Above the clouds

On his drive to Charlotte yesterday, Norris snapped a few pictures on the Blue Ridge Parkway just above our neighborhood, near the Ox Creek entrance.  Click photos for a larger view.

This one was actually at the Haw Creek overlook.

No sunset views?

We've shown versions of this photo plenty of times - it's the view from our great room towards Elk Mountain -

(picture taken moments ago)

But last night as the sun was probably setting, the same view caught my eye.  With the orange-red glow, it looked like fall had come back to that west facing slope in the middle of this same view out the window.

 

 

Some days, we wake up in the clouds

Yesterday, the fog was below us, visible in the view toward the main road. Today we have no view beyond our immediate neighbors' homes.


The sourwood shows its characteristically craggy shape as a silhouette in the center of this frame. We usually view it about like this - this picture is taken from the deck, but we can't see the top or bottom of the close-in trees from inside the house.



The next photo shows the view across our slope toward the neighbors' house. A few small green flags mark possible locations for future landscaping. (Click on the picture for a larger view.) Additional flags are located to the right and lower on the slope. The area shown was the location of the old logging road. Our excavator restored the slope to something more like its natural shape when he filled over the septic field (out of view to the right in this photo). Two additional pines below the three we had planted two years ago, then some redbuds, dogwood, rhododendron and other natives will continue to fill in and continue the slope restoration process.

The second photo at this link - with Cheryl and Dorry standing on a pile of rocks - is approximately the same view, taken the summer our house excavation had just begun. A small red flag marked a deck corner in that photo.

We won't try to add all the new plants at once - our pressure tank system doesn't have enough pressure to get much water out there to the far side of the property. We have been using rain barrel water and a separate pump to water the small pines. If this is a dry summer, we would have a difficult time giving all the planned trees and shrubs enough moisture to get established.

Fire on the Mountain

Norris has been attending a class at the largest fire-training event in the state this weekend, so he's missing what appears to be the largest brush fire we've seen in the neighborhood. About five or ten minutes ago, they estimated it involved 1-2 acres, but just now that was revised to 5-6 acres, with a warning that the winds are active. The man on scene just made the optimistic observation that the logging road will give them good access to the affected area with the All-Terrain vehicle.


This photo was taken with the telephoto lens - more smoke is now coming from behind the ridge that is sloping up to the left.

Interestingly, just last night, Norris and Cheryl watched a 1958 Robert Mitchum classic called Thunder Road that was filmed in the Reems Creek valley on the very road where this is happening.

View from our deck this morning

A surprise return to winter for a day brings the rime ice to the other side of our valley.

Snow Winding Down

For most of the last few days, we haven't been able to see across the valley because of the low hanging snow clouds. Today the snow is letting up and we can again see the ridge line across Reems Creek Valley. You can click on the picture to enlarge it.

Skies over the cove

Because we sit in the shadow of the mountains, we don't get much in the way of sunrise or sunset here in our protected part of Barrett's Cove, but this morning, Norris went out to refill the sunflower feeder and was taken by the dawn.

Looking Down on the Morning Fog in the Mountains

Taken from our deck this morning to remind Cheryl of home. since she is in Chicago with her family this week.

Top of Our World

Today is a beautiful, sunny warm late fall day so Norris and Cheryl took a hike up our own property for the first time since last Thanksgiving.

Much of the hike is difficult as there is no logging road to take us up the last, steepest part. But it's worth it when you can enjoy trees at the top still turning from green to yellow -



and if you look down, you can see many mosses and lichens among the leaves -


As always, we visited the fallen American Chestnut tree that's probably been dead for 70 or 80 years. Here Norris uses it to give his knees a little break with a beautiful maple still in full color just to one side and behind him. The baby chestnuts only had one or two dried curled up leaves on them.

Cheryl has been wanting to hike along the ridge to the top of North Knob since she first hiked up our ridge, before we bought the land several years ago - and finally made it there today. North Knob is at 4060 feet - our house is at about 2800-2850 feet. It's a long climb. Cheryl kept pushing and took this picture of the Reems Creek valley while still on the way up. There was no picture-taking coming down - all hands were required with walking sticks so as not to slide down on the slippery leaves.



Norris wasn't going to make the climb but when Cheryl was gone too long he started thinking about bears and started up after her. He did climb one of the two steepest parts. Part of the climb on our property is just about as steep, but there are more rocks and trees for footing and handholds on that path.

And finally up at the top, here's a look skyward - this pine has a very different form and appearance than the pines on our own property.

Above the Clouds

We got some rare rain here Saturday.  This picture was taken as we drove along the Blue Ridge Parkway at a spot where we were above the clouds.

An Even Bigger Snow Storm

Our posting on Feb 4 had pictures of what was the biggest snow we'd had since we moved to NC.  The snow we got yesterday topped that as we measured 4 inches on our deck this morning.  Although its still snowing a little, the streets have already started to melt off, which seems to be typical of our NC snows.  The snows here usually disappears within a day.  (That might not be true on the south side of Asheville where they got 7 inches.)

Biggest Snow We've Had in NC

Well, the biggest we've seen since we've lived here anyway. On the deck table, we measured 2.5 inches. This morning was also the coldest we've seen too, as our thermometer says 5 deg.


