forest fire

We had some excitement this past week. A forest fire started on Thursday. There were extremely rough winds that day. We were coming home from a PTO program late at night, and we could see a ridge on the one of the mountains - glowing orange. The next evening our neighbor called us and told us the fire was about 3/4 miles away from our road - yikes! We weren't even sure where the fire was when we saw it - it is hard to tell driving on the curvy roads and it being high up. Luckily, the wind had died down, and it rained Sunday morning - so we believe all is well now.

waiting for snow

Well, it is mid-February. We've missed 2 days of school - but only because of anticipation of snow - but no actual snow. What a let down! We have had flurries here and there. And one day we had an hour of the most beautiful snow I ever saw - it even covered the ground. The kids had a snowball fight and made big snowballs - those lasted a couple days before they melted. But the snow on the ground melted within an hour.

We often get flurries on sunny days. We heard that when it is windy (and boy, does it get windy!!) the snow off of Mt. Mitchell blows off, and it makes flurries lower down the mountain. It is the tallest peak in the Blue Ridge.