Red Shouldered Hawk, Yadkin County, North Carolina

What do you do when you don't want to go Christmas shopping or get on any interstate highway full of crazed holiday travelers? You go wander the backroads of the North Carolina foothills even though the skies are overcast, the trees leafless and the vegetation brown. Nothing much to see, but at least you are out and about.

I saw this red-shouldered hawk on US Highway 21 just outside of Mocksville on an utility line. He posed for pictures until he decided he was tired of the whole deal and took off.

Barn Quilt, Hamptonville, North Carolina

This barn quilt probably has a name, but I can't find it on the Yadkin County barn quilt brochure. And yet it is one of the quilts featured prominently on their printed brochure.

I had parked the car on the shoulder of the road, emergency blinkers on, and walked down the road to get a good shot. An elderly lady, probably on her way back from church, stopped and asked if I needed any help. I showed her my camera and waved while saying I was fine and just taking photos. But how nice in this day and age of cell phones that someone would take the time to make sure that I was OK.

Stars in Flight Barn Quilt, Hamptonville, North Carolina

A new quilt trail to explore just 50 miles from Greensboro in Yadkin County which is where I went today, the first sunny weekend day in (it seemed) forever. The Yadkin Arts Council put out a brochure earlier this year showing 25 barn quilts, but the project has proved to be so popular that a Facebook page has been set up to highlight the new ones that didn't make it on to the brochure.

Here is their page for those who might be interested in seeing new quilts: Yadkin Quilt Trail.

And a great example of ingenuity at work - if you don't have a barn for your quilt, then use the next best thing - an abandoned tobacco shed! This particular pattern is called Stars in Flight.

Chapel of Rest, Happy Valley, North Carolina

Generally when I go out on a day trip and find an interesting church to photograph, I can only take pictures of the outside. Most churches are locked up tight except for Sunday services due to vandalization. In fact, several rural churches near me have been set on fire in the past few months with one actually burning to the ground.

This is the Chapel of Rest up in the mountains between Wilkesboro and Lenoir. Built as an Episcopal chapel in the 1880's, it was deconsecrated in the 1970's and turned over to a local historical society. They fully restored the church and it was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2005 as an example of a 19th century Gothic Revival architecture.

It is open daily to visitors and can be rented out for weddings and family reunions. Twice a year, concerts are held in the sanctuary as it is acoustically perfect for music.

As I looked at the wooden pews, all I could think of was my aching back. And the parishioners sat on them for hours on end on Sundays.

Whippoorwill Academy, Wilkes County, North Carolina

And sometimes you find barn quilts where you don't expect them.

This is located on the side of a small gift shop up in Wilkes County - the same county where I photographed that sad falling-down barn with the neglected barn quilt.

This shop is part of a collection of buildings that were brought together on one site to show how people lived during the 1800's. It includes a replica of the cabin that Daniel Boone lived in while he lived in Wilkes County, the jail that once held Tom Dula (he of the Kingston Trio's song, Tom Dooley), and a log church among others.

The buildings weren't open when I found the site, but it was interesting to walk around them and see how simply people lived back then. 

April in North Carolina

Let's see. Today is April 4th and (according to Weather.com) our temperature generally would be around 65F. However, it never got above 47F and currently it is 36F and raining with some sleet mixed in. In April! In North Carolina!

Last year at this time, we already had had 20 days of 60F weather in March alone. This year, just two days in March above 60 degrees. Some of the weather forecasters are calling this month Apriluary due to the cold and wet.

I'm sure this American Robin is very, very sorry he came up from Central America instead of staying put.

Carolina Lily Barn Quilt, Wilkes County, North Carolina

And here is what happens when people who start a barn quilt trail lose interest in that barn quilt trail. Quite a contrast from the last barn quilt I posted here which is 90 miles southeast from Wilkes County down in Randolph County.

I found my first barn quilts back in 2010 in Alexander County, North Carolina. Those quilts were different from most as they were actually huge photos of handsewn quilts. You could see everything right down to the stitches in the fabric. Wilkes County nearby followed suit with 12 barn quilts; one was handpainted and the other 11 were large photos of actual quilt squares rather than the entire quilt.

Two weekends ago I set off for Wilkes County with the addresses of the barn quilts. Of the 12, I could only find two with this one far enough off the beat track to pull the car over to take a snapshot.

Sad to see this in such a ruinous state.

Basket of Lilies Barn Quilt, Randolph County, North Carolina

Another barn quilt in the southern part of Randolph County here in North Carolina. This is called Basket of Lilies. 

Turkey Tracks Barn Quilt, Randolph County, North Carolina

You don't have to drive to the mountains of North Carolina to view barn quilts. Randolph County which is just to the south of Guilford County where I live has 29 barn quilts located all over the county.

