Omnivorous Reader

OMNIVOROUS READER

Doubling Down

Finding the familiar in the extraordinary

By Jim Moriarty

“If you don’t tell their story, who will?”

This was the question posed to Christina Baker Kline by Lesley Looper, a cousin and Duke University librarian, about the lives of the renowned “Siamese twins” Chang and Eng Bunker and their wives, Sarah and Adelaide Yates — Kline’s distant relatives.

The short answer is that a lot of people have. The famous brothers, conjoined at the chest, who came to America in 1829 and eventually settled in North Carolina, have been satirized in poetry, made cameo appearances in works by Herman Melville and Mark Twain, been used as a metaphor during the War Between the States, and been the subject — or at least the literary device — of 21st-century musicals, plays and movies. Does the fact that Kline’s genealogical family tree includes them make her imaginings somehow more prescient? Since the twins died 152 years ago, probably not. What is quite clear from the earliest pages of Kline’s The Foursome, due out this month, is that she has taken extraordinary care to imagine her characters less as curiosity and more as men and women in full, portrayed with distinct traits, virtues and flaws, and very much creatures of their age, one of America’s most turbulent times.

Here’s a Wikipedia-worthy primer: Chang and Eng were brought to the United States from Siam (today’s Thailand) by the Scottish merchant Robert Hunter and a sea captain named Abel Coffin, who put them “on tour” in Britain and America. The on-again, off-again business wound up a decade later with the brothers touring on their own with their own staff, becoming wealthy in the process. In July 1839 they made an appearance in Jefferson, North Carolina, and in October of that year, they returned to purchase 150 acres in Wilkes County, where they would meet and marry the Yates sisters. This is where the novel takes over.

When Kline realized that Sarah (Sallie) was not buried in the same resting place as Chang, Eng and her sister, Adelaide, she discovered the voice of her narrator. Sallie is as clear-eyed about herself as she is every other character in the novel. “Addie possessed the self-assurance of the beautiful. She was used to being seen, and it made her bold about being heard,” writes Kline. “I inherited our mother’s round cheeks, her solid bones and small gray eyes, her unruly auburn hair. Addie took after Papa’s family: tall and lean, with dark-fringed lashes and high cheekbones. She shone in contrast to my ordinariness. She was charming while I was shy.”

The vivacious Addie is drawn to Chang, the more dominant brother. “Addie claimed she’d fallen in love with Chang, and maybe she had. She said she felt it deeply. But Addie felt everything deeply,” writes Kline. “Somehow, though I’d voiced my misgivings from the beginning, I’d let the months unspool without taking a firm stand. Now I found myself swept up in my sister’s insistence that marrying the brothers was the right, the only, thing to do.”

Kline doesn’t shy from the physical awkwardness of this union squared, though neither does she dwell on it. The mantra for Sallie is compartmentalization. Don’t think about everything, “only the next thing.”

The sisters’ conversation on their wedding day is portrayed like this:

“Everyone will be staring at us,” I whispered.

“Of course they will. We’re the brides.”

“They’re thinking about — about tonight.”

“Don’t be silly. Nobody’s thinking about that, except maybe you. You’ll be fine. Remember: only the next thing. All right?”

“All right.”

The foursome marries in 1843. After finessing the physical, Kline does an admirable job of portraying these two families through the next 30-plus, turbulent years, through war, peace, the inevitable loss of parents, the birth, and sometimes tragic death, of children and the eventual death of Chang and Eng. In fact, it is this dramatization of the travails of two families that, in a way, normalizes that which is anything but. The couples eventually live in separate houses, one in Surrey County, one in Wilkes County, spending three days at each. “During the three days in the home of the host, the visiting brother will conduct no business and express no opinions. He is to be a silent partner,” declares Chang. Between them the two families would have 21 children who would grow into an assortment of cousins devoted to one another.

Though joined at the chest, the brothers are not the same person. “Eng liked to gamble, his eyes brightening with each new hand. Chang preferred to drink. Neither quite approved of the other’s vice.” Chang could be cruel and moody, Eng the peacemaker. “Eng’s instinct was to ignore or concede, but even he had his limits. Sometimes, like a cat poked too often, he struck back. More than ever, I saw how tightly the band bound him to his brother. What had once been a tether now felt like a shackle.”

Every time their financial picture darkens, the brothers go back on the road to refill the coffers, but the way they are perceived has changed. What once was a curiosity has given way to ridicule. They eventually hook up with P.T. Barnum, who dislikes the brothers because of their independent streak as much as they detest the famous showman for his exploitation.

Chang and Eng are free men of color who become slaveholders and supporters of the Southern cause. Two sons, one from each family, fight for the Confederacy. “The brothers had learned early on that the world is divided into those with power and those without. Those who own and those who are owned. They’d decided — perhaps from the moment they first felt the weight of coins in their palms — where they stood on that divide.” The families feel the depravations of war and struggle with issues of race. “The shortages deepened. Every stitch of fabric was repurposed, every scrap of food stretched.” Stoneman’s cavalry came. The world changes, the enslaved are enslaved no more. “The hardest part wasn’t learning to do things for ourselves, though that was difficult enough. It was learning to see people we’d spent years looking through. To acknowledge that the women who had wiped our children’s tears had children of their own whose hurts had gone unseen.”

If the world paid attention to Chang and Eng, Kline gives more than equal time to Sallie and Addie and the place of women in the 19th century, dramatized throughout, from unwanted pregnancies at the hands of unscrupulous men; to Eng, the slaveowner taking advantage of the enslaved Grace; to the assured figure of Sallie’s lesbian aunt, Joan. Given all that, The Foursome stretches beyond the voyeuristic, attempting to paint a fuller picture of two brothers and two sisters, tethered by more than just flesh. 

Wandering Billy

WANDERING BILLY

Hill Street, Lauren Hutton and . . . William Faulkner?

Returning to that dead-end boulevard of youth to unravel an unsolved mystery

By Billy Ingram

“A lot of modeling is how much crap you can take.”
— Lauren Hutton

Watching a recent CBS Sunday Morning segment on “the original supermodel,” Lauren Hutton, and her improbable path from poverty to becoming one of the most successful businesswomen in America triggered a memory buried in the smoldering rubble of my brainpan. I vaguely recalled that, in the 1970s, Hutton visited someone in Greensboro, but for what I didn’t have a clue.

Soon after word spread concerning my curiosity, I heard from an old friend, Jane Vaughan Teer, who invited me to the home she shares with her husband, John. Wouldn’t you know, the Teers reside on Hill Street. There, she related the curious story behind Hutton’s surreptitious visit to the Gate City, which happened at the very height of her phenomenal career.

