Another Ramble

The forecast had included some light rain this morning, but when I drove to Town the sun was shining and there was blue sky, although some clouds on the horizon began to close in during my run.  We had driven around a little yesterday afternoon, down Foreman Road and to Mirror Lake, and I had realized that this route had fallen off my radar lately.  So that's where I went this morning, on a glorious six-mile run.  The leaves are really starting to turn now, and I enjoyed seeing burning bushes and hydrangea all along the route.  I noticed that the maple trees alongside the Presbyterian Church were starting to turn red, almost brighter than the red light on Main Street.

 

The route downhill to Mirror Lake is very nice, the road newly paved, and I enjoyed looking at houses and yards that I had not seen in awhile.  At the bottom of the hill, the road runs along the lake to the bridge, a nice, shady place to run.  I spotted this sign, which we had seen yesterday on our drive.

It looked like something a very talented young person, perhaps staying nearby for the summer, might have painted and installed near some chairs and a picnic table along the shore.  I thought it would be a fine place to come and sit, listening to what during the summer must be a deafening chorus of frogs and crickets, and a good place to spot fireflies.  A young person might even try to catch them and put them in a jar, as I did as a child.

I ran all the way to the Mirror Lake Bridge, turned, and re-traced my steps, facing a tough climb up Foreman Road.  Just before I reached the hill, it began to mist rain, and then it was a light rain, but never enough to want to take shelter; on this warm, humid day it felt good, and by the time I had climbed the hill it had stopped and the sun was shining.  I later learned from Vicki and Fred, who arrived at Founders Park shortly after they had returned from their own runs, that it had rained harder up in the downtown area; both looked like they had gotten wet.  And when I returned home for lunch, Martha said the same.  A distance of less than a mile can make a difference in the midst of scattered showers this changeable time of year.

Highlands Botanical Gardens

Martha has been urging me for some time now to visit the improvements that have been made to the Botanical Gardens at the Highlands Biological Station, and this was a good time to do it - Sunday afternoon, slightly overcast sky, and only a few other visitors.  Part of Western Carolina University, the Nature Center has been in Highlands since 1927.  There is a wonderful Nature Center with some good exhibits (including live snakes), extensive gardens, and housing for students pursuing research.  In fact, our daughter completed a semester here as an Environmental Studies major at UNC-Chapel Hill several years ago.

We have often taken visitors to the Nature Center on Horse Cove Road, including my sister and her children when they used to come to Highlands to visit us and their Grandmother.  I have stopped there more than once during the middle of a long run to slake my thirst from what must be the coldest water fountain in Highlands.  The students working there were invariably friendly, and I would ask them about the latest bear sightings.  One day several years ago, we walked around behind the building to the little outdoor amphitheater and saw a very large bear at pretty close quarters.  But we saw no bears today, and the Nature Center itself was closed due to Covid-19.

Some local people on Facebook have complained recently about improvements to the Gardens, which stretch out behind the Nature Center down to Lake Ravenel (which some call Lake Lindenwood)  and to Lower Lake Road, where we often run.  But we found the improvements very practical, if less rustic than they used to be, especially the wide wooden walkways constructed around the lake.

The lake was still and peaceful today.  We carried face masks in our pockets and quickly pulled them out and donned them when encountering visitors, and they did the same. 

The new construction off Lower Lake Road includes a big deck where we understood Yoga classes and other activities had been scheduled before Covid-19 put a stop to everything. 

These monarch butterflies were especially attracted by this plant, whose name I could not find but later discovered was sedum.  Almost all of the plants are labeled, so it makes it a good place to visit during any season to learn their names.

I don’t know how many times I have run along Lower Lake Road, during many different seasons.  The lake is always changing, and when the water lilies are blooming it is beautiful.  From the new deck, I had a good view looking down at the water lilies.

On the other side of the lake, stairs ascend to Lower Lake Road, and a confusing series of trails branch off in different directions.  We decided to try to find a map the next time so as not to miss anything.  There were quiet benches along the trail, and Martha spotted these ducks close to shore.

Plenty of familiar fall flowers were blooming - Joe Pye Weed, spotted jewel weed, goldenrod - but I also spotted this pretty little flower, neatly labeled.  Now I will know where to find it again:  Grass-of-Parnassus.

