Last week, we had a blackberry winter. In Western NC, that’s a cold snap that threatens the blackberry flowers.  Two firefighters I know got hypothermia as they rescued a hiker with a broken ankle only two miles away from the fire truck.  It hailed on them.

The bad news is that you might die in this stuff. The good news is that when the weather’s murderous, you can stay indoors.

I did and framed this picture of the mouth of the Swannanoa River.  The frame is handmade by Mark Henry of Weaverville, NC, who is an excellent painter, too.