Local Food Spots For The Hungry And Thirsty!

Keep It Local, By Barbara Lawrence – Feb. 29, 2012

Eating establishments vary tremendously and, like everything else in the 21st century, have changed considerably. Much of the food preparation today is provided to restaurants as a frozen entree.  Fast food may be your favorite but it doesn't make my "authentic" list of locals. 

This is not an exhaustive list of restaurants in the Catawba River District.  These are a few of my personal favorites throughout our district, and I am getting hungry reviewing the choices from Belmont to Mountain Island Lake. Click on each restaurant name to visit its website or Facebook  page.

Sammy’s Neighborhood Pub, 25 S. Main St., Belmont, since 1994 – My friend's favorite is fries with chili, while fish and chips with a cold brew for me.
Old Stone Steakhouse, 23 S Main St., Belmont – Try the steak and avocado salad.

String Bean Fresh Mkt

The String Bean Fresh Market and Deli, 106 N. Main St., Belmont – A toss-up between house made chicken salad sandwich and the Philly cheese wrap.

The Captain’s Cap, 760 Park St., Hwy 273, near I-85, Belmont, since 1981 – Seafood is so good!  A reminder of the river 'fish camp' history of our area.

Red Bowl Asian Bistro, Mountain Island Lake, at 3538A Mount Holly-Huntersville Rd., Charlotte 28216 - Try it for healthy steamed vegetables, brown rice and your choice of other great choices.

River’s Edge Bar & Grill located at the U.S. National Whitewater Center – A new choice for our area is a visit to the Whitewater Center for trails, bike riding, water activities or watch others have fun while you relax at the River’s Edge Bar & Grill. Hours are generally from 11:30 am to 6 pm.

See the "River" Run Green – Here's an upcoming event to get you to the River's Edge: The Green River Revival on St. Patrick's Day (Saturday, March 17) at the U.S. National Whitewater Center beginning at 1 p.m. with live music and the Green River. A PowerBall Race is at 3:30. Event is free and open to the public (activities such as whitewater rafting are at standard rate).

Backwoods Fancy Vittles, 119 N. Main St., Mount Holly – New to Mount Holly, Backwoods offers appetizers that are more food than I can eat alone.  The taste and the atmosphere are unique anytime you want a special lunch or dinner out.

City Café, 128 S. Main St., Mount Holly – The City Café has been on Main Street for a while. Most people don’t realize the effort and level of fresh food that goes into the meals at City Café.  My personal favorite is the chicken pecan salad with mandarin oranges.

The BrightStar Grill, 205 Madora St., Mount Holly – For an old time local favorite, great hamburger, fresh fries, and milkshake (and more) you have to visit The BrightStar Grill. The 1950s drive-in expanded last year to allow a bit more room for the many visitors.

So, get out and try something new and support our local food entrepreneurs.  Let's eat!  Send in your favorites.

About Barbara Lawrence - Barbara has a background in economic development and real-estate research. Her work has included revitalization of downtown Boone, downtown Gastonia and now Mount Holly.

Discovering beauty while counting our birds

This Eastern Bluebird at Tuck Park made the Great Backyard Bird Count

Naturally Wonderful, by Rich Haag – Feb. 28, 2012

I’ve never looked closely at birds before last week to try and figure out what they are. Thanks to the Great Backyard Bird Count, I have, and I’ve gained a new appreciation for our local birds’ beauty and diversity.

As you may recall, I wrote recently how people should participate because their data will help bird researchers and could be fun and all that good stuff. OK, I thought, what’s good for the goose is good for the gander.

I took my count last Monday, the final day of the 2012 event. More than 60,000 people across America and Canada had counted 10 million birds by then, according to the website's running tally. I had a fleeting thought that my effort would add nothing more than a hummingbird’s whisker to the statistics already collected. I’m glad I didn’t chicken out.

