Running errands

It feels so nice to be able to go out and enjoy my little town. The library was my first stop last Thursday.

Yes, you'll have to be patient with my phone photos from the car. The Library is located on Dougherty St.

There are lots of nice things happening at the library, but I forgot to bring the phone inside to snap photos.

There are 2 electric vehicle charging stations.

Yes the sign does say Black Mountain Tyson Library. The Tyson Furniture store is one of the biggest retail outfits in town, and Mr. Tyson was on the library board when I first showed a bit of interest in it...and then declined to serve. There are more spots available with the Friends of The Library, all volunteers who have periodic sales of donated books.

The corner of Dougherty Street intersects State Street here...the Harwood Funeral Home has beautiful Crepe Myrtles in front of it.

I then headed to my next destination, stopping at the red light on State Street (US HWY 70) as it crosses NC Hwy 9 or Montreat Rd. While there I thought you might like to see three shops which seem to be doing ok. I love the Kitchen Emporium...can find just about everything there. Hey Hey Cupcakes has the striped awning, and I seldom indulge, but they are very good when I do!! Next is a tiny little beauty shop, which I've not visited.

And they are all snugged up against the old building which is now Keller Williams Realty.

Next stop was Little Sprout, or Lil' Sprout, a subsidery of Red Raddish, which has really become a fixture in Black Mountain. I remember when the husband and wife team would cook breakfasts at the Tailgate Market on Saturdays. They now own a big meat selling store, and the Grange venue for hamburgers to eat out on picnic tables. But I love Lil' Sprout's "That Salad" which has all the greens I like, and lots of other tidbits to make a salad taste wonderful and I stretch it over several servings. I also like picking up a couple of tiny chicken breasts in Blueberry barbecue sauce, and some sourcream mashed potatoes. For desert I passed the brownies in order to get a pecan square...better than pie! When I'm sick I need ready to fix foods, and find the frozen options in the grocery storw have really become unpalatible to me (I do still ocassionally get some Indian dishes.)

This is located in East Black Mountain, and right across the street is my favorite Mexican restaurant, Ole's Guacamole.

More on my week's summary...

Today's quote:

Neil Armstrong later wrote (about standing on the moon on July 21, 1969): "It suddenly struck me that that tiny pea, pretty and blue, was the Earth. I put up my thumb and shut one eye, and my thumb blotted out the planet Earth. I didn't feel like a giant. I felt very, very small."

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.

More from latest water visit

 You knew I did more than just listen while sitting by Flat Creek last Sunday... I did swivel my head, trying to discern which voices of the creek came from which direction. But then I looked more closely and had to capture some of the designs that nature offered.

This strange marble boulder was golden in comparison to the rest of the rocks.

Below the bridge is a nice pool which is always washed away during the next rain...see the rocks going across the water?

Today's quote:

Let yourself be silently drawn by the strange pull of what you really love. It will not lead you astray.

RUMI

Post from the past: New Neighbor - Potter

A talented old neighbor moved on, and a new talented neighbor moved in...well, is in the process!

Welcome to the neighborhood, Sarah Vekasi!

[This is the story of a day when I was living on Beech St. (Black Mountain) in 2012. I posted it to my blog Alchemy of Clay. I'm trying to move the blog posts that had more to do with my life into other places...so here's this snippet of our lives.]

I happened to be taking my pictures of pots yesterday with the porch/studio door open, because it was warmer outside, and the natural sunlight helped the colors.  So not much traffic comes by here, being a dead-end street.  There went Sarah in her car...to her new home.  I walked up to welcome her, with my camera still strapped around me.  So I was able to catch her first time looking in HER mailbox.

She walked down the hill to get my welcome hug.  I'll go visit her new house soon, but she was doing her first house walk-through (and smudge) by herself.

Anyone who doesn't do a smudge cleansing of their environment with white sage, well, where have you been?  House blessings are just done that way by most of my buddies.  I even do it in my home whenever I've been sick.  Get's the environment balanced again.

