Update about blogCa

At Louise's Kitchen in Black Mountain NC

Tuesday, March 31, 2026

Treasures (and fears) for me

 

By Susan Seddon Boulet


The Mud buddies...maybe in 2012  - Betty, Barb,  Cathy, Marsha, Pat. The pottery here is Barb's, each of the other potters also had their works on 2 other tables.

If you don't know the story of Leonard Peltier, I encourage you to look it up. A Native American who was/is imprisoned after fighting the FBI about the second Wounded Knee, if I remember correctly.



Members of the Great Mother's March.



Going with the flow doesn’t mean we don’t know where we’re going; rather, we are open to other ways of getting there.

Sharing with Tom's Tuesday Treasures 
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Personal update on breathing from this 83 year old with COPD...I didn't use oxygen at all on Sat, Sun or Monday. Did a short walk several times, and was only a bit out of breath. It's there if I need it!

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From the second Sunday's back yard at 3175 feet trip, I have an unidentified blooming plant. Anyone have any ideas? There weren't any tendrils like witch hazel has.


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Also wish that several nearby wild-fires are soon put out. Our plan to drive to Little Switzerland in a week for a day trip means driving right through the current smoke of the Jumping Branch Fire in McDowell County, which of course we'll decide to just not go there that day if it hasn't been put out.

Monday it was posted on FB as 0% contained around noon. 20% by evening!
And tthere were photos. It closed Hwy 80 which goes up to the Blue Ridge parkway.

A chinook at the Asheville Airport. We saw a smaller helicopter with a soft bucket slung below it going across the ridge Sunday from our perch on the Blue Ridge Parkway, but didn't see any smoke. 

Highway 80 is a winding road that follows creeks up to Little Switzerland and the Blue Ridge Parkway on 3/30 about 185 acres 


Aero-Flite Tanker 260 Bombardier CL-415 (Super Scooper) aerial firefighting airplanes scooped up water from Lake James to help battle this wildfire northwest of Marion.

Flight paths on March 29, 2026


Unidentified remains from a wild-fire.



Monday, March 30, 2026

From the internet

 

By Susan Seddon Boulet - The Ancient Ones

Dandelion lidded jar by Claire Prenton

Photo by Jay Spring





Fiber art by Eileen Williams


By Kaoru Yamada 

By Georgia O'Keeffe


And this is my collected photos from Facebook posts last week. Sorry no good theme to tie them together!

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Read every day something no one else is reading. 
Think something no one else is thinking. 
It is bad for the mind to be always a part of unanimity.
    - Christopher Morley

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A quick note with full face from Tanbark Ridge yesterday, March 29.  I took my next door neighbor up to our back yard, as she’d never been on the Blue Ridge Parkway.  Her phone has an app which takes panoramas still while mine has quit.


Sunday, March 29, 2026

Sitting in my backyard at 3175 feet

 

You may have noticed some of these shots from my Sunday travels post several days ago. But here are just Blue Ridge Parkway scenes. Starting at 2720, just 300 feet higher than where I live in Black Mountain, the aim was to try breathing higher altitudes.

Although I only sat here a few minutes, I worried about sunburn. The next week I did have puffy sore lips, the only sign of difficulty!

Willow and Ruthie from Lafayette LA came by and we talked about St. Gertrude of Nivilles as the patron saint of cats...which of course they had never heard of.

Closeup view with some purplish flowers. 

Farm land below, while you might see the cut of the Parkway as it traverses a midrange mountain slope.


Somewhere in the distance is my home in Black Mountain. I travel about 14 miles from there to this lofty view. It costs about a gallon of gas for the round trip!




OK, why do I cut myselfie off? Because there was a bit of something on the end of my nose, but nobody around to tell me. And of course I couldn't see the photo worth a hoot in the bright sunlight.

Which reminds me, why did my iPhone stop offering panoramas and portrait settings? Now all I get are video and photo choices...with different things within photos. ARGH!


My 3175 foot elevation is lovely, and with low humidity I can breathe ok. Of course I haven't tried doing anything strenuous yet!

The lack of foliage means you can clearly see the devastation from the hurricane storms in Sept. 2024. 



The Craven Gap area (a trail as well as a road that goes up to several homes off the Parkway) was hit hard by either wind going up the gap, or water coming down. Trees are littered all over the woods helter skelter!
A recent hiker at Craven Gap saw this wildcat.



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Tomorrow I'm going to try the "Sit and Be Fit" class, at least up to the marching and heavy breathing part at the end! It's at the Lakeview Senior Center. (written on Tuesday 3.24.26)

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And an astronomer said, Master, what of Time? And he answered: 
You would measure time the measureless and the immeasurable.
You would adjust your conduct and even direct the course of your spirit according to hours and seasons.
Of time you would make a stream upon whose bank you would sit and watch its flowing.
Yet the timeless in you is aware of life’s timelessness,
And knows that yesterday is but today’s memory and tomorrow is today’s dream.

And that that which sings and contemplates in you is still dwelling within the bounds of that first moment which scattered the stars into space.

—Kahlil Gibran
On Time
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Sharing with Skywatch Friday





Saturday, March 28, 2026

No Kings

 





The Village FL


St Paul MN


Pittsboro NC

Philadelphia PA


Louisville, Kentucky!  NoKings for multiracial feminist democracy against the authoritarian nightmare.


in London England


Houston TX


Dublin Ireland

Boise Idaho


Black Mountain rally

Black Mountain NC


Asheville NC












Raleigh NC