A NC Mountain Log Cabin Christmas

During this 2007 holiday season, it seems the children are all nestled asleep in their beds, with visions of sugar plums dancing in their heads… oh, wait. You say the “children” are all teenagers now, terminally bored with Christmas and expecting a 10-gig iPod loaded with every album too objectionable to be played in public, plus keys to a car and $400 worth of “Prison Chic” pants that hang somewhere around the thighs and show off their underwear?

Did the fudge never set, so you had to run to the store to buy enough ice cream to disguise the un-set fudge as super chocolate syrup? Were those tollhouse cookies hard as a rock, breaking grandpa’s dentures with the first bite? Did cousin Jim finish off the entire bottle of rum you’d brought for eggnog before passing out under the tree? Did the dog eat that perfect glazed ham before you could get it into the oven to heat? Did it snow during the night and hide all the firewood you’d stacked somewhere in the yard for the Christmas Eve fire? Are the in-laws insisting on watching Enemy of the State as a “Christmas Movie” instead of It’s a Wonderful Life for the 16th time?

Be of good cheer, enjoy yourself anyway, and…

Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night!

Filed under NC Living, Holidays, Timber Frame, Log Homes, Vacation Homes, Family Events | Comment (0)

Making Plans for New Year’s Eve

With Christmas just a week away, it’s not too late to start making plans for New Year’s in North Carolina.

In the Raleigh area you could get tickets for the North Carolina Symphony New Year’s Eve Extravaganza Package. To include a pre-concert cocktail party at 5 o.m. at the Sheraton Capital Center in downtown Raleigh, the 7:30 p.m. concert, and a post concert dinner and dancing fest back at the Sheraton offering a four-course dinner and big band music from Leon Jordan’s Continentals. There will of course be plenty of champagne at midnight too.

Music Director Grant Llewellyn hosts special guests mezzo-soprano Paula Murrihy and the Red Clay ramblers’ mix of Irish and French folk tunes, classical favorites and bluegrass-rock fusions.

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Filed under Resorts, Holidays, Restaurants, Night Life, Music, Ski Resorts, North Carolina | Comment (0)

Going Really, Really Green

The Ultimate in Vine-Covered Cottages

When my daughter was earning her theater technical degree at UNCA, she designed a set for a rather bizarre theatrical production of “Hansel and Gretel at Auschwitz” or something like that, which I never saw and didn’t really want to see. She brought home the ugliest of creepy metal trees made out of welded rebar and promptly installed it out by the footed bathtub from her production of “Hair,” which we now use as the final hole for the top nine disc golf course.

Now, we live in a lovely chestnut cabin on some seriously ‘graded’ acreage next to the Pisgah National Forest. So it’s not hard to imagine that I’ve no particular use for an ugly rebar tree. Yet that was six years ago, and today that ugly metal tree is one of my favorite lawn sculptures. The English ivy she planted around the base has grown up to cover the trunk in variegated dark and light green lushness. Wild pink roses and Japanese honeysuckle now compete for sunlight over the entire top and branches, trailing almost to the ground in places and spectacular in bloom.

So I’m not all that adverse to ideas about how to combine modern, recycled materials and technology with real natural greenery and flowers to make interesting homescapes. The eastern wall of this cabin is half rock, and when we moved in it was covered in ivy. Made for a really pretty picture, but we had to pull it all down when we discovered it was rotting the siding, providing shelter for a variety of stinging pests, and crumbling the rocks.

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Filed under Green Living, Nature, Log Homes, Gardens, Art | Comment (0)

Ski NC: What’s New This Season

North Carolina gets a lot of tourists, making tourism one of the largest industries in the state. Western NC gets 3 million visitors at the Great Smoky Mountains National Park and even more along the Blue Ridge Parkway. Between NASCAR, the Outer Banks, and other attractions all over the state, tourism supplies ~$15.5 billion and nearly 200,000 jobs to the North Carolina economy, along with about $2.5 billion in tax revenues.

But not all of North Carolina’s tourism happens in the beautiful spring, summer or fall. Our mountainous western region hosts many excellent - even world class - ski resorts who do a brisk business at high elevations all winter long!

Ski North Carolina keeps a constantly updated skiing news and conditions report going, along with links to the area resorts and lots of information and advertisements for condos, chalets and other lodging options at or near all the best slopes.

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Filed under Snowboarding, Snow Tubing, Tourism, Ski Resorts, Winter Sports, Blue Ridge, Family Activities, North Carolina | Comment (0)