We’re proud to continue our microlending relationship with Kiva this year, helping to fight global poverty by assisting small business owners with their entrepreneurial initiatives. We have a goal of reaching 45 total loans by the end of the year.
During the past several weeks, one of our guest rooms, the North Terrace Room, has been getting a little work done, a nip here, a tuck there, a facelift if you will. Here are the first three installments of our video diary on the North Terrace Room remodel. Enjoy! Work will continue in March and the room is scheduled to be back open for reservations in time for Mother Nature’s Spring debut in the mountains of North Carolina.
Spring is quickly approaching in the mountains of Western North Carolina, and what better time to take a hike through some gorgeous green scenery to a wonderful waterfall? Every Saturday in March, Chimney Rock Park is offering guided hikes to Hickory Nut Falls, a 404-foot waterfall inside the state park that cascades down a huge granite face. Here’s the base of the falls:
Our favorite season, Spring, is less than a month away! This time of year, Mother Nature usually gives us little hints here and there that wintertime is waning, and she came through once again. Enjoy these photos taken at the Inn on Mill Creek this week {and visit our Bed & Breakfast Facebook Page for more}:
Let’s talk food, because, well, lately we’ve been loving conversations about food. It could be that Brigette is deep in the pages of Ruth Reichl‘s foodie coming-of-age novel, Tender at the Bone. It could be that we are happily reminded every day that we live in the mountains of Western North Carolina, where local food reigns and local farmers are loved.
Where is winter? {Not that we’re complaining!} These little guys popped out of the ground at the Inn today…
Mother Nature serves us up a good helping of dark night sky in Pisgah National Forest, thanks to zero street lights on our road and our location two miles within Pisgah National Forest, between two ridgelines that block a lot of the small town night lighting around us. So we like to provide a little calendar each year of what stargazing guests at the Inn on Mill Creek might see, other than the Milky Way (which, by the way, is awesome on a dark clear night flowing across the sky from the Lake House to the Main House).
We’ve been told our property has been a private property since at least the 1880s — prior to that, it was government land — and the original structure was a little cabin that sat on the pond. The little cabin no longer exists, but the well (with nonworking pump) still does. When we arrived in 2007, growing around the well was some yarrow and a swath of dianthus, both of which we moved to other gardens. We {Brigette} have tried out some different plants, such as lavender and purple coneflower, but we just haven’t found the right combination of flowers for that sunny spot. We’ve planted two dogwoods near the well, so we have spring color covered. We need something for summer and fall, and maybe winter, too…
If Mother Nature’s favorite colors on her paint palette right now are brown tones where you live, look no further for a color {and flower!} fix than Biltmore Estate, the entrance of which is about 20 minutes west of the Inn on Mill Creek. The Biltmore Conservatory, a short walk from Biltmore House, is an indoor oasis, loaded floor to ceiling with trees and tropical plants. Plus, winter is the perfect time to see all of Biltmore’s orchids in bloom, such as the one above. They’re special enough that they get their own room in the Conservatory!
