Faison-William House, Faison, North Carolina

Just north of Magnolia is Faison, another town that grew up around the Wilmington-Weldon Railroad (which now through many and various mergers is CSX Transportation). Although it was originally settled by land grant in 1776, Faison's heydays were during the years of 1830 to the end of the nineteenth century.

Prior to the Civil War, many planters built large mansions in the town, earning it the sobriquet "The Acropolis of Society of Duplin County". One of those mansions is the one pictured above, the Faison-Williams House.

Today the house is nearly hidden from sight behind these huge magnolia trees. I drove up the driveway to get a better look at the house which looked neglected and abandoned (I figured I could leave long before the sheriff's deputies showed up to arrest me for trespassing).

What an odd sight. The front stairs had been repaired but there was an abandoned secretary's chair and contractor's light on the porch. The old brick piers holding up the porch have been replaced in places with concrete blocks (ugly). When you look through the front door and windows, the inside has been gutted to the studs and drywall lies piled on the floor. If you click on this link, it will take you to the North Carolina State University Digital Library and photos of the interior which were taken in 2005. Six years later, it still looks the same.

A little digging around the Internet brought just one comment on a genealogy site from the guy who bought it in 1999. In 2001 he wrote that he and his wife were renovating it and planning on turning it into a bed and breakfast. It looks as though they gave up on the renovation shortly after posting that comment.

And doing a little more digging to find the owner's name, it turns out that he ran for town commissioner twice and state senate once and was roundly defeated for all three races. Think people were upset by how he's left this once proud mansion to fall into ruin?

Old Store, Magnolia, NC

While I was trying to find another historic house in Magnolia, I ran across this boarded-up and abandoned store. It's not in my books, not on the Internet. I wonder what it's history is.

A close-up of its decorative embellishment in the gable of the roof.

Magnolia Academy, Magnolia, North Carolina

I've stopped driving the interstate highways as much as possible during my weekend day trips. For one, it is mind numbing to drive and see nothing but four (or six lanes) of asphalt mile after mile. Secondly, it takes me away from the small towns and villages where there is always something new to see.

Magnolia, North Carolina is one of those tiny villages with something unusual to see. It sits along US Highway 117 which parallels Interstate 40. And since I-40 siphons off all the traffic, it made for a pleasurable drive to Duplin County and through the towns that sprang up along the Wilmington-Weldon Railroad back in the 1840's.

Magnolia was once the largest town in the county and the center of North Carolina bulb producers and exporters back before the Civil War. Today it has around 900 people living here.

Above is a picture of Magnolia Academy which was built as a private school in 1858. When I saw a picture of it on Built Heritage North Carolina, it looked as though a strong wind would blow it down completely (if you click on the link above, it will take you to the interior photos of the academy).

But when I finally found it, it appeared that someone had moved in (see the window with the air conditioner in the picture below) and had done a little, not a whole lot, of renovation to the building.

Sunset Sunday

A last sunset on the Intercoastal Waterway at Holden Beach. This time I didn't hold up traffic to take it. There is a public dock under the ICW bridge where the locals gather to fish and trade tall fish tales. They were gracious enough to share the dock with me while I took sunset snapshots.

I was  so fortunate to have a week where every single day was sunny and warm. Great weather for a vacation!

I'm doing this in conjunction with Anyes over at Far Away in the Sunshine. Go see her beautiful sunset.

Birdwatching on the Masonboro Sound

This morning I drove up to Wrightsville Beach to take a birding tour of the intercoastal waters given by the Cape Fear Naturalist. The nice thing about going on vacation in October is that tour groups tend to be really small. In fact, this one was so small there was another tourist, the boat captain, the tour biologist and myself.

I wasn't sure that I could get anything decent in the way of a snapshot as the pontoon boat was rocking and rolling in the swells and wakes and I just have a bridge camera, not a DSLR with all the options and gadgets.

But a lot of the pictures turned out well. Here is a close up of the terns on the sandbar above:

The ones with the black heads are Caspian Terns and the ones with the wedge of gray are Royal Terns (along with a scattering of gulls).

And what happens when you get too close to a sandbar and set everyone off:

Brown Pelicans, Royal and Caspian Terns (in the air), Common Terns, Black Skimmers (the ones with black wings), and gulls of some type.

It was a terrific adventure and made me wish for Swarovski binoculars and a DSLR with a huge telephoto lens.

