All endings bring beginnings

 Finally the end of August!

What a month it's been. Topsy turvy might be the best description. My dizzy spell one night echoed another blogger's, as well as my good friend Teresa (who just went back on taking Meclazine daily) and then hearing about my ex-hubby taking a spill onto his face ending up with 2 black-eyes (I didn't get to see the photo, just heard about it.) Otherwise in my health I lost a tooth and had to have the root pulled separately, got infected so went on antibiotics, then surprisingly got in to see a neurologist and got a new diagnosis. (The surprise was an appointment due to a cancelation.) I had a small accident of backing into my landlady's new car. I ate many meals with friends as well as continued to pick up low-cost lunches in little clam-shell containers. I hiked! Yes, a mile and a half to High Falls just before my 83rd birthday. Whew, that was so hard for me, but totally worth it. Birthday was celebrated low-key with several friends over several weeks sharing meals.

When talking with my sons, I learned some surprising things that are happening in their lives. 

The weather was most cooperative in finally giving 70s during the day for the last couple of weeks and down into 50s on Monday night...and continuing.

The view from where a bridge used to cross the Flat Creek in Montreat NC, date Aug. 20, 2025.

The old bridge (since I moved here in 2007) as seen in 2014.  Rhododendron railings were rustic, but difficult to be very secure.

Flat Creek bridge was given new railings around 2020-22.

After the storms of Sept. 26-27, 2024, the creek rushed down the mountain and the remains of the bridge are on the far side. The gravel road on the other side is a short access between two areas of the town's maintenance department. To the right of the bridge debris you can see the access ford where large trucks can actually drive across the stream. 

Taken 2 months after the storms, these vehicles belong to the maintenance workers for Town of Montreat. The access road bridge was repaired pretty quickly, further downstream. They've certainly been busy in the last 11 months. The rocks without any debris on them have all been added to stabilize the banks.

After: the following photos are all looking upstream, at the same bank and the leaning tree.

Rock can be moved as well, just more slowly. The bank used to have a huge pile of rocks just beyond the leaning tree, which surprisingly survived the flood.

Before: the next two photos were taken 3 weeks before the flood, Sept. 2024.

The big rocks just beyond the leaning tree, where the people can be seen.

Before:

This pile of rocks is no longer there.

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What are the new beginnings?

A disaster preparedness office is being opened in Black Mountain...which will probably have a name like safety preparedness or something more palatable. Rescue of anyone who'd been in damaged structures, or who'd been washed downstream by the floods was immediately recognized as a priority, then of course communication to the community   Then survival items, food, water and shelters. Having a plan in place for the possibility with climate change that any of this may happen again...and even being given a brochure that says "Have a Kit." That was given out at the lunch program to all the seniors. To actually be prepared to evacuate your home in case of another disaster!

The golf course has been partially repaired. Our town funds are stretched thin. But the vacationing people are our source of revenue, so having something for them to do is important. Fortunately the pool wasn't damaged, so families had that to do until school starts. Volunteers on our Beautification Committee have worked to have landscaping all over town look great.

Taken 3 weeks before the storms of 2024.

I wonder what other beginnings are coming round the corner.

But there is a strong foundation built on lots of rocks around here!

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Today's quote:

No act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted.

AESOP

A new normal meets an old norm

 

Black Mountain

We are:

•B•ent but not broken

•L•iving the loss… and the love

•A•cknowledging tragedy and grace

are simultaneous and intense

•C•ompassionate amidst the chaos

•K•eeping our heavy hearts open

•M•ining strength from each other

•O•vercoming more than we ever

dreamed we could endure

•U•nified in our tears, fears, exhaustions

and exaltations

•N•aming our heartbreaks and joys

as we claim all our feelings

•T•aking on the worst devastation

alongside the very best of humanity

•A•ware, each hour, that goodwill

abounds

•I•n awe of the power of nature,

and the power of community

•N•ever forgetting the healing power

of good people in bad times.

Thanks to whoever wrote this first on Facebook. It's been copied about a hundred times by now.