Neither of us could remember the last time we had been to the Gardens and walked on the walkway and the Woodland Trail on the other side of the lake.  We have run around its lake, usually once a week, and stopped for that ice cold water.  But it was nice to be able to explore it at a leisurely pace, and to know that this resource is right here in Highlands, literally under our noses.  We ended up deciding to visit again, and often. 

Deer and Burning Bushes

One of Martha's Facebook friends recently spotted this small herd of deer in the backyard of her Mom and Dad's house on Hickory Street, grazing peacefully and likely nibbling at the apples that have fallen from the big tree off  the back deck.  

It's the time of year for deer sightings.  Martha told me this week that she saw two young spotted fawns, standing in the middle of the Walhalla Road outside the old Harbison Place.  And a day or two later she saw a young deer at the top of our own road.  Our small orchard did not produce a single apple this year or we would see them here in our own backyard.

Another perfect day for running this morning, lower 60s and overcast.  When I arrived at the Park there were no runners, and after completing two miles there were still no runners, so I ended up completing another eight mile run entirely by myself, capping off another 20-mile week again.  I should say I was almost entirely by myself; as I reached 7.92 miles according to my GPS watch, Fred was coming down Fifth Street, just finishing up his own run, so we ran 0.08 miles together, and then visited for awhile.  

We threw caution to the winds Thursday night and decided to have our first take-out food since we returned in March, shrimp and vegetables from the Asia House.  Everything I have read about Covid-19 stresses the dangers of eating in bars and restaurants, flying in airplanes, and visiting gyms, but take-out is thought to be safe.  The Asia House still has a Health Department rating of 100, as far as I know, and everything seemed safe, with a big bottle of sanitizer on the table out front (they are closed to inside dining) and the bag daintily handed to me by a masked young woman.  Emboldened by that experience, perhaps, Martha surprised me today by coming home with take-out from Highlands Burritos, a Tex-Mex place we enjoy and also rated 100 by the Health Department.

Martha urged me not to work all afternoon after an eight-mile run, but after lunch and my restorative cup of hot tea, I decided make a start on planing the hydrangeas and burning bushes we bought earlier in the week.  It was still cool and overcast, and I found that the soil along the side of the road was mostly free of roots and rocks.  So I ended up planting all of them, two hydrangeas near the driveway and the burning bushes stretching down to the woods below our property.

It is always satisfying completing this kind of work.  Based on our experience with our other dozen burning bushes, they will grow to the same size in only three or four years, and the nice thing is that they reach a maximum height of six feet or so, just enough to screen our property from the road.

According to the internet, deer do not like hydrangeas very much at all, although they will nibble on them if they get hungry.  But to my surprise I discovered that they like burning bushes.  We have never noticed any damage before, although they clearly loved the hostas, eating them to the ground until there are only a few small ones left which  they must have overlooked.  Apparently they just nibble the leaves at the ends of some of the branches on burning bush.  I suppose we could tolerate sharing them to that extent, as long as they don't decimate them.  They are, after all, beautiful creatures, and I am grateful that we live in a part of the country where they roam freely.

Spreading Mulch

It has been several weeks since I wrote about spreading mulch on our property along the road.  Now I have resumed that work again, extending it most of the way in just two days.  Today was the first day of fall and it felt like it - 42 degrees this morning and bright blue skies for three days in a row now - so it was a good day to work out of doors.  The gnats are nearly gone now with this cool, dry weather upon us; they torment me during the summer to such an extent that I sometimes have to resort to insect repellent and even safety goggles to prevent them from flying into my eyes.  I made one trip after another with the wheelbarrow up the road, that slow, incremental work that requires patience, like carrying and stacking firewood.

Those wooden stakes at the lower end are marking the places where we intend to plant more burning bushes.  Although these plants are technically an invasive species in this area, they have worked well to screen our property from the road; we can sit on our deck in the evening (which we do most evenings when it is not raining) and not be seen by passing cars.  This is the best time of year to plant burning bushes, and also hydrangea, which we are considering planting near our driveway.

It was a fitting way to recognize this first day of fall, poised midway between summer and winter.  It was hard work, but not so hard that I was drenched in sweat.  I am starting to put the yard to bed for the year, rolling up the hoses above and below the house (there is no garden to water anymore) and hanging them up.  Soon I will be cleaning out the garden beds and turning over the soil for the winter.  And then l will be raking leaves, and it may be cool enough by then to wear a flannel shirt and gloves. 

