By Victoria Kidd

“Buy local” is a term often used to voice advocacy for supporting local agricultural operations. Its business complement is “shop small,” a term used primarily when talking about supporting small, locally owned businesses. Americans are increasingly making the support of local businesses and the purchase of locally grown food part of their shopping routines, and more Clarke County businesses are responding to the demand. The decision to buy from local growers, makers, and producers is one with implications great and small.

Let’s consider a tale of two Saturday morning shoppers. We’ll call these local gatherers Libby and Amy. Each needs to pick up a few things to make a home-cooked family meal. Libby heads to the grocery store. Amy heads to a local farm market.

Libby enters the store and grabs a shopping cart. Her first stop is the produce section, which was recently renovated to include faux wooden finishes and other components that are designed to inspire the feel of a regional farm market. While the atmosphere may feel like a local farm market, the store’s offerings are anything but local. It offers her strawberries grown in Mexico, apples from South America, and other items imported from half a world away. Periodically, a hidden machine rumbles to life and sprays a mist over everything. Today, as Libby reaches in to collect mushrooms packaged over a week ago, the machine sprays her. Water splashes over her hand and the first few inches of her jacket. “Great,” she says, turning to find something to clean it off with.

At that same moment, in a farm market a mile away, Amy is asking a local grower for suggestions on how to prepare the eggplant she is buying from him—she’s planned a special meal tonight. He gives her a few tips, then says, “I’ll email you a terrific recipe from my wife—actually, I’ll text her in case you need ingredients from the market.”

Her shoulder bag—a giveaway from a recent small business Saturday event—already brims with the morning’s finds. A delightfully fragrant candle (the product of a local business) sits weightily in the bottom of the bag. A small sack of deep-red radishes, two cucumbers, and various other items that will create a fresh salad nestle beside it. Carefully laid across the top is a fresh-baked loaf of rosemary bread accompanied by locally produced cheese.

Before returning home, she stops at another locally owned business from which she has started purchasing meats and dairy products. She gets pork from pastured pigs, and picks up eggs from chickens that have the distinction of being known as “heritage breeds.” Throughout her day, she will interact with the local people who invest their lives in the production and sale of real food.

Amy is not alone in her choice to spend a weekend morning at a farmers market or locally owned business instead of the grocery store. The “buy local” and “shop small” movements are gaining momentum, and many are finding that purchasing from local providers is something that does not need to only be a part of their holiday shopping routines. It is becoming more a part of their weekly household shopping routines.

The Virginia Food System Council, an organization working to strengthen regional and local food systems while supporting the producers at the start of the system, has a pledge program that encourages Virginians to commit to spending just $10 a week on foods grown locally, by Virginia famers. It’s a seemingly small amount, but the collective value of doing so could mean big things for the buy local movement. According to the organization’s website, if every household in the state committed to doing so, it would bring $1.65 billion dollars into the Virginia economy each year. (You can take the pledge and learn more about them at http://virginiafoodsystemcouncil.org.)

Aside from the economic reasons to support local producers, the organization notes that eating locally grow food that is in season reduces one’s carbon footprint, supports good farming practices, and could impact one’s overall health if you specifically seek foods grown with limited chemical interventions. But it’s more than that. “Honestly, you should eat local food not just because it tastes better and is healthier, but because knowing your farmers and food producers is good for your soul,” says VFSC. “Because knowing where your food comes from helps you understand your connection to your community, your bioregion, your Earth.”

If you find that buying locally grown food is good for your soul, you may consider the soul-sweetening benefits of shopping small too. There is some contention regarding who started the shop small movement, but ironically it took the gigantic American Express credit card company to put millions behind a nationwide marketing campaign. The company has been advocating for what it calls “Small Business Saturdays” since 2010, when it launched the campaign to steal consumer’s focus away from big box retailers during the holiday shopping season. Clearly American Express sees the economic potential of small-scale vendors.

According to American Express, through efforts to support small retailers who accept the company’s credit card, upwards of $5.5 billion was spent on Black Friday in 2012 alone. Since the success of that year, the company has expanded its efforts to connect businesses with consumers on every Saturday, every day really, by offering signage, promotional materials, and other support for programs to capture attention and garner sales.

Having a powerhouse like American Express promoting small businesses, and VFSC advocating support for local food producers, helps. But the most genuine voices are those of the farmers, makers, small business owners, and crafters who work to share something grown, made, or produced with pride.

