Annie has a new best friend. Our neighbor has a Chihuahua/ Jack Russell who has a bit of a masochistic streak. He loves to play with Annie despite being subjected to the mentally equal yet proportionally superior girl dog. It has turned out to be a fun friendship to watch develop, though I wince each time I see Annie accidentally sit on the little dude. I have affectionately nicknamed the him 'Little Dog' as he suffers a wee bit from little man syndrome and occasionally over compensates in personality for his petite stature.
My husband and I were saddened to here the news of the passing of Betty Keller. She was our dear summertime neighbor for nearly 20 years. She retreated to the mountains from her Naples, Florida home each June and stayed until the leaves dropped. She was the owner of the former Foscoe restaurant, "Witches Hollow." She worked hard as a single mother of five children to build her restaurant empire. She had a passion for gardening, golfing and drinking tall gin martinis seasoned only with ice. I will miss my deck time with her. The Naples news has a more complete life story.
I've dabbled in my garden since my return from Florida. And I've been harvesting gems such as a flying saucer squash, cucumbers, zucchini and at least two gallons of peas.
Yesterday evening, I drove to Maverick Farm in Valle Crucis to help Tom Philpott and friends harvest their garlic crop. Besides spending quality time with my buddy Tom (aka the beer fairy), I also wanted to gather info on growing garlic. There is nothing quite like hands on experience. Tom divulged that he learned his growing techniques from local garlic guru, Rob Danford.
Two new local blogs have surfaced on the horizon. The first is The Mountain Humanist blog which dabbles some in Zen Buddhism and Taoism from an Appalachian American perspective.
The second is A look back at Watauga blog which features entries from the popular weekly column "A Look Back… At This Week," a historical retrospective published in the "Watauga Democrat" newspaper of Boone, North Carolina, and compiled from past issues of the same.
