Pam, Ginie, and I decided to take an easy 1.7 mile hike in Horse Cove. We thought we could find the official World’s Largest Poplar Tree when we finished the Chattooga Loop and maybe even have a quick look at Granite City in the area. We began the loop at the Iron Bridge. Look at the beautiful Chattooga River as seen from the bridge. These pictures of the Chattooga were taken at the beginning of our hike. After oohing and ahhing at the beauty, we took off on the hike that would soon be known as “The Hike from Hell.” It started out with a pleasant and peaceful tromp through the woods. We walked and walked... We caught glimpses of the Chattooga along the way. And then we walked and walked and walked... We figured out that we weren’t on the 1.7 mile loop about three miles into the hike. We came across three-foot drops in the hike where we had to slide down rocks while holding onto limbs to stop us from tumbling further down the steep slope on the side of the path. What an adventure! We had faith that we’d eventually come out of the woods somewhere and could make our way back to the car so we pressed on. Plus, we knew we couldn’t go back the way we’d come. We would have to climb up several of the drop offs we’d slid down. Four miles of hiking across that moderately rough terrain began to take its toll on me. I had finished off my water and was beginning to feel dehydrated. I got lightheaded and began to have cramps in my upper thigh. We stopped, ate nuts, rested, and, after Ginie checked my pulse for her peace of mind, continued on. This hike just would not end! About five miles into it, we heard men running some type machinery and yelling over the noise. Surely we were near the end! We finally made our way close to the men and Ginie waved them over. It turns out that they were building a footbridge across one of the chasms. When we asked how far we were from the Iron Bridge, he pointed back the way we’d come and said, “It’s five miles that way.” Say what?! I was just about to tell him to call for help to get us out of there, but then he said, “You can go up a ways here and take the trail to the left. After about seven hundred yards, you’ll come out at a little white church on Horse Cove Road. But watch out for rattlesnakes. We’ve seen several.” At this point, I’m thinking a rattlesnake would put me out of my misery so off we went. When we finally emerged out of the forest, that church was a welcomed sight! But the bottled water the workers had left for us at the end of the path were even more welcomed! We had hiked for six hours and had covered approximately six miles. Now I’ve walked six miles before, but not on a path with these conditions! My phone was dead...as you can tell from the lack of pictures, but Pam had saved a little of her battery life. She found a spot where she got a weak cell phone signal and called her husband, Roger, to come rescue us. As we rested and waited for Roger to make the trip down from Highlands to Horse Cove, a truck drove up. “Are y’all lost?” the driver asked. He went on to explain that he lived very close by and about every few days hikers would emerge from the forest completely lost. “They took down the signs for the short loop and people get on the River Trail.” Well at least we weren’t crazy hikers who couldn’t find our way out of a paper bag! Remember those directions I posted at the beginning of this blog entry? Look again. See the entry below the loop... Chattooga River Trail? That’s what we think we did! 5.2 Miles one way... difficult. Yep, we can testify! Roger soon arrived and drove us back to Highlands. I took a delightfully long soaking bath, went to bed at 8:00, and slept 12 hours! Today I’m looking forward to our next Girls Only Hike. We’ve decided to take a short one-mile hike and then have lunch together in town. We’ll see how that goes... stay tuned!
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Pam, Ginie, and I decided it was time for another girls only hike so we set off to a favorite place which Ginie had never visited...Secret Falls. The hiking path was clear of fallen trees, but boy, oh boy, was it ever muddy! We talked and hiked and before too long we were at the top of the falls. We took a few pictures before descending to the bottom. There were a few groups of people enjoying the pool at the bottom of the falls. It was busier than I thought it would be on a Thursday. I guess it’s not so secret anymore. These ladies are so much fun. We talked and talked and TALKED. We enjoyed looking further downstream. Isn’t that Carolina sky gorgeous? We hiked back to the car over the log bridge... ...and around the muddy spots. We drove to Horse Cove in search of the giant poplar tree. I swore this was it, but there was no identifying plaque which Pam and I remembered it having. We walked further along a path crossing a footbridge and venturing deeper into the woods. We finally gave up and returned to the car. But we’ve decided to hike and explore more of Horse Cove on our next girls only hike. I can’t wait!
