Day tripping

The fun of living in western North Carolina is that day trips are so available and varied.
This day takes my friend and myself to Saluda and Tyron, NC.

We enjoyed our favorite gallery in Saluda...Heartwood.

They have the best pottery that we saw that day.  As well as other crafts, all American made.

I discovered gorgeous glazes on Peter Karner's pottery.  So exquisite!

It's worth the trip just to spend an hour browsing there!  And then we had lunch a few doors down at the Purple Onion.  It was busy, but not too crowded.  This restaurant knows how to fix a delicious lunch.

Next stop, Tryon NC.  It is on the border with South Carolina, and also a town with a train track running through it.

It is larger (at least by the downtown area) than Saluda.  I was expecting horses, since I'd heard that as the way people talk about it.  Didn't see any live ones.

But this was the last week of December, so perhaps everyone was doing what we were, just going out to a place they'd like to explore.  These photos were posted on a hallway into a little bakery where we had coffee and pastries.

We looked for galleries, and found some were closed, and none that had pottery that would have been of my choosing.

I was more interested in the architecture of this gallery, a former pharmacy, with the tin ceiling restored.

And we did see this lovely horse right in the middle of town!

I'm including this in Sepia Saturday's listings this week, after all, there were lots of old photos on that wall, and the street scenes remind me of the prompt photo. I admit my clicking on an iPhone is nowhere near the amount of work this gentleman must have gone to to create his portraits (if that's what he is showing.)  FYI, when you click the Sepia Saturday link, go to the bottom where various person's names give links to their blogs to see many other interesting and diverse posts!



Today's quote:

“A candle loses nothing by lighting another candle.”

- Jayson Gaignard, Entrepreneur

Dreaming away...

My dream this morning, as I struggled to wake up...or maybe stay asleep.


I've  got 2 horses in the spare bedroom, in a 2 bedroom apartment on the second floor.

My "mother" a grandmotherly type person, has brought them inside, and my "grandson" of about 10 is hauling them a bucket of water.  I think I was really asleep when the horses arrived.

Then the mother has to go out (perhaps the police take her?)

And then I have to figure out how to feed the horses, and yes, shovel the manure so the carpet is clean!

Bring some bales of hay up the stairs.

But need to do it at night so the neighbors don't see, of course. Will they have enough to eat if I wait to bring hay in the night? (I must think they eat the hay.) I think they better behave until then, or what else could possibly happen!

Nothing stressful about living on a second floor with a couple of horses!  Just my everyday sort of dream!

Mountain top removal, coal and horses

I can't find anything in my photos new or old that works with a poster ad to purchase coal, from the 1917 era.  I really like the art work of the poster. Horse, cart, man shoveling coal...thinking ahead to when it will again be cold. ... here's the link to Sepia Saturday... 



My first choice would be to show you some of the designs I created in art classes, which were fictitious ads...but they have all gone the way of many of our early projects.

Secondly I'd like to share something to do with the Mountain Top Removal in our Appalachian Mountains.  It's awful, to say the least, just to garner a few more tons of coal.




The effort by environmentalists, neighbors, health care workers, and anyone against using limited resources and leaving a wasteland, has been politicized for the last few years.  These efforts are beginning to make a difference.  But not before many mountains are ruined.

Appalachian Voices's photo

On Facebook last night I read this:

61% of North Carolina's electricity comes from coal, and half of that from mountaintop removal.  Today, state Rep. Pricey Harrison introduced legislation to phase out the use of mountaintop removal coal in N.C. Show your support for this important action!

 
 And here are the horses...from Traces of Texas, a lovely site on FaceBook which has given me lots of hopefully common photos, 'cause I've been saving them left and right.

Cleburne, Texas 1890...not just another market day.  A horse and mule auction.   Over 4,600 people "liked" this and 1,157 people "shared it."  I didn't count the comments, but read far enough to find out it was an auction, not just a parking lot.