Clarke County has a lot to offer. There are plenty of options when it comes to filling your fridge with locally made consumable goods.

Let’s return to our two hypothetical shoppers. Libby and Amy will both arrive home with everything they need. One will have had an efficient outing; she’ll prepare that which was produced at a scale that some would also call efficient.

The other’s outing did take longer—by choice. Her purchases, from providers like the ones at the Clarke County Farm Market, will impact sales for locally owned businesses. She’ll prepare food that is seasonal, incredibly fresh, and with every bite she’ll make a note to herself to next week tell her farmers how good it was.

The next time you need to make a purchase, think about where you’ll shop and where your dollar goes. It’s been said that to live in Clarke County is to love Clarke County. Perhaps there is no better way to prove that affinity than to buy local and shop small.

See the accompanying guide, page 14, for a listing of some of our favorite local shops, markets, wineries, and more.

By Wendy Gooditis

Looking around my home today, I am choosing to celebrate the people who are responsible for creating these containers in which we keep ourselves, our activities, our memories. Today I salute the builders of the houses which become our homes.

There are many lucky families in Clarke and Frederick counties who are living in houses built by Patriot Homes, a local company which has been around for 25 years. Founded by Dennis and Gail Tomsey, this is an example of a company which built its reputation along with its houses, as exemplified by the number of repeat clients they have served over the years. One client has had Patriot Homes build three different houses for his family. Another had them build a modest house when there were four in the family, and then a bigger one when they grew to six. Then a house for their aunt. Now there’s talk of downsizing as the kids have grown (and, by the way, one of the kids is engaged and maybe a small house in time for the wedding). Families grow and shrink and spread out, and Patriot Homes accommodates them. This is how a builder’s reputation grows. In fact, two successful real estate agents who had worked with any number of local builders chose Patriot Homes when the time came for them to build their own houses.

In conversation with Dennis Tomsey, I learn a little bit about the highs and lows of the building trade. I hear about the thrilling first years, when the couple went out on a pretty long limb, buying 63 lots in Pembridge Heights and founding their shiny new company. They set up a trailer office and built the first house as a model. Dennis says “Before we finished that first house, we had probably sold 24 houses. A lot of them I sold from the hood of my truck! We worked seven days a week.” During one busy year, they built 17 houses chosen by buyers from a number of models.

Following that impressive beginning, Patriot Homes began building in Pioneer Heights, working on six to twelve lots at a time. In this period, the company began building custom homes for people who owned lots and had a specific idea of the sort of house they wanted. Times began to change, and Patriot Homes found themselves building fancier houses on bigger lots, often in Oakdale Crossing and Raven Pointe. As real estate values climbed, lots became more expensive, and buyers wanted larger and more elaborate houses to suit the bigger lot sizes.

No one knows better than a builder that the real estate market can behave like the proverbial rollercoaster—a ride which exhilarates some and makes others ill. Well, when the ride swooped through 2007, builders everywhere started feeling queasy. Patriot Homes was no exception. The company found itself with several beautiful homes, built at a cost which the market would no longer support. But Patriot Homes was solid enough to hold on, and Dennis took a long, hard look at the market, coming to the conclusion that the houses which were selling in those cautious days were smaller houses at lower prices—specifically, the old reliable 2,000 square-foot ranch house. So those were what he built on the extra lots the company owned, and they did indeed sell. The trend continues even now. Dennis says “Out of the last 12 houses we’ve built, only one is a two-story.” Quite a change from the madcap days of just a few years ago when bigger was always better. The ranch house, after all, has a very wide appeal, from first-time buyers to single-parent families, empty-nesters, and retirees.

When I ask Dennis to what he attributes his staying power through the heights and depths, he says, “Our success has been that we build a quality home that has real value for the dollar. Most of our sales come from referrals, from people who have lived with that quality.” Their team of subcontractors has mostly been working with them for 12 to 15 years or longer. That in itself is another indication of success, in my opinion.

Patriot Homes also does renovations, additions, garages, decks, sun-rooms, and other projects. They converted a cabin to a contemporary. They built a fantastic contemporary house with three levels of glass cantilevered over a lake. They have built colonials and Cape Cod-style houses, contemporaries and Craftsmen. They are nothing if not versatile.

