art challenge: room (with a view)

Honeysuckle Tea House is a community gathering place, a musical performance space, a holistic living/learning center, a tea farm, a playground, an enormous garden full of medicinal and healthful herbs and flowers, a café, a tea house, and more. There are no windows and it only has half-walls so the whole space is open to wafting breezes.

It's a fabulous room with fabulous views.

 

 

 

Art Challenge is a project hosted this week by Nadine where artist bloggers from around the world are invited to interpret a pre-determined theme and create a post to share.

This week's theme is room.

saturday in saxapahaw

During warm weather months, folks gather on a shady hillside in Saxapahaw to spend the evening listening to musicians perform. A farmer's market is set up, crafts people sell their wares, food trucks bring in munchies and families settle in for all kinds of fun.

 It's community at it's best.

 Jonathan Byrd and Johnny Waken...just awesome.

 

 Much bubble fun!

 

 Tree climbing, show watching fun!

 

 Families having fun!

Listen to "I am an Oak Tree" here. Jonathan Byrd and the Pickup Cowboys!

musica: music lovers, musicians, the scene

down by the river - hillsborough's river walk

Both the Eno and the Haw run through our area, along with hundreds of creeks and tributaries. No matter what town we're in, there is river access for hiking, sitting, swimming, kayaking, whatever your heart desires. Add to that the lakes and ponds and we are decidedly water rich and it's a perfect way to spend some time. On this day we headed to Hillsborough and hiked one of the Riverwalk trails.

You don't have to meander far along this trail before coming upon Patrick Doughterty's Stickwork installation. It's a one-of-a-kind bent sapling sculpture that was commissioned by the Hillsborough Arts Council. Five towers and one central tower, all created using elm, sweetgum and sugar maple, complete with windows and an oculus in the central ceiling so visitors an view nature from within the framed observatory.

 

Then down to the river, to sit on the huge rock outcroppings.

The river winds it's way under an old train trestle,

giving hikers a rare view of the underside, footings, etc.

 

Riverwalk is a part of NC's Mountain-to-Sea Trail but is an easy walkabout for those of us who want to spend a day in the woods or an afternoon on the river.

 

meat camp creek environmental studies area

Not too far outside of Boone is the community of Meat Camp and hidden off one of the winding roads is a privately owned, 9.5 acre wetland that's an amazing birding area. The owners allow visitors to wander the dense fen and have created boardwalks for crossing through the particularly marshy areas and maintain trimmed grass paths for strolling a 1 mile trail. The brush is allowed to develop naturally so gets quite tall (dwarfing me!) but hikers are able to see Meat Camp Creek which runs through both sides, and an active beaver pond too. If you go, bring binoculars because over 130 species of birds have been recorded here, but don't get frustrated if the brush is too thick for good spotting.

The bird song symphony is awesome.

 Because the growth was so thick while we were there I didn't get photos of the birds we spotted, but we really enjoyed their song while we patiently waited for viewing opportunities  Easily seen though, was a really

nice variety of wildflowers and other blooming & berry-heavy plants.

Once you get through the marsh path you're led to a low, flat field and a fence line that eventually leads back to the small parking spot. Horses, cows and open-field birds enjoy this area. Having recently seen intriguing videos of cows responding to musicians who stopped along the side of the field to perform, Dave was inspired to give this a test. Do cows really respond to music? He sang them a few songs. And did they like it?

Why yes, yes they did...especially these three!

Want to go? Directions and list of spotted birds here.

heads

Every museum has it's own collection, it's own vision, and curators design exhibits based on their own personally chosen themes. As we walked through the quiet halls at the Ackland in Chapel Hill, I realized that there were heads everywhere. We visit a lot of museums and I don't really recall any other gallery quite so rich with so many fascinating faces. Heads, from a wide range of time periods and from so many different corners of the world. Who knew?