In the spring, a parent at school brought me some spare houseplants she had. In the mix were two bromeliads. We had not grown them before, so I was a little skeptical that they might go the way of African violets and orchids, which have not thrived in our home. Well, at the beginning of summer, they started really growing and changing and…..blooming!
Allow me to zoom in. I think this is an amazing bloom. The colors!! The radial form!
Wow! Is that not a show-stopper??
B has always referred to the goldfish in our little pond as “the girls.” Truly, we have no idea of their gender, but that is their official name, collectively. We have never named fish individually.
We were recently offered some new fish by a couple whose fish had multiplied a little more quickly than desired. When we arrived at the house, we were shocked to find koi the size of my size-8 feet swimming in a large, elaborate pond.
We had originally said we would take 10 but backed that up to 6 when we saw the size of even the small ones. Because the man had recently given away as many as 50, the remaining ones were skittish and it took some doing to get the six.
But he finally did.
We took them home to be the big fish in the small pond instead of the other way around.
B’s feedin’ the girls!
Hope they don’t grow TOOOOO big.
All I really wanted was to freshen up the master bathroom with a coat of paint. We have lived here a dozen years and have been slow to make changes. The wallpaper is not bad, but it was certainly nothing I would have ever selected. So of course in order to paint, we had to remove the wallpaper. We had a hard time when we took it out of the other bathroom a few years ago, but the kitchen paper had come off in long sheets. This came off only by chisel.
The work has begun.
Eventually, we determined that in addition to the shower and towel rods and tissue roll holder, that we needed the toilet tank out, because there was even wallpaper back there. So Monday morning, I spent sitting on the toilet----just sitting on the tank in the tub while I scraped caulk and some grout.
Once the paper was finally off, B applied some drywall mud. I sanded it the next morning.
Sanding drywall mud is very dusty work.
So the mudding/sanding, mudding/sanding took two days and then there was the corner to deal with.
Who knew that under the corner wallpaper was only air? That’s right. The builders did not join the two sheets of drywall, but left it open. B found a strip of molding to fill in the gap: cut it, nailed it, caulked it and finally after some other caulking, the painting began.
Yup! We’re goin’ green. Sage is the color. B finished the painting on Wednesday afternoon. Now there is the grout/ caulking for the tile; replacing the toilet tank…..now that will be nice to have two of again. And putting back the racks and switch cover.
I am shopping for a new shower curtain, though the old one will still work in the meantime. It is just that-- believe it or not-- we have had that shower curtain for more than a dozen years and I am just SO ready for a change. The problem was that it went with the wallpaper and the floor, don’t ya know, in a way that no other one ever would. I have found that sage is a popular color to use in shower curtains.
So, overall, I am very pleased with the project and I’ll have to let you know if I can ever get all that drywall dust out of the house. It is fine, fine and it flies everywhere!
B is always on the lookout for some place to take his scouts: so on our trip, we visited four camping areas designed for groups. All of the sites are quite beautiful.
This one and its twin (North White Pines) just up the forest road are smaller and close—maybe too close---to the forest road. There are fire rings, a hand water pump, picnic tables and stinky outhouses, called vault toilets. Port-a-potties can be made not to stink and I have been in non-flush toilets in mountain camps that were not offensive even in the summer, so I am not sure what needs to happen here but it was the same in all four of the camps. Also there are not showers, but for $3 you can use the ones in the campground where we stayed. His troop has two different shower set-ups, so that could be worked around.
These rent for $50 per night and can accommodate twenty-five folks, though not that many cars. There is a nice stream that runs by it.
The two larger camping areas were twice the price and huge areas with the same amenities. These were the ones we found the most attractive. They can accommodate 100 folks. This was at Cove Creek. The road to these was far enough off the main roads and had a locked entrance to keep out unwanted traffic.
This was a large, church-affiliated group from Florida. We never saw a soul as we walked up the road, but we could hear them having a blast down in the creek in back of these trees.
The road between the two camping areas:
We bet the stars over these large fields would be fairly spectacular on clear nights.
The creek provides a great sliding rock for swimmers.