Reading back over my blog from time to time, I have noticed that I spend an inordinate amount of time writing about mulch and gardens and fog and rain.  But we spend a lot of time out of doors, especially as runners (the ostensible subject of this blog), and it is enjoyable to watch the seasons change.  This week for the first time since March I wore gloves, and a long-sleeved shirt, while running.  The sun is lower and lower in the sky, the sunrise later and later.  We notice these subtle changes day by day, and we celebrate them.  This part of the world is a beautiful place!  And as scripture tells us:

Dazzling Dahlia Festival

There are many dahlia enthusiasts in Highlands, and for ten years they have organized an annual event called the Dazzling Dahlia Festival.  This year, due to the Covid-19 restrictions, the festival was held in a unique new format which was so successful that we hope it will remain this way.  Organized by the Highlands Historical Society, dahlias were displayed at 33 different sites scattered around downtown Highlands.

It was a beautiful day, with a chill in the air and that deep blue sky of early fall.  We had been restless this weekend, wanting to enjoy those activities that we used to pursue this time of year – visiting apple orchards, driving on the Blue Ridge Parkway, walking around area towns.  All of this has changed, of course, and after six months we are still not willing to risk eating in a restaurant or going very far from home.  So this was the perfect activity for a Sunday afternoon.  We donned our face masks and began our tour at the Highlands Historical Village 

It was nice to be greeted there by our friends Dennis and Fran, who were volunteering, and to visit with them a little.  Bob and Patsy, who we used to talk to at concerts in Founders Park on Saturdays, were also there.  We realized that this was the first time we had really gotten out to socialize all summer.

Our next stop was down the road a little on Maple Street at the Old Jail, where this clever jailbird was stationed.  At each stop, there was a small sign on the theme of "Let Me Tell You a Story," with short histories of the buildings we were touring.  It was all very well done.

 

 

From Maple Street, we climbed up on the hill where Highlands Playhouse was situated, and then around to Founders Park, viewing dazzling arrangements of dahlias and other fall flowers all along the way. 

On the stage at Founders Park there was a clever display featuring a large "X."  The centerpiece of the Park is a cross made of paving rocks on the lawn in the shape of an "X" as well, referring to the legend that Samual Kelsey and Clinton Hutchinson, the founders of the Town, marked an "X" on a map by drawing lines between Chicago and Savannah and between New York and New Orleans.  These trade lines predicted where a great population center would someday arise.  Although they had the scale off a little, I think we may have seen license plates on cars parked on Main Street from all of the states where those great cities are located.

 

 

The churches on Main Street seemed to be enjoying a friendly competition.  The Episcopalians (left) were featuring summer hats where dahlias flourished.  The Presbyterians (center) had a bear in Scottish attire.  And the Methodists (right) had an elegant and tasteful bouquet one might see on a Sunday morning next to the pulpit.

 

This display was located on the corner of Main Street and Fourth Street, in the very center of downtown, commemorating the old Gulf station that Neville Bryson had operated on this site, still pumping gas and changing tires as recently as when we moved to Highlands in 1983, and the Texaco station up the hill on Fourth Street once owned by Martha's grandfather.
 

 

 

For our final stop on this interesting tour of dahlias, we returned to the Historical Village and then drove through the Will Henry Stevens covered bridge to the Bascom Art Gallery, where we found these artistic creations hanging on the wall of what used to be Crane's Stables.

 

What a wonderful day this was!  When we finished the tour, Martha commented that this was a beautiful little Town, and we imagined what it must be like for a visitor.  We could understand why someone would so keenly want to move here, to this special Town, and live out their lives surrounded by historical buildings, quiet streets, and dazzling dahlias. 

The Farther I Used to Run

I have postponed intervals and hills the past couple of weeks and instead turned to increasing my overall weekly  mileage.  Wednesday I completed another six miles, enjoying an easy-paced ramble around Highlands on a cloudless day.  I knew that the forecast for Thursday and Friday included heavy rain from the remnants of Hurricane Sally, and on Thursday it arrived on schedule, dropping at least five inches (the rain gauge was filled to the brim and may have overflowed) before tapering off that evening. 

This morning it was still cloudy, temperatures in the lower 50s, and a light wind blowing - perfect conditions once again.  I ran two miles by myself, then three with Karen, then another mile or so before I saw Fred coming toward me and finishing it out with him.  It is always nice to run with these two running companions; Martha is so much faster than I am these days that she usually runs by herself.  

