Blue Ridge blog

Annoyed

I went down to Bo's farm this morning to visit with her horses and hopefully gather a couple of images for you. The goldenrod makes the land look yellow and with the rising fog I had hoped for a bit of the sweet light to grace my compact disc card. The horses came over to greet me and I fed them a couple of apples and scritched their noses. I felt so sorry for them because the dang flies wouldn't give them a break. One horse even had flies crawling on it's eyeball. That would drive me absolutely insane.

A little while later I reluctantlly headed into the office...within 2 seconds of entering my little cubbyhole, I felt just like the horse in this photo....someone hand me a flyswatter!

Sunnies

I need one more day in a weekend to actually feel like I get a weekend. I shot prep sports on Saturday and did 13 loads of laundry yesterday. We were getting low on the unmentionables so the old Maytag worked overtime on Sunday. Even the children feel cheated out of a weekend. Youngest daughter learned the hard high school lesson that teachers at WHS expect students to do homework and projects on weekends. Eldest daughter ran in a cross country meet off the mountain . The heat off the mountain was overwhelming to many of the high country runners.
I took the photo above on Friday. It is the chestnut fence that surrounds the Daniel Boone Gardens. The yellow flowers of the coming autumn spill over the man-made barrier.

An Apple for the Teacher

My youngest daughter was 'using' photos from my blog in a project for her communications class. Thankfully, her teacher, Ms. S wanted to make sure that the photos that she was 'borrowing' were not copywritten. I do register my photos with the U.S Copyright office but understand that certain education laws exist allowing their use in schools. I wrote this last night but accidentally deleted it before posting and was too tired to write again. I forgot to tell my daughter this morning of my goof. So, my daughter told Ms. S that her mom wrote a note to her on her blog and my daughter was disappointed when the note was nowhere to be found. So, I beg her forgiveness. Consider the following a blanket permission slip:

Dear Ms. S,
I haven't had the pleasure to meet you yet but expect that I will be seeing you soon at open house. V and all your students have my permission to use any of my photos for anything they need to do in your class...so long as they do not claim the photo as their own. Additionally, I think they should get extra credit if they learn to give photographers credit for their works. How do you like the blog format as a means of communication? I look forward to your comment.

Sincerely,

Marie Freeman

Ok ya'll--time to show my daughter's teacher the effectiveness of blogs as a means of instantaneous communication. Be clever, be nice. Comment away!!!

A $6000 photograph?

I am positive that you would not pay $6k for the above photo of a cardinal flower entwined with several sunnies, but that is the price it almost cost me when I so gracefully lost my footing while shooting this scene in the middle of the Watauga River today. I had my big 200mm 2.8 lens attached to my Nikon D2h and had a lens case with my 20mm Nikon lens in a leather case. I used my Bogen tripod for support but about 8 feet from the bank, I lost my footing. Instinctively, I held the camera up high and braced for the landing. I landed on my butt but somehow barked my shin on something. Whew! My camera gear is fine and even my car keys survived. I looked around and no one saw my heroic efforts :-( I climbed the banks of the mighty Watauga humbled....

I'm in shooting and momma mode these days. My youngest is not-so-engrossed in a book on literary allusions????? and my wise hubbie is trying helping her. My oldest is questioning the whole meaning of Advanced Geometry???? and neither one the adults in the household is willing to go there. I am a whole lot stupider than my children are allowed to be and I just simply don't get that.

Blogging will be somewhat sporadic and my visits to your sites will be unpredictable as I am trying to work the day/night job and be a 24 hour Mom adjusting to a new schedule. All my best to all of you (except you
freak comment spammers--ya'll are just about useless and I don't get your whole purpose in the scheme of the internet universe)

Heavenly Blue Monday

Nothing like a blue sky and a blue morning glory to make a Monday happier. Mountain women grow fabulous dahlias and the best morning glories! If you haven't seen it yet, Fred wins my personal contest to see which blogger came up with
the best Joe Pye photo.

I worked some this weekend but tried to stick close to home. I ventured out only when the youngest daughter begged to socialize with non-family. Eldest child treated me to a cello concert on the deck last night. A sweet sonata by Vivaldi and a concerto by Tchaikowsky capped my weekend...after dinner we watched "Hilary and Jackie", a movie about cellist Jacqueline Du Pre.

Revisited

I rode out to Meat Camp today just to see what I could see. The occasional maple tree is showing signs of changing colors. I decided to visit Elbert Miller's farm and found it greener than the last time I
visited it.
Yikes! I read my post from that day and I had not remembered any of the dreams. I may have to go through my old archives for giggles.

Wink

Bare with me, I only have a couple more farm photos to share with you. This is Wink the Pig. He is a big boy but was able to squeeze through the fence and greet me. Later on, he escaped and followed me into the woods.
School work and activities are consuming all of my free time these days. With any luck I will try to do some blog-surfin' this weekend.

Makin' momma mad

This is what happens when a goat gets into a hen house.....just in case you ever wondered.

Coming in for a landing

I was out searching for loose photos and came across a ZZ Top looking man tenderly loving on his flower garden. I wanted to capture that image so bad but after I introduced myself to him and asked him if I could take some photos of him, he declined saying, " My mug shot was in your paper earlier this year and I think once is enough." He smiled at me and graciously granted me permission to take photos of his flowers. And no, I did not ask him what crime he committed.

Yesterday Virginia Foxx beat Vernon Robinson in the 5th Congressional a republican run-off race. Insane political spots by Team Robinson scared, yet humored our county. Robinson may have lost (heavy sigh of relief), but everyone agrees that whoever did his ads (like the one of Foxx morphing into Hillary Clinton) should now be writing for Saturday Night Live.
Sorry about the local politics, but it has been a source of entertainment around here.

Now, onto important matters. My brother called last night and I am finally going to be Aunt Re Re! Pure Joy!

The Big Burley

Around here farmers have grown burley tobacco since the turn-of-the-century. Unlike flue tobacco which may be mechanically picked, each stalk of the burley tobacco must be hand cut with a special tobacco knife and then speared upon a wooden stake. The burley is left in the field for about 4-5 days before it is taken inside a barn to dry. Tobacco farmers used to take their graded leaves to an auction warehouse in Boone or Mountain City to be sold however, the auctions have closed and most farmers contract with the buyers directly. Many local tobacco farmers are no longer growing the golden leaf but instead filling their fields with organic vegetables.
Amy contacted me and she is fine. She just simply got 'blogged' down and choses to take a break.