By Jennifer Moore

for the News-Leader

On a rocky hillside, half a mile from the nearest paved road, an owner-built log home is shrouded in a canopy of white oak, yellow pine, and hickory trees.

Inside, Jane Markley sits behind a spinning wheel.

“Mine is like the Chevrolet of spinning wheels. I’ve had it a very long time. There are more sophisticated wheels on the market now, but mine is tried and true,” Markley said.

Her foot on the pedal, hands on the fiber, she’s spinning the hours away.

“I ruminate a lot when I’m doing handwork. Spinning is almost trans-like,” she said.

Sometimes, her mind wanders to her days as a young, single woman in the 1970s, shelving books at the Boston University library.

In those days, Markley appreciated the sophistication of one of the world’s greatest cities. But her heart longed for something more raw, more organic.

She had friends living on the Bryant Creek in rural Douglas County. All it took was one visit.

“There was a movement of young people coming to the Ozarks. Some of them put down roots, and some of them left,” she said. “I was one who never left.”

Markley encountered a man gigging for his dinner on the river. She saw homes and sheds with walls lined in leather hides. She peered into pantries lined with rows of canned food, harvested from enormous gardens.

Some of the people she met had hardly ever left the county.

“I learned a lot from the, I call them, the ‘Old-timers’ of the Ozarks. They were very inspiring to me. They trapped and canned and gardened most of the food they consumed. They looked around them and found what they could use,” Markley said.

Markley became a woman of the land. She resurrected the sewing and knitting skills her mother and grandmother had taught her as a child growing up in Michigan.

“In those days, we had what you’d call dime stores. I went to one and bought some outrageously bright green. About 2/3 of the way through, I had to get more—but it didn’t match,” she recalls.

The finished sweater earned her the nickname “Jolly Green Giant” because she was a “tall Dutch girl,” she says.

Eventually, Markley’s spinning took center stage.

“I’ve spun flax. I’ve spun dog. I’ve spun possum. I’ve tried buffalo. If you want to get something nice, you go for that undercoat,” Markley said.

She buys wool fleeces from farmers and harvests her own dyes. Venturing out into the woods, she searches for sumac, oak bark, and black walnut, all native to the Ozarks. And she grows indigo and marigold for their bright blue and orange colors.

In the Ozarks, she says, we tend to have more “drab” colors of grays and browns, rather than purples or reds.

Markley participates in a knitting community that meets once a month in a church basement in Cabool.

“They’re a real source of inspiration to me,” Markely said. “Some drive down from Rolla. Others are from the Rockbridge area. We talk about techniques and we share what we’ve made,” she said.

And she sells her goods at a store in Cabool.

You won’t find Markley on Facebook or Twitter; she’s almost completely what’s referred to as “off the grid.” Still, she’s woven a rich community for herself; her socializing is face-to-face, and it’s regular.

“I go to Springfield once in a while, but rarely. We can find most of what we need around here,” Markley said.