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.

The Mallards of Browns Creek

 Bottoms up!

Kazoo Band!

A new feature of the Burnsville Christmas parade this year was the lively, sometimes chaotic Kazoo Band led by Heather Dawes. (Photo by Lydia Wexler)

 

 

 Here's the band in action.

Ghost Caboose

Bruce sent this great picture of the ghost caboose in Spruce Pine. 

Thanks Again, Philip!

Many hands are needed to make this happen, but special thanks must always go to Phillip Mitchell who invented the now longstanding tradition of lining the Celo bridge with jack-o-lanterns every Halloween. 

Every year, Phillip gets the pumpkins, invites anyone and everyone to his house for two carving nights, and then stages this fantastic display, which attracts a large audience. 

Photos by Bruce F.  

 

 High-level lantern carving.

No Kings, No Trouble

On what may have been the largest day of protest in American history, 710 people turned out on the Burnsville square to express themselves.  

There were homemade signs, costumes, a big puppet, and lots of flags. Honking, waving, marching, chanting.

People are not happy with the state of things, but like everywhere else in the country, there was no trouble. 

Except maybe a guy playing a banjo.