Fall at the Mountain Cabin - Robbinsville, NC

Mother Nature has been acting up lately and not behaving herself at all.  We do so wish everyone in the path of the huge storm, "Sandy" good luck with all of the destruction and loss.  Our prayers are with all of you.  Hard as it will be, the strong fiber that runs through all of our American hearts will pull you through.  Our hearts are with you!   And, may God bless you!

Every year in October my husband tries to take a good bit of time off so we can go to Robbinsville, North Carolina to our cabin up in the mountains.  It is a good time to vacation a little, and do some leaf-looking.  We arrived about the second week in October and the leaves had already begun to turn a good bit.

Leaves already beginning to turn.

 It looks like an artist took a big paint brush and went to work!

We can usually spot the cabin as we are approaching if we look in just the right direction.  Even though it was a hazy day,  I took a photo with the telephoto lens.  I am sure a real photographer would know just the correct way to take a photo through a haze like this.....but, not me!  As you can see, the cabin is in the middle of nowhere.

It is usually difficult to get a photo of the front of the cabin, because just a few feet off the front porch you begin to go down hill.

One of our favorite places to be is sitting on the front porch in the cool mountain breezes with a good book, or a crochet project, or visiting with friends.  The local neighbors are a friendly group and when they get word we have arrived they usually come on up on their 4-wheelers for a nice visit.  One sweet neighbor even brought some fresh fish from the creek down below.

Once we arrive at the mountain, our road switches back and forth for about a mile going up, up, and up!  It is worth the trip up to sit on the porch and enjoy the view.

A good friend drove up from Georgia to visit for a few days.  He was so sweet and thoughtful to bring several items from his garden.  He brought canned tomatoes, homemade grape jelly, pear preserves, homemade pickles, several packages of pecans from his uncle's pecan trees in South Georgia,  and these beautiful colorful vegetables from his garden.  I guess these will be the last of the vegetables from his summertime garden for this year.  Look at that beautiful two-tone pepper.  Of course I had to take them outside to snap a photo of them with all the beautiful Fall color in the background.

 We fixed some good ole Mountain Cabin Chili and used those beautiful green peppers.

 The view from the porch is different every day depending on the weather.

A colorful tree on the hill behind the cabin.

We had a nice dinner invitation from friends way across the mountain.  We love to go there and visit with them!  They are tucked way back in the mountains and do not have electricity.  But, can you believe this.....they make their own electricity somehow using their creek water.  When we are invited there for dinner we always eat by a real candlelight chandelier,  and it is so completely charming.  Plus, they grow most everything they serve for dinner and it is such a wonderful treat.

A beautiful Dahlia bouquet given to us from them.

They have a huge garden way up on the top of their mountain.  We all walked up to the garden and they had these beautiful Dahlias growing there and blooming.  I just had to know more about them.  They shared with us just how to plant and take care of them.  I'm sure they would not do as well in the North Florida plant zone, but I'm going to look into it.   Anyway, they said they found the Dahlia bulbs at Walmart over in Murphy, NC.  This Spring they planted them about 6 inches deep and two feet apart.

They bloomed all Summer long, and as you can see well into Fall.  They said, most of the plants had hundreds of blooms the first year, and far exceeded their expectations.  They said the directions mentioned staking each plant since they grow up to 5 feet tall,  and fall over without support.  They are very easy-care; all they did was mulch them and fertilize with a liquid fertilizer about 3 times.  They are going to use tomato cages to support them next Spring.

 The leaves were changing everywhere we looked.

 

 In the below photo we are getting ready for dinnertime company at the cabin.

 Temperatures in October are always cool enough for a nice cozy fire in the fireplace.

In the below photo you can see the roadway going downhill.

We are going down on our way to do a little exploring.

 Once down the mountain and back on the paved road we pass this amazingly beautiful tree.

 We continued on to Lake Santeetlah, parked and walked a good bit around the lake.

It was delightful to see all this colorful beauty around us and to be able to capture some of these beautiful colors with my camera.

We spotted this colorful tree on one of the side roads in downtown Robbinsville.

I just love this little storybook house surrounded by all the beautiful trees.

This was such a charming little church we saw as we were continuing our leaf-looking adventure.

We continued our drive on over to Waynesville, NC and spotted this amazingly huge and beautiful tree.

This cabin looked like it had been there a very long time and it looked like someone did live there.

An old barn along the way.

Driving back up the mountain cabin road.

The sun setting on another beautiful day in the mountains.

I hope you enjoyed visiting at the mountain cabin and coming along on our leaf-looking adventure.  I hope you are having a very nice Fall wherever you may be.

What a creative artist the good Lord is, and it is such fun capturing all the beauty he has given us with my camera.  I hope you visit again when next time we travel up the beautiful Cherohala Skyway,  and do a little more leaf-looking.

Wishing you a wonderful day.