Gathering Spring

On a recent warm day, the honeybees were busy on the crocuses in our yard...the first flowers of spring!

Spring Runoff

Waterfall on Crab Run

"Maple Sugar Season"

Just one of the many large maple sugar trees at

Puffenbarger's Sugar Orchard in Blue Grass, VA

Photo by Doug Puffenbarger

Right now Highlanders and maple tree owners all over the county

are tapping trees to collect sap to boil down into maple syrup.

This tree got "tapped!"

Photo by Doug Puffenbarger

Whiter Than Snow

"Whiter than snow, yes, whiter than snow,
Now wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow."
From the 1872 hymn by James Nicholson

Clover Creek Presbyterian Church on the Bullpasture, south of McDowell

Founded in 1880

Trimble's Knob

The recent snow blanketed our local volcano, then the wind carved waves.