The Mountain Thymes

Foster's Flea Market in Ranger For those of you who have traveled to Murphy and taken the Blairsville Highway to drop by and see us, you drove past Foster's Flea Market on your right and Decker's on your left. I don't know the history of how this flea market came about, but I'm curious so will talk to the locals.  During our tourist season from spring to fall, this flea market attracts thousands of people on the weekends.  Cliff and I have only been once because we don't need anymore "stuff."  We have enuff stuff!  Down-sizing is cleansing.  But we still get a kick out of the number of people who flock to this flea market every weekend.  You can get a "Big Breakfast" for $3.99, fresh cantaloupe, corn in season and made on the premises "mountain furniture." This place is quite a draw.  Cliff's report: This was a very large, dangerous fire. When I arrived the structures were heavily involved with fire. Our problem here in rur...

Ginger Gold and Zestar apples and Stellar peaches just became available at Mercier's Orchard in Blue Ridge, GA.  Their fruity ciders, sweet potatoes, fresh garden vegetables, and fried apple tarts are quite a draw.  When we went Saturday the store was bustling with tourists and locals sampling freshly picked apples, fruit ciders, and their own relishes.  I could belly up to the bar and make a meal of the fruit and relish with crackers samples.        The drive to Mercier's is a nice ride....................mostly gentle rolling roads..........a nostalgic ride that takes me back when I was a little girl and Retta, Chip, and I all climbed into the back seat of the family car for our Sunday ride on the back roads to Bolton Orchards.  It really wasn't that far but my father drove so slowly and the trip took so long that I used to tell everyone we went to Boston to get our apples. Not that Cliff drives that slowly.   In the past couple of day...

Friday evening we attended the free performance in the open barn at the John Campbell Folk School.  Sparky and Rhonda Rucker took us through 400 years of American culture and folk history.  We were entertained with Appalachian music, railroad and slave songs, Civil War and cowboy music.  Sparky is a folklorist, historian, storyteller, and author who plays guitar, banjo, and spoons.  Rhonda plays banjo, piano, harmonica, and bones.  Their toe-tapping music was spiced with humor, history, and tall tales and an amusing rendition of Uncle Remus's Br'er Rabbit tales. The air was soupy with nary a breeze but the barn filled with an audience of all ages.  This performance enticed generations made up of great-grandparents down to the sleeping infants.  Seated near us was a grandfather with his teen grandson carving a design in his block of wood while waiting for Sparky and Rhonda to appear on stage. During the performance, children danced and the audience in...

Put a nickel in the jukebox (25 cents now), push E11, return to 1963 with a dripping wet glass of lemonade and relax to Nat King Cole's "Lazy Hazy Crazy Days of Summer."  Our mountain temperatures have been ranging from 64-71 degrees when I get up around 6:30, more often around 67 degrees.  Maxine and I open up and have our coffee on the porch steps but have to close up again by 9 when the air becomes a damp sponge.  At night the cicadas begin their cacophonous concert at dusk and continue throughout the night with their last few clicks as the sun comes up.  Our days are not as brutal as the rest of the country.  Temperatures rise well into the 90's but so far we have been lucky enough to avoid the triple digits.  Farms that depend solely on rain for irrigation are beginning to show the wear and tear as scorched leaves wilt under the punishing sun and the arid clay cracks further exposing roots to the elements.  Our tomato plants are looking tired but ...

Lauria, Jim, and Yuan Yuan landed safely around 9:30 last night and after getting through customs, caught some ZZZZZ's.  She called me at 7 this morning as they got ready to travel and reunite with their children. 

Lauria, Jim, and Yuan Yuan (Benjamin) are only hours from touching down at JFK.  On the way over to Hong Kong we tracked them on flightaware but it's not working for their flight home so I haven't been able to follow them.  Torture!!!  Pictures from their blog. their present guides past guide bitter sweet trip This may be their last time to Hong Kong.  I hope they can bring the children to see their homeland someday when they are older and let them see the people and their roots.   Cliff and I anxiously await their safe reunion with the children. Abby, Olivia, Hayden, Sofia, and Grant

John was in Chattanooga this week on business and drove out to spend some time with us.  It was so nice to cook up potato salad with our garden potatoes and feed him our summer squash.  I have to remind Cliff to take pictures but forgot to because we were so busy talking and time went so quickly.  Next time out or if he and Carolyn can visit together, we'll take pictures.  She's doing well.  Just had another scan and won't need to return to the doctors until December. Yesterday's weather was a surprising 74 degree high!   Cloudy all day with high percent of rain, which we didn't even get a drop, but the temperature was so pleasant that I was able to work in the garden without dripping.  Cliff and I turned over the soil and added some black cow manure for the fall planting.  Still have tomatoes, which are beginning to get orange, and I've picked two Romas.  Mary, from upper Boulder Creek Rd, brought me three zucchini, since I didn't pla...

