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Brevard and Asheville, North Carolina Adventures

A delightful thing happened last week. I received an email from Barbara Robinette, organizer of the Postcard Poetry Fest (PPF), sharing an email from another PPF participant who wanted to connect via phone or email regarding my upcoming trip to Brevard. I’d received a postcard with a white squirrel on it in October, and I knew instantly from the photo that it was from Brevard, home of the white squirrels that are not albinos but a localized species unto themselves. I’d mentioned in my response postcard that I would be in Brevard on a girls’ trip with my sister-in-law in November, and she wanted to reach out to share some must-dos on our trip. However, the contacts needed to be quick since we were leaving within days. I responded to the email, and within an hour, I was on the phone with Kit Schmeiser learning all the things to do in Brevard and the surrounding area. We talked for an hour about where to eat, where to shop, and most importantly, where to observe white squirrels in the wild.

One of the places turned out to be the first place we planned to visit on our loose itinerary – Silvermont Mansion and Park. I’d learned they offer mahjong open play on Mondays and Wednesdays, and when I called to inquire whether they’d welcome two players from Georgia, the manager assured me they would. We, too, chatted for a while on the phone – about the current weather and blessings they were not involved in the recent flooding that happened in Blue Ridge and McCaysville, the offerings of the mansion ranging from tennis to Reader’s Theater to open art studio days and so much more. I began to sense the strong sense of a welcoming community before I ever set a foot in Brevard, North Carolina. I also made a mental note: there seems to be a way for everyone here to plug into something.

After conversations with both Brenda and Kit, we rearranged our plans to include more of the authentic local experiences to connect with community, nature, arts and literature, and local cuisine. Instead of making our way from Williamson, Georgia to Brevard, North Carolina by way of a bookstore tour on the way, we moved our bookstore tour to the end of the trip, keeping Highland Books in Brevard and Malaprops in Asheville as highlight experiences in each of the cities and saving the other stores for later to see if we have any of our tightly budgeted book spending money left by the time we finish shopping in these two landmark bookstores. One on my list to buy on this trip is The Comfort of Crows by Margaret Renkl, which I have on my Kindle but desire to hold and savor its colorful illustrations. If you’ve read it, please comment and give me a gentle nudge to carry it to the counter and bring a treasured copy home with me, along with any others you highly recommend.

We were blessed with a fantastic day for travel. Cool temperatures in the 60s, sunshine, and the glory of the changing of the leaves along the winding mountain roads were fabulous ways to begin the trip. We set out at 7:00 a.m., and arrived in Brevard in time to eat at a local farm to table restaurant called Fable. Its vibe was botanical with its pressed flower and plant prints along the wall, and minimalistic with its airy and uncluttered feel – and plenty of windows that let in a lot of natural light.

In true sister in law form, we share samples of our food with each other. Bethany ordered a chicken salad sandwich, and I got the fall salad and a blueberry muffin. The chicken salad sandwich on Focaccia bread was as tasty as it gets, and the fall salad popped with sweet potatoes, beets, and feta cheese. We bought extra muffins to save for breakfast. We had just enough time for a quick dive into a store on the way to Silvermont.

I’ll share more about our experience at Silvermont tomorrow! But for today, just know that it feels great to declare Mahjong!! in a mansion, and yes, there are white squirrels at Silvermont.

Here in Brevard, North Carolina

cool, clear night skies offer quiet

moments like in A Charlie

Brown Christmas

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Mountain Fascination

There’s just something about the mountains ~

I can’t explain it, but they call

and John Muir knew the same pull

They’re calling. We must go.

So I pack my bags,

set GPS

fill the tank

and set

out

I’m sharing postcard poetry from summer’s Cascadia Postcard Poetry Fest 2026
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Moon Worlds in a Tea Cup

Lately, I’ve been sorting through memories of childhood as I digitize old family photos, and besides all the old Childcraft volumes and vacations and vintage Barbie dolls, another thing that brings great joy is teacups and saucers. One year around 1970, I picked a tea set from the Sears Catalog, and I’ve since passed that set to my granddaughter for her to play with, with its real porcelain-painted pink roses. It was a set to behold!

