out of foraging for wild edibles and selling them to high-end restaurants in the Birmingham area.

His acumen for finding flavorful food in the wild is good enough, in fact, that some of Chris’ edibles were used by award-winning Chef Chris Hastings at the Hot and Hot Fish Club in Birmingham to prepare a meal for famous Chef Andrew Zimmern for an installment of his Travel Channel show Bizarre Foods.

The dish, called the Foragers Walk, included chickweed, Virginia pine, wild mushrooms, hoary bittercress, wild lettuce, cat’s ear dandelion, field mustards — “a lot of different stuff,” Chris said.

Most of that “stuff” Chris finds growing wild around his house.

Pointing to a small cluster of slender, dark-green stems poking out of the winter ground in a field near his house, Chris quickly identifies them as “field onions.” He breaks off a few of the stems and holds them to his nose, saying, “I just snip them off and use them as wild chives.

“They have a more aggressive flavor than regular chives. Why go to the store and buy chives when you can get these in your yard?”

And field onions are just the beginning. In just a couple of hours, he proceeds to identify all kinds of edible plants, all growing in winter within a few hundred yards of where he lives on his family’s old farm property in St. Clair not far from the Interstate 20 Chula Vista exit.

But, before he started showing off his talent for identifying wild edibles, or foraging, Chris was quick to point out that it took him years of research — studies that are always ongoing — before he was comfortable eating things he found growing in his yard and nearby fields and woods, let alone selling them to restaurants.

foraging_Hot-and-Hot-zimmern — The Foragers Walk dish that was served to Chef Andrew Zimmern at Hot and Hot in Birmingham

“People need to know … Rule Number 1 … make absolutely sure what you pick is edible. There are lots of tasty things in nature — but lots of stuff is poison,” he said.

It’s his knowledge of not only what is safe to eat, but how it tastes, that has created a market for Chris’ wild edibles in some of Birmingham’s finer dining establishments.

You can’t just walk up to a chef and say, “Look what I found in the woods” and have them buy it. You have to build a reputation for your product and also be able to speak their “language.”

For Chris, that is easy today — he has worked in restaurants all over the country, from Richmond, Va., to Chicago to Birmingham.

He grew up in St. Clair County, on the very property he now forages on — though it was an 84-acre cattle farm back then — before leaving for college to earn a business degree. He knew he did not like traditional farming and had discovered a love and talent for cooking.

“I grew up on the farm, but hated doing chores. I would rather be off having adventures in the woods. Back then, in the 1980s, you could still walk down the road and pick blackberries — which you really can’t anymore,” he said.

After college, “when I lived in Richmond, I got into cooking, I got more into food; got more into gardening,” he said.

And though he describes himself as an omnivore now — “I will pretty much eat anything” — Chris said he was a practicing vegetarian for a while, which made him pay more attention to what he was eating, reading ingredients labels more carefully.

That love of the outdoors, ability in the kitchen and growing interest in more wholesome foods combined to give Chris the foundation he needed to begin foraging.

“When I lived in Chicago, I read up on a lot of European chefs. They use a lot of wild edible plants. I learned there was a lot more out there than wild mushrooms,” he said. “There are things out there all around us.”

In 2005, Chris returned to Alabama to get the old family farm up and running. But he did not want to do traditional farming. Cultivating the land for foraging did away with a lot of the farm labor that did not interest him and allowed Chris to focus on his new passion.

Though he has a regular “day” job working as a cheese buyer for Whole Foods in Birmingham, Chris makes time to gather and sell his wild edible “finds” to restaurants.

Because he not only knows what is edible, he knows how it will taste, Chris can tell chefs exactly what edibles go with what dishes and how they can be prepared.

“I never sell anything I have not eaten,” he said. “My cooking background lets me tell them how to use it, how to cook it — or serve it raw, how it tastes.”

He also helps the restaurants keep track of what wild edibles are in season. “They come to me and ask is something still in season — like wild persimmons. Those are gone by now.”

As a case in point, Chris walks over to a cluster of what look like tall, leafy weeds with small, bright-yellow flowers on top.