Commuting on the Southport Ferry

One thing you can say about the North Carolina Ferry system is that they are strictly utilitarian and cheap. It only costs $5 per car to take this from Southport to Fort Fisher. I imagine during the summer and high season for tourists, that this is generally packed with cars, not the handful you see here.

But there are always freeloaders who sneak on after the ferry has set sail:

Common Grackle

First Summer Herring Gull Juvenile

Price's Creek Lighthouse

Yesterday I decided to take the ferry from Southport to Fort Fisher and the beaches at the very south part of Wilmington.

As the ferry pulled out of the dock, I turned and looked back and saw this small abandoned lighthouse. I took some snapshots and then went on to the other beaches in search of interesting photos and shells.

When I got back to the beach house last night, I did a little research and found out that this small lighthouse is called Price's Creek Lighthouse and was built in 1849 as one of eight paired lighthouses to guide boats down the Cape Fear River. This is actually the smaller of the pair as a taller light was built behind it. According to what I read on the Internet, ship's captains positioned their vessels so that the taller light appeared directly behind the shorter one. By doing this, their ships would be safely in the middle of the Cape Fear River.

Their heyday lasted until the end of the Civil War when they were abandoned to the weather and scavengers. This is the only one left and now lies inaccessible on private property.

Looking Down the Intercoastal Waterway.

Many years ago when my family first started coming to the North Carolina seashore (over 45 years now), the only bridges to the coastal islands over the Intercoastal Waterway where either drawbridges or swing bridges. I could remember many times during our summer excursions back to our cottage where we had to sit in idling traffic while the bridges had opened to allow boat traffic down the ICW. For some beaches like Sunset Beach, the only bridge connecting it to the mainland was not only a swing bridge, but a one-lane bridge meaning traffic had to wait for the other lane to clear.

Some years back, someone in state government finally got a clue that trying to evacuate these hugely populated islands for a hurricane was going to prove to be a nightmare situation with this little bridges and so they started building mammoth concrete bridges over the ICW to replace these now outmoded asphalt and wood ones.

This is the evening view from the bridge from the mainland to Holden Beach over the Intercoastal Waterway. It is not one of my better snapshots as I had to stop at the top of the bridge, roll down the car window and take a quick shot while I held up traffic behind me. But at least they were patient for that minute - no laying on of car horns and no sheriff involved.

Buckner Hill Plantation, Faison, NC

I know what you're thinking. I went to the beach for vacation, so where are the beach snapshots?

No beach for my Sunday travels - rather away from the beach in search of historic buildings that are too far from Greensboro for a day trip. In fact, I had this specific building on my list for quite a long time and now that I was within driving distance, off I went.

For those of you who saw The Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood back in 2002, this house may look familiar. It portrayed Pecan Grove, the Walker family's home place in Louisiana. It is actually Buckner Hill Plantation outside of Faison, NC - many, many miles from Louisiana.

It is one of the largest plantation homes in North Carolina and was built by skilled slaves owned by Dr. Buckner Hill in the 1850's. The floor plan is that of a cruciform with twelve  foot wide halls bisecting both floors. When the weather becomes too hot for the family, the doors and windows are opened and the interior halls become interior porches. The large intersection of the hallways was also used by the original family members as a ballroom.

I saw the owner trimming his hedge out back, stopped and asked if I could come onto the property to take pictures of the front of the house. He's probably quite used to sightseers coming by and was very gracious and allowed me to drive up the driveway and take all the pictures I wanted. 

Stunning Sunday Sky

I can't believe I have gone a whole week without posting, but sometimes life and work get in the way. I'll have lots and lots of posts this week as I am on vacation down at the beach. The weather forecast says every day will be sunny and warm, so lots of opportunities for snapshots.

Today's photo is of the sky after one of our thunderstorms from last week finally ended and the sun came out that morning.

I'm doing this with Anyes over at Far Away in the Sunshine. I may miss a week of blogging, but I won't miss a Sunday sky or sunset.

Storm Front

After I finished taking sunset photos at my favorite meadow, I drove back to the Lunsford Richardson farm on Plainfield Road to catch the after-sunset clouds, plus the clouds from the storm coming from the south.

For those who think the only dramatic storm clouds can be found in the Midwest, I think our skies prove otherwise.