You may recall my slightly salacious recollections of the two-block stretch of Hill Street in Latham Park where I grew up, published in O.Henry’s January 2025 issue. (You do collect ’em all, don’tcha?)

My conversation with the Teers began with their curiosity as to exactly where it was that Mrs. Bunn gunned down her hubby before fleeing to Florida with her paramour. And the address where our 80-year-old neighbor sunbathed au naturel. What I didn’t know, that Jane told me about, was the man who shot dead a teen peeping tom still resided across the street when they the Teers moved to Hill Street in 1978 and would randomly speak about it decades later.

The Teers were surprised to learn that the house next door to theirs once belonged to a couple and their two sons — one of the boys let it slip that their parents had filmed themselves making babies then showed it to them by way of explaining the birds and the bees (I’m running out of metaphors, folks). That whisper rapidly went viral, no tweets needed on this street for speedy promulgation. Soon after, that randy fam relocated. At one point, the Teers mentioned property assessments on Hill Street skyrocketing, a common concern of late. “Don’t worry,” I assured them. “After folks get a gander at this, the city will be forced to reassess.” But I digress. When wisps of 50-year-old reminiscence subsided, discussion turned to my memory’s mystery — why Lauren Hutton ventured to Greensboro.

“I had to give up my bedroom for her,” Jane, 27 at that time, recalls of Hutton’s overnight stay in their home at 2018 Pembroke Dr. that, by her best recollection, took place late summer 1974. “It was supposed to be a very quiet thing, no publicity, but Mama had to have a party . . . of course.” Mama being the indomitable Bee Vaughan, a tentpole presence in my life I equated with the Unsinkable Molly Brown. “Mama told Lauren, ‘We’re going to have a little cocktail party.’ Lauren said she wanted to take a nap first, so she goes back into my room to rest.”

As folks began arriving at the cocktail hour, Jane was enlisted to awaken Ms. Hutton who, remember, was one of New York and Europe’s most sought-after socialites. “Lauren said, ‘This early?!? I don’t guess anywhere else in the world they have cocktail hour at 5 o’clock!’”

If you weren’t around for the so-called Me Decade, it’s difficult to unpack the impact Hutton, a small-town girl from the South, had on the fashion world globally. In 1973, she signed the first exclusive contract in modeling history and the most lucrative at $250,000 a year for 20 days work (an almost $2 million payday today) as the fresh-scrubbed face of Revlon cosmetics. That was just six years after landing her first Vogue cover in 1966 at age 23.

“From the very beginning I wanted to see the world,” Hutton told the Today show in 2016 about why she left the South. “I heard that models made this enormous amount of money, ‘a dollar a minute,’ and I said, ‘I have to do that!’ And everybody laughed.” With a gap in her teeth, a “banana-shaped nose,” standing only 5-foot-7 (in heels), she possessed none of the qualities associated with 1960s glamor gals typified by Elizabeth Taylor’s cat-eyed Cleopatra caricature, Catherine Deneuve’s icy glare or Twiggy’s pixie-like androgyny.

Her preppy-chic visage was splashed across some two dozen major magazine covers by 1974. Hutton’s unspoiled, Gulf Coast-casual resting face best expressed what modern, independent women were thirsty for from fashionistas: allure without artificiality.

Just how glamorous was one of the world’s most photographed fashion icons? “She was regular, just plain folks,” Jane insists. That comes through in the photo reproduced here of Hutton taken alongside Bill “Hoot” Roane, the very fellow she came to town to see.

A longtime companion of Bee Vaughan’s after her husband passed, Hoot (a nickname bestowed in childhood) was blessed with a gift for gab that came in handy as a sales exec for WBIG Radio, popular as any of the station’s on-air personalities.

Hutton had come to Greensboro to query Hoot about his adolescent days in Oxford, Mississippi. Back then, Hoot was a close friend of Lawrence Bryan “Cut” Hutton, the father she never knew. “They were in a little gang together,” Jane explains about the pirate-themed crew Hoot and Cut hung with, their ship a treehouse fort for secreting cigarettes and liquor. “You can count on the fact that, however long [Hutton] was here, Hoot kept her entertained. She heard a lot about her father and about their close friendship with William Faulkner.”

The writer William Faulkner? “They were neighbors,” Jane comments casually. “Hoot used to give talks about him. Not about his writing but about neighborhood things, like Faulkner dating the school librarian.” Faulkner was around 20 years older than those boys. But then, as a youngster, I was friendly with older neighborhood folks, too.

There was a small café in Oxford where, daily, Faulkner sorted through his mail. “Hoot had some kind of a job there,” John Teer recalls. The year was 1939 when Hoot was 22. “One morning Faulkner came in with all these magazines, letters and so forth. One of them was Time magazine with his picture on the cover.” Faulkner didn’t even open the magazine, couldn’t have cared less what they said about him in it, laughingly autographing the mag before handing it over to his pal.

“After Hoot’s father passed away, the family gathered down in Oxford,” John continues. “Somebody came in and said, ‘There’s an old man at the back door. He’s kind of sketchy looking, I don’t know . . .’ Hoot went to look and it was Mr. Faulkner. He’d come over with a fifth of [Four Roses] as a gift.”

It’s reassuring that Lauren Hutton reemerges frequently, her look being timeless. Only Princess Diana, and few others, have similarly embodied Hutton’s rarified air of vulnerable likability. Asked by Harper’s Bazaar in 2023 about regrets, Hutton replied: “I would give anything to meet my father, my real father. I didn’t ever get to meet him.” Whether or not her journey here provided meaningful insight or connection, she can’t say Greensboro didn’t give a Hoot.

Home Grown

HOME GROWN

Riding Lessons

Complete with brakes and pads

By Cynthia Adams

There were two things I deeply envied as a child: having a bike of one’s own and being an adopted child.

The older boy next door had a bike that I mooched frequently. Marshall’s bike was too big for me. I could just manage by standing on the pedals. 

Meantime, my best friend, Judy, was living the good life as an adopted, only child. She had a girl’s bike, her own room and more books than she could ever read. She was doted upon but not quite spoiled. On the other hand, I was one of five kiddos — at least four more than our mother had bargained on. Sleepovers with Judy made me envy the luxury of privacy. At my house, somebody would always barge into the bathroom when I was using it. I shared a bed with a sister until I left for college.

Judy’s calm, amazing life made mine look like life in a zoo: noisy, crowded and every secret on public display. She also had Helen, a mother who knew everything worth knowing. A librarian who drove the bookmobile in the summer!

