I grow a number of raspberries in central VA and have found Caroline, Prelude, Kiwi Gold, and Heritage (and a few others) to be heat tolerant. I think last year's brutal summer negatively affected my Caroline and Prelude plants (might have been a virus, also), but my Kiwi Golds and Heritages seemed to take the heat a bit better. I'd still definitely recommend trying Caroline and Prelude because they did great the 3 years prior and they taste better in my opinion. My soil is fairly heavy, a loamy red clay. I (attempted?) to purchase Baba awhile back based on Don's recommendations and the only place I could find it was Willis, so I rolled the dice. The one surviving Baba has yet to fruit, but it doesn't look like the web images of Baba I've found and, instead, looks almost exactly like a wineberry (red trailing canes with numerous closely-spaced, long hair-like thorns interspersed between fewer larger curved thorns). I'm hoping that the web images are incorrectly labeled and that I've actually got a Baba, but I've got my doubts. Bay Laurel always seems to be out of them, so please post if you find another source. I think it has been suggested that Don should fill the void and, following the Doyle's model, start selling Baba's under his name for $20 apiece....

Property taxes can be high here in NC too. I think Gaston county has a lot of crime. Charlotte is wonderful, that's where we go to do decent shopping/dining. Charlotte is definitely where it's at as far as I am concerned. Wilmington is nice but too close to coast, hurricanes. Personally I like Asheville a lot. Lots of art and culture there including hippies. I don't have a clue about the schools in any of the areas I mentioned. I live in Hickory, NC, small city with the traffic of a large city, yuk. Winston Salem is also nice. Greensboro is near and High Point although I don't know what High Point has to offer. Carla

looks like a slate colored dark eyed junco to me. one sure tell is they have a light pinkish yellow bill and white feather in sides of tail.. hard to tell from your picture. most people call them snowbirds cause they show up with the snow and bad weather. there are many different variations in color patterns on the juncos but they all have the dark eyes.

I'm sure there'll be a corn field just down the road. Few cobs roasted in the coals??? If temperatures continue to be cool (60s at night here) in the mountains, we just might want that fireplace!! Wouldn't that create great ambiance!