Cataloochee Guest Ranch

Cataloochee Guest Ranch (https://www.cataloocheeranch.com) is a great place to go to relax, hike, ride horses and eat great food. The next few blogs will be from a visit there.

More Hill Top Orchard

Farm Views

If we get far enough out of town the rewards of older working farms are great. I enjoy the colors of some of the subjects as well as the farm implements.

Connemara Pond, Flat Rock, NC

Connemara, the home of Carl Sandburg,is a great National Park site to visit with its original house and large pond, not to mention the goat farm, (https://www.nps.gov/carl/index.htm) I love the pond in the Fall.

Woods Near Pisgah Inn

On the Road, Again

Yesterday Al, Buddy and I went riding around the woods going to the mountains. The regenerative power of nature is remarkable as displayed by the trees and brush growing into the rock that was blasted away for the road.

Small Vistas

On the Blue Ridge it is not just the big vistas that count but the small ones, too. Mu wife, Alice saw the red  salamander first.

Penland, Teacher and Students

Here is Alice showing a color blanket to some of the students, and a visitor/observer , a legend in fiber, Edwina Bringle (https://craftcouncil.org/post/edwina-bringles-50-years-textiles).

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Penland School of Crafts Weaving Concentration

Bhakti Ziek and Tommye Scanlin were the instructors for the weaving concentration course which lasts for eight of the best weeks a student could have. Alice was asked to present some of her current work for a few hours last Friday and I came to hang out and shoot some pictures.  The firs t is of Bhakti, a true national treasure in weaving. The second image is of Alice and Tommye. Tommye is an expert tapestry weaver and teacher. It was great to see a fair number of younger weavers.

Biltmore Flowers

I love these images of amazing orange lilies. I enjoy looking at several views of flowers because each one has a different emotional content for me.

Biltmore Estate Conservatory

A great place to visit and photograph.

Tuxedo Relic

Yesterday, Al and I went driving around and found ourselves in Tuxedo, NC, which has some great stuff to look at, like Staton’s Grocery. Country stores like this probably will not be around much longer and short of buying them, I can only save them photographically.

Orchard Hill

Yesterday Alice and I were scheduled to visit a  railroad museum in Duluth, GA but the trip was called off because of possible rain, so we went to Orchard Hill orchard near Zirconia, SC hoping to see apple blossoms but the orchard was closed. We got some pics anyway including part of the orchard and going up the mountain some trees and valley shots.

More Asheville Graffiti

These graffiti are amazing with their energy, design sense and deep feelings of mixed joy and anger. They are very sophisticated in vision and execution, suggesting that the artists are inherently sensitive and talented with some possible degree of formal art training.

I hope you are all enjoying the trip.