Legends of the Fall

Fall is one of my favorite times of the year. Crisp nights, red leaves, corn stalks browning in the field all inspire the warmest feelings inside me. Just thinking about it makes me want to go to Cracker Barrel and have an apple dumpling by the fire. Fall comes a little later in the low country, so we've traveled up to the mountains of North Carolina and Tennessee twice already this month just to shop for apples and sample the leaves. The first trip was up to Hendersonville where we stopped at a farm store called GrandDad's Apple Farm. They had the BEST mulled cider and fried apple pies. Nathan enjoyed me pulling him around the pumpkins in one of the store's wagons; even our dog, Nienna, enjoyed the change of scenery.

On the way back down, we stopped in Edneyville, NC. My ancestors, the Lyda's, on my Mom's side founded that little mountain apple farming community back in the 1800's. The old stone church, St Paul's Episcopal, still stands serenely in the valley. Across the road is a small cemetery surrounded by apple orchards. I took Nathan there to see where his great-great grandfather, Mark Lafayette Lyda and great-great grandmother, Minerva Lyda are buried. A few stones down the row we came upon Mark's father's, Isaac Monroe Lyda, white stone marker. It identifies him as a Confederate soldier who fought with the 25th NC Infantry in the Civil War. Within sight of Isaac Monroe's stone is an obelisk marking the graves of Nathan's great-great-great-great grandfather and grandmother, Jacob and Annie Lyda. On the stone is a memorial to his stature at the time of his death in 1860; the words "The Pioneer" are nobly engraved under his name for posterity to know of his significance to the community. I only learned about that line of my family as an adult, so it was a wonderful thing to be able to share with pride this heritage with Nathan. We also stopped by there this past weekend with Kristin, so hopefully a tradition of honoring our heritage in this way has been sewn anew for the next generation.

This past Monday, we drove up to Nashville for a couple of days. I've been slowly plugging away on an instrumental guitar project featuring some of my favorite hymns. I'm working with an amazing Nashville session bassist, Dave Pomeroy, and we are recording the project in his studio. It's been a long time coming, but I'm finally starting to get to the post-recording phase, at least where I'm concerned. I may call in some musician help on a couple of songs, and there's the mixing and mastering stage, not to mention the duplication stage that's still a little beyond the horizon, but I can say that progress has been made enough to where I'm starting to get a little excited. I'll post more on it as it finally takes shape, but any prayers out there for the project are greatly desired and appreciated!

In other music happenings, I was blessed to play the prelude music for my lovely cousin, Kristin's and her new husband, Russell's, wedding at the beautiful Second Presbyterian in downtown Charleston. Congratulations to you both and a special thanks to Pam and Bubba for asking me to be a part of your special day! Thanks also to my daughter, Kristin, for setting up the two Starbucks in-store events...I really enjoyed it!

On the way back down from Nashville, we spent the night in Gatlinburg and retraced our steps through Edneyville again as I mentioned before. Kristin made the trip too, so except for Marcus, we were all together. Marc's over at our place today watching Shrek and listening to music when he's not devising plans to raid the pantry! I try to not take for granted any of these precious times when we can all be together whether we're driving through the mountains or just sitting around watching SpongeBob on a rainy afternoon. I know that if I'm not careful, I can work and plan for happiness my whole life and miss the gift that I have right in front of me. One of the things I like about blogging is that it gives me a moment to pause and thank the Lord for all I've been given.

Enjoy the season as we enter soon the formal time of Thanksgiving. I'll have to let Nathan tell you about our October camping trip soon. I'll leave most of it to him, but as a preview I'll share that he earned his first merit badge!