Our Traditional July 4th Holiday

Norris got up to get in line for the Beech Community Parade while Cheryl found a shady spot from which to take a few photos.

The traditional flag tells us how many years this parade has continuously taken place in Beech -  we're up to 132.  That's a long tradition.

The Grand Marshall this year, Wilma Penland, is the owner of our landscaping company.

This young man right behind the Grand Marshall's car brought the only animals in the parade this year.  

That is a pair of chickens in that special trailer that, amazingly, seems to have been constructed expressly for the purpose of taking chickens for a ride.

The Veterans were well-represented this year - some of them were carrying the flags at the front of the line, and their float was almost full to capacity.

Overall, the parade was shorter than usual. Perhaps it was the heat?  The Reems Creek Fire Department was about half of the parade.  Here's Norris coming up in Old Engine 14, now demoted to 14-3 as the department has just taken delivery of a new, four-wheel drive engine.  This truck is 26 years old - older than some of the crews who have been taking it out to fires.

A rare full faced smile from Norris.

Behind him was Mo with a few youngsters (one of the happier ones is "driving" the firetruck).  Mo went through Fire Academy training with Norris.  Behind her, reaching out to our friend Michelle whose birthday was yesterday, is D, my acupuncturist.

 

I took this photo of Michelle before the parade started.  She thanked everyone for coming to her party.  Her mother is on the left and I don't know the woman in the center.  The expression on Michelle's face came because she'd just caught sight of my camera and stuck her tongue out at me - but I was faster.

 

Virginia Sweetspire

We have many of these on three sides of the house - this week, they have been rather spectacular.

The Carolina Silver Bells featured in the center of the photo needs some pruning.  This tree has matured nicely for us and in another year or so will offer much needed afternoon shade in our bedroom.

An after-dinner guest

We had just finished clearing our supper dishes when a large dark shape outside the window drew my attention -

Norris had to get Lu in from the deck and while he did, the bear turned around, but came right back. After taking just 4 photos, the bear got tired of the camera's distracting noises.

Meanwhile, Lu with his puffed up tail tried to eat dinner, but he was a little too upset.  We'll have to give him dinner later.

Wednesday April 20th

.... our first hummer of the year. Here he sits on a branch quite a ways from the window.  He did come and sip at the feeder but if we approached with a camera, off he went. We feared for the early arriving males when we got that cold snap last weekend, so we were very happy to see this little fellow. 

Norris reported hearing a tell-tale buzz on the evening of the 19th, but couldn't claim our first sighting of 2016. This is a few days later than last year.

For these first few months, stocking the feeders is not a big job - it's only towards the end of the season we feel like we are full-time hummer-servants.

Leap Day 2016

My dear friend Diane told us she was engaged to get married sometime this year, and Norris and I thought we would go - but then at the end of January, she announced the date was set for Monday, February 29th.  Norris decided he would prefer to go when the weather would be more pleasant, so I went for the festivities without him.

I don't have a lot of photos of how beautiful Oregon was, even at the end of winter, but here's a shot I took out Diane's back door.  I was trying to capture a bird at the feeder, but you get to see the terrain. She has dozens of beautiful Davenport Arabian horses that she often enjoys viewing in the middle ground.

 

But I was here for the wedding.  I arrived late Thursday, and on Friday, we headed out for groceries for the weekend.  Diane had rented a large house on the coast to host the small gathering for the ceremony she wanted to be simple and quiet.  In this next photo, you will see the shopping cart, still being loaded.

That cart was so full, it was like pushing a large boat around, and there was barely room in the car for three people and luggage when we headed out to Lincoln City the next day.  But I'm getting ahead of myself.  Just for Norris, I took this photo in the parking lot at the Costco -

Of course, we have no flowering trees yet here in Western North Carolina.  Nor do any of the fields around here look this green -

That was taken on the road to the beach house, still in the Willamette Valley I believe.

The next two photos were taken after we unloaded everything for the weekend and show the view from the great room at the rented house.

