Kim Rupert

One of my new container roses from Rogue Valley Roses in Oregon. This is a minature called Kim Rupert. I've never seen a rose striped like this before; it resembles a peppermint patty.

I found out that it was introduced in 2004 by Ralph Moore in California and named for a very famous rosarian, Kim Rupert.

I'm waiting on the other new roses to bloom - Canoodling from Rogue Valley and Gruss an Aachen and Clotilde Soupert from The Antique Rose Emporium down in Texas. All are budding so I'll keep my fingers crossed.

Thunderstorm on the Blue Ridge Parkway

This past Saturday I took a day trip by myself. TB wasn't available and I wanted to go up to the Blue Ridge Parkway to take pictures of the mountain laurel that had just come into bloom.

The weather forecast called for scattered thunderstorms late in the afternoon and I figured I would be up and back home before they started up. So I drove up to Sparta to catch the Parkway just off US 21 with plans to head north for a while and then get off at US 52 at Fancy Gap, Virginia to catch Interstate 77 south to Mount Airy and then back home.

Well, as Robbie Burns once said "The best-laid schemes o' mice an 'men/Gang aft agley/An'lea'e us nought but grief an' pain/For promis'd joy."

I was a little bit north of Sparta when the sky just opened up and I was caught in the middle of a deluge; a deluge not only of rain, but hail and constant lightening and thunder. I slowed down to 30mph (the speed limit on the parkway is only 45mph), and then down to 25 and at one point I had to stop right on the parkway with my hazard lights on as I couldn't see even a foot ahead. I continued to creep along and a couple of times pulled into parking lots of scenic overlooks (nothing scenic to be seen as there was not only the rain, but fog as well).

At least I was dry and safe from the lightening in the car. I was trailed on some parts by motorcyclists - some who had planned ahead and were wearing wet gear, but most who were just drenched to the skin. But I felt sorriest for the cyclists peddling slowly and morosely in the storm.

I did get a chance to pull over and take a snapshot of one of the thunderstorms coming over the mountains from Virginia on its way to break our heat here in North Carolina.

Stunning Sunday Skies

Another parking lot snapshot. I took this Thursday afternoon prior to a rain storm that did nothing more than dampen the dirt.

I shot this straight up using the little camera. It doesn't have a viewfinder, just the ubiquitous LCD display screen which I couldn't see a thing on. So I just took some random shots to see if I could capture anything interesting. Out of the 20 I took, three turned out well. Its just a fun way to take photos without any planning.

I'm doing this as an ongoing project with Anyes over at Faraway in the Sunshine. Go over and she what she found in Vancouver, British Columbia.

Star of Bethlehem

(Sorry, my Internet provider wouldn't let me connect Wednesday night to post for Thursday).

At Todd, we left the New River Scenic Byway and took a narrow, bumpy road that paralleled the South Fork of the New River. It was only a car wide and made passing oncoming traffic interesting. Someone had to stop and allow the other to pass which sometimes created a pas de deux dance with our little Honda and bigger SUV's and trucks. I later found out that the road was once the railbed of the Virginia Creeper train.

When we came to the end of the road, there was a short debate as to which direction to go. I decided to not use the GPS and just go right and there it was just around the next curve - the Star of Bethlehem.

Variations on a Sunflower

I know that you all are thinking "Why no pictures of the New River Scenic Byway?" since that was the original purpose of the day trip.

Well, for most of the drive there were no shoulders to pull over and take snapshots of the countryside. And with narrow and winding roads, I could hardly stop in the middle of the road and take my pictures (visions of being rear-ended by someone who never saw us as they rounded that curve . . .).

But the next barn quilt we saw was positioned right across from the Green Valley recycling center which gave me a place to park out of the way and then walk across the road to take this next snapshot.

This barn quilt is in Watauga County and on a different trail. It is called Sunflowers (Variation) and is on someone's workshed. I couldn't find any more information than that.

Upper Mountain Research Station Dairy Barn

I looked up from taking snapshots of the Corn and Beans quilt and not 500 yards away was anothe quilt. This one was on the dairy barn at the Upper Mountain Research Station.

