Podcasts about yadkin river

This week the podcast features a big helping of “Dog Talk At It's Finest.” Steve brings one of the sports most respected and longest running breeders of Treeing Walker Coonhounds, the renown Jim “Wildman” Meeks to the Gone To The Dogs microphone.  Meeks, a first ballot inductee into the North Carolina State Coon Hunters Hall of Fame, is possessed of a wealth of knowledge all areas of the coon hunting game. This one literally oozes Old School coon hunting from the first drop to the final tree.  Steve and Jim discuss a gamut of subjects from hunting gear to pup training and a little of everything in between.  With hunting seasons upon us, this one is for the guys that do it simply for the love of the hounds, as told by one of the true purists in our sport. We would like to thank those who support this podcast.  Special thanks to Alpha Dog Nutrition and Double U Hunting Supply for sponsoring this episode.  Want to learn more about Alpha Dog Nutrition? Check out the links belowhttps://www.dusupply.com/alphadogwww.dusupply.comhttps://alphadognutrition.com/

This week the podcast features a big helping of “Dog Talk At It's Finest.” Steve brings one of the sports most respected and longest running breeders of Treeing Walker Coonhounds, the renown Jim “Wildman” Meeks to the Gone To The Dogs microphone.  Meeks, a first ballot inductee into the North Carolina State Coon Hunters Hall of Fame, is possessed of a wealth of knowledge all areas of the coon hunting game. This one literally oozes Old School coon hunting from the first drop to the final tree.  Steve and Jim discuss a gamut of subjects from hunting gear to pup training and a little of everything in between.  With hunting seasons upon us, this one is for the guys that do it simply for the love of the hounds, as told by one of the true purists in our sport. We would like to thank those who support this podcast.  Special thanks to Alpha Dog Nutrition and Double U Hunting Supply for sponsoring this episode.  Want to learn more about Alpha Dog Nutrition? Check out the links belowhttps://www.dusupply.com/alphadogwww.dusupply.comhttps://alphadognutrition.com/

This week the podcast features a big helping of “Dog Talk At It's Finest.” Steve brings one of the sports most respected and longest running breeders of Treeing Walker Coonhounds, the renown Jim “Wildman” Meeks to the Gone To The Dogs microphone. Meeks, a first ballot inductee into the North Carolina State Coon Hunters Hall of Fame, is possessed of a wealth of knowledge all areas of the coon hunting game.  This one literally oozes Old School coon hunting from the first drop to the final tree. Steve and Jim discuss a gamut of subjects from hunting gear to pup training and a little of everything in between. With hunting seasons upon us, this one is for the guys that do it simply for the love of the hounds, as told by one of the true purists in our sport.  We would like to thank those who support this podcast. Special thanks to Alpha Dog Nutrition and Double U Hunting Supply for sponsoring this episode. Want to learn more about Alpha Dog Nutrition? Check out the links below https://www.dusupply.com/alphadog www.dusupply.com https://alphadognutrition.com/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week the podcast features a big helping of “Dog Talk At It's Finest.” Steve brings one of the sports most respected and longest running breeders of Treeing Walker Coonhounds, the renown Jim “Wildman” Meeks to the Gone To The Dogs microphone.  Meeks, a first ballot inductee into the North Carolina State Coon Hunters Hall of Fame, is possessed of a wealth of knowledge all areas of the coon hunting game. This one literally oozes Old School coon hunting from the first drop to the final tree.  Steve and Jim discuss a gamut of subjects from hunting gear to pup training and a little of everything in between.  With hunting seasons upon us, this one is for the guys that do it simply for the love of the hounds, as told by one of the true purists in our sport.  We would like to thank those who support this podcast. Special thanks to Alpha Dog Nutrition and Double U Hunting Supply for sponsoring this episode. Want to learn more about Alpha Dog Nutrition? Check out the links belowhttps://www.dusupply.com/alphadogwww.dusupply.comhttps://alphadognutrition.com/ https://www.youtube.com/@DoubleUHuntingSupply/podcasts

The Gone To The Dogs Podcast is nothing if not a gathering place for the nation's best known and most revered raccoon hunters.The week the podcast features a big helping of “Dog Talk At It's Finest.”Steve brings one of the sports most respected and longest running breeders of Treeing Walker Coonhounds, the renown Jim “Wildman” Meeks to the Gone To The Dogs microphone.  Meeks, a first ballot inductee into the North Carolina State Coon Hunters Hall of Fame, is possessed of a wealth of knowledge all areas of the coon hunting game. This one literally oozes Old School coon hunting from the first drop to the final tree.  Steve and Jim discuss a gamut of subjects from hunting gear to pup training and a little of everything in between.  With hunting seasons upon us, this one is for the guys that do it simply for the love of the hounds, as told by one of the true purists in our sport. 

In this episode Steve has a belated visit with Jim Meeks and Tom Gilroy which normally occurs at the annual Grand American Coon Hunt in Orangeburg..Jim is the founder and longtime curator of the Yadkin River strain of Treeing Walker hounds, known nationally for its contributions to coonhound history through several notable, well-advertised hounds.  Circumstances this year prevented the old friends' annual reunion in Orangeburg and so Steve the pair to fill in the gap.  Listeners become the beneficiaries in the interesting exchange. Young Tom, soon to be 23, joins his mentor and longtime family friend Jim to discuss the Yadkin River dogs, past and present.   Steve takes the opportunity to drill down into several interesting points in the strain's storied history.  Of particular interest to the host is the question of which trait or traits has carried down through the strain's fifty-plus year history.  The questions of size and mouth within the strain are examples as is the question of Meeks' favorite among the many famous hounds that have worn the Yadkin River name. Dog talk abounds in this two-plus hour episode.  Join us for answers to expected questions as well as those generated by the fluid conversations.  No doubt Walker enthusiasts will find this episode as gratifying as a fireside rocker on a crisp mid-winter evening.  Pull up to the fire and prepare to be warmed to the core by dog talk at its finest, cordial interactions that center upon the hounds of Yadkin River. 

In this episode Steve has a belated visit with Jim Meeks and Tom Gilroy which normally occurs at the annual Grand American Coon Hunt in Orangeburg..Jim is the founder and longtime curator of the Yadkin River strain of Treeing Walker hounds, known nationally for its contributions to coonhound history through several notable, well-advertised hounds.  Circumstances this year prevented the old friends' annual reunion in Orangeburg and so Steve the pair to fill in the gap.  Listeners become the beneficiaries in the interesting exchange. Young Tom, soon to be 23, joins his mentor and longtime family friend Jim to discuss the Yadkin River dogs, past and present.   Steve takes the opportunity to drill down into several interesting points in the strain's storied history.  Of particular interest to the host is the question of which trait or traits has carried down through the strain's fifty-plus year history.  The questions of size and mouth within the strain are examples as is the question of Meeks' favorite among the many famous hounds that have worn the Yadkin River name. Dog talk abounds in this two-plus hour episode.  Join us for answers to expected questions as well as those generated by the fluid conversations.  No doubt Walker enthusiasts will find this episode as gratifying as a fireside rocker on a crisp mid-winter evening.  Pull up to the fire and prepare to be warmed to the core by dog talk at its finest, cordial interactions that center upon the hounds of Yadkin River. 

Jim Meeks was, at his peak, known as one of the hardest hunters in the sport of raccoon hunting.He is most noted for his association with the Yadkin River strain of Treeing Walkers.  He takes no credit for naming the strain but no man has hunted and promoted more of the famous dogs from the line.  Hounds like Yadkin River Tom, Jeff, Champ, Chico, and Tar Rattler lace his conversations like rawhide on a well-worn pair of Irish Setters.  Jim Meeks and Yadkin River Walkers are forever intertwined. Jim and Steve have been sharing conversations around the barns at the Grand American for over forty years.  This episode is but the latest collection of coonhound-related chatter that flows when the two get together.  Readers have enjoyed Jim's writing in coonhound magazines through the decades as well.  Never claiming to be a competition hunter, his Just Coon Hunting columns are ripe with some of the most entertaining stories to be found.  Coon hunters wet behind the ears and long in the tooth alike will enjoy this episode recorded live at the largest annual gathering of coon hunters in the nation, the incomparable Grand American.   

It's a story of fishing, family and faith this time on the Polar Kraft podcast. We're talking with Jeff King and his dad Jeff King Sr.  They run the Yadkin Master Catters catfish tournament in North Carolilna and they also fish as a team on the tournament circuit there. The two men talk about the world of catfishing today and how their tournament ciruit has help increase the visibility of chasing trophyt cats. The elder King also shares the story of how fishing helped him beat addiction and regain his relationship with his son. They also discuss the need for big livewells on their catfish boats and why Polar Kraft offers the perfect solution.