Sunset Sunday

This week has brought us almost three inches of rain and according to the forecasters, it will continue to rain through the coming week. Great for our drought stricken county; not so great for my Internet connection which has a tendency to disappear when the rain and wind pick up. So this will be a short and quick post.

This was yesterday evening as one rainstorm was leaving and another was heading towards us from the south. I tried to capture, but couldn't, the rays of sunlight that had glimpses of green and purple in them. I shot this in 16:9 aspect ratio after reading that it was the best setting for landscapes. Gives it a bit of a panoramic feel.

As always on Sunday I am doing this in tandem with Anyes at Far Away in the Sunshine. Wonder what her evenings brought her?

Clotilde Soupert

Our summer ended with Greensboro more than six inches of rainfall in the deficit column. My small garden took the brunt despite all the evenings spent hand watering the daylilies; perhaps they will return next year. The antique roses from Oregon and Texas fared little better between the extreme heat and the nonstop black spot.

And then this week it started to rain . . . and rain . . . and rain with more rain to come through the end of next week. Unfortunately our ground is rock hard dry. Most of the rain will run off and we are under a flood watch until late Friday evening.

It has also affected my ability to upload to Blogger as my internet connection has ground to a very slow walk (I have an air card which seems to be affected by all this rain and wind).

But the roses love this and the cooler weather and are blooming like crazy for a second go-round. This particular beauty is called Clotilde Soupert and is from Antique Rose Emporium in Brenham, Texas.

Stunning Sunday Skies

Anyes over at Far Away in the Sunshine (and my partner on Sundays) posted photos earlier this week that she took out of a plane's window during a vacation trip she and her family took. This got me inspired and while I haven't taken any trips on a plane lately, the clouds coming in ahead of a strong cold front were the exact opposite of her beautiful blue skies and white fluffy clouds. Again, this is one of my standing in the parking lot shots on the small camera where I can't see the LCD screen while I'm taking the photo.

And this wasn't taken in black and white; the sky was exactly as you see it this past Thursday.

Go and see what Anyes saw this week up in the skies on the west coast of Canada. I bet it was really amazing.

Edwards-Franklin House, Lowgap, NC

Our last stop before going home was the Edwards-Franklin House outside of Mount Airy. It was built in 1799 by state senator Gideon Edwards and then remodeled in 1820 by his son-in-law, Meshack Franklin, who was a US Representative prior to the Civil War.

While I didn't have before pictures of the Richmond Hill house, I was able to find a before picture of this house before it was restored by the Surry County Historical Society in 1973.

And how it looks today:

And while I read on their website that the house would be open that weekend, it wasn't to my great disappointment. Oh, well, we'll go back to the mountains and try again some other weekend.

Kapp's Mill, Dobson, NC

I think of these Saturday day trips as the equivalent of a photographer's scavenger hunt, especially when we are doing specific trips, i.e., barn quilts, scenic byways, historic architecture.

After we left Rockford, the scenic byway took us towards the Surry county seat of Dobson. Taking this particular route took us right by Kapp's Mill, a former gristmill on the Mitchell River. The mill was established in the 1820's and was operated by the Kapp family until the mid-20th century. According to Catherine Bisher's book on North Carolina historic architecture, there was also a general store (now converted to a private family residence), post office and blacksmith shop next to the mill. This is still considered on the best-preserved rural industrial complexes in the state.

The person who owns this property is trying to sell it and the original farmhouse, so if you would like to see the interior of the mill and the beautifully restored house, check out the photographs on Flickr.

Sigh. If I only had $399,000 and was independently wealthy (the commute to my job in Greensboro would be a killer) . . .

Rockford Memorial Methodist Church, Rockford, NC

After we finished at Richmond Hill Law School, back to the scenic byway and through the historic town of Rockford. We had visited the town back in the winter and I hadn't planned to stop.

But I glanced to my left and saw that the door to Rockford Memorial Methodist Church was wide open and being thwarted in last Saturday's attempt to go inside any of those churches, made an u-turn and pulled into the parking lot.

A glance through the door showed a surprise at the back of the sanctuary.

A life-size fresco of Jesus. This is titled "Come Unto Me" and was created by Tony Griffin in 1989. Tony is the brother-in-law of Ben Long, who is a world-renown fresco artist. For those who live here, Ben's most famous work is at the Episcopal Church in Glendale Springs.

