Taxes, Birdies and Byes

The Cardinal that came to breakfast

Today is hand over the $$ day, or Tax Day. It's also the last day of volunteering at the Blue Ridge Assembly YMCA for Ila and myself. HURRAH! On the flip side, I'll miss sitting at the cabin window, watching those southern tweeties come and go. I'm really going to miss the Carolina Chickadees, my resident Black & White Warbler & Eastern Phoebe, not to mention the boisterous & LOUD Tufted Titmouses - "PETER! PETER! PETER!" 

Oh, and will miss the magical, mystical floating Down Woodpecker. How does it defy gravity?

This afternoon during my five hour break, Ila drove us out to the North Carolina Arboretum. On the way there we got good and proper lost, but with directions of a great gal from the Arboretum on the phone & seat-of-my-pants directions, we got there eventually.

One of numerous beautiful buildings on the Arboretum grounds

Wow, this is what I had hoped for yesterday & didn't get at the Asheville Nature Center; a massive grounds teeming with North Carolina horticulture and birds. There were deep rose blossoms on a huge magnolia, thick groupings of tulips and ranunculus in shallow clay saucers and row after row of imaginative plant placement.

There were a a couple of new birds for my North Carolina birding list - a Blue-gray Gnatcatcher a White-breasted and Brown-headed Nuthatches. Alas - I think it's too early in the season for many of the birds that visit the Arboretum this early in the Spring. Or perhaps they were avoiding little ole' me?

Ila getting info suggestions for hiking at the Arboretum

Ila and I enjoyed the grounds each in our own way, Ila admiring the settings and statues, me... yes, I chased birds around with my long lens camera.

Loads of Black-throated Green Warblers singing in the Arboretum gardens

Too soon we had to head back to the Y for my final two hour shift at the Eureka Cafe.

Lemon Cress Pie

It was fun tonight. I worked my shift with a North Virginian girl from Shenandoah. I told Ila I thought the girl had the coolest accent I ever heard anywhere. Ila informed me, the girl's interesting dialect was... well, it was a speech impediment. Ooops. 

During my shift Miss Vickie, a supervisor dropped by and she was darn near loopy with exhaustion for her long, long work hours. She giggled like a kid, which as a aspect of her personality I found refreshing. We three chatted about southern baking - Caramel Pound Cake, Oatmeal Pie and Lemon Cress Pie which Ila and I got to sample at dinner one evening - interesting!

It was a great last shift, to end my fortnight at the Y. Tomorrow it's time to hit the road.