A fantasy took root. Privately, I grew convinced I was switched at birth. All signs pointed to this: Mama was a girly girl. I was a tomboy. She had never been in a fight at school; she scolded me when I arrived home sweaty and bloody-kneed after an incident with the class bully. She adored dolls. I ignored them, though an indifferent Santa brought yet another doll every Christmas.

Mama didn’t like exploring in the woods. She wasn’t into horses. Nor chocolate milk. She didn’t even like Butterfingers!

My life made no sense — unless there had been a mix-up at Union Memorial Hospital.

I probed Mama about the circumstances of my birth constantly. As she had told me since my earliest memory, she labored hard and long before giving birth. “Did you get to know any of the other mothers?” I asked probingly.

Were there other baby girls born on April 9? Was she awake when they brought me to her the first time?

“You’re mine, alright,” she would say, setting her mouth in a line.

Mama, who had loved something called “dramatic recitation” when she was a schoolgirl, repeated the hard labor story so many times and with such dramatic flair that I believed when I was very young she meant I was born on the night of April . . . as if she had been in the throes of suffering every day and night until my stubborn appearance. 

Marshall grudgingly lent me his bike one afternoon. Racing along a dirt path near our houses, I barely avoided a large rock by suddenly screeching to a stop, slamming down on the hard crossbar.

Once home, I realized I was bleeding. Rushing to my mother, I told her about how I’d hurt myself riding a boy’s bike and pleaded to be taken to the hospital. Mom rose up from reading True Romance magazine. She took me to her bathroom, presenting me with large bandages. “But I need to go to the hospital!” I protested. 

“No, you don’t,” she replied. “You will be doing this every month from now on.”  Then she returned to True Romance. Only weeks later would I realize how short-changed her answer had left me. But that was in the ’60s, when many mothers felt the less adolescents knew about reproduction, the better.

Was I a hemophiliac like the doomed Romanovs?

On the next sleepover at Judy’s house, I confided my puzzling illness.

The lower part of me, I told Judy, was permanently damaged. Prone to sudden bleeding. After my bike injury, Mama had warned me to always carry bandages.

Judy said this didn’t sound right. She wanted to seek answers from her mother.

She returned with Helen, whose face softened as I told her about the incident that had triggered my condition.

Helen took my hand. “It’s not an injury,” she reassured me. “It’s very natural.” She suggested Judy and I get a snack.

A smiling Helen was waiting with intriguing boxes labelled “The Invisible Woman” and “The Invisible Man.”

She pulled the anatomically correct dolls from their boxes and quietly explained reproduction. We both felt the importance of the moment, and she met our few questions with simple, clear answers. Helen used words like menses and did not pander.

I adored her with my whole heart.

However, none of this was especially heartening. The one truth Mama had shared was that my predicament was recurring.

When I returned home from the sleepover, I tested my knowledge with my 15-year-old sister, Sharon, who was six years older. She snorted. “Why are they telling you about the facts of life?” she demanded. “You’re just a snotty-nosed kid.”

I rolled my eyes at her ignorant self, and ran outside in search of Marshall’s bike. But the evening star had popped out over Marshall’s house, so too late to ride to the creek. I turned back; the smell of chicken frying in hot Crisco wafted through the screen door as I plopped unhappily onto the back porch to think. 

The unsolved mystery of my birth family continued.

Inside, no question about it, Mama was already cooking dinner for me and my supposed siblings.

State of Mind

STATE OF MIND

The High Ground

Finding ways to thrive

By Tommy Tomlinson

Recently we spent a fine Saturday afternoon in Mount Pleasant. I should specify that it was the Mount Pleasant in North Carolina. It turns out there are dozens of Mount Pleasants all over the country, sometimes more than one in the same state. You can see the appeal. Names can be destiny. Name yourself Mount Pleasant and you’re halfway to pleasantness itself.

The “Mount” part is trickier. I grew up near a Mount Pleasant in south Georgia that was as flat as a shuffleboard table. The North Carolina version doesn’t exactly require hiking poles either. Then again, the Piedmont is known for puffing itself up when it comes to height. One of the reasons Charlotte calls its downtown “uptown” is that there’s a slight rise from the edge of the center city to the main intersection of Trade and Tryon streets. You might not even notice if you’re driving. But it is, technically, “up,” so “uptown” it is. And if Mount Pleasant, out on the eastern edge of Cabarrus County, sits on a patch of relative high ground . . . well, a mountain can be a state of mind.

It’s not far from where we live — less than an hour’s drive — but neither my wife, Alix, nor I had spent time there. Our loss. This time we made it there for a literary festival at the Mount Pleasant library, which is bright and clean and beautiful. It doubles as a rec center. Kids were out on the fields playing baseball, and there was a line at a food truck. It was a busy spot in a busy town.

Not all small towns are like that. You’ve probably taken the back roads through some towns where you wonder if you wandered into the zombie apocalypse. Small towns have been hit hard over the last 50 or 60 years by everything from interstate highways to chain stores to the slow death of local manufacturing. Sometimes all you see is a bunch of boarded-up buildings and a Dollar General. It can make more sense to move, either into the city or out to the country. Sometimes the worst place to be is in between.

But other small towns figure out ways to thrive. Mount Pleasant has a crisp little downtown, old houses in good shape, a distillery housed in an old prison. (They make a bourbon called Conviction.) We met a guy who researches town history, a woman who worked in PR all over the country, and a flock of librarians I would follow into the deep stacks anywhere. Every time we drive through a small town, my wife glances around at the houses and I can see her daydreaming. If Alix likes what she sees, sometimes she’ll say, “What would you think about buying a house and moving somewhere like here?”

She said that about Mount Pleasant.

I grew up in a midsized town — about 30,000 people — and got most of my perspective on small towns from watching TV. For the longest time I thought of small towns as being on either end of a wide range. One end was Mayberry, where almost nothing bad ever happened, except when Aunt Bee made pickles. The other end was Cabot Cove, Maine, where somebody got poisoned, stabbed or shot to death every damn week on Murder, She Wrote. (I still can’t believe nobody figured out that Jessica Fletcher was the most prolific serial killer in human history. None of that happened before she got to town!)

Modern life has flattened a lot of the differences between small towns and everywhere else. Streaming services bring the most obscure movies and shows to anyone with Wi-Fi. Worldwide delivery can put pretty much anything you want on your doorstep by tomorrow morning. A small town might not have a fancy ramen place, but Amazon can send you the ingredients and YouTube can show you the instructions.