On this episode of the Life in the Carolinas podcast, Carl sits down with R.G. Absher, Executive Director at Yadkin River Greenway, a nonprofit created in 1994 through the cooperative efforts of citizen volunteers, landowners, and the governments of Wilkes County. The first phase of the Greenway became a reality and was opened May 18, 2002. This Greenway is a natural area between urban communities where wildlife, vegetation, and streams are preserved and enjoyed. Greenways also provide transportation, recreation, and exercise opportunities for the community. R.G. is a treasure trove of information on the Greenway, and in today's conversation, he specifically highlights a map focusing on the Yadkin Valley Heritage Corridor. It provides an introductory guide to enjoying the river, whether through kayaking or fishing. This map (which is available in digital form as well) aims to promote outdoor activities in the region, which is steeped in natural beauty and is rich with history as well—having had a Native American presence for about 12,000 years. R.G. explains how best to prepare for a visit to the region and the most pressing safety concerns to keep in mind when considering an adventure on the Yadkin River. He also describes the agricultural importance of the area going back centuries since the settlement of Native Americans and our duty as tourists to adhere to the old Boy Scout lesson of “leaving an area better than we found it.”  R.G. believes that cleanliness begins with you if you are to be an ambassador for the outdoors. Ultimately, says R.G., “The goal of the brochure is to encourage activity; and to enjoy it in a safe way.”   https://goyadkinvalley.com/ https://www.yadkinrivergreenway.com/

The Happy Valley community lies between Lenoir and Blowing Rock along the Yadkin River. This fertile valley is so scenic and peaceful that early settlers gave it the name “Happy Valley.” The valley was home to General William Lenoir, for whom the Caldwell County seat of Lenoir was named. His home, Fort Defiance, is on the National Register of Historic Places, open regularly to visitors, and also hosts several public events a year.

The Happy Valley community lies between Lenoir and Blowing Rock along the Yadkin River. This fertile valley is so scenic and peaceful that early settlers gave it the name “Happy Valley.” The valley was home to General William Lenoir, for whom the Caldwell County seat of Lenoir was named. His home, Fort Defiance, is on the National Register of Historic Places, open regularly to visitors, and also hosts several public events a year.

