Don’t know about you, but summer is flying by here in the mountains of western North Carolina! Our guests are enjoying this year’s ridiculously pleasant weather (high of 75 degrees on July 31, ahhhhhhh), and the fresh mountain and forest air.
Last month, we featured one of our sparrows as part of our 12 Months of Birding at the Inn series on the blog in 2014. This month, our sparrow love continues, with our July pick: the Eastern Towhee.
About 20 minutes east of the Inn on Mill Creek B&B is Historic Biltmore Village, a cluster of shops, art galleries and restaurants in what was a planned community of English-style homes built in the 1890s. Biltmore Village is just across the street from the entrance to Biltmore Estate in Asheville, NC, where George Washington Vanderbilt and his family lived. Mr. Vanderbilt played an integral role in the construction of Biltmore Village, which includes a church – the Cathedral of All Souls – that he had built and where his daughter, Cornelia, was married.
Looking for some incredible views when you visit the mountains of Western North Carolina? Combine a day of scenic driving along the Blue Ridge Parkway north of Asheville with an easy hike, such as the Chestoa View Trail (0.6 miles long).
| [photo credit: sourwoodfestival.com] |
One of our favorite small town festivals is coming up on August 9-10, 2014: The Sourwood Festival in Black Mountain, NC. This is a free street festival where you can browse 200 art and craft vendors, honey vendors and more. That’s an amazing amount of cool stuff to see in a downtown that is about four blocks. Lots of fantastic local food, live music, and even kids’ activities are also part of the Sourwood Festival, which is named after the sourwood tree that honeybees pollinate to give us our fabulous local honey that we use in breakfasts at the Inn on Mill Creek B&B. And we have plenty of sourwood trees here inside Pisgah National Forest in the mountains of western North Carolina.
The Inn on Mill Creek Bed & Breakfast has
a small herb garden within the Pool Garden (our garden that used to be a
swimming pool way back when). At our elevation in the North Carolin mountains, 2,300 feet above sea level in Zone 7b, some herbs overwinter just fine, while others are basically annuals. This means our herb garden has changed its look practically every year. But over the course of six years, one thing has remained certain: the Herb Garden has slowly become nondescript and has lost its identity, blending in with the rest of the Pool Garden over time.
As you know, we at the Inn on Mill Creek B&B are big supporters of our talented local artists, including those who are members of the Swannanoa Valley Fine Arts League. So we wanted to make sure you knew that the SVFAL has an art exhibit showing in July of 2014, called People, Places and Things, at the home of the SVFAL, the Red House Studios and Gallery near the Monte Vista on West State Street in Black Mountain.
