Weekend of contrasts

Today, cloudy, colder and getting colder and wetter tonight. Hiwassee River between Hiwassee and Appalachia lakes. 

Yesterday, beautiful blue skies, the Blue Ridge in Georgia near Dahlonega. 

Cherokee in the news

Stories from Cherokee County have lead the front page of the Asheville Citizen-Times twice in the last three days. Today: Happy 100th, Andrews. And Monday: Cherokee schools proposal draws fire.
The Asheville paper's reporters don't often get this far west.

A photoblog from Alabama

Rurality has lovely photos from north Alabama, where it's still the southern highlands, and spring is quite a bit further along. Via Fred at Fragments, who found her because both were posting about Ice flowers.
Note the tadpole photos on Rurality. I'm hearing frogs peeping at night, so it must be soon here. The bird chorus has ramped up a couple notches, too, during the day, so when we first open a door in the morning it definitely sounds like spring out there.

Wet weather

After two days of rain and some good thunderstorms today: finally starting to break and fog up. 

Everything dripping. 

Wet weather, great for fungus. 

We've been clearing the creek and all this rain really is washing all that brush away.... 

This is what it looked like before the rain... 

The neighbors appreciated the cleanup. 

First flowers of the year. 

Not quite spring yet

Snow off and on today, it accumulates, then melts. If it keeps going we'll have some tonight, though.... 

Cleanup time, most of the creek bank cleared for the first time. 

What we found:
The trash came from the creek and roadside. Occasional bottle/can thrown from cars, but most of it, I think, washed down the creek from the neighbors' trash pile/yard. Spray paint and oil cans, a pair of shoes (one intact, one just the sole), lots of building materials. The barbed wire comes from the old fence. I have much bigger things (two wheels & tires, some bleach jugs, etc. that I can't reach now) to pull out once I can get into the creek. It's sad that such a beautiful place is scarred with trash. We see it all the time along roadsides, trash in the woods. I don't remember seeing these mountains so messy when I lived here 25-30 years ago.  

Photos from the Virginia mountains

Journalist/blogger Doug Thompson just completed his move to Floyd, Va, just off the Blue Ridge Parkway in the high country south of Roanoke. Since he's gotten settled he's been filling his Blue Ridge Muse blog with beautiful photos from the mountains. This is one worth checking regularly.

Photos from around here

The Blue Ridge, Georgia. 

...the other direction, overlooking Blairsville, Ga (Mountains near Murphy in the distance). 

Signs of spring.... 

But still ready for cold weather 

Clouds all week, they say. But still lovely in the mountains. West of Murphy, near the Tennessee border.