Carol Clay, Broker/REALTOR Brevard NC Real Estate Specialist

As you make your plans for September, be sure you include the annual Mountain Song Festival on Saturday, September 13 . The doors open at noon, and the event takes place from 2:00 pm to 10:00 pm at the famed Brevard Music Center. The 1,800 seat, open-air auditorium is the main stage for the festival where music greats including Del McCoury have performed in the past.

According to the event website, "Mountain Song Festival was created to bring the best in acoustic music including bluegrass, old-time, folk and traditional mountain music to our community and to further encourage music in our everyday lives. Mountain Song strives to promote cultural tourism and environmental awareness for a positive impact on our community. Mountain Song Festival was inspired by our youth. It will help fund the Boys and Girls Club of Transylvania County and also facilitate educational opportunities for children and adults."

This year's line includes Steep Canyon Rangers, Cherryholmes, Tim O'Brien, and featured guest Sam Bush. It's a great event, for a great cause. Check it out at www.mountainsongfestival.com

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For more information about the Brevard, NC area, including Brevard, NC real estate, visit the Clay Team online at www.brevardncproperty.com

Western North Carolina is a haven for all kinds of artists. In the Brevard area alone there are dozens of galleries and studios that showcase our arts community. But if you want to find Eddy Hoots and his special brand of art, you'll need to head out 20 minutes west of Brevard towards the Lake Toxaway area. Look for him beside the bend in the road just before Toxaway Falls. That's where you'll find him hard at work under the shade of the trees and alongside the chiseled mountainside, creating his chain saw carved bears.

Eddy Hoots found his passion for chain saw carved bears nearly twenty years ago during a trip to Montana with his father. "They're on every corner out there and I just had to have one" he says. Hoots has been fine tuning his art form ever since and now makes a living carving bears in various locations around western North Carolina, including one of his favorites spots along Hwy.64 in Lake Toxaway.

Although he admits that sometimes there's more talking than carving going on, it can take a full day to carve even the smaller bears and many more to create the larger, more complex varieties. It will be a while before the bears find a home, though. Experience has taught him that it can take as much as a year for the wood to season before it can move on to the finishing stage where the surface is burned to create the rich dark color. From there it's brushed, varnished, and lastly brought to life with marble eyes. It's a family affair and Eddie's wife and two children each play a part in the finishing process. Even the youngest member of the Hoots family, Eddy's 5 year-old son helps out with the varnishing.

Like any artist, Eddy is particular about the type of material he likes to work with and luckily for him, local white pine is his favorite. "Most times my wood finds me" thanks to the local builders who provide him with a constant supply of pine trees for him to work with. The soft wood is perfect for sculpting the smiling faces and all the life-like details that make Eddy's bears so irresistible.

According to Eddy, his best selling bears are the ones he's designed to hang on the side of a tree or along a porch railing. But it's the loveable, life-size bears that draw the traffic at the Lake Toxaway location. In the summer and fall months, when visitor traffic is at its peak, there's a steady flow of cars pulling into the gravel parking lot where Eddie and his bears have set up shop.

Which of the bears is Eddy's favorite? It's the one he keeps at home; the one he bought years ago on his last trip to Montana with his dad.

If you're ever up this way, traveling the mountain roads around Brevard, Boone, and Blowing Rock, keep you eyes open for North Carolina's own, Eddy Hoots and his Bear Den. Or, you can always visit Eddy and his bears online at the Bears Den.

Mention western North Carolina or the Blue Ridge mountains and most people think of hiking, white water rafting, kayaking, or even fly fishing in the famed French Broad River. These outdoor activities are just some of the reasons why this area is so popular, though. Brevard, North Carolina is also home to a rich and active arts community that is part of the year round lifestyle here.

There are 11 art galleries in Brevard and five are right along Main Street in downtown. The galleries are open year round, but on the fourth Friday of the month from April through December, they stay open late to welcome visitors during Gallery Walk. On those nights you can stroll down Main Street and discover the works of local artists, world renowned artists, as well as some of our area's emerging talent. While you're at it, you'll also want to catch the "Scenic 276 Arts Corridor" and the different galleries and studios that dot this mountain road. (Hwy. 276 is the main road leading into Brevard from the South Carolina border.)

One of the highlights of Brevard's arts community is a public arts project that resulted in the creation of five murals and 14 award-winning sculptures that you'll find throughout downtown...many of which have been made even more special because of forethought of the artists. Look closely at the Bobcat created by Steve Fox and you'll see "Hi kids" inscribed on the side. It was a message he placed there for the many children he knew would be drawn to "pet" his life size creation. Sculptures of an Elk and one of a Red Wolf were placed in front of the court house. The two creatures are now considered extinct and it was the artists' way of "reintroducing" them.

