4/26/08 Saturday: I hope everyone is ready for a grand tour of our new home base! Let's get started. The entrance is right next to a 100-year-old farmhouse, painted red, with it's silo on the edge of our driveway.


The office/store is where I'll be working. It has a great view of the mountains, including Elk Knob which was just purchased by The Nature Conservancy.

Behind the office is a small pasture with a pond. There are about a dozen goats in the enclosure. They're very friendly. I'm told that in the summer we put goat feed in an ice cream cone and let the kids feed them. There are also chickens, which will be one of Wiley's jobs.

This farm is one of our closest neighbors. The barn and Christmas tree farm are visible from our RV (at least until the leaves come out).

Our first afternoon here we took a walk into the pasture behind the office. This is a view of the back of the store and the goat pond and enclosure. We're parked on the other side of the store and to the left a little.

Here's the hiking gang--everyone except us had just put in a full working day (painting, cleaning the pool, mowing and weeding)--so we set a very relaxed pace! The woman in the middle is Lynne (the photographer). To her left is Joann, the owner. On the right is Teresa, who lives in the old red farm house next door. She's a music therapist. PeeWee took the picture. He's an RV repairman who happened to be on site and wanted to join us.

The cows didn't bother us on our hike, but we had to be very careful where we stepped. The grass is so green right now--it's well fertilized, I guess.

Here's our spot. The sites are a nice size and have gravel patios with fire rings and a picnic table.

The campground has a number of seasonal residents who live in park models (small mobile homes). They're quite attractive.

The park models sit above the campsites and store on a lovely green hill. That's where we took our hike. Wiley and Lynne are enjoying the view. Lynne is a professional photographer (weddings, etc.) who also works part time at the campground. She organized our hike. She lives in a nearby town.


I took this video on the hike. Turn on your sound.

The wildflowers are just starting to appear here. The days are pleasantly warm (70's) and the evenings quite cool (40's). We've been on several walks--there are lots of areas to explore. I need to get a good wildflower book--I can't identify half of what I'm seeing! The plant above is a may apple. It gets a little white bloom underneath and later on a small fruit. There are huge patches of them all over the area.

The blooms on this one were not quite open yet. There were also great big patches of violets, mostly purple, but a few yellow and white ones, too.

I've got to go to work now. I've got some more pictures for you--maybe tomorrow1