The church was closed in 1967 by the North Carolina Methodist Conference as an active congregation. However, it is open for tourists who come to Rockford and couples who want to use it for their weddings.

Richmond Hill Law School, Yadkin County, NC

Another Saturday and another day trip. This time we decided to travel on the newest North Carolina Scenic Byway, the  Yadkin Valley Scenic Byway which would take us through the area that was designated an American Viticultural Area in 2003 - the first designation of its kind for the state.

I wasn't planning on stopping at any of the vineyards on Saturday; I was just out for a drive and some good snapshots.

But, as with last Saturday, we found some interesting NC historic sites with stories of people and events I had never heard of before (the fact that I went to school in Ohio and learned Ohio state history might have had something to do with that lack of knowledge).

This is Richmond Hill, the home of Richmond Pearson who was elected to the state supreme court in 1847 and later became the chief justice of the state supreme court. He established a private law school here at this site in 1848 which remained open until his death in 1878. Over the years, he taught more than a thousand students, some of whom went on to the state supreme court, three who became governors of North Carolina and three others who became United States Representatives.

The house is only open on the third Sunday of the month from April until October, so unless we can go in October we won't be able to tour it until next spring. From the pictures on the outdoor plaque, the house was a total ruin when it was bought by the Historic Richmond Hill Law School Commission. Little remained intact - the roof had caved in, the plaster had fallen off the lathes and the windows were all broken. It took the commission close to 30 years to buy and then completely restore the house. It now is the centerpiece of a 30 acre park and nature center.

And yet, despite all this history, beautiful setting, picnic shelters, walking trails, etc., we were the only people in the park.

Sunset Sunday

Once again, it's Sunset Sunday and back to the meadow down the road from my house. I think these clouds may be the end of Tropical Storm Lee as it made its way very slowly from the Gulf of Mexico to the Northeast US. This storm added to the misery of those inhabitants in Virginia, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and New York who had already been pounded by the remnants of Hurricane Irene, but for us here in North Carolina, Lee just brought us some much needed rain and a gorgeous sunset.

Go and check out Anyes's sunset over at Far Away in the Sunshine. No hurricanes or tropical storms there, but she always finds beautiful skies to share.

St. James Episcopal Church, Kittrell, NC

And in downtown Kittrell (Plank Chapel United Methodist was outside of town), we found this tiny little church called St. James Episcopal Church.

A little history about Kittrell and this tiny chapel from the NC Office of Archives and History (NCOAH):

Kittrell’s Springs, 34 miles north of Raleigh in Vance County, was the site of North Carolina’s first summer resort—a resort that became a makeshift Confederate hospital during the Civil War. All that remains of the site is a cemetery, the final resting place of 54 Confederate soldiers buried between 1864 and 1865.

The springs, about a quarter of a mile west of Kittrell, were discovered in the 1840s. The mineral water quickly developed a reputation for therapeutic healing powers and soon cabins and tents had grown up in the vicinity. “Some who drank it found their health improved,” said Oscar Blacknall, son of springs co-owner, Charles C. Blacknall. “It grew gradually into a rural summer retreat.”

Charles Blacknall, along with George Blacknall and Thomas Blacknall, purchased Kittrell’s Springs and the surrounding land in 1858. The cabins were demolished and replaced with a three-story hotel that included well-ventilated rooms, a dining hall, a spacious ballroom, and long building-length porches on every floor. Several adjacent buildings were erected that featured a bowling alley, billiard tables, and a barroom.

Kittrell Springs Hotel opened in 1860. Unlike the Glass House, the Blacknalls’s resort catered exclusively to a wealthy southern clientele. The Glass House was a haven for northerners looking for mild weather and good hunting during the colder months. Most of Kittrell Springs Hotel’s business derived from affluent neighbors in nearby counties making healthful pilgrimages. Often rooms would be crowded with four to eight guests at a time. It is believed that the hotel housed 500 guests at a time in 1860.  

With the onset of the war in 1861, Charles Blacknall returned to Kittrell to organize troops and prepare for what he viewed as an “unholy war, in which we have been forced by our unnatural enemies of the North.” Blacknall trained his company, the Dixie Guards, who later became the Granville Rifles, in Kittrell’s Springs. After enlisting, Blacknall was appointed captain of the Granville Rifles, which then became Company G of the 23rd Regiment of North Carolina troops. 