Travelogue Series: I start a multi-episode travelogue exposition in 2022, by visiting North Carolina and the Yadkin Valley. In this multi-part series on North Carolina, we’ll explore the Yadkin Valley, meet with producers, and feature several interviews for the YouTube portion of the show with those producers. We will feature Finger Lakes producers in between, and ultimately also explore The Hill Country in Texas, and the wine-growing regions of Idaho. Please excuse errors in the text, this was dictated and gently edited.North CarolinaWhen I moved to the Finger Lakes a decade ago, I was hungry to find as much information as possible about the region. I wanted to find books magazine articles, podcasts, and nearly anything that would shed light on the history of the region that I was moving to. At that time, there really weren’t very many publications. At the very least, I couldn’t seem to find a short history of how the finger Lakes and become one of the most discussed emerging regions in the United States. There was of course the wonderful book, Summer in a Glass, by Evan Dawson, in which he follows a number of different winemakers through the growing season 2009 in the Finger Lakes. In the absence of such a book, I set out to write one of my own, with much more of an eye towards content marketing for our new winery, and dug into all of the old journals, periodicals, and textbooks on American wine I could find. I published A Sense of Place in 2014, and have been able to use it as a great tool to help educate customers and even tasting room associates. I wasn’t able to find anything quite like that on North Carolina, and realized a lot of the lessons I would learn would have to be done on the ground.The Yadkin Valley is vast, covering more than 1,300,000 acres. With such a large span of land, I knew that there was going to have to be variation in the topography, and even the climate to a certain extent, within the AVA. I was a bit surprised flying from my layover in Atlanta into Greensboro, to see a dusting of snow covering the ground. For the cold climate winemaker, I just assumed that North Carolina would be significantly warmer than the finger Lakes I had left behind. I was surprised at the temperature spread on the ground that morning was only about 10°, with a balmy 31°F when I landed. Setting out from the airport, and passing through Winston Salem, more than anything else I just wanted to get a feel for the lay of the land. Whenever I arrive in a new place, in order to get my bearings in a sense for what the place looks and feels like, I’d like to just go for a drive. It gives me a better understanding of where the towns are that get referenced in conversation, what some of the local historical landmarks are, and even where the politics of a place takes place. Knowing that I was in the Yadkin Valley, and heading west from Winston Salem towards Yadkin County, and the Yadkin River, I figured why not plug Yadkinville into my GPS.I had broken up my trip into visiting the southern portion of the EVA for the first day and a half, and the northern portion of the AVA on the second and third days. Highway 218 seems to cut the AVA in half so it was a good working point to begin to discover some of the different wineries I had a particular interest in tasty.To choose just a few wineries in an emerging wine region is an extraordinarily difficult job. In a sense it’s kind of a gamble, you rely on reputation, customer reviews, and references from people who are much more expertise in the region and then yourself, but so much of wine still comes down to personal taste, and aesthetics. What I had decided I wanted to do, in pursuing a slightly deeper understanding of the AVA, was to look at oneThat was an anchor in terms of the history of the region, to look at a winery that was relatively new, but small and focused on extraordinary quality, and to look at one of the biggest producers in the AVA with an extraordinary offering of a variety of different ones. I figured I would have a chance to taste several other wineries along the way and include them in this report.Because in so many ways this was a last minute trip many of the people I reached out to likely hadn’t even opened their inbox by the time I was heading out of town. It was the period just after New Year’s, and often times it’s pretty slow start in the new year in the wine industry. I had however, gotten replies from Shelton, that winery that I referenced as a pioneer in the AVA, and really one of the reasons why there is a Yadkin Valley a View today. I had received word back from Childress, the the winery name and founded by Richard Childress, of NASCAR fame. North Carolina is NASCAR country, and Richard Childress has built one of the largest brands, in fact one of the few I had heard of before traveling to North Carolina, while making wine in New York. I also received word from Diana Jones, of Jones Von Drehle, one of the wineries at the northern end of the AVA, and one that had come extremely highly recommended.  Some of the wineries on my shortlist included Ray Lyn, Raffaldino, Shadow Springs, and a handful of others. I guess from the perspective of somebody who is trying to discover a new wine region, one of my only frustrations was not having more direct links to members of winery staff where I could email or contact them directly. I realize this is a problem on my own website, and after experiencing this, something I’ll be change. Sometimes the ease of having an inbox that serves as a catch-all becomes a crutch for us small business owners, but as someone who is seeking some very specific answers to some very specific questions, it can make sense to ensure that those individuals with deeper questions can reach winemakers directly.In any event, I arrived in Yadkinville, crossing the Yadkin River, and decided to head to town where I could pick up some bottled water and a couple snacks and see what the town offered. Yadkinville is a small town, there doesn’t seem to be much of a culinary scene, and it really is just the county seat. It’s where you go to get permits, and like we have your county planning board meetings. There wasn’t much by way of a presence of wine in the town, but I did notice when I stopped in to the local grocery store, Food Lion, and realized this was a state that sells wine in grocery stores, and they had a small selection of some of the local producers, with Childress being one of them. The wines on offer were very basic, emphasizing the muscadine production of sweet wines from local producers, but there were a few dry reds and whites included on the shelf. Since Yadkinville marked in the center of the AVA, and it was getting to be towards the middle of the afternoon, I figured I would enter wineries into my GPS to see if any were open, and get back on the road. Leaving the main highway I drove beautiful winding roads and very gentle hills in what was largely agricultural countryside. I drove by a winery called Bradford Hills, which was a very small tasting room and an out-building, a small but well manicured vineyard, and it look like a fantastic place to visit on a beautiful summer day. It didn’t look like it would be open until after my flight was departing on Friday, and I quickly realized that I likely would not have a chance to taste many of the wineries that I hadn’t made contact with, during the middle of the week. This meant that a lot of the small producers, wineries about my own winery’s size and smaller, would have to wait for another trip.After taking some pictures I set back out onto the road, looking at my GPS and seeing what wineries I would be passing on my way to Lexington, where Childress is located and where my hotel room was booked. I noticed that RayLyn could be reached with a small detour. From my research it was a winery that I really wanted to taste at, and I noticed they were open, so I made my way. Even though it is winter, there’s still more sun and warmth then we get in the finger Lakes. The grass was still green, though the trees were bare, and the bare trees opened up the countryside even more so that you could see the hills and buildings, that were off in the distance. Making my way from Bradford Hill winery, the landscape became less dramatic, slightly flatter, but retaining the same intrinsic quality. Passing fields that had recently been ploughed, the deep tones of brick and garnet that marked the clay that is found all throughout this region, was everywhere. My GPS led me to RaeLyn Vineyards, and upon entering I was impressed. The site was easily accessible from many of the main highways, and from that perspective, it seems to be ideally situated to attract a steady flow of customers. One of the things I’ve learned as a producer, especially one in an emerging region, is how important it is to be able to attract customers in as convenient of a location as possible. When so much of your business depends on people knocking on that cellar door, you want that door to be easily accessible. RayLyn was marked with a beautiful gate as an entrance, and a a gentle drive through the vineyards towards the tasting room in winery. I passed a small new planting of strawberries and several young rows of blueberries. I particularly like when wine wineries are able to integrate other forms of agriculture into their farms. Whether they are used for any sort of wine production, I think it encapsulates this idea of our responsibility to the soil and to the earth. It also reminds us of the other forms of agriculture that we can be excited about. I’ve begun integrating more produce at our winery, planting cucumbers and tomatoes, peppers and squash, and hope to grow this out in the future.Approaching the parking lot at Ray Lynn, there’s a very nice outdoor tent that they seem to be able to use for banquets or weddings, and likely overflow for the tasting room if the weather is inclement. At this point in the afternoon the temperature had risen to about 41°, but with that southern sun shining bright, the fresh air combined with the warmth felt wonderful on my skin. And it wasn’t just me, there were a couple folks sitting out enjoying the day on some picnic tables outside the tasting room with a glass of wine. They were polite and smiled and gave me a small raise of the glass as I walked by. I entered the tasting room was read it immediately. People in North Carolina are friendly. I spoke with the tasting room staff, explained I was a winemaker and operated podcast, and had wanted to feature RayLyn on the shelf. This was one of the emails that had gotten lost in my expedited travel plan, and so without an appointment I took a gamble. It was a great choice. The tasting room staff was excited, informed me that her husband was from Watkins Glen, and eagerly brought up the names of some of my favorite producers in the Finger Lakes, folks that they have close personal relationships with. Being from Watkins Glen, of course the Stamp family at Lakewood, received some of the highest praise. She offered to taste me through the portfolio and I happily agreed, this would be my first taste of North Carolina wine In North Carolina.This winery offers a full suite of different wines, emphasizing dry veneer for a red and white wines, they also offer a beautiful Charmat style rosé, of course some of the sweet wines that have built this region made from the Muscadine grapes, and canned wine as well. We worked our way through the Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc, and the dry rosé. Review my notes to include some of the specifics about each wine here. Fortunately, the tasting room also had available detailed notes on the chemistry of the wines, the harvest date, and the components that were in most of the blinds. It’s interesting in the finger Lakes, our growing season doesn’t really kick off until May, and that means that most varietals won’t begin harvest until September. Of course there are some hybrid grapes that are harvested much sooner, but those don’t tend to be any of the bridals that I work with. With harvest starting in September, there have been vintages where we are harvesting all the way through early November, and that doesn’t include wines that we are making as light harvest wines, where we can be harvesting all the way to Thanksgiving, or ice wines which may be picked in January or February of the next year. It seems to me, that much of harvest will begin in August here in North Carolina and be ramping up by the end of September. It also struck me that that works very well for those people who enjoy wine country visits in October, during the fall when the air begins to cool and the excitement of all the dressings of fall are in the air. As a wine maker in the finger Lakes, Columbus Day marks our busiest weekend of the year. It also marks one of those weekends where we are fully in mashed in all of the seller activities, and that means I rarely get a chance to spend time with customers during harvest. It would be great to have the opportunity to spend more time as a wine maker with customers just as harvest is wrapping up and tourism is peeking. Though I love both red and white wines, my desert island wine will generally consist of a white. For me white wines offer a transparency into Vineyard practice and seller practice that edge out reds. Consequently I spend a lot more time thinking about white wine, I spend a whole lot more time making white wine in the finger Lakes, and I find that I drink or white wine. All of the whites offered at RayLyn were wonderful, some with a small component of Muscat Canelli, which added some wonderful aromatics.  Add a little bit of the history from the website of RaeLyn here. While tasting Rachel, one of the owners and daughter of the founder, and the ray of RaeLyn stop by to say hi. She made sure that I was enjoying my tasting, and trying to help me make contact with Steve, their winemaker. He had been in Asheville that day and wouldn’t be arriving until later in the week. She gave me his email address and I hope to have him on in the future in a long distance long-form interview. From everything I’ve heard, he’s one of these towering pioneering figures in the Yadkin Valley and someone who is clearly taking their wines to great heights. The Reds were equally as compelling as the whites, and in someways perhaps even more so. You can get the sense when you’re at a winery, what is the family who makes these wines prefer to drink, and I did get that sense here. One of the bottlings, had what I assumed with some modern art on it, but upon looking closer and receiving the explanation understood That it was actually the Doppler radar of a hurricane. Yes one of my questions has been immediately answered, hurricanes can be a factor here in the Yadkin Valley, though they are nowhere near the factor that people who live closer to the coast have to deal with.  