It seems that nowadays everybody (including yours truly) posts everything on facebook. While that’s loads of fun, it does mean that I’ve been blogging there instead of here. I apologize for the hiatus… but if you’re on facebook, join me there! There’s a business page, for Timberwolf Creek, and I have my personal page under my own name for political rants, travel posts, and pictures of my grandkids. And my dog. And my ridiculously handsome husband. So it goes.
Meanwhile, I grabbed this photo in the morning and it just sums up All Things Wonderful about living on this beautiful mountain. Moss and ivy climbing up the side of an enormous tree, ferns underfoot alongside the tumbling stream, an understory of great rhododendron, promising white bouquets in another couple of weeks… It all combines to make a cool, green, quiet space, for retreat, reflection, renewal. You can *breathe* here.
I have been remiss. With eleventy bazillion photos of the Creek House all over this website and also www.maggievalleycottage.com, I didn’t realize I skipped pictures of my hands-down favorite place to be – in the kitchen!
Now, this is not a dream house magazine spread designer gourmet kitchen. Far from it. It isn’t snazzy. But it makes you feel so *welcome*. It’s a cook-in-your-socks kind of kitchen. And after making breakfast in here for the past eighteen years (how in the world did that much time fly by?!) I confess that I never want to spend any time in another drywall ho-hum boring kitchen. I love my mismatched cabinets, hardwood floors, low ceiling beams covered in mugs. The hooks are horseshoe nails fashioned into cup hooks for me by a blacksmith, back when we had one of those in Maggie Valley.
There are treasures in every corner, and little odd places to tuck in another bit here, another bit there. I’ve filled it with things I love to use, and it’s an easy place to work.
So this week, when a very nice lady asked for kitchen pictures, I was stunned to find out that in my many tens of thousands of pictures on my computer, I couldn’t find any of the kitchen! That’s because… wait for it… guess what: when I’m in the kitchen, I’m COOKING, not taking pictures haha!
Without further ado, voila: The Kitchen, before and after…
Never let it be said that we can’t use humor to end an argument.
I recently posted this on facebook, “Serious advice for the ladies: If you share an office area with your sweetheart, as I do, get a pretty little dish and sit it by your mousepad. Now, get an itty bitty squirt gun and keep it filled. When he pops off with something he *knows* he shouldn’t have said, well… It’s just so satisfying, and you don’t have to say a word. Special note to the fellas: only the women are allowed to be armed. Got it? Good.”
The result was interesting, if predictable: eleven women immediately ‘liked’ it. When I mentioned that I hadn’t seen any men doing the same, one man began a conversation that naturally ended with men having bigger-better squirt guns. I’d just like to point out that it didn’t happen that way at my house, because my husband is (a) remarkably tolerant, and (b) has a well-developed sense of humor and (b.1) self-preservation.
Squirt guns are actually in stock, here. So are bubbles, tiny race cars, magic tricks, and other dollar store toys. You’d think we have small children or young grandchildren nearby. We have neither. What we do have are lots of honeymooners and folks having romantic getaways, who want to take a picnic basket out into the mountains for an al fresco meal in the sunshine. The baskets are filled with sandwiches, chips, fruit, cheese, olives, drinks, and usually a pie. And toys. Always toys.
Typically, that is a pair of squirt guns. Now, I used to put just one in there. Filled, of course! In a Zip-lock bag. And then one day, it occurred to me that once the water was gone, game over! So, I started including two.
In a transcendental moment of BFO (Blinding Flash of the Obvious*) I realized how much more fun it would be to just fill onesquirt gun. The game then becomes one party squirting while the other rushes to figure out how to fill his (ok ok ‘his’ because you know the girl is smart enough to get the full one). Once he’s got his filled, she’s about empty, and the roles reverse. Bam! The game goes on until someone surrenders. Given that this is a romantic getaway, surrenders are likely accompanied by kisses. Now *that* is a great picnic.
Voila. True love, abetted by squirt guns. Who knew.
…
*BFO is a term I learned from Jeremy Robinson, former editor, innkeeper, and self-proclaimed curmudgeon
Today’s bride, Lisa, tells me that a couple of years ago she worried about what her sons thought of Scott. They were all in the kitchen and she said, “I don’t think I’m going to call him anymore.” She turned around and both boys had stopped what they were doing. After a moment, the elder said, “Either you call him, or we will.”