Cedar Waxwings at Belmont Abbey College

Belmont Abbey Mystery

I began my count at Belmont Abbey College. Nikon camera around my neck and pad in hand, I barely got to the campus road when a row of ancient cedars near St. Leo’s Hall began to quiver. The I-85 traffic din not withstanding, dozens of shrill tweets filled the campus air. Birds began to emerge among the shaking branches – a few at first and then dozens. Then one by two by three by more they burst out of the cover and darted across the open lawn to other trees near the monastery.

I started snapping photos of anything with a beak. I’m not a pro, but I do have a honking-big telephoto lens. Shoot first, analyze later, I thought as I scoured the cedar branches for my next optical target.

I repeated this exercise along upper Lake Wylie at Mount Holly’s Tuck Park. A child riding a bike with training wheels yelled to his mother, “Look, I see a bluebird!” Well, maybe he did. I couldn’t tell, but I shot photos of it anyway.

A wonderful surprise

My big surprise came that evening when I plugged the camera into my laptop and blew up the images several times larger than even the telephoto lens had captured.

I found this Red-Bellied Woodpecker, too

Hey, that thing under the cedar branches looks like a woodpecker when you pull out the shadows with magic software, I thought. But what kind of woodpecker? And what is that small brownish bird with hints of blue that I photographed at Tuck Park? What species has a tanish-gray body, yellow underbelly, tufted head and a line of red-tipped yellow at the end of its tail feathers? My wife's and my fourth-grade teacher, Miss Harding, took us on bird walks to see robins, cardinals, sparrows and bluebirds. I don’t recall seeing anything like the birds in these photographs! What the heck are they?

AllAboutBirds.org is a treasure

This is when I discovered the amazing Internet resources now available to birdwatchers. The Cornell Lab of Ornithology, one of the Backyard Bird Count’s main sponsors along with the Audubon Society, maintains a great website called AllAboutBirds.org. Like many bird websites (shouldn't we call them nests?), you can look up any bird and get information from what it looks and sounds like to where it likes to hang out each summer and winter. Here’s the really good part for novices like me: You can figure out what bird you saw just by entering basic information like color, size, beak shape and special markings. I quickly went from 350 choices down to nine as I refined my description of that yellow-bellied bird in the cedar tree. And it's name? Without a doubt, the Cedar Waxwing.

A Tuck Park Tufted Titmouse

Mystery of red tips is solved

The website told me that these anti-snowbirds summer from Alaska to Newfoundland but winter here, where our abundant cedars offer shelter and berries. Still, one thing did not match up. None of the website photos showed red on the tips of the tail feathers. Why did mine? I found the answer under a section with interesting facts about Cedar Waxwings.

I discovered that these birds developed a fondness for honeysuckle after man brought the prickly vine here from Europe. Some Cedar Waxwings eat so much honeysuckle that their tail feathers turn red!

Miss Harding would be pleased to know that she taught me all about our area’s two most observed birds: Robins (2,032 counted) and Northern Cardinals (1,970 spotted).

Now that the bird count is over, I’m surprised that I keep looking and listening for birds when I walk through my neighborhood. Perhaps that’s because my enlarged photos helped me “see” what my eyes could not – that wonderful, beautiful and maybe even rare winged treasures often wait just below the ripple of a nearby branch.

Want to know more?

Visit the Great Backyard Bird Count at www.birdsource.org/gbbc. As of 3:50 p.m. Feb. 28, 98,081 people had submitted reports on 16,702,301 individual birds and 615 species. At the site you can see records by locale, look at photos taken during the count and get lots of facts about birds.

Want to identify a bird?

Visit www.AllAboutBirds.org, operated by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. While you’re there, download the bird songs of this year’s top five most counted birds for free and learn about plants that will bring more birds to your own backyard. 

About Rich Haag -  Rich gained his love for the outdoors while roaming the woods and river gorge near his upstate NY home. He has spent many vacations – one lasting eight weeks -  camping with his wife, Karen, and their sons. Rich still roams the woods nearly every day, either walking with Karen at Reedy Creek Nature Preserve or cycling on the Mallard Creek Greenway.

 

Gardening In Carolina Clay - Not For Wimps!

