July 4th in June

fireworks

Our community of Mount Holly has their 4th of July fireworks show on the Thursday before the 4th, which meant that the fireworks this year would take place on June 27th. That seems pretty early, but that's how they roll here. We decided to go to see them since the weather was not too hot.

But some residents of our community were going to go to Muddy River Distillery at 7:00 that night. Muddy River is the oldest legal rum distillery in the Carolinas. It used to be in Belmont, but the owners purchased the oldest mill in Gaston County and renovated it into a beautiful bar and event space. It happens to be located in Mount Holly, which is great for us as we love their rum.

Muddy River Distillery

We parked on Main Street around 6:20, and walked the short couple of blocks to the distillery. A food truck was there so we grabbed dinner and settled in with rum cocktails. Then our neighbors began to arrive, and we ended up with about 14 people there. It was fun to catch up with everyone.

As it began to get dark, we walked back to our car, grabbed our chairs and some water, and crossed the street to the Mount Holly Community Garden parking lot. It was a good location on a hill, and we had a nice view of the fireworks. The best part was that afterwards we were able to make a quick u-turn on Main and head home. No traffic jam for us this year!

Mount Holly fireworks

For the Birds

We have had some fun bird activity in the back yard recently. It surprised the heck our of me when this sharp-shinned hawk landed on my bird bath for a drink. Then he hung out there for awhile checking things out. He came back the next day as well.

sharp-shinned hawk

While typically the goldfinches congregate at my finch feeder, they have found now found our coneflowers. Both the females and the males love to have a snack with those. Hopefully they won't beat the snot out of the flowers as they have done in the past.

goldfinches

It Never Rains in California

Manhattan Beach

"It never rains in California, but girl don't they warn ya..." I thought a lot about the song lyrics to the 1972 song by Albert Hammond while on a recent trip to the Los Angeles area to visit our daughter. Since she lives in a one bedroom unit (as the landlord calls it but it is really a loft with no doors), we decided to rent a two bedroom, two bath home on Manhattan Beach through AirBNB so she could stay with us.

It was a lovely place just one block from the beach with nice ocean views from the large deck. But what I didn't realize was that the whole area would be shrouded in fog all morning the whole week. I had only checked the weather for LA (my bad!) and packed accordingly. It was a good ten degrees cooler in Manhattan Beach, and without benefit of the sun it seemed even cooler. I only had one pair of jeans and a nice pair of slacks with me, so I had to launder those to get by.

Outside of the gray, though, Manhattan Beach was a great place to stay. It's very walkable, with grocery stores and restaurants to choose from. We were lucky in that our house had a garage, so our daughter could park her car there for the days we wanted to head out and play tourist.

We spent time in downtown Los Angeles visiting the museums, went to Huntington Gardens (my favorite place to visit) and sat down for High Tea there, took the ferry to Catalina Island and played some pickleball. It was great to spend a week with our girl and celebrate her birthday. That doesn't happen too often anymore.

Scenes from Los Angeles

I Love a Parade

The annual Mount Holly Lantern Parade is in October, but the lantern making crew here at Imagery has already been working since the beginning of April on ideas for our entry. This year's theme is "The Fantastical World of Flight." Our small brainstorming committee came up with lots of ideas. Since we are in North Carolina, the Wright Brothers immediately came to mind. But we felt that was too obvious. We tossed around Dumbo, Casper, the Jetsons, Aladdin, Tinkerbell...

We have a large number of volunteers who, while they may never come to help build the lanterns, love to walk in the parade. So we wanted something that could involve a number of walkers. We also take great care to engage the children on the parade route, because they are so enthusiastic. Having minions and 101 Dalmatians in the past were big hits! We have taken first place in community entries all three years we have entered, so we feel some pressure to do something bigger and better.

lantern construction

We finally settled on Santa, his sleigh and reindeers. The sleigh will be five feet in length, and each reindeer four feet in length. We are also building lantern gift boxes, lollipops, and probably candy canes to really make a statement. Down the road we will ask the parade organizer if we can be the last entry in the parade. Just like in the Macy's Parade, we feel Santa should bring up the rear. Who cares about Christmas in July - we have Christmas in June going here!