When I got home and searched the Ashe County Barn Quilt map, it wasn't on there. So I posted to the Barn Quilts and the American Barn Quilt Trail's Face Book page to see if anyone knew the background of the quilt and what the name was. Suzi Parron, who is the administrator for the page and has also written a book on barn quilts, knew that the research station was planning a second quilt, but didn't know the name of the pattern. So, I've emailed the director of the Ashe County Arts Council and hope to get a name to the quilt soon.

But what a nice surprise to have a second barn quilt so close to another one. I hadn't encountered that before.

Corn and Beans

Finally, back on the road again!

After a spring spent either sick or TB sick or horrendous weather that kept us indoors (for our own safety), we finally got a great day to take our road trip this past Saturday. We decided that we would do one of North Carolina's scenic byways, the New River Valley Byway up in the mountains.

We went north out of North Wilkesboro, turned east on NC 18 towards Laurel Springs and, lo and behold, a barn quilt. This one is at the Upper Mountain Research Station run by the North Carolina Department of Agriculture.

Called Corn and Beans, it was designed by Les Miller and painted by the faculty at Westwood Elementary School.

As I had not anticipated finding barn quilts on the byway, I didn't print out the barn quilt map for Ashe County (there are approximately 40 quilts on various buildings throughout the county). So if we saw any more, it would be quite by accident.

Sunset Sunday

I had to go back through my old snapshots to find a good one of a sunset. Unfortunately with the high heat and stagnant air (Code Orange!), our sunsets have been sorely lacking in any photographic value. This was taken back the beginning of April when we were seeing storm after storm come through from the Midwest. I went out to our airport where I could get high enough to get shots of the clouds as they were being pulled apart by the strong winds ahead of the stormfront.

You can find Sunset Sundays over at Scott Law Photography. I'm doing this with Anyes at Faraway in the Sunshine as an ongoing project.

The Latest Daylilies

The unnamed daylilies have started to bloom and I am going to try to match them against the inventory pictures of the nursery in Indiana where I got these from. This first one is called Custard Candy. Love the green eye!

And the closest to this bloom is a variety called Quaking Aspen (the little black dots are ants which have since been dispatched with soap and water). You can see that it is different from Happy Returns of the last post.

And more to come as the daylilies are starting to put out more and more buds.

Happy Returns

The daylilies are starting to bloom. Well, actually the Stella d'Oros have been blooming for about three weeks now, but everyone and his neighbor (or so it seems in my neighborhood) has that variety growing in their yard.

This is one of the few daylilies that I planted last year that I actually have a name for. It is "Happy Returns" and the only reason I know is that I bought it at a big box store along with the Stellas and it had a label on it. The other daylilies which have buds but no blooms yet, will have to remain unnamed as they were a huge lot of lost label daylily fans - close to 70 of them.

It will be interesting to see how the small garden turns out this summer.

Too Darn Hot

I know it's hard to tell, but that's a Carolina chickadee in the birdbath. I've had all sorts of birds fly in and out of the small garden Monday to use the birdbath as the temperature climbed from 72F when I got up this morning at 8 a.m. to 94F late in the afternoon. No relief this week as we will watch it go past 96F. We generally don't see heat like this until late August. Looks like another long hot summer again this year.

Or, as Ella Fitzgerald sang, "It's Too Darn Hot."

Stunning Sunday Skies

We had a series of thunderstorms come through the area on Friday with the most severe to the east and the north of my house. Despite these clouds, I just got a few brief episodes of rain and that was it.

I'm doing this as an ongoing project with Anyes over at Far Away in the Sunshine. Go over and see how the skies are in Vancouver, Canada.

Rose Thistle

When our newest branch library, Kathleen Clay Edwards Library, was built back in 2004, it was designed with the local environment and ecology in mind. It is set on 90+ acres with wallking trails, a reading garden and in front, two and a half acres are set aside as a natural meadow to attract birds and butterflies.

I went over after supper yesterday to see what had started blooming and bird watch. I could hear the towhees, cardinals and red-winged blackbirds and took some not-so-good pictures of Eastern bluebirds and a cowbird (too much haze in the air to get a good snapshot).

The spring flowers are gone by, the summer flowers are full of buds but no blooms yet, and then there is the rose thistle showing pink by the path. Some think of it as a noxious weed, ready to prick you if you come too close. I think it is just trying to defend itself from greedy hands that want to pick it for its color.