Our brother, Ken, his wife, Marilyn, and their friends, Bill and Judy, decided to spend July 4th in Highlands. It was Bill and Judy’s first trip to Highlands. I hope it’s not their last! When my son discovered that his aunt, uncle, AND his cousin, Diane, would be here, he decided to have his family join the party. We were thrilled to have so many visiting. Phillip and his family set out to find a swimming hole for the day while the rest of us went to Kelsey-Hutchinson Park for the annual Rotary Club hotdog cookout. The proceeds supported a fund to purchase a service dog for one of our local teens. She’s recently started experiencing violent unpredictable seizures. This dog is trained to recognize an oncoming seizure and protect her during the seizure. These talented canines are expensive to train— around $60,000. The family is asked to pay $17,000. Our community has rallied around the cause and I am sure that Eliza will soon have her dog due to the efforts of community organizations, churches, family, and friends. There was a large turnout, but we found a perfect spot to enjoy the outdoor entertainment, eat, and visit with each other. Lots of dogs enjoyed the day with their owners. Highlands is a dog-friendly town. Ken, Marilyn, and their friends left mid-afternoon to visit Dry Falls and Bridal Veil Falls. Diane went to complete a few business tasks. Phil and I returned home to get things ready for returning to the park for bluegrass music and the town’s fireworks show later that evening. We returned at 6:00 with three pizzas and all the fixings for banana splits. Yum! Phillip and his family joined us for the 4th of July dinner and fireworks. The band declared an impromptu Freedom Parade for the kids to march around the park and the adults cheered them on! We visited with town visitors sitting nearby and met a charming couple from North Alabama and, later, another friendly couple from Charleston, South Carolina. Both couples were on their first trip to Highlands, but eagerly volunteered that they would be back. One husband said what we’ve often heard, “I feel like we’ve stepped into a Hallmark movie!” As dusk approached, we packed everything back in our truck except for the lawn chairs and settled in for the fireworks show. It was a perfect ending to a perfect day. From our mountain to your hometown... Happy 4th of July!
This year we decided to take out part of our retaining wall in the back yard and add steps for easier access to our back property. Here’s the old wall... As you can see from the picture above, this particular section of wall was terribly unattractive. Another problem is that it is the immediate view from our living room windows. Ugh. But then Fito, our stone guy, went to work and look at our view now! Our new steps are a beautiful and functional addition. Our plan is to plant shrubs and perennials on the slope beside the steps. We also need to extend the stone pathway at the bottom of the steps to the gate at Boots’ Run. And finally we plan to have a large spot leveled for a fire pit sitting area which will be a destination spot to which the steps lead. But those are next year’s plans! Project by project... we’re getting there!
Construction on Two Holt’s addition ended in the fall of 2016. Directly behind the addition was horrible! Well of course it was bad. We had just dug out a basement in that area. We’d look at that mess and say, “We’ll fix it up later.” Pedro did add a retaining wall for us, but it was a raggedy mess behind the wall. Next we bought a pallet of sod and laid it. Phil built fence sections and gates to enclose the area. It was still a raggedy mess behind the wall. We planted pots of perennials. We decided not to plant directly in the ground so Boots wouldn’t ‘water’ the plants. Behind the wall was still a raggedy mess. But now we can declare Boots’ Run officially finished! We filled in behind the wall with good soil and planted seven Lee’s Dark Purple hybrid rhodies, two Little Lime hydrangeas, and a Waterfall Japanese maple. We’ve still got a project or two left on the list for this area. Notice how the back door hasn’t been painted? And the deck landing needs staining. And we want to add a covered stoop over the landing. Geeze. Will the projects ever end?
