The Road to Paradise

The view from the dirt road leading to our little corner of paradise. C and I captured this memory on a peaceful treasure walk during our October visit. It's these little moments that make this journey so amazing.

Around Town

During our visit in October, we spent some time wandering around West Jefferson. This town is a delightful collection of eccentric gift shops, art galleries, and outfitters. We are definitely looking forward to spending more time getting to know the local community.

Picnic and Play Time at the River

Happy memories from our first visit as owners! We had a picnic at the river, then headed up to our land to collect treasures, explore, and spot some wildlife. Daddy startled a rabbit...or maybe the rabbit startled Daddy. Then he stumbled upon a turkey. There is a deer path running through our property, but we didn't spot any deer on this visit. And we managed to exhaust poor, little K:)

Autumn at the River

2010 hasn't been a fantastic year for mountain foliage color change...but it's still beautiful! A few of the visions of autumn we saw during our October visit.

Cheese:)

We are a CHEESE family! Well, at least 3 of us are...and the 4th doesn't exactly complain when he has to eat it:) Cheese is one of the few things that our selective little C will always happily eat (though she occassionally gets picky about which color is currently acceptable). And sweet, adventurous K literally comes up out of her chair, shaking with excitement when she sees you pull out the cheese. Not to mention the fact that the mama in this family tracks down cheese stores in every town we visit and always lingers over the display cases trying to find something unique to try.

I promise that it is only a coincidence that our property is merely a short drive to a small, local cheese factory! I didn't even know the factory was there until after we had signed on the dotted line. Believe me, if I had known we would have stopped there every time we were in town!

As we are trying to learn about this little mountain community that is to be our home away from home, we are discovering lots of little secrets...and some not so secret treasures! The Ashe County Cheese Factory is one of those treasures.

For our first visit we had to have the mild hoop cheddar. It's a staple. And it was a BIG hit:)

But, for our second choice I wanted something stronger and with a little more potency...and boy did we get it! This one packed quite a punch. I think I was the only one who actually liked it on our simple crackers...I do like my cheese nice and STRONG! But, on our return to reality we discovered that it makes a delicious cheese sauce to serve with chicken or over pasta....mmmmmm!

We fell in love with our river even without the convenient cheese access...but, this is a huge bonus!

Visions

Tiny slices of life from our new world...

Our Little Piece of Paradise

IT'S OURS! And so we begin this journey.

We have a vision of quiet times spent together, peace in a turbulent world, life at a slower pace. This will be our retreat....from the heat of summer, the stress of work, the blur of extracurricular activites. It will refresh, renew, and restore us. It will bring us closer together.