May seems to go on forever!

And then there's August.  It must be the months with 31 days.  I vote we change the last day of these months to a new name...maybe in honor of a goddess, or lazy day, or whatever...anything to keep from the drudgery of all those days in one month.

 Some edible plants...well, if this ornamental cabbage wasn't quite so big!

 But a bit of crook neck squash will be lovely to pop into a pot soon!

 A typical garden swing...want to set a spell?

 Looking under the new bridge at the Broad River (Rocky Broad) as it flows into Lake Lure...from the old bridge now a garden!

The Garden of Weedin' includes an overgrown rowboat, of which you can just see the stern here.

I note that on the news yesterday these river photos looked very different, because of flash flooding from the rains we've had in Western North Carolina.  You can enjoy what it looked like on May 23, before the Alberto influence.

And here's a photo of the highway we drove through Chimney Rock on..taken May 30, 2018...near the Esmerelda Inn...a tree and mudslide. I only have videos of the river at flood stage, and can't figure out how to capture them from Facebook.

Hither and Thither...and give your dog a bone!

Another source of Memorial Day

KNOW YOUR HISTORY: Memorial Day was started by former slaves on May, 1, 1865 in Charleston, SC to honor 257 dead Union Soldiers who had been buried in a mass grave in a Confederate prison camp. They dug up the bodies and worked for 2 weeks to give them a proper burial as gratitude for fighting for their freedom. They then held a parade of 10,000 people led by 2,800 Black children where they marched, sang and celebrated.

Thanks to Abstrakt Goldsmith for this nugget of history that most of us never learned in school.
Source: The Blue Street Journal

May 27, 2013 at 1:39pm ·

More children gathered together below...

Remember when children could play in the streets when they flooded?

Well, I don't either.  But here those little guys are, with their shoes and socks in bundles, and trusting their bare feet to the snakes and fish and whatever else might swim in ankle deep water, not to mention the leavings of horse drawn vehicles.  Oh my! Come check others' posts at Sepia Saturday HERE.

Another flood, that apparently is happening right now in Ellicott City, MD (May 28, 2018)

And western North Carolina where I now live, is also being hit by rain from tropical storm Alberto...on top of other rain we've already had all week.  Floods are happening on all our creeks and rivers.  Roads are closed in many places.

US 221 washed out between Blowing Rock NC and Linnville. 5.28.18

US 70 (that's 4 lanes plus a turning lane) at Ingles Warehouse (taken from the warehouse) in Black Mountain NC...closed where the muddy water crosses over all 5 lanes. 5.29.18 before noon, but it opened again later. (That is a low building, not that much under water...but the lake in front of it is where the highway should be, on the other side of the horizontal line of the railroad tracks.

Here's the Black Mountain Police Dept version of this spot.

Flat Creek over it's banks at Ole Guacamole's Restaurant 5.29.18 at noon. Photo by Elena Delatore

Just upstream from Ole's, here's Flat Creek still just barely under the bridge behind the Primary School.

People have been evacuted from low lying mobile home parks as Flat Creek and Swannanoa River go higher and higher, 4 pm, 5.29.18 by Black Mountain Police Dept.

 Later that night, Ole's Guacamole Restaurant was flooded by Flat Creek...the whole parking lot under water.  That's got to be 4-5 feet over the usual water level. I was awake till 1 am looking at the various videos on Facebook of my neighborhood, and then even hearing of closing of the Interstate 40 from a landslide near me...at least for a while.  When I woke up in the morning I could again hear traffic going by, though with springtime leaves on trees, couldn't see it.

 Just down Blue Ridge Rd (my street, but I'm up on the hill) the road usually goes over the Swannanoa River next to this little strip mall...but last night the river came into its parking lot, and of course the bridge closed. The Flood Gallery was well named, wasn't it?

Another shot of Ole's as the creek flooded it's parking lot.

As the day went by, I opened my living room windows and if the rain got heavy, it splashed off the leaves of the trees about 10 feet outside, a second story window on a hillside.  I could see rushing water all day long, only getting heavier at times, and when sunlight peeked through a few times, the water on top of the mud just kept going down hill, right into the Swannanoa River.

On a lighter note, how about this Children's Marching Song? Beware, this forms the habitual ear-worm, which will follow you throughout the day until you try another catchy tune, perhaps more modern.

