Marigold Festival

Each town has their "thing" for which they want to be known. In Maine, where I lived for a long time, the nearby town of Yarmouth is known for its Clam Festival. Here in Georgia, the town of Helen in the mountains is known for its Oktoberfest. Also in Georgia, 45 years ago, the Town of Winterville decided it needed sprucing up and planned a fundraiser and morale-booster. The planning committee chose the marigold to be their town symbol. The marigold stands for "hardiness, versatility, and vigor, and because it is a symbol of friendship all over the world." Funds from the festival are funneled back into the community to maintain buildings and beautify the area.

The town is small with population 1200 at last census. Strangely, it's its own municipality contained wholly within Athens GA. It's quaint, really quaint. Large, two story homes with wrap-around porches line the streets, a nice looking Baptist Church is front and center, an original train depot stands historically and heroically, and Pittard Park is the locale for many community doings, including this festival.

In my opinion, this festival is the perfect size. It is long-standing and reputable enough to attract a variety of vendors, but not so large that it's difficult to get around. My friend and I had a nice time for a few hours walking around and listening to music. Here are my photos of the day.

04039 vs.30629. No contest!

I write often about how nice it is in Northeast Georgia. Not for nothing, but it's mostly the weather. People are nice, the living is a bit less expensive...but the weather sure does make the difference.

I spent 17 years in Rhode Island, a nice state but still New England, which means snow and ice and sleet and dark winters. But I was a kid and I didn't know anything then. I went to college in Bangor-Orono Maine, 300 miles further into tundra-land. Talk about dark! Talk about cold! Talk about snow! Amazingly, I stayed in Maine for the next 30 years. I don't know why. Seemed like the thing to do at the time.

If you count the frost time when you can't plant anything in the ground, Maine winter lasts 9 months. The average temp is below freezing five months a year. In November, less than half the possible daylight hours are cloudy. (48%)

Contrast that with Comer GA and, well, I am happy to report that there are NO months when the average temp is below freezing. None, Nada, Zip. And the highest average temp occurs in July, 89 degrees. Not bad!!! (Thirty-year data ending in 2000).

Now, forget data, let's have a visual compare and contrast:

I snapped this blooming dandelion yesterday. Notice the greenery poking through the blow-down, too.

Contrast that with a snap from the Gray Maine webcam today. My office used to be a few feet from here and my apartment two miles from here. Dark and nasty weather, huh?

Below: winter bird, sitting on a branch near my second floor deck. Blue skies, happy bird.

Here we have a snap of a winter bird in Maine during the same February week. (Photo from robotbunny on Mainetoday.com website)



Below we have a buried car. My husband at the time and I returned home from a week in FL and this is what greeted us, my Saturn station wagon was completely buried. Not happy.



A Saturn wagon...not buried. Which would you prefer, if you had a choice? Thank God, I did have a choice and I've never been happier to dwell where the livin' is easy and the climate is gentle.

Labor Day adventure

I've started using Freecycle again, a Yahoo! group where people post usable things they don't want and all you have to do is pick them up. The items run the gamut from empty laundry bottles to office desk. My landlord built a 10X10 deck off my bedroom and I need to fill it with stuff, on the cheap, so I checked out the group again

There was a posting for cactus planter with live cactus in it, so I jumped on that one right away. The deck is on the north side but it still gets direct sun in the late afternoon and delicate plants are going to have a hard time. Plus if I'm being honest I'm not the best at keeping plants alive. Cactus have a better shot.

The pickup was in Winterville, a town I was not familiar with. Googling it on Maps, I found it was just 15 minutes away. Yippee, I'm there! The Freecycler gave me directions and off I went into the late afternoon of a summer day.

Traveling over rural roads, passing farms and hills just blushing green after a bit of rain, I sighed and declared once again that Northeast Georgia is the best spot on earth. Then I arrived at Winterville and it just got that much cuter. Neatly trimmed clapboard homes with rambling porches and sweetly placed rocking chairs, lawns rolling down to two lane roads, and the town center that looked like it was plucked from the early 1900s and gently set down like a young girl does with her doll furniture.

All in all, a nice sojourn. And the cactus planter was perfect, too.