Snow Birds

 

snow birds

The weekend after we had the ice storm in Charlotte we ended up with a snow storm. Honestly, we moved here from St. Louis to get away from this kind of this crummy weather! I guess these snow birds did not fly far enough south. Our part of the state got 11" of snow. At least it was a light, fluffy snow and no ice like we received the previous week.

Most of us in the community left all our snow removal equipment back in the northern states we moved from. With the lightness of the snowfall, many used their leaf blowers to just blow it away. We have a gardening shovel that we used - not ideal, but it worked.

The goodness of our community was again brought to light as many neighbors came out to clear the sidewalks and drives of those unable to accomplish the task themselves. It's one of the huge advantages of living in a 55+ community. We definitely take care of our own.

The amount of snow kept us in the neighborhood for several days as they do not plow the roads in here or the county road we have to take to get to the state highway. We planned for that, so we were fine. Now the snow is all gone, and the weather has warmed up significantly. Hopefully it will stay that way for awhile.

Mountain Island Lake sunrise

Picture Perfect

gorgeous sunrise

Our son, daughter-in-law, granddaughter and granddog came for a visit last weekend. It had been over a year since they have come here, so it was very exciting to see them. Not that we haven't gone to their home, but it is always fun to be able to show off the grandbaby in our neighborhood.

So many people were generous in lending us the items we would need, like a crib, booster seat, extra toys, etc. That is one of the things I love most about living in Imagery - ask and you shall receive.

Despite a dismal forecast, the weather cooperated while they were here. We were able to visit parks, take her to the community pool, play outside and go on walks. We had a fabulous time, and can't wait to see them again in August. I'm not allowed to share photos of A on any social media, but trust me when I say she is so cute and at a lovable age.

Imagery cornhole tournament

In other news, we played in the community cornhole tournament in the same sex divisions as well as the couples division. Suffice it to say we did not win any medals. The last time Imagery held a big tournament, we took first place in couples. We probably haven't tossed a bean bag since then, so there you go. 

The flowers at our house have been loving all the rain we have had this spring. The front in particular looks gorgeous. The heat is coming in this week, so hopefully the natural beauty will hold up to it. We had a drip irrigation system installed last fall, so we are counting on it to do its job.

front yard

 

St. Patrick's Day

sunrise this morning

May your joys be as bright as the morning

And your sorrows merely be shadows

that fade in the sunlight of love.

Oh Deer!

The other day I was looking out my back window and caught a movement on the opposite shore. We keep a pair of binoculars on the windowsill for this very reason, and I saw that there was a young buck who was going to try to cross the lake. The water is very low due to residual storm repair from Hurricane Helene, so I could see why he thought it was safe to cross.

He was pretty confident at first. The many sandbars gave him a good footing. But I don't think he anticipated the strong current once he got to the main channel. He was struggling to come straight to the shore down at the bottom of our property, but he wasn't going to make it. Thankfully, he ended up turning and going with the current instead.

Rooting for him from the yard, I watched as he swam downstream but still towards our shore. He ended up making it to the slope of my neighbor's yard two doors down. It's hunting season in our area. Did he sense he would be safer on our side as no hunting is allowed in the neighborhood?

young buck

Still Waters

 Last weekend we finally had the opportunity to take our kayaks out on Mountain Island Lake. It's been quite a while since we've been able to do that. But the lake was calm, the heat wasn't too oppressive, and we didn't have anything else scheduled for the morning.

There were so many birds out! We put on our Merlin app, and it quickly picked up the sound of over a dozen different birds (including a wild turkey!) We saw a flock of geese, several herons, osprey and egrets. The water is a little high right now, so we were able to get back into some coves that are sometimes too shallow even for a kayak. It was a beautiful and restful adventure.

Mountain Island Lake

Debby Downer

When we looked at retirement locations, we both agreed that we did not want to live near the coasts. We didn't want to have to worry about hurricanes and all that comes with those. We were also happy to leave the tornadoes of the Midwest behind. So we settled in an area just northwest of Charlotte.

Well, the joke was on us! Our first fall here there was a tornado warning. As our house is built on a slab, there is no basement. We hadn't considered tornadoes here, so we searched for the safest spot in the house to hunker down during the storm. That ended up being our laundry room. Fortunately no tornadoes have touched down anywhere near us, but it is still scary when the warning comes.

We also did not expect to get the backlash from hurricanes here. I'm not sure if being by the lake exacerbates weather conditions or not, but Tropical Storm Debby brought us crazy winds and rain. We watched as the trees out back bowed to the wind (though none fell down), and the rain pelted our plants and house. We received 7 inches of rain in a 24 hour period on Thursday. It was crazy.

We only lost power for about 45 minutes, but many people were without for hours. Roads were flooded, trees came down and the area was just a general mess Thursday into Friday. 