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The official White House Christmas Tree was selected this morning from Newland, NC. The Cartner Christmas Tree Farm has been growing Fraser fir Christmas trees since 1959. The tree will be displayed in the Blue Room of the White House.

After Hurricane Helen's damages in western North Carolina, these farmers are hoping to have a good year of selling trees.

It seems strange, but the thrust of our recovery from the hurricane damage is now to encourage visitors to come to our area and shop, maybe hike where it's safe, enjoy our warm fall air and whatever colorful leaves may remain on the deciduous trees. The entertainers are also back with various venues. The main idea is to bring revenue to the businesses that usually would have had their biggest income from the "leaf peepers." The Biltmore is open again.

But I'm afraid finding an empty motel/hotel in the area may still be difficult since FEMA put so many folks into rooms who lost their homes. And there is still work going on to repair roads and electric lines, now mainly in the further reaches of the coves. Some areas may not recover at all, unfortunately. And we still are grateful for the free showers, laundry and hot meals being provided by several non-profits.

Yesterday I was so unhappy to see the crowded streets full of "out of towners" who drove in fast and pushy ways...they aren't used to our easy going drive through town at the speed limit at all! But if these folks are going to park and eat a meal at a newly reopened restaurant, and shop for Christmas gifts in the various stores on Cherry St. then I'll put up with their lack of courtesy (maybe).

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Here's a video (which is sometimes pretty slow to watch, so be prepared to push a fast forward if you wish). Its about Swannanoa as of Oct. 10 taken from a drone, with narration by the drone operator, Dominic Taverniti. Also be prepared to mute the occasional ads that pop up.

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And I went searching for when the Concorde and the Space Shuttle were in the same airport. This is what I found.

Another (better angle of the same occasion).

An amazing shot of the 747 taking off with the space shuttle on her back!

Concorde and Enterprise together at Dulles Airport, 1986. This is the only dated photo I've found.

The USS aircraft carrier Intrepid has the Space Shuttle Enterprise on her deck, while alongside is a concorde, some docks somewhere! No date.

This might be the same occasion that I was started looking for place and date.

I'm satisfied thinking it was at Dulles Airport in the 1980s.

Early voting in North Carolina

CNN published that early voting in NC was 200,000 on the first day, Thurs. Oct. 17. 

That's about as high as was the voting for Obama when the state actually went blue for the first time since Jimmy Carter. According to a Wikipedia.

Just to give everyone some high hopes.

Here I was standing close to the doors into the voting room to take this shot...I'd been in line about 25 minutes so far. It wasn't too bad because some of the time my lower half, below the waist, had been in the sun. By the time I got to this place I was totally in the shade, and it was a bit cool and I was glad of my jacket.

Here's one of the women (there were a couple of poor women deranged by the lies I guess) sitting at Trump electioneering sites. There were lots more (not deranged by lies) at the Harris/Walz area, including providing a handy Democrat sample ballot.

The woman sitting in the middle of the room in a purple sweater is an observer. Guess which party she's probably from. Well, I have no idea, but there was only one, so that makes me lean toward our predominant party of Democrats here in Black Mountain. But then the GOP is more interested in finding faults in voting.

My ballot was cast and entered the machine as number 999 for this Black Mountain early voting site. 

Must admit the internet connection with Spectrum has been iffy for the last few days...off for hours at a time. So I'm glad it's working again. I'd ask for credit for the time it was down from service completely, but I don't mind paying for the linemen who were out there reconnecting me to the internet. I guess I don't really know when it was returned to service since I was gone.

I'm having to push myself to eat the good food that I have. I just haven't much appetite for some reason. And I had to make a new hole in my belt for my new jeans...for which I rolled up the legs that were too long. Too much trouble to try to send them back with iffy delivery still from Amazon etc. The nearest Amazon warehouse wasn't damaged by the floods, according to some news or another. Plus the jeans will probably shrink with the first wash.

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Here's Open Culture showing the voting test from 1964 to keep Blacks from being eligible to vote in LA. Take the Near Impossible Literacy Test. You and I will fail!

