Log Cabin at Lake Lure

09/26/2024

If this doesn’t make you smile 😊

09/09/2024

🐻Bear News 🐻

In the cooler days of September, most bears are very focused on finding as much food and gaining as much weight as possible. When the eating is good, a bear can put on two to three pounds a day. By hibernation time many bears will have added about 4 inches of fat and gained between 20% and 50% of their summer body weight.

The quest for calories keeps bears active and foraging up to 20 hours a day at this time of year. This annual feeding frenzy called hyperphagia is driven by bears’ ticking biological clocks counting down to hibernation, when most bears in colder climates retire for the winter and live off the fat they’re working so hard now to accumulate.

That’s why it’s so important to keep bears wild and remove all sources of food from their reach. That includes pet food, birdseed and feeders, trash and recycles, and securing gardens, orchards and composting.

The BearWise.org site has articles and resources that cover all of this. Learn the BearWise Basics. Thanks for doing your part to…

02/19/2024

📖 Great History Lesson!

This President's Day we remember a piece of important Parkway history. Did you know....

The idea for the Blue Ridge Parkway was born when President Franklin Delano Roosevelt visited the newly constructed Skyline Drive in Virginia in 1933. Then U.S. Senator Harry Byrd of Virginia suggested to the president the road should be extended to connect with the recently established Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Roosevelt convened the governors of Virginia, North Carolina, and Tennessee and asked that a planning team be created. On November 24, 1933, Interior Secretary Harold Ickes approved this “park-to-park” highway as a public works project.



NPS Image - Franklin Delano Roosevelt eating with other guests during a visit to the Shenandoah CCC Camps in August of 1933.

02/18/2024

🐻So what are the bears doing this time of year? 🐻

What bears are doing now - February highlights:

* Pregnant female black bears give birth.
* Cubs begin to grow.
* Bears snug in their dens live off fat reserves, recycle waste and by-products into useful amino acids and heal many injuries.
* Other black bears don’t hibernate at all; they just reduce their activities and make day beds so they can take periodic naps.

Deeper dive:
Many bears across the country are still busy sleeping. A denning adult bear can go as many as 200 days without eating, drinking or going to the bathroom. Bears live off the fat reserves they worked so hard over the summer and fall to acquire, recycling their waste and losing fat but not muscle. Bears also recycle calcium back into their bones and avoid the loss of bone density that affects people who are inactive for long periods of time. Many nagging injuries heal with little scarring and no infection.

Learn more: bearwise.org/what-bears-do-in-february

Photo by Steve Uffman

12/10/2023

🎄 Great Christmas Lights all mapped out. What could be better?

HENDERSON COUNTY HOLIDAY LIGHT TRAIL!
Back by popular demand in 2023 is Hendersonville’s Trail of Lights! Locations include private homes and businesses throughout Henderson County, NC. They are listed in the recommended order they should be visited, based on you ending your self-guided drive in Downtown Hendersonville. If you follow this route, you are sure to see plenty of other wonderful displays, especially in Downtown Hendersonville. This suggested route will take you just over 2 hours.

❗️Please note, many of the Downtown Hendersonville locations are best viewed by foot.

♥️ It’s not included on the list, but you should also make your way over to Kirkby's Christmas Wonderland on Ida Rogers Dr in Hendersonville.

♥️ there are also beautiful displays on South and North Mills River Road, according to one of our page followers!

♥️ there are also beautiful displays along Sugarloaf Rd, according to another of our page followers!

👉 Google map with driving directions HERE: https://www.google.com/maps/@35.3315993,-82.463705,12z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m2!6m1!1s15UPswvIkamSibWIB1ojuWSGhnhgI_Ms?entry=ttu

👉 Printable list HERE: https://visithendersonvillenc.org/wp-content/uploads/2023-Trail-of-Lights-printable-list.pdf?