Karen is a very committed Democrat and we end up talking about politics most of the time.  As we were passing some familiar-looking yellow wildflowers at the top of Chestnut Street, she told me they were called "Bidens."  I thought she might be pulling my leg, but when I returned home I checked and she was indeed correct.   The common name around here is tickseed, but Bidens are actually a genus of the aster family, and this one is Bidens micrantha, which together with goldenrod and Joe Pye weed are common along our roads this time of year.

I am a Democrat myself these days and a big fan of both kinds of Bidens.  But I have vowed to myself not to write about the upcoming election for the next six weeks so I will leave it at that.

I do not discuss politics with Fred; instead we discuss running, bears, church, and our abiding love of British crime mysteries in the form of movies, television series, and books.  Over the years, Fred has told me about several series movies and books that I have read and enjoyed, and I in turn have told him about some that I think he might enjoy.  How strange it might seem to the innocent dog-walker passing us on the road to hear us discussing murder!  I hope he enjoys Agatha Raisin, the latest series I told him about, featuring a woman with a lovely Scottish accent (played by Ashley Jensen) who leaves her stressful job in London to settle in the quiet Cotswolds, where she (naturally) becomes involved in murder cases all around her.  Who knew there was so much murder in those peaceful villages?

Time passes by swiftly when you're running with friends, talking about the upcoming election and murder in the Cotswolds, and before I knew it I had completed eight miles.  I drove around a little bit to see if I could find Martha, and I found her on Wilson Road, just passing the little house where my Mom lived for several years.  She was having a good run, too, on this beautiful day.

When I returned home, I entered my mileage for the week - 20 miles - in my running log.  Flipping back through the pages, I discovered that, although I had completed several eight-mile runs this year, this was my highest mileage of the year.  I remember not too many years ago when 20 miles would have been my lowest weekly mileage of the year, and when training for a marathon my weekly mileage would be 30 or even 40 miles.  But that was then, and this is now, and we cannot measure ourselves against our performance in the past, a maxim especially true for runners.  "The older I get, the faster I was!" I sometimes ruefully tell other runners.  These days I am also discovering that the older I get, the farther I used to run.

Be happy with what you accomplish this day.  And look forward to doing the best you can tomorrow.

Siempre Adelante Nunca Atras

My run this morning was a good one, and so was Martha's.  For one thing, we both finished up without ending up in a downpour at any point (my other pair of shoes are still wet from Saturday).  And although it warmed up quickly and the humidity rose, conditions were still very nice.  I have been trying to avoid running the same route every day, so once again I took a long circuitous route, circling around the downtown area and back through the Will Henry Stevens covered bridge in the opposite direction from last week.  There were plenty of walkers out and I felt unusually good, perhaps because of the cooler temperatures and my new shoes.

About a mile or two into the run, I passed Duncan Greenlee, owner of Yardmongers, a lawn service in Highlands, unloading a lawnmower from his truck in a driveway.  Duncan is an interesting man, a fellow Presbyterian whom I have known for a long time.  His occupation belies a surprising education, which includes a fine arts degree from Cornell University - he is well-known for his cartoons in the local newspaper.  I happened to know that he had undergone knee replacement surgery last year on both knees, and I paused to speak to him and ask him how the surgery had gone.  "Oh, it went well, but now I've got problems with my feet."  I shrugged philosophically and said, "If it's not one thing, it's another, as I well know!  The important thing is to just keep moving forward."

"Siempre adelante nunca atras," he said (handily providing me with the title for this post).  "What's that?" I asked, and he repeated it.  "Always forward, never back."  Duncan employs a lot of hispanic helpers and knows Spanish well, and I reflected that this was advice that a man who walks behind a lawnmower for miles and miles would take to heart.  I thought about that phrase during the next four or five miles.  It's a good motto for a runner.  When I returned home, I discovered that it is the title of a book by Mary Luz Bermudez, which in turn is based upon the motto of St. Junipero, a recently-canonized Franciscan friar who founded several California missions, including the San Juan Capistrano mission.  It also has political overtones in describing the difficult struggle that hispanic people had in California, and still have in many parts of this country today.

