View from the Mountain

A sunrise from another day

The weather doesn't look as nice today as it was earlier in the week when I snapped this sunrise in Roanoke.

While we are having what I would call a "late" spring, I think we need to be thankful for the warmth that we have seen.

Yesterday's temperature in the low seventies in Roanoke might not have been as nice as the mid eighties down on the Carolina coast, but it was a whole lot better than it is in Canada.

Actually this is the South, and it will not be long before heat and humidity will descend upon us.

These temperatures from the WeatherUnderground show just how thankful we need to be.

Can you imagine the howls in Roanoke if we woke up near the middle of May to find the temperature 37 degrees Fahrenheit?  And that high wind warning?  Well the one for Halifax is much worse.

Then there is always Calgary when you think our weather stinks.  It snowed there last week.

So given the options, I will take a cool spring and even the humidity and heat of summer before i consider moving back to Canada.

I can still remember wearing a down jacket to a mid-July soccer match in Halifax.

Even that wasn't as bad as the spring when the pack ice filled Halifax harbour.  As I have told many people, it was like living inside a frosted iced tea glass.

We will get through spring in fine shape.  At least the moisture seems to be hitting most areas.  Perhaps we won't have to worry as much about drought this year as we have had to in the past.

I had someone from a NY publisher write me a note asking for permission to use a picture of my Roanoke yard last August as an example of drought.

You know it has been dry when they are putting you in the text books.

A new spot on Keagy

It is a little different along Keagy Road in Roanoke County than it was when we first moved to the area in 1989.

There are already a lot more homes than there were then.  Now it looks like there will be lots more homes, traffic, and people.  The first new homes are rising in a large development.

Driving on Keagy in 1989 was like descending into the woods.  Now the woods are yielding to homes.

There will still be trees around. It just will not be a pleasant tunnel of green in the summer.  Part of me really hates to see hilltops leveled, but another part knows that more than ever people need to live close to services.

We have really enjoyed living on the mountain behind Fairway Forest and Keagy Road.  We could be at Kroger in just a few minutes.  Medical care, a pharmacy, and restaurants were also all convenient to the area.  Even our kids' schools were just around the corner.  So it makes sense that others want to live in the same area that we have enjoyed for so long.

I can remember our neighborhood the first winter.  The snow plow turned around half way up our hill.  They were convinced that no one lived any further up the hill.  We were the only home.  Now we are surrounded by homes, and there are new roads that were not even there when we moved.  Those roads and filled with homes.

We drove out Hidden Woods this evening.  At one time we called it the "new section."  Now from looking at the trees, it is hard to believe it hasn't always been there.

Still I know that once in a while a development gets built and no one comes.  As we drove by the new shops on Keagy, I could not help but wonder what will there in twenty years.

There will be businesses, but I cannot imagine what they will be.  I hope they find some tenants soon.

Almost twenty years ago, I never expected Electric Road to become such a busy spot.   While it is not Northern Virginia traffic, it still is impressive compared to what it used to be.

Roanoke and Interstate 81 seemed like a trip back in time in 1989 especially to a family moving from Columbia, Maryland where acres of trees could disappear almost overnight. 

I made many trips to the area before we moved.  Interstate 81 was such that you could put your car on cruise control and not worry about it.

Change does not happen quickly in the Roanoke Valley, but it does happen. 

Development rules and especially storm water mangement are changing drastically in many areas.  I know in Coastal North Carolina we have some new rules that are going to make it much harder to build dense subdivisions.  The rules are designed to protect our waters.

I hope someone is thinking about the Roanoke River while all this construction is happening on Keagy.

My best Roanoke meal in a while

Restaurant food sometimes mystifies me.  You can go out and pay a lot of money and not be very happy with what you had.

Sometimes you go to a meal and not expect much more than some quick food, and end up with a great meal for not a lot of money.

More often than not when I not looking for great food is when I end up being surprised.

