Life phase
June 24, 2015

The folks . . .

Our much-delayed-by-work-commitments journey finally culminated in getting the trailer set up in Hendersonville and spending our days with Mom & Dad Wuehrmann in Tryon.  Dad is at home in hospice care; lending a hand during this time is ours to do.

The RV park where we typically stay is a 30-minute drive from their home, so we spend little time there.  It is probably the nicest park we've utilized, although during a number of visits here, we have never used the tantalizing swimming pool.  Each visit, I promise myself I will take a dip or two, and each visit, I never get to it.

Friends, a boo-boo, neighbors & Jazzy . . .

A real treat on the last day of the drive was to meet up with Arizona friends Gary & Katy and their traveling companions.  No one could have planned that encounter; how perfect that they were departing their vacation spot and crossing our path along the way.  We met in Asheville for a two-hour lunch and catch-up.

That was the good news.  The bad news was that somewhere during the morning, we bottomed out the back end of the trailer and bunged up the stabilizer jack and bumper.  Chris was able to straighten out the bumper ding; however, the stabilizer had to be replaced.  Luckily, an RV outlet nearby had the part in stock and an RV neighbor loaned us a jack that was needed for the process.

Those neighbors, John & Pat, are Floridians spending the summer in Hendersonville with their poodle, Jazzy.  Good folks to have next door - Pat is sharing her abundant sweet basil - and Jazzy is one of the more amazing dogs I've met.  When they are relaxing outside, the unleashed dog is content to recline on the grass and allow all accolades and attention to be bestowed upon him.  He watches with great interest as dogs are walked nearby, but nary a budge out of his zone.

Yard crew . . .

Often as I wander harsh terrain, whether western desert, southern swampland, mountain forests or any other naturescapes, I am incredulous at the seemingly superhuman exertions the ancestors exhibited as they traveled through to new areas or cleared land to settle and farm.

As Chris and I worked this week to restore Mom & Dad's property to some semblance of order, I once again jumped on that train of thought.  A thermometer reading of 99 and humidity off the charts made attacking the jungle one of those tasks that require putting the brain in neutral (something I'm fairly adept at) and just bulling through.

In the larger scheme of things, the chore was a big nothing, although the gratification from a job well-done was satisfying, as were comments from visitors who wondered if we were the "amazing yard crew"? 

We pruned and sawed and clipped and pulled and whacked and sweated and moaned and dragged, with the resulting landscape looking top-notch.  Now a person can actually get to the blueberry patch that was formerly inaccessible - rhododendron, ivy and a whole slew of stuff I know not the name of, including the most horrid thorny vine ever grown, tangled through the area.  In addition, there was a bunch of other vegetation I did not recognize blocking the way as well as any brick wall might have.

Being a westerner, I am not overly familiar with the green growing things that proliferate here, so I worried that I might be whacking away on "good" stuff, not weeds.  Chris eliminated that concern: "If it's in the way, it's a weed".

The front entry is now shipshape as well as most of the remaining grounds.  That tree on the left is Harry Lauder's Walking Stick, according to Mom, a most fascinating botanical.

Meanwhile, back at the RV park, Ma & Pa Cardinal are not the only takers at our feeders; they've been joined by Carolina chickadee & tufted titmouse and. . .

. . . we had to move the feeders to prevent this scamp from jumping onto them and knocking the hummingbird feeder down.

I hope the hydrangea I planted in my garden this year will be this pretty.

More good news - it's peach harvest time!

The Green River Gorge between Hendersonville and Tryon is often filled with mist and fog.  There's a good reason they call this range the Smoky Mountains.