Doing Laundry (from Swannanoa Valley Museum)

Great blown-up photos of the past...all over the displays at the History Museum in Black Mountain NC.

Wonderful hand-sewn children's clothes hanging with clothes pegs.

Some of the great "antique" machines for getting the family's clothing clean.

My mom had a great washing machine, on the breezeway with one of those hand cranked wringers. (Her's was electric in 1945 for agitating the clothes, but she had to do final wring by the wringer with a handle.) She admonished me to not ever put my fingers in the crack of the rubber pressers. So of course when she wasn't looking I did, and cried loudly. When will I ever learn!

Sharing this at Sepia Saturday this week...

Posters, descriptions, and prescriptions!

As a docent at the Swannanoa Valley History Museum (it's really called an even longer name, S.V. Museum and History Center,) last Wednesday afternoon, I looked far and wide for posters.  After all, a history museum has lots of antiques.  I found some signs...close I thought.  And displays.  So I'm checking them for the theme prompt of Sepia Saturday this week.

Our theme image for this week asks you to seek out any adverts in your collection - either up front or in the background - and feature them in your post on or around Saturday 27th October 2018.

When I moved to Black Mountain NC in 2007, there was still a small airport/airfield, with a radio station on the same property.  I don't remember any planes coming or going (the small ones of course). Sanavo was the aviation gasoline and oil before Exxon or Standard oil companies.  Most old metal signs in the area have the pock marks of someone's target practice with their rifles.

Then that area was bulldozed and became the Ingles Grocery Chain main warehouse...a huge building.  And some other industries took over the radio station buildings and the antenna was gone also.

The next two displays talk about area buildings.

Our nearby town of Swannanoa used to have a big mill, Beacon Blankets.  There's a good display of how that industry was very successful until it's close in 2002.  The empty building then burned just before I moved here.

One of the Beacon products of the 40s and 50s.

 There were beautiful designs woven into the blankets, many with a Native American chevron design, and bright colors.

These might be considered posters (the last 2 photos)

Asheville's newspaper covered the building of the railroad into Black Mountain.  There are also books about the area, including the railroad engineering.  The museum also has a little diorama with an electric train that you can play with.  

And what about the prescriptions? There's a display which shows some of the earliest prescriptions filled by a local pharmacy.

That "drug store" is no longer in business.

An old calendar shows what many ads looked like (1967?) I remember many calendars hanging on the wall advertising a lot of different things.

And some advertising used to hang on a screen door to a "general store."

 Starting Friday evening, Ghost Tours of Black Mountain will be conducted by the Swannanoa museum, and here's their own poster on the door.  There is rain forecast, so the tours will be conducted with umbrellas.

 A poster for an event here in Black Mountain, an art show this Saturday. I think the rain will have passed on through by then.

A Black Mountain College poster from Asheville Art Museum in 1978.  The college closed in 1956, but there's a lot of abiding interest in it and it's innovative methods in the 40s and 50s.  There's an excellent exhibit at the Swannanoa History Museum here in Black Mountain about the College -up until Dec. 8, 2018.



Have a happy weekend!

Wednesday beginning and...

I'm going to volunteer at the history museum again today.  Last time (my first 2 shifts there) it was rainy so lots of tourists came in to do something dry while visiting.  New Zealand, India, Colorado, St. Thomas, New York, Florida, just a few of the places that they mentioned.

Breakfast before nebulizer treatment, both of which have waited while I drank my first coffee, read emails, Facebook, and blogs.

MIDDLE -
I've been surprisingly busy as docent at the museum.  I'll show some pics of it, over at blog Alchemy of Clay and Living in Black Mountain...

It was just families of 3 for a while, which felt like a lot of people.  But then several came together as a group of 12!! And before they left there was a thunderstorm.  That meant they were huddled around the front door waiting for the husbands who had gone to get vans in the rain to come pick up the rest of the group.

So today I've had 31 people come in, though nobody is here right now.  There were some people who just are asking directions for Herb Way's photo show at the Black Mountain Center for the Arts next door.

LATE -
So tired I put my head on pillow and curled up on the love seat after turning on TV and eating some crackers to soothe my stomach.  Slept for a few minutes, which is unusual for me.  Then watched a bit of TV.

