What do you do with all those corks you’ve saved?  Make a Cork Wreath.

It isn’t difficult if you follow my directions and take it one step at a time.

Here is how to make the perfect Cork Wreath. Cork wreaths are pretty any time of year, but folks like them for the holidays. [continue reading…]

 Every year on the first weekend in November, the Yankees and the Rebels fight the Battle of Fort Branch on the banks of the Roanoke River near Hamilton in eastern North Carolina. Reenactment is November 7 & 8, 2026

Click to learn about the bloody Battle of Ft. Branch

While waiting on the plane to carry me back to Big Mill B&B, I decided to dash off a quick blog post in honor of Vegetarian Awareness Month (October). 

I’ve been 95% vegetarian for decades, so it is second nature for me. But it can be quite a fun adventure to explore the tastes and textures of vegetarian recipes.

Here are eight recipes from Chloe’s Blog to make it easy to dip your toe in:

Rutabaga & Rice Soup

Gazpacho – Chilled Tomato Soup

Good-For-You Couscous Salad

Zucchini Grape Tomato Quiche

Barney’s Killer Salsa

Hayman Sweet Potato Fries

Chloe’s Sweet Potato Soup

Bon Appetite!

Big Mill Bed and Breakfast  252-792-8787

We all know that birds add beauty and intrigue to our garden; that’s exactly why we add bird feeders and houses to our yards in the first place, but the truth is that the benefits the feathered creatures bring go far beyond aesthetic appeal.

Birds play a great role in preventing insects from eating and destroying the flowers and vegetables we work so hard to plant.

I hope you enjoy this guest article by Ernie Allison:

1.  Sparrows

Chipping Sparrows eating suet at Big Mill. photo by Guy Livesay

Chipping Sparrows (sometimes called Chipper Sparrows) and song sparrows, most commonly found in North America, can be great sights to see in your backyard. They feed on some of the most destructive insects (grasshoppers, beetles, ants, etc.). They also utilize garden weeds for food as well as nesting materials.   [continue reading…]

It’s time to save seeds for next year’s flower garden. 

These datura or Devil’s Trumpet seed pods will dry out and turn brown. That is the time to harvest them. Georgia O’Keefe liked Devil’s Trumpet or Jimson weed as it is often called.

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To everything there is a season. It’s late September and, like clockwork, the flowers in the Big Mill garden are going to seed and then they will die. I will save the seeds, plant them next spring and these same flowers will live again.

There is a real science to this seed-saving and though I actually understand it, I prefer taking the easy route — I save the same seeds my mother saved – seeds from heirloom or old varieties of annual flowers (flowers that must be planted every year). [continue reading…]

The Sign Says it Best:  “Blow horn for ferry.”

See the tiny house across the river? That is the other ferry dock.

The San Souci Cable Ferry crosses the Cashie River in eastern North Carolina near Windsor in Bertie County.

Lest you ever try to tell anyone about this ferry, first — you must have a language lesson. Forget the Southern part, that is a given. The local part is more important. [continue reading…]

If you like figs, you will love this Fig Bread –
I bet you will like it even if you don’t like figs!

Homegrown Figs are just wonderful

I love figs and fig trees; I now have four fig trees planted in my orchard. That might be a bit obsessive, but this is a farm and I can share. When figs get ripe, they come in great profusion, so I needed some recipes to use all these great fruits of the gods. I make Fig Preserves or Jam and Fig Bread.

Click to get the Fig Bread Recipe From Big Mill BB innkeeper Chloe

Eastern North Carolina might seem laid back and slow with nothing to do. What a fallacy!

If you like history, canoeing, hiking, fishing, golfing, birding, antiqueing, outdoor dramas, eating local seafood and road food with Norman Rockwell scenes – then you will love Eastern North Carolina.

Visit one of our charming coastal towns – watch the fishing boats as they come in, see historic Edenton or Bath, participate in a Civil War re-enactment at Ft. Branch in Hamilton or at Plymouth. Y’all come and sit a spell.

To see more videos of Big Mill & eastern North Carolina check out our Big Mill You Tube channel. We have some fun videos of evening primroses, tobacco harvesting, hummingbirds who don’t know we’re watching and other life on a farm bed and breakfast.

If you “Subscribe” to follow the channel, then you’ll get a notice when we upload a new video. It doesn’t happen that often, but we have fun doing them as time allows.

As always, we hope you will join us at Big Mill B&B in Williamston, NC 252-792-8787.

(Video credit: Barney Conway of Palm Radio Productions)

How to make these cute Christmas Santa Claus ornaments from Okra

We must remember to grow and dry our okra here on the farm in the summer so that we can have these wonderful Okra Santas for Christmas. These ornaments are made from the okra seed pods that dried on the okra plants at Big Mill Bed & Breakfast. Most folks just throw them away; when I was growing up we saved them for next year’s seeds. Read more about How to Make Okra Santas