Today, though, I enjoy the relaxed pace of retirement in my mother’s cups and saucers that I saved. I couldn’t save them all, of course, but I saved enough to give as gifts to each of my Kindred Spirits sisters last Christmas and for me to use on days when I needed to feel close to Mom. I like to go look in the door of the antique secretariat, the oldest piece of furniture I remember all the way back when we lived in Kentucky when I was and infant and toddler age, and choose from it a cup and saucer. I boil water in my electric tea kettle and pour a cup. Just a teaspoon of Monkfruit sweetener and a few minutes in the tiny cup brings all those memories of childhood tea parties back.

Clink with me today! Tea cheers!

Mom’s china I mismatched: these are pieces from Aynsley of England

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Dive In or Climb Up!

In June of 20206, I spent a week in the Pacific Northwest with a group of writers, and what a stunning place of natural beauty! A dear friend and her husband, Glenda and Ken Funk of Idaho, took me to waterfalls and a scenic vista where I could see for miles in every direction and take in the rugged terrain and all its wild peace. Every few months, I get the urge to travel beyond the state of Georgia, and the fever is striking again. It’s predictable, really. I’ve learned to book getaways in sync with when I’ll be climbing the walls to travel.

I leave Monday for a week in North Carolina with my sister in law and travel partner, who is also an avid reader and writer. While next week’s trip won’t be one quite as mountainous and far away as Oregon with a bookstore as big as Powell’s City of Books, there will be Blue Ridge mountains and Malaprops. I’ll climb some mountains to find some waterfalls and we’ll dive right into some books.

We’ve also managed to find two groups for playing Mahjong. One is in a mansion in Brevard, and the other is in a velvet-draped room in Asheville called The Velvet Wind. I’d also like to invite you to DIVE IN and learn to play Mahjong. A friend and I have created a Facebook page, where we will be posting invitations and learning sites. Come join us at Tiles and Smiles on Facebook!

And may all the mountains you climb today, and all the lakes you dive into be blessings!

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A New Tea!

Stretches of time to sit and write were as rare as hens’ teeth when I worked full time, but now that I’ve retired, they are frequent and savored like a warm croissant drizzled with cinnamon honey butter. I’ve recently completed my late father’s unfinished novel with a fellow writer, a family friend more considered friendly family. Writing groups, monthly challenges and yearly challenges are springing up everywhere. Even though the official site closed down last year, November is still Nanowrimo (National Novel Writing Month), and alternative sites and resources are in full swing, Poetry Outdoors is happening, and one of my favorite Substackers, Tammy Evans, has a Flash Fiction challenge going on as well. Writing opportunities are everywhere! The Audrey Gidman prompts for November are always inspiring, and I could spend all day at home in the drizzling rain just writing.

First things first, though.

The countdown to Christmas is on now that Halloween is over, and I’ve found the perfect tea I couldn’t wait to share. It’s the mint hot cocoa of tea, and I found it in The Fresh Market in Peachtree City earlier this week when my sister in law and I went shopping for Mahjong sales in Heirloom Market next door. On a whim, we walked over to take a stroll and see what trouble we could find in The Fresh Market. I’m making the switch back to decaf, and I needed tea and coffee.

This tea is the perfect writer’s tea. I think the minty taste and aroma might actually wake up my brain more in the wee hours when I rise to write, before the dogs get stirred up and I help get my husband out the door to go to work. If you’re in the market for a new fireside drink with a zing of mint to awaken the senses but you can’t decide between hot chocolate and tea, here’s your answer!

You’re welcome.

Tea Nonet

Peppermint Bark Cool Winter Herb Tea ~

How I wish you were here to sip

a freshly-steeped cup with me!

