Read on to see what is happening up on Glassy Mountain in Greenville County, SC...

October 18, 2011

Fall colors are just starting to arrive up here on Glassy Mountain. Here are a few pictures to show how things looked this morning.

Little Mountain in the early morning light:

Just a shadow of His glory:

May 21, 2011

Our cat (his name is Clawed) recently began leaving small squirrel tails for us. We thought they were baby squirrels even though the coloring was different. Squirrel number 5 was left intact and my daughter discovered it was a flying squirrel! I'm not sure why Clawed left this one untouched, and I am even more curious how he caught so many flying squirrels. Apparently they are common in the area but are nocturnal so you don't see them during the day much. They can glide three feet for every foot of altitude they lose and reportedly can glide from 50-300 feet. Here is a picture showing the "wings" spread out:

November 11, 2010

Fall colors are about at their peak around here now. The colors are beautiful, with the yellows standing out a lot. Often the poplars and hickory trees just turn to brown, but this year the yellow is quite striking. I don't think the leaves are going to hang on much past Thanksgiving this year. We'll see...

June 21st  2010

Summer is here, and it is warm on the mountain (still cooler than in town). We've had sightings of a young bear walking the mountain nearby. I was able to get a few pictures but it took off like lightning when it finally saw me. We first noticed it on the 20th of June. It appears to be a young black bear, maybe around 100 pounds or so.

March 23rd, 2010

Spring is definitely here on Glass Mountain. The Trillium have been pushing through the leaves for about a week. The blood root with white flowers are also in bloom, as are the first of the wild violets. Here is a shot of the Trillium with it's fragrant flowers:

And here is a picture of the Bloodroot:

January 10th, 2010

It is a cold winter on Glassy Mountain. We decided to hike up to a nearby waterfall to see how the many days of teen temperatures had affected the streams. There were some great ice formations on the waterfall. It is hard to see the scale of the ice, so my wife included me in one of the pictures. It was beautiful out, and our cat even hiked the mile or so up there with us!

Here is a shot showing the ice on the waterfall:

This picture shows me under the ice to give an idea of scale:

And a final picture showing our curious cat going behind the ice:

December 4th, 2009

Duke Energy's 1.5 million pound stator (I believe the weight includes the stator and the assembly needed to transport it) moved past Glassy Mountain on Hwy 11 around 9am this morning. From my count it has a total of 288 wheels on each of the two sections that support the stator (not counting the trucks on each end). Each wheel you see in the photo is part of a 4 wheel assembly that looks like an aircraft landing gear wheel, with 144 wheels on each side. Sorry the quality of the photo is poor but it was cloudy and dreary.

July 11th, 2009

I recently watched the documentary "The Dark Corner" which is primarily about the history of the Glassy Mountain area. It was very interesting and covered the historical highlights of the area. It included interviews with Dean Campbell and Anne McCuen, both of whom have written books on the area. One thing sorely missing from the documentary are any signifant footage that shows the natural beauty of the area. There were just a few shots of the Cliffs community on top of the mountain. That was a little dissappointing.  If you are interested in purchasing the DVD or watching some of the clips, go to www.darkcornerfilms.com.

May 4th, 2009

The mountain laurel are starting to bloom all over. It looks like a good year for them with most of them having flowers. I also noticed an unusual flame azalea nearby. I've seen those in Pisgah National Forest, but never on Glassy Mountain before. There were two fairly mature plants growing with some mountain laurel.

May 1, 2009

Well, look what followed us home today. While taking a walk down the mountain with my wife, we ran into this wild turkey. It seemed very aclimated to people, and followed us all the way back to the house. It seemed to enjoy playing with the kids! It appeared to roost overnight on our porch but was gone in the morning. 

April 30, 2009

Signs of different wildlife are up on the mountain today. I saw sign of bear, coyote and bobcat all within a half mile of each other. The sweet anise is also blooming all around, as are the wild roses. The mountain laurel is just starting to open up as well.

Here are some pictures of the animal prints (bobcat and coyote):

Here are some clear signs of bear (those are pieces of hickory nuts in there):