October Baby!

Friends, we have made it to October and I for one could not be more thrilled. Yes, it ushers in cold weather that my darling husband is not so fond of, however the Mrs. in the family says bring it on!! I can always put more clothes on but I cannot take more off!! I could hardly wait to buy pumpkins and put up the new wreath.

Plus, as it turns. our geraniums love October. We celebrated Bruce's 50th birthday by flying to England to see from whence the Pecks came. Hingham, East Anglia should you be wondering. I believe I mentioned it recently, highlighting the beautiful rapeseed fields we saw, yet something else I have always remembered were the vibrant and prolific geraniums we saw, at least that is what we call them. A beautiful British flower book Matt gave me for Christmas enlightened me on the proper name and that is pelargoniums. How about that??? I learned too that there are around 280 species of pelargoniums, just so you know.

But I digress...

My point was to marvel at how well my geraniums, which is what I will probably continue to call them, are doing! Never in my life have I had such an abundance of blooms. I am thrilled. As well, I am aware they do not fit the fall color scheme, but I am perfectly fine with that! The new wreath is an autumn themed, as in the colors, of the one I made for the 4th of July.

Bruce was kind enough to help me jam the fabric squares into the straw wreath I purchased at the thrift store for a dollar. Speaking of fabric, I am once again making a seriously mismatched scrappy quilt. 

Made with 2" x 3.5" pieces, there will be well over a thousand separate pieces when it is done but we do love a scrappy quilt, so why not? I have been going upstairs to sew for a few hours at a time, although one night I paired up pieces on a tray while we watched television, bringing them upstairs the following day.

For some folks it will be way too busy but it is Bruce's favorite and I like it as well.

I may be able to sew a little, but this young woman loves to paint and is showing it off on any number of downtown buildings. We were delighted to meet the artist when our friend Brittany, in the dress, called out to us for a chat.

She was still working on it when we saw her. Apparently everything starts out white as you see the upper flowers. Just like me wanting to put out an Autumn wreath, the businesses go all out to make things beautiful for the locals and tourists alike. The biggest event of the year is tomorrow and heavy rain is predicted for the day; let us hope the weather folks are wrong because more than 100 craftspeople display at the Folk School Festival, in it's 50th year. The school itself is celebrating their centennial. 

We did have some rain last week and then the sun came out. You and I both know that when that happens, a rainbow is sure to appear, which is why I went out front and looked to the sky, seeing nothing. Not long afterwards, D'Anna calls, saying, there is a rainbow! They were driving back from Atlanta and were heading through Murphy when it happened. I immediately ran back outside, a camera in hand, and oh my I was so glad that I did.

I don't know what I will do when Tom finally decides to build on his lot because it works so well for me as a photography spot! Glorious is my way of describing the rainbow. 

Here is a good view of how the trees still mostly look like. Fat and green with the tiniest bit of yellow. I took a walk to monitor the color, or lack thereof.

What is notable, aside from green, green, and more green, is the presence of kudzu big time. We saw a show that said it thrives in the sun, but I am here to report it is not too unhappy in the shade! 

This is a road adjacent to the river walk of which there are really multiple parts with different material underfoot along with different flora and fauna. On this day, I was on the part that you can take all the way to Lowes. There are some very rocky parts rather than the paved part on the other side of the river; the part that runs through the park.

You are looking at a chunk from the mountain along with a leaf that has turned early. Before too much longe,r that mountain chunk might well be buried in leaves! We did drive to Lowes last week and holy cow! Mixed messages were to be seen.

I have no idea how long it has been up, nor do I know how long the Halloween stuff has been up. Check out the price of this big boy!

What I do know is it, along with the rest of Halloween, is not taking the primo spot in the store, superseded by Christmas.  

On my walk I came across some intensely colored Morning Glories.

And a bluebird, the likes of which I have not seen for months.

My morning bird count is rising as more birds come through, or return to stay the winter, which is what I expect this Carolina Chickadee to do.

We had some very chilly mornings last week, as in the 40's!! We also have a bunch of spider webs on those chilly, foggy mornings.

