Down from the Mountain--Pictures included!

I took a lot of pictures outside when we were up in the mountains, and what I discovered is, it's very hard to see what's in your viewfinder when you're standing in the full sun. There is probably a trick to this, but I haven't learned it yet.

Anyhoo. Above is a picture of our house in the mountains. A better photographer would not have cut off the chimney, but I am not a better photographer. The chimney doesn't work, sadly, so we can't have fires on cold autumn days.




This is the apple green dining room. Please note the chandelier. Most of the time, the green is very soothing and calm. But at certain times of day, when the sun hits just right, you can't even go in, for fear of going absolutely insane.

The red dot is the oil tank. The Man painted it red, and I'm glad he did. It used to be a practical rust color, but what fun is that?



This is the view from the side yard. That is our neighbor Joe's shed and his red truck. The Man is very good about going to visit Joe and his wife Nell when we're up at the mountain house. I am cultivating a reputation for shyness. I'm very bad about going visiting.



The boys and I went to the tiny farmer's market on Saturday morning and bought preserves and sugar snaps. The tomatoes in the picture are from our garden at home. Our friend Michael made these bowls a long time ago, back when he thought he would be a potter. I believe he's changed careers about five times now (he's in computers these days), but I always thought he should have stuck with pottery.



On Saturday afternoon we went to the storytelling festival in Spruce Pine. The pictures I took of the storytellers weren't much good (tho the storytellers themselves were wonderful), so I tried to take some pictures in town, to give you the flavor of what an old mountain town looks like in the parts where they haven't brought in the Walmart.




Spruce Pine used to have a drive-in theater. I don't know if it was really open Friday or not. They seem to be doing a lot in Spruce Pine to attract tourists. On Sunday night we went back to Spruce Pine, to the very same spot they held the storytelling festival, to hear a group of bagpipe players. Next Saturday, in the same spot, Irish fiddlers. I'm sorry to miss them.



Tuesday afternoon, I took myself--by myself--over to the Penland School of Craft, in the Ledger community, about ten minutes from our house. This is the view from the campus. Ain't it grand? One day, when I get rich, I'm going to take a two-week long class in making books, and another one on making paper. When I get very, very rich, because the classes are very, very expensive. How else can they pay for this view?



This is a sculpture by Patrick Doughtery, a North Carolina artist whose art is twisting branches and vines into amazing pieces. I don't know how to adequately describe the magic of what he does, but it's amazing.

Now we're back. It's supposed to be 99 degrees today. Next summer, I may move to the mountains in July and not come back until school starts up. It felt very sane to live without air conditioning for five days. At night, after the boys were in bed, the Man and I sat in the dining room and read (the Man) and quilted (me) and listened to music. It was the high point of my summer.