It’s so good to be back in Tennessee! After my problems with the rental car, everything else went relatively smoothly during my last week in North Carolina.
Juvenile black rat snake
I left last Sunday and drove the 9 hours back to Tennessee. Everything is so different! When I left people were still rafting down the rivers; now there’s a coolness in the air and the leaves are stunning!
Smoky Mountains
Smoky mountains
We are settled into our new house! Jay did almost all the move himself while I was gone. We have just a few things left and moving will be complete. This house is much smaller, and that’s exactly what we were looking for. It’s very close to the park boundary, making it a shorter commute for Jay to get to work.
The new house
It doesn’t look like much from the outside, but it more than makes up for it on the inside. I haven’t taken pictures from the inside yet, but the all the cabinets in the kitchen are wood, there’s wood panaled walls in the living room, and the dining room has wood floors. And, most importantly, the fireplace is wonderful! It’s a large stone fireplace, and it really heats the house very nicely. Smokie loves the fireplace; he’ll stretch out in front of it and bask in the heat. Raine, not so much. I think the wood popping and hissing hurts her ears, she doesn’t like it very much.
Looking from the driveway to the road out to the valley
Surrounded by woods
This house is literally, in the mountains. And that’s really the one thing I don’t like about it. The house backs up to the mountain, and most of the time the house is in shade.
The back of the house, and the vertical slope directly behind it
If you look out the kitchen window, all you’ll see is a slope! But that’s alright, it makes for a new experience. There are houses close by but we’re really surrounded by woods. If you go up the slope, there are 3 houses directly above us. Two of them are rental cabins!
My patch of pumpkins and mums; even Raine is festive!
Yesterday, Jay and I went to “Oktoberfest” in Wears Valley, about 5 minutes from the house. Last year we didn’t get a chance to go, and I really wanted to check it out this year. It was a craft fair with all sorts of vendors, it was something that Mom, Grandma and Aunt Laura would have liked. It was right at the base of the mountains, and it was just a little crisp out. They had food, a live band, and even a clown walking around (who, strangely reminded me of the circus). There were probably about 75 vendors selling all sorts of things.
Oktoberfest craft fair
We stopped at one booth that had really nice wood furniture, and there was an odd looking wood that this carpenter used for a few pieces. It was light with black streaks. Jay and I were stumped as to the type of wood, and the carpenter told us it was poplar! He said it was unusual; it only got the black streaks if it grew in a cattle pasture or had barbed wire wrapped around it. We decided to buy the “jelly cabinet” out of this unique poplar, and he’s going to make us a coffee table and end table when he gets more.
Poplar "jelly cabinet"
Jay is hunting in Oak Ridge this weekend! Oak Ridge is a “draw hunt,” if you enter your name and get drawn, you can hunt on selected weekends. We worked the check station at Oak Ridge while we were at UT, and we saw some big deer! Jay can take either deer or turkey, and he has another chance to hunt in December.
The only draw back about Oak Ridge, is that this is where the US worked on the Manhattan Project. The atomic bombs used in Japan in the 1940s were developed in Oak Ridge, so the surrounding woods and wildlife can be radioactive. It’s safe for Jay to hunt, but anything he kills has to be tested to radioactivity. If it’s positive, then there’ll be no meat for us.
Smokie loves the fireplace
