A Family Visit

Last week's post was written on the eve of David and Michelle's visit and I told you that I would let you know what they thought of our sweet little town after they departed. Dare I say, they loved it?

I dare!

After writing that post, I took a neighborhood walk, admiring the diversity of houses and the changes that Autumn has wrought. For some reason I cannot get enough of Sandy's oak leaf hydrangea that shimmers in the sunshine, changing color as each day passes.

Hip, hip hooray!! The pumpkin bundt cake I made for Michelle came out of the pan without incident!

Not long after we moved to the house on Campbell Street, Pam and Glen visited and the lovely cake stand was a gift from them that I hoped to use with frequency. That has not been the case because before this cake, I have had zero success in removing the cake from the pan in a tidy manner. Alas, I checked once more on ways to get a clean release and finally Sally's Baking Addiction website had the answer. Leave it to cool in the pan for TWO hours, instead of the ten minutes I had been using before. It made perfect sense that the cake would contract as it cooled, and so it did. Game changer folks, game changer!

As well, I had time to prepare another favorite of Michelles and that is homemade macaroni and cheese from my Flying Biscuit Cafe cook book Matt gave me for Christmas years and years ago. Their flight was delayed and the drive here from Asheville was more challenging than they hoped for, but eventually we were seated around the dining table.

Our hearts were swelling with love having our family here after nearly 2 1/2 years! We totally get it that it is not easy to get here, but we were thrilled that they made the effort. 

Insisting that they take the top floor, Bruce and I tried out our new downstairs shower and it was great, as was our experience in the guest room with the double bed. Everything exceeded our expectations. The next day we were slated to go to the Alpaca farm at noon, however, before we did so, we walked into town. By golly, the first frost of the season occurred overnight. 

Walking into town we were treated to beautiful color.

Showing off points of interest along the way, our mission was to walk to the donut shop for bagels and another cup of coffee for them.

This was the beginning of their quest to stimulate Murphy's economy! By the time they left town, every merchant we visited was glad that we did! 

Me snuggled up under the porch quilt.

Alpaca farm here we come! 

The sky was blue, the air was crisp, and it was a neat place called Two Crows Farm. 

The tour began with the man of the house, explaining the how and why of their operation outside the barn, followed by a trip inside the barn where we were up close and personal with the animals. I say animals because there are both alpacas and llamas, both from the same family.

This is a llama,

and this is an alpaca.

If you are noticing the mouth, and seriously, how could you not (?), here is the scoop. They only have bottom teeth and they chew their food in a figure eight motion. Kind of fascinating. Michelle took the opportunity to feed them.

We learned quite a bit during our visit including that the males are generally kept outdoors whereas the females use the barn. At one time they bred them, but that time has passed as they are not young folks any longer. More like our age! 

As it is, they have seventy animals on their farm and what they do with them is their annual shearing provides wool that is used in making all manner of products and yarn, all of which is done by local artists. We were treated to an interesting talk by the Mrs. of the operation where she explained the process of how the coat comes from the animal to how it is turned into yarn.

Here are four Pecks in a row!

After our son purchased one of the alpaca blankets, gifts for his Mom and Michelle, Bruce drove us back the way we came on the lovely drive back into town. 

We had lunch in town and then roamed around for a while.

Eventually we ended up at Jen's new place that I photographed when she first opened. As was the case at her first venture, she's been making lots of changes, including serving a little more food.

During their visit we ran into lots of folks we know, including Pat and George shown talking to Michelle.
Both she and David were great about chatting up the locals! 

On Friday we drove back to David and D'Anna's house for lunch and activities, but first Michelle wanted to meet the chickens.

While I don't remember the above chicken's name, I do remember Henrietta, D'Anna's favorite, who is poking around the declining garden while we chat.

Following some yummy chili and salad, we took off, beginning the tour at the waterfalls on River Road.

It was a short walk in a beautiful environment, one that is completely new to the two of them as adults. Michelle remembers a little bit as a child growing up in New York but David has had no experience as an adult of both winding roads and changing leaves. 

Next was a stop at Nantahala Lake that has been lowered for the season and if you want to know why that is the case, I cannot tell you without googling it and if I ever want to finish this, that is not happening!