On the market at this moment is a beautiful example of the company’s work. It is a 3,000 square-foot Craftsman-style home on more than two acres in the Stonymeade subdivision in Frederick County. It backs up to farmland with lovely mountain vistas. The details, such as those of the shelves in the back entrance space, and the materials, such as the real stone which wraps around the lower exterior of the whole house, set this home apart. It is bright and airy, spacious and inviting.

Wendy Gooditis is a real estate agent on the Chip Schutte Real Estate Team with ReMax Roots at 101 East Main St., Berryville, VA 22611, phone (540)955-0911. She be reached at Gooditis@visuallink.com or at 540-533-0840.

by Amy Mathews Amos

Maybe you started thinking about it when the first wintery blast of air arrived before Thanksgiving. Or maybe it didn’t hit you until the first seasonal viewing of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, when the talking snowman shivers recalling the blizzard that almost canceled Christmas.

But admit it. At some point in recent weeks you started wondering: Will this winter be as cold as last? What was up with that polar vortex last year? And in the strange new world of global climate change, is this the new normal?

The short answer is, no one knows.

Scientists stopped using the term “global warming” to refer to climate change years ago. And you almost never hear them refer to the greenhouse effect anymore—the basic phenomenon that’s at the root of current climate change. That’s because, although 97 percent of climate and Earth scientists agree that carbon dioxide emitted from fossil fuels is warming the planet, they’re less certain about its regional effects.

Don’t think snow globe, where a shake of the hand triggers a uniform cascade of predictable weather throughout the land. Think shopping mall traffic jam, where cars on over-packed roads spill out onto neighboring streets in confusing new patterns, spawn unpredictable fender benders, and generate even more gridlock in unlikely places. We know that the last weekend before the holidays will be crowded. But we’re not sure how all that extra traffic will play out on the ground.

The same is true with climate change. Some places—such as the Arctic—are noticeably warming. In 2012, September sea ice in the Arctic hit the lowest levels recorded since measurements began in 1979, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration—declining almost 14 percent per decade. Climate change is happening most rapidly in the Arctic possibly because warming temperatures get amplified when snow and ice start to melt. Brilliant white surfaces that once reflected sunlight back into space disappear, replaced by dark water and soil that absorb sunlight rather than reflect it. In other words, all the exposed water that used to be covered in sea ice now traps even more heat in Arctic ecosystems, facilitating even more melting, more heat, and so on.

So doesn’t that mean a warmer winter in the Mid-Atlantic? Not necessarily. Some scientists believe that climate change is leading to more extreme weather events in the mid-latitudes of the planet. That means more heat waves in summer, but also more cold snaps in winter as the frigid polar vortex that normally stays high in the stratosphere above the Arctic, becomes unstable.

Dr. Judah Cohen is one of the scientists leading this work. He’s Director of Seasonal Forecasting at the consulting firm Atmospheric and Environmental Research in Massachusetts, and a research affiliate at MIT. “There have been a lot of reports in the media that melting sea ice is causing all kinds of crazy weather,” Cohen said in a recent telephone interview. “There are all of these theories out there; all these researchers working independently. We’re trying to make a little order out of the chaos.”

Cohen recently coauthored a scientific review of those theories. His own research links the amount of snow cover in Siberia in October with weather in the continental United States the following winter. More snow in Siberia means it’s more likely the polar vortex will dip into our neck of the woods a few months later. The records go back to the late 1960s. Since 1988, according to Cohen, October snowfall in Siberia has been expanding. Why? Possibly because more exposed water and warmer Arctic temperatures lead to more moisture in the air. Then, as the weather cools in the fall, this moisture drops across Eurasia as snow.

What happens next is uncertain, but there are several possible—and most likely interconnected—theories.

One theory is that storm tracks get shifted. Atmospheric pressure over the Arctic fluctuates from year to year. In years with low atmospheric pressure, the polar vortex contracts. Cold air stays near the pole throughout the winter, pulls storm tracks northward, and allows southwesterly winds to bring milder weather to the continental U.S. In years with high atmospheric pressure, storm tracks get pushed south and bring cold polar air behind them. Years with high levels of October snow fall in Siberia coincide with years of high pressure over the Arctic, pushing cold air south.