The truth, though, is that small towns have never been that different than everywhere else. The settings might be different, but our hearts are the same: We all need to love and be loved, to find pursuits that fulfill us, to grieve when life hands us losses, to reach for something bigger than ourselves.

Those things are true no matter whether you live in a hamlet of 200 or a city of 2 million.

Every person is complicated and so every collection of people is more complicated still. It’s easy to write off a place for thinking or acting a certain way, but remember, that might be a majority, but it’s not a monolith. I’m not sure I could get a two-thirds vote in my own family on any subject except banana pudding. Our love for one another brings us together, but our differences are what makes life interesting.

It took me a long time to learn that you can make your own Mount Pleasant, wherever you are. You can just decide to live on higher ground. You can just decide to be decent to others. You can just decide to make a small town out of your friends and loved ones, even if you live in the middle of the city.

We are not likely to move to the actual Mount Pleasant, even though we enjoyed it. What we hope to do, though, is keep the little bits of it that we brought home with us — the warm feelings, the new friendships, the sense of discovery. I’m sitting here looking at a North Carolina map right now. I’ve been all over this state but there are so many places I still haven’t been. Time to gas up the car. 

Knowing When to Bale

KNOWING WHEN TO BALE

Knowing When to Bale

For Rachel York, a straw-bale home was the answer to her domestic riddle

By Maria Johnson
Photographs by Betsy Blake

When Rachel York moved back into her parents’ Greensboro home almost four years ago, everyone agreed it was a good thing.

Her dad was dealing with Parkinson’s Disease, and Rachel could help manage his health and keep her parents in their Lake Daniel home as long as possible.

The homecoming would help Rachel, too, because the cost of living in Maine, where she had moved in 2018 to earn a master’s degree in studio art, had shot up during the pandemic.

So Rachel, a visual artist and musician, moved into the attic bedroom of her parents’ home. Her folks, Jane and John York, both retired public school teachers, had converted her childhood bedroom into a study after she left home.

Soon, the house felt snug for three adults.

“Boundaries were hard,” says Rachel, now 37.

But her parents’ backyard was big.

So Rachel scanned the internet for information on small homes that could be built on the property. Nesting magazines call them accessory dwelling units, or ADUs.

That’s when Rachel read about straw-bale homes, which have exterior walls that are literally stuffed with bales of straw.

It’s an old idea. Humans have used straw as a building material since prehistoric times. Native Americans sometimes stuffed straw between the inner and outer layers of their teepees. European pioneers built homes with blocks of straw after the invention of mechanical balers in the late 1890s.

Modern straw-bale homes have refined the practice.

Rachel was intrigued by the idea that she might be able to have a compact, distinctive, energy-saving home on her parents’ property.

“It stuck in my brain,” she says. “I just thought it was incredible.”

More searching led her to Amanda Jane Albert, whose Greensboro business, Inhabit, designs and builds sustainable homes.

Rachel asked Amanda if she’d be interested in doing a straw-bale home for her.

Amanda was not only interested; she was experienced. Over the last several years, she had worked with nonprofits to build more than a dozen straw-bale homes for low-income families out West.

A licensed contractor since 2020, she had been wanting to try the building techniques in Greensboro.

“We needed the right client,” she says.

Rachel was that client.

Amanda drew four plans for her.

Rachel picked a 700-square-foot design with shotgun-style layout: a great room that flows into a studio, which leads to a bedroom.

Because Rachel’s neighborhood does not have a homeowners association, there is no prohibition on separate ADUs as long as they meet city zoning requirements.

But because straw-bale homes are so rare in this area — Amanda says there are about a dozen in the state, and hers is the first in Greensboro — there’s no statewide building code for the structures.

To issue permits, the Greensboro building department required Amanda to hire a licensed structural engineer, one who was experienced with residential projects, to sign off on the plan.

Construction began in July 2024 with the pouring of 18-inch-wide concrete beams above grade.

Amanda’s crew framed the home and raised the exterior plywood walls.

To weatherproof the box, they added a white metal roof to reflect the sun’s heat, and they built a floor that was layered, from the ground up, with a waterproof barrier, gravel, fill dirt and a rough coat of adobe plaster made from clay, sand and straw scraps. Later, the floor would be finished with a finer coat of adobe and sealed with natural oils and beeswax.

Once the structure was enclosed, the crew started baling.

Bristling blocks of straw, culled from wheat grown in Alamance County, were stacked like bricks on the concrete beam. The crew notched out the bales with chain saws to fit around the wall studs. They used grinders to cut channels for electrical cables.

To finish the interior walls, two coats of adobe plaster — one rough, one fine — were slathered directly onto the bales.

“You just glob it on with your hands and use a trowel to try to keep it level,” says Rachel, a gungho homeowner who had no formal training in “globbing” but rolled up her sleeves to work side-by-side with the building crew. She recruited friends, family and neighbors to help sift sand and clay, push wheelbarrows and smooth the plaster.

“It felt like what I would imagine an old-fashioned barn raising would be,” she says. “All of it was fun. Like, seriously hard labor, but fun and joyful.”

Friends bubbled with questions about the house.

Q: Do the straw bales pose a fire hazard?

A: No, according to Amanda, the straw is so tightly packed it would only smolder if exposed to a flame.

Q: What about the electrical wires embedded in the walls?

A: The wires are heavy duty, rated for underground use.

Q: Will rodents and other critters try to nest in straw?

A: Rodents can get into walls only where there’s a gap. The
straw bales are sealed all the way around.

Q: What about humidity in this climate?
Could the straw get moldy?

A: A vapor-permeable air barrier on the outside wall allows any water molecules to escape. On the inside, adobe plaster does the same, Amanda says. “Clay is an excellent humidity regulator.”

In keeping with Amanda’s tradition of naming her projects, Rachel, an avid birder, decided to call her home The Bower, after the resourceful bowerbird, which uses straw and grass to weave arched nests on the ground. Another, more literary, definition of bower is a lady’s private room, which describes Rachel’s refuge perfectly.

The home was finished in August 2025.

Rachel and Amanda advertised an open house on social media.

Old friends and new neighbors showed up.

“It helped us to be more a part of the community,” Rachel says.

Many people were surprised at how large The Bower felt inside. They talked about the abundant light, the attention to detail and the decorative flair.

Contrary to what they might have read about the flimsy straw home in The Three Little Pigs, The Bower felt solid and well-crafted — a custom-built reflection of Rachel’s artistic heart and commitment to honoring the natural world.

Maybe that’s because Amanda and Rachel literally wove the outdoors into the interior.

As soon as visitors step through the mango-yellow front door, they are greeted with a showstopper: a wall made with an old English method known as wattle-and-daub, in which plaster is stuck to woven branches.

