Swan Creek Vineyard Wineries

Go Postal and I at our picnic spot overlooking the vines at Raffaldini..... between rain showers.



The Ski Club took Sunday afternoon to visit 4 of the Swan Creek wineries in Yadkin County. First we stopped at Dobbins Creek, they have a great new tasting room and I enjoyed their Pinot Grigio a lot (I even took one home). Second we visited Laurel Gray. This winery is named for the owners two children and their tasting room used to be the milking barn. They feature wonderful products from a nearby Amish store as well. The next stop was at Raffaldini, they had added a new inmpressive tasting room since my last visit and have always had beautiful gardens. We had out picnic there and even though it showered off and on it was a wonderful afternoon. You really feel like you are in Italy in this little corner of Yadkin County. Final stop for the day was Swan Creek. There are five wineries in this group (we didn't stop at Buck Shoals since we had visited before). They have even gotten their own Viticultural designation. They sit at the base of the Brushy Mountains and the soil is great for grapes! My only advice...plan more time, just sitting on some of their decks and enjoying the landscape with a glass of wine will be a great way to spend an afternoon. If you like wine, check them out you won't be dissapointed.

Check out their website for more information: http://www.swancreekvineyards.com/

Happy First Day of Fall

I love Fall. We ending summer with a beach trip...now its time to do all the great things Fall has to offer:

1. Hikes in the Mountains

2. Coming home to a crock pot full of chilli or soup

3. Planting Pansies

4. Fall Festivals - Apples, Music and other fun

5. A porch swing and a quilt to snuggle under

Hope this Fall doesn't fly by as fast as Summer did....

Ready for the Beach

Can you believe I haven't been to the beach yet this year? OK, you can't really count the 30 minutes we spent at Wrightsville the day we helped Go Postal's neice move some furniture to her new apartment. But tomorrow we take off for Cherry Grove...with great friends from the ski club. It will be some past due R&R. I love the beach in September! This place is called Hazel's Child. Their parents built it right after Hazel took out most of North Myrtle Beach. Saturday night will see 25 folks gathered in the upper unit eating boiled shrimp, corn, baked potatoes and the most delicious baked onions I have ever tasted. We will have to take some long walks to balance the amount of food I plan on eating!

Fannye's Flower Garden

Our Guild had a founding member that was right to the point and knew more about quilts than anyone I have ever met. She taught me a lonestar pattern in one of my earliest quilting classes. We lost her a few years ago and her family donated some of her unfinished items to our guild. Last night we had an auction....and I had jumped right in for my favorite. This is a hand pieced flower garden pattern, but each hexagon is first pieced using two fabrics giving it a very non traditional flower garden look. I will have it quilted and it will be used/displayed in my home as a tribute to a great quilter. We miss her!

In Town Retreat

All 10 members of my Bee were able to participate in another day of sewing on Saturday. It amazing what you can get done when there are no other distractions (except for the occasional boggie break when LP's tunes get cranking) Not sure the church vacum will ever be the same....but we decided to make them a quilt for the next fundraiser so maybe they will let us still "borrow" their space again.

I got the second of my two rail fence quilts tied....hopefully they will be ready to show on their respective twin beds in a few weeks in time for my Dad's visit at the end of the month.

Final Day at the Pool....This Summer

Mary and I mowed our yards, washed and waxed our cars, and took the boys swimming on Monday. It was the last day of the year for this season. Here they are demonstrating their skills. Buddy is going off the slide (although all I was able to capture was the splash so I didn't post the picture) and Little Man (above) will jump from the side and go WAY under. He can't quite get himself back up but maybe by next summer he will be swimming too.

I finished off the evening at a guild meeting where the guest speaker was all about Aprons (her website http://apronmemories.com/). We were told to wear an apron (and almost every memeber did). Granny M seemed to always have an apron on....I wore one that I think my Mom made in home ec back in the 50's. Mrs Goodneedle snaped my picture....you can visit her blog today to see it. All in all.....a Great Labor Day (even if I wasn't at the beach!)

http://strawberrypatchquiltworks.blogspot.com/

Guests from El Salvador

Hanes is building a new sock facility in El Salvador and the management team is up for a few weeks of training and orientation. They needed activities for them to do over the weekend so I volunteered to lead a hike at Pilot Mountain. We all hike around the knob and then enjoyed a picnic of Mountain Fried Chicken (with peach cobbler and homeade ice cream for dessert) Thanks to Go Postal, Whole Wheat and Dairy Queen from the ski club for their help. I think everyone enjoyed the outing...even the two guys who took the strenous route back with Whole Wheat. Their country is beautiful too, they have active volcanos and great places to mountain bike I hear...so maybe on my next business trip I can add on a day of vacation and they can show me some of their parks.

As we got ready to leave several deer came right out to the parking lot where an apple tree was dropping treats for them. Their desire for apples was stronger than their fear of us. There were several does, one small buck, and a fawn that still had some white spots.

It was a nice way to spend a Sunday afternoon.

New Path for Banjo

We stayed in town this Labor Day weekend.....did a little Labor and had some fun. Saturday I helped Go Postal put out new pine straw around his cabin, then we unloaded two trucks of mulch along the side here where the grass will not grow well. Banjo was getting muddy paws, then walking all over the white railings. After the mulch was down, there was even enough stone left over from what was used on the chimney to make a little walkway between the back door and the smoke house. Banjo, the opossum and racoons can now be served without tracking in a bunch of mud. Our reward for the day's work was dinner at the Wolf's Lair while listening to one of our local favorite groups Copper Moon (two of the members of Alleghany Moon).