Houser Photography

11/08/2023

Sunrise at Wiseman's View, Scenic Views and streams along Rock Jock Trail, and Linville Falls at the Plunge Basin.

10/25/2023

11/13/2016

02/13/2016

Frozen

12/25/2015

A retelling of the Christmas Story by the Children at Summit Community Church in Morganton, NC 2015

11/04/2015

Hawksbill and Table Rock in B&W.

10/24/2015

Golden Trees

10/24/2015

Fall in Toluca :-)

10/07/2015

10/06/2015

The Bucks Stop Here!

07/15/2015

Looking toward Shortoff in the Linville Gorge Wilderness.

05/16/2015

"The Way It Was"
It is funny how things come full circle. I can imagine this land at the dawning of the America's beginning as old growth timber.

The Catawba Indians lived here, and as a kid, I roamed the open fields after they were plowed and frequently found signs of their former presence. A intricately made, white quartz arrowhead was a prized find. They lived, worked, played and fought here. Countless stories that only God and the land know, now forgotten by man.

Eventually settlers found their way from the coastal settlements to search for lands unknown. Some of these settlers stopped here and called this area their home. Some traveled further west.
The men and women who stayed here probably had to cut out their homestead from the forest. More people moved to the area and more forest was cleared.

This land is farm land, it grew wheat, corn, vegetables, the valuable crop of cotton. Most of these fields in the area of Lincoln County and Cleveland County grew Cotton.

My Ancestors grew Cotton and Cotton was King in the South.

My Grandfather grew Cotton, and always had those government folks wonder how he could produce more pounds of Cotton per acre than anyone else. They thought he was cheating the system by planting more cotton than his quota, but he was not cheating. He was just one fine, hard working farmer who knew how to coax all he could to raise a family from that wonderful land.

My Dad and his Brother hand picked that Cotton, They worked a hard life but they were blessed with parents that loved them, made sure they were fed, made sure they learned and tried their best to make them behave. The land provided an infinite playground for a young boy.

My Grandfather was the last of my family to work the land to make a living, solely from the soil. Both my Dad, and my Uncle learned to use my Grandfather's knowledge of how to work the land and scaled it down to provide an abundance of fresh vegetables and fruits during the growing season.

I grew up on this land. When I was young I often wandered the fields to make my way to the small plots of trees that began to form a forest. The fields were still tended by farmers that leased the land so it would yield the bountiful fruit this land provided. It no longer grew Cotton but instead, Soybeans and Wheat.

Then a young man has to find to his way in the world and I left the land. It was no longer growing crops but the land that once provided a bountiful harvest was now growing trees. This land always grows beautiful things.

More trees have been planted in those once expansive fields that once were farms, and the fields are becoming forests once again. This land deserves a rest.

Some farms, like the one in the photograph, still exist and still provide a bounty to those that tend those fields. My ancestors land, though, will grow a wonderful crop of forest.

Someday, maybe someone, will get to see something like the first people who saw this land saw.

No matter how far I go, the land will always be a part of me.

Thanks for reading.

-Mark Steven Houser-