Story and illustration by Doug Pifer

To me the late evening song of the woodcock means spring has truly arrived.

This year it came on the warm evening of March 6, a sharp dry “bzzt” repeated every 15 seconds or so. It came from the edge of the woods next to an overgrown pasture beside the house. The dry, toneless sound was more frog- or insect-like than anything you’d expect to come from a bird.

I listened with both hands cupped behind my ears. What came next was a light twittering made by the bird’s wings as they carried it unseen into the dark sky. The twitters got softer. I opened my mouth to better receive the sounds as they sped up in tempo and became more bubbly. There was a crescendo of “chip-chip chips,” then silence. Nearly two minutes passed before I heard the “bzzt” again, from the same field as before.

This is the love song of the woodcock, one of my favorite birds. The woodcock is  full of contradictions. It’s in the shorebird family but prefers wet woods and brushy fields. It wades in water but has short legs and un-webbed toes. When it probes its long bill into soft soil after earthworms, the flexible upper tip can grab a worm like a pair of tweezers while the bird’s mouth stays closed.

Enormous eyes, set ridiculously high on the top of the head, indicate a nocturnal lifestyle and reflect ruby-red when a flashlight shines on them.  The plumage has a dead-leaf pattern that a bow hunter might envy. During the day a woodcock will crouch among dead leaves or grass until you nearly step on it. At the last moment it will explode from the ground in front of you, leaving your heart pounding as it helicopters upwards through the trees and brush in twittering flight.

Such flights are generally short, and you can often follow the sound of their wings and flush them again. The three outer flight feathers are narrow quills that make the characteristic sound whenever they fly.

My favorite thing about the woodcock is its funny walk. The first time I saw a woodcock, many years ago, it was standing in the middle of a back road in front of my car. I slowed to a stop. When, after a brief pause it decided to start walking, I burst out laughing. “The woodcock walk” is a dance step I’ve enjoyed seeing many times since.

The last time I saw it was a wintry January day. I noticed a woodcock bopping merrily along through the snow under some loblolly pines. As it stepped slowly along, its body seemed to bounce up and down independently of its head and feet.  Dark and perfectly visible in the snow despite its dead-leaf camouflage markings, the bird stopped several times to probe the sandy soil with its long beak.

Note: To hear the woodcock’s song, check out Lang Elliott’s “American Woodcock” video on YouTube.com. Also type in “American woodcock walking” to see that crazy walk.

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.