Mark Stroupe, left, and Karin Reed, right, share a moment with Nancy at Inn on Main Street

We just got the word that the N.C. Weekend segment featuring Inn on Main Street will be broadcast this Thursday at 9 p.m.. and Friday at 8:30 p.m. over the UNC-TV network. After that, the segment will be available through the UNC-TV web site.

On-air personality Karin Reed  and cameraman Mark Stroupe spent a day with us in April, joining our guests for breakfast and exploring our charming Weaverville. It was a perfect follow-up to the UNC-TV produced Our State segment done during last fall’s Weaverville Art Safari. We’re so glad that public broadcasting is helping put our town on the map.

Just as a reminder, you can see our inn and plenty more in the area during the Spring INN Asheville Tour of B&Bs June 9 and 10. We’re on the Sunday segment, and will feature fantastic goodies provided by Jack of Hearts Pub and Stoney Knob Cafe. Proceeds benefit the Appalachian Sustainable Agriculture Project, of which we are members. Stay with us that weekend and get free tour tickets, a $50 value.

The spring Art Safari is this weekend, May 12 and 13, with the famous preview party from 7 to 9 p.m. Friday, May 11, at Reems Creek Golf Course clubhouse. The price for the preview party remains a ridiculously low $10.

Can’t make it this weekend? Two more events are on the Weaverville calendar and well worth the trip. We’ll blog more about them later. But mark your calendar for May 26, 27 and 28, for Weaverville’s first Roots Festival, a celebration of culture, history and all that makes us unique. Everything’s free. Also, consider joining us for the Asheville Bed and Breakfast Association Tour of Inns on June 9 and 10. Inn on Main Street is on the Sunday segment of the tour, and will feature delectibles from Stoney Knob Cafe and Jack of Hearts Pub. Yum. Our two-night guests get free tickets.

Now the cameras are back to focus on Inn on Main Street in Weaverville. OK, so it’s not a full-length motion picture they’re after. But the plan is to feature us in a popular travel program broadcast throughtout North Carolina. A TV production crew with UNC-TV stayed with us while doing a segment on Weaverville and the Weaverville Art Safari, and were so impressed with their stay that they suggested profiling our B&B.

Our guests this weekend will have a moment of fame as well. The crew plans to interview those willing to talk during breakfast.

Speaking of breakfast, the weather has finally gotten warm enough to eat on the porch most mornings. Ain’t spring wonderful?

Another generation of the talented Winans family joins us on the Inn on Main Street porch.

We love it when past guests stop by Inn on Main Street to update us on the evolution of their lives: Marriages, new jobs, new homes, new babies. We were especially honored when the singer/songwriter couple Juan Winans and his beautiful wife, Lisa, took a three-hour detour on a visit to Durham to come visit and introduce us to Sophia, who was born since they last visited our Weaverville bed and breakfast.

Juan, a member of the Grammy-winning gospel music family featured on Oprah, is writing music with various gospel and hip-hop artists in Los Angeles. The couple moved there a year or so ago from Nashville. Despite their fame, Juan and Lisa are among the most humble and down-to-earth guests we’ve had. Juan once called out of the blue to tell us they think of us often and reminisce about their romantic getaway when they were still newlyweds.

Our 200-year-old oak tree is gone, a victim of old age.

When you live in a 110-year-old house, you learn to appreciate elderly and dignified things, and our oak tree in the front lawn was no exception. The stately oak at Inn on Main Street was at least 200 years old, perhaps even a veteran of the Civil War era. But ever since we bought our bed and breakfast on Main Street, Weaverville, in 1998, we’ve watched the tree dying a slow death. Old branches rotted and dropped off, and tiny new sprouts jumped from the trunk in a futile effort to replace them. One or two years, the tree even produced a bumper crop of acorns in an effort to reproduce itself. But more than one guest who knows about such things warned us that the oak was a liability, probably rotten in the middle and likely to fall someday.