In Rachel’s home, the wall stops about a foot shy of the ceiling, and some of the underlying lattice — which includes cuttings of bamboo, elderberry and ligustrum from around the city — is exposed at the top.

A fallen branch from a willow oak in the backyard anchors one end of the wall, jutting into a doorway to form a true art installment.

One of the crew members, a ceramicist, added more wow to the wall by sculpting an elm tree into the adobe plaster, a tribute to a living tree on the property.

The home’s organic eye candy gets even better.

From the wattle-and-daub wall, visitors’ eyes climb to a lofty, wraparound bookshelf nestled close to the cypress plank ceiling.

The cypress, which came from a discount lumber company, was harvested in Eastern North Carolina.

The bookshelf was made with old barn wood that Amanda found at Preservation Greensboro’s Architectural Salvage.

Closer to the ground, the home hums a medley of thrift finds, recycled building materials, meaningful objects from Rachel’s life and dabs of modernity.

Wooden chairs and rockers came from Rachel’s grandparents’ home and from Milltown 87 Antiques & Collectibles, a vintage warehouse in Burlington.

A drop-leaf table came from Red Collection.

Bob Beerman and his wife, Teresa Rasco, who founded Bass Violin Shop, where Rachel works in customer service and bookkeeping, gave her a richly-colored, wool rug.

Rachel’s own bass fiddle stands in the corner, a nod to the legacy of her mom, who last taught orchestra at Penn-Griffin School for the Arts in High Point. Rachel’s father taught English at the same school.

In another corner, a Raku-fired vase made by Rachel’s late friend, ceramicist Hiroshi Sueyoshi of Wilmington, occupies a display niche scooped out of the wall.

A few feet away — above a stylish microfiber sofa from Sabai, a women-owned business in High Point — curiosity snags on a book-sized stained-glass door built into the wall.

Rachel’s artist friend, Lindsay Mercer, designed the glass to depict a bowerbird. When visitors open the door, they look through a piece of glass into the field-grown essence of the home.

“It’s called a ‘truth window’ because you can see the straw bales in the walls,” says Amanda.

The kitchen is an ode to artful economy. The stained glass lamp hanging over the island also came from Milltown 87. The butcher-block countertops, made from American walnut, came from Floor & Decor. The mint-green backsplash tile was salvaged from another job of Amanda’s. She bought the unfinished cabinets online. The cabinets were finished with dark green linseed oil paint and hung on the home’s north wall, the only wall that’s not filled with straw bales.

Plumbing cannot be run in straw-bale walls in case of leaks. Amanda also needed the strength of studs behind the wall to hang cabinets. Still, she wanted the home’s north face to have an insulation value comparable to the straw walls, so she designed an 8-inch-thick double-studded wall with two rows of staggered two-by-fours.

She hung sheetrock on the interior and filled the gaps between inner and outer walls with blown-in cellulose insulation and sheep wool.

To sustain herself and the planet, Rachel picked energy-efficient appliances: an induction stove, a convection oven and downsized dishwasher. Even though her home steps lightly on the Earth, Rachel feels spoiled by it.

“Having a dishwasher is luxurious to me,” she says.

So is having a studio for her creative endeavors, which, lately have included drawing with chalk pastels. She also freelances as a singer and bass player, and as a graphic artist. Among her designs: the fox and grapes logo of Scuppernong, an independent book store where she used to work. Recently, she drew up signs to help Amanda market a total renovation that’s listed for sale in the historic Dunleath neighborhood.

Working in her studio, Rachel is often surrounded by meowing muses: two or four cats. She owns two fur babies and shares custody of two more with her parents. They — the cats — love to nap in her studio’s deep window sill, another bonus of straw-bale construction.

“These are great windows for cats,” says Rachel, who is both pro-cat and pro-bird. She has dotted her Anderson windows — Amanda uses only new windows in her construction — with stickers to keep the birds from slamming into the energy-efficient panes.

Off the studio, a full bath is another study in economy and style.

A vessel sink sits atop a dry-sink cabinet that Rachel found at Milltown 87. The handsome navy and gold wallpaper — featuring, of course, bowerbirds — came from Spoonflower, a Durham-based custom printer of fabrics and wallpapers. The mirror came from Facebook Marketplace. Ditto the bronze-and-caramel colored floor tile. The floor is heated from underneath, another touch that feels like an indulgence to Rachel.

“The adobe floor can be pretty cool in the winter, so it’s nice to step into the bathroom and feel like, ‘Oh yes!’” she says.

The bedroom holds more beautifully practical flourishes: An arched inset in the wall functions as an adobe headboard for a queen mattress, which fits easily into the room, thanks to the recess. Wall sconces flank the arch.

The room has a laundry nook, too, meaning that, for the first time in her adult life, Rachel claims a washer and dryer of her own.

“This is a game changer,” she says, recalling experiences with basement laundry rooms and other tenants’ clothes left in washers and dryers.

Her new combination unit washes and dries clothes in the same tub. The ventless dryer dehumidifies clothes and drains away the water, which saves energy and extends the life of the clothes.

Thanks to many electricity-sipping decisions, the home earned a tax-saving Energy Star certification for Amanda. Rachel is eligible for electric company rebates.

Amanda throws out R-values, which are insulation ratings, to describe just how energy-efficient The Bower is. The higher the R-value, the better.

The Bower’s straw-bale walls are rated at R-30; codes for conventional homes call for R-15.

The attic, which is blanketed with blown-in cellulose insulation, is rated at R-49. The code for regular homes is R-38.

Already, The Bower is flexing its ability to save energy, therefore money. Rachel says the family’s power bill for November 2025 — her home is tied to her parents’ electrical system — was less for two homes than it was for just her parents’ home when she was living there in November 2024.

No solar panels power The Bower, but the home’s orientation, which squares with the Earth’s cardinal directions, makes the home a passive-solar structure.

Most of the windows face south. In the summer, the windows are sheltered by an overhang that provides shade. In the winter, when the sun’s arc is lower, its rays penetrate the windows and warm the interior walls.

The home’s exterior walls are Earth friendly in their own way.

Amanda’s crew used propane torches to scorch the spruce plank siding, then they painted the burned surface with warm linseed oil. The charring method, known as Sho Sugi Ban, is a traditional Japanese method of protecting wood from insects and fire.

The dark boards, coupled with The Bower’s white roof and yellow door, make for an eye-popping modernist home.

Rachel’s family and friends love it, inside and out. Her parents tease her about trading places.

Some of her friends say they’d love to build something similar.

