Sneak Peek

I know it's going to be a week or so before I have to chance to write about our getaway weekend in the mountains...so here's a sneak peek.

Away

I was going to write a post tonight, but Miss Chef has surprised me with an anniversary weekend in the mountains.  So I just wanted to put something here to keep the blog alive.  But mostly I wanted to brag about what a wonderful wife I have.  :)

Paddle Report

Oh, yes, some of you have had snow already…but we’re unashamedly reveling in perfect fall weather.  When I noticed the leaves starting to turn, and read the weather report, I knew I had to get back on the Catawba to see Mother Nature’s dress-up show.

I hope you can stand another post about kayaking at the Whitewater Center.  This one has lots of pictures.  Because I was thinking of you, my bloggy audience.

They have loads and loads of kayaks there…I suspect they just invested in more.  At the far end of the dock, you can see another new option: 25-foot long canoes for 12 people.  Wow.  I wouldn’t want to try turning one of those around!

There were a few other kayakers around, but not nearly as many as on a hot July afternoon.



As you can see, my timing wasn’t quite right…either I arrived early to the show, or this isn’t going to be as good as last year’s.  It was still worth being out in the gorgeous weather, at any rate.

And there was still some color lurking about, here and there…











I even took a little video to share with you, as I slid beneath a colorful display (never mind the grating noise of my sliding over a submerged branch).

Now, here’s a little mystery I solved…as I wound my way back into my favorite creek, I heard what at first I took to be bikers on the trails high above me.  Then I realized the brisk breezes were shaking something out of the trees.  They rattled down through the branches and leaves below them, before shooting into the water with mysterious “ploop!” sounds.

Ooo, what could they be?  The only trees I could identify with the sun shining in my face were poplars, which, as far I knew, weren’t known for their nut production.  As I returned back out of the creek, I spotted one floating on the surface and paddled under the canopy to scoop it up.

They looked like pecans, but I’m not sure what they are.  (The water bottle is for reference.)  (Yes, those are my bare feet on either side.)



Then I spotted something entirely different, which at first I thought was a small apple.



I took a sniff, and instead of the sweet smell of fruit, I got the piney, pungent scent of black walnut.  They grow them big down here!

Then I spotted another one floating nearby and decided I should get out from under the trees before the next breeze came by.

Besides the changing of the leaves, the slide into fall was also marked by a distinct absence of turtles.  Normally, every other decent-sized log lounging in the water had a mini-party of reclining reptiles.  Today I saw only two, on two different sections of the stream.



I also saw the neighborhood great blue heron and osprey.



It was just a plain ol’ beautiful day to be alive.





I spent about two hours paddling up and down the river, finding out the cut-through in the island was too low to paddle, and wandering around the south end of the island (oh, there you are, Mr. Heron).  The hardest part of the whole thing is hauling my wet tushie out of the kayak and up the steep hill through the woods.

Once back onto the main grounds of the Whitewater Center, I took a break to watch some of the whitewater kayakers.

That’s what Miss Chef was not even close to being able to do.  You’ve got to respect those skills.

Tomorrow's big adventure is the Carolina Renaissance Festival, which we've gone to for the past 4 or 5 years.  I'll probably take pictures, but it might be awhile before I can post anything here.  (Of course, you could always check out this post from 2009.)

In the meantime, I think I'll go take some ibuprofen...my shoulder seems to be a bit, er, tired.

Ode to a Season

Growing up, I hated fall.

Perhaps that’s a bit strong.  Winter, I hated.  I grew up in the snow belt, on the eastern side of Lake Erie, from which the cold Canadian Clipper picked up moisture, to dump as snow in generous portions on our town.  I lived in a farmhouse built in 1847, before fiberglass insulation and double-paned windows.  No matter where you were in that house, you felt when the wind blew strong; the quality of light changed depending on the height of the snow outside.

No, by comparison, fall wasn’t deserving of hate, but I greeted it with disappointment and distrust.  Every year, such a beautiful season, explosively brilliant in the land of the sugar maple, inevitably invited in its companion, winter.  Each August I heard the first flock of honking Canada geese with a sense of panic, of not having finished up with summer and being unprepared for school buses and snow shovels.

Then I moved South.  South, to the land of summer that sits on your body, literally stunning you with its oppressive humidity.  I know some who love it and thrive in it, but I’ll always be a Yankee, bred from northern European stock and raised in an igloo the cold.  Since my first year in Mobile, over a decade ago, summer has become my hibernation time, chased indoors by a merciless sun I never could have imagined on the hottest July afternoon of my childhood.

Thus, fall and I started a new relationship.  There was still school (I was teaching in Mobile), but the end of summer vacation also meant the end of an imprisonment.  The windows would open, the azaleas would bloom again, and the patio furniture became useful once more.  Plants and lawns that had stoically maintained themselves through the blistering heat became lush again, as if they could relax and recover, after a long battle with an implacable enemy.

It is possible I’m reading too much into that.

Whatever the plants’ feelings—or lack thereof—I have yet to make it through a summer here in North Carolina without neglecting the garden, the yard and every outdoor chore imaginable.  This year was worse than ever.  Having decided I wouldn’t plant a summer garden because of our two-week absence in June, I still magically ended up with vines of tomatoes and beans.  And thanks to fortunate rainfalls and the help of some garden-friendly friends, the dang thing was in surprisingly good shape when we returned.

Things went downhill from there.  I think I never re-adjusted to “yes, we have a garden this summer,” and I would…well, I forgot for weeks at a time to go out there.  It didn’t help that we finally found a reliable lawn-mowing service.  Now nothing forces me into the backyard, other than helping Rosie find her toy when she’s left it behind the AC unit.

About three weeks ago, the temperature finally dropped below 90, and I slowly have emerged from the house.  Actually, it was Miss Chef who came out first, enjoying her oh-so-short break from teaching with a long day weeding some beds and replenishing them with fresh dirt.  I followed behind with some pansies and some bulbs we’d bought but never used last fall, planting 60 crocuses that may or may not emerge in the spring.

Oh, what will you look like in spring, I wonder?

I also delved into food gardening again, planting more mesclun seeds and—for Miss Chef—some kale seeds I didn’t know we had.  We can garden just about year-round here, and we patronize two farmers’ markets that boast local food all through the winter.

As I moved around the yard, greeting the trees and beds like friends coming back to school after a long vacation (“Wow, you’ve really put on some growth.  You look good!”), it seemed my neglected garden welcomed me with some surprises:



The beans said, “We forgive you for not watering us for months, because, in our little beany hearts, we just like to give!”

The raspberries said, “Yes, we know, we saw those blackberries give up all their fruit while you were gone.  We saved you a few delectable bites to remember summer by.”  In fact, this is a better harvest than we had this spring.  It’s still a tiny one by any measure, but the taste is incomparable.  Spotting these berries felt like finding treasure.



But there, across the yard, quietly inconspicuous, Miss Chef’s fig tree proudly held one last bold surprise:



The tree we planted last fall died over the winter, but sent up healthy new shoots very quickly.  It has set several fruits, but they seem to disappear before harvest.  Rabbits?  Deer?  Crumple-horned snorkacks?  Blind neglect? (I mean, how can you harvest a fig when you don’t look at the tree??)  Well, today was my lucky day.  In fact, I’m not sure if it’s ripe or just this side of rotten, but when Miss Chef comes home, I will present it to her as if it were a diamond.

Around here, that’s true love.

Another Rosie Video

It takes for-ever to load videos (we have a slow connection), so I have to keep them short.  But a little Rosie is better than no Rosie, I always say.