Discuss this wine.After a really wonderful visit at RaeLyn, I ordered a case of wine, had it shipped back to our winery in New York, and set off for Lexington. Again with no familiarity of any of these towns or cities, I chose Lexington because it is the closest town to Childress vineyards. Lexington is nestled in the far south eastern portion of the AVA and most of the city isn’t included in the AVA itself. The town itself is it fairly nice downtown area, and it does feel like there is a small foodie movement emerging, with some local cafés and a Piedmont cheese shop. But in many ways it remains in agricultural and industrial, southern town that I can picture with time and investment has the potential to grow itself into a hub of Wine and food centrality.Just outside the fenced in property for Childress Vineyards was the Holiday Inn and adjoining plaza.  There weren’t really any shops in the small but nice strip mall that is next to the Holiday Inn, but it is all designed in a very similar fashion to Childress itself. The hotel has one side that looks out at the vineyards which I imagine would be a wonderful way to wake up. I was booked on the highway facing side, but the room is quiet and clean and a nice place to eat my takeout Mexican dinner for the night.So much of my philosophy is based on the specifics and the importance of place, and tied up with that philosophy is the notion that small is often better. Most of the time, most of the restaurant and dining options I observed, or chains that work cute in to specializing in any notion of local cuisine. Out here it wasn’t even real common to find a lot of barbecue joints, which I half expected to see almost everywhere. Again maybe I wasn’t looking in the right places, but I do have the sense that restaurant and food entrepreneurs will likely have a huge market to tap into if that’s the direction they would like to go in partnering with this growing wine country.My appointment with Mark Friszolowski was at nine the next morning, and so after getting a good nights sleep and waking up fairly early, I headed over to Childress Vineyards. I was said to meet him in the lobby and as a military man, who retired as a colonel and between his active and reserve duty spent 37 years in the army, I knew that on time was to be 10 minutes early. Driving into Childress which was literally just around the corner from the parking lot of the hotel in through the gates, you pass through a wonderfully manicured vineyard.  The varietals are all identified by signs with the trademark Richard Childress logo, and varietals like Maulbeck and Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot, and multiple Ciano I’ll stand out. There were signs marking planned plantings of Chardonnay and Pinot noir, which I’m particularly interested to see how they do with the North Carolina heat. The tasting room and winery set a top of hill which can be seen from almost any point of the drive into the wineries grounds. It is a beautiful Modern take with an Italian 18. It is the sort of Tuscany inspired building but you’ll find Americans like to build. It sets the tone for the romantic visions that we have of European, and especially Italian, winemaking culture. I know that there are some people who don’t like this form of architecture, they don’t like the sense that it calls out and emotive response that she would find somewhere else in the world but with modern building materials and aesthetics. I’ll be honest, I liked it. I think that they put a lot of effort into creating a beautiful building and grounds with a nice setting that makes you feel like that The winery you’re entering is making some special wines, they put in a lot of effort to set a tone and that tone carries through from the heat and painted murals on the wall of scenes of grape harvest, to the indoor fountain, to the seated tasting room with string lights and doors. This is not the Olive Garden experience, this is something much nicer and with such warm staff, more personal too. The entire tasting room experience was wonderful, The seller tour, The tour of the grounds in the bonded warehouse, explanations on infrastructure projects, a peek inside the restaurant and banquet facility, were all greatly appreciated. Mark was a wonderful host, who poured some great wines. We focused on their vinifera wines,tasting Sauvignon Blanc and Chardonnay, as well as Montepulciano, and some red blends. Mark’s personal history, from his time helping out at Dry Creek Vineyards in California, managing operations at Pindar on Long Island, and ultimately moving to North Carolina to help found Childress. Mark is one of the first winemakers in the country to collaborate on creating the Meritage Alliance, and therefore creating Bordeaux based blends.  The specific vintage of Meritage we tried, the 2015, is a well aged current release. It carried many of the things I love about older Bordeaux, the hints of cedar, the forest floor. It was it both times bolder than what you’ll find in many offerings in the Finger Lakes, but leaner than what you would find in California. And struck a nice middle ground, and was a sort of sweet spot of bold but not overly dramatic red blends that I personally like, and that I think complement food quite well. I’ll be spending an entire feature in an episode with Mark on Childress, so for now we’re going to continue with our travelogue and look at the rest of us the experience here in the Yadkin Valley._____ In crafting the short travel log, I wanted to make sure that it wasn’t strictly about wine. Most of the time when we travel, there are other things on our quotation mark to do quotation mark list. There are a couple of really interesting tourist activities here in the Yadkin Valley, but deal both with history, pop-culture, and the wonderful natural surroundings. Mark was so generous with his time, but I found myself leaving the winery later than I had expected. I certainly wasn’t disappointed and I had made sure to leave a good window of time to spend at this landmark property. I figured I would spend the rest of the afternoon exploring some of those other offerings, and found my way to highway, and I headed up for the town of Mount Airy.Mount Airy sits on the North Carolina Virginia border. It is like so many other hill and mountain towns in America, a quintessential snapshot of life in both modern and past American societies. Mountains and hills can I think we people to be a bit more hearty sometimes a bit tougher but always genuinely very nice. The town itself is built around its historic Main Street. And coming in to Mount airy do you understand what that history is all about.  The name of the highway even changes and becomes the Andy Griffith Parkway, and that of course is named after the famous television show an actor that for seven seasons captured the aspirational qualities of American small-town life. With its classic whistling introduction, it’s sensitive skipping Stones and safety and security, of good old fashion morals and values and being raised in small-town life, Mount Airy was the inspiration for the Andy Griffith show fictional town of Mayberry. Mayberry is the corner stone upon which so much of the towns character now rests. You see signs for Aunt Bee’s café, you see the Mayberry antique shops, the Mayberry museum, ice cream shops meant to look like they were preserved from the 1930s, and a sense of pride that their town was once the basis for this dreamscape of Americana. Some of that dreamscape feels a little rough around the edges now, who knows if it was then if that’s what it’s always been, or if the changing times or loss of industrial base, of structural changes to our economy, and even the opioid epidemic that we face in this country, have added a touch of tarnish to the shine. In all, it’s a great place to be, a wonderful old historic town and I’m happy I made a detour.As you leave Mount Airy and head south on the highway back towards a more central location of the AVA you pass a geological wonder, an outcropping called Pine Mountain. It dominates the skyline and can be seen from many many miles away when you’re on top of hills. Driving past it, and without enough time to drive to the park and visit the mountain personally, I realize that this will be on the top of my list when I have a chance to return with my family and my children. I used to love walks through areas like this when I was a child and I can’t wait for Andrew And Audrey to have that experience with me. I found out, it isn’t the only fascinating geological wonder to explore, as there’s also Stone Mountain, which figured prominently in my second visit on my third day on the ground in the Yadkin Valley.For that evening I had made reservations in a small town called Elkin, or rather just outside of it, in the adjoining town of Jonesville. Jonesville is the classic sort of truckstop town, that offers some heavy industry, but largely consists of some gas stations, hotels, a Cracker Barrel, fast food restaurants, and a grocery store that serves the locals. It did have a Mexican restaurant, this one called Margaritas, which I took advantage of both nights of my stay in the Hampton Inn.Arriving at the hotel, it was a little older, but the staff was exceptionally accommodative, the room was perfectly clean, and the setting itself was quiet. When you were on the road there are very few other things that you actually need. Warm cookies were waiting for us as we checked in, and I unloaded my bags and all of our equipment in my room before I set out for the town to see what was available. Before I set my sights on dinner, I wanted to see Elkin itself. For my own personal aesthetic tastes, this portion of the AVA felt like it matched my desires more closely than the south eastern portion of the AVA. Elkin was quaint but beautiful. As the sun was coming down, the Yadkin River roared not too far away, the train tracks cross run adjacent to the main street, and the town itself seems well put together. Large murals adorn some of the older brick buildings, many featuring grapevines, and the town features a wonderfully restored old theater. Elkin felt nicer than Mount Airy in someways, not to denigrate Mount Airy at all, but it struck me that Elkin is the sort of town that could deal with in Oakville grocers type of concept, some interesting fine dining that features many of the local wineries strongest efforts, and some other cultural activities. Again it’s the off-season and perhaps there is that sort of activity that is going on that I’m simply not aware of, but I feel like the future for Elkin is bright. There aren’t a lot of accommodations right around downtown, but with all of the hotel options in Jonesville, Elkin will be able to maximize the heads in beds that is so important for wine country tourism. Interestingly Elkin and Jonesville, where you reach Jonesville by crossing the Yadkin River, are in different counties. I’m not sure if any of the development has anything to do with that, but in my own experience, especially when you’re dealing with the county and town level, so many of the decisions on what can happen and how well a town or region grows, are based on the local politics and the bureaucratic decisions that are made. I’d have to be there for a lot longer to know if any of this is in play.I picked up some carnitas and pollo asado street tacos, and headed back to my room for another great night sleep. The next morning I had appointments with two different wineries, Shelton Vineyards, and Johns Von Drehle.I woke up early the next morning, spent some time on my computer making sure that I had transferred all of my photos and videos, refreshing some of my notes from my previous day’s visit, and set out for Shelton Vineyards. Any of my initial skepticism‘s on the beauty of the countryside, how this wine region will grow and what its potential is, we’re set aside as I visited Shelton. Shelton is located in the town of Dobson.The exit from the highway for Shelton Vineyards also leads you to Surrey Community College. Surrey Community College was constantly a subject of discussion with most of the people in the wine industry that I met. It is a community college with a vineyard and enology program, and one that was largely initiated and funded by the Shelton Brothers the founders a Shelton Vineyards.  Similar to my emphasis in the finger Lakes on the finger Lakes community college Viticulture program, the Surrey community College program helps to introduce and train up the next generation of viticulture lists knickers. The college itself has a program and a 10 acre Vineyard where students can learn. Against that backdrop of both philanthropy and history, I was excited to have the chance to meet with Ethan Brown, winemaker in Shelton in Vineyards. Ethan had been there for four years, and in a way that completes the circle of the importance of programs like the one at Surrey community college, he attended the program many years ago. Ethan was a young organized dynamic guy, and he wasted no time in showing me around the winery tasting room, and providing a little bit of context for the history of the place. Currently the largest vinifera vineyard in the state of North Carolina, Shelton farms 80 acres of grapes with plans to plant a lot more. Exceptionally manicured, with beautiful old fashion light posts lining the long driveway from the highway to the winery, Shelton truly transports you to a different world. The gentle rolling hills adorn with a backdrop of the mountains, which on clear warm days, I can imagine, inspires you to find your own piece of beautiful grass, and enjoy a glass and some cheese with someone you laugh. For those wine club members who want the best of views, you can climb up to the gazebo that rests surrounding vineyards and truly has the best features of the entire valley.Built in 1999, Shelton Vineyards really isn’t showing it’s age that much. It speaks to the efforts of the staff to ensure maintenance is done regularly and things are taken care of. The cellar itself is built into a hillside which means most of it is underground. The barrel rooms are probably 20 feet high but at least 2/3 of that being underground meaning temperature control from both cold and heat is a lot easier and done with much less energy.  