 On Sunday, I took a stroll on the shore.  The house was close to the beach, but you had to snake down a couple of hairpin turns, then descend via this staircase (I took the photo from the bottom, looking up.)

 It was gray but the water and sand of course make a great show.

 

Some of Diane's guests struggled a little with her "simple, quiet" concept.  This is what happened to the great room on Sunday while I was out for my walk.

 But Diane had already decided she would use the sitting area of the master bedroom suite for the ceremony, up on the third floor.  Her  life-long friend Carrie had brought the flowers, but I arranged them so I have to show this photo.  Carrie's mother had purchased vases and the ribbon at Goodwill.

One of Carrie's dogs was selected to be the ring bearer.  Kelly was only too happy to have attention, but she needed a little help from Diane's brother James to hold still while Brad tied the rings to her decorative ribbon collar.

The groom, Ed, took a moment before the ceremony to compose himself.  Carrie made his boutonniere, as well as Diane's simple rose bouquet.

This next photo showing Carrie with her mother Pam and the ring bearer illustrates why I had the job of arranging the main floral decorations.  The doctor's orders for "Toes Above Nose" were not going to keep Carrie away from this celebration, but she had to spend the whole weekend in poses just like this one.

Former neighbor Brad performed the ceremony - it was short but meaningful. He has been a friend of the family for as long as Diane has lived in her house.

I was not the official photographer - Brad is a photographer of considerable merit.  The gear you see in this next photo is his.  The three men pictured are Diane's nephews John and Scott in the middle ground, with her brother James looking through his own viewfinder between them.  Ed's lovely sister Anna is on the right side of the frame. 

I didn't hang around for all the picture-taking, but started taking the flowers back downstairs where they would decorate the cake and champagne service.

 I was called back up for a photo, and before I got in on mine, I got this shot of the happy couple and Anna -- which I thought was the best I took with my inadequate cell-phone camera.

I loved this joyful expression on Diane's face when she came downstairs afterwards.  I was very happy for her, too!

One more photo - the newlyweds preparing to slice the cake. They had both shed their more formal wear in favor of comfort and we all spent a quiet evening together in the house.

 

The whole weekend was beautiful and (mostly) relaxing, with much love and friendship shared among Diane and Ed's guests.  Maybe they'll do this again on their first anniversary - which happens four years from now.

Mountain Weather predictions

Our forecast for last night and this morning showed snow tapering off and done by 2:00 - and temperatures tomorrow in the 40's.  Accordingly, around 3:00, although it was still snowing, we decided we could scrape a little of the snow off the driveway to help the melting process tomorrow. (the photo has an interesting texture because I took it through the screen)

We measured around 4-4.5 inches on the driveway - which doesn't really say how much snow we really got, just how much we were pushing.

If you looked at the radar for this area any time today, you would not see any precipitation, and our forecast has been cloudy and dry all day.

But all the cleared areas of the driveway now have a new coating of white and the stuff is still falling at 5:30.

Winter Storm Jonas

Just before noon on Friday, so someplace in the middle of the dire predictions for record snowfall here in the mountains, and we're not very impressed.

Those are my foot prints, heading out to the edge of the driveway and back. We might have had 2.5 or 3 inches of snow over night and into the early daylight hours, but - and this is pretty much right as predicted - it switched to a "wintry mix" just before 9:00 and now it's simply raining.  Between the rain and the occasional weak bits of sunshine, our streets are clearing themselves.

Right now, the scariest thing is the weight of the wet snow on the evergreens, like the juniper in the middle foreground of this photo.  You can see the black asphalt ribbon of our street on the far right.

Norris spent a long day yesterday, his first as a part-time employee of the City of Asheville FD, in the midst of emergency management preparations.  We are wondering what our friends in other parts of the area are seeing.