I’d bring out the dainty

bone cups and saucers

with fresh mint sprigs

just for us

to sit,

sip

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Organizing Vintage Postcards

My brother and I have spent nearly a year and a half shuffling through our late father’s things, using what we can and letting go of the rest. I replaced my great grandmother’s table I’d refinished so that I could incorporate our childhood breakfast table into my kitchen, next to the corner cabinet that I also brought here to the farm. The practical and sentimental things have been easiest to decide. But there were oddball things, too, like entire albums of vintage postcards and ephemera. Tons of costume jewelry picked up at estate sales. Old dishes, collectible Andre birds and baseball cards and old Corning Ware and Pyrex and McCoy ceramics. The books filled seven storage units, boxed human-high in rows down the. middle.

So what about those postcards? A year into the sorting of things, I began to realize that perhaps they had a use I could never have predicted. It came in my monthly small group Stafford Challenge writing conversations when Denise Krebs of California, Barb Edler of Iowa, and Glenda Funk of Idaho and I sat together in a Zoom and they invited me to become a part of the Cascadia Postcard Poetry Fest. I was dealing with a family emergency at the time, and almost let the opportunity pass. Thank goodness they persuaded me to take a stab at it.

I’m so glad I said yes. I created some postcards with various art techniques, and also added a few of Dad’s vintage postcards, sending them out in the mix after airing them out a little so they could breathe outside the plastic covers. Nothing crumbled, and the stamps stuck, so I sent out a few to test the system. I wondered if recipients even knew that underneath the stamp, it said “Place 1 cent postage here” inside a tiny stamp guideline.

After the July challenge to send postcards to the folks on our lists, a smaller group invitation came out for those who wanted to continue writing postcard poetry each month. All we had to do was email Barbara Robinette at rosablue722@gmail.com and request to be on the list. She sends the addresses and the instructions at the end of each month for the following month. The group is still open for new participants, and if you’re interested, you can email her at the address above.

I spent time last weekend organizing many of the vintage postcards into monthly piles and Ziplock bags so that I can work ahead a little, since I like to send out postcards to everyone on the list and not just the required three. I like to think of the history of each postcard as many decades later, it realizes its potential and comes alive like some buried time capsule unearthed into a new resurrected life. I wonder what shop it sat in, waiting to be purchased all those years ago, and who purchased it with the intention to send it to someone. I wonder why they didn’t send it as planned.

And I wonder what it says about hope. If postcards older than I can suddenly spring to life and travel across the globe with stamps as their passports to new places as they bring smiles to faces at 32 mailboxes each month, how can any of us give up hope of a miracle happening?

If you’re on the fence, thinking you might like to join the challenge but a little intimidated about writing a poem on a postcard, please take a leap and start with a short form like a haiku or an acrostic. No one has to be a famous writer to participate in this. It’s about the sense of community it brings and the ways we can share with each other to make a positive difference. Plus, you may receive a vintage postcard that wriggled its way out of a time warp to make its way to you.

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I’m Pondering Shells Today

What, really, is a shell? Is it a nest-wing of comfort? Is it a book of wise lessons and sage advice? Is it a warm blanket? A home? A roof that doesn’t leak? A hole in the base of a tree? A fence? Is it a place of solace like a fort or barricade? Does it keep something safely in or keep something out? Is it self-serving or sharing?

I’m pondering shells today. I recently rescued a six year old miniature schnauzer whose owner surrendered him when her boys left for college. She wanted to travel. My new dog’s former shell crumbled, but I took him into mine. As I hold him and stroke his soft fur and feel his playful nose-nudges, I have to wonder: will the boys and their mother feel the empty shell syndrome when they come home for holidays and realize that there’s a lot of love missing? Will they rearrange the furniture as they put up the Christmas tree and realize when they discover a forgotten toy that he was part of a family he’d loved and now he isn’t there to chase the ball anymore and nestle in their blankets as they kick back and watch a movie?