Carolina clay

That's Farming, by Jeffie Hardin – Feb. 27, 2012 

As I’ve mentioned in other blogs, we’ve lived in North Carolina for about 21 years – making us almost native. I love this area and consider myself a “Carolina girl”. The weather is wonderful, the people so friendly … but the one thing that has almost brought me to my knees is the RED CLAY SOIL! Stick your shovel in that, and it’s like picking up a sticky brick. And for those of you reading this blog who have not had the pleasure of laundering your children’s clothes after they’ve played outside in that red clay … it ain’t no picnic. Gardening with such soil can cause some heartache, too. The clay is so dense that it often seems like the only thing it will grow is weeds.
Well here comes my secret weapon … my husband! He’s a soils engineer who specializes in clay liners for landfills and racetracks. Chris also is an unofficial scientist and hands-on farmer. How convenient! I’m going to interview him about conditioning your soil for this week’s blog. It is that time of the year to get your garden ready so hopefully this will inspire you to get out your shovel.

So Chris…why is this Carolina Clay so hard to garden in? 

The clay soils in the Carolinas can have good nutrients, but the high clay content makes it hard to till, plant and condition with organic materials. Clay is a fine-particle material where water particles are bound to the soils, making it hard and blocky. Another problem is that clay soils tend to trap and preserve weed seeds for many years. When older clay soils are tilled, these weed seeds obtain moisture and sprout fresh weed seedlings.

What can a gardener do to get the soil in better shape? 

Three main things: first, adjust the pH higher by adding lime; second, till in more organic matter to provide flow pathways for nutrients and root growth; and third, develop a system to regularly condition the soils with green and/or composted brown manure to increase natural nutrients that feed the plant roots.

What should the pH of my soil be? And how do I achieve that? Most plants thrive in a soil pH from 6.5 to 7.5. The best way to achieve that pH is to break up the clay and add a combination of pelletized lime and gypsum (CaSO4). Then to maintain a healthy pH, add lots of natural organic matter and nutrients with compost or composted manure.

You have mentioned compost, green manure or composted brown or farm-animal manure. What do you mean by these terms?

Our son, Benjamin, in compost pile

Compost is a mixture of decaying organic matter, as from leaves and manure, that is used to improve soil structure and provide nutrients. One of the most important things to remember is that compost created with animal manure typically needs to be turned on a regular basis to increase microbial activity and bring the temperature to 120 to 160 degrees and kill pathogens. Meats and non-vegetable proteins should not be added to compost because of the danger of unhealthy pathogens and microorganisms. Finished compost is crumbly, evenly textured, earthy-smelling and a dark brown or brown/black material that is similar to a commercial potting soil.

Green manures are cover crops like clover and greens that are grown with the intention of turning them back into the soil. Green manures tend to suppress weeds and prevent erosion and nutrient runoff in areas that would otherwise be unplanted. Green plants can assist with creating good soil structure and food for the microbes, once they are tilled in and begin to decompose.

Brown or farm animal manure (from cows, chickens, goats, etc.) can be used in compost, but as explained above the compost should be turned on a regular basis to aerate and increase temperatures to allow the decomposition process to be completed before using in a vegetable garden. 

Nutrient-rich finished compost, ready for the garden

Finished compost that contains brown or animal manure will have that healthy crumbly and earthy smell that is common of processed potting soil. It typically takes one to three months for animal manure to compost adequately in the summer months, and four to six months in the winter months. If you have any doubts about your compost developed from farm animal or plant manure, it is best to consult a soil scientist or composting specialist to make sure it is safe in vegetable gardens.

Should I get rid of all my Carolina clay?

In my opinion NO! Carolina clay soils also retain water during drought conditions and grow wonderful tasting vegetables – especially tomatoes and squash. If the blocky structure of the clay soils can be broken up and managed with the addition of lime and/or gypsum, organic matter or compost, then even red Carolina clay soils can be excellent for vegetable gardens and small-scale farming. The most important thing, like a sustainable-farming lifestyle, is balance. Of course, a balanced soil conditioning and pH adjustment program takes time and.... That’s Farming. 

