Cades Cove in the heat of the summer

 We went to Cades Cove Sunday.  It was HOT, so not too many animals out and about.  The flowers were pretty.  First we saw some gladiolus in the edge of the woods.  The trees are growing up so that they don't bloom as well as they would out in the open.  This one looks so delicate.

 The Rosebay Rhododendron was in full bloom all along the highways especially next to the streams. 

 And there ARE bears in the cove too.

 This is the waterfall when you first leave the Townsend Y, headed toward Cades Cove.

It was nice that Jimmy could take a day off for us to just be together.

Spring in Rockwood

Such a beautiful sight.

And you know I have to get up close.

Happy New Year's to all my blog buddies

I went this week to visit my Uncle Johnny and Aunt Perry Nell in Ellijay, Georgia. I went to teach Aunt Perry Nell to knit. She did very well, which shows you that you are never too old to learn new things (don't tell anybody, but she is 75 years young). We had a very good visit. This was the view Thursday morning from their front porch. The frost was so heavy that it looked like snow.

Hope everybody has a very good 2012!!

Wendy's 2nd book - now available

Wendy's 2nd book in the Campbell Creek series is now available.
Just in time for Christmas.

Wendy has a blog now about being a writer, if you are interested in following her, http://wendylyoung.wordpress.com/. On Amazon and Barnes&Noble you can do a search on Wendy L. Young to see both books and her short story "One Final Night".

Wendy's Amazon page.

Wendy's Barnes & Noble page.


Check out her reviews, especially for the new book. Here is one from a fellow blogger some of you might know her as ItsJustMeWendy, not to be confused with my daughter Wendy.

And just in case you haven't picked up on it yet. The cover photograph was taken by me. Wendy's husband, Lukas, used photoshop on it (which I don't even have a clue how to use) and changed it to red. The original photograph was more orange (which you see when I post comments on your blog). But for this book it needed to be red.

Check out this blogger review with Wendy. Notice at the bottom, Wendy has now gone on the international best seller list.

Old Car and barn

The family went for a 'fall color' ride this past Sunday afternoon.
Thought this was neat.
Wish they had a hole cut out so we could stand behind
the door like we were actually in the car.

Fall has arrived

This photograph was taken last year at the Cumberland Mountain State Park. That day was a beautiful fall day. Not like today. Today has been a very rainy, COLD day. We were in the 80's here yesterday, today the high was 55. And dropped quickly from there.

Just in case you don't know it yet, I have finally started a blog about my knitting. You can find it here. Since I knit more than get out with my camera, it will probably get posted more often than this blog, especially during the winter.

A Sept day at Appalachain Museum

I stopped to photograph the sheep,
but couldn't resist some of the rest of the museum.
My friend Alice loves goats,
so I just had to photograph the goats for Alice.

I don't blog much, but it seems like when I do blog it is about my knitting.
So I decided to start another blog (????). And today I have posted sheep photos from the Appalachain Museum taken this same day. The link to my new blog is here.

Butterflies in the yard

Most of my flowers this year were destroyed by the hail storm of 4/27/11, or the repairmen that came to my house. I did have a few flowers and the butterflies are still coming around. I don't have near as many zinnia as I usually do because they were just beginning to come up when the roofers came. Then about the time a few more came up the gutter replacement happened. I just keep saying next year we will have our flowers back.

I am just glad some butterflies have decided to stop for a visit. Right now my Crepe Myrtles are helping too. Don't think I have ever noticed the butterflies on the Crepe Myrtles before this year, maybe they are 2nd choice to all my other blooms. And as you can see I still preferred to photograph the butterfly on the zinnia (one of the few I have).

Review and interview with Wendy

My friend, Wendy, at Wall to Wall Books has a review of Wendy's book (yep, same first name)and an interview with Wendy. Hope you will check it out. Wendy has her book (post below this one) download for $0.99 this weekend only. Downloads are normally $2.99. Her short story download is now free. Think it will remain that way, at least for a while.


Wendy has another blog I follow, It's Just Me.
Some of you might know Wendy from there.

And my daughter has a blog here, about being a writer.

Wendy's 1st book

My daughter, Wendy, has self published her first novel.
It is now available for ebooks.
The link for the Kindle is here.
The link for the Nook is here.

The printed copy should be available very soon on Amazon.

I bought my Nook edition today, but I have already read it twice.
My sister-in-law couldn't put it down, she read it in less than 24 hours.

Surprise Lilies for Starr Lillie

This is the sight all over east Tennessee right now.
One time I used one of my photographs of these lilies for my niece Starr Lillie,
without thinking about her middle name.

Now I think of her everytime I see them bloom.
Today is her daddy's birthday, but this post goes to Starr.

For those of you that don't understand why the name, I will explain.
In the spring the greenery shoots up with the daffodils, even appears to be a daffodil, but it never blooms. The greenery fades, along with the daffodils. Then late July or early August upshoots the flower stem, with buds aplenty.

Hope everybody is doing well, and has a blessed day.

Odds and Ends

Even though so many of my flowers were destroyed by the hail storms of 4/27/2011 I do still have a few visiting butterflies. I also got a quick glance of the Clearwing Moth (so commonly called Hummingbird Moth, although there are 2 different Clearwing Moths)

The most unusual place I have ever seen a bird lay it's egg.
Guess it was because of the color on the right of way post.
No, I do not know what happened, because I forgot about it for a few days.
When I went back to check there was no sign of it.

My new knit designs

I have been designing this summer, while at home getting the repairs completed from all the damage caused during the storms 4/27/11.
Audrey modeling her suntop and then her sundress. The sundress pattern is with a test knitter right now in hopes of selling this pattern.

I have also been designing lace gloves. The teal pair has a ruffle at the cuff.
Not sure I am going to publish this pattern, but it is also
with a test knitter right now.

The cream colored lace gloves, is a different pattern.
The stitch is called drooping dayflower, which instantly caught my eye.
I took the drooping dayflower stitch and designed a glove around it.
This pattern has already been with the test knitter,
and the pattern has been added to Ravelry for purchase.
And I sold my first pattern within 24 hours.
If you are a Ravelry member click here for the link to the pattern.
Ravelry does require a login, if you are a knitter and don't
belong you should join, it is free.

The rains and storms are in East Tennessee again,
so temporarily my repairs are on hold.

Hope all of you are doing ok.

Purple Coneflowers this morning

It was still early, so the shadows are more than I like in the photos.
But notice the difference in the flowers.
The top photo is a typical coneflower bloom.
The next one is more flat than Coneflowers usually appear.

The 3rd one is my favorite. I love how the petals are straight down.

As you can the roofers didn't kill all my plants close to the front of the house.

Hope everybody has a wonderful weekend. Happy Birthday to my friend Jan.

Beautiful morning

The yard is beginning to recover a little from the hail damage of 4/27/11. I have one bloom on two different hydrangeas. You can see just a little hail damage on the greenry.

My daylilies are going to bloom, but it appears that all my asiatic and oriental lily bulbs have been eaten by something since last year. I had a 12 ft, by 3 ft patch, and a single row about 20 ft long. Not one single sprout this year. I don't know what else other than some critter must have enjoyed the taste. Thank goodness they don't like daylilies.

The roofers came today and are hard at work.

Spring keeps getting better

Love birds are flying everywhere. They are fighting over the boxes, but I am sure soon they will have all that straightened out between them.My small purple wisteria. And my white wisteria on the arbor in the backyard. Someday it will be as large as the one we had in Halls, but it still has a way to go.