Back in the car to head to Wayah Bald, the same place D'Anna took me a few months ago when the leaves were green. and the clouds were thick. 

Following them,

after plenty of winding roads, we turned off onto the gravel road for the 4.4 mile trek to the top. As we began ascending, David was not loving it so much, but although I have no shot of him doing so, he did go into the tower for a very brief look out on the stunning landscape.

Unlike in August the view was perfectly clear. Michelle and I making memories.

Meanwhile we could not get down fast enough for David's liking and in fact, he was anxious to get off the mountain altogether. 

So long Wayah Bald, until we meet again. (maybe never as Bruce was not keen on the drive either!)

After that experience it was deemed that staying in town was just fine by them, so before we began our long day of shopping, eating and drinking in our little downtown, we took them to see the cottage where we spent the first months of our time living in Murphy. Bruce showed them John's shop and Laura was out with the dogs, so they were able to meet her.

We were super excited to see a couple of deer on the road coming in as well. We followed that up with a visit to Harshaw chapel where they got to meet Ricky who was meeting a painting contractor. So if you are counting, it is up to at least ten people which is not all that hard to do in our small town.

Roaming around town, visiting the shops and meeting the merchants.  

Michelle bought some clothes from Tonya at Gray Matters, a cowboy hat from Lisa at Indigo Mountain, and the jacket she is wearing came for Latasha's boutique, Journey.  They met Linda, Anne and Kerry at Fairy Cross, followed by Ken and Linda, before we finished off the evening at Poor Parson's Pub which was just as delicious as our last visit. 

Sunday morning we walked to the River Walk, but not before I had to get another photo of them on the front porch.

While planning what to do while they were here, we put together a list of activities we could do and were surprised when Michelle said they just wanted to hang out with us. Well, she wasn't kidding.  

It was chilly and drizzling as we walked in the park along the river, admiring the scenery and the adjacent sports fields.

I was leading them to the place where the river is accessible and David took advantage of it.

They were both fascinated by the landscape, wondering about the trees and foliage just as I was when we first arrived. Thank goodness for digital helpers! 

We walked home over the bridge,

stopping at Yogi's for lunch before their drive to the airport; a necessity they were not looking forward to.  Folks around here are so used to driving through the Nantahala gorge but to us Florida folks, it is not something we look forward to. Thankfully, they made it without incident, however, the weather was a bit uncooperative delaying their arrival in Orlando. 

As is always the case, when one of our children visits and leaves, we are saddened, so in an effort to combat that we popped over to church to a service that included area Methodist churches, followed by packing disaster relief hygiene kits. As we all know, many hands make light work That is Pastor Wil standing taller than usual on a chair to make himself heard.

Since they left it has been raining off and on with chilly temperatures. Bruce is with John and Eddie and he is following that up with a visit to Grayson at school as the rain has made the soccer games impossible. 

Me, I am writing and next up is a walk upstairs to the sewing room where the quilt backing is in progress. Hopefully tomorrow things will dry a bit so we can get back to pickleball. We shall see.

Thanks for reading! 

your friend,

Gail

Away from the City

Around here Nancy still has me cleaning out closets. Yesterday we took everything out of what used to be Dave and Bill's closet, trashing some things, others are awaiting their removal from the garage. Not only are there baseball cards, but all of their modeling pictures, advertisements they were in, tax returns from when Dave was trading online, original photos from Bill's cd, Internal Flames and the list goes on. Calling both of them I gave them a three day ultimatum to get their stuff.  I'm pretty confidant that the threat of their high school yearbooks going out to the trash will do the trick! We shall see.

I'm up early today, a little before 5 because Mr. Baxter felt the need to go out. Probably because Bruce was already gone, having to catch a 5:30AM flight. For whatever reason, I'm up and ready to show you a few sights outside the city.

Mostly a photographer's job is best done solo, or at least for me, that is what works best. I can compose in my head, not worrying about lagging behind others, and more importantly, pick my timing. As such, traveling via train and working within a set time table, not to mention, less than ideal light conditions--I think I could do better, but here's what we've got--I hope you like them.

Traveling just outside London, immediately the lush green countryside appears, albeit at 100 miles an hour and through a tinted window no less which explains some of the coloring below.