About Jeffie and Chris Hardin – The Hardins left suburban life in 2001 for an 8-acre farm near Mountain Island Lake. Now the Hardins and their children seek to grow half of their family’s food and help others grow food, too.

  

Changing The World Around Us, One Bite At A Time

Sustainable Healthy Living, by Sheila Mullen – Feb. 25, 2012

The burning issues of our day: local food, personal growth and development, activism, the environment, children’s rights, women’s rights, animal rights, world health, world peace and economic and job growth can be dramatically improved by what we eat for breakfast, lunch and dinner. It truly is revolutionary. Or maybe not.

Stop and ponder that thought: the world can change by what is on your plate. This is your wake-up call regarding the critical role food plays to our health and well-being. Unfortunately, like a fish in water doesn’t fully understand the importance of water to its survival, people don’t really understand that food changes everything. If the fish were removed from the water, it would die. Many of us are eating food not fit for human consumption, and slowly we are killing ourselves.

We are at the edge of change in healthcare; there is no way we can continue in this manner. My vision is to have health coaches working side by side with doctors to create integrative medicine where the best of traditional medicine and the best of holistic services are available in a simple, easy-to-understand way for everyone. It just makes sense to eat more fruits and vegetables, avoid artificial junk food and find balance in your career, relationships, spiritual practice and physical fitness. It is not complicated.

Someday we will see hospitals serving healthy foods. Any logical hospital director will be able to see that putting in an organic juice bar in a hospital would make a lot of sense. We will see the majority of hospital doctors, nurses and administrators living balanced lives so they can model for their patients what healthy living looks like.

Americans spend over $2.6 trillion dollars a year on healthcare, according to recent federal government data. That is on average $8,400 per person, far more than any other country in the world. If we took 1%, to 2% of that $2.6 trillion dollars, allocating it to education and prevention, healthcare could change dramatically. We could embrace the foundation of well-being rather than costly medicine and operations.

This is an enormous opportunity - an opportunity we ourselves can impact by feeding bodies the best whole local farm-fresh food and living a balanced healthy lifestyle.

About Sheila Mullen - The founder of Continuous Motion Consulting, Sheila is passionate about engaging friends, family and community in improving their lives and the lives of those around them. Sheila spent more than 20 years in technology sales, marketing and development. She also has a background in organizational development, innovation and executive wellness coaching.

Heroes of the River

Clean And Clear Catawba, by Alice Battle – Feb. 24, 2012

Individuals can affect lives in the community without the community being aware of their contribution.  Property owners who conserve land to protect the drinking water are just such people.

The last large tracts of undeveloped properties on Mountain Island Lake are in Gaston and Lincoln Counties. The Johnson Creek watershed, which lies mostly in Gaston County, is still comprised of forests and farm land.  The Creek empties into Mountain Island Lake in the northern river-like section of the Lake.

Over the last decade, Kay Killian and her family have put 500 acres of her family’s property into conservancy.  Some of this property is in the Johnson Creek watershed; some is not too far from the Lake and next to the Mountain Island Educational State Forest just north of Mount Holly. All of it is invaluable for protecting our drinking water and providing a home for wildlife.

“My family has seen a lot of change in the area over the years and never wanted our land turned into a housing development,” Kay told the Catawba Lands Conservancy in 2010, when the family made its most recent conservation-easement agreement for about 300 acres. “By establishing conservation easements with the Conservancy, we can keep our family properties and ensure that they will remain farm and forest land forever.” 

Conservancy keeps the property as forest and farmland. The owners give up development rights. Kay could sell the property and live comfortably the rest of her life.  Instead, she chose to keep it as it is, which protects the drinking water.

The Lake provides drinking water to Charlotte, Mount Holly, Stanley, Gastonia, Ranlo, McAdenville, Cramerton, Lowell and Clover, SC. All citizens owe a debt of gratitude to the Kay Killians in this area who make selfless acts that benefit all citizens.

About Alice Battle – Alice lives on Mountain Island Lake has served on numerous groups devoted to protecting the lake, including the Duke Energy Relicensing stakeholders group. She currently is Lakekeeper for the Catawba Riverkeeper Foundation.