The Children's Marching Song Lyrics 

by Mitch Miller

This old man he played one
He played nick nack on my drum
With a nick nack paddy whack
Give a dog a bone
This old man came rolling home

This old man he played two
He played nick nack on my shoe
With a nick nack paddy whack
Give a dog a bone
This old man came rolling home

This old man he played three
He played nick nack on my tree
With a nick nack paddy whack
Give a dog a bone
This old man came rolling home

This old man he played four
He played nick nack on my door
With a nick nack paddy whack
Give a dog a bone
This old man came rolling home

This old man he played five
He played nick nack on my hive
With a nick nack paddy whack
Give a dog a bone
This old man came rolling home

[Whistling and drums interlude]

This old man he played six
He played nick nack on my stick
With a nick nack paddy whack
Give a dog a bone
This old man came rolling home

This old man he played seven
He played nick nack up in heaven
With a nick nack paddy whack
Give a dog a bone
This old man came rolling home

This old man he played eight
He played nick nack on my gate
With a nick nack paddy whack
Give a dog a bone
This old man came rolling home

This old man he played nine
He played nick nack on my vine
With a nick nack paddy whack
Give a dog a bone
This old man came rolling home

This old man he played ten
He played nick nack on my hen
With a nick nack paddy whack
Give a dog a bone
This old man came rolling home

Songwriters: CECIL SHARP, MALCOLM ARNOLD, SABINE BARING-GOULD

The Children's Marching Song lyrics © EMI Music Publishing

Do you remember hearing it first in the movie The Bridge on the River Kwai?

The Flowers on the Flower Bridge

As you drive into Lake Lure NC (just butted up against the town of Chimney Rock) it's easy to miss this site, as it's lower than the new bridge. But the parking lot to the left shows that it's a site worth pausing to see.

Started with pinks and purples, apparently.  More coming soon, and maybe a different shade of ???

A tisket a tasket...It's

a white and blue ceramic basket!

And my oldest son's birthday today! Happy Birthday Marty!

Since the thrown handle is hollow, it's very lightweight.  I can't wait to see a nice floral arrangement in it...come to think of it, I want to do that soon!

Letting go

A simple form, but the glaze effect speaks volumes.

This little bowl vase will look wonderful with flowers of any color!  I imagine even an Ikebana treatment!

Past the first blush of spring

 After a week of rains, and now a couple of days without, most of the path up from the lower parking lot to the studio is just green and more green. (Not that I'm complaining!)

A bit of Mountain Laurel greets me still.

A

And someone gifted the studio with some wonderful peonies...which if I bury my nose into them, I can smell their wonderful scent.

I won't promise that this is the last of my wedding photos that I'm bringing to my collection, but I couldn't miss the children of the royals!  Just think what they will think of these photos when they are grown!

Antique cars anyone?

 A whimsical sculpture of a semi-truck door and a metal sculpted dog in the window...among many other sculptures on the grounds around the Grovewood Gallery.

 The man who owned a car dealership in Asheville and started the car collection.

 The weaving shed turned into garage for vintage and antique cars...

Photo of William Jennings Bryan riding in a cavalcade of cars.

There were actually 2 of these old time clocks where workers punched in and out, for various industries to support the Biltmore mansion nearby

Do you know what kind of car this is? Front view of the one shown above in side view.

Grovewood Gallery

My son in black, and 2 friends he went to college with in FL many years back.

But wait.  I saw an antique car parked at Lake Tomahawk the other day.  So it's road-worthy!

I am thinking that's a rumble seat on an old Model T, what do you think?

Perhaps the people pictured in this postcard drove similar cars to the amusement park...as I kind of missed the topic this week for Sepia Saturday.

Romance is alive and well

Duke and Duchess of Sussex

We all talked about The Royal Wedding, Sat and Sun...and just a bit on Mon.  But we mainly were struck by how American the service was!  Bishop Curry's sermon was loved by most of us.  And the choir singing Stand By Me!  Super.  But actually, I've never seen a wedding which had that influence. It was kind of over the top.  Most of the weddings I've been too were pretty "English" actually.

The other ongoing big visual is from Hawaii this week, actually this month!

But daily rain has helped set the new plants at the church, so I'm happy for that!

I must also mention how great the gardeners are who showed up last week to dig and plant, which was a hot day, but the results are fantastic looking.