I guess there is truly no where you can live that is without perils of some type. It has just been surprising to see the weird weather here. But the view makes a lot of the other things seem forgivable.

calm after the storm

Read My Lips

It's now five weeks that I have been dealing with lip issues. My bottom lip is much improved, no question. But it is still sore and sensitive. I have my six month skin check with my dermatologist on Tuesday, so I decided to wait it out to see what she has to say. Hopefully there is just some prescription cream I can put on to finally heal it up. I'll also be hoping that she doesn't see anything that needs to be burned off or biopsied. We have guests arriving on Thursday and I don't want to have to deal with any of that while they are here. Fingers crossed...

The dog days of summer have certainly been here. We had excessively high heat here, like a lot of the country. We were in a drought, but this week brought us some much-needed rain. It was great to get a break from the daily watering of our outdoor plants. The temperature has also been a bit cooler the past few days.

We so enjoy having the lake out our back door. The other day we watched an eagle fishing. He caught such a big catfish with his talons that he could not lift up out of the water. Instead he channeled his inner Michael Phelps and did the breast stroke across the lake. When he got to the shore, he rested and had himself a feast. My camera lens isn't long enough to capture an image that far away, but it was certainly something to see. Fortunately I can always get a nice sky picture from my backyard.

Mountain Island Lake

St. Paddy's Day Pickling

sunrise on Mountain Island Lake

Our community pickleball club held a St. Patrick's Day round robin yesterday. The day began with a beautiful sunrise, as shown above. But right after the volunteers got the two tennis courts striped with painters tape so that we could have a total of six courts for the day, it began to rain. The luck of the Irish was with us, though, as the storm quickly passed. We ended up with sunny, blue skies for the day.

Around 70 of our club members participated in the games, so with the limited number of courts each person only got to play 3 or 4 games in the scheduled time period. But some matches ended early, so I did get in an extra game at the end before it was time to go eat.

Some of the guys grilled up hamburgers and hot dogs, and there was a selection of chips, candy and cookies to go along with those. It was nice to be able to sit around the pool deck, which overlooks the lake, and catch up with friends. My pickleball companions who don't live here were a bit green with envy 💚💚💚

St. Paddy's Day social

Beauty out Back

 

Mountain Island Lake sunset

The other night I was blessed to see this beautiful sky behind our house as the sun was going down. It is hard to imagine all the ugliness and cruelty going on in the world right now when I'm surrounded by such incredible scenes on a daily basis. Just in the last few days I have spotted an eagle on the lake, a lizard making himself at home on our porch, a praying mantis, and some of our perennials bursting with color despite the date and the cooler temperatures. We are truly blessed to be here.

Mother Nature at her finest

Where the Wild Things Are

One of my favorite things about living here on Mountain Island Lake is the interesting wildlife we see in our backyard. While we certainly don't see the deer, wild turkeys and groundhogs as much as we did when we first moved in three plus years ago, there are still interesting critters that come by. 

We have had a lot of hawks hanging around. Hopefully they haven't eaten any more of the mourning doves, but I'm fine with them keeping the mice and squirrel populations in check. And they certainly are pretty predators.

hawk

juvenile hawk

Most days we see the white squirrel scampering around the yard. We named him Whitey Herzog after a winning St. Louis Cardinals baseball coach. It is still surprising to me that he manages to co-exist with the gray squirrels as I understand that squirrels are very territorial. Perhaps he is someone's grandpa and that's why he's accepted. I enjoy having him around as he is not one of the naughty ones who insist on climbing the pole to get to my bird feeder. 

white squirrel

"One touch of nature makes the whole world kin." ~William Shakespeare 

When Friends Come to Call

early morning on Mountain Island Lake

Last week some friends from St. Louis came to visit us for the first time since we moved to the Charlotte area. It was fun being able to show them our new house, and drive them through the neighborhood to let them see why we chose this particular development. While our lot with a lake view certainly speaks for itself, all the other amenities such as the pool, game cabin, library, pickleball courts, sewing and ceramics cabins, fitness cabin, etc. were certainly a big part of our decision-making process. After showing them around, they said they understand why we made such a big move several years ago.

We also took them to a couple of our favorite waterfront restaurants, showed them some of the quaint towns in the area and drove to a beautiful old mill that we had visited in the past. They really enjoyed the history and beauty of it, as well as the covered bridge that is located a few miles from the mill.

cherry jam

The guys took off on a motorcycle trip, so I busied myself with pickleball clinics, attended a dueling piano concert here at our pool, and tried my hand at making cherry jam. I made blueberry jam for the first time a couple weeks ago, and I saw that our local produce market had cherries in stock. I absolutely love bing cherries and cherry jam, but had never attempted making it due to the hassle of removing the pits. But then I remembered that I had picked up a pit removal tool, and decided I would give it a try. At $5.99 a pound, the cherries were certainly not a steal. And it took nearly two pounds of them to make four pint-size jars of jam. But I have to say the results were worth it. It is delicious! Now I will keep my eyes peeled for a better price so I can make some more while the cherries are in season. Soon it will be time to make peach as the freestone peaches from South Carolina will be arriving in a couple of weeks. About the time my granddaughter will be coming for her first visit!