“Wild edibles are mostly considered weeds by people who see them growing up in a yard or field. …”

This group of yellow flowering “weeds” grew where Chris had planted tomatoes and covered the ground with hay. “These plants came up. I am always looking at what things are. These, the leafs look like greens and the flowers look like Brassica” (a genus of plants that includes a number of vegetables, including mustards and cabbages).

“I finally figured out they are field mustard,” he said.

Chris uses several tools to help him identify new plants. He always carries a small bound notebook with him where he writes down everything about what he has found, sketches pictures, even takes pressings of the plants.

And, while he still relies on several books, Chris is quick to take advantage of modern technology to help him — using his iPhone to take pictures of the plants and Google and other online tools to identify them.

“It takes a while to learn what something is,” he said, reiterating, “People need to know — make absolutely sure what you pick is edible.” He also said it is equally important to know about where you are picking — since fertilizers and pesticides used in fields can be toxic, and some of the plants will actually draw heavy metals and other harmful chemicals up out of contaminated soil.

Chris is more than ready to help with that — organizing classes on his farm several times a year where he takes people out and teaches them his foraging skills.

People can check out his class schedule and sign up on his website and blog: hollowspringfarm.blogspot.com. He also uses the site as a way to spread information about what is in season and anything new he has found.

Which, despite the time he has spent roaming his family property, still happens frequently.

Walking across the road to another field that is part of the farm, Chris says, “I have been back here around eight years, and I am still finding new things.”

Pointing all around one side of the field, he identifies a number of small plants that make up a wild strawberry patch he uncovered after cutting the field. Though not in season now, when the plants produce fruit, they are what Chris describes as some of the best, most flavorful tiny strawberries you can find.

“They will ruin you for eating regular strawberries,” he said.

Another one of his favorite plants — a tree actually — borders the field. Chris strips off some needles from a Virginia pine and rolls them in his hands, producing a surprisingly strong citrus scent, with a hint of pine in the background.

“I make tea with the needles. It has a clean, pine flavor, but you can infuse it into any kind of liquid, everything from vodka to milk, even make a meringue with it.”

And, like many of the plants he gathers, the pine needles are good for you as more than just an edible, often containing high levels of vitamin C, especially in the winter.

“If I am starting to feel sick — I make tea with this,” he said, pointing out that many pine species have edible needles, but the complex citrusy-pine flavor makes the Virginia pine his favorite.

Chris has found and grows all sorts of other plants on the farm — sage, herbs, kale, cardoon (similar to an artichoke), chickweed (tastes like a pea pod), wild lettuce (which has the classic lettuce bitterness and is less tough than a dandelion green) — the list goes on and on.

And it keeps growing. Chris is always on the lookout for new edibles.

“You never know what you are going to find,” he said.

Features

Tiny Prancers

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Bigger is never better for
several St. Clair farms

Story by Elaine Hobson Miller
Photos by Jerry Martin

Did you hear the one about the horse wearing tennis shoes?

No, that’s not the first line of a joke. It’s a reality for folks who have seen Jelly Bean, a miniature horse owned by Odenville’s Dana Dowdle. Once a greeter at Pell City’s Home Depot, Jelly Bean visits schools, nursing homes and hospitals, wearing the tennis shoes to keep him from slipping on slick floors.

One might think that Jelly Bean is a novelty, but this tiny prancer isn’t the only miniature animal around these parts. Ken and Donna Hale of Ashville raise miniature brahmas, or zebus, while Susan and Al Maddox of Springville have miniature goats.

With the exception of miniature horses, which can’t carry riders weighing more than 70 pounds, you can do just about anything with the little fellows that you can with their full-size counterparts. You can show them, train them to pull carts and do tricks, or simply sit and watch them romp around your yard. They take up less space than the standard versions and eat less, too. Their primary appeal, however, seems to be the cuteness factor.