Out the Back Gate

Sometimes I get so focused on the big things - clouds, pastures, sunsets - I forget to look for the small things.

A dandelion outside the back gate.

Franklinville Manufacturing Company

Franklinville is a tiny little village about 25 miles south of Greensboro and the home of  the second textile mill to be chartered by the state of North Carolina Legislature. The Franklinville Manufacturing Company received this charter in 1838. The picture of the mill is probably from the 1890's when it was at the height of its manufacturing capabilities.

The textile industry has long left North Carolina and the South for overseas locations. I took pictures of the former Proximity Mill here in Greensboro which stands empty and abandoned since the late 1970's. Franklinville Manufacturing Company went out of business with the death of the owner, John Clark, in 1969. The property was bought with the intention of turning it into a museum tracing the history of the industry in the North Carolina Piedmont, specifically along the Deep River corridor. Unfortunately it was never brought to fruition and most of the mill was torched by arsonists last year. Today it looks like this:

A really good history of this mill can be read here. More of our history now lost forever.

Sunset Sunday

Finally the weather has cleared and we are now getting those sunny days. Of course, for Greensboro in May that means we skip the rest of the spring and go straight into summer with 90 degree days forecasted for all next week.

This snapshot was taken behind Canterbury School on Old Lake Jeanette Road. Canterbury School is one of our many private schools here in Guilford County and is under the auspices of the Episcopal Church. It has a chapel that dwarfs all the other buildings around it. Someday I must take a picture of the chapel's faux Gothic architecture to show how it sticks out like a sore thumb in relation to the other buildings on campus.

You can find Sunset Sundays over at Scott Law Photography. I'm doing this with Anyes at Faraway in the Sunshine as an ongoing project.

Black and White Starling

One thing these overcast skies will do is drain all the color out of your color photographs so you have a black and white snapshot without even converting it in PhotoShop.

This an European Starling on a power line, a better snapshot to post than the one I took yesterday of the Turkey Vulture that sat on a light pole at the entrance of my townhouse cul de sac. Now that was an unusual sight as vultures generally don't venture into our urban area, but perhaps there was a dead deer nearby that enticed him over to my home (yuck). Plus, I think I've done the vultures to death - so to speak.

Anyway, if the sun was out you would see that his feathers are now a glossy brown with  green and purplish iridescence. The white spots that he had back in January have long since worn off.

Will We Ever See the Sun Shine Again?

Going on a week and a half of rainy weather. This is from a snapshot taken last month when we actually had days that were sunshiny. I'm despairing of ever seeing sunshine again this month. The weather prediction is for more rain tomorrow, then Thursday and Friday partly sunny and then back to rain.

If we do get a break on Thursday and Friday, then I'll pack a lunch and head out to walk the trails and try for some interesting pictures after supper. I'm running out of good snapshots to post.

Along the Edge of the Road

My garden is betwixt and between right now - only the Stella del Oro daylilies are blooming. So it is just a mass of green leaves before the rest start to bloom in June. Nothing really interesting.

But if you look just along the edges of any road out in the country where it hasn't been sprayed for weeds or mown to the nubbins, you can find all sorts of blooms. I wish I knew the names (outside of the purple clover) so that I could tell you what they are. Guess I'm going to have to go to Amazon and buy a wildflower book.

Under the Influence of John Constable

I now understand what they mean by the golden light of sunset. I was in the northwest part of the county, an hour before sunset and was struck by the way the sun turned everything gold. It occurs infrequently (at least for me) and so I try to take advantage of it when I can.

And if a snapshot can said to be influenced by an artist, I have to say that this snapshot reminds me of John Constable's landscape paintings.

Sunset Sunday

It has been gray and overcast all week long. I'm grateful for the rain, but it makes it difficult to get a good sunset. And Blogger has been extremely uncooperative the end of the week . . .

I took this back the end of April. Near where I live is a large upscale neighborhood built around the banks of Lake Jeanette. The developers put in walking trails, gazebos and boat docks that as far as I could discern are not used by any of the people who live there. I stood on a boat dock one sunny evening and took this picture. It doesn't have the strong reds and yellows of other sunsets, but is colored with calming pastels.

I'm doing this as an ongoin project with Anyes over at Far Away in the Sunshine.

