Shoebox Canyon

Originally Published November 26, 2021

Lunch was served.  It was black eyed peas, mushrooms, garlic, chives and lettuce from the garden. We had just let the mules and ponies out.  They ran and bucked in the lower field before settling down to graze.  Earlier we were treated to a ride on the Pickle Raft in the pond behind the barn. We floated dreamily, gliding over the snapping turtles in the pale green water below.

Julia and Bernie live a life of ascetic luxury.  They are both writers, she of a blog called https://www.consideringanimals.com/ and Bernie of several books, including Too Proud to Ride a Cow: by Mule Across America.

Everything on the farm is considered, carefully made, enhanced, celebrated, reconsidered, remade, transformed, preserved, repurposed or put to greater use.  It is a palmlipsest of objects born of and yet always returning to nature.

The equines are pristine.  Coats shimmering, they are brushed, loved and tended to daily.  In return they carry Julia and Bernie on journeys into the Blue Ridge Mountains and beyond.  It is a partnership well understood.

Julia was our neighbor once and had left everything to join Bernie here in Shoebox Canyon, just outside Lenoir, North Carolina.  They thrive on working hard, eating less, and being a little cold all the time.  Until recently they had no bed, but slept on blankets on the floor of the cabin. 

She showed us a small coatrack with a few shirts and jeans.  That’s my wardrobe, she said.