An introduction by Paul Atkins
Professor emeritus of journalism at West Virginia University


  Come up Snake Hill Road to the mountain top with Norman Julian. He will help you see, hear and feel parts of nature that you may never have experienced.
Julian lived thirty-seven years on the mountain top, part of the time before electricity made its way up the hill. He heated the house he built with wood he cut, and hauled water from a spring or caught rainwater off his roof.
The first years were hard, but he made it because of help and advice from friends, many of whom had spent their lives on the mountain. Meet them: jack of many trades Bill Fichtner, master stonemason Ron Ondish, trucker and sawmill operator Ralph Cale, woods expert Emmett Heaster from whom Julian bought his acres, and others. Sometimes he invited friends to an all-day work party to dig out a basement or make a concrete foundation. Mostly, though, Julian put up his dwelling and grew his food by himself, learning by trial and error. Winters were especially brutal − snow piled up and lasted for weeks and temperatures fell as low as minus 32 degrees Fahrenheit.
Many pages introduce you to the plants he grew and the animals there − domestic, like dog Rocky and the chickens, and wild, like the bear who came after Julian's honey and the blacksnakes who kept the bird population down.
A few years ago, Julian left his mountain home and went to the city (Morgantown). Part of the reason was he was aging and Trillium Acres demanded too much work just to maintain it. But the bigger reason was that Trillium Acres changed greatly over these three decades and was no longer the place he had homesteaded. The road was widened and paved. Traffic whizzed by. More and more homes were built − many large and expensive with landscaped surroundings and wide lawns. Fences were erected. No trespassing and no hunting signs appeared. So Julian moved.
Along with the descriptions of the life he led, Julian ponders some eternal questions like why do humans feel they have to dominate, subdue and change all of nature, including killing or otherwise exterminating much of the wildlife. Have we so contaminated the land, water and air that global warming has reached the point of no return?
Our ancestors in this country lived in and with the woods. We have exchanged that for surroundings of steel, glass, cement and plastic.
Somewhere about the middle of the book, Julian warns: "We separate ourselves from the forest at our own considerable peril."


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TRILLIUM ACRES
...Essays on place
in West Virginia
Trillium Acres explores inner and outer worlds on Snake Hill
.
    A review by Ralph Brem
Retired former editor of  The Dominion Post
  If the ghosts of Daniel Boone, Johnny Appleseed, Paul Bunyan  − with a lift from Babe the Ox, and Abe Lincoln lugging his rail-splittin' axe – had ever come roaming over the Appalachians  and hit Chestnut Ridge, they would have met their match in Norman Julian at Trillium Acres atop stead for some 30 years on two acres – later three – named for the three-lobed, tri-petaled wildflower that flourished up there on Snake Hill.
  Outside of Morgantown, on the way to Masontown, that was his home.    And it became the source for many of these ... "essays on place in West Virginia," some of which ran in this newspaper where Norm, although retired, still writes a column.
   But this book is more than a bunch of essays. This book settles on Norm's place in West Virginia and how he feels about the land and its people and homesteading on that mountain.
   Before it became fashionable, Norm was thinking "green" while most of us figured that was nothing but blue and yellow mixed together with crayons out of a child's coloring box.
   Running through most of Norm's essays are his own feelings about the earth, friends and the wonders generated in and thereon for those who decide to live atop a mountain without electricity, growing his food and lugging water from a stream 500 feet away from the house built with his own hands and nary a penny  borrowed.
   And do it in every kind of weather imaginable, which meant laying up five cords of wood each year to help fend off the snows and the wicked winds of winter.
  Oh, and hold down a job as a newspaperman while he was at it.
  Fortunately, he wasn't the only person living up there. He writes of neighbors and friends who lent a hand along the way.
   And one of the most touching stories comes out of his own relationship with his father.
  "Most of the Ozzie Nelson-type aspects of the father-son connection were way-out fiction that never  applied to us. Dad wasn't a hugger…Dad was a provider. He didn't take his kids fishing or teach them how to play games. He put food on the table, paid the bills and encouraged learning.
  "Despite not being his buddy, I felt his love existed beneath the coal dust and the factory soot. When in a jam, I could count on `the old man' whether I wanted to or not."
   And they bonded on the mountain – once it was decided who was job boss – by building a house, after years of growing apart.
  A tip-off to some of the contents can be found in the chapter headings.
   "Against extravagant living" deals with the acquiring of "stuff" like furniture, although he purchased only one piece of new furniture. A wooden table and two dining room chairs. And he paid for them with a gift certificate.
   All else came the Appalachian way "to make do with what you have."
   Norm assures the reader that while some replicas could still exist, you won't find them in Colonial Williamsburg.
  "Bringing in a load" suggests a national Manure Day on which those who plant and grow food and flowers haul in nature's  fertilizer to mark the coming of spring.
   You want filled in on growing elderberries, ramps, garlic and potatoes and the "Scent of multiflora rose" ? Check them out.
   You can do the same with the stories of family, friends and neighbors who helped make life worthwhile on the mountain.
   Norm's Mom, Antonia, who lived to be a bit more than 100 and loved the trilliums; his Dad, who as a child of six walked and rode a donkey cart about 100 miles from the Abruzzi to board a ship at Naples and head for America where his father already worked in the coal mines of West Virginia.
   There's Bill Fichtner, the neighbor who came by to say hello and "help, inform and enlighten" on such matters as raising  chickens, growing fruit, building a house or a barn.
    And Ron Ondish, a master stonemason and builder, mostly self-taught, who fostered the creed of "take pride in anything you do."
"A trucker, farmer, sawmill operator and all-around good neighbor" is Ralph Cale who died much too soon at 95.
     Oh, there's more. And the feeling that comes through for friends and good neighbors and the part they played is very strong.
   Norm gets into lifestyles, pet dogs, chickens and deer.
  For those who wonder how a good writer works, Norm has some tips that could go far to just preserving your own days.  He kept a journal, writing down bits and ideas as the days went  by.
  He took a tape recorder, mainly to make sure he got the words right when talking to people. But he also recorded the sounds of flowing water, the hills in winter, spring and fall. The yipping of his favorite dog, the sounds of silence.
   He found unimaginable rewards in hard work, helping others, and an understanding of how the universe works hereabouts.
  Most of all, he did what he wanted to do – live as much as he could as did those pioneers who came first into this wilderness and homesteaded.
   Eventually, civilization caught up to him – and age did, too – and after owning his land 37 years he moved off his hilltop and came "back to the village."
And he built another house…but that's another story.
  TIP: "Trillium Acres" is easy reading, like a Bible. You can open it at random and find something worthwhile. Norm's not a preacher, but sometimes he scolds "those who diminish nature" – himself included.
  Oh, if you're looking for a   paperback or two or three  to be   stocking stuffers for Christmas or something to send those who lived here and moved away, try  TRILLIUM ACRES and/or  SNAKE HILL and/or  CHEAT.
  (Norman Julian can be reached by Googling his website at www.NormanJulian.com or by calling 304-599-2294).                             To see ordering information, click on: Home Page