Mountain Musings

Happy 1st Day of Fall, Y'all!

Well, the calendar may say it's September 23rd and the first day of fall, but the thermometer says the high will be 88 today....and that sounds like summer is sticking around awhile to me!

However, we were given a quick taste of some glorious cooler fall weather this past week....and oooh, it was so good to open the windows and let in fresh air!

We were outside a lot of days! And here are some snapshots of our activities.

Granny had not made any new baskets for quite awhile....until this past week. She decided she needed to make a napkin basket to add to her inventory for the upcoming 40th Annual Dayton Days Autumn Celebration--it's now less than two weeks away!

Here she is outside sponging some walnut stain on her basket:

I loved getting outside to repot some new shamrock plants...one for me and one for a friend. It was fun working at the opposite end of the table as Granny:

I used two new Magnolia pots I ordered this spring...love them, especially the white stoneware one!

The weather was nice for our resident woodworker, too. He took some of his sanding outside. He's been very hard at work preparing for Dayton Days. Today he's working on two Shaker tables while the three quilt racks dry after brushing on the finish last week:

I've been outside collecting seeds from around the yard and garden...some were mailed to my sister-in-law in Connecticut...and some will go to daughter Sarah for her new yard in Georgia, so she can have some remembrances of her Mountain Musings' roots!

I'm collecting hollyhock seeds in this picture, but I also retrieved money plant, columbine, and coneflower seeds to share. I'll collect the hyacinth bean seeds once they dry:

It was a wonderfully relaxing evening last night, so we sat out on the back deck with the twinkly lights on and listened to Jonathan playing songs for us...from Granny's request for Will the Circle Be Unbroken and Rock of Ages to Riding on that New River Train (swipe left to second picture to hear on his Instagram).

Here he is playing a short snippet of Palms of Victory: (click video link and wait for download)

That was our slice of life last week...although I didn't tell you another special project that I've been working on outside. Hopefully, I'll finish this week and be able to post soon. 

Watch for next post: "He Shed, She Shed."

~Deb

39th Anniversary Getaway

Tom and I recently celebrated 39 years of marriage.

We decided to go fairly local this year...two hours south to Roanoke.

Our first stop of the morning was Black Dog Salvage...which I'd heard about on a friend's instagram when they visited there: Lots of antiques and interesting items to browse outside:

And inside as well:

Tom enjoyed seeing the wood products in the shop...especially checking out the cutting boards since that's what he's in the middle of making now:

Lots of cutting boards to choose from...from low prices:

To higher priced specialized ones like this one below:

The wood design area was very interesting...unique dining tables for sale made from large wood slabs:

Two areas were my favorites in the shop...first the many rooms with doors, doors, and more old doors. Going prices were $75 - $150. I was interested in ways they suggested how to use old doors as decoration:

And I thought this piece of furniture with tons of knobs to choose from was very interesting. I kept trying to come up with places I could use some colorful antique knobs: All in all, Black Dog Salvage was an interesting place to visit, although we didn't find anything to bring home with us.

Usually when we're away on an anniversary trip Tom makes sure we find cutesy little gift shops, antique stores, and quilting shops to visit because he knows I love them! And we did find two fabric shops to visit this trip.

But...I really wanted us to find a woodworking store for Tom to visit this time around! And we did...Woodcraft! He thoroughly enjoyed browsing and drooling over everything in the shop, pointing out to me tools he had, and finding some clamps he needed:

Unfortunately, we didn't get a photo of us together on our special day! But we had a very enjoyable time celebrating 39 years together!

Hope you enjoyed traveling along with us!

~Deb