Friday Foto

I've had some friends visiting the past couple of days and yesterday we went up to Grandfather Mountain. This was taken near the Mile-High Swinging Bridge at the top of the mountain. There were clouds and fog, but that's typical for that elevation. The red berries are mountain ash.

More Miscellaneous Musings

Photo taken last April

• The remains of Tropical Storm Lee have been pounding us with rain since day before yesterday. As you know, I live close to a large creek and my little bridge is my only way out of here. Needless to say, I've not had much sleep the last two nights and I'm feeling a little loopy today. So far, so good - no major flooding - and it's supposed to be over in the next few hours. Whew! Maybe I can get a nap later today.
• Labor Day is past. I don't want to see any of you wearing white until next Memorial Day, OK? I had a very uneventful weekend. My boss doesn't give me days off, you know, so I had to work at the Blowing Rock gallery on Sunday. Lots of people, a very good retail day.
• I've had a lot of company in the past few weeks, with more folks coming this week. I love it when people visit because I like to show off the beautiful place I live in. It's fun to play "tour guide" and take friends to all the touristy places around here that I never go to otherwise. And, it forces me to keep my house clean, which is usually not a priority for me if I'm here all by myself. (If you drop in on me unannounced, you'll see what I mean!) Having company saves me from being so much of a hermit, too, and it's great to spend quality time with good friends.  
• I've been in the studio quite steadily. I've made the decision to go ahead and replenish my stock no matter what silver prices are. It is what it is. And, hopefully, my customers will understand the increase in prices and continue to support me. After finishing up a big pile of earrings (see this post) I'm now working on bracelets, as both co-op galleries have sold all that I have.

• I went to my Sister's the weekend before last to celebrate her birthday. (It's actually on August 9, but she's been celebrating all month!) Several of us went to the Washington Duke Inn for dinner and I had the best bison I've ever had. In fact, the entire dinner was excellent. This gorgeous place is located on the campus of Duke University in Durham, NC and is 5-star everything. Their website says: "Since the late 1800s, the Duke name has been associated with both excellence and achievement. The Washington Duke Inn & Golf Club, named for Washington Duke himself, is proud to carry on that prestigious tradition, excelling in providing exceptional service and gracious southern hospitality."  And that is certainly true. I don't get to go to "fancy" places much any more and it was a wonderful treat.
• Time to go run the vacuum cleaner and do some dusting for the next round of visitors. I'll try to keep up with the Friday Foto theme this week, too, so please check in then.

Friday Foto

Lola sometimes gets jealous of my computer.

I'm going to start this ~~ A simple post on Fridays of a picture and a description. I'm hoping it will encourage me to take more pictures. I promise they won't all be Friday Feline Fotos, but Lola is such a fun (and cute) subject, so you'll probably see her quite a bit. We'll see how long I can keep this up.

Earring-a-palooza

In the past week or so I've made 31 pairs of earrings. Earrings are my LEAST favorite things to make, so when I do them I do a LOT of them all at once. I make the silver parts all along and when earring inventory starts to dwindle I sit down with all my silver bits and beads and ear wires and do a batch of earrings. Some have beads, some are plain silver. Some are oxidized, some are shiny. This should replenish my stock for the rest of the season and now all that needs to be done is to match up the pairs, put them on cards and price them. Whew. Now I can move on to the fun stuff.

Beautiful Garden Pictures

My friend Kimberly was visiting recently and took these lovely photos of my garden. Thank goodness they're close-ups, because I'm not happy with the garden this year. It's over grown and many things need dividing and I haven't felt like doing any weeding, so some weeds are bigger than the flowers. Ugh. But Kimberly has shown me that there's still beauty if you get close.

Thank you, Kimberly!

Same Old, Same Old

Things around here are just floating along, one day flows into the next with little difference between today and yesterday. There's not a lot of exciting things happening with me. I had some company this past weekend, dear friends from Charlotte who were delighted to get away from the 90+ degree heat. I thought it was muggy and hot here, but they thought they were in heaven. It was so nice to see them and wonderful to get out of my routine. I stayed up way past my bedtime! They brought their dog, who totally ignored Lola, so there was no hissing or fur flying, thank goodness. I don't know that she had ever been around a dog before and I was so proud of her!

My Saturday Morning

I like to get up early on Saturdays in the summer and go to the Watauga County Farmer's Market. It's not only a where I like to get fresh, local, mostly organic produce, but it's quite the social event. I never know who I'll see there. It's held only on Saturday mornings from April through June, then also on Wednesdays from July through October. This is the "big" Farmer's Market. There's another small one in Blowing Rock on Thursdays. It's "L" shaped, the photo above only shows part of it.  Who could resist this?

My friend, David, is a world-famous wood turner turned "Gentleman Farmer", as he likes to call himself. His farm is just over the ridge from me. Before the new highway was built there used to be a huge yellow sign on the old road that said "Fog Likely Next 4 Miles". And it's true. If there's any wind from the east at all, we're covered in fog. David named his farm Fog Likely Farm and people that have lived around here when that sign was up know exactly where he's located.

You can also buy flowers and furniture for your yard:

And, there's lots of crafts for sale, too. This is Susan spinning wool that she felts. She's one of our newest co-op members.

This is a view on the way home. Its so muggy today it's almost palpable. See why they call these the Blue Ridge Mountains? As my Mama used to say "If it doesn't rain today it will miss a good opportunity." I bet we get a thunderstorm this afternoon.

Then a quick stop at the Deep Gap Post Office to see if anyone sent me money. Darn. Only bills today!

And then headed down the lane:

To home.

These are my purchases for today. I have to be careful not to buy so much food that it spoils before I can eat all of it. The flowers just make me smile. I'll add a few from my own garden to make the boquet even more beautiful.

All this and home by 9:00 a.m., before it gets too hot. Now to wait on those thunderstorms. And I wonder what else the day will bring?