Fall Fun in the Mountains

Brother Roger and his wife Laurie chose to take a longer vacation with us this year than they have in the past. Roger had some legal business work to take care of early in the week, but we managed to fit in some local sight-seeing. We didn't take many photos the first few days, though I did get this one of the quilt garden at the WNC arboretum.

I'm not sure which quilt block this represents - the Arboretum website is out of date and talks about the 2014-15 Rail Fence design.  But it could be Blockbase 1371b, a variation on the flying geese block called Banner Quilt. I colored the block and oriented 16 of them to see if it would look like the garden design -

Back to sightseeing, we took more photos starting on Friday, when we headed up to Mount Mitchell early in the morning.

It was cold and windy -

The angle the camera had in these two photos shows the only place where the sky looked sunny.  The clouds were not like anything we'd ever seen before, forming quickly behind where we were standing, and swiftly blowing over our heads only to be replaced by more clouds, while the skies behind them were blue.

We hiked the .7 mile marked nature look trail at the top. It was definitely winter on top of the highest peak in the Appalachians.

We had planned to hike another trail at the park there, but we decided to head down to a warmer climate.

We made a quick stop at the Glassmine Falls overlook on the Blue Ridge Parkway - you can see it if you click on the photo, just to the right of Roger's shoulder.

We continued to move down, landing about a thousand feet lower than Mount Mitchell at Craggy Pinnacle - an easy .7 mile climb up from the parking lot for the 360 degree view.  That is the Asheville water system reservoir behind Roger and Laurie.

On Saturday, we had warmer weather when we headed to the Cataloochee area of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Here are some photos we took along the Rough Fork hiking trail.  You can see we thought the creek crossings made good photo ops.

Here's Roger - no hands on one of those narrow foot bridges.

The main attraction at this far eastern edge of the park is the elk, reintroduced in 2001 and now thriving. (From the 52 animals brought in by the National Park Service in 2001, and 2002, there is now a herd of some 200 of them living in the park.) We saw a lot of elk but most of our pictures are about like this:

or like this next one. I included these photos so you could share the view of the open meadow and woodlands. October is mating season and we were actually witnessing an interaction between a large bull and a cow (though they resemble deer, the elk are called bulls and cows, or stags and hinds, but not bucks and does), but they had a slow courtship going on.

 

We were very pleasantly surprised to see the elk at all (and hear the bugling!).  The guidebooks explain that active times are early morning and late evening and we arrived shortly after noon.

This next photo is a digital zoom of a bull with several cows resting in the shade. You may be able to see them if you click on the image -

 A similar scene not far away

 But finally, on our way out of the park, this group was out in the sun and not far from the road.

Park visitors are strictly warned against disturbing the elk, and the park rangers were standing by to make sure everyone was behaving. We shared our views with large crowds of people whose cars lined the road at the edge of these meadows, obviously a great place for elk to hang out. More cars were pouring into the area as we left the park.

It was great to revisit places we've been and venture into some new ones with Roger and Laurie who both appreciate the natural beauty of our local mountains.

What We Learned About Rocks

The flagstone walk to our front door was showing serious signs of deterioration.

Here is a before picture - it does not look too awful at this resolution - 

 

... but close up the wide mortar joints were in trouble with serious cracking and loss of material. 

We were never all that happy with the mortaring, nor with the work on the front step, which had some interesting gaps on the outer edge.  The next photo shows the edge of the step overlooking the path, with a nice gap that you could lose a heel in and that was not the only one like that. The photo also illustrates another serious issue - even if the mortar could have been chipped away and repaired, our flagstones were delaminating.  The chips on the step at the lower center are the broken remains of a layer from the rock on the right, but you can see the same problem in the stone just right of middle at the top of the photo, and this deterioration was happening on a majority of the stones.

As we remember it, our builder sent us to the stone yard where we wandered around looking at stacks of rocks in cages, boulders, and stones suitable for a fireplace hearth.  We finally found someone to ask where we would find the flagstones for a path.  We were pointed to that part of the vast acreage and looked them over and picked a stack based on the color.  Little did we know, these stones were not appropriate for our purpose due to this inherent propensity to delaminate in a short period of time.


We hired local the local stone artists who had recently completed a beautiful sign for the town of Weaverville, and are working on a labyrinth for the First Baptist Church in Asheville.  We can only say good things about their work.  http://hammerheadstoneworks.com/  They do not use mortar at all, and typically do not install over a concrete base, as our walk had been done.  They figured out they could raise the level of the walk in some places and would only need to remove some of the concrete right next to the driveway, and when they actually started the demo work and did their leveling, they figured out the level of the front door and the driveway was nearly the same so they decided to eliminate the front step altogether.

The first photos will show some of the demolition and prep work.  The color difference under the overhang in the first photo is because of some rain.  The original concrete step is actually still there, under the gravel, with the rest of the area built up with more loose gravel to level it up.

 

This is the end of the sidewalk nearest the driveway.

And now a series of progress photos - three of these pallets of brightly colored Tennessee limestone were delivered (along with loads of gravel and dirt.)

 

 

 

Finally we have photos taken when they finished today about noon.

 The narrow gaps between the stones are filled with colored pebbles for effect - they serve no structural purpose.

