Getting to April in Virginia

April  2024                                                        Most Recent Posts:
Greenfield Mountain Farm                 It’s Known as the Rosewood Massacre
Afton, Virginia                                          River, Refuge, 3 Sisters and a Quarry

The first of April I headed north up I- 95.  I don’t mind 95 at all since I just get in the right lane and let them all zoom by me.  I can easily stop at the rest areas and I’m in no hurry. 

This time when I pulled into a rest area, I saw another Brave which is a rare thing for me.

Winnona is a 2004 Brave, the last year they made them before they brought back the vintage look in 2015.   Her sibling there is probably a 2001 or 2002.

Traveling north means Camp Walmart.  I’ve made this trip so many times I know exactly where to go and where to park over night.  I just always pray some inconsiderate RVers don’t lose the privilege for all of us by putting down their jacks, setting up their chairs and putting out their slide.

This year I even got a sunset.

Back at the farm it had been raining for days and things were wet, soft and muddy.  I cut the turn up to the barnyard too short and ended up stuck in the mud going in.  SO I backed up and moved over and eventually made it up into the barnyard.  But now there’s a mess that’s going to have to be fixed.   It’s always something.

Thankfully Shannon had put more gravel in the barnyard so I had a dry place to pull in and level up to connect to the electric.

Back just in time to watch the men’s and women’s basketball championships on my laptop.   No TV signal without major expense out here in the boonies.

My next great move was to flood the bathroom.  I was washing my hands when the phone rang.  I turned the water in the bathroom off and went to answer it and then went on outside to tackle things on my list.

This faucet set turns off in two different directions.  Turn them both out to turn them on and in to turn them off.   Andin my hurry to catch the phone,  I obviously turned them both the same way, right or left, which  left one of them on for an hour and a half.

WHAT A MESS!

David had a shop vac, I knew where it was but could not find the nozzle so I was trying to suck inches of water out of a thick carpet and pad with just the small end of the hose.  This took hours…..and hours….and hours.

The water flowing over the edge onto the floor took off the varnish from the hand made sink cabinet that David built and installed.  It soaked everything in the cabinet though it did not damage the wash stand or anything inside it and of course the claw foot bathtub was OK   

Getting the water out of that thick carpet took days of vacuuming and nights of multiple fans.

Plus the use of every towel in the house which I put out all over the fence to dry out since now the dryer isn’t working. It is in the bathroom.  Of course I had to put them all out in the sun during the day and bring them in at night to avoid the dew.

All of this from one careless bit of hurried inattention.  Let it be a lesson to us all.

The good news is the farm looks beautiful in the spring with the dogwood and redbud in bloom.

Sunset view to the west

I particularly love the flowers of the two old Paulownia trees in the backyard which were here and vigorous when we bought the farm in 1978.  Who knows how old they were then. 

At this point one of them is not doing well and may have to be taken down within the next year or so but the other seems fine and they both put out these lovely blooms every spring.

Some people consider them “weed” trees but not me.

The flowers look like velvet.

As we do every year, a week or so after I return in the spring Carrie and the kids come to visit.

We play games, Guess Who here.

We go to the Rockfish Valley Community Center Park only a few miles away.

Everybody wants a chance to swing.

One day we took a trip over the mountain to Staunton to see my niece Ashley, her Husband Tanner and their new baby Otto.   David’s sister Robin, Ashley’s mother,  and her husband Ernie joined us.

Ashley and Tanner have a great old house vintage similar to the farm on a steep hill in Staunton which is a city of hills.  Tanner took this picture so sadly he’s not in it and we were so busy chatting and loving the baby that I didn’t even think about pictures until this one when we were leaving.

Frequent visits from my turkey neighbors are always fun.  Check out the colors.
These pictures are taken from quite a distance as wild turkeys are very skittish and not stupid like domestic birds.

Even slightly out of focus I love this one where he seems to actually look up to see if I’m watching him.

A highlight of April was seeing my friend Laurie in person for a change rather than on zoom or facetime or whatever it is we use for a weekly get together.

We went the McGuffey Art Center to see a new show by a favorite local artist Rosamond Casey.  She is simply one of the most amazingly creative people I have ever seen.   Take a look at her website.  The wealth and variety of her artistic talent will shock you.  It is always timely, thought provoking and provocative.

Today we were looking at a show of oil paintings from several of her previous showings around the country.  I’ve included, above the photographs, several of her artist’s statements that were posted with the different groupings.

“Tossed together in the shuffle of things, the animals and humans recalibrate. Long past a cautionary tale, these allegories are a view from the other side of human error”

WORKING BELOW SEA LEVEL 2021
This work imagines a time when we have no choice but to fix what’s broken.  We will be reminded why our bodies were built this way and that they must be put to use in an altered habitat.  As we reconfigure ourselves in broken cities, unfamiliar watery landscapes and home confinement, we will be immersed in new capacities and interior spaces.  This work is about prevailing.

The title of this one is Time Flows Downhill.  It perfectly portrays how I sometimes feel about the direction we seem to be going as a species.

On a brighter note, we topped it all off with a delicious vegan lunch on the outside patio at Botanical Fare.