Producing around 25,000 cases a year, this is a Winery that has seen the baton passed from the founding Shelton brothers to the next generation. With that transition is an intention to grow their programs and initiate new ones. With the recent purchase of a break tank and a small hand bottling counter pressure system the winery seeking to do more charmat style sparklings. Ethan also talked about expanding cock and re-instituting their traditional methods Sparkling Wine program. I tasted a Sauvignon Blanc, a dry rosé based on Merlot, Petit Verdot, and a Petit Verdot/Cabernet Sauvignon blend.. All of the wines were exceptionally crafted, showing what I had begun to discern as something that speaks to the North Carolina fine wines that I tried. The whites and the reds are both fuller bodied than what we find in the Finger Lakes, they have generous acid ,but lower than what we have in truly cool climate winemaking; and the reds weren’t overly extracted. They spoke of great fruit, they were well balanced, and their alcohols were generally about 13%. I also tasted a great Tannat. My wife and I have visited Madiran in southern France, I’ve had a lot of experience with the French version of the varietal. We visited a number of producers large and small in Madiran, and I love those wines, there just aren’t that many American Tannat’s that I have fallen in love with. Of course the wines of Jenny McCloud of Chrysalis have been wonderful, and I’ve been lucky enough to cellar those for many years. This North Carolina Tannat, my first experience with a varietal in the terroir, makes sense for the region. There are some very strong Virginia Tannats that are growing, and with this particular vineyard in North Carolina, I renewed my love of the varietal. As with Childress, and the winery I’ll be talking about next, Jones Von Drehle, Shelton will have its own feature in the podcast, as I sat down with Ethan Brown to discuss his own experience, Shelton Vineyards, and where the region and the winery is going. As Ethan and I wrapped up, and he was generous enough to spend several hours and taste a lot of wines with me, I headed off for my last visit of the day to Jones Von Drehle. The roads grew less crowded, the bends and winds and hills became more dramatic, and I started to wonder where in the heck was this place. I arrived early, about an hour or so, and took advantage of the opportunity to do just a little bit of driving and perhaps find something to eat. I typed in food nearby and the nearest place was the Stone Mountain General store. It wasn’t too far from the Stone Mountain State Park entrance, and so I figured I’d head over there and see what was available. The general store itself feels plucked from time. An old rustic wooden building, but offers inside a few knickknacks, necessities for campers such as para chord, fire starters, and offers a few small food items for the weary traveler camper. Simple offerings like a hamburger or cheeseburger, or a housemaid turkey or ham sandwich were available. The turkey sandwich tasted like home, although it was on white bread. Turkey, American cheese, lettuce, tomato: all for $2.95. It wasn’t the most glamorous meal I’ve ever had in wine country, but it filled me up, tasted just fine, and was certainly marked as my cheapest option I’ve ever had on the road. I took advantage and drove around the park a bit, didn’t have a chance to see Stone Mountain itself but just like Pine Mountain, this will be on my itinerary for the next visit, one I hope to take with the family.Heading back down the hill I arrived at my appointment just on time at Jones Von Drehle, and boy was I impressed. The Vineyard itself has two entrances, a service entrance and a guest entrance. I can tell it was an extremely quiet day but I wanted to have the standard customer experience, and so I entered the other guest entrance. Driving down the crusher run you are snaked through the vineyards, pass the retention ponds, as the tasting room and winery, and brand new amphitheater open up before you. It is an impressive and beautiful experience. The slope of the hills hug you to your right as you wind your way around the vineyards on one side nature on the other and approach your final destination. The hills jumped in different directions the vines bear open up the view to see row after row in this well-kept vineyard. The amphitheater itself is gorgeous. Recently finished it’s part of the philosophy of the owners to incorporate wine music in food into living a good life. The tasting room is not extraordinarily elaborate in it’s design, but it’s well thought out and well appointed inside. The most impressive feature, is the immersive feeling you get when you walk in turn to your right and look out the windows in the back of what is the tasting room. The slopes feel even more dramatic here from the vineyards, and with the trees bare of their foliage you can peer through the trunks to see the steep incline of the Granache and the Malbec and other varietals.  Well lit, and open, without any sense of clutter, the tasting room invite you to a horse shoe shaped bar in the middle were the tasting room attendant who was very nice and gracious, and the new to the wine industry expressed an amazing thirst for knowledge, that is extremely inviting. Diana Jones was waiting for me, and informed me that her husband Chuck was on his way back from Charlotte where they had been delivering some wine. This 6000 case winery is centered around 30 acres of a estate vineyard. They do not have a distributor, and unfortunately don’t ship to New York state right now, but when they get that license, I can assure you I’ll be ordering more wines. Everything was wonderful and unique. From their Grenache rosé, to their Chardonnay - both stainless steel and barrel fermented, to the real interesting Petit Manseng, which carries a fairly heavy alcohol, but is it so well balanced on the pallet that it is neither distracting nor over the top. It is well balanced and full bodied, and a wine that they described as being extremely popular at restaurants who have received James Beard‘s nominees and nods, as a “buy the glass” pour. Tasting through their Grenache rosé, this dry rosé echoed Provence with its own North Carolina flair. It was a wonderful wine and one I decided I had to take one home. Their red offerings were equally as compelling. Cabernet Franc, Merlot, Petit Verdot and Cabernet Sauvignon blend - all were well-crafted, clearly brilliantly grown, and offered everything I could hope for. Their winemaker, cut his teeth in California, spending decades in the industry until he finally decided he wanted to have a small farm himself and, with land prices in California being what they are, realized the East Coast offered his best opportunity to become a farmer himself. He took over the reins at Château Morissette in Virginia, and this large production oriented winery did well for him for sometime. As he sought to become more ingrained in a small production oriented facility, he had heard about the efforts of these two crazy couples from Atlanta Georgia with original roots in North Carolina, that had planted an estate vineyard in the middle of the hills just south of Stone Mountain. It’s been a match made in heaven and with Dan’s experience, and the attention to detail in Vineyard, the wines are truly top-notch. The way the Vineyard is set up, many of the worst things that you deal with in the Yadkin Valley AVA, are ameliorated naturally. Water naturally runs down the clay hill slopes, with the help of some drain tile. The intense humidity and moisture that you deal with in North Carolina, is marginalized by the fact that the steep hills along with the fact that the mountains are in the distance, create an almost constant airflow which helps to dry the canopy and the fruit during crucial periods of the year. Additional measures such as the first cordon being 42 inches high instead of 36 inches from the ground help reduce ground moisture from impacting the fruit. The whole property is fenced to keep our critters. The wind also helps to protect the vines from early-season frosts, which often compromise buds, particularly the primary buds where the majority of the fruit is located, and get them through very treacherous periods where the temperatures will impact that year‘s harvest. And overall just the amount of effort that the team here puts into their vineyards, the philosophy that fine wine comes from extraordinary vineyards rings true. We go even deeper into Jones Von Drehle in our long-form interview, which is slightly shorter than the long form interviews I do from the studio, but nonetheless will give you a much deeper picture of this winery it’s history and it’s increasingly prominent role in the North Carolina wine industry.Returning to Elkin for the evening, I had wished I brought an extra bottle to enjoy that evening. Instead I did what we winemakers often do and grabbed some local beers, picked up another to go order of Mexican food from Margaritas, and spent some time recapping the visits with my wife, enjoying the shrimp chipotle that I filled into some fresh corn tortillas, and then headed to bed. The next morning I would be leaving the Yadkin Valley, and any initial apprehension that I had as to where this wine region was, was disappearing. When it came to food, Diana Jones had mentioned that Asheville and Raleigh were truly astounding foodie towns. With that as a basis, it won’t take long for some enterprising young chef or cook who wants to do their own project, to find their way to one of the small towns and make it work during the busy tourist seasons.Yet again, I woke up early worked on my computer for a bit, and double checked my itinerary checking in to my Delta flight. I realized at this pace, I may not have time to taste at any other wineries, but I could at least take a peek at the landscapes in the settings that the region had to offer. I took a drive out to a winery that I had really wanted to visit, but in this trip just couldn’t make it work.  Raffaldini is widely regarded as not just an important landmark in North Carolina wines, but a house that is making some truly stellar North Carolina wines.  From all my research, it is the sort of aspirational wine story that is bred in a man who worked hard and made a great deal of money in another field. Using those resources, he has poured them in to building a truly astounding estate. You can look at pictures on the Internet, you can watch videos on YouTube, but with some properties you don’t understand just how special they are until you actually visit them. And so setting Raffaldini in my iPhone map, I headed in the direction of the winery.  Driving down the highway, North Carolina has done such an excellent job in featuring the different wineries throughout the state with these large highway adjacent signs, that I quickly realized this was a pocket of the AVA I should’ve explored right away. Instead of one or two wineries indicated there were multiple. And not only were there multiple, they were all wineries that in my research into the region, come vaguely familiar with. Wineries like Laurel Gray, Shadow Springs, Raffaldini Vineyards, Piccione, and several others. That last winery was one that I heard mentioned multiple times when I was tasting in different tasting rooms and talking with local proprietors of every sort.  If there is a small pocket of fine wines, with multiple wineries working towards the same goal, emerging in North Carolina, this may be the place. There are of course a lot of people doing a lot of great work throughout the entire region. But one thing I have understood in my research of, particularly American wine, is that like the person who wants to start a gas station, the very best place you can locate a new gas station is across the street from an existing gas station. The logic may seem counterintuitive, but if people start to think of that intersection as a place to get gas, then that is where they will get gas. Likewise in wine, tourists often don’t take the extraordinary measures of researching soil types, property histories, winemakers, and all of the other factors that lead to a specific winery making great wines. They look for the clusters where numerous proprietors are working on their own, sometimes in concert with their community, to pull the best fruit from their land and produce the best wines from their grapes. If there is an early nucleus that we can expect the North Carolina wine country in the Yadkin Valley to flourish from, my sense was, this might be it. With that said, I did not have an opportunity to taste any of these wines.For those listening who are interested in exploring North Carolina wines, I would certainly say that visiting any of the wineries I have mentioned is a prerequisite. But I think that in my next visit, I will certainly start in this particular part of the AVA. I will likely visit Raffaldini, Piccione ,and many of the other surrounding wineries. I would not miss out on visiting either Shelton or on Jones Von Drehle Vineyards Winery or Childress. But I think that this particular corner of the AVA is fostering a sort of spirit that seems to be building upon itself. There are no restaurants nearby, there are no hotels within a 1 mile drive most of these places. For the entrepreneurs listening, I would expect that to change, because this seems to be where some of the energy for the AVA seems to be admitting from.I guess as a closing retrospective, there is an immense amount of differentiation within the Yadkin Valley AVA. From topography, to culture, to wine styles produced by the different wineries. When I landed, and first began to explore the very core of this viticultural area, I will admit to feeling a little underwhelmed. That feeling began to dissipate upon visiting RayLyn, and after tasting at Childress I was excited. The entire focal point of the trip changed as a ventured outside of the south east quadrant and moved into areas that, admittedly, felt a little bit more familiar. Call it a personal bias, call it a personal preference. My conclusion is this… The Yadkin Valley AVA is vast, it includes so many different specific tear wars, that it’s difficult to call it one region. From the wind and hills at Jones Von Drehle, to the gentle slope‘s just south west of the northern reaches of the AVA, to the flatter more populated areas in the south east corner of the viticultural area.  What I can say is this, each producer I visited produced all level of quality that far surpassed any of my expectations. Too many regions I visit , Or rather have visited in my life, think of themselves as Napa in the 1970s. This is not Napa in the 1970s, because this is not America in the 1970s. This is North Carolina in 2022, and it is full of surprises, and beauty, and wines that will surprise at every turn. Is this a region worth visiting question?  If you are an American who loves wine, this is a region you must visit. You will fall in love with many of these wines. I don’t know what your personal preferences, I don’t know if you like red or white, or lean or bold, or salty whites or tannic reds, but you will love it. You will find wines you love and you will want to taste these wines the rest of your life. In vino Veritas, and in North Carolina, there is indeed, great wine.________Visit our website at www.VitiCulturePodcast.com, and don’t forget to share with your friends via all major social media platforms @VitiCULTUREPodVisit Bellangelo Winery and Missick Cellars at www.Bellangelo.com and www.MissickCellars.com.You can watch the interview on our YouTube channel here: Get full access to The Viti+Culture Podcast Newsletter at viticulturepodcast.substack.com/subscribe

