The Mountain Thymes

We surprisingly still have 3-5 hummingbirds (all females) a day competing for nectar.  Even with this continuous rain from Joaquin, they swoop and dart to and from feeders and flowers.  One day the rain gauge percher sat on the gauge with her head toward the sky, fluttering her wings, and just enjoying the drops of rain falling on her feathers.  We've noticed the little birds have bulked up on insects preparing for their impending departure south.  This is the first year I've seen three window collisions and heard multiple screen bumps.  Every 3-4 months I remove the old window alert decals and replace them with new decals as the old ones lose their effectiveness.  The decals do work so I couldn't figure why I kept finding a hummingbird on the porch floor.  I even climbed back up the ladder and added a few more decals to the large windows. The decals contain a component which brilliantly reflects ultraviolet sunlight that glows helping the  bir...

West-side of the house with fresh stain.  This shaded and covered side doesn't weather as quickly as the exposed sides but Cliff was so pleased with the rich crisp look of the rest of the house, he decided to stain this side, too.  We still have the whole porch floor to do on a day with no chance of wind and rain. Watching hummingbirds battle and relaxing on the porch. Made a wonderful vegetarian chili, enough to freeze for another meal. Too many ingredients to type into the post.  Lots of good spices and vegetables.  The recipe can be found on foodnetwork.com vegetarian chili, recipe courtesy of Emeril Lagasse.  Definitely worth it. Hummingbird migration time is coming closer, but for now we still see at least four females and one male terrorizing each other daily.  They're so intent on guarding their territory, that they chase each other flying just inches away from us, twittering and darting in and out of the porch rails.   The one-qu...

The Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, which dates back over 11, 000 years, is performing in Hayesville, NC all weekend.  This morning we visited the historic village and watched the Cherokee North Carolina's Oconaluftee Living History Village Performers dance three of their ritual story telling dances. Their dances narrated of picking corn and placing it in the woman's imaginary basket, about early buffalo (which were smaller than western buffalo and actually roamed in this area many years ago), and about ants scurrying around looking for sweets.  An elder demonstrated pottery making, children learned how to paint gourds, frybread was offered under the food tent, and there were many other demonstrations. We also toured the Clay County Old Jail Museum. I texted this shot to the VA grandchildren and told them my sentenced would be up when Papa needed his next meal prepared.                ...

Normally when I plan a post about my parents, it takes some time, thought and reflection, reading through old letters or news clippings, to come up in the direction I want to go.  My mother's letters to me are filed in six or seven photo-size boxes, cataloged from 1983 when I started saving them to the last letter she wrote to me on February 7, 2006.  Today was easy.  The first letter I picked up and read "spoke" to me and made me laugh.  This excerpt is exactly how she wrote it. Wednesday Morning October 24, 1990  54 degrees cloudy, rain ended Dear Betsy,        Not much doing, but I wanted to write anyway.  It rained hard all night.  Not cold though.  Yesterday I gave the living room a "fall" cleaning.  Not like I used to, of course, but the job is done anyway.      Just now finished scrubbing sink and toilet.  If I should die, you will have to come up from Fla. and clean for your father....

Posted a nice fall Pumpkin Mochi Teacake from my Yoga Journal.  It uses rice flour and unrefined coconut oil.  Rice flour gives the bread a light texture, no heavy bloaty feeling after eating too many pieces when it's still warm from the oven.  Recipes says it serves 15.  Fifteen gnomes maybe! I followed the recipe exactly the first time.  Today when I make two more to freeze, I'll add chopped walnuts, maybe dates or dried fruit.  The temperature is a crisp invigorating 46 this morning on our porch.  Predicted to reach 70 and be sunny all day. Last Tuesday we played tourist and drove to Gatlinburg, TN for the day.  It's a beautiful drive with lots of pullover parking for picture taking.  The drive will be very popular in October for the leaf-peepers.  Gatlinburg has an Octoberfest which I'd like to experience if Cliff feels like driving back there.               ...

I am so-o-o-o impressed and elated.   Rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!   The sound of our generator supplying power for our first real power outage.  I woke at 7 and sat outback on the covered porch with my coffee watching the hummingbirds fight over the feeders.  A Pileated woodpecker called out and a nuthatch talked incessantly while walking down the tree searching for insects in the bark.  The peaceful sound of morning was rudely interrupted by a crack followed by an exploding transformer.  Within seconds the generator started up to supply us with full power.  The best investment ever made.

Sharing some recent photos of my Virginia grandchildren.                          Equestrian Sofia  riding bareback.  What a feat! Hayden playing with a former chess Master at chess club.  Grant at the end of the table watching.  He's in the chess club, also.                                         Then it was Ben's turn to play. This past Friday was the last concert in the open barn.  I don't know why the barn concerts have ended so early.  We still many more pleasant evenings to come.  The new music and dance coordinator must have her reasons. Our last barn event for the season was some history and entertainment with the Sco...