 

She-Conomy: The Green Purchase Power of Women

Catawba River Women, by Carla Linster – Feb. 23, 2012

Do we women know how much influence we have over our environment?

We influence the environment every time we buy something – and women make many of the biggest buying decisions in the American economy.

Women are the primary consumers in the United States, making over 85% of the consumer purchase decisions and influencing 95% of the total goods and services bought. We have the final say in buying:

• 93 percent of food
• 93 percent of over-the-counter medicine
• 91 percent of new homes
• 85 percent of all brand buys.
• 80 percent of health care
• 65 percent of new cars (and we influence 80 percent of all car purchases)

We even buy more insurance and consumer electronics than men.

Women spend more than $5 trillion a year – over half of the U.S. Gross Domestic Product! Now consider that we also have that power at work. Women start 70 percent of all new businesses. No wonder that economists have a new name for our influence: the She-Conomy.

We share what we know

And women like to share information. Many of us feel a responsibility to help family and friends make wise purchasing decisions, so we not only buy things ourselves but also influence what others buy. As you might imagine, the Internet and social networks play a large role in helping us influence those purchases. By reading and writing reviews on products and services we women reach out and let others know what we think.

With Power Comes Responsibility 

Ladies, the reason I have all these statistics about our spending power is because we are being tracked, analyzed and wooed by the people we buy from. Marketing firms study our habits, needs and sensibilities. Then they help their clients tailor products and advertisements that appeal to our demographic.

What does all this mean for those of us who want to protect the environment? We need to think about the environmental consequences of our spending decisions. What is important for my family, my community, my world and me?

Yes, sometimes we’ll still choose material goods and timesaving conveniences over what we know is the environmental ideal, and that’s OK. Just know that We Have Power to protect our environment with all of those trillions of dollars we spend!

About Carla Linster – Carla, 47, is enjoying a “mid-life spring” after overcoming several medical problems. One new joy is working with “an amazing group of women,” the Catawba River Women’s Group, as they seek to create a sense of unity among communities along the Catawba River.

Truly 'unique' and local

Keep It Local, by Barbara Lawrence – Feb. 21, 2012

The term unique may be overused.  Unique does best describe the one of a kind, made locally, items to be found in our local stores in the Catawba River District.  I call your attention this week to Sweet Peas Unique Gifts at 127 S Main Street. Jennifer Jordan started creating jewelry, handbags and other accessories with a small space on East Central in Downtown Mount Holly in November 2009.  The business has grown to include many beautiful accessories created with gifted hands in the area.

Sweet Peas Unique Gifts now has both a website and a Facebook page.  As we share the stories of our local businesses, we create a virtual connection for our communities in the Catawba River District.  Share your stories of your unique discoveries. 

Summey Building prior to improvements

Billy Rick has made remarkable improvements to the 1927 Summey building without sacrificing the historic characteristics.  Looking at before and after shows what a difference the building and the businesses make to our local community.

Rich Haag just took a new picture this week, shown here.

Summey Building this week.

Time Flies Christmas Store is a new addition to this building at 125 S Main Street.  The Salon and Spa on Main has a new store front at their location, 123 S Main.  There is plenty to see as Mount Holly businesses continue to build their 'unique' set of offerings for locals and visitors alike.

About Barbara Lawrence - Barbara has a background in economic development and real-estate research. Her work has included revitalization of downtown Boone, downtown Gastonia and now Mount Holly.

Green Acres, Huntersville Style

In the beginning (1998) ... Our new "farmers" at Whiteners' Greenhouses.

That’s Farming by Jeffie and Chris Hardin – Feb. 20, 2012

Continuing on from the last blog entry (see 2/13/12 blog), our family began its farming adventure at Whitener's Greenhouses of Huntersville in 1998.  Dan and Linda Whitener graciously rented us an acre of farmland in order for us to try out our green thumbs.  The soil, rich with nutrients, produced rows and rows of tomatoes and squash, peppers and cucumbers.  