In this the first of the Grand American Series of podcasts, Steve catches up with longtime friend, coon hunter, magazine columnist, and breeder of some of the most famous Treeing Walker coonhounds in history, Jim “Wildman” Meeks of Elkin, North Carolina.Meeks is the originator of the Yadkin River strain which produced or formed the foundation for hounds like Yadkin River Jeff, Yadkin Tar Rattler, and Rock River Sackett to name a few.These hounds in turn produced some of the all-time most sought-after and prolific stud dogs in the history of the sport like Rock River Sackett, Jr., Nocturnal Nailor and the list goes on.Meeks is a great story teller with a vivid memory of hounds and hunts of the past and present.  This is one for the good ole boys that remember when the Wildman was one of the hardest hunters in the history of the sport with hounds that could back up the stories in spades.   

Salem Lake in Winston-Salem, N.C. Image courtesy of Cooper Sullivan. Cooper Sullivan/WFDD Since early September, Salem Lake's water levels have been about 10 feet lower than normal as construction crews are working on the boat ramp and retaining walls. For people, this just means a few months without water activities. But Kernersville native and frequent Salem Lake visitor Elizabeth White wants to know how the construction will impact the surrounding nature life. "I want to know if the draining of Salem Lake, and also the flooding of Salem Creek is having any effect on the biodiversity of the plants and the animals that live in that area. And also what does that mean for our drinking water, since we get our drinking water from Salem Lake as well?" In the 2018 election, Winston-Salem voters approved a bond referendum that allotted $3.7 million toward Salem Lake improvements. And in August 2021, Phase II of these improvements began. The projects planned include renovations of the shoreline bulkhead, rebuilding the boat ramp, adding additional kayak storage, creating boat slips and building a picnic shelter near the playground.  Bobby Hege, the lakes program supervisor for the City of Winston-Salem Recreation and Parks, is overseeing the construction. He said that the construction crews slowly allowed water to flow from the lake through an open valve on the dam into Salem Creek. This process prevented flooding along the creek and drastic changes in the lake. “It hasn't really had a negative effect on the animal life. The water being drawn down does compile and make all the fish closer together, which for the big fish they get real happy. Some of the smaller baitfish, maybe not so much,” says Hege. Hege also mentioned that the lower water levels have attracted more freshwater birds, like egrets and herons to the area.  Wake Forest University professor of biology Miles Silman echoed Hege and said that many Piedmont area lake ecosystems are very resilient when it comes to disturbances because Salem Lake is manmade. “If you think about the amount of flooding that comes down a river due to a hurricane, or a very large rainstorm event, those create tremendous volumes of water. I suspect similar to the kinds of water volumes that were put out by releasing the water to draw down the lake, if not more. The organisms that live in that water are used to having those kinds of disturbances, particularly when you get to larger streams,” Silman says. And in terms of the water releasing into Salem Creek, Silman says it is doing more good than harm. “One of the bad things that happens when you put a bunch of dams in the system is that you eliminate the flood pulses. And what happens then is that vegetation can grow into areas where they normally wouldn't be able to live. It can change the entire way the stream looks, what they call the morphology of the stream,” Silman added. Urbanization can also affect the morphology of streams, and this is evident in the case of Salem Creek. If you were to look at old mapping records of Winston-Salem dating back to when the Moravians settled across Forsyth County, you would see that the streams of today look much different from the 18th century. This is what Wake Forest assistant professor of engineering Lauren Lowman and student Sam Matterazzo saw for themselves.  “The reason why they chose this area was because it had a lot of natural springs and it had a lot of underground stream networks to provide these natural springs. They came here because we are so rich in water. And as time went on and we moved towards industrialization and building this urban center, those streams got in the way. So we built over them,” Lowman says. “Now we have a lot of asphalt and concrete and building groups. Those are all impermeable surfaces, which means that the water can't get absorbed into the soils, so instead it runs off into our streams. So a lot of these streams, like Salem Creek, like some parts of Muddy Creek, you'll see quite a bit of stream bank erosion. So when it rains, the water only has so many places it can go,” Lowman continued. Lowman is talking about the Salem Creek Greenway, where portions of the pathway are subject to constant flooding. Matarazzo, a senior Wake Forest student who has been working with Lowman since his freshman year, says there are ways to mitigate flooding.  “You select a section of stream, usually a couple miles at a time, and you basically redig the channel back to the most natural possible way," Matterazo says. "You're going to use native plants, obviously, like they grow here for a reason. You're going to want to use those as a way to just act as a natural sponge, just to absorb. The Salem Creek Greenway is built almost right along the creek. But ideally, you'd have a riparian area where you have all that vegetation between the creek and the greenway so that it gives a huge natural buffer for it to flood.” This process is called rewilding. But the chances of this happening at Salem Creek are slim as those natural buffer zones have already been built over. This would require extensive construction in a narrow area. However, this does mean that the current Salem Lake construction and draining is not having an impact on the flooding habits of Salem Creek. The construction is also having no effect on the city of Winston-Salem's water supply. Bill Brewer, water treatment superintendent for Winston-Salem, says that no water from Salem Lake is being taken to treatment facilities while the construction is ongoing. “Our system is very resilient in the respect that we have three water plants. And we also have ample capacity in the Yadkin River that we can draw from just in this type of scenario,” Brewer says. So to answer Elizabeth's question, the impacts on biodiversity are minimal and the drinking water supply is still safe. And while the water levels returning to normal depends entirely on the amount of rain this area will get, the lake will hopefully bounce back by the end of the year. There is no reason to worry. Unless you are a small baitfish. Story does not include AP content #salem lake #winston salem #biodiversity #wildlife Environment Normal Tweet

