Today "Rasta" Nick went to the Rainbow Bridge. Rest in peace you sweet old man!

Can Nick Be Saved?

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Nick was in Rutherford, NC, and they were ready to put him down. Mike sent out an alert to see if anyone could pull this poor guy who was left by his owner and two weeks later found by a neighbor starving and dehydrated.  There was a house in NC that Bob and I had been thinking about looking at, so what better time to make the four-hour drive than now so that we could save Nick's life.  He is now at BAC, groomed, bathed, and sleeping on quilts.  Mike is feeding him five times a day awaiting test results to see if Nick will some day be a healthy boy that someone can adopt.  I must say, I have never seen a dog that matted or smelled that bad!  It was a very long four-hour drive, but Nick was smiling the whole way.  He could only stand for a few minutes because he was so weak.  His eyes are sunken in from malnutrition.  "Rasta" Nick, we hope you can be saved!

As for the house, well, this is it. In Gillette Woods, NC, a community from the 1930s, a place where writers, actors and artists made their vacation homes in the same vein as Carmel, California.

Notice the mill stones set in the ground, and these are throughout the property.  It sits on three acres and is surrounded with old gardens and statuary.

There are numerous stone patios around the house.  The log building in the background is the garage.

This is the old copper sign for the home, which is called "The Log House".

Allen and Bob are checking out the massive stone fireplace. A replica of the fireplace at the Grove Park, but on a much smaller scale!

The kitchen is small, but I love it.  Out the windows by the sink you see Hogback Mountain.

All the windows have stone ledges. It is details like this that make this house so charming.

This is the living room.  The fireplace is two-sided.  Window seats are on both sides of the living room.  The floors are old heart pine in varying widths and are pegged.  If we sanded these floors and put on a coat of wax, they would be beautiful.

This Tiffany lamp is in the sitting room, which would be a great place to view birds.  I can't believe they would not take this out and sell it, but everything stays with the house.  There are many stained glass windows throughout.

Fireplace on the living room side.

Cupola on the garage and moss on the roof.

Another mill stone used as a table on another stone patio out in the gardens.

Door to the kitchen, another stone patio.

The doors in this home are all handmade and Dutch doors.  Notice the iron scorpion door knocker!  I found a scorpion in my kitchen last week on top of the stove!  Scary!!

There are some drawbacks to the place.  This is a neighboring house.  Bob took a walk down because he saw the neighbors, an older couple that just moved there from Northern VA.  They were very nice, but the house is too close for my liking.  I like to know there are neighbors down the road, but not right next door. This is one thing that we have to think about.

Another mill stone with a gargoyle holding the house numbers.  Things like this are scattered all through the gardens.  The azaleas in spring must put on a show.  There were huge specimen trees, magnolias and hemlocks.  Ferns and mahonias everywhere, but no hydrangeas, but I have a lot of them I'm taking with me.  Oh, yes, there is a lot of ivy.  Ivy is everywhere.  Another problem with this place is not a lot of sun.  In order to have my organic farm I would have to take down some trees and terrace some of the woods, and I am not a fan of disturbing something that has been there since the 1930s.  This house is our backup to building a new one on the lake.  The good thing about this house is it's only 7 minutes to the boathouse.  This week will tell.  Bob will be talking to Nature Conservancy about a land swap, and if all works out, we will be starting our new house, but if all fails, this just may be our new home!