A Couple of weeks at the Mountain House

October 13 - October 29

Clara was busy at Beaufort, so I decided to go to the Mountain House.  This was a week of reading, swimming, relaxing, and clearing the brush from the trees we cut down earlier this year.

I spent two days (one by myself and one with a helper - Horha) clearing the brush and burning it.  It looks a lot better.  Now we hope to get the Laurel and Rhododendron growing that have been covered up by the trees.  We also are discussing planting a few apple trees next Spring.  After all, it is Apple Mountain.  We don't want to let the big trees grow up and mess up the view from the house again.  When we built the house in 2001, all this area had been cleared, and now the trees had grown to 35+ feet and were starting to obstruct the view.

Wednesday night I went to Bill and Jan's in Asheville and spent the night.  We went to a fun Rotary Party at Highland Brewing.

Thursday I rode through our old neighborhood, Brookwood Forest in Arden.  Dave and Pat Marshall were in their yard, so I stopped and talked to them.  We ended up with some other neighbors dropping by, including Gary Everhardt and Chappie Gennett.  It was great to renew acquaintenances and get up to date.

Saturday morning we held our annual meeting for the Apple Mountain Association, then I left to go to Nashville for Dad's 97th birthday party.

Many mornings we found clouds in the valley

The leaves were beautiful

Sunrise

Sunset

Clara returned with me on Monday from Dad's birthday party.  We spent a nice quiet week on the mountain, doing a little yard maintenance, watching some old videos, enjoying some beautiful fall weather and beautiful sunsets.  We were able to spend the afternoons on the porch reading and enjoying the warm temperatures.

Bill and Jan came over Saturday and spent the night.

Sunday morning, Bill and I hiked the newly marked trails at The Orchard.  This is a real plus for The Orchard and provides a real nice 2 mile walk.

Sunday, the weather started changing.

The clouds start rolling in

Monday morning it was snowing and blowing

Winter came fast and furious

The trees were leaning in 70 mph winds.  This is our neighbors home.

Hurricane Sandy was making itself known off the coast, and a big cold front was moving in from the West.  By Sunday evening, the winds were starting to gust to over 50 mph and Monday morning were steady in the 60's and gusting to 77.  We decided that we might as well go back to Beaufort, where there were only tropical storm winds.

However, I had neglected to put up the storm panels on the big windows, so Monday morning while snowing and blowing 50+ mph, Clara and I were out on the porch trying to not get blown off the porch and get the panels on the lower windows.  There was no way we were going to get the panel on the big window up top.  For that I would need to climb on the roof.  Maybe next trip.

We finally got them on and this reminded us why we really did not want to spend the winter on the mountain.