Crabby Fourth

Saturday, Nana took us to her favorite pottery, Mud Dabbers. It was a wonderland of the beautifully hand-crafted. There was every possible vessel one could imagine, from small dishes with spikes in the middle especially for baking apples, to Ikebana vases. I picked out a navy blue-glazed bowl with blue-on-blue mottling in the bottom. Just the right size for Chinese noodles. Nana insisted on buying it for me. I think I’ll get a lot of use out of it since it’s microwave, oven, and dishwasher safe.

On our way back up the mountain, we stopped at Looking Glass Falls. Nana said the county contains the most waterfalls in the US, a whopping 250. Looking Glass Falls was beautiful! We took a few pictures with her camera. We found out ours had gone to the great Photoshop in the sky Friday morning when we changed the batteries. Oh well. Pictures will be on Facebook soon. Then back up to Ridge Haven where we picked up Sophy and went to the Cornerstone church picnic on the grounds, THEN went to a bonfire for the camp counselors at the home of the Linvilles.

John Linville provides bluegrass music for the evening camp gatherings. He and his wife are HUGE hippies. They live in a house that defied classification. I couldn’t even decide whether it was a hundred years old, or just made to look like it. I doubt it was up to code, either way. The yard was filled with overgrown plants-both flowering and food plants-and a glorious profusion of junk was scattered through the long grass. A rusted tandem bike was next to a brilliantly executed piece of stained glass was next to a broken window frame, etc. There was a bamboo grove full of fireflies. A home-made swing under a woven tree-branch arbor so overgrown it was hard to sit without being prickled. There were three separate sheds, all ramshackle, all crammed with unrelated objects. It was all terribly interesting and a little alarming. There was even a long track down to a beautiful broad river that involved crossing a huge mossy log. The halfway point to the river was a well-used firepit and lean-to. Even though I just met the Linvilles, there was no doubt in my mind that they enjoy their eccentric lifestyle to the fullest, and their hospitality was certainly impeccable.

When John Linville was sure the twenty or so young people had talked themselves out, he packed up the grill and we all piled back into cars to go to downtown Brevard for fireworks. Will bought a lemon-berry slush at Sonic and we slurped as we watched the explosions. One of the boys found a dead white squirrel. White, but not albino, squirrels are peculiar to Brevard. They’re ordinary squirrels, except they’re cream colored. Quite pretty. I was glad we were able to see a live one on the way to church the next morning.