More than 100 dogs sniffed out the Village Green on Saturday ... some came for the river views, others the opportunity to compete in "American Fido," Palmetto Bluff's canine talent competition. Perhaps most rewarding was presenting Palmetto Animal League with a $900 check from funds raised through the event.

Check out the highlight reel...

Palmetto Bluff Goes to the Dogs! from Courtney Hampson on Vimeo.

For the past two weeks, our archaeologists have been revisiting one of Palmetto Bluff’s most intriguing historical sites.  Located behind the Inn at Palmetto Bluff's cottage # 11 are the fragments of a tabby wall covered with concrete. This is actually the site of William McKimmy’s Octagon Plantation built around 1790. Our resident archaeologist, Dr. Mary Socci, believes this might be one of the first octagonally-shaped houses in North America. (In addition to extraordinary architecture, McKimmy himself has a fun, sometimes swashbuckling story to tell.) 

Read more in today's Bluffton Today and Sunday's Island Packet.

Palmetto Bluff is going to the dogs, again. Our annual Dog Weekend is scheduled for February 26-28 and will feature fun activities for you and your pup -- "Yappy Hour" at the firepits, a "Hike With Your Hound," our own version of American Idol, aptly dubbed "American Fido," and the ever-popular trips to the May River sandbar.  For more on the weekend festivities, and accommodations at the Inn at Palmetto Bluff view the full schedule of Dog Weekend Events.

Also, this year, we’ll open up our Village Festivities to the public, with a $20 donation per car (with a pooch riding shotgun) going directly to the Palmetto Animal League. Check out the Village Festivities schedule.

Palmetto Bluff's 2010 Music to Your Mouth website is live! The site features details on our First Friday Wine Dinner Series, our monthly Wine Pairing Weekends (with juicy details on winemakers and guest chefs), updates on the November Music to Your Mouth Festival, and a blog dedicated to musings on wine, food, culture, and a look behind the scenes at what it takes to make the year-long Music to Your Mouth series come alive. 

Let us know what you think.

Well-respected golf writer Brian McCallen touts May River Golf Course as "a lovely stroll through nature."

A scant 15 miles as the crow flies from Harbour Town Golf Links, the low-profile layout on Hilton Head Island where Jack Nicklaus got his feet wet as a designer in 1969, is the sleepy little town of Bluffton, S.C. On its outskirts is a 20,000-acre coastal preserve that extends from the headwaters of the May River to Bull and Daufuskie islands via the Cooper River, the land eventually giving way to the freshwater rice fields of the New River. It is on this land mass, touched by three rivers and thus a sea island in the truest sense, that a stylish resort and residential community called Palmetto Bluff debuted in 2004.

Read Palmetto Bluff: Highlight of the Lowcountry

Palmetto Bluff kicks off the BUFFALO'S First Friday Wine Series on February 5. The dinner themed "The West Coast Trail meets the Southern Shore" will feature the wines of Adelsheim Vineyards and the culinary traditions of the Lowcountry. Winemaker Dave Adelsheim will also host a wine pairing dinner on Saturday night as we explore the history of Lowcountry Cuisine paired with the new world wines of the Willamette Valley.

Click here for more details on the 2010 Wine Dinner Series

Kerry Sanders knows travel, but from a different perspective.

As a veteran Miami-based NBC News correspondent, he has reached global audiences from inside war zones—he was embedded with the troops during the Iraq war, covered the first Persian Gulf War from Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, and was on the front-lines for Hurricanes Andrew, Ivan and Katrina.

He’d be the first to tell you he doesn’t know how to vacation. Can this deadline-driven journalist learn to turn off the cell phone and Blackberry and get away from it all?

When was the last time you sat and watched the day slip away?

If there is an antithesis to the go-go world we exist in, he found it in the South Carolina Lowcountry.

Click here for the full story on PeterGreenberg.com

The Palmetto Bluff Arts Commission will feature the work of three Lowcountry artists - Johnson Hagood, Dave Ryden and Sara Amos next weekend at “A Showcase of Light and Texture.” The three artists will display their work at 9 North Drayton Street (in the Village), January 15th - 17th from 10:00 a.m. — 4:00 p.m. each day. The Showcase is open to the public.

Download Details on a Showcase of Light and Texture

CNN Clip 01 04 10 from Courtney Naughton on Vimeo.

Southern food, perhaps more than any other regional cuisine in America, has long been recognized for its diversity and history and for the stew pot of cultural influences that have been inherited from unique and authentic African cultures. The style of food originated in the early Colonial period, beginning with the rum and sugarcane plantations of the West Indies and the Creole  French and Spanish inhabitants of the Deep South. They harvested the fields, cleaned the game, ground the spices and created the meals that set the standard for southern cooking as we know it today.

We honor that culinary culture by using the freshest of ingredients harvested from the surrounding waters, woods and local farms to create a one of a kind epicurean experience. This noble fare is further accentuated by gathering diverse people sharing the finest wines in picturesque settings thus creating a complete sensory experience.

The 2010 Music to Your Mouth series features pairings of the region’s most prominent chefs, recognized for their Southern fare, with producers of well-crafted, artisanal beverages. We’d like to think that we’ve put together an array of some of the finest nibbles and nectars to ever tickle a taste bud. For more, visit www.musictoyourmouth.com.