Moonrise over I-40

Hickory, NC, December 25.

Advance Tickets

We went to see Star Wars, the movie event of the year (decade?) at the Yancey Theater on Friday of the smash-all-movie-records opening weekend. We thought they might sell out so we went a few hours early and bought advance tickets. This is what they looked like (sitting on the bar at Snap Dragon).

 I do love living here.

Many Menorahs

Hanukkah loveliness (and fun) at Ben and Cedar's. (Click on pictures to see bigger--these are better that way.)

Beth's Woodpile

Annie's sister-in-law Beth built a beautiful beehive woodpile. We illuminated it from within and challenged the stars to a friendly game of "Inspire the Populace."

Awaiting Liberation

A few members of Carmella's flock waiting for the unlatching of the door.

Another Autumn Hike

Miika, Nancy, and me at Deep Gap at the end of October. The hike was in celebration of several things including being friends for a long time and still wanting to walk up to the top of the Blacks.

Evan's Sharrow

Nancy sent this picture of Evan's brilliant Hallowe'en costume. The symbol is technically called a "shared-lane marker" but is informally known as a "sharrow," which is a portmanteau (don't get many chances to use that word) of "share" and "arrow."

Trail Robot

Matt sent this picture of Randy during a training session with the Google Trekker, which is a trail version of the technology used to create Google Street View. It has 15 cameras, each collecting an image every 2.5 seconds. Randy, Tal, Micah, Shane, and Matt were one of three crews who carried the unit along the length of the Black Mountain Crest Trail a couple of weeks ago. This was a project of The Conservation Fund of North Carolina, which is working to protect several chunks of land in the Blacks. The pictures will be used to help potential donors understand the importance of this remarkable landform.

Autumn Hike

Bessie, Fuller and Priscilla remind us that being with friends outdoors never gets old.

Table Rock and Hawksbill poke through the clouds

Over on the left. Way off in the distance. From the Parkway. Click picture to see it bigger.

Mailbox turtle

Hannah Branch Road.

Above the clouds

Mt. Mitchell State Park, Wednesday morning.

Green Man

Chioggia Beets

Because they are so pretty and have such a cool name.

Porsche 914 Day

Apparently it was Porsche 914 Day in Spruce Pine on Friday. There were seven all lined up and two more than weren't able to park with their little friends. They were so cute.

Through the weirdness that is the Internet, I was able to determine that the owners of these cars must have been participants in Okteenerfest, a Porsche 914 gathering in Banner Elk. The "teen" in the event name must refer to the "fourteen" in 914, but I can't figure out why they spelled it with a "k." Maybe because they were having an "Oct" event in September? 

SEVERAL DAYs LATER: someone has obliquely pointed out in the comments that Octoberfest is spelled with a "k" in Germany where it (and Porsche) comes from.

Tiny town

I was in Maine for a few days and was delighted to find this tiny town in the small town of Stonington. Someone told me that different people in Stonington volunteer to store the little buildings in the winter.

furniture around town

July sun stored in tapered orange cylinders

Robin shows off some mighty carrots in the community garden.

Festival!

We had such a good festival at the Pred/Sword Amphitheatre last weekend. This year the festival was named MilesFest, because the sad anniversary was this past week and Miles was part of almost every festival we've had in Celo since the beginning (almost 20 years ago). Here's Emma with a newly-created toast-faced puppet. There was a lot more going on than I've got pictures of, but here are a few samples.

Jason Cade and Rob McMacken, a.k.a. Hog-Eyed Man.

Polly and Bob, onstage together again.

The Bob Early Jazz/Funk Bank tearing it up.

I don't have pictures of the play, because I was in the play, but this is what it looked like from stage when Margot's dance crew was doing the hustle as an offering to the toast gods.

Mitch and Bobby pumpin' the jam.

Jody and friends played live rock and roll to inspire live dancing (which is always best).

Late-night dancing with puppets.

Festive Parakeets

We're having a festival today at Jody's festival grounds. There will be children carrying cardboard parakeets and who-knows-what-else.

Another pretty view

No story here, just another pretty picture. This is from the road up to Clingman's Peak, just at the outskirts of Mt. Mitchell State Park.

Nancy is 60!

The wonderful Raskin family (with a few friends) at Nancy's high-altitude birthday party. Randy made a spectacular chocolate cake with ganche and mocha butter cream frosting -- and then carefully packed it a long way up Woody's Ridge. There was even hot coffee to go with it.

One-hundred and fifty heads are better than one

Garlic is not really as good as ten mothers (as some have claimed), but it's very, very good. This bounty was planted from Miles's last crop. Another gift.

Bamboo canoes

So this wood class at Penland spent last week making canoes from plywood (ribs), split bamboo (shell), and plastic bags and spray adhesive (skin). They are meant to be somewhat ephemeral, but when they launched them in the North Toe on Friday, they behaved just like canoes.

Yeah, plastic bags.

Here's one during the skinning process. A student commented that this canoe has the Ingles advantage.

No baby here

Dick Kennedy sent over this picture of a high chair that has been mysteriously installed on the bridge that takes 19E across the South Toe.

Dip It Good!

As a fan of the band Devo, I found this oddly thrilling while also being kind of bizarre. If this is not ringing a bell for you, click here.

Snake love

Blacksnakes mating in our mudroom. Note two heads at the left and two tails at the right. Click to see it bigger.

Yarnbombing at Toe River Crafts

Yarnbombing comes to Celo.

I guess it runs in the family

Simon and Chris Hodshon with Simon and Amy's identicals, Raylan and Charlie. (Thanks to Charlie and Joanne for the picture.)

Celo See Saw

Billy Bernstein sent this picture, noting that only natural materials were used.

Soccer field whale

This is the life-sized, anatomically accurate, inflatable blue whale that made a brief appearance at the soccer field on Saturday.

The whale belongs to the Great Whale Conservancy, co-founded and directed by our neighbor Michael Fisbach.

Michael commissioned the inflatable whale from Big Ideas, which makes many of the inflated characters that float above big parades. They worked from Michael's photographs and from biologists' descriptions of blue whales. Michael helped them refine a series of clay models, and consulted on details with blue whale experts around the world.

The result, Michael says, is "the most accurate blue whale representation the planet has ever seen." The conservancy takes the inflatable whale to public events as a dramatic way of attracting attention to their work and to the plight of the great whales.

Michael and George Brasington (who has worked on the public-event inflations), set up the whale in the soccer field so they could figure out some refinements in their strategy for smoothly inflating it in public places.

It's a beautiful thing.