Rachel says only a few of her friends are homeowners, and she never thought she’d have her own place, much less one that captures her artistic, financial and ethical values so well. Building a straw-bale home — for about the same cost as a conventional home of the same size — with access to a large garden space and her mother’s fresh-baked cookies and focaccia, feels like a dream come true.

“To have a home — I didn’t even know that was possible,” she says. “The first couple of months being here, I thought, ‘I don’t know if this is real. It feels too good.’”

State of Mind

STATE OF MIND

Sweet Spot

A place to watch the world

By Tommy Tomlinson

Every year I mark it on the calendar when it arrives: porch season.

This year we got a dose in the middle of February. We always get a brief false spring right around then. You know winter is coming back for another round so you get outside while you can.

It was 74 degrees one day, 83 the next, and my wife and I took to the porch in the afternoons. The porch was one of the main reasons we bought this old house. It was built in 1929, ancient in a modern city of teardowns. When we got the place the porch was half caved in — it had a big crack in the concrete, running down the middle. We got it resurfaced, and over the last 22 years, and two sets of porch furniture, we’ve spent untold thousands of hours out here.

There are some neighbors we see only when we’re on the porch. They stop by and chat on their way to get a beer down the street, or just on their evening walk. Sometimes they come to browse the books in our Little Free Library. Not long after we put the library in, a young couple with a little girl would stop by a few times a week. An older neighbor noticed, found out the girl’s name, and started leaving books in there with notes for her. Then the couple discovered that the older woman had a dog and started leaving treats for the dog. I’m not sure that couple and that woman ever met. But those little gifts meant the world to them. And to us.

A year or two ago, a waterlogged branch fell off our oak tree in a storm and knocked out the library. We had it rebuilt. You can’t let go of a thing that gives you a story like that.

The porch is our party line, our message board, the place we catch up on news and gossip. It’s where we learn who moved out and who moved in, who got sick and who’s doing better. We have watched children grow from here, and watched other neighbors age.

This winter was a hard one. We had an ice storm one weekend and 11 inches of snow the next. Other parts of the state got it even worse. We got lucky at our house — the power never went out and the pipes didn’t freeze. But man, a winter storm in the South can be lonely. We went entire days without seeing another soul. My wife is from Wisconsin and cheerfully tells stories about having to shovel the driveway every hour when they had one of their regular blizzards. Some people down here — mostly transplants — take to the snow like golden retrievers. The rest of us just hunker.

A week or so after the last snow melted, I saw the shoots of one of our daffodils poking through the dirt. And I knew porch weather was coming.

I have spent some time over the years developing a theory about why the South is believed to be, let’s say, more eccentric than other parts of the country. I call it the Crazy Aunt Theory. In colder places, if you have a crazy aunt, you can just stick her in the attic. But our summers are too hot for that. So we put our crazy aunts on the porch where they can talk to God and everybody.

The porch takes us back to those looser, closer times. You don’t have to text anybody from the porch. You don’t need to look up their socials to see what they’ve been doing. They are voice and flesh, standing right in front of you, having real conversations. Sometimes, if somebody has a few minutes, they’ll come up on the porch and actually sit with us. Crazy, right? Spending time together, in person? And we will sit there with glasses of sweet tea, or possibly bourbon, and talk about — well, maybe, nothing. Some days nothing is the best thing to talk about.

And sometimes we are silent because there is so much to see.

There’s a movie from the ’90s called Smoke that features a character named Augie who runs a little tobacco shop in Brooklyn. Every morning at 8, he takes a single photo of the street corner outside. One of the other characters thinks this is the dumbest thing he’s ever heard . . . until he looks through an album of Augie’s photos. Slowly he notices the little differences, the way the light changes, the weather, the people walking through the frame. He is deeply moved.

That’s the way I think about our porch.

In my mind, I can flip through the album and watch the magnolia on the corner bloom and fade. I can see the wrens who show up every year to build a nest under one of the eaves, making a warm space for their babies: first eggs, then hatchlings, then gone. I can see the lizards who slink out from under the house to sun themselves on the warm concrete. I can turn around the camera and see Alix sitting next to me. We who moved here in our 40s and are now in our 60s and hope to still be around in our 80s.

That second warm day in February, two bluebirds floated into the branches of the ornamental cherry tree in our front yard. Our neighborhood is full of cardinals and robins and swallows. Hawks watch over us from the tops of the trees, and owls call to one another at night. But we don’t get many bluebirds. They felt like a promise. The hard winter was coming to an end. Soon it would be porch season for real. We could live out here again — not virtually, not digitally, but through the rich and beautiful panorama of real life.

Brake for Estate Sales

BRAKE FOR ESTATE SALES

Brake for Estate Sales

More than a junking junket

By Cynthia Adams  •  Photographs by Amy Freeman

Garage sales are familiar ground — few rules and no commitment. Slow the car, rubberneck, and cruise on past if you notice more trash than treasures. Estate sales, however, are a different matter altogether.

Catnip, too, for admirers of antiques, collectibles and all things vintage. “There is a whole community,” says Sarah Ferrell, owner of Working Decor. “A community of shoppers! A big friend group.”

But what about those of us on the outside looking in, those who love the quirky and fascinating pre-used and well-loved items? Perhaps you’ve seen signs for an estate sale at an intriguing home and wanted to join the line of antique hunters, but felt out of your league.

Ferrell says not to worry. You don’t need deep pockets, nor even a driving reason, to steer your car straight towards a sale. Allow Ferrell’s considerable experience to guide you.

Don’t be intimidated. “People who hold estate sales are thrilled to see people coming through the door,” she reminds us. A good estate sale can refine your eye. Or at least, entertain.

Southerners lean towards the look of collected homes, writes Patricia Shannon in Southern Living. Plus, sales give us license to be snoopy. “Southerners, as a whole, are big fans of any kind of sale that sees us sifting through someone else’s personal belongings.” 

Ferrell grew up “with people who went flea marketing or antiquing. It is in our culture to go junking.” She muses, “I really think it’s a very Southern thing.”

Prepare. Often, virtual previews of the estate’s offerings let you prescreen items of interest. Know before you go by checking estatesales.net, says Ferrell. Entering a zip code reveals upcoming sales with much of the inventory. “You can see pictures. And get a clear idea of what you want to do for the day.”

She speaks from experience that finds can surface in unlikely places. Antiquing in Ferrell’s family remains a professional calling.

For years, Ferrell’s father, Gene Crowder, and his late brother, Bill, helmed Crowder Designs, a Triad design business. Clients relied upon their instincts.