While not as large as the ones up in the mountains of western North Carolina, they are just as fun to locate and take pictures of them in their various settings. This one is down a long gravel country road near Denton. It is the Turkey Tracks pattern and is on the feed barn of Long Valley Farms which raises Longhorn cattle.

Who knew? Texas Longhorns in North Carolina and I didn't get a snapshot because I was looking for the barn quilt instead.

Eastern Bluebirds

I never get Eastern Bluebirds at the feeders during the summer, but they do show up regularly at the feeders during the winter when the supplies of berries become low.

And I guess this is a fairly rare moment to have two males feeding together without any aggression towards the other. The Cornell University's website, All About Birds, says "The Males vying over territories chase each other at high speed, sometimes grappling with their feet, pulling at feathers with their beaks, and hitting with their wings." Pugnacious is another term that the website uses for the males' behavior. Guess I caught them during a quiet interval.

Pine Siskin

I'm not getting as many birds to the various feeders in the small garden this winter as I have in the past. Perhaps it is the fact that the winter so far has not been particularly cold, the nearby crepe myrtles and hollies are full of berries and much more appealing than my feeders and that my patio has become sort of a way station for the neighborhood cats (which causes me to run out the sliding class door, hissing at them as they scramble over the back fence). Whatever the reason, it is somewhat discouraging to look at the feeders bereft of the birds I've had in the past.

But recently I've had groups of this little bird show up at the thistle feeder - a bird I haven't ever had come to the small garden in the 10 winters I've lived here.

This is a Pine Siskin, a small finch from who lives in the very far northern forests of Canada during the summer breeding season. Not a regular visitor to the Southeast US, every few years there is what biologists call an irruption which brings large groups south. From what I can gather, irruptions are brought about by the state of pine cone crops, not by natural migration patterns. But in my small garden, it is the thistle feeder which attracts them since there are no pine trees any where nearby.

Woodpeckers in My Small Garden

The woodpeckers are back visiting the feeders in the small garden again this fall.

From smallest to largest, they are:

A female downy woodpecker (she has no red crescent on the back of her head like the male does). I could only catch her from the back as she climbed the redbud towards the feeder.

A female red-bellied woodpecker at the upside down suet feeder.

And the largest of the woodpeckers, a yellow-shafted Northern Flicker (this one is a male). Unlike my other two woodpeckers, Northern Flickers prefer to feed on the ground. This one stays in the large oak tree behind my house in our common area. I can hear him call when I'm out filling the feeders or cleaning the patio. He's probably like my chickadees; impatient for me to hurry up, do my thing and leave so he can eat.

Edison's Birthplace, Milan, Ohio.

The day I went to visit Rutherford B. Hayes family home in Fremont, I also went to visit Thomas Edison's birthplace in Milan, about 30 miles east.

Built by Edison's parents in 1841, this is the house he was born in in 1847.  The family only lived here for seven years and in 1854, they sold the house and moved to Port Huron, Michigan. Edison bought the house back in 1906 and after his death in 1931, his wife and daughter turned it into a museum which opened to the public in 1947 on the centennial of his birth. This house, along with his houses in West Orange, New Jersey and Fort Myers, Florida, are now all museums dedicated to the most prolific inventor in the United States.

Unlike the docent at the Hayes home, the tour guide here, while enthusiastic about her subject and his life in Milan, went on and on and on about every tiny little thing in the house - right down to the fake cheese in the kitchen. I thought I would have to knock her down and make my escape out the door to get away, but I think she finally realized (probably from my eyes rolling back into my head and the other visitor sidling towards the exit), that she needed to cut the whole thing short or risk being trampled in our attempt to leave.

Scotch Thistle

I never did find the final lighthouse. Later I learned that the one that I was looking for was five miles off the coast near Maumee State Park and only visible on good days through a high powered telescope.

I did find Pickerel Creek Wildlife Area near Marblehead which was full of blue and white herons along with some ducks I couldn't identify. Unfortunately I didn't get any decent pictures. They were either too far away for my zoom or would take off when I finally got them in focus.

So here is a picture of the only thing I could get into focus because it was the only thing in the wildlife area that would stay still long enough for me to get a snapshot.

A Scotch Thistle going to seed.

Marblehead, Ohio Lighthouse

So far on that day trip in Ohio, I had only found one lighthouse, the one in Lorain, and the water tower disguised as a lighthouse in Bay Village. By my calculations that still left at least three more within driving distance.

The Sandusky Breakwater Lighthouse is just a light on top of a concrete tower. Built in 1996, it is still an active lighthouse operated by the US Coast Guard. Unable to get close enough to get any better than a 24x digital zoom, here is a not-so-good snapshot.

So, on to Marblehead, Ohio right across the bay from Sandusky in search of the 1821 lighthouse which is still in operation.

