Community Support Initiatives
– Providing food and assistance to families in need since 1993.
– Operating a store where qualified individuals can choose items for free.
– Offering various volunteer opportunities and ways to support the community.

Youth Fundraising Activities
– Friend’s grandson’s baseball team conducting leaf removal as a fundraiser.
– Donations-only service, teaching youth the value of earning money.
– Seeking neighbors who might need yard work services.

Neighborhood Social Events
– Planning a winter soup gathering for neighborhood residents.
– Seeking ideas for fun social events like ‘game nights’.
– Appreciation for the successful appetizer event.

Community Property Enhancements
– Board initiative to improve common areas and make them more attractive.
– Planting low-maintenance greenery in various locations.
– Pleased with the overall appearance of neighborhood yards.

Capital Reserve Fund Amendment
– Proposal to amend covenants regarding new homeowner assessments for capital reserve.
– Changing the fixed $250 fee to an amount set by the board of directors.
– Aims to build the fund to cover HOA liabilities and avoid broad-based assessments.

Board Member Elections
– Two board members’ terms expiring this year.
– Larry Hurt and May Wenge willing to serve another term.
– Nominees approved for a three-year term starting January 1st.

Budget and Mailbox Updates
– No due increase anticipated for 2026, with a monthly due decrease.
– Mailbox numbers replaced with durable 3D decals from a small business.
– Pleased with the improvement over previous peeling decals.

Community Safety and Maintenance
– Encouraging residents to report suspicious activity to county police.
– Leaf removal contract specifies mulching, not collecting, for better soil.
– Discussion pending on HOA’s continued obligation for gutter cleaning in 2026.

Streetlight Concerns
– Complaints about new stark white streetlights replacing amber ones.
– Residents finding the new lights excessively bright.
– Seeking contact information for the county to address the issue.

Miniature Graceland
(Roanoke Notes, November 6, 2025)

There’s a little patch of Roanoke that hums softly with the ghost of Elvis, not through jukebox speakers or velvet paintings, but through plywood, shingles, and love. Tiny Graceland still stands, or maybe leans, out there on the edge of Don Epperly’s old yard, the grass curling up around its miniature white columns and blue trimmed chapel.

Don built it back in the eighties, one small imitation at a time, Graceland’s gates in miniature, the birthplace in Tupelo recreated with devotion and a steady hand, a landscape of memories small enough for squirrels to tour. They say he started after visiting the real Graceland, came home and decided that the King deserved a Virginia echo. It grew into a neighborhood landmark, a shrine to both Elvis and the sheer stubborn joy of making something just because it should exist.

Now it sits quiet, weather-silvered. The plastic flowers have gone pale, and the paint has given itself back to the seasons. The Salem Garden Club tends it here and there, keeping the spirit alive even as vines try to crown the place with green. Every now and then someone pulls over, camera in hand, smiles, and whispers a “thank you very much” into the breeze.

Tiny Graceland isn’t a tourist trap or a spectacle, it’s a memory of belief, scaled down but not diminished. Don’s gone now, but his heart’s still parked there, somewhere between the tiny chapel and the tinny strains of “Love Me Tender” that once drifted from a boombox on the porch.

If you pass by, slow down. Look close. The King’s still there, just smaller, kinder, and maybe even closer to heaven.


—

#roanokeva #TinyGraceland #Elvis #Virginia #RoadsideAmerica #minigraceland

🕰️ November 6 – Time’s Uneven Footsteps in Roanoke

Some mornings, the air over Mill Mountain feels like it’s holding its breath. The clock on the star says one thing, but the crows circling above the Roanoke River seem to mark another hour entirely. Down by the farmers market, the world hums in coffee sips and shoe taps – a fast, modern tempo – while in the old cemeteries up on the hill, you can almost hear the tick of moss growing over names, slower than a sigh.

Time here never runs evenly. On Brandon Avenue, it sprints – deadlines, buses, traffic lights flipping red before you’re ready. But out near the greenway, by the cattails and the ducks who couldn’t care less about minutes, it ambles. You can walk for what feels like hours and find the light hasn’t shifted an inch.

