Noah Adams

Michigan Apple Orchards Blossom After A Devastating Year

Noah Adams — Tue, 14 May 2013 07:27:00 +0000

Last year, almost the entire Michigan apple crop was lost because of 80-degree days in March and then some freezing April nights. This year, the apples are back, but everything always depends on the weather.

Struggling W.Va. Town Hopes Boy Scout Camp Brings New Life

Noah Adams — Mon, 08 Apr 2013 19:55:00 +0000

Picture a tiny town set along a creek in West Virginia. A mountain rises from the town's eastern edge, overlooking the 1,400 people living below. Then, July comes — and 50,000 people arrive on that mountain for the National Scout Jamboree.

The town is called Mount Hope. I've heard some call it "Mount Hopeless." The town went through the long, downward slump from the boom days of deep-mine coal, when it was a grand, small-town capital of coal mining.

Now it's crumbling, struggling, but recently hopeful, because there's a veritable pot of gold on top of that nearby mountain.

Steamship Anchors A Community, But Its Days May Be Numbered

Noah Adams — Mon, 04 Mar 2013 22:17:00 +0000

On the shores of Lake Michigan, the tiny town of Ludington, Mich., is home port to the last coal-fired ferry in the U.S. The SS Badger has been making trips across the lake to Manitowoc, Wis., during the good-weather months since 1953. And as it runs, the 411-foot ferry discharges coal ash slurry directly into the lake.

An Environmental Protection Agency permit allows the Badger to dump four tons of ash into the lake daily.

In Kentucky's Coal Country, A Resentment For Obama

Noah Adams — Mon, 21 Jan 2013 22:05:00 +0000

If the voters in Louisa, Ky., had their wish, Mitt Romney would have taken the oath of office Monday. Louisa is in eastern Kentucky, and "coal" was the one-word issue in the election. President Obama is seen as an enemy of coal mining and he got only 27 percent of the vote in the county.

And now comes word that Louisa is going to lose its biggest industry — a power generating plant that's been burning coal since 1962.

Stand outside the courthouse in Louisa, a small town of 2,000 people, and you'll see that it's easy to meet a coal miner. Mitchell Maynard is a third-generation miner.

The Rebirth Of Rye Whiskey And Nostalgia For 'The Good Stuff'

Noah Adams — Wed, 26 Dec 2012 07:14:00 +0000

It used to be said that only old men drink rye, sitting alone down at the end of the bar, but that's no longer the case as bartenders and patrons set aside the gins and the vodkas and rediscover the pleasures of one of America's old-fashioned favorites.

Whiskey from rye grain was what most distilleries made before Prohibition. Then, after repeal in 1933, bourbon, made from corn, became more popular.