More Mountains and One More Quilt

Yesterday I shared a lot of pictures of our weekend in the North Carolina mountains. Today, I have a few more from our Sunday adventures. Above you see the little bridge over the creek that is our entrance to the Hall-McBrayer family compound. Hyannisport, move over! The driveway you see goes to my sister's home and one that her son built behind it. Take a right to get to Ricky and Mary's new home. To get to our place, hang a left at the bridge.



Then pass the pond and go up the hill.Look how tall the zinnias have grown behind our cabin! The tallest are my height, about 5'7". That mountain soil will grow anything super-size!
Thankfully, there is no hunting allowed on Sunday, so we were able to enjoy our ride in the Gator to the top of the mountain. Here is one of our favorite stopping places, overlooking many hills of Christmas tree farms. As we sat there, a nice breeze stirred up the leaves. It looked like it was raining golden leaves. I felt like I was in a Disney animated movie like Bambi. You can barely see the leaves tossing around in the air in the photos below.

While we were on the mountain, we retrieved the memory chip from the Stealth Cam near one of the feeders. It has been fun to see the raccoons, turkey, squirrels, and deer at the feeder- sometimes all together! This first picture was actually from last month.



Well, this time, there was finally a picture of Mr. Buck at the feeder. I hereby give him the World's Ugliest Antlers award. Maybe that ugly rack will prevent him from becoming a trophy on some hunter's wall. Charlie calls that antler sticking up a "cow horn." He has another antler laying right over his eye.

I had a wonderful surprise on Sunday afternoon. Our friends Art and Mary from college also have a mountain cabin about twenty miles from ours. Last weekend, Art was on a bicycle camping trip, and Mary brought her college roommate, Dottie, to the cabin for the weekend. Dottie and I were also close friends, bridesmaids in each other's weddings, in fact. She got married about ten years after I did. I'll never forget her wedding rehearsal. I was about two months pregnant with Dave, and during the long-winded preacher's blessing I keeled right over in a faint. After that they stuffed me with food all weekend to steady me up! Anyway, Mary and Dottie came over just before we left on Sunday afternoon. I gave her a quick Gator tour, and then rode home with her as far as Burlington so we could catch up with each other.


Okay, back home again. Here is the second of Teresa's quilts that I finished. It is very similar to the last one I posted, but it is slightly larger and has four-patches in some of the center squares. I used the same yellow thread and curvy swirls, but added a funky spiral design in the center squares.

This quilt looks good with A-Muse-ing Violette looking down from my wall, doesn't it!

That's it for today. I am excited that my granite counters and new sink are being installed this afternoon. I am more than ready after having no counters and no running water in the kitchen for the past week. Pictures tomorrow!