Trip to Asheville- Day one and two

Took a little vacation from the garden and went to Asheville with my sister and her husband. Beautiful place - great weather. Spent first half day getting to know our Bed & Breakfast and eating.  Did I mention wonderful restaurants too?

We stayed at the Cedar Crest Inn B&B. This B&B has three houses. The main house is victorian and where we have Breakfast every morning. They keep coffee, tea, lemonade, water and wine along with some muffins, cookies and cakes available most of the day. All free- and we've partaken of all.  

We stayed in the Carriage House, just a short walk across this stone parking lot from the main house. There are two bedrooms downstairs (one is a suite) and one 2-bedroom suite upstairs. That is where we are staying. It's the least expensive option at this B&B and we are quite comfortable. We have two bedrooms and one full bath.  There is no one else staying here so we have the living room, kitchen, a powder room (which has a shower and washer and dryer), and the porches all to ourselves too.

Carriage House where we stayed

Carriage House living room

Creperie

The first day we had lunch at the Creperie Bouchon. Wonderful outdoor seating and a very nice lunch.  Jon had a wonderful watermelon gazpacho that I'd love to try and reproduce. Dorothy said her French onion soup was the best she's ever had. I had just read an article about French Fries in Asheville and who had the best; Bouchon was one of those listed, so I had to try. They put Herbs de Provence on them - very tasty..  Walked around Asheville downtown a little and spent some time in an antique store. I bought nothing - what restraint!

Then we went to the B&B and checked in. Had our first cookie and first glass of wine too. Read some on the porch and then some in our house.  Then off to eat again.

The Grove Park Inn (recently became an Omni Hotel) is an historic hotel in Asheville. It is enormous and is built of rocks - some of the newer additions are not, but it is quite a place.

Entrance to Grove Park Inn

View from the restaurant

Sunset Terrace where we ate

Dorothy and Jon at Sunset

High on a hill overlooking both a valley and some of the Blue Ridge Mountains. A beautiful setting and very good dinner.

Back to the house and more reading time - heavenly.


The next morning over to the B&B for breakfast: Fruit, muffin, some scrambled eggs with a nice piece of bacon and a piece of thick french toast. Lost of coffee.  Roll me out....

Then on to the Biltmore House and Gardens. We spent most of our time in the Gardens.  Did I mention I was with Dorothy? Gardens are beautiful.

Yellow fsection

Orange and Red garden

Annuals in high baskets
in the rose garden

White Garden

On Biltmore Porch

Eventually we got to the house. You cannot take pictures inside but can on a back porch. It's an enormous porch though you only see two chairs here. There must be 12 groups like this of chairs, tables, all 3-4 feet apart. The room just before this was a used during WW2 to store famous works of art by the Masters  taken from Washington Art gallery for protection. It had been reinforced and hidden from the house but is now open and wooden panels put on the walls.  The library is really an impressive room as well. Massive size and beautifully decorated; could have stayed there and read all day, if only he had invited me to visit.

Cut our visit short though to get to our reservation for High Tea at the Biltmore Inn.  After our "Amuse Bouche" of peppered watermelon, we smelled all the concoctions of tea and made our choices for which tea to have. Mine has the aromas of herb de provence.

Sandwiches at Tea

Then there were sandwiches - all yummy. This was followed by cheese with crackers and honey and four raspberries to share. Then followed the desserts - I forgot to take a picture of those - three tiers of plates.. we at some of each.  Waddled back to the car.  Then to the garden store at the Biltmore. Lots of pretty things, but only Dorothy bought anything,

Then Jon and I did a wine tasting. Might have been all that sweet stuff earlier but neither of us liked the wine enough to buy any.
Back to the B&B. Reading time.

Eventually we went out for a late bite, but instead ended up at a CVS buying cereal and milk and had that at the B&B about 10:30 at night. Why- not quite sure but it was good cereal.

