2011 May | The Weekly Post

National Day of Prayer
National Day of Prayer events were held across the area on Thursday, May 5 at noon. A large crowd (pictured) gathered in Locust Town Center. Oakboro and Midland also hosted similar events.
In 1952, a joint resolution by Congress, signed by President Truman, declared an annual, national day of prayer. In 1988, the law was amended and signed by President Reagan, permanently setting the day as the first Thursday of every May. Each year, the president signs a proclamation, encouraging all Americans to pray on this day. Last year, all 50 state governors plus the governors of several U.S. territories signed similar proclamations.
Story and Photo by Joyce Lavene

Taming honeysuckle

“Is it possible to tame honeysuckle so it doesn’t grow everywhere? I love the smell but hate the plant.”

No matter how awful a plant is—even kudzu, honeysuckle, wisteria and English ivy—anything can be tamed and successfully kept in check. It takes a lot of effort and you have to watch it like a hawk, but you can grow honeysuckle in your yard.
The trick is to be ruthless with your shears. These plants are very hardy and very difficult to kill. Don’t be afraid to cut it back. Trust me, it will bounce right up again.
Though winter is the best time to start while the plant is dormant, you can take up the shears now too. Cut the shoot(s) back to no more than 12 inches to begin with. As they grow, continue to cut. Over the summer, you may have to cut it back every week. Shoots will come up around it and you can make it resemble a bush. Keep clipping and keep the shoots at close to the same length.
You can also train shoots to grow up a trellis. This is a little more difficult. Train the climbing branches until they reach the top of the trellis and then cut the end of the branch’s growing tip to just beyond a bud or leaf, forcing more growth into the side branches.
Allow three or four side branches to grow from the climbing branches alternating on each side. Clip all the other growth sprouting out from the length of the branches using sharp pruning shears.
Never let this plant get ahead of you. Put it in a place that you can see every day. If you let it go at all, you might have to try and get rid of it completely. But I agree with you, Marge. It has the most wonderful perfume!

Second gold rush at Reed Mine
By Joyce Lavene
Senior Staff Writer
Reed Gold Mine is known for its large gold nuggets—such as the 17-pound nugget found by John Reed’s son, Conrad, in 1799. That find began the gold rush that eventually changed the country.
By the late 1800s, farmers had given up their crops to prospect for gold. Surface panning in creeks and riverbeds had turned into deep-mining operations. Small towns like Gold Hill popped up to support the search for more and bigger gold nuggets. Mining enterprises, like the Mecklenburg Gold Mining Company, hired as many as 600 people. For a while, the world narrowed down to prospectors and what they needed as an industry and lifestyle built up around the pursuit of gold.
Charlotte suddenly became more than a sleepy village as it evolved into a regional financial center for prospectors to register claims and assay their wealth. It may be hard to believe today, but the largest amount of gold in the state was found in the piedmont counties of Guilford, Randolph, Davidson, Rowan, Montgomery, Stanly, Cabarrus, Mecklenburg, Gaston, and Union. For many years, those counties provided the only native gold for the United States Mint.
It wasn’t until much later that the better known gold rush began in California. Gold was still being mined in N.C. until the Civil War when it completely stopped.
Now a second gold rush is going on in the piedmont area. Mining Companies using new technologies are investing in gold mining. Old mines are being revived, thanks largely to the high price of gold making exploration profitable again. Mines that have been abandoned for more than a hundred years are being opened and gold is being extracted.
The gold rush at Reed Mine is a little different. Despite persistent rumors that the long dormant mine shaft on the property is being sold to gold mining interests, Reed Mine Site Manager, Sharon Robinson, said the rumors are not true.
“We are governed by preservation laws and the state of North Carolina,” she said. “Also, most of the profitable mining done here in the 1800s was close to the surface. The shaft they are talking about is 150 feet down. The crystals further down just don’t contain enough gold.”
Some people may not know, but originally the dirt used for panning at Reed Mine was taken from the Cotton Patch Mine in New London. Now the dirt comes from Little Meadow Creek, the same one Conrad Reed found his large chunk of gold.
“We take the dirt from the creek with a backhoe,” Robinson said. “We created a natural sluice spot and have been digging there. We’ve had a lot of what we call ‘new’ gold coming up. This is gold that has recently broken free of the creek bed. This gold isn’t smooth—it’s still got some edges because it hasn’t been worn down by the water.”
This new gold rush at Reed may be attributed to that new gold. Some of it is coming up in quartz pieces, worth $50 to $75. A lot of it is coming up in big nuggets that have been recently found by gold panners.
A large nugget was found in 1997 but now those nuggets seem to be weekly finds. During this year’s Heritage Days event, a student found a nugget worth about $300. “The spot price for gold was at $1,475 per ounce,” Robinson said. “I offered him $300 out of my own pocket, but he was a smart kid and turned me down. He knew he had found something special.”
Just two weeks before, a French Exchange student found a nugget weighing approximately three grams. Robinson offered for that nugget too, for the museum at the site, but was turned down as well.
Since the start of the gold panning season in March, Robinson said there have been record numbers of panners at the mine. For $2 per pan, visitors search through dirt taken directly from Little Meadow Creek and have a chance to find a fortune. “Anything found in the panning area belongs to the panner, not the state,” Robinson said. “Your $2 ticket is your claim. So, if you did happen to find a 17 pound gold nugget at the bottom of your pan, it would be yours to keep.”
The educational panning area at Reed Mine teaches visitors how to pan for gold in much the same way that the first panners in North Carolina creeks looked for their fortune. Besides panning, the mine site has 1.5 miles of nature trails, a short film, museum, a guided underground tour, a working original 1895 Stamp Mill, and a picnic area. All of it is free.
Reed Gold Mine is part of the Division of State Historic Sites, Office of Archives and History, an agency of the N.C. Department of Cultural Resources, and site of the First Discovery of Gold in America, 1799. For more information, call 704-721-4653 or visit the web site at www.nchistoricsites.org/reed. You can also find them on Facebook at facebook.com/reedgoldmine.
Other local mines to search for your treasure are Cotton Patch Mine and Mountain Creek Mine in New London.