Sarah has over a couple hundred friends on FaceBook.  I don't know how many will be beating a path to her door...but I know they'll all be welcome.  You see, besides being a potter, she's an eco-chaplin.  She's also an activist for stopping Mountain Top Removal by mining in West Virginia.  This is a busy young woman!

2023 UPDATE: Sarah now owns her own pottery shop in Black Mountain! 

Today's quote:

Author Tom Robbins moved to Seattle in 1962, explaining, “I only knew two things about Seattle: one, it was a long way from racist, sexist, homophobic, hide-bound, purse-lipped, gun-toting, church-crazed, flag-saluting, bourbon-swilling, buzz-cut, save your Confederate money, boys! Richmond, Virginia; and two, there was reputed to be something not quite right about its weather.”

Memories of another water excursion

 A repost with other water being the treat, Thanksgiving 2011 on the Hillsborough River in Tampa FL>

Saturday, November 26, 2011

Thanksgiving Friday

 Wonderful Florida weather brought the Sandhill Cranes out for a stroll along the

 street.  It reminds me that these ancient birds return to their same lands even

though people have planted their homes and roads right on top of them.

The majestic cranes just ambled away towards the water which has been reshaped to include a golf course.

Will had some fun with french fries and the illusions of two dimensional pictures .

Marty and his son, enjoying lunch with me.

Then a great treat...a canoe ride on the Hillsborough River with these two gentlemen.

Yep, me in the bow with the camera. 

A lovely afternoon with my son and his son...who smiles just like me!

Enjoying listening rather than looking

 It was a strange exercise for me. To listen to the creek as it flowed gently over a few rocks. I wanted to keep clicking my camera. I wanted to swing my head up down and around to see everything.

 But I was on a listening adventure. Rather neat to hear two creek voices - one downstream where water hit rocks in a shallows, and upstream where it tumbled down over small cascades from above my head's height.

Where I sat...just a quiet place beside the stream.

Moss growing along the bank.

Looking down to where I put my chair on the right behind the slanting tree, from the bridge.

Some clarification of directions to trails for newcomers. I felt quite alone while sitting there before churches were out on Sunday. But the parking lot was full when I left. Glad to move through town easily and back home again.

Today's quote:

By harnessing the power of your imagination, you can realize your dreams.

A day trip from 2015

 Anyone who is visiting, or lives in this area full time, knows that these Western North Carolina mountains are teeming with woods.  Ah, greenness abounds!

Summertime is upon us, with nice cool nights, some afternoon showers, and humidity that varies from 60 to 90 percent.  Fog is often what I first see in the mornings before that good old sunshine showers my eastern windows.

A mountain road with the sights delineated for travelers

So though there are woods in any direction you might jump, I'll share more of the latest of my day trips with you now.

Joyce Kilmer - Slickrock Wilderness, Nantahala National Forest
I won't quote his most famous poem, which begins with "I think I shall never see a tree..."

Up close and more personal.  The little things you see along a walk.  And I have a trusty camera that didn't run out of battery power for the whole first half of the walk.  And the second half I was so tired already I didn't feel like taking a single picture anyway, almost.

One of the streams which you fortunately get a bridge across

Interesting how the whole first half of the lower loop has been rubbed out...it's not that hard to find!

The trail is well marked, maintained, and has steps added to keep erosion under control

All the felled trees had already died, Hemlocks with an insect that has killed most of them in the forests in this area, and perhaps some chestnuts which died back in the 1920s from Chestnut blight..

With the death of the hemlocks, there is more sunlight filtering to the floor of the woods, so new growth is happening.  The leaves closest to me were Poplars, the children of the biggest trees in this woods already.  Tim remembers walking these trails about 20 years ago, and they were very dark indeed with all the hemlocks.

One of the few examples of wildlife we saw...a few dogs were walking the path as well (on leashes) ahead of us

Today's Poem:

The Fog

by Carl Sandburg

 THE fog comes
on little cat feet.

It sits looking
over harbor and city
on silent haunches
and then moves on.