Here Norris' forelorn snow-covered Jeep sits at the bottom of our driveway, unaccustomed to having to sit out in the cold. Norris could have driven up our driveway last night, but was afraid it would turn into a sled on the way back down this morning. More snow is coming during the day today.

Above the Fog

We have had quite a few mornings lately where we are above the fog down in the Reems Creek Valley.

Also, here is a picture of the small 5'x7' shed that we had built behind our house. The same guys that did our screened-in porch also built the shed. Now we can free up more room for power tools in our garage by moving the lawn & garden supplies to the shed.

Surprise Snow

In spite of a forecast that only called for "scattered flurries," we woke up to about 2 inches of snow this morning. Norris had a Dr's appointment for 8 a.m., so he had to slide his Jeep down the driveway and get out on the slick roads early. This picture was taken later in the afternoon when the snow had stopped and the sun had come out. The snow on the roads had all melted by 10 a.m.




Here's a picture of some nearby peaks taken from a street in our development.

Even though we have had two snows this fall already, some of the trees still haven't lost their leaves. The Bradford Pears in our neighborhood are still in the process of turning red, and are an interesting contrast to the snow.

Fall Colors Peaking

Our fall folliage colors are peaking at our elevation, so Norris took some pictures on his way to and from work today. The shot was taken from one of the other streets in our development, looking back towards North Knob, the mountain we live on. Our land encompasses several hundred feet of the ridgeline where you see the notch in the center of the photo. The peak elevation of North Knob is about 4000 ft.

Here's a shot of our house in the afternoon light.

This one was taken from the front of our house looking toward Chestnut Knob, which peaks out at about 3600 ft.

Taken from our deck, looking across the Reem Creek Valley. The white thing is Norris' weather station.

Taken from the front of our house in the morning light

Another shot of our house, this one taken in the morning light with our house in the shawdows.

This one was taken by Norris on the drive home from work, showing the expanse of the Reems Creek valley in the late afternoon light.

This one taken on Reems Creek Rd looking toward our end of the valley

Taken from Hawks Landing Blvd looking toward Vance Knob, which is across from our development.

A bit of snow

Twenty-four hours after Roger and Laurie headed back to Chicago, the cold front that was coming in got us with a few inches of snow. This was our view early in the morning -

and the driveway looking at the treed slope behind the house.

There never was enough snow to cover the street or driveway - Norris got out to work with no problems, and found there was no snow in Asheville.

But later in the day, as the sun would appear briefly I caught some glorious fall pictures:

You really should click on this next one to see it a little larger -

I didn't make these up, Roger and Laurie. It just got more colorful as the tulip trees (like most locals, we call them poplars) started turning yellow and the maples showed more orange and red with the overnight freeze.

Fall Fog and Norris' Workshop

Norris headed off to work this morning and came back to get the camera. I needed it today so he just took me out on the main road into the development where we took this picture ...




and then up one of the side streets where we could see our own mountain (North Knob)

Just barely visible in the lower resolution photo are some brilliant scarlet trees on the slope we live on, in the distance. The red trees are the sourwood - which make the second best honey around.

And now to catch you up on last week. This was the predicament last Wednesday when Norris rented this van to deliver some cabinets for his new garage workshop. He had backed up to the garage and we had done the unloading - but who would have thought that a little rain would wreak such havoc: couldn't go forward without heading straight down the steep embankment of the driveway, couldn't back up due to the slickness of the rain on the pavement. The light colored streaks are kitty litter, our first attempt to add traction. (It didn't work.) I won't list everything else we did, but eventually, we dried off the tires with big old towels and loaded every portable but heavy object from the garage - plus Cheryl - into the back end, which helped enough to get the van back up the slope where Norris could turn it and take it down the driveway. Whew. We couldn't even figure out how a tow truck would get where it would need to be to pull the van back up (not quite visible in the photo - the landscaping shrub in the foreground is sitting on top of a a rather huge pile of rocks, so going over the edge on the near side is not an option.) My car is too light to be any use pulling, and Norris' jeep was at the rental place. Anticipating other problems of this type, we are now proud owners of some new equipment - straps and a come-along.


Here are the newly installed cabinets - there's one more to go on the wall to the right of the window (not yet delivered). The tall white cabinet is put together from two such pieces formerly in my sewing room. They suffered a lot in the move, but if we don't move this one again, it should serve Norris well for years to come.


And finally, here's Norris putting his new dust collection system together (part of it is on the floor in the foreground) using the table of his new "Stop Saw" to hold the instruction manual. The Stop Saw is the latest in table saws - the advertisements show how quickly it shuts off if flesh touches the blade. They use a hotdog for the demo and it comes out with a little nick. More expensive than your regular saw, but then, how much are your fingers worth to you?


Norris will not demonstrate the saw's stopping capability. If you invoke it, you have to replace some pretty serious parts of the mechanism - part of how it stops the whirring blade so quickly.

Also, just to the left of Norris in the background you can see our new screen doors! The deck was supposed to be completed this week, but alas, wrong parts were shipped and work slowed. We could have used the screened porch this week. It's been Attack of the Mad Ladybugs here in the woods. Desperate to find a place to hibernate, they land on us folks just trying to water the plants - they don't bite but they sure are annoying.

Fog in the Reems Creek Valley - view from our deck this morning