If you’re looking for a springtime day trip while you’re staying in the North Carolina mountains, and want to see some of the area’s truly photogenic scenery, check out Crabtree Falls. This wildflower and waterfall hike is north of Asheville, off the Blue Ridge Parkway near Milepost 339, between Mt. Mitchell State Park and Little Switzerland.
Starting in the springtime, usually by late April, you’ll start hearing the Red-eyed Vireos at the Inn on Mill Creek B&B singing a lovely song of gently slurred notes, with phrases ending in an up-note or a down-note, making it sound like the bird is sweetly tweeting a short question and answering it. Over and over, and over and over.
The Pioneer Day festival in our town of Old Fort, NC, celebrates the spirit and ingenuity of American pioneers who lived in the mountains prior to and after the Revolutionary War, when our nation was just getting going.
It’s Spring, which means it’s time for the annual celebration at Biltmore Estate known as Biltmore Blooms. Biltmore, located in Asheville, NC, is an 8,000-acre estate owned by descendents of George Washington Vanderbilt. And much of the estate grounds is like a big nature park, allowing for visitors to meander along different pathways, surrounded by spring-blooming shrubs and flowers.
Warblers and vireos and buntings, oh my! Birding enthusiasts and nature lovers, bring your binoculars and join us for the Blue Ridge Mountains spring migration birding weekend coming up on May 8-10, 2015, hosted by the Inn on Mill Creek B&B, a site on the North Carolina Birding Trail, Mountains Region.
| Eastern Whip-poor-will [photo credit: National Audubon Society] |
Many evenings during the week in May and June, at precisely 9pm (OK, maybe not precisely…sometimes at 9:04pm), guests of the Inn on Mill Creek B&B and North Carolina Birding Trail site are treated to short symphony by the Eastern Whip-poor-wills. Since it is a May mainstay in our neck of the woods, we’re bestowing the Whip-poor-will with the honor of being our May 2014 bird in our 12 Months of Birding at the Inn series on the blog.
| Biltmore Azaleas, early May 2014 |
We headed over to Biltmore Estate on May 6, to walk through the Azalea Garden and were treated to a beautiful sight, and of course, we had to share it with you. The Azalea Garden at Biltmore is in a park-like setting and sits below the formal Walled Garden. If you visit Biltmore in springtime, we recommend walking through the Walled Garden to the Conservatory:
| Last year’s Festival [photo credit: Painters Greenhouse Facebook Page] |
Since the Inn on Mill Creek Bed & Breakfast is getting a little herb garden makeover this year (more on that later this month), we are super excited about the 10th Annual Painters Greenhouse Herb Festival, the weekend of April 12-13, 2014. Painters Greenhouse is one of our favorite locally-owned nurseries, located near the Inn on Mill Creek, in Old Fort, NC.
| Hops drying [photo credit: Hop’n Blueberry Farm] |
Here’s an activity for those of you who dig agritourism and local farm tours and who want to get a behind-the-scenes look at hops production: Hop’n Blueberry Farm in Black Mountain, one of the first hop farms in the state of North Carolina, is offering one-hour specialty tours at 2pm every Saturday in April. The farm is about 20 minutes from the Inn on Mill Creek B&B.
