Our esteemed Secretary of Commerce, Keith Crisco, visited Jefferson Landing and Ashe County this past week.  I am not generally motivated to attend functions that headline politicians but I am glad that I made an exception this time.  What I found was an extremely intelligent, business savvy, articulate businessman working hard to get our state economy going again.  It was great to see someone from the state visit the mountains and get a firsthand perspective of what we are facing here in the rural areas.  Secretary Crisco spent about two hours with us over lunch discussing various issues of interest to our region before continuing his daytrip with a tour of the county.  I’m left with the impression that we are in good hands with leaders like Ketih Crisco working for us.

By now you have probably noticed a few changes on the front page of our website.  We have added a new photo gallery that will scroll through our photos.  We have already had a few members submit photos to be included in the gallery and we will post those as soon as possible.  The weather conditions are temporily off the front page but will eventually reappear on the golf page.  We’ve moved the Blog and webcam and added a couple of vidoes for you to look at.  At the bottom of the page you’ll notice a couple of items that we will update periodically with news from the community and the surrounding area.

Coming soon, so I am told, will be our new real estate pages with easier access and more information on all of the real estate offerings in Jefferson Landing.  The Golf and Accommodation pages will see some tweaks as well.  Make sure you scroll down to the bottom of the page and catch all of happenings in the community.  We hope you like the changes and hope you can find any and all the information about Jefferson Landing at your fingertips. 

Let me know what you think. 

If you are into golf and think NC has some good courses that might be interesting to play…other than Jefferson Landing…check out the new golf website from the state (www.golf.visitnc.com).  In addition to lisitng all of the courses in the state, they put together ‘collections’ of different types of courses.  Jefferson Landing is in “Best of the Best”, “Mountain Highs”, and “The Good Life” collections.  This site has been up for several months now but the state’s Division of Tourism (www.visitnc.com) has made all kinds of upgrades to their golf site.  Check it out.

Nothing says springtime in the mountains like a couple inches of fresh snow.  This week’s weather has been a rollercoaster with cold weather followed by a couple of inches of snow on Wednesday morning.  By Thursday morning we were out mowing the greens and the temps warmed to the point we could play in shorts and short sleeve shirt on Thursday afternoon.  When Mother Nature finally decides on the season, I’m hoping that the choice is spring or summer rather than more winter.  I know it is getting closer to spring because the MLB season is underway and my beloved Orioles (www.orioles.com) knocked off the Yankees in their home opener and a second time two days later.  I can’t imaging that the O’s will get much better off but the season couldn’t have started any better for O’s fans. 

There are two sure signs that spring is just around the corner.  A quick look at the webcam and you’ll see that the fairways are beginning to green up.  But if you look carefully, you’ll see the first hint of the white blossoms of the Bradford Pears.  Within a couple of days they will be in full bloom, transforming our bare, winter look into a start of our spring colors.  The second sign of spring is the return of our finches.  We put out the bird feeder the other day and this morning we had somewhere in the neighborhhod of thirty finches fighting for a spot to feed.  For those not familiar with these interesting little birds, watching them fly to the feeder and hang upside down to feed is fascinating.  I can’t imagine what happened in their evolutionary development that would create such an odd behavior.  If you know, let me know!  In the meantime, check out the webcam  and see spring come to the mountains. 

Just got back from a great trip to Florida.  The weather was very good, especially when compared to the weather conditions we have been experiencing up here in the mountains recently.  When I lived in Florida I probably took for granted the great weather that was commonplace during the winter months.  After the cold temps and frequent snows of this season, I have a much better understanding why everyone goes to Florida.  That said, weather was not one of my disappointments.

Golf, however, was another story.  I know I can play better, I just could not prove it by the way I hit the ball over the course of the week of play.  Two practice rounds and two tournament rounds yielded four rounds in the 80’s and, unfortunately,  I’m not talking temperature.  My partner in crime, Jeff Mick, fared somewhat better, but birides proved to be an endangered species.  I would like to blame my poor play on the courses but that isn’t the case…the courses were incredible…as they always are at Bonita Bay. 

The big news on the trip was that my wife, fresh from not playing for several months, tees it up the day we arrive and holes an 8-iron for an ace on the 116 yard 6th hole of the Bay Island Course at Bonita Bay.  This makes the second of her career and her second hole-in-one in six months and it came with son, Clayton, in attendance.  She followed that up with a birdie on the next hole and holed a wedge shot later in the round for another birdie.  The next day proved to have more of the same shot making with a shot holed from a greenside bunker and yet another barrage of birides.  Surprisingly, all this occurred after I explained, yet again, how difficult the game of golf is supposed to be when one hasn’t played.  I’m at the point where I do not think she is listening to me…that’s probably a good thing. 

