A Fourth in the mountains

Morning at Beaver Lake

Blue Ridge Mts (from the Grove Park Inn)

Downtown Asheville (from Grove Park Inn)

4th of July at the Grove Park Inn

Asheville is a wonderful place to be on the 4th of July.  Even if it was quite soggy most of the day.

We needed the rain that's fallen over the last few days, and an additional set of thunderstorms today helps even more.  A morning walk at Beaver Lake was luminous, and thankfully free of rain.  And in spite of the afternoon downpours, it cleared off in the evening, ready for fireworks.

The evening sky was so lovely, we went up to the Grove Park Inn to see the view.

Woody was admired by all (he gets a pass, apparently, being a lovely fellow, even though he's WAY beyond the size normally accommodated;  we just have to keep clear of food serving areas....)  He fulfilled his role (to make people happy!)

Read More

Full moon

A late June full moon. It was a good shot captured by my (new) iPhone.

Posted with Blogsy

Read More

Milkweeds

These milkweeds at Beaver Lake were striking in the evening light. Not sure of the species, probably A. syriaca.

Posted with Blogsy

Read More

Mt. Mitchell view

The air was quite clear today, post cool front pushing the heat from the Southern Appalachians for a while.

Here were two views from Mt. Mitchell today.

Click to see the larger images!

Posted with Blogsy

Read More

Trees in sunset light

The late evening light illuminated the ravine forest in sunset.  Neither of my cameras (iPhone 6 or venerable Nikon D100) did it justice -- not surprisingly.

They were surprisingly equivalent in the flattened light that they captured.  This is a photoshopped version of the iPhone image.

Still not what I saw in the magical evening light.

Read More

More fireflies

They're flashing from ground level to canopy again this evening. Magical.

I poked around to see if I could find a decent image to share, with no luck (either highly enhanced images or not very good ones).

Certainly my camera(s) can't do justice to the biological flashing in the dark, programmed by selection to attract mates. It's lovely to watch and an unexpected summer treat.

Posted with Blogsy

Read More

A pop-up flower shop

My garden group (an eclectic federated garden club) recently had a meeting where we created flower arrangements to go to a local hospice care facility.

One of our members is a nurse there, and a couple (that are new members) suggested the program.

It was delightful.

We all brought flowers and foliage from our own gardens, or snagged flowers from commercial outlets, and we created MANY lovely arrangements.

 It was a great experience, and hopefully brought some remembrance and respite to folks at the hospice facility.

Read More