We're headed to North Caroline this month on the Polar Kraft Podcast to learn more about targeting big catfish with Jeff King. Jeff is a tournament angler and coordinator who specializes in fishing for blues and flatheads on the Yadkin River. King describes how he trolls live and cut bait with multiple rods from his PK Outlander. Of special note for northern anglers, the action will get better through the winter months, creating a great open water fishing opportunity.      

Historical maps of Forsyth County displayed in the Wachovia Room at Old Salem's Moravian Research and Archaeology Lab. APRIL LAISSLE/WFDD County border lines in North Carolina are often far from symmetrical. That's especially the case for Forsyth County, which is certainly not a perfect square. That had listener John Strong wondering:  “Why do Forsyth County's southern boundaries look like Swiss cheese?” WFDD's April Laissle spoke to Martha Hartley, the director of research at Old Salem's Moravian Research and Archaeology Lab, to find the answer.  Diagram excerpted from The North Carolina Atlas: Portrait of a Changing Southern State. “Forsyth County's distinctive outline is a product of history and nature," Hartley says. That history is centered around the Moravian Church and its purchase of 100,000 acres of land in 1753 in the backcountry of North Carolina. Hartley says they named their new colony Wachovia after the Wachau Valley they knew in Austria with its similar rolling landscape. The Moravians chose the land due in large part to the richness of water resources. “The Moravians were thinking about the long term, they were thinking about a place that would support their plans for congregations and long-term stability," says Hartley. "And so this water, this amazing Muddy Creek system that is the backbone of Wachovia, is fed by thousands of springs and smaller tributaries. And when you think about where people are going to live in the 18th century, water is life." Wachovia was situated in Rowan County for the first 20 years the Moravians lived there. But by 1771, population growth prompted colony leaders to create Surry County by splitting up Rowan. But, they drew a dividing line right through the center of Wachovia, worrying the Moravians.  “So the Moravians petitioned, and the line was redrawn in 1773, and it was redrawn by the Moravian surveyor. The southern line of Forsyth County is mostly from this particular moment, and it included the southern boundary of Wachovia, the distinct form that we see today.” Both the southern and eastern lines of present-day Forsyth County came mostly from the split that created Surry County. For the next 18 years, Wachovia sat in the southeastern quadrant of Surry County, but by 1789 the population had reached another tipping point. “As the population continued to grow, there was a need for people to be close to their county seat and courthouse, because that's where all the business is done, and it's a powerful place," Hartley says. So, Surry County was cut down the middle, with the eastern half becoming Stokes County. The lower western side of Stokes was generally drawn along the Yadkin River. Rivers made logical borders because they had to be crossed.  The divide that would finally establish Forsyth County as we know it today didn't come for another 60 years.  “In 1849 Stokes County was cut in half. And the lower portion, which contained Wachovia the whole while, was named Forsyth County after Benjamin Forsyth, a local statesman and war hero who was fatally wounded in the War of 1812," says Hartley.   From there, leaders had to decide where to place the county seat in the new Forsyth County.  “At that time, Salem was a center for trade and growing industry and was located in the middle of the new county, the logical place for a county seat," Hartley says. "But Salem was a theocratic community. It was a religious place, and church leaders did not want a courthouse in Salem with its courthouse business and places of execution. So within the Salem town lot, they sold 51 acres in the northern part for the new county seat, which was ultimately named Winston.” The borders of the county have stayed more or less the same since then. The original Wachovia tract still fills the middle of it. And in many ways, Winston-Salem's city limits reflect Wachovia's historic borders.  Story does not include AP content #carolina curious #forsyth county #old salem museum and gardens Human Interest Normal Tweet

This week Hannah & Megan talk about Hannah's hometown haunts of the Yadkin River Valley. Who do you think killed Ms. Foster? Tell us at tinhattimepodcast@gmail.com !

“Wachovia,” P.C.G. Reuter, 1766, Collection of Moravian Archives, Herrnhut, Germany. Centuries ago, thousands of Moravian and Quaker settlers came to the Piedmont in search of a better life, and their legacy lives on here in countless ways. WFDD listener James Sims had one specific contribution in mind and asked this question for Carolina Curious. “What are the oldest streets in the three Triad cities that are still in use today?” asks Sims. WFDD reporter David Ford set out for answers beginning in the Wachovia Room at Old Salem's Moravian Research and Archaeology Lab. Martha Hartley directs that research and says the answer is complicated, with many layers of history. Wachovia in the Backcountry. Photo courtesy of Martha Hartley, Old Salem's Moravian Research and Archaeology Lab.   “Now, if we think about the time when the Moravians came to North Carolina to begin their colony — they had purchased the land and they came in the fall of 1753 — and they came from southeastern Pennsylvania where they were settled in Bethlehem and Nazareth,” says Hartley. “And they came along a colonial highway, The Great Philadelphia Wagon Road, and it started in Philadelphia, came through the valley of Virginia, and into North Carolina, and crossed the Yadkin River in what we know as the Shallowford today. But when the Moravians came this was not a road, it was more a path known as Morgan Bryan's Road.” Hartley says through diaries, we know the trip wasn't easy for the early Moravians. For starters, they were forced to narrow their enormous Pennsylvania wagon in order to accommodate the small pathway. “They had to cut trees and make way for themselves because it was a path, but it did become a colonial highway,” she says. “And if you're in Virginia — if you're in the Roanoke Valley for instance — there are highway markers about this road, but it's called the Carolina Road because it was on the way to Carolina. But we typically call it The Great Wagon Road or the Great Philadelphia Wagon Road. So, this road is what I know of as the earliest road that Europeans were using here in what we know of as Winston-Salem, Forsyth County.” And the first major roadway here is still going strong. “Parts of this road are certainly currently in use, and if you're in northern Forsyth County right as you come down Highway 8 and it breaks off into Stanleyville Drive, there's a huge road cut that you can see that's enormous, and that is the vestige of the Wagon Road,” says Hartley. “And so, Stanleyville Drive parallels the old roadbed, and it comes through sort of urban Winston-Salem. But we know this road very well in the Lewisville area because from Lewisville out towards the river is the Shallowford Road.” Hartley says The Great Philadelphia Wagon Road — the path pioneered by Quaker Morgan Bryan in the 1740s — was a crucial part of North Carolina's backcountry settlement in the colonial period. It's the granddaddy of Winston-Salem area streets, but there are plenty of other centuries-old roadways still with us today, many of which developed along the ridges of waterways like Muddy Creek and its tributaries where springs provided a ready source of clean water: Indiana, Akron and Old Walkertown Roads; parts of Reynolda in the north, Miller Street in the south, and Polo Road in the west. Highway 8 at Stanleyville Drive, view south, Wagon Road cut (2015). Photo courtesy of Martha Hartley, Old Salem's Moravian Research and Archaeology Lab.   And what about the earliest street in the Gate City? Greensboro History Museum Curator of Community History Glenn Perkins says it's hard to say exactly — commuters there are still probably unwittingly following trading paths of the Indigenous Keyauwee and Saura peoples from centuries ago — but he says one of the most important colonial roads still in existence today is New Garden. “It ties so much to Guilford County history,” says Perkins. “So, right now you know one stretch of this road is a multi-lane expressway almost between Guilford College and the Guilford Courthouse National Military Park. But that was an old route by which the Quaker settlers who founded the New Garden Meeting in the 1750s traveled and connected to what would become in the 1770s the administrative center of the new Guilford County.” Perkins says the New Garden Quaker Community thrived and the roadway that made it possible eventually supported other Quaker settlements, providing a means for travel and commerce. Even the city's namesake, Quaker General and Revolutionary War hero Nathaniel Greene, was likely familiar with New Garden Road. “Because there was a skirmish before the battle of Guilford Courthouse called the Battle of New Garden that occurred in 1781,” he says. “So, you have both the British and the colonial troops traveling along that road and making their way up to what would become the big battle at Guilford Courthouse. Then about ten years later, George Washington came to visit the area, and he would have traveled up that route as well because he stayed at a tavern that was near what is today Guilford College and would have wound his way up New Garden Road to see the courthouse site.” The road's impact was felt strongly in the 19th century as well, providing the pathway to Guilford College founded in 1837, and before that, leading enslaved people from bondage. “In the early 1800s, it becomes known for its connection too to the Underground Railroad of course because the New Garden community was so critical in helping freedom-seeking enslaved people to find their way north to freedom,” says Perkins. “So, this highway where you might even see a coffle of enslaved people walking along is also going to become a point from which people can depart and go off onto the Underground Railroad trails and find their way to Indiana or another free state.” The Haley House which is located on the Museum's campus and is the oldest house in Guilford County still on its original foundation was located on the Petersburg-Salisbury Road and appears on an 1808 map of North Carolina. Public domain. Image provided courtesy of High Point Museum.   So, Greensboro's New Garden, a road for travel, commerce, education, battles for independence, and freedom. And in High Point? According to Marian Inabinett, the Curator of Collections at the High Point Museum, one of the most important historic roads still in use is what is now Greensboro Road and Lexington Avenue. She says today the road comes from Greensboro, connects with Gate City Boulevard, continues straight to northern High Point, and arrives there as Lexington Avenue. But it dates to the mid-1700s. “And it was the Petersburg-Salisbury Stage Road,” says Inabinett. “Jamestown's main street was also part of that road, but it was one of the most important north-south routes through North Carolina, and it started in Petersburg, Virginia, on the James River and came down and obviously met up with Salisbury in North Carolina going through what was in Martinsville, the county seat of Guilford County, and catching New Garden and going down through Lexington. Well, High Point wasn't here then as a city. So, it connected all those places and once it got to Salisbury, other roads led out to the western part of North Carolina to Charlotte and down into upstate South Carolina.” Inabinett says the Petersburg-Salisbury brought settlers here from the coast of Virginia, circumventing the dangerous fall lines and cliffs near Raleigh. And unlike most of the Triad's oldest streets, Petersburg-Salisbury has a clear marker dating back to the road's early beginnings. “For us here in High Point and the High Point Museum, the 1786 Haley House is actually sitting on that road,” she says. “And it's still sitting on that road. The Haley House is the oldest house in Guilford County still on its own foundations, and it appears on early maps. In fact, the first official state map in 1808 of North Carolina shows the Haley House sitting on that road. And Mr. Haley was a sheriff, a landowner, a blacksmith, so it was to his advantage to be sitting on the main road that's going through — one of the main roads — going through North Carolina.” Curious to learn more? The public is free to view the Haley House in person on Saturdays on the High Point Museum campus and learn about the New Garden community — including its connections to the Underground Railroad and the life of one of its most famous residents, Dolley Madison — at the Greensboro History Museum. And beginning in August, The Old Salem Visitors Center will reopen with the new exhibit “On the Road Again,” exploring travel and transportation in 18th and 19th century Salem.  Story does not include AP content #old salem #greensboro history museum #high point museum #quakers #moravians #settlers #new garden #shallowford road #petersburg-salisbury stage road Transportation Normal Tweet

