Archive for Green Living

Get down for FREE at Downtown After 5 in Asheville

June 10, 2010 at 5:21 am · Filed under Asheville, Asheville activites, Asheville B&B, B&B alternative, beer, free things in Asheville, Green Living, Lovers' Loop Retreat, music, vacation rental ·Tagged , , , , , , , , ,

One of the best entertainment deals in Asheville is the Downtown After 5 concert series. It’s one of the fun, free things to do in Asheville. The concerts, on Lexington Avenue, start at about 5:15 p.m. and offer food and beverages for purchase in addition to the free music and dancing.

            Free things to do in Asheville

            The concerts are the third Friday of each month May through September. The next concert, June 18, will feature Southern rock band Drivin ’N’ Cryin’ and classic rock band Velvet Truckstop. When you stay at our Lovers’ Loop Retreat, an affordable Asheville bed and breakfast alternative, you’re 10 easy minutes from the festivities. Our guests who have checked this out have loved it.

            Here’s the schedule: July 16, Josh Phillips Folk Festival and Soulgrass Rebellion; Aug. 20, funk ensemble Spam Allstars and salsa band Nuevo Montuno Salsa Orchestra; Sept. 17, Americana band Larry Keel and Natural Bridge and roots rocker Grayson Capps.

            Asheville’s Lexington Avenue

            Lexington is one of the funkier streets downtown, and if you want to stroll while you listen to the music, you’ll find interesting shops and restaurants to check out. Records, clothing, gift shops, hippy stores — take a look while you’re there. You may even find the people-watching pleasing.

            One reason to attend Downtown After 5 is that beer sales at the event support local nonprofits. This year, those include the YMCA, Asheville on Bikes and several arts organizations.

            Green living in Asheville                  

             Downtown After 5 has gone green and clean. Food and drinks are served in biodegradable containers, compost and recycling stations are set up, and the stage is solar-powered.

            Dance to the green at Downtown After 5 when you choose Asheville affordable lodging, Lovers’ Loop Retreat.

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Asheville’s got herb appeal

May 1, 2010 at 5:10 am · Filed under Asheville, Asheville activites, Asheville B&B, B&B alternative, free things in Asheville, Green Living, Lovers' Loop Retreat, Uncategorized, vacation rental ·Tagged , , , , , , , , ,

The annual Asheville Herb Festival, which starts this today, April 30 and lasts through the weekend, draws vendors, growers and assorted herb fans to a weekend of sensory delight at the WNC Farmers Markets. And there’s no admission – it’s FREE!

In addition to herbs for sale, festival-goers will find information on herbal shampoos and soaps, cooking herbs, organic gardening, holistic use of herbs, herbal medicine, cookbooks and more galore. Experts, products, festivity and lots of clean green. This time of year, Lovers’ Loop Retreat, our affordable Asheville B&B alternative, is immersed in green now that the trees are in leaf and flowers are blooming. We even have echinacea growing in our yard.

So come visit, smell the roses and the herbs, and plant yourself in this gorgeous area for a great springtime Asheville getaway.

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Get your big GREEN on in Asheville

March 4, 2010 at 8:23 pm · Filed under Asheville, Asheville activites, Asheville B&B, Asheville Food, B&B alternative, Green Living, Lovers' Loop Retreat, vacation rental ·Tagged , , , , , ,

            Not Irish green, clean green. Experience the bustling green scene in Asheville, N.C., this weekend, March 6-7, at the annual Organic Growers School Spring Conference. The conference, at the University of North Carolina-Asheville, is an easy drive from Lovers’ Loop Retreat, our Asheville bed and breakfast alternative, your home base for all the Asheville green living and green building activities.

            The conference claims to be the largest sustainable-living event in the Southeast. That’s easy to believe. Check out the schedule. The conference will feature close to 100 workshops and classes on an amazing range of topics: flower production and vegetable gardening; composting; raising backyard poultry; organic dairy farming; wind energy and biomass; growing grapes, truffles and hops. The event draws farmers, chefs, gardeners, consumers and others interested in living the good, green life. Food and demonstrations are part of the deal, too.

            Come see what Asheville organic living is about!

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Be free as a firefly, blissed as a bird in Asheville

July 21, 2009 at 5:44 am · Filed under Asheville, Asheville activites, B&B alternative, free things in Asheville, Green Living, Lovers' Loop Retreat, nature, vacation rental ·Tagged , , , , , , , ,

One of our summertime treats at Lovers’ Loop Retreat, our Asheville bed and breakfast alternative, is the free firefly festival performed here each night. Our large yard is a stage for these blinking, winged firecrackers.

The guest porch at our vacation rental is a perfect place to sit at dusk and relax with the silent light show. Do yourself a favor, and check it out when you visit. We enjoy crashing the firefly party in the annual neon mating ritual. Our acre is deep with the dreams of the fireflies as they look for their perfect match. May we all be so lucky!

Another treat at Lovers’ Loop Retreat for much of the year, morning, noon and night, is the bird calls we hear. Mourning doves, crows, sparrows, chickadees, nut hatches, cardinals, finches, woodpeckers and more. The different species don’t have to compete for the airwaves – they just get their songs out there. It’s great to feel connected with nature at our guest suite, and most visitors comment when they arrive on what a refreshing refuge it is.

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Asheville’s Green Laboratory – into the Future!

May 22, 2008 at 8:07 pm · Filed under Asheville, Green Living ·Tagged , , , , , ,

We’ve had lots of newspaper articles in our local paper lately about Asheville being a leader in Green Business. At least two of the downtown businesses have solar panels for hot water and I’m sure many more are on the way, plus green or living roofs are coming. These special roofs have been around in other parts of the world for years, but are new to the U.S. In cities they are wonderful because they absorb some of the rain runoff and help keep city temperatures down, too, on those hot summer days when the heat is absorbed by and reflects off all the human-made surfaces.

The Green Economy here is booming and will be further encouraged by a couple of new ventures. Asheville-Buncombe Technical Community College has recently received a federal grant of $354,240 to create a Clean Energy Business Incubator that will help local small green businesses in many ways. They will be creating a clean energy demonstration center, a testing area and developing educational programming, as well as many other things.

UNC Asheville’s professor John Stevens has just proposed a sustainability institute to the Asheville Hub Alliance and they have approved supporting it. This will be an new organization that will research various green business possibilities such as development, transportation, recycling and alternative energy and then try to create new green-collar jobs. This could bring both high-pay green tech jobs here as well as entry level jobs in green businesses.

What a great place to be! Come visit and please stay with us at Lovers’ Loop Retreat!

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