In the north Georgia mountains. 

Downtown Asheville, Saturday. Cold in the morning but warmed up considerably. 

Beaver Lake, north Asheville 

Mountain gold

The Digital Library of Georgia, along with some regional libraries, has a new exhibit called Thar's Gold in Them Thar Hills, about the 19th century gold rush in the hills around Dahlonega, Ga. There are photos and correspondence about he mines as recent as 1940. Some files discuss the U.S. Mint offices in Dahlonega and Charlotte NC.
The story of gold has been big around here. There was so much gold in the Dahlonega area that there was enough to gild the Georgia Capitol dome. Down the Hiwassee River, around Coker Creek, TN, there was a gold rush in the early 1800s.

Another winter day

This morning was snowy but despite low temps, it disappeared fast. Lots left on the Snowbird Mountains in the distance, though.... 

A purple finch on the feeder this morning, first I've seen here. And just the one. Interesting, since I just read a posting on The Spruce Pine Cottage blog about a similar visitor, all alone. And this blog is many miles away, in north Florida.
(My old barn feeder suffers from recent squirrel attacks.) 

Folkcatcher

Asheville's Mountain XPress tells the story of The John C. Campbell Folk School.

'Visitor' identified?

On the strange fish pictured this past week, a tip from Gary Roberts: looks like it's a Sculpin.

Weekend drives

Some scenery from a couple drives, to Blue Ridge Ga on Saturday and down the Hiwassee River nearly to the Tennessee River on Sunday.
Near the NC/Ga/Tn borders: 

Near the Ocoee River, Tn. 

Parksville Lake, Ocoee River, Tn. 

Hiwassee River, west of Reliance, Tn. 

Nice enough for fishing.... 

Winter sun, moving north... 

Clouds over Blue Ridge Lake, Ga. 

Change in the weather

Surprising weather this morning...this wasn't expected. 

Not a good day for the crocuses... 


...and the daffodils. 

An unidentified visitor

In the sunshine a couple days ago, there's a fish cruising the branch bottom (just above the middle of the photo). At first we thought it was a salamander or mud dog, but looks more like a pike to me? It's about 3 inches long. 

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.