Saving the mountains

Some links:
Appalachian Voices is devoted to protecting the Appalachian heritage. They also have a Front Porch Blog with news.

Related: I Love Mountains, campaigning to end mountaintop removal. They also have a National Memorial to the Mountains, showing each destroyed mountain on Google Earth. Need high speed access to use this.

There's a nice interview with Appalachian Voices director Mary Ann Hitt , a Gatlinburg native, on the environmental magazine, Grist.

Friends of the Blue Ridge Parkway.

Sustainable WNC is a collection of resources, news, and blogs. It also includes a link to a Blue Ridge Web Market. This seems loaded with resources (stores, lodging, restaurants, crafts, etc.) with businesses in the Asheville area. Need to see more from the far western counties.

Rain

Had almost forgotten what it looks like.


On the left, down in the brush, dogwood blossoms just forming.

Hot and dry

No rain in well over a week, so at least we're spared some of the normal smoke from brush burnings this time of year. Not as bad as Chattanooga, which is 9 inches below normal rainfall and smoky from lots of wildfires.
Despite the 80 degree weather the last few days, though, things seem to be blooming on a normal schedule, at least according to what I posted this time last year.

Trailing Arbutus (never saw one so pink!)

Lots of violets:


First butterfly:


Pretty green for so little rain:

Hot spring weekend

Happy honeybee on peach blossoms.
Flowering cherry in McCaysville.
Ocoee River, McCaysville Ga/Copperhill TN.


Dusk, Cherokee Hills golf course (Murphy).

(Added later:) Not quite so hot in Boone area, check out the view from Marie's deck.

Mountain towns make the 'great cities' list

Fred First posts a link to an image of a Salon list of the best Southern cities. Among them, Fred's home, Floyd, Va. The photo is by longtime blogger (Fragments from Floyd) First. Fred comments on what affect this attention might have on Floyd here and here.

The list also includes our nearest cities, Asheville NC and Chattanooga, TN. Both well-deserving.

Pink and blue

It's that time of year when the landscape hasn't changed yet, there are just a few flowers, and, even though the desire to stay outside is compelling, there're not many photo opportunities. Or, maybe it's just me and I've been doing boring things: working on the computer, house cleaning, and drives to town and back. I hope the photos get more interesting soon. Meanwhile, I liked the colors after sunset last night, so here's a study in pink and blue (and white):

Peach blossoms and smiling crescent moon.
Ghostly flowering pear tree.

(Added later:) I didn't plant this Bradford pear, and wouldn't plant any others. What good is a pear tree with no pears? Check out this 'mountaintop' poem about the Bradford Pear, which calls it 'the Paris Hilton of trees'.

Before it's too late

In Buncombe County, they're getting serious about the problem of large developments on mountainsides and ridgetops. Seems the whole of Western NC could use this campaign: SaveOurSlopes.org.

More color

Starting to feel like spring....


... hope....

It will be cooler this weekend. But no sign of any more cold down the road yet.

Friday sunset

Over Parksville Lake, Sugar Loaf in distance:

Over Friendship Church.

Pileated

Not the best photo since I hit the shutter too quickly as I tried to move into place without disturbing him:

Cold barn eclipse

The night was cold and the eclipse was later than expected, but at least the barn had a bit of warmth:

A little color

Not spring yet but a few days of warm weather have things popping out. Daffodils are everywhere but not up here yet.

Waiting for the storm

It's already rained much of the night and all morning, and this junco doesn't look happy about it:

Much nicer day before yesterday, at Cherokee Lake:



The dogs liked it too.