Glorious Autumn

Hi everyone!  Is it cold where you are?  It's brisk here.  :)  The wind is blowing something fierce, and it was raining earlier today.  I think it rained through the night last night as well.  Those of you who follow Anita at Far Above Rubies and Penny at The Comforts of Home may have already seen that we got snow in the North Carolina mountains today.  Wow!  Snow while the leaves are still on the trees is not something we see a lot of.  The town of Sparta, N.C., which is where we go every year to cut our Christmas tree, had already received two to four inches by 11:00 a.m. this morning.

I'm sharing with you some images from two weekends ago of the mountains of North Carolina and Virgina.

You've probably already picked up on this if you read my blog regularly, but I love my home state of North Carolina.  I never realized how much until I was married, because my husband loves it as much as I do.  That doesn't mean we don't love to visit other places, but it does mean we're always glad to come home.

You may remember my little calf buddy from a few weeks ago,

 and here are more pics of  "the herd."

I love this picture -- Mom is licking her youngster's face.  :)

We stopped at this roadside pumpkin patch to snap some pictures.  We've seen lots of pumpkins growing in the fields over the last few weeks.

This little church was across the road from the pumpkin patch.

Cyclists enjoying the parkway...

This pic was one of mine; I was really pleased with the way it turned out.  If you look at the mountain in the center of the picture off in the distance, you can see a knob-shaped rock on the top.  This is Pilot Mountain, and the knob is Pilot Knob.

The mountain was originally known as Jomeokee, meaning "The Great Guide" or "Pilot."  It guided Native Americans and early European settlers and hunters along a north/south path through the area.  You can see this landmark for miles and miles on a clear day.  My parents live near the base of this mountain, and they're in North Carolina.  We're viewing it from Virginia.

I took this next group of pictures in the little town of Meadows of Dan, Virginia.  It's a pretty area, with a nice winery called Chateau Morrisette, which I wrote about a few years ago.  On this particular day, they had a corn maize set up and looks like some fall produce for sale, as well.

We pulled off the Blue Ridge Parkway onto a side road, where we were able to park and take pictures of these wonderful barn quilts.  I just love these, and I understand they have them in Canada, too?

You can see the quilts better in this picture Hal took.

As we were headed for home, we spotted this wonderful red barn and barn quilt (again in Virginia).

Are the leaves colorful where you are?  If you're north of here, I'm sure they're just gorgeous.  Thank you for stopping by and enjoy the rest of your weekend!

 I'm joining the crowd at Lavender Cottage for Mosaic Monday.  Thank you for hosting, Judith!

Denise