Sherry Cavalcante and her cement yard art

Entering Valdese, driving east on U.S. 70, it’s hard to miss the yard packed full of statues and fountains.

Some are painted, some are gray stone, and among the mini Donald Trumps, animals, angels, and bigfoots, Sherry Cavalcante shuffles around, sorting statues to paint underneath the carport in her front yard, priming them for the spring and summer yard-tending season.

Her fingers and clothes carried remnants of paint — yellow on her knuckles and a rainbow of splatters across her shorts.

“I find this very rewarding,” Cavalcante said, cars rushing by on the highway. “It’s very heavy work. People always say, ‘Why didn’t you pick something heavier?’ It just kind of fell in my lap. … I love painting it. You’re just in your own little world, painting away.”

Cavalcante, originally from South Carolina with relatives in the Morganton area, moved to the county about 14 years ago.

Around 11 years ago, while she ran a produce stand, a man stopped by with a smattering of statues and the news that he was going out of business.

Cavalcante took the opportunity to branch into a new field, purchasing the inventory and placing it in her yard.

“People saw what little bit I had out here, and people would come up and want to know if I could get this, or if I could get that,” Cavalcante said, explaining that the majority of her business is in angel statues, Bigfoot, and animal statues painted in memory of deceased pets.

Although customer traffic slows down after Christmas — she didn’t even open during January — once spring rolls around, business catches its stride.

“You can’t find this stuff anymore,” Cavalcante said. “This used to be everywhere when I was growing up. I just turned 66, so that’s a long time ago, but everybody had it. Everybody was selling it.”

Aside from the business, Cavalcante spends time with her own pets — two Chihuahuas, Chip and Rosie, as well as a pitbull-lab-mutt mix, Harry.

The dogs yip and whine as people approach her porch, while Harry extends a paw over the gate like he’s trying to shake a customer’s hand.

“When (visitors) start coming around that corner, walking up toward that porch, they go to howling,” Cavalcante said. “People go pet them, and then they’ll stop. They’ve got the customers trained.”

Harry was rescued when a neighbor moved and couldn’t take him with them. The dog had already been escaping and coming to Cavalcante’s so often that she’d given him his name as a form of training, and she swept him up as soon as he was available.

While talking with Cavalcante, the conversation consistently shifted to her love for animals.

She specified she would particularly like to see a spay and neuter clinic, which she believes would reduce the population of stray animals that the county has.

“People just don’t take care of them when they do have them,” Cavalcante said, tears welling in her eyes. “I’ve been to Friends for Animals. I’ve been to the county council meetings. They said there’s just nothing they can do.”