I finished my run at the same time that Vicki and Fred, running separately, were finishing theirs, and we all stood and chatted for a little while.  Fred said that he had encountered "his" bear again, a young male who keeps going after his bird feeder.  "I saw him this morning, coming across my lawn, and I ran up to the porch to grab my bird feeder and take it inside.  He just stopped and sat down and glared at me!"  It turns out that this hungry young bear is part of Fred's neighborhood on the summit of Big Bearpen Mountain, which I have written about many times in this blog.  "He sleeps out behind my house," Fred said.  "I see him nearly every day.  And he's starting to get big!"

"You've got to stop feeding him, Fred!"

I have not run up Big Bearpen in a couple of weeks, and now I am thinking I may avoid it until Fred's friend decides to hibernate for the winter.  I have encountered bears up close more than once while running, and it is always unnerving to face a wild, unpredictable creature, who can climb trees and can run a lot faster than I can.  

"Always forward, never back," I thought.  "Until you see a bear."

Shrimp and Grits Birthday

This is the most unusual birthday Martha has ever celebrated.  We had originally planned to spend the weekend at Snowbird Mountain Lodge - re-scheduled from our Anniversary in July - but we decided to cancel again.  We still do not feel safe eating in restaurants (or Lodge dining rooms), or traveling, or even ordering take-out.  An alternative closer to home would have been Paesanos, our favorite restaurant of all where we have celebrated many special occasions, but we decided against that, too.  So we opted to stay home on this Saturday and celebrate quietly this landmark 65th birthday.

 

A flower arrangement had appeared on the dining room table, courtesy of Crown Heritage Flowers in Highlands, and birthday cards had arrived as well as dozens of Facebook greetings.  But it rained off and on through the night and was still coming down this morning, dissolving into fog one minute and then resuming again a few minutes later.  I had been able to increase my mileage this week and did not want to miss an opportunity of a long run despite the radar on my phone, which showed plenty of green and yellow patches sliding in rapidly from the East. 

When I arrived at the Park, the rain had almost stopped, and I started off around the block to complete a mile before the others arrived.  By the time I reached Townsite Apartments, it was raining pretty hard, and needless to say, the "others" never arrived because they had enough sense to get in out of the rain.  But the rain again stopped by the time I had returned to the Park, persuading me to go another mile or two.  Again, far from any shelter, it began coming down in earnest.  I took shelter at the School, took off my shirt, and wrung it out, the first of many times.  This is what my running friend Morris used to call a "character-building" run.  And just as I had that thought, I came around the corner and Morris himself was walking, umbrella in hand and rain parka keeping him dry.  He is still nursing a knee injury, but at least he was out walking, and better yet, he had seen me, building up my character.

After four miles, it really did seem that it was going to stop.  Fog began to replace rain again, and I completed two more miles in nice conditions without even needing to wring out my shirt.  I thought Martha might have arrived by now, but I did not see her car.  But when I returned home, the driveway was empty, and in a short time she appeared, drenched as I was.  We compared notes and she, too, had been lured into running by a brief lull in the rain, and then had gotten caught in a downpour.  Not everybody can claim celebrating her 65th birthday by going for a run in the rain!

I made some lunch, and then in the afternoon baked some apple turnovers - the least I could do on a rained-out pandemic-thwarted birthday.  The humidity affected the crust and they were not the prettiest turnovers I had made, but they suffused the house with the lovely aroma of baking apples.

What to do next on this rainy afternoon at home?  “If we were at the beach, or even here in Highlands, and things were normal, we might go to a matinee,” Martha said.  So that's what we did, closing the drapes in the sunroom and watching a Netflix movie we had received a week or two ago and had not found the time to watch.  And snacking on turnovers warm from the oven.

Martha had already told me, despite my offers to prepare a dinner for her, that she would like to have shrimp and grits, a dinner that she has perfected over the years and that is not in my own repertoire.  So the birthday girl prepared her own dinner (although I did stir the grits from time to time at her direction to keep them from sticking to the pan), a combination of a couple of different recipes, baked in a skillet, and absolutely the best she has ever made.

So Happy Birthday, Martha, on this unusual Shrimp and Grits birthday!  I am glad you got to go for a run on your birthday.  And I am grateful that you are such a good cook!  And I love you.

Christmas Lights in September

It was another beautiful cool morning in Highlands today, blue sky alternating with dark, almost-menacing clouds, and a nice breeze out of the south and the east.  It really does feel like fall now, that time of year when I always seem run my best.  I decided to take a different route today, up Chestnut Street and then around Lower Lake Road and Gibson Street, shady unpaved gravel roads far away from the distractions of traffic, leaf blowers, and lawnmowers.  I did not encounter anyone at all on those roads, and it was nice to be alone with only the sound of the birds for company.

