A thoughtful farewell to summer
The change of season, especially to autumn, is always a welcome and refreshing time for me. Traveling diminishes, darkness encroaches sunlight and you hunker down into the coziness of cool mornings and hot drinks.
Fall comes to the Smokies
Fall is a beautiful but busy time in the Smokies. Great Smoky Mountains National Park visitors should plan their trips and expect crowds, traffic congestion and limited parking throughout the park.
Word from the Smokies: Fall adventure supports research into park biodiversity
As days grow shorter in the Great Smoky Mountains, the colorful landscape hums with life. Creatures large and small scurry through the blanket of fallen leaves gathering nuts and berries, crafting intricate homes to wait out the winter, and preparing for the stillness of the season ahead.
The Joyful Botanist: Turtleheads
There are many different wildflowers that signal the seasonal transition from summer into fall.
I used to be overcome with the melancholy of fall when I would see the goldenrods (Solidago spp.) start to bloom, thinking “No, it’s too early for the end of the blooming season and the start of winter!” That’s how I used to think of fall. Goldenrods no longer usher in the sadness for me as I have successfully reframed them as a summer wildflower that blooms into fall.
Fall into Darnell Farms
The annual corn maze and pumpkin patch will return through Oct. 31 at Darnell Farms in Bryson City.
This must be the place: ‘There’s an eagle and he keeps on flying, over the mountains capped in white snow’
Hello from Cabin 156 at Tryon International, the massive equestrian center and event facility along U.S. 74, just down the mountain from Saluda. The mountains in the distance remind me of the beauty of my home that is Western North Carolina.
Fall Plant Sale at Lake Junaluska
The Lake Junaluska Fall Plant Sale will be held from 8 a.m. to noon Saturday, Sept. 7, at the Nanci Weldon Memorial Gym at Lake Junaluska.
Already leaning into the fall season
Once Labor Day has come and gone, I lean fully into fall. I know that technically autumn does not officially begin until Sept. 22, but for my own personal joy, I’ve decided to initiate the season sooner.
Notes from a plant nerd: You reap what you sow … if you’re lucky
Whoever first wrote down the phrase, “You reap what you sow” was definitely not a farmer or gardener. I’ve started following that phrase with, “…if you’re lucky.”
Does anyone really like Daylight Savings Time?
I guess they must exist, these people who actually like setting their clocks back an hour for daylight saving time, these fans of all things dismal and dark.