Saying "Goodbye" to a difficult year,

So Looking forward to a fresh start.

~~~

Photo taken this past summer

at Sarah P. Duke Gardens

Near Duke University

in Durham, NC

Reynolda Garden at Evening

 
Come on an evening stoll

at

Reynolda Gardens
 

~~~

This was the formal

garden and historic home 

of Katherine and RJ Reynolds



There's formal gardens,
 

a beautiful greenhouse,

pergolas and fountains.

Reynolda Gardens

is located in

Winston-Salem, NC.

~~~

Their walking trails

are part of the

NC Birding Trails.

Everyone is welcome to come and 

stroll though the gardens and 

visit the surrounding village.

~~~

The historic home has been turned 

into a Museum of American Art.

~~~

Playing in the Waterfall

My blog friend Dagmar, from Holland, asked me to play along and have some fun so here I go. Okay you guys, wanna join the fun? Here's what to do:

1. Open your first photo folder
2. Scroll to your 10th photo

3. Then post that exact photo with it's story

4. After you've done that tag 5 people to play along.

Here the story to go along with the photo:

On one of the last days of our summer vacation in Cashiers, NC or "Paradise", we loaded up the children and all went to spend an hour or two wading in the pool at the bottom of Silver Run Falls. It got it's name from the silvery or platinum sand that covers this whole area. It must be mica or some mineral that has been chipped away by the falls. There is a ledge right under the waterfall where you can stand and let the ice cold water tumble right over you. It is very cold water, even in the summer time.

The pool is rather large and has a walking path all the way around to the other side of the falls. If you climb over opposite the falls, you can see another fall above this one upstream.

It is a wonderful way to enjoy the best of North Carolina!

Here are my 5 tagees:

http://possumkitty.blogspot.com/
http://nenslens.blogspot.com/
http://ols1-ols1.blogspot.com/
http://jeanneklaver.blogspot.com/
http://danceofapaintedlady.blogspot.com/

Thanks so much for tagging me Dagmar!! This was fun!!

~~~

Watching the Birds Feed in the Snow!

Here is a little wren we spent Valentine's morning with at my parent's house, along with a suprise snow.

~~~

We woke up to the snow, and my dad and I spent atleast an hour roaming about the yard taking photos.

~~~

The gold finches below decided to join us also.

Can you see the finch in flight?

~~~

~

Finally Fall

Fall has finally come to our area in the

Piedmont of North Carolina

~~~

A pond near my home

showing vibrant colors

A

nearby

community

park

has

this

bright

red

tree

for

a

mascot!!

I never knew how much I loved trees until I started posting my favorite photos.

~~~

The bi-color leaves of red and green

or red and yellow are

gorgeous this year!!

~~~

~~

Happy Fall!!

When I started this blog a couple of months ago, I wanted to start at the center of who I was and work out. Sometimes that has been how things have flowed, and other times, it has not worked out that way. Such is life. The good and the bad have knocked me off course a couple of times.

I have yet to feature my youngest son or my husband. They are the ones who are constantly around me, but I still haven’t found the right inspiration to truly share them with my ever-expanding world.

My youngest son is shy, but there is so much to him, even if he doesn’t show it to everyone. He is an artist and an author, a hunter and an aspiring chef. I’m getting inspired already. My husband on the other hand, is so many things I just don’t know where to begin. You’ll see them soon.

Other things close to my heart are writing, traveling, hiking/kayaking - anything outdoors really, and photography, of course. We’ve spent much of the past two summers traveling to waterfalls, mountain ranges and lakes. What an enchanting life we really live.

Recently, we spent a whole week in a cabin on Lake Glenville with my husband’s family.

There was tubing, kayaking, hiking, gem mining, fishing, and best of all – waterfall viewing. This area of NC has literally hundreds of waterfalls, three of them on the Lake we stayed on.

My youngest son and I hiked almost every weekend last summer. All the photos we took inspired my original photoblog. Click here to take a peak at all our adventures.

Happy Father's Day!

Happy Father's Day!

Reid, you mean the world to us!

~~~

Happy Father's Day, Daddy!!

My dad on the left and my Granddad on the right

with fish caught at the Chesapeake Bay in 1969.

~~~

~~~~~~~~~

Rainy Nights

This year has been suprisingly wet in North Carolina. We are used to suffering through drought after drought, but this year we are having a surplus of rain.

Until recently, a whole day of watching it rain would send me into a deep state of misery or depression. I would run through the house and open every window blind to try to get more light to come into the house, in vain, of course.

Now it rains almost every evening, and on some days it rains 2 or 3 times a day. The rain is becoming more of a companion now. Only once or twice lately have we had a sunny day, and I find myself thinking it is odd and actually looking for a rain shower. As it warms up into the 80s now, we are having thunder storms every night after dinner.

Luckily, we have not had any flooding where we live, but I do cross a river everyday to go to the city. It looks like a red raging river of liguid clay.

The flowers are really loving it, though!! It has been the greenist year I can remember.

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Dining Al Fresco

We dined al fresco at The Loop tonight after a hard day's work. My job is in payroll and can get very tedious. The work seems to never end, and it always has to be done "right now". We have over 2600 employees and that makes for lots of changes every two weeks. I love working for the city, but would prefer to move to another deparment that wouldn't be so time sensitive. When I first got on at the city, it was in another department, and I was the office manager for someone who needed one really badly. It was fun to set everything up and make a work flow from scratch.

My husband, on the other hand, works much harder than I do. I use my mind, and he uses his mind, and his hands, and his back. He remoldels houses, and sometimes does disaster recovery projects. This is basically a new industry that has sprung up in America over the past few years. Whole companies have been started to immediately come out to a house that has burned, or has had storm damage or water damage, and clean up or demolish it, and then rebuild.

So, after a long, hard day for both of us, it was nice to sit out on the porch and have soup, salads, and grilled sandwiches in the evening breeze.

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