I eventually found myself back on our regular route again, but when I reached Fifth Street I turned left, all the way down Spring Street, and then out the Franklin Road just a little ways so that I could run through the Will Henry Stevens covered bridge at the entrance to the Bascom Center for the Visual Arts - it's always a special treat to run through a covered bridge!

From the Bascom, I followed Oak Street back toward downtown Highlands, and suddenly, somewhere just past the Baptist Church, I found myself engulfed in a little shower of leaves, stirred up from that south breeze.  Now it really felt like fall; I glanced at my watch and saw that I was approaching five miles, and when I finally rounded the last corner I was at six, a longer run than usual for the middle of the week.  I attribute my energy to that breeze, those falling leaves, and also (perhaps most important) that brand-new pair of running shoes I was wearing.  Nothing like a new pair of shoes to put a spring in your step!

When I arrived back at Founders Park, I saw a vehicle parked there and a small lift at work; I remembered that Martha had told me she had seen this same sight yesterday during her run.  It was a company installing Christmas lights in the park.  Does the Town gets a discount for having the company arrive so early in the season to do this work?  (Probably not, based on the money the Town seems to be spending these days!) 

It was a reminder that cooler temperatures lie ahead, and then the blaze of fall color, and then the first few flakes of snow and the ice skating rink being set up.  Can all this be just around the corner?

 

Labor Day

Labor Day in Highlands has always been a big holiday.  It marks the end of summer, and it is the last opportunity for visitors with families to vacation here before school resumes.  A former director of the Chamber of Commerce once told me that many Main Street businesses survive each year based solely on the success of three holidays - Memorial Day, Fourth of July, and Labor Day - and I do not doubt it.  The streets began to fill up on Saturday, and the visitors were still here on Sunday when we stopped by Hickory Street to take care of a few odds and ends.  Driving up Chestnut Street when we left, we could see what looked like twenty people ahead of us out in the road, with dogs and strollers, taking advantage of one more day of a three-day weekend.  "I've never seen so many people!" Martha said, and I agreed.  There seemed to be more than usual, perhaps glad to escape from their own communities where heat, humidity, and Covid-19 may still be in full swing.  The only difference this year was that everyone on Main Street was wearing a face mask, and most of those on quiet streets like Hickory and Chestnut as well.

It is always a little sad on this holiday because Martha's Dad died four years ago on Saturday night of Labor Day weekend.  He had been out with a friend earlier in the day, driving one of his cars - a King Midget, one of the smallest cars ever manufactured - and that evening he died of a heart attack while talking to Martha and watching a Nascar race.

Since then, it was always a difficult holiday for her family, especially her Mom, and now that she is gone it is no different.

Sunday morning, we had a nice leisurely brunch, something we have not been able to enjoy for the past two weeks because of the estate sale.  Then, in the afternoon, we hiked somewhere we had never been before, a half-mile straight up our road to a rolling meadow just off the highway owned by a man in our church named Stell Huie, who owns a house on Queen Mountain overlooking the meadow.  We had learned that Stell had allowed the Highlands Land Trust to begin planting apple trees there in memory of people he knew, and one of them was Martha's Mom.  We waded through the knee-high grass until we saw the trees, all lined up, and found the one in memory of Jane Lewis.

It was nice to know that this tree is so close to our home, right in what they call Sassafras Gap, almost overlooking our house.

The cold front that arrived Saturday has lingered, the temperatures the past three mornings in the 50s.  Some of the leaves are starting to turn, especially the burning bushes, and it felt like Fall.  It was another ideal morning to run in Highlands, and there did not seem to be as many walkers out.  Instead, I passed three or four rental houses where it seemed that cars were being loaded with luggage.  I went to August Produce after my run and then circled through the Post Office to mail something, and when I exited onto the Dillard Road - the main artery to Atlanta and its suburbs - there was a steady line of cars departing in that direction.  On our own road, the Walhalla Road - the artery to the Greenville area - I got behind another line of cars, taking their time at 20 miles per hour, as if savoring every last minute of this cool mountain air before returning home.