More Skin Cancer

Because of the two basal cell carcinomas found in my scalp last November, the dermatologist wanted to see me three months following the Mohs surgery. I went in the end of February, where she did an all body scan. She asked about a spot on my left neck, and I reminded her that she had put liquid nitrogen on it the last time I was in. She decided to biopsy the spot, along with one a few inches behind it. They put bandages on both before I left due to bleeding. I left those on overnight as I didn't want to get blood on my pillowcase.

Unfortunately, I have an allergy to latex - specifically bandages, oddly enough. By the next morning the spots on my neck had angry red welts, and they itched like crazy. I put an antibiotic ointment on them, and recovered them with bandages that have paper tape on them. That was also a mistake, as the welts and itching got worse. So I had to leave them uncovered, and used Benadryl cream on the welts.

Both the biopsies came back positive for basal cells, but apparently they are in the very early stages. So instead of having the plastic surgeon in the office do Mohs surgery, she is going to do an ED&C on them. I wasn't sure what that meant, so I had to ask Dr. Google. It stands for electrodesiccation and curettage, and is a procedure where they basically scrape off the cancerous cells. I have not had this done before, despite being on cancer spots number 17 & 18. I'm not sure exactly how they will know if they have gotten all the cells. With Mohs they examine each removal in the lab to make sure that they have gotten clean margins in the piece. If not, they go back and take more. Apparently with the ED&C, they will make three passes over each of the basal cells to try to remove all the cancerous tissue. The procedure has a 95% success rate, so hopefully I will fall into that category. I'm not scheduled until next month, so I'll report back on how it goes.

I'm not sure I followed up here regarding the infection in my scalp. Two weeks after they took a scraping to check for infection, it ended up that my one wound had a MRSA infection. This was definitely a surprise to me, as the most common way you get this type of infection is from a hospital or other health care setting. My guess is I got it when they removed my staples back in December. I opted to continue with the topical antibiotic rather than taking an oral antibiotic. Fortunately after another week of use the infection went away, and was cleared up before we went to Africa. I'm praying the next surgeries will not have any surprises coming out of them. 

Monday morning I got up early and walked down to a nearby point on the lake. It was cold, and fog was rising off the water. I'm reminded that beauty is all around us if we only look for it.

Mountain Island Lake

Foggy Morning

Because it was so cold last night, this morning Mountain Island Lake was wrapped in a cloak of fog. I bundled up and walked down to Sunflowers Point, which is fairly close to our house. It took a long time for the fog to clear, and the golden hour of photography was past. However, on my walk back, I saw this opening through the trees and it made my morning. The light coming through appeared as an angel, at least to my imagination. You might say the spirit moved me! 

Busy Fall Weekend

fall colors

This past weekend was pretty busy - in fact every weekend in October is packed for us this year. Saturday was the Second Annual Fall Festival at Imagery. It was rescheduled from the previous weekend due to Hurricane Ian, so some of the vendors were unable to attend. But it was a beautiful day, and I think the sellers who were able to come had a good day. About half the tables were artists from our community, and there are some very talented people here. I always think that I'll have a booth with my photographs of Mountain Island Lake, but then I don't get around to making it happen.

Sunday was the Second Annual Imagery Rides show. Last year we entered both Jim's car and motorcycle. This year they added the category of electric bikes, so in addition to the car and motorcycle I brought my Trek Townie e-bike along. That required some juggling of vehicles on our part, but we made it happen.

me & my minion

On Saturday evening the Mount Holly Community Development Foundation had their black tie fundraiser. As an added bonus for attendees, the Lantern Parade Chair asked if anyone would be willing to bring a lantern and do a short walk through the event venue. I took one of our minions from last year and joined a dozen or so other lantern makers in the parade. It was fun, and the guests seemed to enjoy it. We were also able to then promote the upcoming Mount Holly Lantern Parade, which takes place on October 22nd. 

Our community is again participating, and we are fairly close to having all of our lanterns completed. It was so much fun last year, and I am looking forward to seeing what everyone comes up with for this year's parade. The theme is "Written in the Stars", and that is just broad enough that it stumped a lot of people. We are up-cycling our minions from last year, and they will be in spaceships, riding rockets, looking like astronauts and chasing stars. We even added a girl minion this year! We may not win our category again due to the reuse of the lanterns, but it seemed like a good way to get another year out of all of our efforts from last year. 