Dry weather

chicory and some daisy like weeds

delicate white weed

We have only had one day of rain in a long time, so things are pretty dry. The weeds sure like it though and have been throwing up some beautiful flowers. Here are some of them.

Sweet pea and Queen's Anne Lace

yellow flowers in lawn

There are a few non-weed plants that are blooming too and are very pretty. There are Blue Hydrangeas, Hostas, Daylilies, and Rose of Sharon. The Japanese Beetles, Bees, and Humming Birds are fighting over these. Speaking of Japanese Beetles, they are everywhere. They love the grape leaves but so far don't seem to be totally ruining the grapes. We are trying to keep them under control but loosing the battle.

Grapes among beetle eaten leaves

Hostas

Rose of Sharon



Yellow Day Lilies

hydrangeas

The garden is doing pretty well but of course we've had to water it pretty often. But it's beginning to produce finally - yeah!

We've got beans starting to come in (string beans and dragon beans); the peppers are starting to show up - green, jalapeno and banana (these are the most prolific so far.)  I've picked a few small zucchini and see some yellow squash starting. I even see my miniature eggplant seems to have 2 eggplant on the plant - be interested to see if it ever gets big enough to eat.

Green pepper

Bolting Lettuce- pretty white flowers



Slim pickings but pickings- tomatoes, dragon beans, one jalapeno

Beans emerging

The new rows of beans that were planted after the onions were harvested have broken through. Those that were soaked first did come up earlier. So will have to remember that for next year.

My brother and a friend were here and we  (and guests) feasted Thursday night with some veggies he brought from his garden and some things I made and pies by Anna Ray (the best pie maker ever)! They have gone off camping for a few days but plan to return sometime.

That's all for this week. Hope all these pictures made up for last weeks :)





July 6, 2014

No pictures today; been lax about remembering to take camera outside. I've finished cleaning the upstairs yesterday in preparation for my brother and his friend who are coming this week to visit!  Yeah! There were a lot of dead bugs in back bedroom. Guess they tried to get in from the cold. Most in the window sill actually, though some managed to get further.

Also painted a piece of wood to make a shelf under the piano bench in my room. My wrist didn't like that!

Went to therapy this week - max money from Medicare is running out, so might be done getting professional therapy soon. Also going to  Wytheville Community Center for some exercise. Played tennis on hard courts with my cousin this week, felt weird and good at same time.

Lots of garden work as always. Went with neighbor, Cathy, to the Beagle Ridge Herb Farm and Education Center. Proprietor, Ellen, is such a wealth of information  it's a joy to go out there.  This was Cathy's first time. I bought a couple of English Lavender  (can cook with these) plants since all but one of my lavenders died this winter. Ellen's plants did pretty well thought she lost a few as well.  Of course she has lots more than I do. As always learned some new things. I also brought home a Lovage plant (celery like), and an orange nasturtium plant she was going to throw away.

All got planted today - the Lovage by the back kitchen door; and the others in the herb garden. Also dug up  chives and separated and re-planted.  Harvested all the onions a couple days ago (now hanging up in the shed along with and the garlic Butch brought to us from the HJ farm.  Planted another 3 short rows of  beans where the onions had been (from beans from last year; not sure if Potter beans or the garden beans from last year). In two rows  the planted beans were soaked for 4-hours; the other row, just put the beans in. Interested to see if there is any difference.  Or if in fact any of them come up.

In the garden, we had another banana pepper, have a few small green peppers, growing, a couple of zucchini that will be ready in a couple days, some cucumber and yellow squash flowers, lots of lettuce, and radishes growing,  There is one tomato that is red and will get picked soon. Little teeny green beans are showing up that soon will be edible.  Lots of lettuce, some going to seed.

Cooked all the apples (aren't going to have any more) in a dessert for tonight.  It was good, but the tree is just not producing much this year.

 Was over at HJ's house today. Alana gave me some yellow squash and beets; had some squash today and cut up the rest to make yellow relish but have to get the other ingredients tomorrow.

That's all folks! Hope everyone had a happy 4th of July.