I, of course, snagged the window seat on our way to Bath. I never did get a good picture of the hedgerows, a term I've read about in countless books, although I did recognize them immediately. So very lovely and straight--my word they were straight as was all the plowing. Goodness me I was impressed.

So you know we went to Stonehenge but did you know we saw other cool sights? Driving through the countryside our tour guide pulled off the road long enough for photography enthusiasts to take a few shots of this:

You may be wondering right about now, what the heck is that? I'm not sure if this is the same one or not, but the link does give you a little bit of info on this strange and wonderful phenomenon of horses carved into the chalk hillside.

From there we continued traveling until we came to another amazing sight, Silbury Hill, a chalk mound which scientists think is over 4,000 years old. It's hard to fathom a man-made hill covering over 5,000 acres, but we saw it with our very own eyes and camera.

We learned that at one point there were tunnels dug through it in search of gold. No luck---only chalk.

Avebury was our next stop. You've never heard of it? Neither had I. On our way, showers came and went just before our arrival. A really remarkable feature of this area were the stones lining the road, much like you'd see a tree lined drive. Apparently, in earlier, and I mean much earlier times, the stones were used to lead the worshipers to the stone circle. Obviously there's no way, short of an aerial photo to show you the circle, so we'll just have to content ourselves with small portions.

Matt and Tom began the walk around it, however, time got the better of that plan. Here's another view that I particularly like:

The great thing about Avebury is that you can touch the stones all you like. There's something about being out in the landscape with these weird huge stones that is very appealing. One last link which explains the term henge for those who like all the information they can get!

While Matt and Tom were walking amongst the stones, I wandered behind the museum and could NOT get over how beautiful this house is:

Perfection right? The lavender lining the walk just about took my breath away. Don't you just wonder what it looks like inside? Oh, if only we'd had more time....

That, of course, is the bad thing about being part of a tour, however, in this case the good things prevailed. Like as in, he knew where he was going. Furthermore, some of the roads we took were so narrow, for the life of me, I don't know how he managed.

The following day we took our "Costwolds Discovery Tour", covering some of the same ground as the day before. Our first guide, John, was very chatty. Tom, on day two, not so much, which suited some just fine. Me, I'm all for chatty. Chatty or not, Tom drove like a champ. At one point he pulled onto the tiniest little drive, heading into what seemed like a field to show us a house used for filming a British television show, of which I was unfamiliar. Who I am familiar with is Joanne Trollope, an excellent British writer who lives down the lane as well. Plus, we got to see these cute llamas:

Everyone on the bus was charmed with their freshly-shorn coats and lively personalities. Swiftly they came right up to the fence to say hi to the curious onlookers.

Sheep. Sheep. But not as many as there used to be. The Costwolds fortunes were made from sheep's wool long ago when wool was the primary fabric used for everything. Not so much anymore what with all the choices to be had, however, the legacy remains. I mentioned that we took a little walk through what I'm calling a sheep meadow. This time, instead of the boys I was traveling with, I'll show you some lovely sheep surrounded by wildflowers which, by the way, were everywhere!

The lyrics from the Eagle's song, "peaceful, easy feeling" come to mind for me. So now you know there is chalk, seran stones, and wildflowers growing everywhere. Another very strong feature of this are are a different kind of stone made from limestone. They are used for not only homes, but fences (the actual term escapes me), both the sides and the tops. Amazingly, all done without any type of mortar--I believe the term is "dry stone." What craftmanship!

According to our guides, the walls were built just to the height that a sheep can jump. I sure wouldn't want to climb over this would you? I could go on and on about the beauty of that region!

So, Melton Mowbray is not really the country. Nor is Jane's garden, however, beauty is where you find it and we found it there. There was a koi pond with water lilies, an apple espalier, a term Tom taught me while we were at the Geffrye Museum, climbing roses just a wee past their peak, and more, and more, and more. Lavender pots!

There's that sweet kitty again too. What's more, there were flowers I'd never seen before, not surprising given our wildly disparate climates.

Lovely, lovely, lovely--that's all I can say about the tiny bit of English countryside we experienced. Just as the English people are polite and civilized, the countryside seemed that way as well. Straight lines, clean and neat. Nancy would be impressed.