The Goat Lady Dairy, Part II

Here is the dinner we had at the dairy with a snapshot of each course:

On the Porch

Creamy Salmon Spread with Dill on Homemade Olive Oil Crackers

Cheese and Wine

Goat Lady Dairy Artisan Cheeses

Accompanied By Select Regional Wines

 Soup

Ginger Sweet Potato with Citrus and Yogurt

Salad

Mixed Green Salad with Herbed Goat Milk Dressing

Entree

Whey-Fed Pork and Pasture Raised Beef Meatloaf

Stuffed with Smoked Goat Cheese and Greens

on Creamy Thyme and Turnip Puree

Dessert

Fresh Strawberry and Balsamic Napoleons

with Sweet Wonton Skins and Mascarpone Cream

Dinner was served family-style and as there was just the two of us, we were seated at a table with a group of eight who were a family of doctors and dentists from Winston-Salem (I didn't feel comfortable to ask to take pictures of people whom I didn't know, so no pictures of our dinner mates).

Before every course Steve would stand up and give a little talk as to what they were serving for that particular course and where the ingredients came from - mostly from the farm. The meat - pork and beef - came from the neighborhood farms and the salmon for the appetizer was the only portion that was not local.

We had a wonderful evening and I came away wishing I could do what Ginnie Tate did, but I realize that I don't have the vision or even the energy to make a hobby into something that will remain long after I've gone. I wish that I could have met her; she must have been a hell of a woman.

The Goat Lady Dairy, Part I

Back in the early 1980's, Ginnie Tate, a nurse who worked at our largest hospital here in Greensboro was driving around the back roads of northern Randolph county looking for property where she could raise her two pet Nubian goats and have a small garden. She was certainly a sight to behold as her two goats were not in the bed of her truck, but sitting up front with her in the passenger seat. As she drove by the farms looking for that perfect piece of property, the people started talking about the goat lady.

When Ginnie found her farm, which was just going to be a hobby farm, she decided that the perfect name for it would be the Goat Lady Farm which later on evolved into the Goat Lady Dairy. The farm and dairy pride themselves as being a sustainable agricultural business.

I have been trying for several years to snag tickets to the dinners that the Goat Lady Dairy serves for six weeks in the spring and summer and then again for six weeks in the fall. They are difficult to get as so many people vie for them. As soon as the link on their website came up back in March to get reservations, I jumped on it immediately. This year I actually got tickets and TB and I went last Friday.

Ginnie died three years ago from ALS or Lou Gehrig's Disease, but her brother, Steve, along with his wife, Lee, and son, Nathan, continue Ginnie's vision of providing local food to the area.

Steve certainly is the disciple of sustainable farming. Before the dinner, he takes all the participants on a guided tour of the farm. They maintain a small herd of goats - 50 to 70 at a time - and hand raise those kids who will stay with the herd. This makes the goats so friendly that you feel that if allowed, they will sit in your lap like a dog.

More about the dairy and dinner tomorrow.

Chickens at the Dairy

I was going to write a long post about our dinner on Friday night at a local award-winning goat dairy, but Blogger and my Internet provider are conspiring against me. I'll try again Tuesday.

For today, a picture of the farm's chickens that help the owners by eating the bugs in the huge garden, aerate the soil while doing so, and they also supply eggs for the dinners and to sell at the farmers' market in Greensboro.

Stunning Sunday Skies

Another sky shot from my office parking lot this past Friday at noon. I think my co-workers are getting used to seeing me taking these snapshots whenever the sky looks interesting. I'll even go out during the workday if it looks like we will be getting another storm coming in and the clouds are starting to gather.

I'm doing this as an ongoing blogging project with Anyes over at Far Away in the Sunshine. We alternate Sundays doing sunsets and then fascinating sky snapshots. It is a lot of fun taking these photos.

Cinco de Mayo Rose

I'm a day late and a dollar short . . .

This is a Cinco de Mayo rose which I should have posted yesterday and then posted Kimesville Dam today. Cinco de Mayo completely fell off my radar until I walked into the office yesterday and saw that some of the cubicles in a near office had Cinco de Mayo ballons and posters.