No hole-in-one is truly official until the ceremonial gathering at the 19th hole to have a few drinks and swap hole-in-one stories.  As is generally the case, everyone around the table relates their story but eventually, the conversation got around to the one person at the table yet to find the elusive ace…yours truly.  One of these days I may be able to participate but, for now, I just smile and enjoy the free drink.

I do feel a sense of pride watching Linda play the game.  There is something special about watching someone celebrate hitting good shots.  Her enthusiasm and passion for the game is refreshing.  It looks like I may just be a cheerleader as my wife continues to knock down pins on courses all over the country…and you know something…I’m okay with that!

Something is wrong with my thermometer.  When I got up this morning it was 27 degrees and instead of the temperature going up, it’s been going down.  Currently it is 19 and the sun is about to go down.  Looks like if you are planning to buy real estate or play golf in the north carolina mountains this week, you’d better plan to bring an extra sweater…

After a week of unseasonably warm weather, it looks like winter is back to the Blue Ridge mountains.  It is hard to believe that we were playing golf in short sleeves and shorts with temperatures in the 60’s just a couple of days ago.  Since then we have had just about every imaginable weather advisory…first rain and potential flooding, next came wind, then finally a winter storm advisory.  As it turns out, it did rain, but there was no flooding.  The wind blew but nothing out of the ordinary.  And we did get a dusting of snow enough to close schools and keep us off the course…for now.  I guess it is true waht they say about the weather up here…if you don’t like it just wait a couple of minutes and it will change.

Well, our 4th annual Frostbite Open is behind us and those in the field who finished, are still thawing out.  The weatherman was just a little off when he predicted morning temps in the low 20’s.  As it turned out, 15 was the morning low and 24 at our 11:00 tee off time.  Twenty-two brave souls (16 men / 6 women) teed it up and ten made it all the way through 18 holes.  While all players wore shorts, as per the tournament rules, only four players wore shorts with no under layer of sweat pants or other warm weather gear…and all four were among the 18 hole finishers. 

There are a couple of cold temperature issues that come up that you just don’t think about until they happen.  The first being how to tee it up when the ground is frozen and you can’t get a tee in the ground.  In most cases we could use the ball and hammer the tee far enough into the ground to make it work.  When we couldn’t, we just chose a different club and hit it off the ground.  The second thing we encountered was the pleasant surprise that there are no water hazards on really cold days.  A bad tee shot on hole #2 produced a shot that bounced across the frozen lake.  Unfortunately it would eventually wind up sitting on the ice in the middle of the lake and I wasn’t brave enough to go out and try to play it.  The worst of the conditions occur when the wind starts to pick up…not bad on a normal day but with temps in the 20’s the issue of wind chill comes into play.  Wind chill and golf are not terms that you want to include in the same sentence, especially if you are the one experiencing it.  Add in the cart ride from shot to shot and you can see where the Frostbite Open got its name.

A couple of Bloody Mary’s for anti-freeze and the field was off.  The front nine wasn’t too bad but as the wind kicked up we lost more and more players and all of the women were gone by the 9th hole.  Learning how much the ball will bounce on a frozen green takes a few holes, but once you get the hang of it, the game isn’t much different. You would think that scores would be much higher under these conditions but Medalist honors went to yours truly at 1 under par.  Gene Grubb and Terry Morgan both shot 78 to tie for second.  Linda Rdogers was the low score for the women with a 9-hole score of 43.  All in all, not bad scoring and a good time was had by all!

Nothing like a gentle breeze to sweep out the old year and bring in the new year.  Woke up this morning to wind gusts up to 75 mph.  So far, just some limbs blowing off of a few trees and some minor damage to a few homes.  Don’t have to worry about raking up the last of the leaves that have dropped from the trees…what leaves were here are now somewhere in the vicinity of Wilkesboro and other points southeast.  Temps were in the mid-30’s but are supposed to drop into the low 20’s overnight.  Tomorrow’s ‘Frostbite Open’ golf tournament should be very interesting…especially when the dress code calls for shorts mandatory.  Bloody Mary’s may be the drink of choice to keep the field from freezing.   I’ll let you know what happened in the next post.