Choose & Cut

Tuesday we decided to get a Christmas tree. We drove about an hour or so northeast of Asheville to Linville Falls. That's where most of the Christmas tree farms are except they don't call them Christmas tree farms here, they're known as a "Choose & Cut." Very simple. You choose and a Mexican cuts it down for you. All they have here are Frasier Firs. Aka the Cadillac of Christmas trees. The Frasier Fir trees only grow at high elevations so if you bought a Frasier Fir it probably came from North Carolina. Only they chose AND cut and YOU paid top dollar. Not trying to rub it in or anything but it was really strange going to cut down a Christmas tree and we had the air conditioning on in the car and we were sweatting as we walked around to choose so they could cut. It was over 70 degrees! Last time I went to a Christmas tree farm I nearly froze to death and had to carry Erin around (she was a bit smaller then) and I vowed I would never do it again. Come to think of it, a Mexican guy cut that tree for me, too...

Construction Dec. 8

Saturday we went out to check on the house and ran into Tom Lawton, the architect. He's not sure if there will be room for a circle at the top of the driveway for a turn-around so is re-thinking it. I told him I don't care just as long as I don't have to back down the driveway.

Asheville Cats

Today the boys helped me put fresh sheets on the bed. It's one of their favorite things to do.

Weather

After visiting the property Tuesday I did a little shopping in Black Mountain. It was chilly, but sunny. I was wearing a vest and no coat. Wednesday I went shopping in downtown Asheville and it was really warm. About 60. People were walking around without coats. Later that day it clouded up and the wind picked up and it rained a bit. This morning I woke up to find heavy frost or snow on my car and on the deck. Today it only went up to about 40 but it was sunny all day.

Construction Update Dec. 4

Tuesday, I went with Ginger, one of the architects, to look at some custom kitchen cabinets in a B&B in Black Mountain that the architect had designed. After that we went out to the house site so she could see the progress. The lower level is almost finished being framed in and the storage shed on the back of the carport is framed in.

Sunday Walk

Today, once again, the weather was gorgeous. Every day this week it's been in the high-50's to 60 degrees and sunny. At night it goes down near freezing. It's supposed to cool off a little this week so thought we should take advantage of it. We decided to go for a walk so we went to the Folk Art Center on the Blue Ridge Parkway. The Folk Art Center is a place where tourists pay big bucks to purchase local craft items. It's only a few miles from our house and we went there because we heard there are hiking trails there. The Mountains-to-Sea Trail passes right by the Art Center. It is a trail that - guess what? Goes from the mountains to the sea following the Parkway. We walked for about an hour. We couldn't believe it was December and we were outside without a coat. After our walk we drove up the Parkway a bit then got off on a side road and drove around the mountains in an area we hadn't been yet.

Oops! I Lied!

Here are pictures of Day 3 of the Walls. I couldn't help myself. They got so much more finished in one day. All the rooms on the lower level are framed in and most of the exterior walls are in. You can see on the back exterior wall where the windows and doors are. There will be 3 sets of atrium doors across the back.
We were on our way to Black Mountain to join in some holiday festivities. There was a Santa Clause Parade at 4:00 so we decided to skip that and visit our walls instead. After the parade the townspeople were gathering in town on Lake Tomahawk where there were supposed to be luminaries circling the lake. By the time we got there it was dark but you could barely see the luminaries. They weren't very luminous. Robert looked into one of the paper bags and it was a fake luminarie! Instead of a candle there was a little blinking lightbulb in each bag. Then we saw a long line of people and figured there must be something good but they were just waiting for hotdogs. There was a sorry-looking Santa with a few kids lined up to see him. Robert had the brilliant idea of going into town to have a glass of wine instead. We ended up at the Cellar Door (the best place in town) and had a few very good glasses of wine then went home. Maybe next year we'll catch the parade.