While cutting the wedding cake, she announced, “Awww my sons got me a husband for mother’s day!”
Ok, I’d like to think I’m fairly intelligent, but have to admit that it took me fifteen years (that’s right, years) to finally figure out that when folks leave here with a picnic basket, it should be a memento of their time in the mountains, not a Made in China purchase. Good heavens. Years.
Yesterday, Larry and I spent a wonderful afternoon with Judy (my bride c. 2012) at the Church Street Craft Fair in Waynesville. Only it’s not on Church Street any more, it’s on Main Street. I think that’s a topic for another day. Anyway. Did I mention that I’m easily distracted these days? Ok. Where was I? Oh yes. Years.
I stepped into a booth and was just transported. Not that kind of booth. I mean, I didn’t go into a time warp or start talking into my shoe or suddenly find myself dressed in a cape and a shirt with a big red S on the chest. Not that kind of transported. I mean a vendor booth at the market – this one filled with the prettiest baskets I’ve seen! Each basket was wonderfully detailed and carefully crafted. Naturally I asked about who made them and the very nice lady in the booth told me that indeed, she had. When I said that they were just exquisite, she actually blushed. Clearly she was pleased, but by way of demonstrating my sincerity, I promptly bought all she had in the size I needed. And I couldn’t be happier about that!
Walking through the remainder of the fair (and what a fair! bluegrass and bagpipes! not at the same time – I don’t know if I’d enjoy that – but the entertainment was great) folks were stopping me right and left to admire my pretty baskets, laced up my arms and held every which way.
So. No more made-in-china baskets. Now, when you get a picnic lunch here, you’ll have a hand-crafted basket, lovingly created by a local artisan. And Miss Laura Ann has burned her initials on the bottom corner of each one: her signature. All the baskets are different, with painted flowers, or braided rope, but all the ones I got have the curled wood at the top, which the artist told me is called a tulip edge. I got completely distracted by that, and we had a nice long conversation about tulips vs lilies vs iris. I probably thought of ‘iris’ because she had a whole row of them worked into one basket in a beautiful blue. Not quite a violet blue, but more like a periwinkle. Like an iris would be. The little Siberian iris, not the bearded ones – those come in oh so many beautiful colors, not just periwinkle blue. I couldn’t get that one because it wasn’t nearly big enough, but oh I did love the Siberian Iris blue colored tulip edge! See there? Distracted.
These are a generous 15×12 and 9 inches tall (plus the handle) and nice and sturdy, so they can hold a healthy-sized picnic lunch, complete with a pie. I do love finding a whole entire pie in the bottom of a picnic basket, don’t you? I mean, that could be distracting for anybody, not just me…
And you can take home your hand-crafted Appalachian artwork basket to enjoy for years. That’s right. Years.
This is just a marvelous program – North Carolina Wildlife Resources has a Mountain Heritage Trout Waters program that makes it a piece o’ cake for you to fish for trout while you’re staying with us! Three miles of hatchery-supported trout stream in Maggie Valley have been designated for fishing within this program, and $5 gets you a three-day license.
No rod & reel? No problem! They have loaners. And every registrant receives a first-time gift of a mini-tackle box with assorted lures.
The first of the Casa Blancas has bloomed – I always hold my breath, waiting for these regal beauties. There’s nothing quite like the pure white blooms, so much larger than any other flower I’ve grown. And the scent is divine!
I took the photo below this morning, unretouched, and the white of the lily set the blue sky so deep it’s surreal.
And this – well. This is another angle that just rocked my little world….
I’m trying to figure out this whole word-press blog, thing, so bear with me… but I’mpretty sure that you can click the images for a larger version. We’ll see…
And while this one may have been overshadowed by the arrival of the Casa Blanca, it’s still every bit as welcome. Say hello to the Gold Band Lily.
Palest Yellow Lilies
I don’t know the name of these exquisite beauties…
But I know this: if you could be in charge of painting all the lilies, and
you had a pure white lily and a bit of gold and cadmium yellow paints,
this would be your masterpiece.