What is the future for RV destinations, and where are the opportunities and challenges? We speak with Ed O Bridgman from EOB Consulting who helps owners and buyers with decisions, direction and predicting the future. Then we head to North Carolina and learn more about a new RV park, the RiverWalk RV Park on the shores of the Yadkin River.  Plus we talk about your Bug Out Bucket, or BOB. You can weigh-in on our friendly StressLess Camping Facebook Page on this. 

Here are 17 insider RV Campground tips to score and enjoy that perfect spot this summer. If you are a new RV owner on your maiden voyage you will want to pay particular attention! Our guest in this week's Episode 334 of the RV Podcast is a campground owner and she has some great info for both new RVers and veteran campers. Her candid suggestions are a great resource and you may want to bookmark this article or share it with a friend. She is Marcia Neese and, with her husband, Jim, she runs a brand new campground in a very popular location in North Carolina. The first thing we want to make clear in this article is that, just like it is a seller's market in the RV industry where the demand is so strong that new RVs take a year to 18 months to get, it is a renter's market in the campground industry, whether that recreational vehicle campground is a state park or any of the thousands of private RV parks across North America. RV Campgrounds are selling out very fast We have some RV Campground Tips for finding a place to camp this summer It makes no difference if you have a travel trailer, a Class B, C, or A motorhome, a fifth wheel, or even a pop-up, RV campgrounds are filled right now for most weekends and holidays during the summer months And down south or in the Southwest, it's already the same in the winter months of 2021-21. Your fellow campers may have already beaten you to getting an RV camp site. And that's true whether its with campgrounds in National Parks, State Parks or privately owned campgrounds. Don't panic, though, because we have RV tips that will help. Below is an edited transcript of our interview with Marcia. Although we talk a lot about those RVers who are on their first RV trip, her advice applies to everyone who enjoys RV life. So listen up! We are sure you'll find a great idea or two! Marcia and Jim of RiverWalk offer us lots of helpful RV campground tips Marcia and Jim Neese opened RiverWalk RV Park in Jonesville, N.C. on June 11, 2020, just as the rest of the world was literally shutting down because of the COVID-19 pandemic. To their surprise, even with social distancing and travel restrictions in many place, their 51-site campground on a wooded 11-acre site along the Yadkin River was completely booked every single weekend from the day they opened until even now. Here are highlights and tips from our conversation.  Mike Wendland:          Joining us now from North Carolina, from Jonesville on the beautiful Yadkin River, is Marcia Neese. She is the owner, with her husband, of the beautiful RV Riverwalk Park, the RiverWalk RV Park. I guess you're right between Jonesville and Elkin, right? Marcia Neese:              Yes, yeah. Hello, hello everyone. We are. It's a very fine line there. The river is the only thing separating us so we're just a couple of minutes from Elkin and located... The park is in Jonesville. Mike Wendland:          Now your park is described as a sort of "boutique" RV park. What does that mean in terms of the RV lifestyle? What is a boutique RV park? Marcia Neese:              Yeah, it is a different term as it relates to the RV lifestyle. My husband and I, we're always trying to think outside of the box. We're RVers and we've created our park for other RVers. As we were building it, we were trying to understand exactly where it fit in. Was it a premiere park? Was it a corporate-type park? We're on 11 acres. We have 51 spacious sites. And the area that we're in is very quaint and boutique-ish as well. We came up with that we're a boutique size park. We have just enough for everyone, but not too much to where you're overwhelmed when you come. I like to use the word quaint again, but we feel that we offer a quaint environment. Mike Wendland:          We'll talk a little bit about some of that in a couple of minutes, but the first thing is you opened this park right in the middle of the COVID shut down.

We make our first overnight trip for "Matt & Michele Outdoors", but still we left so much unexplored. Come along with us for our wonderful and beautiful adventure at Kerr Scott Reservoir and historic Wilkesboro, NC.Tucked along the Yadkin River, this amazing area has so much to offer visiting outdoor recreationists and adventurers alike. In this episode we give you a full summary and review of everything we got to do on this trip, which included canoeing, fishing, shopping, dining and more.In this episode, we get to chat with Thomas Salley of the Wilkesboro TDA, to cover all the many things we still never got to in the area during this trip.For more information on planning your trip to Wilkesboro, NC, visit https://www.wilkescountytourism.com/

We make our first overnight trip for "Matt & Michele Outdoors", but still we left so much unexplored. Come along with us for our wonderful and beautiful adventure at Kerr Scott Reservoir and historic Wilkesboro, NC.Tucked along the Yadkin River, this amazing area has so much to offer visiting outdoor recreationists and adventurers alike. In this episode we give you a full summary and review of everything we got to do on this trip, which included canoeing, fishing, shopping, dining and more.In this podcast, we talk with professional fishing guide Patrick Brondos. We had a blast with Patrick. Not only did he put us on some great fishing but we became immediate friends too!For more information on planning your trip to Wilkesboro, NC, visit https://www.wilkescountytourism.com/

We make our first overnight trip for "Matt & Michele Outdoors", but still we left so much unexplored. Come along with us for our wonderful and beautiful adventure at Kerr Scott Reservoir and historic Wilkesboro, NC. Tucked along the Yadkin River, this amazing area has so much to offer visiting outdoor recreationists and adventurers alike. In this episode we give you a full summary and review of everything we got to do on this trip, which included canoeing, fishing, shopping, dining and more. For more information on planning your trip to Wilkesboro, NC, visit https://www.wilkescountytourism.com/Also, look for two more podcasts connected with this day-trip... Our interview with professional fishing guide Patrick Brondos will give you useful tips on making the most of your time on Kerr Scott. And our interview with Thomas Salley of the Wilkesboro TDA will fill you in on so much of what there is to do, that we didn't even get to on this trip!

Thomas Salley from the Wilkesboro Tourism Development Authority visits the studio to talk to Matt about all kinds of activities that await folks wanting to visit along and around the Yadkin River in NC, including upcoming festivals.

Take a lesson on NC History on the Yadkin River. American heroes such as George Washington, Nathaniel Greene, and Daniel Boone spent time in the Yadkin River valley. The Land Trust has been working to protect the historic landmarks that these iconic figures encountered. Support the show (http://threeriverslandtrust.org)

Meet Sam and Cody, employees of Three Rivers Land Trust. Listen to the facets of the Three Rivers and the focus of their mission. Topics include, conservation vs preservation, conservation easements, fund raising conservation dollars, engaging all demographics in the outdoors. Hear an intro to the staff of Three Rivers.Support the show (http://threeriverslandtrust.org)

Recently, SECCA and Yadkin Riverkeeper teamed up to present DANCE FOR THE RIVER, a traveling multimedia exhibit that connects audiences with the Yadkin River, the region's primary water source, through dance, photography, and video. Listen to our latest podcast where photographer Christine Rucker and Brenda Daniels, Associate Dean of Contemporary Dance at UNCSA, talk about how they used art to raise awareness for preservation of the river.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In this week's podcast, I explore areas within Yadkin, Davie and Davidson counties. Listen to hear about places like the Yadkin River, Kitchen Roselli, Raylen Vineyards and Richard Childress Racing. Get ideas for things to do and places to eat at while you visit the Piedmont Triad. Locations: The Yadkin River, Kitchen Roselli, Raylen Vineyards, Richard Childress Racing, Childress Vineyards, The Olde Homestead, The Candy Factory and the Bob Timberlake Gallery. Music: "RetroFuture Nasty" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

This week's edition of “NCDOT Now,” the department's weekly video news update, is now available. This week on NCDOT Now: Gov. McCrory and Secretary Tata visit the Outer Banks to discuss solutions for N.C. 12, the new I-85 South bridge over the Yadkin Riveris now open to traffic and Federal Highway Administrator Victor Mendez touts the progress made on several major Charlotte-area projects.Download now