Late in 2007 the Transylvania Community Arts Council, along with the NC Tourism office, brought together many individuals involved in the arts here to form a new entity whose purpose was to promote all of the arts in our County. The result was the Transylvania Arts Promotion ("TAP"). It is composed of individual artists, musicians, writers, performers, and representatives from the Transylvania Community Arts Council, Brevard Music Center, The Porter Center for the Performing Arts, Brevard Little Theatre, Heart of Brevard, Brevard Chamber of Commerce, Transylvania County Tourism Development Authority, arts organizations, arts businesses, and venues that host the arts.

Just this week, the group launched a web site dedicated solely to the arts in the Brevard area. At the Arts of Brevard site you'll find a complete listing of galleries, studios, performance schedules, brochures that you can download about the various art tours, and everything else that is art related in our community.

So the next time you visit Brevard, take time to hang up your hiking boots and take in the arts!

When I first moved to western North Carolina it was August and I had just left steamy, hot, overcrowded Florida. I had always loved North Carolina and was over the moon about finally living here. But when I discovered the bounty of local summer vegetables and how easy it was to get fresh ripe South Carolina peaches, I thought I had died and gone to heaven.

A short drive east of the Brevard area you'll find yourself in apple country. More apples are grown in eastern Henderson County, around Hendersonville, NC than anywhere else in the state. You'll enjoy that crop this fall. But the summer crops, the ones that are in season now, are a real highlight. The other day I stopped at my favorite road side market and picked up yellow squash, zuchinni, white corn,and cucumbers that had just been picked from local fields that morning. And the tomatoes....oh my gosh...the tomatoes are like big red juicy bits of heaven. They will make you wonder what restaurants have been passing off as tomatoes in your salad.

But this is also peach season in South Carolina and since we're only an hour or so north of the NC/SC border, we get what I consider the best peaches on the planet. We're now into freestone season so after I got my veggies, I picked up a basket full of peaches that had also just arrived that morning.

I love peaches as they are or cut up with some vanilla ice cream. But one of my husband's favorite things is peach crisp. I admit to not being a baker so as much as I love good cobbler, I stick with crisps. My mother made the best cobbler so maybe I'll just cling to that memory. So, if you are pie crust challenged like I am, give this a whirl. I have some baking in my oven right now which I'll be taking to a friend's house tonight. The aroma is.....(((wuuunddderrrrful)))

PEACH CRISP

Caveat: Like most of my cooking, I don't measure but this is pretty close. Feel free to adjust to your own tastes. This should make enough for 4-6 people.

About 3lbs +/- of good peaches. Slice them into sections (maybe about 1/2" or so) into a large bowl. This should be enough for a 6x9 pan. But, if you have a specific baking pan you want to use, adjust the amount of peaches accordingly. Just remember you'll need to reserve about an inch at the top for the topping.

Combine:
About 3/4 cup of sugar
About 1 tsp cinnamon

Toss peaches with this mixture. Adjust sugar and cinnamon to your personal taste and how sweet the peaches are.

Then toss with about 1/4 cup flour. The sugar makes the peaches juicy and the flour will help it thicken as it cooks. The result at this stage should be slightly syrupy.

Fill the baking dish with the peaches, and press down slightly so the peaches are nice and cozy. Top with crisp mixture and bake at 375 for about an hour or until the crisp is slightly brown and the peaches are bubbly. NOTE: Put your baking dish on a cookie sheet or aluminum foil. It will probably bubble over on the edges. To die for with fresh whipped cream or ice cream...or both!

Crisp Toppping

Approx. 1 cup of flour
Approx. 1 cup of old fashion oats - not instant oatmeal!
Approx. 1 cup of sugar (sometimes I'll use half white and half brown
About 1/2 tsp of cinnamon (If you have apple pie spice in your spice drawer, this works great, too)
1 stick of cold butter cut into small pieces

Using two knives, cut the butter into the dry ingredients until you get a nice, course texture. Spread evenly on top of the peaches. Tap the dish on the counter to settle the topping.

Transylvania County, in western North Carolina, is aptly named "Land of Waterfalls" because of the 250+ waterfalls that dot the 379 square miles of the county. Nearly one-third of the area is national forest land, making this an ideal location for anyone who enjoys the outdoors. Transylvania County is made up of a number of small towns including Brevard and is about a 45 minute drive southwest of Asheville and about 30 minutes east of the popular Cashiers-Highlands area.

One of the most popular waterfall destinations is Dupont State Forest where you will find three spectacular waterfalls - High Falls, Triple Falls, and Hooker Falls. The hiking trails that get you there vary from easy to moderate so they suit just about anyone. And during the popular fly fishing season, you'll likely see fisherman along the way as the attempt to entice a trout or two.

Another very popular waterfall hike is to Graveyard Fields. This is a 3.2 mile hike that reaches an elevation of 5320 ft. It begins at one of the scenic overlooks along the Blue Ridge Park way and loops through a flat valley with two spurs that will take you to some of the best photo opps around.

One of the more difficult waterfall hikes is Panthertown Valley. This is a more difficult 8-10 mile hike that starts at Cold Mountain trailhead but rewards you with 5 waterfalls.

Discover all the things to do and places to go in the Brevard area...Discover your life in the mountains!