Famous Anthony's at Southwest Plaza has been a spot we have enjoyed since it opened.  I have have some very good meals there and a few over the years that have disappointed.  It is still one of my favorite neighborhood restaurants.

Today, I tried Anthony's new Angus Steak Salad.  It was one of the best restaurant salads that I have had in ages.  The lettuce was fresh, just like I would have a home.  The feta cheese, the onions, tomatoes, and even the Angus beef was very good.

It is always great to find some good food in the neighborhood. My wife had wanted to tried their pot roast, but they had run out of baked potatoes.   

She couldn't face french fries and pot roast.  She ended up with her standard grilled chicken sandwich which tasty as usual.

I think I need to convince Anthony's to open up down at the coast.  We definitely don't have a spot quite like Famous As.

I'll be back at Anthony's tomorrow morning having my favorite omelet.

Cool morning everywhere

When I got up this morning at around 6:40 am, I checked my Weatherunderground favorites and noticed that Roanoke was at 35 degrees Fahrenheit which happened to be one degree more than Calgary, Alberta in Canada which was seeing light snow at 34 degrees.

On the Carolina Coast we guys switched to shorts as our uniform in our real estate office about three weeks ago.  We're fortunate that the temperatures warm quickly during the morning.

In Cape Carteret we are already up to 56 degrees at 9:30 am.  That is a climb of eleven degrees in a little under three hours when we were at 45 degrees Fahrenheit.

Our weather has been spectacular except for some wind this past weekend.  We did not even get enough rain to wet the rain gauges in this last batch of storms.  I even had to water our yard.

My biggest problem with the cool temperatures at night is that it is slowing the fishing.  I may have to go fishing for bluefish if this cool weather keeps up.

It has been great weather for working outside.  In the last few days we have finished our pine straw mulch project which took 51 bales to complete.

Our roses are obviously happy with the weather.  The cool temperatures also mean that our centipede grass doesn't grow very much.  That means we don't have to mow it which is fine with me.

Local gardens are doing well,  we recently had some great home grown lettuce from our friends, Dean and Gail, who have some raised beds in their backyard.  My tomatoes are racing forward to the finish line.

I suspect that it is going to take Roanoke a while to warm up.  It could be one of those springs where you go straight to summer, but the forecast does not look like that.  Those straight to summer springs are more common in Northern Virginia.

Yesterday I spent a couple of hours out on the river in the kayak.  It was very enjoyable.

One of the reasons that I enjoying kayaking is that you can get so close to things without a problem.  You would have to be crazy to take your skiff this close to an oyster bed, but there are no worries in doing it with a kayak.  While I had a lot of fun floating around and drift fishing, I did not get a single bite.  I am guessing that is from the cool temperatures and possibly heavy rain in the headwaters area of the White Oak.

It looks like these cool temperatures will only be a memory by this Friday when Roanoke is supposed to be at 80 degrees.  I should say enjoy it, because I don't see any more warm temperatures until mid-May.

It looks like except for this Friday that Roanoke will remain in the upper sixties and low seventies.  There is nothing wrong with that weather.

However, I do like ours better since we also get to 80 by Saturday, but more importantly, by May 6 we are seem to be in a pattern of upper seventies and low eighties.

That should be just the ticket we need to get the water warmed up and the fish biting.

I am certainly looking forward to slightly warmer weather. After all if you are going to live at the beach, you better have some great weather.

The first green tomato

What a difference a few hundred miles makes.  This is a picture of my tomato plants taken on April 27.

They were planted April 3 or twenty four days ago.  The weather has been almost perfect for tomatoes here in Cape Carteret. 

You can compare these coastal tomatoes to my May 6, 2006 mountain tomatoes in Roanoke, VA.  Our warm climate on the coast gives us a big advantage.

We have started having some nice warm nights in the sixties to go along with the warm days in the seventies.  It has been amazing to watch the plants respond to that warmth.

I have also tried to protect the plants from all the winds that we have been having.  I think that has helped them get a great start.

Right now I am using my Kayak as a windbreak.