Our Old Life

I think all of us who have been working so hard preparing the Hickory Street house for sale are feeling as Martha and I are feeling now - at loose ends.  It is one thing to say that now we can return to our "Old Life," but it is more difficult in practice.  "Remember when we used to read books?" Martha asked one evening this week as we were eating dinner on our deck.  It seemed as if there was plenty of time for such a pursuit only a few months ago.

With the sudden availability of free time, and in keeping with the name of this blog, "Highlands Roadrunner," I threw myself into running - climbing Bearpen Mountain on Monday, and trying my first set of intervals in a month on Wednesday, then cleaning the walks with Clorox and mowing the yard.  Thursday morning I was heading out the door again.  "Where are you going?" Martha said.  "You ran yesterday!  You don't have to run every day."  It seems that this is a refrain I hear from my wise spouse often, and this time I heeded it.  In my running log I simply wrote"REST," and that's exactly what I did.  Later in the week, she posted this on the little blackboard in our kitchen.

Every runner should have this hanging over his desk, or perhaps in the closet over his running shoes.  As a result of taking a day of rest, I awoke on Friday morning feeling refreshed, and I dived into the next project, shelves and a closet rod in our sunroom closet where we can organize shoes and exercise equipment.  It is satisfying when even a simply project like this moves forward from plan on paper to completion.

The weather turned cooler and drier overnight as a cold front slipped into Highlands from the northwest, and it made for ideal running conditions for the first time in several weeks.  We had found ourselves during the past two weekends enjoying talking to the hordes of people who had attended the estate sale, some of them friends and others complete strangers.  We realized we had not been socializing very much during this time of pandemic and social distancing.  We have missed seeing people!  It was the same today as we met old friends for a long run and chatted with dog-walkers all along the way. 

After I finished running, I went to Dusty's to stock up on biscuits and wild-caught salmon.  Lou was at the cash register, and as he added up my purchases he asked me how I was doing today.  "Great!" I said.  "It's a beautiful day, I just ran seven miles, and I'm buying the best salmon in Town!  What could be better?"  A complete stranger in line behind me said, "I can't argue with that!"

The End of a Chapter

Our goal for the last two months was to empty out the house on Hickory Street and put it on the market, and with an abundance of hard work we accomplished that goal this week.  On Sunday, we cleaned out the few remaining things, and on Monday we met with a real estate broker and formally began the process of selling the house.  It is the best time possible, in a booming real estate market with Labor Day weekend rapidly approaching, and we are optimistic about selling it soon.  

We had decided to list the property with Country Club Properties, where we had both worked for several years after retiring from our other careers.  The broker is Terry Potts, who grew up with Martha and who knows the property well.  He was close friends with Martha's Mom and Dad and actually lives next door.  "Great neighbors!" Martha had written on the list she had made of all of the "pluses" of this house.  We signed the listing agreement on Monday afternoon, and by the next morning Terry had placed a sign in front of the house.

 

Tuesday afternoon, Scott and I made one final trip to the landfill with the remaining trash, mostly empty cardboard boxes left over from the estate sale.  When we returned, there was a car in the driveway, and when I went to see who it was, I found that it was two real estate brokers who had seen the listing on the MLS - Multiple Listing Service - that morning and who were previewing it.  Martha had already taken them through the house and they had seemed impressed.

Today, we returned to Hickory Street to take care of a few odds and ends, like trimming some rhododendron in the driveway.  We had both been out running - intervals for me, the first in many weeks, and four miles for Martha - and Martha told me that Terry had arrived at his house next door when she was finishing up her run (she had parked in the driveway) and had told her that the house had already been shown four times.  It felt odd to return home this afternoon and not feel as if we had to return to Hickory Street.  Everything is in the hands of our Realtor now, and we are returning to our "Old Life," at least as much as we can still find that life in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic.  I went out in the heat of a September afternoon and mowed the yard for the first time in over a week, and then cleaned all of the walkways with Clorox, badly needed this rainy summer.  Our yard has, sadly, become overgrown and neglected over the past two months, and there is much work to be done.

It is an odd feeling, walking through this big empty house, as I did this morning completing a few final chores on the checklist.  I wandered through the sunlit empty rooms, remembering where once we had sat in front of the fireplace on holidays, a Christmas tree in the next room, or at the dining room table for Christmas Dinner.  There are wonderful memories here, but absolutely everything has been removed from the house except for those memories.  The only exception is a lovely little picture of the house by Martha's Aunt Anne - Jane's sister - which we have left propped up on the mantel for future owners to enjoy.