Standing just 26 inches tall from bare hoof to the top of his withers, Jelly Bean is a micro-miniature horse who weighs about 100 pounds and thinks he’s a dog. “He lives in our barn, but romps through the yard like a dog,” says owner Dana Dowdle. “If he could, he would bark.”

He prefers dog biscuits and French fries to apples and carrots and rides in the back seat of Dowdle’s pick-up truck, sticking his head out the window when they go through fast-food drive-through lanes. He was the first miniature horse in Alabama to be certified as a service animal by Hand in Paw, a non-profit organization that provides animal-assisted therapy to children and adults with mental, physical, emotional and educational needs.

Dowdle’s brother, who died in 2011, raised miniature horses with the idea of training them as service animals. He gave her Jelly Bean in 2002, right after the horse was born. Dowdle took him into her house, cuddled him and rocked him like a baby, which helped to gentle him. She put diapers on him and made him underwear, because she was “too lazy to go through the house training process.” She has worked with several service minis over the past 10 years, but Jelly Bean is the only one that is certified.

“My brother made a ramp for him to climb up into my truck, and I made him outfits for different occasions,” Dana says. “He has a Bob the Builder outfit, a Scooby-Doo outfit, baseball and police uniforms and holiday outfits as well.”

Jelly Bean participates in Christmas parades and serves as a mascot for the St. Clair County Humane Society, the Moody Miracle League and the Margaret Police Department, where he is an honorary sergeant.

During the six years that Dana worked as a greeter at Home Depot, he often accompanied her to work. He’s so tiny, people sometimes mistake him for a goat. “Even though he’s a stallion, he’s very sweet and gentle,” says Dowdle, who is known as Jelly Bean’s mom.

Her helper at these events is 17-year-old Krissy McCarty, who gets credit from the Key Club at Springville High School for assisting Dowdle. “She helps by standing close to Jelly Bean, in case kids run up to him and spook him,” Dowdle says. “So far, he has never had a problem, but it’s nice to be prepared.”

Dowdle has trained Jelly Bean to bow, rear up and to lie down so children can pet him. She figures he has another 10-15 years of service left. “I’m doing this in memory of my daughter, Mandy, who died at the age of 4 from cystic fibrosis, and for all the mothers who are going through what I went through with her,” she says. “But I’m also happy that we could carry out my brother’s dream.”

MINIS HAVE LONG HISTORY

The result of 400 years of selective breeding, miniature horses draw on the blood of English and Dutch mine horses brought to the U.S. in the 19th century and used in Appalachian coal mines as late as 1950. They also draw upon the blood of the Shetland pony. It’s almost impossible to know how many minis are in this country, though, because many are unregistered pets in people’s backyards.

“All minis are not registered through us or other registry organizations,” says Stephanie Haselwander, events and promotions director for the American Miniature Horse Association (AMHA) in Alvarado, Texas. “We register minis that are 34 inches and smaller, measured at the last hairs of the mane. Right now, we have over 213,000 in our database. And that number doesn’t tell us much, since some of those horses could have been registered with us and died.”

TINY BRAHMAS TURN HEADS

Apparently, it isn’t quite as difficult to determine the number of miniature Brahma cows in this country. According to the website www.drdoolittle.net, there are just 2,000 registered zebus in the whole U.S.

In a normal week, eight to 10 strangers will stop by Ken and Donna Hale’s farm on U.S. 231 to look at their zebus, and four will come back and buy one. Most people just want them as pets, but the Hale zebus are registered and can be used as show animals. They can also supply beef.

“Some people look at me like I’m a cannibal when I talk about eating them, but a 400-pound bull will yield about 200 pounds of meat, enough to last most families all year,” says Ken Hale. “Zebu meat has less cholesterol than the meat of bigger cows, and their milk has a higher butterfat content — 8 percent — than the milk of larger Brahmas.”

Zebus top out at 42 inches, measured at the withers, and weigh 300-600 pounds when fully grown. Hale has always loved Brahmas, but claims he is too chicken to deal with the standard variety, which can reach 6 feet in height and weigh around 2,000 pounds. He found the first stock for his herd in Athens, Georgia, via an Internet search. He purchased four — two brood cows and two young heifers named Miss Peaches, Bonnie, Millie and Sara, respectively — in April 2011.

