Erika Howsare, Author at C-VILLE Weekly

Culture

Bluebird man: Ivy volunteer builds houses for a beloved species

Building a bluebird box is a good project for a hobbyist woodworker, but most people don’t tackle quite as many boxes at once as Clark Walter. At certain times of the year, Walter’s woodworking shop in Ivy is packed nearly to the rafters with the parts and pieces that make up his bluebird box assembly […]

Erika Howsare | March 4, 2020

Living

Spring again, but when? Groundhog Day and the shifting of the seasons

Groundhog Day sounds like a joke, and it usually is. What kind of holiday is named after a rodent named after a pig? There’s little that’s noble about the groundhog, a nervous, sneaky animal that chews up the wiring in people’s cars and decimates gardens when our backs are turned. To mark a major turn […]

Erika Howsare | January 31, 2020

C-BIZ

Outdoors, again: High Tor fills a local need for secondhand gear

When Erin James was pregnant with her first child, she and her husband Seth Herman were amazed by the amount of hand-me-down baby stuff that came their way. In local secondhand stores, too, the used baby gear abounded. At the time, they were looking to start a business that would set a positive example for […]

Erika Howsare | December 24, 2019

Arts

All in good fun: ‘Retrospective’ at IX spans 15 years and thousands of holidays

Two days before the opening of their joint show at Studio IX, Virginia Rieley and Eliza Evans are together in the gallery space, spreading their art multi-dimensionally throughout the room. Evans is on a ladder, hanging dried gourds that she grew in her garden and then used as portrait canvases. Rieley stands in front of […]

Erika Howsare | December 18, 2019

Magazines Unbound

10 things I’ve learned about homesteading: Lessons from adventures, successes, and failures on the land

I don’t claim to be an expert on anything in the homesteading realm. But my husband and I have been gardening for 18 years and raising chickens for nine, preserving foods and getting to know our local ecosystem, and we have picked up a few nuggets of knowledge along the way. Here are some of […]

Erika Howsare | October 15, 2019

C-BIZ

Riding it out: Freestyle survives 36 years of change

Remember all those specialty shops that went belly-up when the internet came along? Freestyle wasn’t one of them. Founded in 1983, the local sporting goods store is way older than online shopping—and it’s managed to stay relevant through lots of industry changes. “We want customers for life,” says store manager Don Cochrane. That’s meant operating […]

Erika Howsare | September 9, 2019

C-BIZ

A leg up: The CIC helps entrepreneurs get the right start

Since 2012, locals wanting to start their own businesses have been turning to the Community Investment Collaborative for support. The CIC runs a training program to help folks develop their business ideas—its 16-week Entrepreneur Workshop has graduated more than 300 people so far. It also offers financing, mentorship, and co-working space. We chatted with Stephen […]

Erika Howsare | September 9, 2019

News

Deer crossing

There are more than 50,000 deer-vehicle collisions in Virginia each year. One local scientist has a low-cost solution. May 3, 2013. It’s 7:50 in the morning. A 51-year-old man driving an SUV west on I-64 collides with a deer. The man is unhurt; police notify VDOT that they’ll need to remove the carcass. October […]

Erika Howsare | September 4, 2019

Weddings

Video Q&A: Essential questions for your videographer

You know your maid of honor will slay them during her toast. If you hope to be laughing at her jokes decades from now, you’re going to want a wedding video. So what important questions should you ask potential videographers when you’re deciding who to hire? We talked with Ian Atkins of Ian’s Creations and […]

Erika Howsare | August 8, 2019

Arts

Land here now: Les Yeux du Monde challenges traditions of landscape art

In the Anthropocene, what does it mean to paint the landscape? Pristine, unspoiled wilderness no longer exists (even places that look “untouched” are affected by climate change), and we’ve learned to cast a suspicious eye at bucolic pastoral zones, now that we know how often they involve Roundup runoff and soil erosion. This isn’t meant […]

Erika Howsare | July 10, 2019