 George Blacknall remained at home and managed the resort, which continued to be a profitable business until 1864. However, as the war moved closer to North Carolina with the Petersburg campaign in southern Virginia, Confederate casualties continued to shift towards the rear. Given that Kittrell’s Springs was on the Raleigh and Gaston Railroad line, the Confederate government pressured the Kittrell Springs Hotel into becoming a hospital. 

 The conversion of the resort to General Hospital Number One was first announced in the Raleigh Daily Confederate on June 18, 1864: “This popular place of summer resort is now open for the reception of our sick and wounded soldiers—as we have turned it over to the government for their benefit.” The hospital began admitting patients in June 1864. By the third week 223 soldiers had been admitted. Reverend Matthias M. Marshall, an Episcopal priest from the nearby St. James Episcopal Church, worked as the hospital chaplain and saw over religious services and the deaths of patients in the hospital.

 Only 17 percent of patients at the hospital suffered from war wounds. The rest suffered from various fevers, diseases and illnesses. Estimates are that about 70 soldiers died there. From the known causes of death of the 54 buried nearby, almost half died of typhoid fever and pneumonia. Only seven percent of the buried died by gunshot wounds. 

The hotel burned to the ground in 1884 and the town was bypassed in the late 1890's by the railroad, all of which led to the near extinction of the town. 

The church itself looked abandoned with its paint peeling off the sides in large pieces and the grass on the grounds nearly knee-high. But as I got out and walked around, I saw that the roof was new as was the central air-conditioning unit. Through the window in the back I could also see a cross on the altar, so the church must be used sometimes. But outside of the above information from NCOAH and a mention of it being listed on the National Register of Historic Places, that's it. As far as I can tell, no active congregation, no website, but someone is making sure that it doesn't fall to pieces as shown by the new roof and central air conditioning.

Plank Chapel United Methodist Church, Kittrell, NC

Saturday turned into taking church snapshots day. As we drove through the back roads of eastern North Carolina we stumbled upon some beautiful churches along with the one church that I was specifically looking for.

This is Plank Chapel United Methodist Church in Kittrell outside of Henderson. According to the church's history, the first meeting house was founded by Roger Jones in the 1780's. That meeting house was replaced by several more churches until this current sanctuary was built in 1900. The church's website says this was the first church building with a steeple. The copper cross on the steeple comes from a former whiskey still!

Plank Chapel as it looked in 1909

St John's Episcopal Church, Williamsboro, NC

This past Saturday I decided to find the oldest church in North Carolina which is fortunately within driving distance of Greensboro. Actually I was looking for the oldest frame church in North Carolina as the oldest stone church exists on the coast, St. Thomas's Episcopal Church in Bath, far out of range of a day trip.

The oldest frame church is St. John's Episcopal Church, located near Williamsboro in Vance County. It was built in 1771, refurbished in 1821 after falling into disrepair and then restored to its original condition in the 1950's. It is no longer used for regular church services, but is open on Sundays throughout the summer and for special occasions as warranted by the parish.

As I missed out on the summer Sunday openings, I just wandered around the property admiring the building and looking at the tombstones in the small graveyard. The earliest burials were in the 1790's (of the tombstones that were readable) and the last one was in the 1990's.

I also took a picture of the hand-blown glass in the windows (original or replication? I have no idea) from the north side of the church. You can see through the windows the flags of the colonial era, albeit backwards.

Stunning Sunday's Skies

I feel as though I have been shirking my blogging duties - posting very little in the way of anything interesting in the past few weeks. Mostly it has been due to the fact that TB and I haven't been able to do a Saturday day trip in a long while and I'm not comfortable driving my poor old minivan to out of the way places that generally don't have cell phone reception and require a long walk back to civilization. But this week I will have some interesting places to post about as we did an extremely long day trip to the eastern part of the North Carolina Piedmont.

But today is Stunning Skies Sunday and with lots of different weather fronts coming through recently (and it looks like more predicted for this week with Tropical Storm Lee making a soggy trip in our direction and Hurricane Katia coming in the direction of the North Carolina Outer Banks), I had a lot of amazing skies to choose from. I think the owners of this field have gotten used to seeing me standing in the middle of it taking snapshots of the skies and so haven't (at least yet) called the sheriff on me.

I'm doing this with Anyes over at Faraway in the Sunshine. Go see what stunning skies she found for today.