Holiday in New Orleans, Part 2

On Tuesday morning, all the Chicago-based members of our vacation party got up early and went to the airport.  Norris and I decided to go out for the famous Cafe Du Monde beignets at the stand inside the outlet mall that was connected to our hotel.  It seems there's always a wait there - the mall was not even going to open for another couple of hours, and there's Norris waiting in line.  I'd already been there for probably 20 minutes before he showed up.

But we couldn't complain - we heard from Joyce their flight was delayed due to a computer malfunction.  So I took some photos while we waited and texted them to her.

We compared notes on these versus the ones we'd had the day before.  Cafe Du Monde makes a puffier beignet.  Joyce and her family seemed eager to hear about our experiences, so I kept sending pictures.  They didn't complain as far as I know.

 

From the Cafe Du Monde we headed out for a ride on the St. Charles Street streetcar to the historic Garden District.  We rode a few stops past where our driver said everyone gets off to stroll the neighborhood.  

 We went to see the historic architecture, but wound up being very impressed with how the old trees continued to grow in spite of the urban surroundings.

This is the view of St. Charles, heading back toward the city center.

We did notice the homes and also took photos of the decorations.

But to add interest to the story, we noticed an interesting trend in porch decorating that we have not seen elsewhere - 

 

 Every few houses, we spotted a different pair of nutcrackers flanking the door.

There was a lot of construction going on too.  This house was one with a lot of equipment set up to make repairs.

Meanwhile, we kept hearing from Joyce about further delays after a computer reboot didn't solve their plane's issues.  So I kept texting photos of what we were doing.

We stopped in at the famed Commander's Palace to see if we could get lunch.

Well, it was worth the walk to see the building, but the wait was going to be at least two hours.  So we headed across the street to the LaFayette Cemetery where there were at least 4 guided tours going on ....

... and not long afterward, we headed back toward the French Quarter on the streetcar to see about our lunch. We wound up being a little less disappointed about missing out on the Commander's Palace because by chance, we walked into SoBou, which is part of the Commander's Palace family of restaurants.  I took this picture for Joyce, since they'd been sitting at the airport for at least five or six hours by then.  This lighting is unusual. The front room of the restaurant was lined with shelves of beautiful small apothecary bottles in various shades of white.  (My photo was not as good as what the restaurant has put in their gallery.)

 

Norris had yet another bowl of chicken and sausage gumbo.  SoBou served theirs that day over mashed potatos instead of the traditional rice, and Norris liked that too.

We headed back to Jackson Square which we had walked by on the culinary tour on Sunday and heard some jazzier musicians than we'd found prior.  We listened to them quite a while.  They made most of their money by inviting passersby to sit down on the bench to have their picture taken with the band, all while continuing with the music.  We chose this recording because this was one of the rare numbers that had singing and - well, you'll just have to listen.

The row of makeshift "booths" on the other side of band is mirrored behind us.  You can have your fortune told any number of ways by the vendors.  Jackson Square is also populated by other performing artists - this was one I managed to get a photo of in the act:  The "construction worker" was balancing his ladder and pole in the air, and absolutely not moving -- making him a very good subject.

There are also visual artists around the square.  All the art seems to be colorful and playful like this but I took my photo of these for the musical theme.

We were actually heading toward the French Market.  This market has been operating since 1791.  I took a few quick photos for my sister's family, who probably finally got off the ground about this time.  This one is for Bobby.  My photo does not include most of the goods - just the sign.  He might be inspired for his own decorating.

 

And this one is for the Blevins and Don

And this one is for any of the shoppers - I just picked a view that showed some of the variety of goods for sale - cheap jewelry to the front here with Mardi Gras masks just behind.

 

Norris and I were pretty worn out with our long day, but we managed to walk back to our hotel in time to think about where to have dinner - we thought about options, but wanting to get an early start on Wednesday morning, Norris opted to go back to the place where he thought he'd had the best gumbo.  And the winner was ....

 .... the nearby historic Cafe Ernst!  But no worries about gumbo withdrawal:  we have a New Orleans style restaurant back here in Asheville where he can try yet another version, and he's already made his first batch at home.