Bruce took the photo below of me when we were at the top of Amicolola Falls.

No need for a sign to remind me not to cross the fence because I had no intention of doing so!

After lunch today I picked more green beans as they keep producing. They have been doing so well, as has the Italian parsley, which is so pretty and delicate.

And, in spite of the mildew the zinnias continue their blooming ways. It seems to me that the color has become even more intense as the heat has diminished slightly.

My local library came through and I have now read Whistler. 

Sometimes it is hard to sit still long enough to read novels when you have this sort of thing happening in your backyard.

That is one hecka big groundhog!! 

We have had some fun with friends outside of pickleball. Linda is a fountain of knowledge about all things Murphy. For fourteen years she owned a much beloved local bookstore in both downtown Murphy and Andrews. 

Picking her brain for stories is a pleasure we enjoy any time she is available.

Our pickleball friend Evelyn had a party on Saturday afternoon. Oh my!! What a setting, what a house!! 

We have been to lots of folks homes here and not a one of them looks like the other, something that is very refreshing after living in Orlando where many homes are quite similar. Set down a long gravel road, once you drove a mile or so into the mountain, it opened up to reveal the beautiful river. Those of us interested in that sort of thing, took the house tour with Evelyn where she described how they turned a shack into a showplace doing much of the work themselves.

Not every project turned out as they planned because the above was meant to be a green house but turns out it is too hot in the summer and too cold in the winter, but one thing for sure, it is sure cute.

I ran into Eleanor at Lowes a year or so ago and she told me she liked to work on her house. Little did I know then that what she has done is nothing short of remarkable both with the outside and inside!

Back on Campbell Street, this very well may be the last hummingbird photo I take for the season as I have not seen one in three days.

Does he look fat, like he is ready to go on a really, really long journey? From what I have read, I will leave the feeder up for two more weeks to catch any stragglers on their way South.

Colin came to visit us on Wednesday!! He worked with Bruce on many projects and soon became friends as well. He's from the UK but has been an American citizen for decades now. While we played pickleball, he drove to Bryson City, a place he'd not visited in thirty years. From there he headed back towards us. and we met in Andrews to go to Hoppy Trout, a restaurant and music venue that has been getting rave reviews from our friends.

Heading back to Murphy, he had the house tour as you can imagine. I force it on everyone because the house is so cool and that has nothing to do with us. It's got good bones!! Plus, Colin is a carpenter and I knew he would love seeing Bruce's shop and all the woodwork. We continued our fun in town where we saw folks we knew everywhere we stopped. Colin is a ready conversationalist so it was fun. If I had to guess, the man with the phone is photographing his elderly parents and a brother. It appeared to be three sons. I did my best not to stare.

So I am leaving you with this photo that shows the state of the leaves. It should be fun to monitor, right?

I lied. 

Late Tuesday morning I was walking, not far from the above. What you see depends largely on the time of day and on this day, late in the morning, I'd not seen a whole lot except I just knew I would.

And then I did.

I cannot tell you how long it has been since I have seen a Monarch butterfly in the wild. Oh what a happy day. If that were not enough, soon thereafte,r I heard the familiar sound of a Pileated Woodpecker. Looking up, while trying not to look directly into the sun, woo hoo, I found it!

Perhaps this does not excite you but it sure does me. Now I know just where to look come springtime!! Baby woodpeckers are pretty cute and they usually come in threes. 

Enjoy the cooler weather dear readers!

your friend,

Gail 

Let the Painting Begin!

As is so often the case for all of us, the days fly by with all manner of activities. So often people exclaim that they are busier once they retired then when they were working, and perhaps there is some truth to that. I'm not entirely convinced, in part because our memories are faulty. In any case, most of us have plenty to do, so I very much appreciate you taking the time to keep up with Camera Crazy! 

Before we delve into painting, I did finish the quilt after seemingly forever. The inspiration fabric for the quilt is this wild print that I saw at Hobby Lobby, who knows when. Maybe before we came to North Carolina last summer? At any rate, I found the fabric, then chose about twelve others using the same color way, a term I learned from our friend Irene, who now lives in our condo community but is selling her place to move further afield. Now that I think of it, she will feature again a little further down this post. Anyway, here it is with the binding strips I made atop it.