Rainwater will wash some of them away - we were left with a bucket full of replacement pebbles.
 

Lu gets acupuncture

Our beloved now 11-year old cat Lu has had intestinal trouble since he was about two years old, necessitating a lot of extra care with diet and supplements, and many trips to the vet with him in a lot of pain, where he had to undergo very unpleasant procedures.  Finally, late last fall, he was losing weight and vomiting so often we decided to try acupuncture for him. 

In December, he had his first consultation with Dr. Andrea Fochios http://peopleandpetsacupuncture.com/. Dr. Fochios was a veterinarian first, and after being introduced to acupuncture for companion animals, took the full course at the local acupuncture school, so she is now also trained in Chinese Medicine for people.

Lu seemed to enjoy his acupuncture treatments from the very beginning.

I had hesitated to take photos in previous sessions, not wanting to disturb his tranquil state, but yesterday I turned the phone volume off and took several shots of him enjoying the needles.  You can't see them behind his head in this next photo, but they are still there while he is obviously quite relaxed.

Dr. Fochios is very sensitive to the Lu's specific needs and moods and during this session, he was warm and touchy about stimulation farther down his spine, so she used lasers to treat that area.

With monthly treatments and herbal supplements, Lu started putting weight back on right away, and symptoms of intestinal troubles have slowly been disappearing as well.

Based on Lu's success, we started treating Moki with a calming supplement and took her out in the car without stopping at the regular vets' office up the road, to try to minimize her anxiety for the trip to Dr. Fochios' office.  In recent years, she had become so unmanageable at the vet, she was getting her rabies shot and not much more, unless they anesthetized her.  Six months later, we started getting acupuncture for her.   She had her regular vet visit after the first treatment, and although the tech used the heavy leather gloves to hold her for the vet, Moki did get a thorough exam of her eyes, ears, teeth, and abdomen, and she sat still and quiet for the rabies shot.

We don't really know what pains and troubles are behind Moki's insecurities, but we think that acupuncture has made her a happier cat and will keep up with the treatments for both cats to give them the best chance for healthier lives. 

It's been way too long

We just haven't had much that was photo worthy.  But today while I was doing dishes, I spotted something moving in the woods.  By the time I got the camera, this was about all I was able to get -

Ok even if you blow this up you may not be able to see what I was looking at - here's the left middle of the above photo -

It was a small bear, probably just learning to be independent.  I don't think this one was finding much to eat.

A new visitor

Today we were surprised to see a new visitor on our hummingbird feeders - (sorry about the screen)

The hummer on the right was also surprised at having to compete with a Swallowtail.

We are overdue in posting the following observation about our hummingbird population this year.  Sightings and consumption seemed extremely low for the first few months of the season, but just about 2.5 weeks ago on a rainy day, the birds suddenly started draining the two feeders we had been filling every 3-5 days within hours of filling them up.  We immediately added another feeder and two days later put up the fourth and are having to refill them multiple times daily.  We assume the new birds are this year's first crop of hatchlings.

Trip to Highlands

For Cheryl's birthday last month, we went to Highlands - not far from us but we hadn't been before. It's a well-established tourist area and one of the highest municipalities this side of the Mississippi.  We went to do some hiking.  On our way there, we stopped for a 2 mile loop trail up and down Whiteside Mountain. Here's a view of the area as you approach it from the east.  Our next photos were taken from the mountain you see on the right in the foreground.

 

 One of the views we saw from the mountain.

Since it was hazy, we thought we could include photos of us this time.

 From the National Forest signage, we learned that rock formation we were on is called a "pluton."

We stayed at the 4 1/2 Street Inn in Highlands - our hosts have been doing this a while and were very good at it. This is the side of the house - our delightful breakfast the next morning was served on the extensive deck.

 

But still on the first day:  After dinner in town, we went to Sunset Rock for more walking, but decided to drive the 1/2 mile up the bumpy road - it might have been better and almost as fast to walk it.  We were there well before sunset, but enjoyed the view overlooking the town anyway.

We figured this was another pluton, even though there was no sign.

 A short distance away is the Highlands Botanical Garden where we walked another half mile. That would be a nice place to go back to.

On the following day, we came back home by a different route, stopping first at a couple of waterfalls where we took lots of photos. We'll limit them but here are a few of Dry Falls which has great parking and access.

It's called "Dry Falls" because you can walk under the water and not get wet. That's not exactly true - we felt a cool mist which was very pleasant on a hot day.

 Here's Norris coming toward the camera.

We offered to take a photo of a couple who were trying to take a selfie, and got one of us together as a return favor..

 

Cullasaja Falls has no place to park - you have to just pull off the road and walk along the narrow shoulder between the pavement and the guard rail.

 

Since our new camera has "Auto HDR" (High Dynamic Range) and this shot has some very light and very shadowy areas, we thought we should try it out. 

 I think in this case the normal lighting is best.

Our innkeeper recommended the Cliffside Lake trails for our second day of hiking.  We picked the Vista trail which was has varying ways up and down, and wound up making a 3 mile loop.  It was uncharacteristically hot and muggy, but we were up for the adventure. Sadly,  the trail was not very well maintained so the vistas were overgrown.  Just to record that we were there, here's a final photo of a family enjoying a swim in the lake down at the parking level.