Our seventh year of gardening at Two Holt! Can you believe it? We had such a long winter and it feels like it’s taken forever to get going in the garden. We’re still busy and I’m sure more posts will follow, but let me show what we’ve done so far. Remember our shrub garden we started last year? Well, here’s a picture that shows this area in 2016, 2017, and now 2018. Everything is progressing nicely. We added four more Goldmound Spirea, three Creeping Phlox, seven Becky Shasta Daisies, one Gibraltar native azalea, six balloon flowers, and three Jacob Kline Bee Balm. Have you ever seen Balloon Flowers? The buds swell up like balloons before the flower bursts out. Here’s our newest native azalea, Gibraltar, nestled in the Lenten roses we brought from our Alabama garden. This is the far end of our Shrub Garden just before stepping into our Sitting Garden. Our hydrangeas took a beating when winter came back after a spring tease. The Endless Summer hydrangeas are emerging from the ground, but we lost all the early growth that had begun. So maybe the blank spots in the picture below will fill in soon. We added more creeping Phlox, lupines, and three additional Mt. Airy Fothergilla shrubs to our Garden Bell Garden. Phil dug up the native rhodies in our rhodie bed and we moved them to the back of our property on Wyanoak Road. We added one white, three pink, and three red hybrid rhodies in the rhodie bed. We added pink creeping Phlox to the edge of our Daylily Garden because I’m obsessed with the look of creeping Phlox hanging over the rock wall. I added a pot of snapdragons to the Daylily Garden. We added the clematis last year. This one is doing well, but I lost my Jackmanii clematis. I added annuals all around the garden. My grandmother’s old cast iron pot has been a wonderful host to these impatiens. A local store was throwing out flats of distressed impatiens and I sweet-talked the vendor into giving them to me. I always add fanflower to my garden. Isn’t it pretty in front of this iris? My neighbor gifted me with several of these irises from her garden about four or five years ago. Our chestnut & barbed wire planter is home to these pink impatiens. The blue bead flower at the base was purchased at the local garden club’s annual plant sale several years ago. This pot was filled with Japanese Painted Fern last year, but we lost them this past winter. I planted fanflower and will empty and store the pot this winter. We love to plant Torenia to mimic flowers spilling out of an overturned planter in the Birdbath Garden. Another pot of impatiens sits on a column surrounded by boxwood and fothergilla. The Sitting Garden just doesn’t seem to pop like it has in past years. Winter was tough on the garden this year. See the purple coral bells beside the chair? I planted that coral bell this year because Phil threw the old one away last winter thinking it was a weed. I had big blue liriope edging the Sitting Garden last year. The liriope was from my Alabama childhood home and it gave a finished look around the pot of hosta and all along that garden area. It was all killed this past winter. I need to find an edging plant for this area. I don’t like empty spots in the garden. I like it filled to the brim and overflowing with plants. We’re adding three Japanese maples to the gardens this year. Here’s an Autumn Moon Japanese maple on the north side of the house. We have stone steps and a Japanese maple... not enough to call that area a garden yet. But I’ll be working on it soon! Phil’s favorite Japanese maple is the Waterfall. I bought this one for his birthday. It’s waiting patiently for it’s perfect spot. my favorite is the Coral Bark Japanese maple. The bark is a lovely red and will be beautiful in winter, too. We have a spot picked out for this one, but we haven’t had time to plant it yet. Boots’ Run has had our gardening attention for the last few weeks. I didn’t want Boots ‘watering’ plants back there so I planted everything in pots and left a big grassy area for him. A variety of Hosta fill most of those pots. But here’s where we’ve been doing some hard gardening work. Look behind the Boots’ Run wall. Our plan is to fill in with good garden soil and add beautiful Tapestry (purple bloom) hybrid rhodies along the top of the wall. We got quotes from two companies to fill in with soil. The first quote was over $2000 and the second quote was over $1000. Eeek! So guess who’s doing the work... yep, Phil and me. We’re working on our fourth truckload of soil. It’s in an awkward location so we carry it up in buckets and dump it over behind the wall. Phil does three trips and then I do three trips. Lawd have mercy! And still waiting for our attention— finishing my potting bench. And, oh yeah, I’m trying to close a deal on adding stone steps to easily access our back property. Boy, oh boy, do I have plans for that space! But that’s a future post. Happy gardening!
Now that spring has finally arrived after a long winter, the garden is thriving. Naturally we have to have lots of outdoor places to sit and enjoy the next several months. Here are a few places around Two Holt to relax. Pick your favorite! If the weather’s nice we can sit outside in Boots’ Run. We have matching gliders in this area which looks out on our back lot that stretches to Wyanoak Road. Or we could enjoy the rockers or bench on the bedroom balcony overlooking Hickory Hill Road and Mirror Lake. Maybe we’ll venture outside a little more to enjoy the Adirondack chairs in the middle of our Sitting Garden. Or maybe you’d like the bench in front of the shrub garden... If you’d like to have lunch outside on the screened deck, we could eat here... Or we could have dinner for a bigger group in this spot... But my favorite place to sit is in one of my big, comfy rockers where I can curl my legs up in the chair as I rock. I’ve never sat in a more comfortable chair! Maybe we’ll just have to try them all multiple times before you pick a favorite. Come sit a spell at Two Holt!
