What the heck happened last week!?!

I am in shock at the notion that it is officially the Christmas season…(as I look out my kitchen window over the pumpkins that never got carved into jack-o-lanterns).

Last week lots of stuff happened.  Here is the quick rundown:

• I saw the pictures from the wildly successful Thanksgiving Floral Event that Roanne and I pulled off out in the barn. (more to come on that one)
• I agreed a contract to write a book! (more to come on that one too)
• I drove from Boston to Corolla, North Carolina (Stopping en-route in Atlantic City and taking the Cape May Ferry), and back.  (not much else to say there – we saw storm damage and lots of FEMA people, but things seem to be getting back to normal)
• I spent a week in a monstrous beach front house witnessing and participating in one of my best friends weddings.  (I’d like to discuss this – just a little)
• I ate and drank more in a single week than I normally do in a several months running.  (this is just shameful – but fun while it lasted – my fat pants fit like my skinny pants; I’m detoxing now and I have the headache and weird uncontrollable eye-twitching to prove it)
• I hung out with some Wild Horses that live on a slip of beach.
• And I got started on Christmas shopping. (I have a few ideas worth sharing, more to come)

As you can see, we have a lot to talk about….but as I slip into the morning routine, I will for the moment just share my pictures of  the Corolla Wild Horses.  Here are a couple of fun facts about them:

1) The wild horses that live on the Outer Banks Islands came to live there when explorers and settlers shipwrecked on sandbars off the coast some 500 years ago and the horses swam ashore.

2) The Corolla horses are completely isolated from other wild horses along the Outer Banks as they do not receive any medical intervention, with the exception of Birth control, and subsequently have evolved uniquely to live within their environment.  If one leaves, it can’t come back because of the risk of  introducing disease to the herd.

IMO, The Outer Banks constitutes one of the most un-sustainable communities I have ever seen.  There seems to be no plan for retaining its natural beauty or balance and development is simply out of control.  Mother Nature seems to want to the eat all the development up (and in a sick sort of way, I sort of hope it does) and the construction that has ensued over the last 20 years (since the last time I was there) is a horrific sight.

If you want to see the horses, I suggest you do it soon….the natural place and all that there is to see there is disappearing by the minute; I can’t imagine how any of it will exist for another generation. I’ve never seen a place more in need of a conservation trust that is charged with buying up as much land as possible, specifically for environmental protection.  Thinking about how mismanaged and out of control the area seems to be, is, unfortunately, a real black mark on an otherwise lovely trip.

images by rochelle greayer