To get to the campground you must ford Cove Creek with your vehicles. If you are in the top camp, you ford it twice.
Because I knew we were going to hike a bit, I had changed out of my wet wading sandals and into my dry sox and sneakers. And doggone it!--- here I have to ford a creek with no reliable-looking stepping stones. So I took them off again and waded across barefoot which was a might uncomfortable as the current and glare kept it so I could not really see where I was stepping. I was in the process of putting my shoes and sox back on when D found the foot bridge tucked away upstream. Doh!! I was ready for the next ford, though, and found the footbridge on my own.
We think this is a really nice group camping area as far as location is concerned. With a little improvement in the plumbing, it would be even better but we think we could work around what is there now. Supposedly, reservations fill up fast for all of these group areas.
As we arrived in North Carolina, we had not brought food for cooking supper in camp. The trip up was predictably hot and we had decided to buy fresh food there rather than try to keep it all iced.
So arriving at our destination at suppertime, we stopped at Hawg Wild Barbecue in the little town of Pisgah Forest, which adjoins Brevard. It was absolutely as awesome as D had said it was when he and his wife had been there the month before. The ribs, the ribs!!—and we aren’t really rib people. They were to die for!
One morning, we went up the Blue Ridge Parkway to the Pisgah Inn for breakfast. Now this was our third meal there since discovering it a few years back. It sits on top of the high ridge and the wall of glass gives every diner a beautiful view. The food is plentiful and good and modestly priced. There is an inn and a nice little gift shop. I have never been there when it was not cold and windy; even on this day on the first of July, we enjoyed our fleece.
Our last night, we went to Hendersonville to eat at West First Pizza, downtown in an old, renovated building. It has lovely stained glass and a huge wood-fired pizza oven.
This salad was delicious!
---and almost gone before I took the picture.
Our sons are Fat Tire beer fans. Fat Tire has not made it to Florida markets yet, so to find it on tap and in the groceries was special.
The son who did not get to go on the trip got a little Fat Tire consolation gift. 8^)
Everywhere in the mountains there was evidence of the decline of the hemlock trees. I have always thought that they are such attractive evergreen trees, especially when they get huge. Mountain vistas gave us a look at just how widespread the problem is. Dead and dying hemlocks were everywhere.
The source of their death comes from a tiny insect called the hemlock woolly adelgid. Until this trip, I had no idea the insect existed, or that it was on a mission to kill all of the American hemlocks.
Below is the evidence that this little branch is infected with the bug. It is the tiny, white, fuzzy-looking material on the woody part near the center. Those are eggs.
There are even signs up about the problem.
While this sign indicates that the bug has only been in the south since 2001, web-sites indicate it first was found in the forests of the American Northeast as early as the 1920’s after coming from Japan (where natural enemies and tree resistance have kept it from being a problem.)
It is sad to see all the damage that has already been done in a mere nine years.
While they were fishing, I played. I waded in the same cool, clear water they fished in.
I collected small rocks to use in my classroom (when my kindergartners study the Earth and Sky) and a couple of bigger ones to use in my garden at home. I was fascinated with the variety of rocks I could find. Of course, every one of them is different from the limestone we have in Florida and so they are interesting.
I sat on boulders in the middle of the river and created rock faces.
I found where another had created an installation in the river with rocks. It is hard to make out the bridge in the middle that went over water, so I will provide a zoom.
I also took a good book; and I read all of four pages during the week. I was never bored for a second.
If it was not birds--- (we don’t get gold goldfinches—our rare ones are black and white in the winter),
it was insects –(this spider web was lined with what I think were blind mosquitoes)
or trees ---no hemlocks here!
or flowers
(White phlox amidst the poison ivy)---I have only seen the blue ones in the wild
or, as I said, rocks or ….whatever.
And then there was the water.
There were places where the water was quite placid and others where I could barely stay on my feet.
And the air temperatures were so much nicer than at home. We woke three mornings to temperatures in the 50’s. On the warm mornings, it was in the 60’s. Does it get any better for camping in the summer than that? Summer camping in Florida holds no appeal to us.
Yeah, I found things to keep me occupied while they fished!
