Zoro's Field

by Crowe, Thomas Rain

• ISBN13: 9780820328621
• ISBN10: 0820328626
• Edition: Reprint
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2006-09-01
• Publisher: Univ of Georgia Pr

Summary

After a long absence from his native southern Appalachians, Thomas Rain Crowe returned to live alone deep in the North Carolina woods. This is Crowe's chronicle of that time when, for four years, he survived by his own hand without electricity, plumbing, modern-day transportation, or regular income. It is aWaldenfor today, paced to nature's rhythms and cycles and filled with a wisdom one gains only through the pursuit of a consciously simple, spiritual, environmentally responsible life.Crowe made his home in a small cabin he had helped to build years before--at a restless age when he could not have imagined that the place would one day call him back. The cabin sat on what was once the farm of an old mountain man named Zoro Guice. As we absorb Crowe's sharp observations on southern Appalachian natural history, we also come to know Zoro and the other singular folk who showed Crowe the mountain ways that would see him through those four years.Crowe writes of many things: digging a root cellar, being a good listener, gathering wood, living in the moment, tending a mountain garden. He explores profound questions on wilderness, self-sufficiency, urban growth, and ecological overload. Yet we are never burdened by their weight but rather enriched by his thoughtfulness and delighted by his storytelling.

Author Biography

Thomas Rain Crowe is the author of eleven books of original and translated works, as well as a poet, translator, editor, publisher, and recording artist. He lives in Tuckasegee, North Carolina.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	xi
Foreword by Christopher Camuto	xiii
Returning	1	(7)
Solitude	8	(9)
Sun Time	17	(6)
The Wild Work	23	(6)
Johnson's Pond	29	(7)
Tools	36	(8)
Gathering Wood	44	(8)
Digging a Root Cellar	52	(8)
A Mountain Garden	60	(18)
The Pacifist and the Hunter	78	(7)
Fishing	85	(8)
Homebrew	93	(6)
Bees	99	(11)
Neighbors	110	(9)
Connemara	119	(6)
New Native	125	(14)
Cherokee	139	(15)
The New Naturalists	154	(12)
Animal Stories	166	(13)
Snowed In	179	(7)
A Walk in the Woods	186	(8)
Earthquake	194	(8)
When Legends Die	202	(8)
Afterword	210	(9)
Credits	219	(2)
About the Author	221