No Such Thing as "Squirrel Proof"

If you have fed birds for any length of time, you will soon realize that there is no such thing as a squirrel-proof feeder. I'm speaking from years of experience in that area;  even the extremely expensive pagoda-shaped, squirrel-proof feeder that I bought from Wild Birds Unlimited was soon shredded to pieces by their tiny sharp teeth. From that point on, I've always made a point to buy inexpensive feeders for the winter and I then throw them out as soon as spring starts.

I don't begrudge the squirrels their food as long as they leave some for the birds. And I didn't have any hopes of a $10 "squirrel-proof" feeder even coming close to truth-in-advertising. But really, did the squirrel have to be quite so blatant?

Sunset Sunday

Sunset on Friday down at the Lake Brandt Marina just a mile north of me. These were the first cloud bands from Hurricane Irene. It hit the North Carolina Outer Banks around 7 am Saturday morning which is over 280 miles away from Greensboro. The hurricane cloud coverage was more than 700 miles wide - wide enough to cover all of Europe.

It brought us nothing but some gusty winds and overcast skies. Not even one drop of rain which we desperately needed.

I'm doing these Sunday Sunsets in tandem with Anyes over at Faraway in the Sunshine. Bet she didn't have a hurricane to worry about.

Before the Hurricane

The calm before the storm? I went down the road to my favorite open field to take pictures of the clouds as Hurricane Irene churns closer to the North Carolina coast.

Right now there are just high wispy clouds coming from the east, which may or may not be precursors of the hurricane. Unless it takes a greater turn to the west, we will be outside of the impact area by about 75 miles. It will probably hit the Outer Banks as it sticks out the farthest into the Atlantic. Greensboro is about 300 miles from Cape Hatteras and the hurricane spreads out 200 miles from its eye.

But it will probably do great damage farther up the coast in New Jersey and New York. They haven't had a Category 3 hurricane since the 1940's and millions of people in the succeeding years have moved to the coastal area. Let's hope that it isn't as devastating as the forecasters have predicted today.

Bethel Baptist Church, Ellerbe, NC

After we left the Pee Dee National Wildlife Refuge, we drove over the back roads for a while and came upon this small country church, Bethel Baptist Church.

The architecture is more along the lines of churches in New England rather than those here in the South, so I did a little searching on the Internet to see if I could find any historical information on it. Nothing came up except a runner's blog. It turns out that the parking lot is used as a starting point for ultra-marathoners who run 50-miles at a stretch - my mind boggles at the length. The post is interesting so here is the link to it: The Bethel Hill Moonlight Boogie.

Pee Dee National Wildlife Refuge

We started out Saturday to go to a state historic site, but halfway down to the site we changed our minds (hot, sticky weather and no inclination to walk around in it) and headed farther south to the Pee Dee National Wildlife Refuge near Wadesboro. We had gone there two years ago in the fall when the colors were amazing and I thought a exploratory trip for fall snapshots was in order. We could stay in the car and mark out places to return in October.

Not as pretty as it is in the fall, but still an interesting drive

The Pee Dee National Wildlife Refuge started out in the 1950's as an impoundment at the Gaddy Farm where endangered Canada Geese overwintered. The US government bought the farm and surrounding acreage in the 1960's to provide habitat for migratory waterfowl. In the wintertime the refuge can host more than 10,000 Canada Geese and other ducks and geese, migratory songbirds, quail, wild turkeys and the local whitetail deer and black bears.

It was kind of eerie as we were the only people driving through the back of the refuge. I was a little concerned as we were out of cell phone range and if something happened to the car it would be a long walk back to a paved country road.

We stopped several times to take pictures of wildflowers, the Pee Dee river, cornfields that are planted just for the migrating waterfowl which are now burnt and brown and this butterfly in the middle of the road.

It is called a Red Spotted Purple. Not only is it the name of the butterfly, but an apt description of how it looks. S/he posed for me on the gravel refuge road and allowed me to take quite a few snapshots before s/he flew off into the woods.

Stunning Sunday Skies

Another Sunday's stunning skies found down the road from me at a field that offers great snapshot advantages since it is wide open, right next to the road and has absolutely no power lines to get in the way of the shot!

As always, you'll find another stunning sky over at my friend, Anyes' blog, Faraway in the Sunshine.