Have their hearts hardened, or will their shells soften when they realize the grief impact of their mother’s decision to teach her sons that love is a one-way street just for when it’s convenient?

I’m pondering shells and hearts today.

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Welcome Wildlife

I’ve been reviving my bird garden for the coming winter months, for when the insects aren’t as plentiful and the shrubs all die down in the cold. We’re those people who toss handfuls of birdseed onto the blanket of pristine white snow, knowing the birds will make the seeds disappear faster than bags of bread when a hurricane nears. When the last of the hummingbirds have flown south, that’s the time I stock up on different seeds and fill the suet feeders with berry-laden block cakes.

And the salt licks, too, are fully replenished, sitting on the tree stumps the deer use like an office water cooler to gather and gossip about news of coyote sightings and Great Horned Owl conversations heard between the northwest and southwest corner trees. The foxes and bobcats haven’t been spotted lately, but we know they’re back in the thick trees on the dirt road side of the farm. The possums are welcome, keeping the lawn free of ticks that would travel inside on the legs of our dogs, but those armadillos are party crashers, showing up without an invitation, eyeing our new air conditioning unit like it’s a football player needing tackling. They succeeded, indirectly, in taking down the last one. And I don’t like them now for a new reason: they traipse across Fitz’s grave, and I just know if he could raise his little head up out of the ground, he’d take them down hard.

And so it’s time for the talk with Jay. I’m going to have Ollie, our dog who actually gets it, try to explain that back here in the woods on the farm, we welcome creatures and critters and yes, even the Slytherins. The Gryffindors, Hufflepuffs, and Ravenclaws must appreciate the dark art types if we are to fully embrace the wild things of the farm. We live by Aldo Leopold’s iconic line from A Sand County Almanac: There are some who can live without wild things, and some who cannot.

We are those who cannot.

What Jay Doesn’t Realize

curled up at my feet

on the living room rug

Jay watches small movements

at the bird feeder

outside the kitchen window

thirty feet away

huff-barking at the finches

he hasn’t yet realized

belong here too

he’s warned the herd of deer

to move along

because he doesn’t yet

understand

he’s no longer a city dog

and all creatures

great and small

just like him

belong here

deep in the country

on this Funny Farm

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Halloween Shenanigans

Halloween held all the fun with friends human and furry – and even one with feathers. I attended a Mahjoween gathering at the home of a friend on Friday, and she had rescued an injured duck from the highway on the way home from a birthday dinner in town the night before. She brought the hen to the sanctuary of her fenced back yard to protect it from predators before she released it back into a nearby lake, and this little lady took a liking to her oasis. Have you ever played Mahjong poolside where there was a duck quacking and paddling, happy to be alive in a saltwater swimming pool? Because let me tell you: it’s a little surreal. Someone yells “Mahjong!” and there is a congratulatory quack chorus happening like a drunk uncle’s loud holiday party laugh in the midst of all the cheers.

My husband and I spent quieter time at home with our three dogs on Saturday. Since we, too, live deep in the country and don’t get trick-or-treaters down our two/tenths-of-a-mile driveway, we still always prepare for the evening with a small bag of just-in-case candy and spend extra time playing in the yard with the dogs for exercise on a night when they won’t get to go back out again until much later – – just to be on the safe side. We secretly wonder how long the cupboard candy will last, between the two of us sneaking Snickers here and there.

This year’s tricks included Zoomies with the newbie, Jay, who is catching on quickly about what it means to have brothers and what it means to play. He’s had two main people play with him in his six years, then a couple of foster dogs including a Husky he detested (he does not like big breeds, according to the lady who was fostering him, which she discovered at the dog park where he’d lunged with terroristic threats at the fence dividing the big dogs and the little dogs). And now here he is, learning what it means to belong and have fun, zipping around in Funny Farm-style figure 8s.

What a treat to share life and admire the antics of the people and the dogs and the wildlife we love!

sprinting right, then left

Halloween shenanigans

zoomies through the yard