“They definitely had a huge stash of antiques to sell to clients,” recalls Ferrell. Gene has sustained a following for his antique chandelier and lighting restoration business, which continued after his brother died in 2021. Later, she spent eight years at a traditional estate sale company, where she learned to organize, evaluate and sell. Called in to assist after the death of a prominent community figure six years ago, Ferrell undertook her first solo liquidation, and Working Decor was born.

Very often, she now goes directly to collectors in her database, rather than holding a public sale.

Be mindful of the rules, as they can vary by estate sale. The stated rules are typically on the company’s website or at the entry point. Register upon arrival, as numbers are often issued before admittance, and hold your place in line. People who shop for businesses, or “pickers,” are commonplace, but so are casual collectors.

There’s a reason for the adage, “one man’s trash is another man’s treasure.” Oddities at sales may shock, excite, or entertain. But Ferrell empathizes with families selling loved ones’ possessions. “Things should be dispersed in a mindful way.”

Do not rush the door or line. There is a protocol, says Martha Stewart Living’s “9 Tips for Estate Sales,” which published last summer. Writer Wendy Rose Gould stresses that estate sales occur in the previous owner’s home. Be respectful, she says.

Don’t hesitate to look in other towns and cities. Larry Richardson, a close friend of the Ferrells, often rises predawn in search of treasures, most recently schlepping all the way to Charlotte’s affluent Myers Park. He seconds Gould: “It’s so helpful if everyone honors the process.”

He has scored vintage Louis Vuitton luggage and even a garaged Mercedes in like-new condition.

Educate and focus your eye. “I think original artwork is timeless,” Ferrell says. But focus on a niche. She often buys colorful art books.

Ferrell is still amazed by the wide variety of things people amass. (She mentions her own affection for vintage medical objects, including a physician’s cabinet and a skull used in teaching dentistry.) She repurposed the workbench to use as a table.

“I have such eclectic tastes,” Ferrell admits. But she knows exactly what she likes. When she sees rare, chunky pieces of glass art, her heart beats faster. Ditto for all things green, she says, with favorite pieces of their personal collection in the kitchen.

Think about complementing what you have with affordable finds. “An effortless way to decorate is to look for coffee table books. They are extremely expensive new, but at estate sales, they are cheap. You can look for them by color or style,” she says.

Ferrell also has a soft spot for what she calls “orphaned” chairs from a former set, usually bargain-priced. “Don’t sleep on an orphaned chair!” Mismatched is more visually interesting

Pricing. As for pricing, even estate sale prices may be negotiable. “Sometimes you can negotiate,” says Ferrell. It may be a no, but if you never ask, it is a no. Sometimes, too, “the first day is full price and later days are discounted.” Cash does not always rule, but it may help secure a deal.

Be realistic about whether you have room for the acquisition. “If I bring something in . . . something goes out.” Unless it is something rare, which, in her collector’s parlance, is a “unicorn.”

For Ferrell, it was a green glass chandelier (which she recognized from when it appeared in this magazine in July 2024). Sold to the homeowner by her father, it recently resurfaced at Carriage House, a local antique store. Ferrell found the coveted (albeit broken) light once again, restoring it with her father’s help.

With persistence, “You can find that one unicorn piece you’ve been looking for.”

Appearances can deceive. “Don’t underestimate a sale by the way a house looks on the outside,” Ferrell advises. “I found some wonderful, rare things in an unexpected house. Sometimes you find a treasure.” Do not overlook the garage and outbuildings.

“One of my most prized finds is an old wooden workbench complete with splashes of paint and hammer marks.” 

Don’t be reluctant just to browse around. However, don’t shun the occasional “reality check,” offers Ferrell. It is valuable to see prevailing prices. Professional estate sales can help shoppers “become more realistic about what their [own] items are worth.”

Estate sales are opportunities to upcycle items that might otherwise wind up in the landfill. “People don’t think about the sustainability aspect with an estate sale,” Ferrell adds, noting the ever-cyclical nature of tastes. “You can get the 1950s version versus the reproduction.”

Find your tribe. Ferrell enjoys that estate sales unify many for a shared experience and “bring together the most widely eclectic people . . . all in different fields.” Here, she has made friends and connections. 

She points out yet another reason to be an estate sale goer, even if you leave empty-handed. At estate sales, you glimpse the inner worlds of fellow collectors. “It’s a wonderful way to see some wonderful homes,” says Ferrell.

Go forth confidently in the direction of the estate sale sign’s arrows. You may just find your unicorn.

The Trend Cycle — and Upcycle

Among those who never fail to hit the brakes for an estate sale? Then you are possibly a reseller or someone passionate about upcycling, says the former owner of a vintage store. 

Long-time estate sale fans like Kevin and Kim Gunther report that reselling helps tame their collecting addiction. It also allows them to indulge in one of their favorite pastimes, that age-old thrill of the hunt.

Part-time resellers with full-time jobs, the Gunthers completely understand the impulse to scrutinize every sale and hit the road. For some years, they have spent their free time seeking inventory for three antique booths (at Blue Horseshoe in Ramseur, Blue Octopus in Eden and Main St. Market & Gallery in Randleman). Estate sales are their prime hunting ground.

They happily report that their first date was at an auction.

“Cheap date,” they say in unison. “Free popcorn and cheap Cokes!” Later, as a married couple, the tradition continues. They remain passionate about each other and their favorite shared hobby. Kevin admits they recently “hit an estate sale on our way out of town to go celebrate our anniversary.”

They’ve figured out a way to monetize their, well, mutual addiction, while spending scarce free time together. 

He is fixated on sourcing vintage records.

“I only buy what I like, hoping other people will like it, too. I have tunnel vision,” he says.

Kim looks elsewhere. “I love furniture. Primitive. A certain look. If it is 100 or 50 years old, that does not matter to me. I buy the look.” She searches for shelves and hutches, which are practical. “People who collect need places to show off their treasures.”

Of course, not everything on offer excites. It may not hit the mark or look current. Trends are meant to be broken — and will be. So don’t discount a special find if it bucks current trends, Sarah Ferrell suggests. Once disparaged as “brown furniture,” unpainted pieces in original condition are back in style.

“Oh, it’s coming back,” Ferrell declares. “Which thrills me to death . . . I am tired of people painting things, especially pretty pieces that should not be.”

Having logged many estate sales miles in their pursuits, the Gunthers have lugged home many acquisitions, sometimes those that counter trends. 

The Gunthers agree with Ferrell. Given time, the trend will turn in your favor, they predict, and that is the beauty of upcycling at work.

