When Your Frisbee Dog Gets Old…

Disc Golf Takes Off in NC!

We once got to take care of a wonderful old Border Collie after his kids went off to college and he got arthritis. He’d been “The World’s Best Frisbee Dog” in his day, and still made a valiant effort to chase down the stray discs our grandchildren would toss in the yard. Unfortunately, our property is seriously up-and-down, and poor old Angus had almost as much trouble with his eyesight as he had with his joints, once rolling halfway down the hill before we could rescue him.

So we quickly learned not to let him outside when playing the first 9 holes of our newly-installed disc golf course, complete with metal poles, bicycle wheels and swing chains as ‘holes’. Now we’ve 20 holes along with plans for another nine on the flatland at the top of the driveway. Hold an informal tourney every January called the “Kudzu Open,” and have a big basket full of pro discs - Archangels and Orcs, putters and drivers, most bright enough in color to be readily found even if they go off the side of the fairway and end up 200 feet down the mountain in a pile of leaves.

The garden sits squarely in the fairway of the 2nd and 4th holes, lose a stroke if you land on anything growing (compost pile doesn’t count). Still have 4 broken windows in the library from when my nephew’s shot went wild and managed to break every single one of the panes one right after the other (he got extra credit). Still, it’s fine exercise, it’s fresh air, and it’s something to do with a disc if your frisbee dog can’t jump anymore.

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The Well-Planned Greening of North Carolina

There was a nice article in the Asheville Citizen-Times and Mountain Express newspaper’s GreenScene this past month highlighting a planned New Urbanist development in Fletcher that will boast 1,600 solar panels on a 400-unit apartment complex called Rivercane Village. Rivercane represents the largest residential application of solar-thermal energy in the nation, something we here in WNC are quite excited about.

Developer Tom Ryan received approval for the 38-acre complex from the Fletcher Town Council in mid-January. It’s modeled after similar developments in Europe. There will be solar hot water, solar space heating (a design attribute), and even solar air conditioning using solar absorption chillers. Not that one needs much AC here in the highlands, but it’s handy for a few days every year.

Better yet, it’s not a private rich-people gated community. The project is for work force housing according to federal guidelines. 18 acres of the property will be designated a conservation easement with the Carolina Mountain Land Conservancy, with walking trails that will be given to the town of Fletcher as part of its greenway system.

With encouragement coming from both federal subsidies and state initiatives applying to individual homeowners, home builders and community developers through the Smart Communities Network and the North Carolina Solar Network, plans are being developed for more and more sustainable communities in our state. When it comes time for my new roof, I’m joining the Million Solar Roofs Initiative partnership in my area.

Surf some of the great links below for more information related to green initiatives in North Carolina, and see how this can translate into even more tourism dollars in our state coffers to provide even more support for our storied independent attitudes and strong valuation of our wonderful natural resources!

Links

Appalachian Energy & Green Partners

The Green Scene

Green subdivision in Fletcher may be wave of the future

North Carolina Solar Center Million Solar Roofs Initiative

Smart Communities Network

North Carolina Green Building Technology Database

Filed under Development, Green Living, NC Living, NC Land, North Carolina | Comment (0)