I missed the entrance to the state park the first time and had to backtrack. I pulled off on  the side of the road to take this snapshot:

And then drove into the state park to take this wonderful photo:

Although the lighthouse and the lightkeeper's house were given to the state of Ohio to become a park in 1998, the lighthouse itself is still under Coast Guard control and its three and one-half order Fresnel* lens still warns pleasure boats and large container ships every night.

*Is a lens composed of a number of small lenses arranged to make a lightweight lens of large diameter and short focal length.

When is a Lighthouse Not a Lighthouse?

When it is actually a cleverly disguised water tower located in Bay Village, Ohio.

One of the reasons I drove along the coast of Lake Erie on US Highway 2 is that I read there were six historic lighthouses within sight of the road. A couple were too far east of Cleveland to add it to my itinerary, but I thought I would be able to see at least three or four during the day.

Of course, I saw the one in Lorain which is still closed to the public but close enough for a good snapshot.

And then when I drove into Bay Village, west of Cleveland, I spied this in their large city park and whipped the car into the parking lot. I thought it was one of the lighthouses that had been mentioned on the Web, but when I got closer, I saw from the sign at the base that it was a water tower.

The park was once the John Huntington estate and this water tower provided water to his vineyard. The stairway, water pipes and water tubs are still inside. When John Huntington was still alive, he used to go to the top of the tower to watch the sun set on Lake Erie. Unfortunately the tower is closed to the public and here is a video from YouTube showing the damage that it sustained when Superstorm Sandy roared through last month.

The Lorain Lighthouse

During my trip back to Ohio, I took a drive along the Lake Erie shore. I stopped in Lorain and took this snapshot of this lighthouse. This is the Lorain West Breakwater Lighthouse commissioned by the United States Coast Guard and built in 1916. It was decommissioned in 1965 and slated for demolition.

A group of concerned citizens formed the Port of Lorain Foundation which bought the lighthouse in 1977 from the US government for $1.00. Over the years they've repaired and restored the lighthouse almost back to how it was in 1916. It currently isn't open to the public, but the Foundation has raised enough money the past couple of years to finish interior restoration which will finally allow the public to tour the inside.

Walhalla Road, Columbus, Ohio

When I go back to Ohio and Columbus, I always drive down Walhalla Drive which is one of the prettiest streets in Columbus. It is located in the Clintonville neighborhood which was developed during the early part of the twentieth century and at the time considered a streetcar suburb.

And this is just a mile from the edge of The Ohio State University campus (and my alma mater. Go Buckeyes!) which looks like this:

(Courtesy of Google Street View as after I left Walhalla Road, it just opened up and poured rain)

Spiegel Grove and an Earlier Presidential Election

While we're waiting for the results of the US Presidential election tonight and breathing a sigh of relief of no longer being inundated with political ads, here's a snapshot of the home of the president who was elected during an even more contentious contest than that of today - Rutherford B. Hayes. He lost the popular vote, but won the electoral vote (click on this for an article in Wikipedia which tells about the election of 1876 in greater detail).

I like to visit presidential homes if they are near to where I am and Fremont, Ohio, where Spiegel Grove, Hayes' home after his presidency, was only 25 miles from I was staying. So down the road I went to take a tour of the house.

It has been restored in loving detail, right down to hand-printed wallpaper reproduced from fragments found where it had been painted over. Unfortunately I wasn't permitted to take snapshots indoors, but you can go here to take a virtual tour.

Sometimes we forget that history can repeat itself. For those who thought that Al Gore was robbed of the 2000 election, I am sure that Samuel Tilden who actually won the 1876 election just to see it handed to  Rutherford by his Republican cronies felt the same way.

And the most gorgeous maple tree on the grounds.

Kimball, West Virginia and the WWI Monument

Twenty miles up the road from Bramwell is the small town of Kimball which holds an amazing surprise.

This is the only World War I memorial in all of the United States dedicated to the 400,000 African-Americans who volunteered to serve in combat during what was then called "The Great War." 1,500 of those men came from McDowell County, West Virginia where Kimball is located and where this monument was built in 1928.

It became the community's focal point with meeting rooms, an auditorium with a small stage, kitchen facilities and a trophy room. It served as the social center and hosted such activities as high school proms, wedding receptions and performances by such well-known entertainers of the day like Cab Calloway and others.

But by 1991, the county and its towns had suffered from shrinking demographics due to the decline in the coal industry - the county had gone from more than 100,000 inhabitants to less than 20,000 - along with the huge decline in income that left McDowell County the poorest county in the US outside of Mississippi.

A fire that year along with the community abandonment of keeping up the building left the memorial in ruins with only the  exterior shell still remaining.

But a few in the community worked to raise funding to restore the building back to its original glory. Along with a grant from the McDowell county commissioners and the Federal Scenic Byways department of the US Department of Transportation (Kimball sits along the Coal Heritage Byway), the building was finally restored and rededicated in 2007.

It is only open during the week for a few hours each day, so I only got to admire it from the outside.