The Cinco de Mayo was the 2009 All-American Rose Society winner. It was hybridized from Julia Child (a bright yellow rose) crossed with Topsy Turvey (bright red rose). I wish I could get a better picture of the reverse as the red fades to a bright yellow where the flower meets the stem.

I bought this at the seed and feed store at the end of the summer where they were practically giving away plants for free.

The Dam at Kimesville

The place where the Kimesville dam is located has the coolest name ever - the South Prong of Stinking Quarter Creek. It's about 25 miles south of Greensboro.

It was built in the late 1790's to provide water for Stafford Mill. The Centennial History of Alamance County says "Fire in 1947 destroyed the 150-year-old Stafford Mill at Kimesville, but it was reconstructed with the lumber from the first Alamance Cotton Mill which was more recently dismantled on Alamance Creek. A steel overshot wheel is used by the Stafford Mill to generate about twelve horsepower for the grinding of grain for local farmers."

I found a Wiki page (no, not Wikipedia, but a standalone page that someone set up about four years ago. If you aren't familiar with the term, Wiki stands for What I Know Is) of all the mills and dams that once stood along the lower Haw River and its tributaries which includes Stinking Quarter Creek. There were more than fifty mills in less than 75 miles which provided milling for grain, power for cotton and wool looms and even a couple which turned sugar cane into sugar for cooking. All the mills have since disappeared (although I did take some not-so-good snapshots of the remains of one near Cane Creek), but some of the dams still remain. Most of these are just ruins or a few stones.

Stafford Mill no longer stands, but the area is used by the locals as a park. 

The Venue

No, not a huge flock of turkeys. Rather, a huge flock of . . .

. . . Black vultures.

While we were on our day trip this past Saturday, I noticed a small group of people on the side of a back country road staring over at a large farm pond. As I drove by the pond, I saw that there were a huge flock of black vultures gathered along the edges of the pond.

Being the curious birding person, I turned around and pulled off the side of the road to see what had caused them to gather in such a huge group. What brought them all there was a large fish kill (fertilizer run-off from our past storms perhaps?). Absolutely stunk to high heavens, so I just jumped out of the car to snap a few pictures and then we left to find something a little more appetizing, like wildflowers.

Oh, a venue is what you call this large gathering of black vultures, just like a clowder of cats, murders of crows, etc.

For Purple Martins Majesty

About four years ago, I found a blogger by the name of Julie Zickefoose who was writing about birding and her life in southeast Ohio. Her blog (which was once daily, but due to life, kids and her writing has become three times a week) became the first thing that I read each morning.

Mostly I wanted to live her type of life; walking down dirt roads in Appalachian Ohio and writing about the plants, animals and birds that she saw along the way. It would have made a terrific change from working as a project coordinator for a national real estate developer (which is what I was doing four years ago).

And then the light bulb came on. I could do the exact same thing, although it would be after work or on the weekends when I had free time. There was tons of nature and fascinating sights all around; I just had to look a little more closely.

Down at Lake Brandt Marina, where I go to take pictures of sunsets or interesting cloud formations, are two poles hung with Purple Martin houses. These birds wouldn't be the type that would show up in my small garden as they require a large open area and nesting gourds on a 20-foot tall pole which I can't provide. They are quite used to humans and swirled overhead as I was taking pictures, singing what is called the "croak song".

Purple Martins are the largest of the North American swallows and nest only in human-supplied housing. In fact, scientists believe that if we stopped supplying their nests that they would soon disappear as a species.

The solid colored birds are the males and the ones with the gray bellies are, of course, the females. I need to go back early in the morning when the light is a little better to get snapshots that show the purple iridescence of the male.

(For my friends overseas, the title is a take-off on the stanza in America the Beautiful - "For purple mountains majesty, above the fruited plain.")

Also, yesterday's blog was eaten by Blogger again, so I had to reconstitute it for today.

Sunset Sunday

This was the leading edge of that monster storm that killed more than 340 people in the Deep South - Alabama, Mississippi and Georgia. I took this last Tuesday evening in the parking lot of the asphalt plant on Burgess Road, just east of the airport.

Reading over the reports of what happened, especially in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, I see how fortunate that we were here in Greensboro.

You can find Sunset Sundays over at Finding Another View. I'm doing this with Anyes at Far away in the Sunshine as an ongoing project.