Pasture Talk

NEW RIVER VALLEY

M A G A Z I N E

P. O. Box 11816 Blacksburg, VA 24062 o: 540-961-2015 nrvmagazine@msn.com www.nrvmagazine.com

PUBLISHER Country Media, Inc. Phillip Vaught

MANAGING EDITOR Joanne Anderson

ACCOUNT EXECUTIVE Kim Walsh

DISTRIBUTION MANAGER Dennis Shelor

WRITERS Joanne Anderson Emily Alberts Jo Clark Becky Hepler Nancy Moseley Kameron Bryant

PHOTOGRAPHERS Kristie Lea Photography Kevin Riley Tom Wallace Billy Bowling Photography Nathan Cooke Photography

COVER PHOTO Courtesy of Virginia Tech Athletics

© 2022 Country Media, Inc. Country Media, Inc. will not knowingly publish any advertisement that is illegal or misleading to its readers. Neither the advertiser nor Country Media, Inc. will be responsible or liable for misinformation, misprints, or typographical errors. The publisher assumes no financial liability for copy omissions by Country Media, Inc. other than the cost of the space occupied by the error. Corrections or cancellations to be made by an advertiser shall be received no later than 5 p.m. the 20th of each publishing month. No claim shall be allowed for errors not affecting the value of the advertisement. Paid advertising does not represent an endorsement by this publication. Content cannot be reproduced without written consent from Country Media, Inc. All rights reserved. Real Estate advertised in this publication is subject to the Federal Fair Housing Act of 1968. mMost of the children I know at my church are the ones I see in the library, and in late August, I met Andrew and Melissa Koser. They were with their four kids and mentioned going to Maine.

Anything in New England gets my attention. We talked about our mutual love of autumn and mutual aversion to summer. Melissa commented: “No one ever asks how was your autumn?” When the topic of home schooling came up, she told me they begin their school year July 1, so they can take off September and go to New

Hampshire and Maine. After saying

I hoped their lakeside cabin had a slamming screen door, I alerted them to one of the most fun experiences in Vermont – the floating bridge in

Brookfield. Since Andrew is a civil engineer, he’d surely be interested, and there might well be some homeschool lessons.

The floating bridge was built in 1820 and has been rebuilt eight times. It’s 318-foot span on pontoons crosses Sunset Lake on Vermont’s route 65. It’s one of those experiences where you watch someone else do it before venturing forward. At least, that’s what I did. The vehicle drops a few inches, the tires get wet, and off you go with the float-y experience of, well, driving on a floating bridge! There’s nothing else quite like it. You can find more than 100 covered bridges in Vermont and 7 in Virginia, two of which happen to be here in Giles County. And in this family of six, I found a home for four sets of cross country skis, boots and poles. They are outdoorsy folks. George Eliot, pen name for the English novelist, poet, journalist Mary Ann Evans (1819-1880), once said: “Delicious autumn! My very soul is wedded to it, and if I were a bird I would fly about the earth seeking the successive autumns.” It’s wonderful that someone would envision living in autumn all the time. Well, I can. Even Marilyn Monroe loved it, sharing: “Designers want me to dress like Spring, in billowing things. I don’t feel like Spring. I feel like warm red Autumn.” Maybe that’s related to

Pasture Talk

her choice of lipstick, the result of five coats of Guerlain’s Rouge Diabolique. It's probably not a surprise that the first red lips appeared in ancient Egypt, then on geishas of Japan. Guerlain was founded in Paris in 1828 by a perfume inventor of the same name. It was 42 years later that the company made its first lipstick, inspired by a candle maker. They installed it in a case with a retracting mechanism and “Ne M’oubliez Pas” (French for “do not forget me”) was the first modern style of lipstick. Dolly Parton relates: “Until I was a teenager, I used red pokeberries for lipstick and a burnt matchstick for eyeliner. I used honeysuckle for perfume.” How the creative mind can flourish without a trip to the cosmetic counter. Enjoy autumn … for all its wonder, color, home ‘n hearth emotions, crispy mornings and seasonal flair. And since we cannot fly like a bird looking for all the autumns, let’s enjoy the glorious one we have in the New River Valley!