Quarantined In April

Posted:  June 1, 2020                                              Most Recent Posts:
About: April 2020                                      Tossed Out of Kathryn Abbey Hanna
Charlottesville, Virginia                            March 2020: Anastasia and Its Market

Quarantine means no haircut.  I’d been waiting to get back to Virginia for it.  Clearly I’m long over due.  Tough luck for me.  For how long?  Am I too old for pony tails?  How about the two tones?  I guess if I cut it short, I’ll be all gray.

I don’t usually return to Virginia until mid or late April when spring has really begun.  This year I get the end of winter, the gray skies and leafless trees.  I stay in town with Winnona since the farm road needs work again before I can get her out there.  It has ruts and probably will require one more culvert.  Plus the trees all along the farm lane have to be trimmed back.   I  need to arrange for that and then I can  dewinterize the farm house.

While March was bleak and dreary, in April spring does arrive, the leaves come back on the trees.  Charlottesville is absolutely beautiful when everything is in bloom

While I’m in Charlottesville I take advantage of  walking the neighborhoods and enjoying the spring beauty.

The city itself has planted some beautiful color all around and most of it is in bloom in April for the annual Dogwood Festival but, you guessed it, that was cancelled this year.

Still I can enjoy the beauty on a walk to our downtown mall pretty much all of which is also closed.

Virginia Blue bells

One of many signs in the windows of the businesses facing the bricked in pedestrian walk way.

I love to attend the live performances and vintage movies at the Paramount.  But not this year.

Pink dogwood and rose azaleas at the house in Charlottesville where Winnona hangs out currently.

On other days, my walks took me to the beautiful gardens behind the Lawn at the University of Virginia.

The neighborhood yards on the way to the gardens are beautifully planted.   Charlottesville is really in bloom in April. 

The intricacies of Iris amaze me as do the variety of their colors.

I have posted about the UVA Gardens before in more detail so if you’d like to see a map or how they are located behind the Pavilions along the Lawn of the Rotunda, here are some links to previous blogs.  I come here every time I return to Charlottesville so these are only two of the posts I’ve done.  They are more detailed than this one.

The Not So Secret Gardens of UVA                     The Not So Secret Part II

The gardens’ entrances vary.  This one is through this white wooden gate along the back of the stone wall which encloses the garden.  Once inside, it feels like another world which I greatly appreciate at this time.

The gardens are all different.  Some are very formal.  All have benches of one type or another.

The smell of lilacs is one of my very favorites.

The gardens are in two or often three levels running from the Pavilion house on the lawn.  You can see the top patio of one of the pavilions at the edge of  this photograph of yellow jonquils.

In a lower garden is this profusion of Native Wild azalea.

The Pavilions are connected to the lawn rooms running down both sides of the lawn from the Rotunda.  A professor and family live in the Pavilions and students compete to live on the lawn.  All of these buildings were constructed in 1817 and their architect was, of course, Thomas Jefferson.

The lowest garden of the above pavillion has the Merton Spire. The three-ton sandstone block once adorned the 15th Century Merton College Chapel Tower in Oxford, England and was gifted to UVa in 1927.  It has a ring of wildflower gardens around the outer edge of its path which includes the May Apple seen below which is in bloom.

These May Apple are usually seen in dense woodlands but obviously like it here.

The May Apple is interspersed with Virginia Blue Bells.

The May Apple flower is hard to see as it come out from the central stem under the large leaves.  Hard to photograph too.

This pictures shows the serpentine walls of the gardens as well as a lane leading up to the lawn for maintenance vehicles, originally horses and wagons.

I don’t often get to see this Toad Trillium in bloom.  It’s my lucky day.

Most folks know that I am a Winnie the Pooh fan.  He has traveled with me for the past 10 years and has been part of my life for many years prior.  He’s quite a sage in my opinion.  My friend Pam sent me this and I pass it on to you.  In these uncertain times, I’m trying to keep my chin up like Pooh.

Next up, the month of May and like everyone else I’m getting pretty seriously tired of Quarantine, even with Pooh’s sage reminders.  Still  I’m lucky enough to have a beautiful secluded place to be.  My next post will feature pictures of it.