Category: Farm

Burley Tobacco Farmer

Agriculture, Farm, Tobacco


Neighbor Gary McMasters along with daughter Elizabeth and another neighbor Jerry Ferguson gathered and sticked burley tobacco this past weekend in Grays Chapel, North Carolina in preparation to moving it to a drying barn. Unlike flu-cured tobacco where leaves are removed as they ripen up the stalk, burley is harvested by cutting the whole plant, and it is air dried rather than being cured by heat. Gary raises about 1 1/2 acres and does pretty much everything by hand. Traditionally, burley tobacco was grown in the mountains of North Carolina and flue-cured in the Piedmont. New varieties have made it possible to grow burley in warmer areas.

Gary lives on land that has been in his family for several generations in Randolph County and besides farming tobacco and other crops, he runs a small custom saw mill and raises horses and mules. He produces sorghum molasses every year on a mule driven cane mill.


(Photographs copyright 2010 by Dan Routh)

The Egret, a Poem by Devin Routh

Animals, Farm, Poetry

(Photograph copyright 2010 by Dan Routh)

The Egret

With stilt-like legs he wanders through the water’s edge
content to watch the fish below him, not to hunt
but listen to the bullfrogs’ croaking in the sedge
first loud then low, for he himself is transient.
He comes and goes with all the seasons and the winds
from sandy creeks where crawdads make their rocky homes
to miry ponds where ivory feathers hardly blend;
despite the mud he stays unsoiled while he roams.
And if a feather falls it’s full of blemishes
in little time; it loses all its pristine shine
as if it never shone before and proves that his
persistent sojourning has kept him in his prime.
To see an egret flap his wings and fly away
is to discover why he never cares to stay.

(Poetry copyright 2010 by Devin Routh. Used with permission.)

Joepyeweed

Butterfly, Farm, Flowers


Butterflies are abundant this year on our farm in Grays Chapel, North Carolina. In fact, I don’t remember ever having as many in our yard. There are literally hundreds. Sometimes it seems as if our yard is alive and moving in one big dance. Part of the reason is my wife has chosen plants and flowers for our yard that attract the butterflies, but another big reason is the large number of wildflowers we have growing on other parts of the farm. I clip my pastures, but I don’t trim close to the creeks and fence lines and the result is a large population of plants such as joepyeweed which act a magnet for all sorts of butterflies. I didn’t set out to do it on purpose, but a lack of time and money to keep things manicured has resulted in an abundance of wildlife.

(Photographs copyright 2010 by Dan Routh)

Turtle Fishing

Family, Farm, Poetry

Turtle Fishing

Under stagnant algae blooms
where slimy catfish feast on muck,
a spiny snapping turtle looms
before it bites a baited hook.

He sinks the point into his beak
then feels a tugging from the line
towards which he cannot help but creep
and follow with his ancient mind.

It leads him right up to the edge
of where the water meets the air;
A skillful hand then starts to dredge
his shell out from his muddy lair.

The turtle now alone on land
begins to hiss and snap with ire.
My grandpa then wipes off his hand
to cock the .410 bore and fire.

I watch him then remove the hook
to add a piece of beef as bait.
It was the second time he took
a turtle from the pond that day.

“I’m only gonna take a few,”
he said before he cut the beef.
“We’ll only get the old ones who
are eating all the baby geese.”

The buzzards would have only five
big shells to pick away for meat.
The goslings then could learn to fly
with baby turtles at their feet.

There was a time I wondered why
we could not let the turtles thrive.
But looking back I realize
that death helps new things come alive.

(Poetry copyright 2010 by Devin Routh. Used with permission.)

(Photographs copyright 2010 by Dan Routh)