Maybe it’s the mountains. Maybe they bend the seconds, fold them like warm laundry. Or maybe Roanoke just keeps its own sort of calendar –  one where the seasons overlap, where October ghosts still wander through November fog, and where the same church bell seems to ring both too soon and not soon enough.

Tonight, the clocks will insist it’s late. But standing under the soft hum of the Star, watching the valley’s lights drift like embers, you can feel how the moment stretches – a slow, generous kind of forever.

(current mood: clocks made of fog and songbirds)

Roanoke is completely surrounded by mountains.

When you stand here beneath the Star,
and let your eyes settle over the valley,
the body knows something before the mind does.

You can feel the land gathering around you.
The ridges rising and folding like the slow breath of the earth.

This place is held.
Not confined.
Held.

The mountains don’t close in.
They embrace.

It is a bowl of energy,
resting between the Blue Ridge Mountains
and the broader sweep of the Appalachians.

The valley curves into itself,
as if cupping something precious.
Light.
Wind.
Memory.
Presence.

When a land is shaped like this,
held in all directions by mountains,
it becomes a spiritual basin.
A place where things settle down
and come home.

You feel it in the chest.
In the breath.
In the quiet steady place inside the ribs.

The Roanoke Star stands over all of this,
shining for decades.
Not a monument,
but a reminder.

At night it glows over neighborhoods and back roads,
over the river and the train lines,
over the soft hum of the valley at rest.

Folks may not think about it much,
but they look up at it.
Almost without meaning to.
As if checking in
with something that remembers them.

From up here, the mountains stretch out in long blue layers.
Soft as breath.
Patient as time.
They have seen storms, fires, migrations,
laughter in kitchen windows,
the way people build lives.

And still, they stand quiet.

People come here for the view.
But they stay for the stillness.

The way the wind slows down,
so you can finally hear it.

The way the valley opens,
not outward,
but inward.

The way time, for a moment,
does not rush.

And in that moment,
the world is not something happening to you.
It is something you are part of.

Held by the mountains.
Rooted in the valley.
Breathing with the land.

This place listens.
This place remembers.
This place carries its people.

And when you stand here,
quiet and steady,
you can feel it all.

The land.
The light.
The pulse of the city.
The slow blue rise of the mountains.

All of it living.
All of it connected.
All of it breathing together.

🌀 Spiral in the Sky – November 4, 2025

Evening blue fading over Mill Mountain, the trees whispering a little before full dark, and there – a bright curl hung above the rooftops. A soft “S” shape, glowing faintly like someone had drawn it in moonlight and then let it drift. For a minute, it almost felt alive – twirling slowly, dissolving into the air like a thought half-remembered.

At first, I thought comet? cloud? cosmic ghost? But no – word filters in: yes, the comet C/2025 A6 (Lemmon) is up tonight, swinging through the Virginia sky, bright enough for the naked eye if you step away from streetlights. There’s also a Sentinel-1D rocket launch tonight — you can check it at rocketlaunch.live. The trails of its exhaust can twist into those eerie spirals high above the atmosphere, catching sunlight even after dusk. Science and wonder sharing the same inkblot in the heavens.

Somewhere between the comet and the rocket, the spiral floated – a momentary signature, a kind of glowing question mark reminding us how the sky never really sits still.

Back on the ground, the city hums, dogs bark in the valley, and the faint scent of woodsmoke drifts through the crisp air. Somewhere up there, a machine made by human hands is circling Earth, and a ball of ancient ice is writing its own slow arc through the solar system.

Good night, Roanoke – keep looking up.

#whatstheskydoing #roanokeva #comet #rocket #hypnoticeyepfgod

The world is a slightly better place today.

Some recent nature in roanoke, virginia

Up on Mill Mountain this morning, where the fog lifts slow and the trees wear their last fire-bright leaves like old medals. The oaks and maples were humming orange, the sky the color of cooled steel.

Out from between the trunks came a bear – big, black, and steady. Not rushing anywhere, just existing in the kind of way that makes you feel small but safe. He was wearing a white shirt, crisp against his dark fur, with a bright red circle-and-slash over a crown: no kings.

A quiet manifesto in the woods.

He didn’t roar it. Just stood there, breathing clouds into the cold morning air, as if to say: we don’t need crowns here – just balance, warmth, and berries enough for all.

