Triumph Register of America National Rally, Little Switzerland, NC

Not everything I saw and photographed during my weekend trip to the mountains was barn quilts. There were antique cars, too!

The Blue Ridge Parkway is much loved by motorcyclists and antique car aficionados due to its 45 mph speed limit and twists and bends. I've never driven the parkway without seeing packs of middle aged Harley Davidson riders and restored cars ranging from Model A's of the 1930's to muscle cars of the 1970's.

I drove up to Little Switzerland just off the BRP to see if I could get some good landscape shots. And this is what I found - all sorts of restored Triumphs.

This guy saw me in the parking lot and asked me to take his photo. His car is the only one I know the age of; he was driving a 1959 Triumph.

This was the Triumph Register of America's annual rally. It is associated with the British TR Register in the UK and is the national association for TR2, 3, 3A, 3B, 4, and 4A owners. They came from all over. I saw license plates from the Midwestern states and Canada in the parking lot.

The cars were gorgeous, but my brother owned a TR-7 back in the 1970's and it spent more time in the shop being repaired than being driven. I always regarded Triumphs as more of a weekend car and you better keep the phone number of a towing company nearby.

Brown's Bow Tie

This is the newest barn quilt on the McDowell County Quilt Trail and one that I thought was a Dresden plate pattern. See how much I know; it is called Bow Tie.

Here is a longer blog post describing how this barn quilt block came into being:

http://mcdowellquilttrail.org/2012/06/21/3rd-quilt-block-on-mcdowell-rural-heritage-quilt-trail-browns-bow-tie/

Futures Dawning

Back from a weekend spent up in the Blue Ridge Mountains with plenty of pictures to post for this week. But I had to post this snapshot first as I have never seen anything quite like it.

I have posted in the past of snapshots that I have taken of the many barn quilts here in North Carolina. First started in western North Carolina in Mitchell and Avery Counties, the idea then spread throughout the mountain counties as a way to draw tourists to their areas. McDowell County joined the Quilt Trail of Western North Carolina back in 2009 with 16 quilt blocks which has grown to more than 100 quilts today.

One of the rules of joining the McDowell County quilt trail is that your quilt block cannot be similar to the others. I think this quilt block follows that rule to a T. I don't even think there is another barn quilt in the US that is comparable.

They call this "Futures Dawning". I would have called it Bear and Bull, but whatever. The building is home to a Raymond James Financial Advisers office and I guess they hope it draws more business to them.

Grey Catbird Fledgling

While I was sitting in the reception area at the emergency vet clinic, waiting on the results of the lab work on Miss Mouse (although I already knew the outcome), I listened to the receptionist field phone calls from several people who had found baby birds and wanted to know what to do with them.

I could hear the exasperation in her voice while she tried to convince her callers to just leave the babies alone, that this was all the process of them becoming adult birds.

"No, they are quite alright. The parents kick them out of the nest when they get big enough. At that point, they are called fledglings and they may spend the better part of a couple days on the ground. But don't worry, Mom and Dad birds are close by. No, don't touch them. No, don't pick them up. You might want to look this up in Wikipedia."

Yep, when all else fails, look it up in Wikipedia.

I had a close up view of this a few days prior to my rushed trip to the vet. The grey catbirds had kicked their fledgling out of the nest and he ended up in my small garden looking somewhat worse for the wear. Mom and Dad were close by, encouraging the youngster to try flying instead of hopping around the bushes squawking at the top of his lungs. He did manage to make it to the cast iron bell holder before I left to go back to work. I took this snapshot while he teetered on the hook pondering his next move.

He and his parents were gone by the next day. I read in the Smithsonian Magazine that almost 90% of grey catbird fledglings never make it past their first summer. I hope he was one of the 10% who actually do.

Miss Mouse

1995 -2012

Rest in peace, Miss Mouse. You were a wonderful companion for 17 years. . . 

McGavock Mansion, Fort Chiswell, Virginia

If you drive Interstate 77 north out of North Carolina into Virginia, you will see this mansion sitting off in a field at Fort Chiswell, Virginia. It was a marker for my trips back to Ohio to see family that I wanted to be sure to take the correct exit in order to keep driving north and not head south as I did on one trip where I found myself in Bristol, Tennessee.

