Mountains seem to possess strong, often demanding personalities of their own. And highland dwellers are notably alike in their belief in the peculiar virtues of our hills.
Monty Quinten Phelps, 79, has left farm a time or two so that he could, in his mind, sew his wild oats in deep urban hubs that showcased their blend of civic night life and inner-city strife while exploring new vistas and work environments.
But after years of wandering mostly alone in his treks and travels, he returned to the pastoral countryside, having found nothing else he liked as well as the solitary woodlands and the rural refuge of his hog farm near Long Pole in rural McDowell County.
“I like it here because it is what it is: safe, quiet, fascinating, and affordable,” Phelps said. “You won’t find a better opportunity to reach back to nature, just be yourself, and thrive in a country setting where time is almost nonexistent. You get up with the sun, and you go to bed with the moon. It’s that simple.”
On his ordinary, mud-covered farm, in the tranquil setting of restless grasses and lofty timbers, stands a diminutive log cabin “built before my parents were ever born,” noted Phelps, a gaunt Appalachian with a mountaineer’s way of addressing a stranger that seems half-puzzled, half-surprised.
He can only imagine what the early days must have been like in the rugged traces of his barely accessible kingdom.
Phelps observed that, down by a natural spring, are the rustic remnants of a much older log cabin, one probably built in the early 1900’s.
A residue of partially decomposed slats and slabs and a rusty old galvanized bucket is about all that remains of the old log edifice, a place where settlers doubtless once nourished their dreams, ate their meals, kept a fiery hearth, and prayed for salvation.
“Nobody knows for sure who lived there,” Phelps acknowledged. “They left no graves on the premises, so they must have pulled out and headed for more promising pastures.”
Yet, the folks likely labored in the loamy soil of a nearby sandy river bottom; raising corn, beans, onions, tomatoes, and other vegetables suitable for drying or canning.
“They probably picked apples for baking pies and harvested peaches and pears from fruit trees in an ancient orchard that still stands today.”
Meanwhile, in a spacious old barn, near the hog pen, are rows of shovels, ropes, pitchforks, brooms, saws, axes, hammers, garden hoes, and rakes, all stacked against the wall or hanging from hooks attached from wooden beams overhead.
Straw is scattered across the floor along with water and feed buckets, sacks of middling’s, oats and other animal provender, salt lick blocks, spiders spinning webs across posts between beams and rafters, dust and chaff floating in the sunlit air, rusty nails, a few strands of barbed wire, feathers, manure, a wooden ladder leading to the loft, a pull string dangling from a bare bulb light, chickens searching out dropped feed, cats stalking vermin or sleeping in the shade by the barn door.
There is the rustling of leaves, creaking boards, animal-specific vocals (snorting, thumping, whinnying, grunts, lows, barks), huffing breaths, the clatter of grain spilling out into a trough, animals rubbing themselves against wood posts, chewing noises, the swish of a tail, the squeak of a gate.
And there is the smell of animals, urine, manure, fragrant timothy, grain, wood, sawdust, mud and molding straw or hay.
Phelps is a modest man. He seems to enjoy the labors of his small, woodland farm. He prides himself on his agricultural talents and cultivating acumen.
His backyard garden is replete with carefully tilled rows of healthy plants in various sizes and shades of green; tomato plants held up by metal cages; pea vines curling through chicken wire and around wooden posts; frilly carrot tops; hilled potatoes; tall corn stalks shuddering in the late summer breeze; bright lettuce greens, and spikey onion tops.
For the moment, there is hope for the future. It is all a matter of perspective, according to Phelps, a man who has weathered his share of trials and tribulations over the years.
“I might not be able to make a living off this place,” the lanky farmer expounded, turning toward the evening sun, and scratching three-day-old stubble. “But I still have my pension to fall back on, and that is enough to get me through the winter.”
Now, Phelps is just looking forward to the fall harvest, one of many in the life cycle of a man who knows how to ply his skills to the soil.
“You get out of the ground what you put into it,” he said. “I’ve been at it for a lifetime. I couldn’t quit now if I wanted to.”
Top o’ the morning!