This past weekend went apple picking up in North Carolina at a place called Sky Top Orchard. It is an annual event where my family and another takes the 2-hour trip. Fantastic weather and the scenery was beautiful as always.
You can pick your own apples or buy them by the bag. e picked. There were also a few grapes and pears available. They have a small animal collection including peacocks. There is a very interesting bamboo garden which is fairly large. Pathways are cut through the garden. It is rather eerie as it seems like you’re walking into another world. The bright sunlight disappears as you enter the bamboo garden and the temperature drops 10+ degrees. Very nice.
After walking around the orchard we went to a nearby vineyard – Burntshirt. We have visited there several times over the past several years. It is by far the most beautiful vineyard I have ever been to. We did some wine tasting, enjoyed a live band, and relaxed. After a couple hours, we came home.
* * * * * * *
Weekends like this past one helps keep the sanity moving forward. With all the political strife and crazy world events going on getting out and just enjoying life with friends and family needs to be done once in a while.
Hope everyone is having a great week.
Have a Kindle or an Amazon Fire tablet? You could literally go years without ever buying a book to read as there are thousands of free eBooks available. Don’t have a Kindle or Fire? Not a problem. You can download apps for most any cell phone or computer completely FREE! No excuses!
Today’s Freebies
Fishing Techniques For Survival
NOTE: If you see a free preparedness eBook that you’re interested in get it now as prices can change quickly. If it lists a price or says “read for free” or has a price for Prime members the book is not free anymore. Visit FreePrepperEbooks.com and sign up for more free survival & preparedness related ebooks.
Nice pictures Rourke. Glad you had a good time.
Man…those are some beautiful pictures. Hope you guys a good break from life, so to speak.. You know..one of those pics reminded of another prep topic our group go into. Bamboo. You could buy some of those really cheap, plant them, they grow like wild fire in any environment, and have hundreds of uses and re-uses.
some folks down the road have a wall of this type cane as a barrier .. I’ve thought it would be worth looking into .. I watched then grow it.. then move a patch .. grow .. move etc .. became very formidable in just a couple seasons. I need to find some small ones and put em in the ground.. and the look nice
reminds me of the cane forest in 47 Ronin
There are a couple of really great apple orchards to visit in the Hendersonville / Saluda area of NC. Just up Hwy64 is Chimney Rock as well. Tons to do in the area. By the way the State of NC Apple Festival is (this weekend) Sept 1,2,3 in Hendersonville, NC. Streets are blocked off with tons of vendors, food, stuff for kids, very fun.
Re Bamboo, we did some research and there is at least one web site that helps you find the variety for your area with the traits you want. We didnt think we could get the coverage(protection) we wanted in a timely manner without having to buy too much initially. If your time frame is longer, get it growing and aggressively divide it to spread it.
ApexBamboo.com
Oh, check this out. I posted a video on Liveleak. I was checking the Roads in Katy, TX after Hurricane/Tropical Storm Harvey. Apparently, the video got a lot of reviews and ViralHog asked me for the rights to sell it. Sell it? Heh Pffft, good luck with that. But anway…here is the link.
https://www.liveleak.com/view?i=b32_1504020181
Looks nice, I call this food for the soul! You have to take time in life to enjoy the beauties all around us, most of the time we’re in to big of a hurry