The mountain seemed to nod. The leaves swirled. A jay shouted something rude from above, and the bear went on his way, stepping over moss and memory.

Down the slope, the Roanoke Star blinked faintly through the mist, watching too.

No kings, no hurry. The forest already knows how to rule itself.

#roanokeva #edemberleystyle #doodle #digitalmarkers #sicsempertyrannis

November wander – Mill Mountain hues

A slow climb through the switchbacks this morning, the road lined with trees in their full autumn whisper – golds, russets, and the last stubborn greens clinging to the ridge. The guardrail hums along the way like a silver thread pulling us upward through the forest. Windows down, air sharp with leaf scent and the faint sweetness of decay.

At the top, the overlook opens wide – Roanoke stretched below like a model town in amber light. The skyline tiny but proud, hugged close by the blue-gray humps of the mountains beyond. You can almost feel the valley vibrate with life.

The Star looms ahead, a gentle giant of steel and light, framed by red maples and coppery oaks. Standing under it, I can hear the low buzz of electricity and the soft murmur of visitors talking in that hushed, reverent tone people use in cathedrals and on mountaintops.

Leaves tumble across the path, catching the wind, spinning toward the edge. I linger for a while, watching the clouds herd shadows across the town, thinking how lucky we are to live in a place that still blushes this beautifully before it sleeps.

#MillMountain #Roanokeva #Autumn #BlueRidge

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Skunk and deer visit

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Trick or treating kitty

#mabsdrawlloweenclub2025 – Day 31 – Rest in Peace

Last day of the drawlloween trail, and the vulture showed up early – punctual as always. The sun’s already half gone, the light all copper and hush. A mound of fresh-turned earth waits beside a crooked marker, “RIP” carved in shaky letters, but it doesn’t feel sad. It feels… finished.

The shovel’s still standing there, like it’s taking a breath before the next job. Maybe it’ll be a while. Maybe the desert gets to sleep now, too. The air smells of dust, sage, and quiet forgiveness.

It’s strange how peaceful endings can be when you stop resisting them. The vulture isn’t mourning – just witnessing. That feels right.

We’ve walked through ghosts, swamps, and strange dreams all month. Tonight, we rest. Thank you friends for joining me on another doodle journey.

Happy Halloween!

#mabsdrawlloweenclub #mdwc25d31 #restinpeace #vulture #desert #doodle #halloween

#mabsdrawlloweenclub2025 – Day 30: Goth Moth

Up before dawn, shoes damp with dew from the McAfee Knob trail. The stars were still sharp and bright enough to pierce through the last of the night when I reached the edge – that familiar jut of rock that feels like a ship’s prow above a sea of mist. The valley below still sleeping, the horizon just a whisper of silver.

And then, the moon rose full and fat and pale as bone, and there she was: a great moth, black and blue and ghostly, wings open like a cathedral window. The Goth Moth, messenger of all things quietly electric and melancholy. She hovered in the moonlight as if stitched from it – all lunar shimmer and shadowed lace. The air hummed.

I thought about how moths chase light, even when it burns them. Maybe that’s what we’re all doing – drawn toward what glows, even if we can’t stay near it long. On the ledge, I watched her drift into the white circle of the moon and vanish.

Walked back down with a pocketful of small stones and one black feather.

🦋
#mdc25d30 #mabsdrawlloweenclub #gothmoth #moonwatch #AppalachianMagic #skychurch #doodle #roanokeva

#mabsdrawlloweenclub2025 – Day 29: UFO

Evening hum in the sky tonight, like a refrigerator dream. The kind of sound that makes you look up and squint into the soft dark, wondering if the stars are winking back this time. I painted the idea instead of chasing it – cool blues, watercolor worlds, and one little saucer slipping through the ink of space.

Maybe they come not for conquest, but curiosity. Maybe we’re just the next interesting bug under glass, glimmering faintly in our thin atmosphere. Or maybe, we’re the ones visiting them – every time we dream of what’s out there, shining past our horizon.

Tea cooled before I finished the piece. The brush drifted, the stars multiplied. Somewhere, a satellite blinked its code. Somewhere, someone else looked up too.

#mabsdrawlloweenclub #mdc25d29 #UFO #doodle #digitalwatercolor #roanokeva