Reflections

American flag

We are proud to fly the American flag at our home (even if the HOA did require that we get architectural review board approval before hanging it). Despite everything that has and is going on here and around the world, I still love the country of my birth. I also love photographing reflections, so capturing multiple images of the flag on our car was a bonus for me.

Speaking of photographs, we just had four of our area photos placed on canvas for the screen porch. We wanted to have some blue on the walls to complement the new cushions we got for the furniture in there. Since the porch overlooks the lake, it made sense to go with some of our nature photography. I think these will work nicely. Now to get them hung!

nature photography

Different Baby News

baby bird on the way

The other day I went to water the hanging begonia in the backyard, and something flew out and hit my shoulder. I'm sure the neighbors heard my startled shout! When I peered in the plant, I saw the brown speckled egg inside. I haven't been able to determine whether there are any additional eggs in there or not as I don't want to disturb the nest. 

I've yet to get a close look at the momma bird. Looking at bird egg photos online, it looks like it could be a wren. But many birds lay eggs with brown spots. Hopefully I'll get a better look at the bird. Now when I water the plant I go to the opposite side of the pot and slowly water. She's flown out one other time, but at least I'm not in the line of fire when I do that.

In other bird news, this morning I was watering my planters out front and heard some blackbirds calling out. One flew to the top of the small street tree across from us. Just like that a mockingbird let out a cry and took on the blackbird. Apparently protecting a nest, she was quickly joined by her partner, and together they chased those blackbirds right out of their area. It was something to see!

Speaking of mornings, this was yesterday's sunrise. We are so blessed to live here.

sunrise over Mountain Island Lake

Floating Away

kayaking

Saturday ten of us from the neighborhood took our kayaks out on Mountain Island Lake for a few hours. The temperature was perfect, and there wasn't too much wind - at least when we set out. The water was high enough that we were able to go back into a little tributary off the main lake. Back in that area you can usually see a lot of different birds. We didn't see a great variety, but there were plenty of blue herons. I didn't have my big camera with me, so I wasn't able to capture them. There was one large water bird that I am still trying to identify. It was similar to a heron, but it was black and white and had a scruffier chest covering. Since I only have a cell phone photo of the bird, I am not having much success.

I call myself a piddler paddler since I like to take my time and really look for wildlife. I was happy that Saturday's group seemed to be of the same mind. It was a nice, relaxing trip on the water. When we got ready to head back in, the wind had picked up. It was a challenge to cross the main channel, especially with all the motorized boats out on the water. But we all made it back safe and sound. I love living here!

Mountain Island Lake

Merry Christmas Eve

We are spending Christmas in our home on Mountain Island Lake again this year. With Covid still the news headliner, especially with the prolific spread of the new Omicron variant, our celebration will be very small. Our kids have come, and the five of us will stick close to the house except for outdoor activities.  

All the meals have been planned and the groceries purchased, so we are all set. We love to play games and work puzzles, so occupying ourselves will not be an issue. And with temperatures hitting 70 degrees on a couple of the days, I think some kayaking will take place as well.

The photo on the left is of a Santa that we purchased for my mother-in-law many years ago. She collected Santas, and it was always fun to shop each year to see if we could find a unique one for her. This one was perfect as we felt it captured her love of all things Santa while at the same time representing what Christmas is all about. She loved it, and it sat out all year long on the fireplace hearth next to her chair. After she died in 2020, we brought this one (along with several others) to our house. I smile each time I see it, and remember fondly the wonderful woman I was blessed to call my second mother for most of my adult life.

We woke up to another beautiful sunrise this Christmas Eve. Wishing all who believe a Merry (and healthy) Christmas!

Mountain Island Lake

Lake Living

Mountain Island Lake

Mountain Island Lake continues to amaze me. We are so happy with our decision to live on this beautiful North Carolina lake. The skies are fantastic, and we enjoy getting out on the water. But the best part is waking up each morning to see what the sunrise looks like. And then during the day, keeping a watch out for the backyard birds. They are a source of endless entertainment for me!

our backyard

Thanksgiving 2021

Virginia highway sign

Well, we certainly didn't think we would still be worrying about Covid when another Thanksgiving rolled around, but here we are again. 

We kept our celebration small, driving to Virginia to spend the holiday with our son and daughter-in-law, and the grand-pup Monty. As we traveled on Thanksgiving Day, the traffic wasn't super-bad.

We had a fun weekend of food, games and pickleball with some nice people we met at a nearby park. To get us in the Christmas spirit, we went to the Meadowlark Botanical Gardens for their Walk of Lights. While it was a little chilly out, there was no wind so it made being outdoors at night bearable. It was a lovely light display for such an inconspicuous little botanical garden.

Thanksgiving weekend

The drive home on Monday was more heavily trafficked, but we still were able to make good time with our travels. Now to tackle Christmas cards, shopping and decorating to get ready for Christmas!

sunset the day we got home