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Here's a PBS clip that talks about climate change as being a topic for each of the presidential candidates:

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Today's quote:

There is always more goodness in the world than there appears to be, because goodness is of its very nature modest and retiring. -Evelyn Beatrice Hall, biographer (1868-1956)

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The sobering photo of the area around me after Hurricane Helene

Surviving and maybe voting

Argh! I've reached some kind of limit. First thing this morning, I wanted the warmth and compassion of a mother. Me? At my age? Well, that's the inner child who has certainly been pretty quiet while all this hullabaloo of 25 days has happened/

And now I want, desperately, a normal meal. One that doesn't have the work-around things like bottled or boiled water, paper plates so I don't have to wash them...just sit down and enjoy a meal. Sorry, going to get pizza yesterday were we had paper plates, canned sodas, and plastic forks...was just more of the same.

We're adapting! Damn it!

And surviving too!

But maybe I could drive 50 miles and find a restaurant with ice water, and cloth napkins...and a menu of more than 6 items. I'm thinking about it...

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Last Thursday I gladly picked up two more flats of drinkable bottled water by a church in Swannanoa. They also gave me a bucket of cleaning supplies. I could use the bucket (but not the size large rubber gloves!) I'll give away the caustic chemical cleaners.

I was actually looking for the hot free meal which was prepared by the World Central Kitchen, behind a place I'd never been, called the Burnt Pretzel. 

There was a sparsely populated parking lot and I walked from there to a couple of tents from which people were walking with a black take-home container. I walked right up and received chicken chunks and beans and rice, and supposedly potatoes and carrots, and some cut up fruit. I also got a cold bottle of water and ambled over to sit at one of the picnic tables within a little fenced area. 

One bite of the chicken and it's dryness and whatever seasoning was on it meant I chewed for 10 minutes (so it felt.) I tried one of the funny cubes of "potatoes" and it was hard...and I thought maybe they were passing turnips as potatoes, so I spit it out (delicately of course). So I just picked up and went back to the car, thinking a good nuking and adding some barbecue sauce might help things.

But first...

right down the street, as I drove closer to turn onto US 70, there was more flood evidence. 

I tried to slow down and get a photo of the repairs near my apartment in Black Mountain on S. Blue Ridge Rd. where the bridge over the Swannanoa River had washed completely away. As I drove, this is what I could get...

Then I decided to try to vote. A neighbor in the apartments said they'd voted by parking in the handicap voting slot...so I gave it a try. First there was a funeral going on across the street from the library, and the bank on the corner had someone out by its parking lot to keep voters and mourners out. A whole lot of cars had been parked on the street as people walked to either of those venues. 

I parked next to the disabled voting slot, where a big SUV was parked doing the curb-side voting.  I was in the disabled parking slot for voting...but I'd have to park and get in line.

So guess what I did.

Yep, decided I could get behind another 40-50 people later, but I needed to eat something. So home to put some of the food into a bowl and add barbecue sauce, and heat it up. Yum. Noticed I didn't even try the "potatoes."

And Friday...I went back to vote.

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The sobering photo of around my area hit by Hurricane Helene Sept 26/27, 2024

Hurricane Helene disaster - coping with it.

 Some more news, if you can stand it, from Black Mountain and what it was like living there until I evacuated on Monday. So I missed this meeting.

The Town Meeting - Mon. Sept. 30 2024

In Black Mountain, the modern ways of communicating aren't working after Hurricane Helene. So town leaders are getting information out with a method that's been around for centuries.

 I have seen from afar that town meetings are being held at 3 pm everyday. 

This is my journaling from the outset of when Helene came through our lives, changing them forever!

Sept 27, 2024, Friday

No internet since 6:47 am with all electrical power…so no CPAP or nebulizer, no heat/cool. No coffee!

No cell service since 11:30. Not sure why that happened. But I had just tried to post to FB that the Interstates were closed in Old Fort, and Hendersonville.

I’m eating halfway melted ice cream for lunch./ I have a few things in the freezer that may go bad. They aren’t that important.