A Late Summer Evening at Lake Brandt

I'm not trying to make this an extension of the Weather Channel, but with the changing weather and all these strong fronts coming through, it makes for some pretty dramatic snapshots.

This is down at the Lake Brandt Marina, just a mile or so north of my house. For those who are not at all familiar with Greensboro, this is the second of our public water reservoirs. The first is Lake Higgins to the west, then Lake Brandt and finally our largest, Lake Townsend. The water flows from reservoir to reservoir in a stair-step fashion using gravity.

The city has made all three into city parks with walking and mountain biking trails circling the perimeters. You can also fish at all three (they are kept stocked and Lake Higgins has a fish hatchery) or rent canoes or kayaks. At Lake Townsend you can also rent a Sunfish sail boat if you wish. The only thing you cannot do is swim at the three lakes since it provides Greensboro with its drinking water.

Windmill, Ennis, NC

I have no idea why this snapshot seems crooked. I think it is because the shed sits at the back of a slope and so it seems off-kilter.

The last of the five barn quilts that we could find out of the 13 that we started out to find. This is called Windmill and again it is one of the smaller of the barn quilts. I should have zoomed out and shown the vegetable and flower garden in front of it. This is how I would love to live, up in the mountains with a large garden area.

Mammatus Clouds

I took  this one standing in a mown field about four miles from my house. This is one of the 162 snapshots that I took in two days of the clouds at sunset. There were just some fascinating formations caused by the very strong cold fronts coming from the Midwest.

This particular cloud formation is called mammatus which are associated with strong thunderstorms. For this particular evening we got the clouds but never got the storms.

Sunset Sunday

Finally! We seem to be breaking out of our string of unbearably hot weather - temperatures in the high 90's and orange haze from ozone trapped at the surface by the heat.

All these strong fronts coming through from the Midwest have brought evenings with interesting cloud formations. I spent two days chasing the sunset for an hour; driving from Lake Brandt Marina to a mown field to an abandoned housing development that was supposed to be built around a landing field. I guess they expected all those rich people would want to move 15 miles north of Greensboro to have a house with a hanger next to it. They built the landing strip, but never sold a single lot and the whole thing went into foreclosure and is owned by the Florida bank that loaned the developers the money. I keep wondering what they all were thinking. Actually I probably know. They thought they would make a killing on real estate like every one else did.

This shot was taken at the back of the development where the platted housing lots lie fallow. It was worth a drive way out in the countryside to get a sunset snapshot like this.

I'm doing this in conjunction with Anyes over at Far Away in the Sunshine. She always finds the most interesting sunsets there in Vancouver and British Columbia, Canada.

Pine Tree Barn Quilt, Ennis, NC

This barn quilt is appropriately called Pine Tree as it is on  a shed on a Christmas tree farm.

For those of you who live outside of North Carolina and buy a Fraser fir at a local Christmas tree lot or a grocery store, it likely came from Alleghany County or its neighboring counties, Watauga and Ashe. There is even a website for North Carolina Christmas Tree farmers which says that there are 1,600 growers producing an estimated 50 million Fraser fir Christmas trees growing on over 25,000 acres.  The North Carolina Christmas Tree Industry is ranked second in the nation in number of trees harvested.

Zach Galifianakis of The Hangover fame also has a farm somewhere there in the county. Actually I didn't know that until today when I was doing a quick look through Wikipedia, so we weren't even looking for Zach.

Dresden Flower Fan, Glade Valley, NC

The Dresden Flower Fan (or Dresden Plate, as it is also known) is probably one of the most recognizable of quilt patterns. This is one of the smaller barn quilts, 4x4, and the first one that we found. I spent time fruitlessly trying to find the first two which were supposed to be right off US Highway 21 south of Sparta, but when I almost pulled out in front of a speeding car, I quit that hunt and moved on.

The birds on the power line are barn swallows and there must have been close to fifty near this shed, swooping around our heads and squeaking their calls as they chased bugs on the wing. I wish I could've gotten better snapshots, but, true to their nature they didn't stay still for long and I couldn't get the camera to focus quick enough.

Handy Andy, Off the Blue Ridge Parkway, North Carolina

And you can have a barn quilt even if you don't have a barn. I found this quilt on a narrow gravel road off the Blue Ridge Parkway. The name of this particular pattern is Handy Andy.

Google Maps was able to locate this for me unlike eight others.