Sidebar:
Tips for panning from Sharon Robinson
Either look in the bend of the curve in the creek or where you see an obstruction like a tree or a big rock. Check the opposite side with the curent. This makes a natural sluice and gravity will hold some gold there. You have to get to the dirt that is closest to the bedrock because gold sinks. Trust the gravity.

Pot herbs
No room for an herb garden this year? Not a problem. Herbs grow as well in containers as they do in a garden. For herbs like mint and lemon balm, it can be even better because they don’t have the chance to spread to everywhere else in your garden.
Herbs make beautiful pots for decks or stairs. It’s handy as well to go out and snip herbs from the pot without walking into the garden, especially since you usually think of them when you’re cooking.
Most herbs need full sun, which is at least six hours a day but it’s nice for them to have a little shade on very hot summer days. Make sure they have good soil and drainage. No one likes to have wet feet all the time.
Don’t over fertilize. Most herbs have very small roots and don’t need as much. Even in the ground, their requirements are less.
Check before you plant herbs together to be sure they have like growing characteristics. Chives, parsley, marjoram and mint like constant moisture while oregano, thyme, rosemary and basil like to dry out for part of the time.
Herbs like to be crowded in a pot together so don’t worry that you are putting in too many. They also look prettier that way. As long as you can tell them apart from each other when you want to use them, that’s all that matters. Use plant stakes to identify, if you have to.
Choose herbs that you like to use or that you’d like to experiment with. The more you pick, the more you’ll get. Pinch herbs back to make them bushier and better formed if you aren’t using them. You can dry those parts and use later. Freezing fresh herbs is also an option.
You can bring your herb pots in at the end of the season but be sure you have plenty of light in the windows where you place them.