As you may recall from this long term saga, I bought the blue in a whole bunch of pieces from the nearby craft sale at the fundraising for the library. Come to think of it, fundraising will be mentioned again too as it is a constant in this part of the country. This is Appalachia after all.  In the photo above I am trying to remember how to join the two ends of the binding to make a mitre. But first I had to sew all 375 inches onto the quilt. Please note the presence of curtains that my darling husband hung! 

Once I remembered how to join the ends, I sat down with a needle and thread and spent probably eight hours, or something like that, sewing on the binding. Good thing I had sports to watch while doing so!

The finale is a trip to the washing machine, followed by the dryer and there you have it.

In spite of washing in cold water, the quilt is still a tiny bit smaller than I hoped for. Well, that is homemade for you! No complaints here.

Honestly thinking of complaining, the only thing recently that has not brought out the best in me was a trip to the movie theater.

Oh my word was the movie terrible! While we lived in Vancouver, this happened twenty floors below. Even if you are no fan of Deadpool, most folks are interested in movie star sightings and mine was a good one! Vancouver is a hot bed for film production and since Ryan Reynolds is from there, the site is a natural for him. While I tolerated the previous two movies, this one was really hard for me to sit through. The good news is the cost of attending is merely $5.50 for the evening show, so there's that. 

Shall I jump into painting now? I think so, but not before I show off the beautiful cake stand that Pam brought as a housewarming gift when they visited a month or so ago.

The stand is beautiful and the cake was delicious so a match made in heaven. What I want you to note is the wall color. Okay, that is what I am now calling a faded yellow color. Now there is not a thing wrong with the color, but since we like a little more of a jazzy look (see quilt above), after much, much deliberation, we chose an historic Arts and Crafts color by Sherwin Williams called Hubbard Squash. We did, however, have it made at our local paint store on Tennessee Street owned by the Hughes. Lovely folks, and part of our mission to buy local when possible. 

In the past I would choose a paint color by a name that I liked, think Dancing Green for example, or just because I felt like changing things up. This time around, none of that was in the cards as we did not want to make a mistake, if at all possible. The walls are heavily textured plaster that required a thick napped roller. The room feels so elegant now. Oh my goodness, it is something else. As mentioned earlier, Irene was to come into play again and it is because she has used a similar color in all of her living spaces wherever they may be. 

While not well portrayed in this photo, on the right is a new art piece I bought at, you guessed it, Downtown Marketplace!  I cannot tell for sure, but it seems as if it is painted on silk and depicts deer! I will await the arrival of Matthew and Tom who are far more well schooled in art than I! And here is a daytime look.

The living room will soon be Ruskin Room Green, another in the Arts and Crafts line. I will admit to being a wee bit nervous in advance. but we are thinking it will give the room more depth and a richer look. Not as in money richer, but in a deeper feeling. Does that make sense? We shall see.

Speaking of a rich, deep look, rarely do we have much of sunset, or at least that is visible here. Last night, on the other hand, I could see by the reflection on the porch wind chimes,

that the sky would be putting on a show and what a show it was. I walked around the block, seeing the reflection on the courthouse through the trees.

Seriously intense! Plus, what I am thinking were Chimney Swifts were flying around like mad.

Now, let us have a little look around the yard, including this!!!

I was so pleased to have gotten a nice hummingbird shot. The Rose of Sharon is putting on a new show, but at the same time leaves are yellowing and dropping like mad. Plus many of the buds remain closed before falling to the ground below. I have no idea what is happening! Except one thing I know for sure is that the pesky squirrels are partly to blame for the fallen blooms.

Two things on the Cardinal front. One, I was pretty sure we had some juveniles in the mix here, and today through the living room window, I watched Papa feed one of them in the Lilac tree. Lately we have added a suet cake to our bird feeding repertoire and it came in handy for Papa Cardinal! So that bird looked super, but this one not so much. Molting has begun for this fellow.

