Observing Nature on cloud 9 Farm

It’s pretty exciting to be a bee keeper in WNC this time of year. The beautiful yellow, orange and green bloom of the tulip (yellow) poplar tree drips with nectar (don’t park your car under one in May) and is the major nectar source for honey here along with the locust (tree not cicada insects) and the blackberry blooms. The honey bees zoom industriously [ MORE » ]

Dirt roads, almost as rare as hen’s teeth in Fairview, NC as developers demand ameneties for prospective buyers. My favorite winding backroad to town got paved a few years ago. Sure, less dust and easier on the car but it was the road I always took out-of-town guests on the way back from the airport. “We live way back in the hills,” I would [ MORE » ]

All fall and winter I curse that crab apple tree in the pasture. It’s prickly limbs that fall off or have to be trimmed give injuries even to my gloved hands everytime. But now…in the spring…full glorious blossoms (double blossoms this year to make up for the freeze of ’07) in pinkish white that make the valley come alive with happy honeybees and happy [ MORE » ]

Remember this time of year, mid April to mid May if you’d like to take a vacation and see the glorious wild dogwood bloom. The white blossoms spread out like sheets through a wood’s view amongst the new green leaves coming out of their buds in many shades of green. I’ve never seen a honeybee on dogwood blossom so they don’t have much nectar. [ MORE » ]

On the 200 acres of Cloud 9 Rentals, there are many places of interest, tiki heads to mask tree stumps and stone works all from the property. One that you see in the valley is the Phoenix, sitting on the edge of the woods. You have to look closely to see the rock legs and the graduated in size, flat rocks showing feathers of [ MORE » ]