Scout project beautifies Locust corners
By Joyce Lavene
Senior Staff Writer
The City of Locust had plans on tap for landscaped plant beds on the corners of Hwy. 200 South and Hwy. 24/27 since the roadwork was being completed. But the recession and budget cuts kept them from realizing that goal. Landon Morrison, a 16-year-old sophomore at West Stanly High School, was looking for an Eagle Scout project. It seemed like a perfect fit.
Morrison came up with a team of workers who were onsite for about 25 hours over the last few weeks, digging up the ground, adding soil, plants and mulch. He used the plans the city had already drawn up. The result were two perfectly landscaped corners which are in a highly visible location in the city.
Helping Morrison were his brother, Evan, and his sister, Hannah, his mother Cindy and father, Tim. Even his grandmother, Bernice Morrison, helped out. Troop 63 at Carolina Presbyterian Church also worked on the project as did David Parsons, the troop’s scoutmaster. The Junior ROTC sent some volunteers and the Tri M Music Honor Scoiety. Josh Hartsell and Charlie Hinson gave of their time to help Morrison as well.
Locust Mayor Scott Efird was very happy with the landscaping. “I am thrilled that there are still young people who get involved in things like this. The corners at the square really look great.”
The project saved the city more than $9,000, according to Locust City Administrator James Inman. Those were the bids the city had sent to them. Locust supplied the plants for the project. Work on the project started March 19 with the first loads of topsoil being spread. Project work was completed during seven days, final mulch was spread on April 20. There were 25 volunteers, working various hours ranging from two to 26, totaling 218 man hours.
Landon is participating in the Air Force and Navy summer academy. He hopes to get in to the Air Force and become a pilot. He is on the track team, in ROTC and band, loves math and science. He is an Honor student, a band captain and Tri M Music Honor Society as well as a track and field long distance runner.
“I am grateful to the City of Locust for giving me this opportunity and to those who generously volunteered their time and energy to the project,” Landon said.
His mother, Cindy, said the project was a lot of work. “But we had fun too.”

As springtime arrives the West Stanly Players are hard at work preparing their 40th annual spring production. This year, in honor of that milestone, the players once again revisit the past with the staging of the crowd-pleasing comedy, You Can’t Take It with You, by Moss Hart and George S. Kaufman.
“We wanted to do something really special to mark our 40th anniversary,” said director Wes Tucker. “Last year, with the sold out production of Grease, we paid tribute to a past musical. This year we pay tribute to one of our most popular past non-musical plays.”
You Can’t Take It with You opened on Broadway in 1936 and ran for 837 performances, winning the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. The popular 1938 film version, starring Jimmy Stewart, brought home the Academy Award for best picture. Since then, it has been a mainstay in community, regional, and professional theatres around the country with successful Broadway revivals in 1965 and 1983.
“The play was written in the heart of the Great Depression to remind people of what is truly important in life,” says Tucker. “With its eccentric and often hilarious characters combined with the message of family before wealth, it hits home in 2011 as much as it did in 1936.”
Production dates are May 6, 7, 13, & 14 at 8 pm and May 8 at 2:30 pm at West Stanly. Tickets are $8 in advance and $10 at the door. Reserved seats can also be purchased for $15. For ticket information please contact Judy Tucker at 704-485-3200 or West Stanly High School at 704-485-3012.
Story and photo by Wes Tucker

Flowers for your cutting garden
If you’re like me, you’ve probably cut everything from dandelions to lily of the valley to put in big and small vases around your house. But let’s face it, some flowers are just better in vases than others. The best are the ones will long stems that don’t wilt quickly. I like irises in the spring and long stemmed roses in the summer.
It’s possible we could think of having a garden space just for flowers that do well inside in our vases. These could be perennial or annual. If we plant various types of flowers, we could stretch that cutting bouquet time from spring to fall.
Let’s start with spring and think of all the long stemmed flowers we’ve seen in bouquets or that we know will thrive in a vase. I know I love tulips, daffodils and lillies. But I also like thistles, although they are a little prickly. Wear gloves.
In summer, roses, of course. But there are also gladiolus, zinnias, dahlias and daisies. All of these do well in a vase and can easily be planted in your yard.
For late summer and into fall, chrysantemus, delphinums. foxglove, lupine and larkspur are pretty. So are cardinal flowers. I’m sure you can think of many more that I haven’t mentioned here.
A few tips for making your flowers last longer: always slant cut the stem with a very sharp knife. Remove any leaves that will be underwater but never remove thorns from roses as that will make them wilt faster. Use lukewarm, not cold, water. Always change all the water every day.
I suppose the reason that I’m thinking a garden set aside for cutting would be good is because cutting flowers interrupts the plant’s life cycle. I feel guilty sometimes knowing that when I cut them. It make sme feel better knowing certain flowers can be harvested while others are not. Crazy, I know, but there you go. There isn’t much rational about a passion for plants.

Ridgecrest Springfest that was scheduled for this Friday has been canceled. As of now, there is no reschedule date.

Locust Day of Prayer

Plant Lady Gardening – By Joyce Lavene

Second Gold Rush at Reed Gold Mine, Midland, NC

Plant Lady Garden Column – By Joyce Lavene

Locust Eagle Scout Project

West Stanly Players present 40th Spring Production

Gardening: Your Cutting Garden

Ridgecrest Spring Fest cancelled

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