For many years, the house sat forlorn and covered in ivy. I figured it had been abandoned by the owners who were unable to keep up with what must have been a huge money pit. Soon it would just disappear either under the ivy which would take it down by destroying the mortar holding the bricks or someone would buy it and develop it as a truck stop or strip shopping center.

On our way to Wytheville to see the giant pencil, I stopped at the Virginia Welcome Center to pick up some brochures. Flipping through one of the pamphlets, I found out that the Fort Chiswell mansion was open for tours on the weekend. What a coup and so after traveling through downtown Wytheville, I drove over to the mansion to take the tour.

What a treat it was. The owner bought the house for $215,000 back in 2002 at auction and has set about restoring it back to how it looked when the McGavock brothers built it in the 1840's. There is more than 10,000 square feet in the main house and about 2,000 square feet more in the kitchen dependency and smokehouse. He has decorated it with antique furniture (huge pieces of Eastlake) that he has found on his travels as practically none of the original furniture was left in the house unlike the furnishing at Liberty Hall in Kenansville. Here is a great article out of the Roanoke Times about the history and renovation of the place:  Fort Chiswell Mansion Becomes the Grandaddy of All Renovations.

The one feature of the mansion that catches your eye every time is the huge Palladium window on the third floor.

They are an exact copy of the Palladium windows that Thomas Jefferson designed for Pavilion IV at the University of Virginia.

The Big Pencil, Wytheville, Virginia

I'm told this is the biggest pencil in Virginia. My guess is this is the biggest pencil in the United States.

The pencil was made in the 1950's for Wytheville Office Supply store and as a counterpoint for a three-dimensional paint can that used to hang as signage outside a long-gone paint store. The original owner of the store wanted an eye-catching advertising gimmick to bring in customers when Main Street (which is US Highway 21) was the main route for travelers traveling from the northeastern states down to Florida.

The office supply store has moved several times since the 1950's and the pencil has always made the move with it. I wonder how many kids today are familiar with the No. 2 yellow pencil? They've stopped teaching cursive writing in schools and start keyboarding as young as kindergarten now. Outside of test papers where you have to fill in the correct oval, who uses pencils?

Friday's Thunderstorm

This past Friday, Greensboro was under a severe thunderstorm warning, a flash flood warning and, for a short period of time, a tornado watch.

Lake Brandt, down the road from me, is a great place to go and take snapshots of incoming storms (providing they are coming from the west and not the south). So down to the marina I went to get some photos before the storm broke.

I wasn't disappointed. The thunderheads rolled in, the winds picked up and when the thunder started I packed up my camera and went back home. It's not real smart to stand out on a pier when a thunderstorm comes in.

And it opened up and poured . . .  for 20 seconds. For all of the threats, the warning crawls on the TV, the threatening skies we got all of .2 inches of rain.

Waxing Gibbous

Taken from the patio just before sundown using just the extended zoom function of the Panasonic FZ150.

Wonder what it would've looked like if I used a telescope plus the camera?

Liberty Hall, Kenansville, North Carolina

The front entrance to Liberty Hall which used to be the side door before the street realignment

The once front entrance to Liberty Hall. Now the side door.

Sometimes I get really frustrated with people who say there is nothing to see or do in North Carolina. If they just take a little time to look, there are so many interesting places to go to and visit.

Liberty Hall in Kenansville, the county seat of Duplin County, is just one example. Built by the Kenans, who have been part of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill since it became the first public university in the United States (Kenan Stadium, Kenan-Flagler Business School, anyone?), the family estate has been a house museum since 1968, after a member of the Kenan family, Frank, deeded it to Duplin County and the family established an endowment to restore and maintain it.

From the North Carolina Historic Markers Society:

The first member of the Kenan family to live in America arrived in Wilmington from Ireland in 1736. Once established, Thomas Kenan married and had several children at his home on Turkey Branch in what is now Sampson County. Thomas’s son, James, inherited his father’s wealth and became an integral figure in the Colonial Assembly, Provincial Congress, Revolution, and North Carolina’s Constitutional Conventions. James Kenan lived at his father’s home, which he named “Liberty Hall” during the patriotic fever surrounding Independence. The first Kenan family home burned by 1800. Descendants of the first Kenans built another home, also called "Liberty Hall," in the present town of Kenansville in the early nineteenth century. Subsequent generations lived in the house, over the years making several architectural changes. In time the property passed down to Frank Kenan who donated it to the county in 1964. The house was then restored, furnished, and opened as a museum in 1968. 