As it turns out, the middle was not rotten. I started counting the rings on the trunk, pondering on decades when the rings were wide and healthy, then a cycle of tight bands so narrow they seemed to run on top of each other. What did that say about eras of flood, drought, heat and cold? Which years were the brutal ones, and did they correspond with tough times in human history? I gave up counting the rings at a little over 100.

Instead of grinding the stump, we decided to memorialize the tree by making a bench out of it. Two wedges of trunk form the back rest. It’s the perfect natural resting spot for a smoker or someone who wants a private chat after quiet time, several yards from bedroom windows on our Victorian home. We hope to create a little garden around the stump seat, a burst of beauty in tribute to a majestic tree.

We’re already working on replacing the oak. I like the idea of getting one of the newly developed blight-resistant American chestnuts, but I learned there’s a waiting list just to get a seed. Maybe a hickory would do. We welcome suggestions.

On your next visit to the Asheville area, come by our bed and breakfast and see our newly light-filled yard with our memorial oak bench.  Enjoy the feel of history.

March brings the blooms

We love March.

Asheville and Weaverville are alive with early blooms: daffodils, forsythia, tulips, some fruit blossoms and redbuds. The weather is great, if a bit unpredictable. It’s still early enough in the season that the Biltmore Estate, restaurants and shops are uncrowded, and we normally have last-minute rooms available at Inn on Main Street bed and breakfast.

We love to share March.

That’s why we’re extending our winter special this year until the Biltmore Festival of Flowers begins on April 1. Until then, enjoy half off the cost of your second night in a premium room, the Ayers, Lee, Forest or Garden. Stay more than two nights and we’ll extend that 25 percent savings for the duration. Put that on top of our discounted winter Biltmore tickets, only $45 for a two-day ticket with audio tour, and you have a super savings over the rest of the year. This special is good for weekends as well as weekdays, and you can combine it with our Soaking Soulmates or Girlfriend Getaway package (we’ll deduct the savings from the package price when we confirm your reservation).

Through the end of March, we are offering our winter Snuggle Up special. If you stay two nights in a premium room, you’ll get the second night half price, or you’ll get a pair of two-day tickets to the Biltmore Estate with a free audio tour, or you’ll get a third night free, a savings of up to $179.

This deal becomes especially good when you consider that many Asheville independent restaurants are offering Valentine dinner specials, and the music and arts calendar is particularly vibrant for this time of year.

Baby, it's cold outside

Operating a bed and breakfast is a very personal endeavor, which makes fishing for compliments feel a bit unseemly. We appreciate very much when we get a nice review; we just don’t like asking for them. So rather than ask on our own behalf, I suggest that you offer a nice review any time you enjoy a stay anywhere, and write the owner or manager if you didn’t. We have done both, and in both cases I like to think that future travelers benefited from our feedback.

Winter Getaway

Stay two nights in a king/twins or cottage room between now and New Year’s Day, and get a third night free. Combine this special with our discounts on Biltmore daytime and Candlelight Christmas tickets.

Snuggle Up

Stay two nights in a king/twins or cottage room during February or March and get a third night free, or two free Biltmore tickets, or half off your second night. Combine this special with any of our packages. Not valid Feb. 11, 12, 18 or 19.

Valentine roses are free

Stay two nights in a king/twins or cottage room on either weekend surrounding Valentine’s Day, and we’ll add a dozen red roses in an arrangement for your sweetie at no cost. Mention this special at the time of booking. Combine this with any of our packages.

Weaverville is a sweet place to be in the winter. Our local cafes may shorten their hours a tad, but they stay open and still offer top-notch food and entertainment. Here, as well as in Asheville, you don’t need restaurant reservations, traffic is mild, the Biltmore Estate tour is a bargain and the club scene stays vibrant. And just a few minutes away, you can be on the slopes at Wolf Laurel. Bring another couple along, and we’ll send you all to the tubs at Hot Springs.