Past couple of nights have stayed very humid and soupy after days of oppressive conditions.  At 6:15 this morning the sky held a rosy hue hidden in the mountain fog.  Max and I sat out on the porch with our coffee in 73-degree tranquil air and listened to the last of the cicadas wind down their night cacophony.  A pileated woodpecker in a distant tree announced his presence and a coyote pup yipped from its cave in the side of the mountain.  In the garden, cucumber vines are giving us a dozen small cukes each day and with each visit to the garden, I yield another batch of chiggers burrowed under my skin.  They don't bother Cliff but they seem to love me.  I'm not bothered by them, don't itch, but have little red raised blotches all over my torso.  Talked to Lauria and Jim last night.  Yuan Yuan is what  the nannies in the orphanage called Ben but I can't get the name to roll off my tongue as easily as Mom and Dad can.  Another day down ...

Today was registration day for Benjamin Agosto Ning Yuan Bush-Resko..........say that fast 5 times........ He is now officially and forever their son. Another piece of the multiple pages of paperwork completed.  Grant cooling off with an ice-cream. Can you guess whose tooth is about to fall out?   Sofia....... Hayden and Grant Such happy angelic children.........

Have a few pictures of Lauria, Jim, and Benjamin. Monday......receiving Ben Olivia Hayden Grant Sofia and her friend Abby The children are well and having a wonderful time.  Lauria and Jim talk to them each morning and evening.  Skype has been a wonderful tool during this separation time.  Children have been able to meet Ben and see their Mommy and Daddy daily until they can all be together again. 

We just got through talking to Lauria and Jim via skype.  It was 8:30 AM Monday (12 hr difference) and they were getting ready to leave their hotel, meet up with other adopting parents, and wait to receive Benjamin.  Even though they've been talking to their children via skype, the children miss them terribly and are homesick.  I'll be glad when this done and they are all back together again. 

Lauria and Jim flew out of JFK yesterday around 3:30 PM and I'm assuming landed safely in Hong Kong about 6 PM HK time, 6 AM our time.  We tracked their flight last night until we fell asleep at 10:30 PM and I awoke at 4:15 AM and tracked their flight until it said they landed.  I'm tired but heading to the gym so Edith can beat me up with her Boot Camp session from 9-10.  Did yoga yesterday with a new instructor.  Hard to get used to someone new.  Lauria and Jim will receive Ben from the adoption agency in a few days but stay to finalize the process and paperwork before returning home in two weeks.  We have skype set up so will be able to talk to them and also see and talk to the children at their caretaker's home.  Weather in Hong Kong is hot during both the days and nights. 

 Today is Love Your Basil Day according to Susan Wittig Albert, author of the China Bayles series.  Plant lots of basil..........and other herbs. Some twenty-eight, or so, years ago when we first moved to Deltona, FL, which was actually quiet and rural at that time,  I shopped at the Winn Dixie on Deltona Blvd, the only grocery store in all of Deltona.  I was in my own little world walking up and down unfamiliar aisles, pushing the cart and reading cereal boxes or checking prices when I spotted Ellen Veinotte, from Park Street in Hudson, at the other end of the aisle.  The feeling was surreal and I had to stop in my tracks and refocus.  Was I in Massachusetts.......no......Florida.  Ellen had moved from Hudson to Deltona and was teaching English at Galaxy Middle.  Neither of us had known the other moved to Florida.  Today we were at Cliff's favorite hole-in-the-wall eating place, Downtown Pizza, when a familiar face walked through the ...

Sunday we went to the Ocoee Gorge in Tennessee where the 1996 Summer Olympics had their rapids competition.  Being a big holiday weekend, there would be plenty of action to see all day. We had just arrived, were walking along the river to the bridge for a better view of the action, and the alarms sounded  followed immediately by the water rising announcement.  Damn #3 had been opened allowing more water and faster rapids for the rafters.  Swimming was not allowed at all Sunday and upon warning alerts, rafters docked along the sides on the rocks until the sudden flush of rising water stabilized.   On a busy day like Sunday, spotters or lifeguards stage on rocks watching for capsized rafts to throw them a lifeline. There are at least a dozen rafting sites along the river where you can travel with a guide and a group according to your level.   black bear caution sign before you walk one of the trails  too hot mid-day Sunday to begin t...