“They are one-person animals,” Hale says. “They will eat out of my hand, but crowd around my wife, Donna, who is the brains of our operation. Sara will nuzzle her and put her head on Donna’s shoulders. Three of the smaller calves will lie down with their heads in my wife’s lap. Yet they run from strangers.”

Despite their gentleness, they are animals that have horns when they are grown and know how to use them. “A momma gored my brother when he tried to pick up her calf,” Hale says.

They are easy to raise, requiring only half an acre per animal and about one to one-and-a-half pounds of feed daily. A standard-size cow needs 15-20 pounds of feed per day. Unlike large cows, their hooves must be trimmed regularly. They breed late, starting at the age of 3, and weigh about 15-16 pounds at birth.

“They look like fawns when they are born, and their mommas hide them,” Hale says. “Like fawns, if they’re under a clump of fescue, the calves won’t move. So unless you step on them, it’s hard to find them. I have to go hunting them down.”

But they grow fast, doubling in size in their first three months. They get more docile as they get older and are sometimes used in youth rodeos. “They can live up to 25 years, and most people keep them until they die, unless they’re raising them for food,” Hale says. “They’re nothing but muscle.” They are primarily gray in color, but also come in black, red, spotted or almost pure white.

Raising zebus is a business for the Hales, but the business brings them lots of pleasure. “I’m handicapped, I have emphysema, and I’m on a breathing machine,” Hale points out. “It’s so rewarding to go out to the pasture in my wheelchair and feed ‘em and watch ‘em eat and play. The calves are so much fun. It’s almost like watching a Norman Rockwell movie.”

GOT HER (DWARF) GOAT

That’s the way Susan Maddox feels about the Nigerian dwarf goats she and husband, Al, raise at their Old Farts Farm on US 11 in Springville. When Susan gets tired of feeding her chickens, peacocks, ducks, rabbits, pigeons, quail, alpacas and miniature horses, she goes and sits in the goat pen, and all is right with the world.

And despite the fact that Al didn’t want Susan to buy any dwarf goats in the first place, he often gets down on his hands and knees in their pen and lets them crawl on his back. “I’m their play-pretty,” he says.

Nigerian dwarf males get up to 28 inches in height, females 26 inches, according to Tara Maynard, who helps the Maddoxes with their farm chores. “Larger than that, they’re considered pygmies, not dwarfs,” she says. “Even though they’re little, dwarfs can supply enough milk for a small family daily.”

The Maddoxes have to buy food made especially for dwarfs, because the feed made for larger goats contains too much copper for their tiny systems. The dwarf nannies give birth once a year, and have one kid the first time and twins or triplets after that. So the Maddoxes usually have 12-15 dwarf goat babies every year. They weigh from one to two pounds at birth, and although they raise them to sell, sometimes Susan finds it hard to part with one. “Sometimes I cry, and the buyer feels guilty,” she admits.

Most people buy them for pets, but occasionally someone wants them for meat. Susan can tell the difference, and usually discourages meat-buyers by jacking up the price. “I normally get $75-$100 for a dwarf, but if I suspect they want to eat it, I’ll ask $500.”

As with all their animals, the Maddoxes put a lot of time into raising the dwarf babies. “We handle them and gentle them from the time they’re born,” she says. “I spoil ‘em. They’re no trouble to care for. If you ever get any, you’ll find yourself sitting out in the pen, just watching them play.”

For an additional story on Llamas in St. Clair, check out this month’s edition of Discover The Essence of St. Clair

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Tricky Fishing

Kayak fishing making a splash
at Neely Henry & Logan Martin lakes

Story by Loyd McIntosh
Photos by Jerry Martin

Spring time in St. Clair County: fresh air, blue skies, green grass and, of course, fishing — lots and lots of fishing. By the time the ol’ groundhog’s predictions have taken root, there will be – excuse the pun – a boatload of fishing tournaments on and around Neely Henry and Logan Martin lakes.