That's how I end the day.  Read my book a bit before turning out the light.  See if this was a real journal I'd mention only eating some veggie soup and crackers for dinner.  I did work a bit on my ancestry blog too.  But I know that's boring.  Maybe all of this is, so I think I'll just pull most of it off the blog and stick it into my journal.  Ha.  Love the portability of computers!

Counting down 20 days to go...

I'm trying to do nebulizer while typing on laptop.  It's a bit of a circus trick.  But since I must sit here by machine, why not do a bit of chatting after reading my emails, Facebook friend's posts, and blog friends?

I've been slammed, so didn't have time to write or even compose anything yesterday.  I did a bit of research on ancestors in between people coming into the Swannanoa Valley History Museum, where I've begun work as a docent.  It was supposed to be a pretty dull job with few visitors (ha ha.)  But it's been raining solidly for 3 days now, and that means tourists have to find things to do indoors.  So where last week only 2 or 3 people would visit during a shift (before I started) this week there were 15 people in the 3-1/2 hours I was there Wed. afternoon and again 16 on Thurs. morning.

I'm still (for now) a volunteerat the Clay Studio at Black Mountain Center for the Arts.  It's right next door to the History Museum.  So when I was at the Clay Studio I didn't really do much but work glazing my own pieces.

And when I came home and had put my feet up while watching the news, I decided to take that chicken carcass out of the fridge and make some soup stock.  Then I noticed of course the last of the veggies which needed to be used to make soup. 

That meant an hour of chopping and sauteing, and picking the meat off the bones, then putting it all together.  It was delicious.  Did I mention washing the pans and dishes? That's 'cause I haven't done them yet.  They are piled in the sink and on the counter still. This afternoon I'll have time and energy for that job.

And now I'm getting ready to go to Yoga which I'm going to try to do again.  I have just been lying on top of my bed stretching a few different ways, so this will mean getting down (and up again) on the floor.  That will be the biggest challenge for me.  But I really don't want to do chair yoga.

After that class it will be about time for lunch at the Lakeview Center for Active Seniors.  We have recently lost our recreation director and assistant director, so the activities are suffering a bit.  But the Council on Aging provides these low cost nutritious meals.  They tend to be high carbs, so I have to skip some of them...have to work on what my stomach can handle.  That's the joy of aging again.

The weather has been a thing to deal with in a different way than most of us anticipated the first week of Aug. Last week we dealt with 90 degree afternoons, which usually cooled off into the 70s at night. Many people wanted to be out in the woods, and only the most hardy are geared up for constant rain and wet leaves and mud and puddles and streams.  The nights are in the 60s now, and my air conditioner doesn't kick in at all.  The choice is to either open windows and get humidity and some fresh air, or run the fans on the units so there isn't any mold thinking of growing.  With my allergies I do the latter.  I turn them off at night and run them all day, just moving air around.  I kick the a.c. on when it feels too hot inside...and that is hard when it's so cool with the rain.  Decisions, decisions.

Blog updates

Last night I revived the family tree blog.

That meant shifting the postings about the ancestors that I've added to this blog in the last month.  I've got a whole lot more over here, from last year going back 6 years or so.  I don't think I'll shift them all!  The family history blog can be the place I store information (and pictures and documents) that I want available without going to the Ancestry site (which is a leased site).

Today I'm getting into shifting my activities as well.

I'm volunteering in different venues for the rest of the summer.  Instead of spending time (and money) daily to make pottery, I'm going to work as a docent in the Swannanoa Valley History Museum.  I think I need to focus on my interest in history and genealogy for this wonderful little town of Black Mountain, and the area around it in western North Carolina.  The Western North Carolina area is so distinct that most people use Capital letters to designate it, or just say WNC.

It's mainly mountains, and wonderful valleys, and a few towns with Asheville as one that gets to city status.  It has enveloped several of the smaller towns around it, but Black Mountain stays distinct.

This morning I sip my coffee as I listen to Marina Raye's flute music, and birds out the open windows...and a bit of traffic away in the background.  Occasionally a train rumbles past and toots its noisy whistle at the crossing of Blue Ridge Road.  Yes, who knew that I'd retire and actually live on a road by that name...which elicits the nearby parkway which is a national park.

So that is where my thoughts are this morning.  I'll also go sign up to volunteer at the Old Depot in Black Mountain, where I already have my pottery for sale.  It just makes sense!