| Business owner Cosmas in Zambia |
Back in May, we set a springtime goal to help fund loans to two or three small business owners through Kiva, a San Francisco-based nonprofit that helps connect lenders and borrowers of microloans, helping entrepreneurs to improve their local economies and lift themselves and their families out of poverty. Many of the borrowers are from developing countries, albeit Kiva has borrowers from the U.S. as well.
When our Autumn Clematis starts blooming at the Inn on Mill Creek Bed & Breakfast in August, that’s generally when we start thinking ahead to the fabulous season that is Fall in the North Carolina mountains.
| Lovely little hummer at the Inn on Mill Creek |
The speedy little Ruby-throated Hummingbird is our July pick for this year’s 12 Months of Birding at the Inn series on the Inn on Mill Creek blog. The Ruby-throated Hummingbird has the distinct honor of being the eastern United States’ only breeding hummingbird, so if you see your hummers disappear for a few weeks in the summer, no worries, they’re just starting their little families and will be back soon.
The 36th annual Sourwood Festival is right around the corner! This fun street festival, presented by the Black Mountain-Swannanoa Chamber of Commerce, is the quintessential awesome small town event, featuring hundreds of arts and crafts vendors, food that ranges from vegetarian to BBQ, as well as ice cream and festival fare, kids’ activities and rides, live music, and the part we like best — honey and bee demonstrations.
The Arrowhead Artists & Artisans League (A3L) is a group of local artists who are dedicated to promoting the arts in Old Fort, NC. If you like art, you’ll appreciate their efforts to preserve the art culture of the mountains in our fabulous little town. This year, A3L opened an art gallery and studio space — Arrowhead Gallery & Studios — on Catawba Avenue in Old Fort, complete with a gorgeous painted quilt block.
“Can Dave make his Soda Bread Muffins for us?” That’s a question we hear a lot from return guests at the Inn on Mill Creek Bed & Breakfast. Soda Bread (or its equally delish counterpart, the Soda Bread Muffin) is like the food version of the color white — it goes with everything. And it can be served at any meal, although we’re partial to breakfast for obvious reasons. The best part about this beautiful baked good is that Soda Bread is really easy to make. You probably already have most, if not all, of the ingredients in your kitchen.
Busy day at the Inn on Mill Creek birdfeeders today! These three photos were taken in the span of about four minutes. Just a taste of what you might encounter in the summertime at the Inn on Mill Creek, which is a site on the North Carolina Birding Trail, Mountains Region.
In the seven summers that we’ve been here at the Inn on Mill Creek Bed & Breakfast, we’ve noticed from time to time in the pond a dark object just below the surface of the water, a submarine-like being, which occasionally sends up its periscope to check around, only to quickly sink back beneath the depths when spotted. OK, maybe Innkeeper Brigette has been reading too much about the Hunley Submarine in anticipation of a little innkeeper R&R (roadtrip and relax) vacay to Charleston later this year… But our resident snapping turtle had yet to make a real appearance, other than sticking its long neck out of the water. Until this week.
The daylilies, shasta daisies, butterfly bushes and hydrangea shrubs are out in full force at the Inn on Mill Creek, welcoming summertime to the mountains of western North Carolina. (And just FYI, since we are daylily-crazy here at the Inn, we have several varieties that bloom at different times in different garden areas.)
| Blue-gray Gnatcatcher building a nest in our apple orchard |
A resident of the neotropics, the blue-gray gnatcatcher migrates to our neck of the woods for the summertime and thus gets a spot as our June bird in this year’s 12 Months of Birding at the Inn series on the blog. The gnatcatcher is a tiny gray bird, with a long white-edged tail and dark streaks above its eyes that make it look like the gnatcatcher flew straight out of the Angry Birds game.
