HOT HOUSE (BILTMORE ESTATE, NORTH CAROLINA)

I am sure we all felt as if we have been living in the Hot House the last few months.  It will only get worse in August and at least the early part of September.  We finally got a much needed heavy rain last night accompanied by thunderstorm.  I envisioned the grass dancing, soaking up all the rain water pouring down, a sweet treat from heaven.  Our new front yard is still doing good.  It was just our luck that we finally spent the money putting in fresh sods, just hope the grass will survive this hot weather.  We water the bushes in the backyard twice every day and they seem to do well.  I read that the recent stretch of hot weather has taken serious toll on the grass, trees and fruits/vegetable crops.  We saw the effect of browning and many trees dropping their leaves.  I have not seen with my own eyes but I heard that some homeowners took the extreme measures by having companies spraying non-toxic green dye onto their dying grass.  I guess it was like botox treatment for the lawns :) 

These images are from our visit to the Biltmore Estate.  The Estate has its own Conservatory designed by architect Richard Morris Hunt.  The glass-roofed building nurtures exotic orchids, ferns, and palms and provides flowers and plants for the house.  The building was almost twice bigger than my poor house!

The whole month of July went by and I again wondered where 31 days, 744 hours and 44,640 minutes went!  We were back to work the very next day (Tuesday, July 10th).  It just happened that I had to attend work-related meetings almost every evenings, so I spent the following weekend washing, cleaning, organizing the photos and recording daily activities from the recent journey according to the date and time, and expenses for lodging, food, gas and misc. on the spreadsheet.  I watched the Andy Griffith Show Marathon (in memory of the actor who passed away on July 3rd) while folding clothes, vacumning the house and putting away items from the trip.  Fortunately on the following Saturday when I was scheduled to volunteer at the Lantern Festival, it was a comfortable sunny day (a cool 80s - haa haa).