Pleasures of Life

PLEASURES OF LIFE

Changing the World

One poem at a time

By Josephus III

There I was, nervous, excited, dressed in a Carolina-blue, sheer top, looking like the African Tooth Fairy. My first hours in Nairobi and I’m already on stage, closing a dance performance at the 10th Annual Kenya International Theatre Festival with a choreographer from London. How did I get there? Community is the short answer. And poetry, because, for me, Poetry is Life and it continues to open doors into rooms that were too big for me to even fathom.

You see, 20 years ago I worked on a project with the Community Theatre of Greensboro, which, at the time, was being run by Mitchel Sommers. Together, we fused hip hop and poetry into Schoolhouse Rock, remixed some classics and toured Guilford County Schools with a little “Conjunction, Junction, what’s your function.”

Fast forward several years and Mitchel is retired, vacationing in Nairobi, where he happens to connect with people who run this festival. So, when they mention they are looking for a U.S. poet, guess who he recommends? You guessed it, me! Josephus III, Greensboro’s first poet laureate and the author of Poetry is Life, my book about how poetry is all around us, permeating everyday life, from hip hop and R&B to the rhythmic pattern of what comes out of our mouths.

I jump at the chance to share my art on a global stage.

The plan is for Poetry is Life to be performed as a one-man show. Plus, I’ll teach a master class on “The Beautiful Struggle” and perform at closing ceremonies.

As I move from day one to day two, still in transit, the idea of Nairobi keeps me on my toes; anticipation keeps my mind and body tingling like I have Spidey senses. Finally, I touch down, grab my bag and as my prearranged transportation makes its way to the hotel, the streets are alive with people — hugging, smiling, living. There is a cow in the median. I take it all in, my senses vibrant. I am in awe — poetry continues to provide and prove to me its power.

By the time I arrive, the festival has been drumming for a week, like heartbeats and Sasquatch feet, and I am the new kid on the block. I breakfast with thespians and creatives from Botswana, Zimbabwe, France, Switzerland and all over the planet — a community a world away. Plate full of sausages, potatoes and an omelet, plus a glass of mango juice in my hand, I “Greensboro Grub,” code for how I meet, greet and eat my way through this Olympic village for art and culture.

The first person I meet, Michael from London, invites me to have a seat at his table. Conversation, like poetry, flows and I learn that the dance show he’s been choreographing, Trickster, is happening that very evening. His eyes light up when he hears I am a poet. “There is a poem in the end of our piece,” he says. “We were going to project it on the screen to close the show, but we would love if you could read it.” I’ve only known him for 10 minutes and now he wants me to help close a show that he’s been prepping for a week? When in Rome — or shall I say Nairobi . . .

So here I stand in my blue, see-through top, looking like an African Tooth Fairy adorned with tribal face paint and purpose and passion and, above all else, poetry, surrounded by community filled with a feeling of fellowship with others, cultivating creativity and culture for a common cause on a stage in Nairobi, Kenya, changing the world one poem at a time.

And as the dance comes to an end and the stage lights fade, these are the words I speak:

So here’s the moral for the rich and the poor

For the ones who search and for those hearts that have already found the truth

The trickster never sleeps, he watches every move

He’s wicked and he’s strong

He’s magical and fast

But spirits from the ancestors may gather from the past to free your soul

And gently guide you back into your own

Have faith and courage friend,

You are not alone.

Birdwatch

BIRDWATCH

Harbingers of Spring

Return of the swooping swallows

By Susan Campbell

As the days lengthen and the air begins to warm, many of us look forward to the return of migrant songbirds. Dozens of species that breed here spend their winters far to the south, and dozens more spend time feeding here as they migrate to summer haunts in New England and points farther north. Of these, the first to return in central North Carolina are the swallows. In early April, it’s possible to see six different species: barn, rough-winged, tree, bank and cliff, as well as the more familiar purple martin. And since swallows move in mixed flocks at this time of year, encountering three or four kinds in close proximity is not unusual.

Swallows are almost exclusively insectivorous and are built to catch their prey on the wing. They have strong pointed wings and forked tails, which allow for excellent aerial maneuverability. Except for adult male martins, they are all dark on top and light colored below. But each species has a characteristic flight pattern that can be used to identify it even if field marks cannot be discerned. Modern field guides include descriptions of the patterns — where a species flies and how it flies (the combination of flapping and soaring) are unique. This is very helpful, since swallows spend most of their time on the wing and tend to be quite high in the air, so plumage is difficult, if not impossible, to see.

Without a doubt, the best place to find swallows is around water, where insects are most abundant during the warmer months. If one is lucky and there is a snag or wire adjacent to a wet area, the birds may be perched at close range, which should make for ideal viewing conditions. Except for purple martins, sexes are identical. To the human eye, male and female size, coloration and behavior are the same. However, you may be able to pick out the drabber plumage of a juvenile in late summer if you have a pair of binoculars — and a good bit of patience.

Purple martins are the largest of the group and have the darkest feathering. Adult males are a distinctive bluish-black. Females and second-year males have some blue feathering on the back and head but are mainly a dingy gray. Juveniles will be a paler gray with little or no blue feathers in late summer.

Barn swallows have a dark-bluish back, orange face and yellowish underparts. They also have a deeply forked tail. Given this superior rudder, they are capable of low and erratic flight, scooping up insects close to water level or over large grassy expanses such as horse pastures or golf course fairways.

By comparison, rough-winged swallows are stocky and brown above, whitish below with a drab, buffy throat. They spend a lot of time soaring high in the air and, therefore, have a more squared-off tail.

Bank, tree and cliff swallows are less likely to be encountered in central North Carolina. All three have less distinct plumage and short, forked tails. Bank swallows, which may be found in the western part of the state, have light brown backs, thinner wings and quick wing beats. Tree swallows have dark-green backs, broad, long wings and more direct flight behavior with less wheeling involved. Increasingly, they can be found using tree cavities or nest boxes near large bodies of water in the northern Piedmont. And they are quite common in the coastal plain. Cliff swallows, which resemble barn swallows with a short tail and a pale rump patch, fly more deliberately, with slightly slower, more powerful strokes. They favor the protection of overhangs associated with man-made structures such as bridges and overpasses to affix their unique mud nests. Interestingly, for reasons we are not sure of, cliffs are being found in more locations across the state each season.

Although these little birds are well-engineered for flight, they are not known for their song. In fact, their vocalizations consist of short raspy or mechanical calls. Nevertheless, swallows can be quite noisy, whether they are migrating as a flock or in pairs defending a breeding territory. Try to remember to listen and look up this spring; you might just spot some fancy fliers.