The financial resources of the Kenan family long have been made available to the public through ongoing philanthropic gifts to the University of North Carolina and various Duplin County organizations, including "Liberty Hall." The Kenan family funded most of the restoration and furnishing of the house and its twelve outbuildings. The house features eleven rooms and two formal entrances, one of which is accentuated by a classically inspired portico. Many of the furnishings in the home can be traced to ownership by Kenan family members or are pieces similar to those owned by the family. 

Of particular note to the history of "Liberty Hall" was the marriage of Mary Lily Kenan to multi-millionaire Henry Flagler on August 24, 1901. Flagler’s immense fortune was gained from oil, railroads, and a multitude of other investments and he lavished much wealth on his bride, many years his junior. The Flaglers moved to Florida and, after Henry’s death in 1913, Mary remarried only to die a few years later. Through the actions of her estate, endowments were established at UNC to fund professorships and building campaigns. Furthermore, their winter home in Florida was subsequently transformed into the Flagler Museum. 

 The house is also stands out from other house museums in that more than 50% of the furnishings are original to the house. Amazing considering that the house stood empty and was used for storage from 1910 to 1964 when it was donated to the county.

And we were the only visitors to that house the two hours we were there the Saturday that we were at the beach . . .

Why My Posts are Hit and Miss

Down the road at my favorite meadow.

So far this week, it has been one thunderstorm after another and that affects my ability to blog. I have an aircard as my modem, which is nothing more than a cell phone in a tiny little case which inserts into my USB port.

And that means I am very, very dependent on having a good cell connection in order to upload my snapshots and write my blog posts. Thunderstorms put a kibosh on the connection being anything more than hit or miss.

Right now we are between storms - one is heading towards the coast and the next one is coming over the mountains heading our way. So a quick trip in the car to take this snapshot and a quick post to tell you why my posts have been mostly missing in action.

Northern Cardinals in My Small Garden

Not too bad of a snapshot - I took this standing at the back of my dining room, shooting through two sliding glass doors as the one side was open. Probably a good 30 feet from shooter to subject.

Northern Cardinals are the most frequent visitors to my bird feeder in my small garden.  It is monogamous in nature, staying with one mate for its entire life. If you see a male Cardinal at the feeder, its mate is not far away.

Cardinals are devoted mates. This male was actually feeding his female partner at my feeder. I wasn't able to snap the exact moment that he fed her, but they spent a considerable amount of time at the feeder with the female asking for and getting seeds from the male.

Fishing Trawlers, Holden Beach, North Carolina

A Sunday sunset on the Intercoastal Waterway at Holden Beach. While Holden Beach itself is a location for beach cottages and vacation places, the ICW is where the real work gets done as evidenced by the fishing trawlers tied up at the dock. This keeps the trawlers safe from ocean storms which the barrier islands do not. Some of these boats are commercial fishers while others take sports fishermen out far into the Atlantic to search for tuna, blue marlins, king mackeral and the like.

You can travel the Intercoastal Waterway all the way from Norfolk, Virginia to Key West, Florida, although you can continue to Maine using bays and canals, but that will bring you at times into the open ocean. Using the ICW is what most recreational boaters will do as it provides safe navigation.

Laughing Gull, Calabash, North Carolina

A gull living up to his name - Laughing Gull.

While I was at the beach all I saw were Laughing Gulls along with Brown Pelicans, Killdeer and Grackles, but no Herring Gulls which have been the usual gull at the coast in the past. And unlike Ring-billed Gulls which you can find far inland from the beach in such exotic locations as the Walmart parking lot, Laughing Gulls are only found on beaches up and down the East Coast.

From Cornell University's ornithology website: "The Laughing Gull’s species name is cachinnans, which is a 10-dollar word that comes from Latin and means to laugh heartily. Linguists believe that the word came about because it sounds like laughing—try saying it and see if you agree."