In 2007 which was our first year on the coast, we didn't even get our tomatoes planted until May 5.  This picture shows those Cinqo De Tomatoes after nineteen days. 

This year I am obviously well ahead where I was last year.  In 2007 our first green tomato showed on June 2 which is 37 days later than these on this year's plants. This year's first green tomatoes  have likely been hiding for a few days based on their size.

I really would like to see my first 2008 ripe tomato the first week of June.  That would be a huge improvement over July 6th 2007 when we got last year's first tomato here on the coast.

Usually in the mountains our first ripe tomatoes seem to average around July 10th though we have gotten them as early as July 4th in Roanoke.

Early tomatoes are just another good reason I call this spot in Bluewater Cove, a Coastal Paradise.

Knowing when to head out

Sometimes the spirit just moves you and doing something becomes a simple matter of following the path of least resistance.

When the water is warm and the day beautiful, it does not take much to get me on the water.

Putting my kayak in at Bluewater Cove is a matter of sliding it down the grass in my backyard into the water.

Lots of other decisions are more complex.  As a Realtor® I see lots of people struggling with what to do next in life. 

Sometimes I feel like a "what if" spreadsheet for people's lives.  People look at different areas and try to imagine themselves living in a particular home.  I try to help them do that in a realistic manner.

They wonder about the costs of heating/cooling, property taxes, and insurance.

Usually one of the first things on their mind is what our winter weather is like.

Sometimes they want to know where the closest trails for hiking are or how far is it to the nearest fitness facility? One of the questions we almost always get is how far is it to the beach?  Another important piece of information is how far away is medical care and what are the areas' three hospitals like?

It there are children involved, people want to know about area schools.  They often want to understand our demographics.

I get so many questions on area services that I finally made a custom map of the area where you can zoom and pan the map to see where everything is.

Folks thinking about moving also want to know what they will do with the inevitable visitors when they show up right after you move to an area close to beach.

I even did a suggested five day tourist itinerary for one client's sister.

We are lucky since there are plenty of things to do in Swansboro, Emerald Isle, and Beaufort.  We have a wonderful spot like Tryon Palace just 45 minutes away. 

You can even visit the Outer Banks like they used to be at Cape Lookout.

I feel fortunate that lots of people are looking for a new life in the small towns along the NC coast.

While our reasons for moving to Carteret county are specific to us, lots of people seem to relate to our thought process.

I like to think that the people who came before us have helped develop a wonderful spot for second homes, retirement, and even new lives along the shores of Bogue Sound and the White Oak River.  I am thankful to them for making the first steps.

When you get down to crunch, people make their own decisions for their own reasons.  What makes sense for one person might not make sense for another. Yet change is the spice of life and lots of people understand that.

Lots of times you might find just enough information from someone like me to give you that push to head out into that new life in a new spot even if it is not the one I have shown you.

If you do, I hope you find a place as nice as our coastal paradise.  Right now there are plenty of choices.

This is especially true with some great new properties coming on line at a time when prices are at levels that haven't been seen since 2004.

The first fish of the season

One of the great pleasures of living on the coast is getting in your boat or kayak and catching some fresh fish.

Today with some great morning weather, I was checking out my kayak since it is now plenty warm enough to be out on the water.  I had taken my fishing rod as an afterthought.

I was floating in a lazy late morning breeze.  I had been watching a duck who did not seem very concerned about me.  I decided that if I were a fish, I would be in a certain spot waiting for food to float by my mouth.

Sure enough the first cast to my chosen spot resulted in a flounder.  Unfortunately he took my Gulp bait so deeply I couldn't get it out since I had forgotten to bring any long nose pliers. I had not even brought another rig so it was a quick end to my fishing.

With a pleasant morning memory forever in my head, I headed back to the house.  Thunderheads were starting to roll up and the rain that began dropping on me confirmed that the nice part of the day was over.

The flounder ended up in the frying pan for lunch.  I was lucky that it was just long enough to be legal.

It did not take long to get today's catch onto a plate.