Our bedroom balcony has been begging for attention for quite awhile. Honestly, I’d walk out, look around, and walk back inside— uninspired. I loved the view of Mirror Lake... I loved watching the birds at the feeding station... But inspiration for the small balcony just wasn’t coming to me. Then one day I looked at the furniture pushed up against the wall and decided to try moving it around. Voila! Inspiration started flowing. Angling the furniture a bit made all the difference. Then I started adding small extra touches. An outdoor rug always makes a space cozy... And of course a nice feature pot and a small fountain for splashing water sounds... Window pane art brightens up the space... What a perfect place for our hummingbird feeder chandelier! And an iron tray feeder of peanuts for the birds adds a nice touch. Containers of bright colorful flowers and an old copper watering can... Isn’t it lovely? It’s our new favorite morning spot! Yes, I know we have to paint this furniture, but we’re busy getting our gardens in shape. We’ll paint soon. I promise!
After seeing the gorgeous stands of creeping Phlox in full bloom around town last year, I knew I had to have these pretty plants tumbling over our rock walls. Last spring we added about a half dozen pink Phlox and half a dozen blue Phlox. I always reserve judgement on a plant until it’s gone through one of our winters. This past winter we had a few snowfalls including the 15” accumulation which we thought would never melt and leave. All of my Phlox returned beautifully and it’s the first of my perennials to put on a bloom show which lasts a few weeks. I bought 15 pink Phlox and three blue Phlox this year. We added six of the pink Phlox to our garden bell garden at the road... We added nine pink Phlox to the middle stone wall which leads to our upper drive. I want drifts of Phlox at the upper driveway stone wall, too. I noticed how lovely the blue Phlox was in front of the yellow Goldmound Spirea and planted the three last Phlox there. We have three Goldmound Spirea shrubs in this shrub garden so I wanted more blue Phlox to add in front of those shrubs. I made a quick run to the plant nursery but wouldn’t you know it—- they were sold out of the blue Phlox. It’s been popular this year. Oh well. There’s always next year.
Phil and I signed up for Highlands' Plateau Pickup event several weeks ago. On this day each year dozens of volunteers come together to clean up the Gorge Road which winds down the mountain to Franklin, North Carolina. The amount of litter tossed from cars and trucks traveling up and down the mountain is frustrating. We live in the gorgeous western North Carolina mountains and we all strive to keep this area pristine for local residents and for thousands of yearly visitors. Phil injured his shoulder while hanging laundry room cabinets so he couldn't join me today, but I knew I'd see friends and make new friends, too, so off I went. A volunteer drove me a good ways down the targeted road and dropped me off with a safety vest, my trusty litter pole, and a bright orange trash bag. I met a few other volunteers already cleaning up litter. The couple pictured below own a local gas station/mini market. She shared that it made her sad to see all the beer cans because she suspected a lot of the construction workers who daily drive back and forth from Franklin to Highlands were among the culprits. They buy a lot of beer from her store each afternoon. After an hour or two I noticed I had covered a lot of ground, but it was quiet. I looked around and didn't see anyone. It's kind of scary walking on that road alone so I crossed the road and started picking up trash on the other side as I made my way back to town. After we finished cleaning the roadsides, the volunteers were treated to lunch. Thanks, Fressers Eatery for grilling hamburgers and hotdogs for us! Our mayor's truck was loaded down with some of the trash bags collected. I found my neighbors, Pam and Roger and John and Sally with their sister, Mary. These are some of my very favorite Mirror Lake neighbors and it was great to eat with them. We were given t-shirts as a thank you gift. A clean scenic road, a delicious lunch, meeting new friends, visiting with old friends, and a t-shirt... success! Sign us up for next year, please!
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Phil & SharonMarried 40 years and hoping to enjoy many more! Archives
December 2019
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