That also means hundreds of noisy bass boats, speed boats and other motorized watercraft making waves all in an attempt to sneak up on the legions of fish that call the Coosa River and its lakes home. Fishing is as ingrained in who we are in these parts as barbecue and football are.

But a new way of angling is making its way from salt water to fresh water. It began off the California coast around 15 years ago, and now kayak fishing is heading to fresh water fishing hotspots around St. Clair County.

Kayak fishing is on the rise with a growing community of anglers spreading the gospel of the sport as an alternative to traditional fishing. Interested to see it or to try kayak fishing out for yourself? Then clear your schedule and plan to compete in the Coosa Canoe and Kayak Fishing Tournament, organized by the non-profit group, Coosa Riverkeeper.

Frank Chitwood, Riverkeeper and chief watchdog for Coosa Riverkeeper, hopes his organization’s efforts will ensure a healthier Coosa River and surrounding waterways for future generations. “Coosa Riverkeeper is a citizen group advocating on behalf of the Coosa River for clean water,” explains Chitwood. “We stand up to polluters and the government when their actions are not in the best interest of clean water and a healthy river.”

The Coosa Canoe and Kayak Fishing Tournament is a charitable event to raise money and awareness of issues facing the Coosa River through an innovative three-stage tournament. Proceeds from the tournament will go toward helping the Coosa Riverkeeper fulfill its vision of a fishable, swimmable, drinkable Coosa River.

The first stage, Lake Neely Henry Open, is scheduled to begin at first safe light on Saturday, March 30, and for many in observance, this will be the first time to see some of the tournament’s interesting rules. For instance, competitors are allowed to drive to any spot they wish within the tournament boundaries to put their kayaks in the water. There are also no live wells and no weigh-ins, keeping the negative impact on the fish to a minimum.

“You don’t actually keep the fish,” Chitwood explains. “You put them right back after you catch them, so we call it a virtual stringer because it only exists on your camera.” Tournament scoring is based on length, which Chitwood says is just as fair a competitive measure as other tournaments that are weight-based.

At the beginning of each tournament, every competitor is given a special fish ruler, and once an angler reels in a catch, he or she places the fish in the trough-like ruler and then takes a photo of the fish on a digital camera or cell phone camera. At the end of the day, anglers arrive with a “digital stringer” instead of live fish they may have kept in a live well for several hours. “So, generally it takes a minute or two to do all that once you reel it in, take a picture or two of it and put it back in the water where it came from as opposed to a bass tournament, where they might give you a poorly ventilated live well where the fish stay for several hours,” he says.

Chitwood says this method is less stressful on the black bass varieties – primarily large mouth and spotted bass – that are allowed during a Coosa Riverkeeper tournament. The goal, Chitwood says, is to create an alternative to traditional fishing tournaments by keeping mortality rates low and, thus, a healthier Coosa River ecosystem. At a poorly run tournament, in the middle of a hot summer’s day with poor live well conditions, fish mortality can be high, Chitwood says. “At kayak fishing tournaments, we keep fish mortality rates really low. Almost all of them will survive and become larger bass.”

The first two stages of the three-stage tournament – the Lake Neely Henry Open in March and the Logan Martin Open in June – are each one-day, three-fish-limit tournaments where only the three biggest fish are counted. “That way it gives people who catch a larger quantity of fish an advantage, but not so much that you can just go out and catch a bunch of little ones. Good combination of quantity versus quality.”

The final tournament of the year is the Coosa Classic, a two-day event Oct. 26-27 at the Coosa Outdoor Center in Wetumpka and is a four-fish stringer, with only the two biggest fish from each day counted for the final score. The Coosa Classic is the final event, where the Blackjack Lands Angler of the Year will be crowned at the end of the tournament. The grand prize is a Primo ceramic grill, donated by Blackjack Lands.

To learn more about kayak fishing, Coosa Riverkeepers or to register for the Coosa Canoe and Kayak Fishing Tournament, go online at www.coosakayakfishing.com.

Features