St. Peter and St. Paul Russian Orthodox Church, St. Helena, North Carolina

If you leave US Highway 117 which runs north out of Wilmington and take a lightly traveled side road in Pender County, you will come across St. Peter and St. Paul Russian Orthodox Church. This is the first Russian Orthodox Church built in North Carolina (an Eastern Orthodox church was built in Asheville in the late 1800's) and it was built by Ukrainian immigrants in 1932 who came to work on nearby vegetable farms.

Today the congregation is down to four (as of a 2007 article, so it may be that there are no congregants now) and the church has been put on a historic building endangered list.

But someone is taking care of at least the outside. Although the grass was a little long, the bushes were neatly trimmed and, as you can see, the building itself looks in good shape.

The cornerstone. I couldn't find a translation from the Russian to English, so I will just have to leave it as such without any comment.

Killdeer, Holden Beach, North Carolina

Can You See Him?

A Little Better Now?

Now you can see him. This is a little Killdeer, one of the smallest of the plovers who live at the coast, although sometimes they do come inland and have been found here in Piedmont North Carolina.

He was actually right at the edge of the driveway at the beach cottage when I came back. I had to wait for about five minutes for him to move along so I didn't end up driving over him (horrors!).

It's been a long, long time since I've seen a Killdeer. Gulls, yes. Brown pelicans, yes. And more grackles than I care to count.

Supermoon at Holden Beach, North Carolina

I'm at the beach this weekend, so there will be plenty of interesting snapshots for the coming week.

But I was really lucky to get a good shot of the Supermoon just before a strong thunderstorm came down from the north. This was taken from the porch of the beach cottage with the FZ150.

Occoneechee Speedway, Hillsborough, North Carolina

This may look like a walking trail through the North Carolina woods, but it is actually one of the first three NASCAR speedways from the inaugural season of 1949 and the only one that still remains. It is a one-mile oval dirt track that once hosted the likes of Lee Petty, Richard Petty, Junior Johnson and Joe Weatherly. It was such a famous racetrack for stock car racing that when Junior won in 1961, Jayne Mansfield handed him the trophy.

The raceway closed in 1968 and soon became overgrown and forgotten. The trees in the center weren't there during the 20 years that the speedway was in use, but now it has become heavily forested in the 40 years since its closure.

When the site was threatened with destruction in 2003 (the state wanted to run a major road through there), it was purchased by a consortium of private conservationists and public organizations and turned into a city park with the dirt track now a walking trail. But once or twice a year, for old times sake, they will run a race with historic stock cars.

A Replica of the Original Flag Stand

The Original Concrete Grandstand with the Officials' Booth

Another Snapshot of the Grandstand

Blooms in the Garden

The garden is starting to bloom. Well, at least the roses are blooming on the patio

Gruss an Aachen

Clotilde Soupert

Kim Rupert

But I never got a chance to prune them first as they started blooming the end of March. Does anyone know if it would damage them if I pruned them now or should I just wait and try again next year?

The daylilies should bloom next. The Stella del Oros are full of buds as are some of my tagless ones that came from Indiana. Perhaps next week I can post picture of those and the Oriental lilies that I planted just for the heck of it.

Gray Catbird

(Sorry for the long silence. Sick with a cold that I just couldn't shake).

I kept hearing a bird song the past few days that I hadn't heard before . I went out on the patio to see if I could find the bird who was singing this very long song (went on and on for about ten minutes without let up) and found him up in the crepe myrtle next door. I went back in the house to get my camera to take a picture to identify him, but was positive that he would be gone when I came back or would fly off as soon as I came close to take a snapshot.

Surprisingly, he didn't take off and in fact, flew to the fence while I kept taking photos and then on to the birdbath.

And I went off to the bird books to figure out what this bird was as I hadn't seen it before in the small garden. It is a Gray Catbird, a smaller cousin to the Northern Mockingbird who occasionally comes to my bird feeders. It tends to be quite shy and solitary which is why I hadn't seen it before.

There's a nest in the crepe myrtle next door, so I will probably have more visits from my new visitor.