Our children at that time were 7, 5, 3, and 1. Looking back, I can't believe anything grew in that field with all those little feet running around. But our little farmers quickly learned not only to watch where they stepped, but also how to plant in a relatively straight line (HA!), how to determine what was a weed and what was a vegetable plant, and to experience the fun of working as a team while watering the garden. And then there was the joy of picking the vegetables and popping a sweet grape tomato right in the mouth. We did have a painful experience involving a jalapeno pepper being eaten right off the vine. One little boy was not happy that afternoon!

One of our first "harvests"

The big choice

We tilled and planted and watered and picked at the Whiteners’ for a few years, but our children kept asking about farm animals. The dream of having our own land kept resurfacing. We had started an engineering business back in 1992 and it had grown to include 25 employees. We realized there was no way we could raise 4 children, run a successful/high stress engineering firm, and be part time farmers. In 1999, at the peak of the good economy we were getting offers to sell the business. After much thought and prayer, we decided to go ahead and sell it and "buy the farm".

The search for our farm

So now we had the money .... the harder part was finding some land. At that time, I was homeschooling our children so one of the constraints with our search was that we couldn't be too far away from our homeschooling support systems as well as Chris' new job which, was based in Charlotte. That really limited how far we could move. For several months we searched in Iredell, Cabarrus, Lincoln and Gaston counties. Nothing seemed to fit our list of requirements. We'd gotten to the point of giving up or as least putting our search on the back burner, when one day Chris was driving around with our oldest daughter, Rebekah. They drove down a little country road in Huntersville and happened to spot a cleared property with a small house situated on a hill ... and some sort of sign that was bend down near the driveway. After they pulled into the gravel drive, Rebekah picked up the sign to reveal it was a For Sale sign that had fallen down.

Green ‘Angels’

It turned out that the owner was in California and he was wondering why he hadn't received any calls about his pristine piece of land. (Personally, I think angels were involved in hiding the sign.) The owner had originally bought the property in order to raise horses. He had built a 1-bedroom cottage and had only lived in it for a few months before he had to either move to California or lose his job. Needless to say, he moved and put his 23 acres and small cottage on the market.

A very special tract of land

Our new home! So few trees, and just 1 bedroom!

This beautiful piece of land also included the headwaters to Garr Creek, which runs into Mountain Island Lake. For those who don't know, this is the creek that drains into Latta Plantation and is the closest drainage area to the intake for Charlotte's drinking water. Catawba Lands Conservancy (CLC) wanted to buy that section of the property to preserve it from development and protect the headwaters of Charlotte's primary drinking water source. The whole real estate and legal transaction with CLC, the home owner and our family would take about 10 more blogs and I don't want to bore you to death, so I'll cut right to the chase. We were able to work out a deal where our family bought 8 acres and the house, and CLC bought the other 14 acres with us at a reduced price.

Ready, set, build!

So now we had 8 acres of land, a 1-bedroom cottage and a family of 6 that included 4 rapidly growing children. That called for a major expansion! We were up for the task of being pioneers in Huntersville as we worked to develop land, build fences and of course buy a bigger tractor and some farm animals. By tapping into Chris' experience with construction, and with the help of many friends, we spent that year designing and building a 3,000-square-foot addition, a tractor shed and various outbuildings. By God's grace and a lot of hard work, we moved into our newly renovated home in July of 2001. Now we were ready to really act like farmers including tending animals, mucking stalls and raising a big ol' farm garden.

Ready at last to be farmers

Looking back it still amazes all of us at how much we accomplished in such a short time. Getting to the farm was just the first step of learning about how to raise crops and tend the animals. It's an important step - especially since we did not grow up in farming families. We promise to get back to the basics of farming on small acreage next week. For now, I'm going to take a nap and recover from just thinking about all the things we did in the beginning of our farming saga.

Our new home! And our antique tractor that started it all.

About Jeffie and Chris Hardin – The Hardins left suburban life in 2001 for an 8-acre farm near Mountain Island Lake. Now the Hardins and their children seek to grow half of their family’s food and help others grow food, too.