Because we have finally had some rain, the fallen sunflower seeds are sprouting, but for that problem we have rabbits!

What is interesting about them is that they seem to not fear us, at least from the porch anyway. The birds will skedaddle the minute we even come near the edge of the porch. One day I will get a nice shot of the puffy little cotton tail!

Speaking of rain, we have had more of it and one day I took advantage of it by placing my plants on the walkway to receive the gift of rain.

It has done wonders for the grass! Here comes another look at the Japanese Maple tree, in part because I think it is interesting, and in part because I want to document the changes as the months pass. What in the heck will happen when Autumn arrives?

I am pretty sure I see the remnants of the nest as well. 

I have no idea what these plants in Sandy's yard are called but they sure look pretty don't they? 

Shifting gears, wildly I might add, this came in the mail the other day, forwarded from Orlando.

One might have thought that surely someone in her campaign would have caught that blatant error. Oh politics, how I hate thee!

Here's something! Dottie, one of the friends from church, upon learning of my interest in the history of Murphy, having lived here for forty years, was eager to share a few things she has saved over the years, mostly articles from the Cherokee Scout. Imagine my surprise while perusing some of them, discovering that in 1984 the Olympic torch came to town! According to the newspaper account, there was plenty of excitement in these parts.

Mr. Peck is pleased as punch with his new vacuum system he's created for his tools. It's a first for him and most welcome.

This is a super busy time at the church with all manner of activities happening, mostly charitable as in participating in this program. 

It is my understanding that 80% of the areas schoolchildren qualify for a free lunch and because this is so, next year all children will be given free lunches. I imagine it is less awkward? Anyway, food was collected and on this day, bagged up for distribution.

Sarah June is carry a box filled with jars of peanut butter that she obtained from her other volunteer work at a food bank. 62 bags were loaded with goodies.

And now it is time for what they call the White Tag sale. What I am calling it, is awesome! Last year I bought an terrific iron at the sale, actually your favorite blogger's husband found it, and it has been a godsend. Yesterday I helped put things out, shopping at the same time. I came home with a blender for $2, stainless mixing bowls, a big rug, and more for $20. It is crazy to me how inexpensive they price everything, but at the same time I am not complaining. Friday and Saturday I will be one of the ones checking folks out, so I will see plenty of treasures leave all the while raising money for various projects of the women's group. 

Walking there this morning I helped with pricing, which consists of tape denoting the asking price. $.25-$2.00 for most anything! In that vein, I came home with more today including a container that had all these little figurines in it. Having not the foggiest notion of what they might be, I thought they were kind of cute, so for $.50, I thought, why not? I also picked up an owl thing, so there's that too. Anyway, I was pretty sure it seemed as if they were from England and by golly, after Dottie drove me home because I was laden with plenty, I looked them up and this is what I found. Here is what they look like as a group:

and here is what they look like in a close-up.

I do have to wonder if Tom, or his mum, Jane, have seen them before as they are from England.  Honestly they are as cute as a button in person. Or so I think they are. So does this woman.  Bruce asked me what the heck was I going to do with them and folks, you are looking at it! Because that bench is slightly unstable, we don't want anyone to sit on it so now they will know it is out of commission except as a perch for my little collection of "Wade Whimsies", courtesy of some kind soul!

Bruce is sitting behind me at his desk as I type. It is gorgeous outside and soon we will be heading to the shops and library. He's working on what he terms, a "takeoff", a construction term for a list of supplies and costs for an upcoming ramp project. You might remember Tom and Jane whom we visited, she of the beaded figurines. 

The report from Orlando on the baby front is all good news. Baby boy Peck is coming along nicely. Fallon is feeling much better and Bill is filled with excitement. In the meantime, we will keep on improving our beautiful home that came to us as such a blessing. Before moving in, I wondered how I would like the kitchen as it is such an important part of my life. Our lives really!

Turns out, I like it just fine. And no plans are imminent to change the stove because, by golly, it works like  a champ! As to having very little counter space, well that just adds to the excitement. Or so it seems to me.

your friend,

Gail