Shifts in the jet stream might also contribute. The jet stream refers to the constant winds that blow from west to east across the northern hemisphere. Those winds are driven by differences in temperature between the warm tropics and the cold Arctic. As temperatures in the Arctic warm at a faster rate than those in the tropics, the difference between tropical heat and Arctic freeze decreases, slowing the jet stream. A strong jet stream holds the polar vortex in place. A slower jet stream allows it to meander farther south and spill out into mid-latitudes.

And finally, changes in sea ice and snow cover could alter normal planetary atmospheric waves created by topography and differences between land and ocean surfaces. Heating can increase the amplitude of these waves, injecting more energy from the lower troposphere high into the stratosphere where the polar vortex resides. That extra energy bombarding the polar vortex can make it unstable, and eventually break it apart. Once that happens, the frigid air that was contained in the vortex spreads south.

“None of this is mutually exclusive,” said Cohen. “There’s definitely overlap and dependencies.” But trying to sort out exactly what’s happening with so many different systems working across a global scale is challenging. Computer models that try to capture all these components often end up with different results.

Other climate scientists have completely different theories about the regional implications of climate change. Dr. Kevin Trenberth, a Distinguished Senior Scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado, believes that changes in ocean temperatures and currents in the Pacific drive winter weather across North America and Europe far more than changes in the Arctic do. In particular, a 15-year pattern that he believes contributed to frigid European winters from 2009 to 2013, and our cold temperatures last year, has shifted. That, combined with the formation of a weak El Nino, suggests that this year could be different: Namely, cooler and wetter weather than normal in the South and Southeast, and warmer, drier weather in New England. Sandwiched in between these two regions, “West Virginia and Virginia are hard to say,” he concedes.

And what has Cohen found? He hadn’t yet issued a formal public forecast when this article went to press. But he did share a vital piece of information: October snowfall in Siberia this fall was the second highest on record.

Rudolph could be busy.

Amy Mathews Amos writes about environment, health and history from her home in Shepherdstown. Her writing has appeared in The Washington Post, Pacific Standard, Earth Touch News and elsewhere. She serves on the boards of the American Conservation Film Festival and Marine Conservation Institute and blogs for The Downstream Project at thedownstreamproject.org. Follow her @AmyMatAm.

story and photos By Claire Stuart

In its 133 years, Bank of Clarke County has gone from horse-and-buggy days to mobile apps. Starting with a single branch, its twelfth branch opens in 2015 in Ashburn, Loudoun County. This fall, the bank unveiled a timeline photo display in the lobby of the Berryville branch, highlighting important people and events.

John Hudson, senior vice president and marketing director, sat down to talk about the bank’s history. Hudson, who has been with the bank for 31 years, was a shareholder before joining the bank’s staff.

He recalls, “I wasn’t with the bank in 1981, but when I read the annual report, I noticed that 100 years of history had been condensed into just a few pages.”

In 2003, Hudson was asked to write a history of the bank for its 125th anniversary. It took him three years to research and write, culminating in a fascinating and attractive hardcover book called Since 1881, generously illustrated with photos of people and historic documents. It was published in time for the shareholders’ meeting in 2006. Hudson credits the many people who assisted him, particularly Margaret Barthel, previously the bank’s official historian.

The story of Bank of Clarke County is actually the story of the area and three banks. The end of the Civil War wiped out the South’s banking system, which was based on confederate money. Clarke County had been a prosperous agricultural area before the War, growing wheat, corn and other grains, cattle, and fruit. There were mills, and there was mining and logging on the mountain. As the economy recovered and business returned to Clarke County, a bank was necessary.

In 1872, the Bank of Berryville came into being. Unfortunately, it was poorly managed and problems were found in the books. It was discovered that they were cashing checks for people with no money in the bank. The bank became insolvent and went into receivership, with Mr. Ammashaddi Moore, Jr., a local attorney, named as receiver. A cousin of Moore’s was president of Bank of Berryville. He refused to give the receiver the keys to the bank. Moore climbed through a window to take legal possession of the bank, and it closed in 1878.

Berryville was again left without a bank, with the nearest banks hours away by horse-and-buggy. By 1881, the necessary capital was raised to institute the Bank of Clarke County. Its first president was Ammashaddi Moore, Jr. The new bank had no physical home, so business was conducted through the office of the County Treasurer until a building could be raised.