Not being able to blog or contact friends or family, either by messages through phone service, or the Facebook which was supposed to be carried by cell if no internet….all avenues are gone.

And without all the crutches I usually have to breathe, I’m doing ok.

Not many coughs so far.

The worst of the weather was about 6:50-maybe 10…but by 11 it definitely was just rain with a bit of little wind. Now at 1:30 it’s dry and calm, and I hear fire trucks taking off. Boy they will have some rescues to do.

I’ve been reading a Louise Penny book, nice and big print by the weak light in bedroom window. Livingroom is too dark with trees outside. The bathroom has great light with its window!! Like I want to sit in there to read.

I’ve had Judy call, and Cathy text, and Helen text, and Teressa text me…but that was before I texted her that I looked like I was losing cell service. That one went through. The next one to Marty to see how he was doing is stuck in the phone. So I’m not carrying it around. It may have half power still, but doesn’t do anything! (I lied, I always carry the phone around, in case the cell service works again!)

Sept 28, 2024, Saturday

Slept fitfully without CPAP. Woke coughing several times. And out of boredom went to bed at 8.

Yesterday afternoon in 70s and after rain had stopped around 5 I saw smoke over on the gathering area outside the office/laundry room.

A half hour later I decided I could go get my mail and see everyone, be a bit friendly. After all, all these folks are in the same boat with me! The smoke was a small bar-b-q grill which was then cooking a hamburger patty and a pot of boiling water, used for instant coffee by Maryanne, the owner of the grill. Hamburger was from Rhonda, my next door neighbor. She offered me some, but I said I had some left over salmon. If I hadn’t, and had figured out what I could share (baked beans?) I would have joined the group of people. It was just a come together with whatever you have.

The other Maryann said she wished she had video-ed earlier when Barry (our maintenance guy) and his wife drove by. The grill had just been lit and was flaming, all these people were around, and Maryanne’s red firebird was parked sort of to shelter the grill from the wind…it was on the driveway, not the wood patio floor (smart). But the joke was Barry smoking his cigarette, and the grill…both of which are against the rules. I imagine people also had some candles lit in the evening (another rule no-no).

I found my iPad could play the whole book I’d just downloaded, and it was all there! No need to be on cell service or wi-fi! So I spent most of the day reading that. And when I finished it, I couldn't download anything else.

Now I’m antsy to go out and take some photos. I’ll just try to get to Lake Tomahawk. Hopefully those roads are clear. There is still no water, no electricity, at 8:30 am. I had NO IDEA what we were really in for.

On Thursday morning (did I already post this?) Black Mountain had had 7.33 inches of rain - BEFORE Helene even came near. She hadn't hit Florida until that night. But our rainfall of 2 consecutive days had already brought the creeks high, and the ground was saturated. Then Helene tore through our mountains and shook all the trees from their roots, and sent gushes of more water than any place could contain. Lake Tomahawk had been lowered to expect more rainfall, but it still flooded.

I have more to say about Saturday activities, later, with photos.

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Sun. morning. Muggy out, sun shining, so far all the damp on the ground means 100% humidity. So I charged phone in the car, talked to Helen, who hasn’t lost cell service at all, texted with cousin, John in Columbia SC, and daughter-in-law, Michelle who’s in CT visiting her sis I guess, and decided I could try to stick it out. As long as I can breathe. In the car with ac if the apt. gets too hot.

Thought of traveling north to visit my son in OH,  but the I-26 in TN is marked as flooded, just as I-40 east to Statesboro is flooded. Geese, I’m stuck in this Helene nightmare.

Don’t expect elec to be restored for 2-3 more days, just my feeling. And hope water will be distributed by Feema tomorrow at least. The water in my faucets may not be fixed for several more days after that. 

I had NO IDEA at that time!

 Not being able to flush is a real problem!

Sorry this is choppy. But I'm trying to sort photos and Windows 11 is giving me fits.

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Some of the residents at Blue Ridge Apts just sitting around or fixing food on the grills.

These residents hid their faces so they wouldn't be identified. 

