Update for this week

  Another wonderful day of coolish summer weather brought me out to my favorite Mexican restaurant, with a friend who also needed an "away from home break."

And here was Flat Creek flowing right by my table...with this little wall which might help if ever the creek floods again. Ole's Guacamole had flooded a few years ago, and it has been making sure it doesn't happen again...new parking lot height, new walls along the patios, lots of gravel and rocks by the stream.

Yes, another selfie. I still look swollen up a bit...probably from the antibiotics and such. Hope next week or so to be back to my regular face. I know nobody but me notices these things, but that's why I post so many selfies.

Little umbresllas gave a bit of shade, as well as a few trees. Further under the roof are many more tables for "outside" dining. With lower humidity 72 degrees was quite comfortable at noon!

This old tree has been cut back. There were little fish in the creek, and someone stood on the little bridge and crumbled some nacho chips to feed them. 

Back in my neighborhood, looks like another little house is going to be built soon on this steep slope lot.

The blocks of the foundation have been laid, and wood floors are starting!

I had a delicious salad for lunch. But by 4:00 I was hungry. I made myself wait till dinner to have a much more satisfying repast!

The corral of bear-proof garbage cans is to the left, but apparently Mr. Bear got hold of a couple of bags which had something interesting to him. This is right in front of where I park my car. I never leave food in it...in hopes that it won't become the focus of a bear's appetite.

I get a kick out of how the plants that have survived the hottest days of summer are now looking so abundant. If it doesn't rain over 24 hours, I do water them.

These signs don't mean a thing. The sidewalks are kept for pedestrians, who sure are abundant and not aware of bicycles. So Bicycles ride in the street. Some places there is a lane set aside for them, but most mountain roads are narrow, curvy and very hilly, so dangerous for bicycles, in my opinion. But lots of people do ride them.

Today's quote:

Expanding your perspective opens you to insights and inspirations.

A visitor

My neighbor asked me to take some photos of this pretty butterfly (Swallowtail?)  It had landed on her, and didn't seem interested in flying away.  We pondered where she could put her, thinking maybe the butterfly bush nearby, but she (neighbor) went to another friend and asked for recommendations since she was "into flowers." Butterfly was reported to not be interested, so my neighbor took her home and put her on her houseplant. Then she came back to my house and asked me to send her these photos as emails!

Nice encounter, eh?

White Crepe Myrtle and...

 Whenever you turn onto Beech St. in Black Mountain, you are greeted by my huge prolific white Crepe Myrtle, gone a bit amok. 

It is lovely, and with every rain, floods of tiny white blossoms float upon the water and pile up wherever it pauses.

Fortunately nobody has to park under the shade of this bush gone crazy.  And it's pretty too.

Across the street the siding is going on the renovated house.

The yellow colored stuff is a board and batten style, with vertical seams.  All the windows are installed, and electrical people have been over there.  I wonder if plumbing is in.  Time for another visit in the evening when contractors have gone home...soon I won't be able to prowl around because the doors will be installed.  It's been fun watching the progress, which has been slow and steady.

Bucket Truck and weeds

Sitting on my front porch the other day...there's a bucket truck outside across the street!

Up he goes, cuts out a few branches (not clear from my view point)

And down he comes again - took maybe 4-5 minutes. 

Here's my vantage point from which I watched him...sorry about the overgrown iris, Susan dug out half of them, then put mulch down (where grass is intruding) and the rest didn't get divided this year, so they didn't bloom.  I've been trimming back the mint which wants to take over the right side of the steps...and left the potted geraniums to the left.

Since I haven't been able to divide the bulbs myself, I've been able to bend over just to weed the pansies around the birdbath.

This arrangement didn't work with the hot sun on the potted plants.

Quote for the day:

If you have built castles in the air your work need not be lost. That is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them.  Henry David Thoreau

The rennovation in the neighborhood

Woke up a few mornings ago to the thwap thwap of a nail gun.  There may have been a crew, but by the morning I caught the camera and the man at the same time, the job was almost done.

Neighbor's rennovation continues

For the last year or so, this house on the corner across from me has undergone changes.  This is the new kitchen wing.

I loved the stairs, which turn both at top and bottom to a side entrance

A dusty bench was given a butt-print!  We were a bit silly!  Since no back doors were on the house, we took a little tour.

The original structure includes 2x4's that still have bark on them, and diagonal undersiding and underflooring!

Chuck decided to count the rings on that oak that was removed.  He figures around 200 year old.

Here's a quote for the day:

Resistance tends to strengthen the energies it attempts to oppose by giving them power and energy to work against.

Spring in the 'hood

In just 2 hot days the Bradford Pear tree just decided to shake it up and bloom-forth!

We have some older homes, and some newer ones.  It's a comfortable dead end street.  No kids.  I'm glad of that, because I've already raised mine, and want a quiet neighborhood.  That may change with the turnovers that are about to happen.  I'll see how it is.

Construction update

On the back of the house that's being renovated, a new living area is constructed.

That stump is probably going to be around for a while!

Icy view of the world

An icy view of my neighbors as I warm up the car and wait for the ice to melt on windows...somewhat pretty views through the ice.

Stop the water running downhill

The natural slope goes downhill pretty gradually.

My downhill neighbor built a fence to keep draining water from sitting on his concrete pad next to his garage.  So there's a foot and a half or more of 4x4's stacked, with gravel in the ditch on my side, and that construction cloth stuff next to the wood...then a fence built on top of it.

Neighbor's lot has been graded until it's almost flat, with a steep ditch next to the road on his own downhill side.

 

The new fence has lots of stair steps, but didn't end up being totally opaque, thank heavens.

Where he needed a privacy fence, he really didn't succeed, because my house is over 6 feet higher than his, thus all my windows look over his fence to where his back door is on the side.  And the rest of the fence is a screen for a blank wall of his garage.  But as for water barrier, my vote is like the native in Out of Africa who told Isaac Denisen that "this water belongs in Mozambique," or wherever it was, and when the floods came, the water took out the dam.  I do hope this won't happen for my neighbor after all this effort.

Of course this effort does deserve to be in Friday Fences HERE!