A lot was purchased on Church Street and construction began. Hudson’s book gives an account of workers digging for the foundation and finding old human bones. Nobody knew of any burials there, so it was first assumed that the remains were those of American Indians. However, coffin nails found at the site contradicted that assumption, because Indians did not make coffins. It was later learned that the bones were probably remains of Revolutionary War soldiers, but nothing further is known as to what happened to the bones.

Construction was completed in December 1881, and Bank of Clarke County opened for business.

In 1887, disaster was averted, thanks to a local coachman, Anthony Cook. He had driven a group home from an event in the wee hours of the morning. As he returned the horses to their stable, Cook spotted fire coming from the bank and sounded the alarm. The fire had started in rooms rented to a club on the second floor, where a lighted cigar had been thrown into a spittoon full of sawdust.

The first robbery occurred in September of 1889, when burglars entered through a window. The valuables were locked in the vault, so the burglars ended up empty-handed except for a small gun they found. One robber had been barefoot, leaving muddy footprints, but the other left shoeprints.

In 1900, the bank got running water, and in 1903, its first telephone. It remained in the same location until 1906, when it bought the building on the corner of Church and Main.

Deposits dipped in 1914, when the wheat crop failed and an epidemic of hog cholera broke out. The disease was so widespread that the bank bought a supply of anti-hog cholera serum to keep on hand to sell to farmers. By 1919 agriculture was again strong.

A new bank in Boyce

In the early 20th Century, the town of Boyce was booming, says Hudson. Business flourished, the Boyce train station was a major stop, and southern Clarke County needed its own bank. An impressive Classical Revival building was constructed, and the independent Boyce State Bank opened in 1908.

The first robbery of Boyce State Bank came in September of 1926. Cashier Cornelius VanDeventer chased the robbers down the street with his cane but failed to catch them. They were apprehended three days later, and most of the money was recovered. The bank seemed to be a target for robbers over the years.

Hudson, a ninth-generation Clarke County native, grew up in Boyce and wrote a history of the town in 2010. He says he had a personal connection to the Boyce State Bank: his mother worked there from 1965 to 1981. “And she was robbed six times!” he added, the last time while he was a student at Boyce Elementary School.

The Bank of Clarke County weathered the Great Depression, while many banks failed. It remained solvent and was only closed when President Roosevelt’s forced “bank holidays” were instituted to prevent runs on banks. In 1934, the bank became a member of the F.D.I.C. and deposits were insured up to $5,000.

In 1935, Bank of Clarke added a second branch with the purchase of the Boyce State Bank, which was in good financial condition. The Boyce State Bank’s building was donated to the town of Boyce in 1987, and now houses the town hall. Bank of Clarke operated with two branches until 1992.

The digital age and new branches

The bank purchased its first computer system in 1983. A credit card program was launched in 1985. The first ATM was installed at the Berryville office in 1989. Online banking became available in 1999. Berryville’s first drive-through opened in 2003.

The first branch outside of Clarke County opened in Winchester in 1992. By 2010, there was a branch network in Winchester with seven locations. In 2010, the first Loudoun County branch opened in Round Hill, followed by another in Purcellville in 2013.

To Hudson, Bank of Clarke is a community bank with a three-county market. It has $600 million in assets. “As a community bank, we serve everyone from cradle to grave,” says Hudson. “And I like to say that we serve people even beyond the grave with the trust department!

“We want every customer to have everything they need, without trying to sell them something they don’t need,” he explains. “The type of service a 70-year-old wants differs from what a 20-year-old wants. We meet all age groups. Younger people want the electronic things. In the past 12 months, we’ve rolled out a mobile deposit app where you can take a picture of a check and deposit it.”

They now offer instant-issue debit cards. “In the past, you had to wait ten days after application to get a card in the mail. Now you get the card in the bank and can use it immediately. It’s safer, too. It can’t be lost or stolen in the mail.”

In the Bank of Clarke, says Hudson, priority is placed on the connection with customers—so that a person deals with another person, not just a bank. “You are never truly off as a banker in a town like this,” he says. “People stop and talk to you anywhere—on the street, in church, in the store. This still exists here in banking. I hope it never goes away.”

Hudson says that he is not what you would call a history buff, but he is interested in history to which he is connected. He urges everyone to talk about the past with family and those around them. “Don’t ever miss that opportunity. The loss of history is irreversible.”

Copies of John Hudson’s book Since 1881 are available at all Bank of Clarke branches for $20.