I asked the residents who had enough water for tomorrow, and nobody raised their hands. So I went downtown (this was on Sat. I think) and asked a policeman who was trying to keep people from going to the police station, if someone would make sure the elderly living at Blue Ridge Apts got water by tomorrow, Sunday! He said everyone is without water. Big help.

Then right adjacent to him were a crowd of people standing by some tables where the Chamber of Commerce were maybe providing information. So I asked them also for water. They suggested they heard there might be water at Ingles Grocery.

So I drove over there, and found in the parking lot many cars and families with children holding empty Ingles plastic bags, hoping the store would open. And there was a big empty space in part of the parking lot surrounded by NC State Trooper's cars and 3 ambulances. I drove next to a manager from Ingles, they always wear white shirts so I found him easily. I asked him about providing water to Blue Ridge Apts. He didn't know when water would be available again. FEMA was due to bring some on Monday...a long way away for elderly folks.

And I found out the cleared circle was for a helicopter to arrive with a patient that a doctor here would treat. I didn't stick around.

More with photos as soon as I sort them.

A Modern Witch by Frank Leyendecker, Life Magazine 💚 1923

After Hurricane Helene hit North Carolina

Some of my life after Hurricane Helene hit Black Mountain NC on Friday morning, Sept. 27, 2024 in the early hours. The power went off at 6:47 am and I realized I was mouth breathing as I woke up. My C-Pap had stopped.

There was enough wind and rain that leaves were sticking to the screen of my window. The trees were dancing to the limits of their branches, and as I looked down, there were many small branches and  a couple of deadwood limbs that were broken up when landing. 

I don't really know when the storm passed. Probably around 10 or 10:30. It didn't last long with the high winds. But it did keep raining off and on. Water ran down the sidewalks, toward lowest points. I looked out a window and could see my car hadn't been touched by limbs, at least from that point of view. And it turned out to be true.

Later in the day Friday, the rain stopped enough that someone pulled out a tiny barbecue grill and started it up, with smoke coming up I first noticed. Then people started bringing hot dogs, and someone put a pan of water on the side to make instant coffee. It was a 'bring what you have to share with the group.' A group of my neighbors gathered outside the office on the patio. (This became a daily thing, with another small barbecue grill on the picnic table, on Saturday and Sunday and Monday before I left.)

Saturday morning was when I bravely got in my car to go see what Lake Tomahawk looked like. I had no cell service so couldn't see what Facebook friends were posting till much later. I ended up going in person to visit two of my friends also. But here's what I saw from Facebook friends of Lake Tomahawk during the storm.

I saw this posting of Lake Tomahawk going over the reinforced dam where that orange mesh fence is, and coming through the spillway closest to us. Remember last summer when the dam was reinforced with rebar and concrete? Seems to have worked.

This fence is about 5-6 feet above the walk around the lake.

My friends, the Hutchins, live across the street above the tennis courts (the fence can be seen on far left) and took this photo of the lake water up to the roof line of the picnic shelter. They then left town.

I've honestly been trying to watch the Vice-Presidential Candidates debate, until it started to just buzz in my ears and I decided I could live without it. Maybe I made 30 minutes of it! So now I'm to bed, and will have to share more storm photos next time.

Saturday's Critters

 

                            

Black Mountain center from years back

And one must not forget the sister of all these ducks, namely duct tape!

Some interesting skies over Lake Tomahawk

Sharing with Eileen's Saturday's Critters and Skywatch Friday.

Today's quote:

No matter where life takes you, the place that you stand at any moment is holy ground. Love hard, and love wide and love long and you will find the goodness in it.

SUSAN VREELAND

Mural is finished! and must mention "Igikai"

"Igikai" is a Japanese word for 'your reason for being'.
Ikigai: the intersection of passion, mission, vocation, and profession.

It's where what you love meets what you're good at, what you can be paid for, and what the world needs. 

I'm sharing this post with my other blog, Living in Black Mountain. Of course!

I quiet forgot...this is for Monday Mural! Finally did it on the right day!

I would have had to cross the street to capture the whole building. Maybe next time I'll be on that side of the street!