Donut shop manager does not wish to be disturbed

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Johnson City.  

Two years

 

Important information

Best of luck to you. 

A Heron Spreads Its Wings

Miika reports that her garden heron has finally spread its wings. 

Dancin'

Buck dancer Billy Jackson accompanied by the Geneva Hall Stompers at the Music in the Mountains Folk Festival at Homeplace. 

Millionaires

We lost Billy Bernstein on August 16th, and many hearts ache with his absence.  I'm remembering how he would sit at the river and say, “I must be a millionaire. I told the crew put the river there, a few rapids, and those rocks just like that in the sunlight. I must be a millionaire.”  

By this reasoning, Paige Davis in the late summer garden is also a millionaire.

 

Beethoven on the Bridge

A bust of Beethoven above Browns Creek. We know not why. Note single thread of spider silk. 

Gardeners

Bruce with the amazing tomato plantation he created at Camp Celo. Bamboo structures and heavily pruned tomato plants growing on strings. So many beautiful tomatoes. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Jeff and Mike with one of the squash towers at the community garden on Hannah Branch Road. Mike took the lead on this innovative method of getting summer squash to grow up a bamboo pole--lots of pruning and tying involved. We've never had baby squash this late in the summer before. Mike will be glad to tell you all the details. 

Peace Day

Mari playing the koto with Izzy on cello during a Peace Day celebration at Camp Celo on August 6, which is the anniversary of the Hiroshima bombing.

Lots of purple on the line

 

I bet many people can guess whose line this is.

Contented Moths

Sarah got this great picture of a pair of moths being very focused. 

Harvest!

Every Wednesday morning the gardeners of the Hannah Branch Road community garden get together to harvest extra produce that is donated to Dig In! for free distribution. (Mike House wasn't here this week; we took this picture so he wouldn't worry.)

Big Leaves

Evening sun chard in the community garden. 

Retired!

 

I started working part-time for Penland School of Craft sometime early in 1995. I went on staff in 1997, and it's been my place of work, my second community, and my second home ever since. My last day on staff at Penland was May 29. I shared my last day with Penland legend John T. Renick III, a.k.a. Big John, paragon of kindness, all-around good guy, and a crucial and calm presence in the Penland kitchen for 26 years. 

John is moving to Athens, Georgia--for love! I will be staying home, having even longer conversations with Tammy, going on longer walks, playing more music, reading more books and New Yorker articles, spending more time in the garden and more time with my excellent friends, and also doing some work for Penland (mostly from home). 

 Someone asked if I had big plans for my retirement, and without even thinking, I said, "No, I have small plans." 

 Thanks, Penland. It's been great.  

Ohle's Pond sunfish redds

Each spring, male sunfish make round depressions in the pond by vigorously thrashing in shallow water. The female then lays her eggs in these 'redds' (from the Old English words for "to rid of encumbrance" and "to ready"), the male fertilizes and guards them, and we watch and remember that not all is lost.

 

Tiny Dance

Loy and Bruce celebrated their new  hellbendre presse building with an open house. They haven't moved any equipment into the new space yet, so they were able to have a very small square dance (live music, even) led by the great Phil Jamison. There were just enough dancers for a square, and the whole thing was lit by the neon sign in the window. 

You never know...

You just never know what you might run into in the woods. 

Inflating steel

Elizabeth Brim and friends doing a steel inflation demonstration at the Fire on the Mountain Blacksmithing Festival. 

The piece is two sheets of steel, carefully welded together around the edges, with a pipe going into a small space in between them. It was heated up in a gas forge, and Elizabeth is blowing it up with compressed air--which you can do because hot metal is a lot softer than cold metal.  
 

Trombone Karaoke

This guy, accompanied by his little sound system, has been honking jazz standards on Main Street for years and years. 

How did that get there?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Unfortunately, we know the answer: it floated there. 
 

R@nsOm3 N0t3$

Ransom Notes is a fun game, and you might want to click on this picture to make it bigger (especially if you are not looking at this on a phone) and read everything in this picture. 

The way the game works is that you have a random assortment of words and you have to use them to convey the message that is on the card, which is sitting in the middle of the picture. 

I think Schell took this picture.  

Stilt Lesson

 

Just lovely

 

Darters

Not the little river fish you were thinking of.
 

Pelt

Miika reports that her garden goat turned into a garden sheep last week when it acquired a pelt from the pelting snow. 

Storm Prep

Check the forecast. 

Park your car at the Community Center.

Pull up the wipers. 

Walk home.
 

Sunday Morning Ice

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On Sunday morning Grindstaff Road was solid ice. The rain washed a lot of this off during the day. Don't know what the night holds. 

Homeward Bound

For decades, a small group of neighbors have been getting together more or less monthly in various places in Celo to sing the rich harmonies of the Sacred Harp shaped note hymnal. These days it happens at the Celo Friends Meeting. This is what it looks like when we sing Homeward Bound, but the other songs look pretty much the same. 

(This picture is better bigger, which, like all the pictures on this blog, you can get by clicking on it.)

Best advice for the new year

As seen at Dreams Die Hard Diner.