I Don’t See Nearly Enough of Them

Friday-Sunday October 18-20, 2024                        Most Recent Posts:
Greenfield Mountain Farm                      September in Virginia: Rain & Covid
Virginia                                                           Last Days of Summer in Vermont

FRIDAY OCTOBER 18

My favorite people came for the week-end.  Visits now have to work around school schedules.  There was a Friday school holiday, not sure why, so they left Maryland and took the longer but easier route and arrived around 2:00.  We grabbed some lunch and headed out for a hike.

They want to go down to the lower field stream.  A favorite place but they neglected to bring boots.  This made for some unhappiness that mom would not let them get in the stream and walk around either in their shoes or bare feet.

“It’s right over there”

Looking longingly.

“We could walk on the logs and stones.”

Celia at 8 is better able to weather the disappointment than Colin 6.

Things improve greatly when we have a 6th birthday celebration six weeks late for Colin whose “real” birthday is on September 1st when Nana is still up north.

Celia being an excellent sister and not helping unwrap.  Yes those are a stack of Disney VCRs.  Everything is behind the times at the farm where we have no TV signal but we do have a working VCR player.

Pretty excited about a Lego RV.  There were also books and a game, Slamwich.

Colin has no trouble blowing out the #6 candle on his carrot cake.  Next time he wants chocolate.  Nana should have known this.

When he’s not a whirling dervish,  he’s a sweet darling boy. 

Mommy supervises the lego work.

SATURDAY OCTOBER 19

There was some fooling around with one of several bonnets my great Aunt Carrie made for me insisting that I wear them around the farm to protect my skin as she did.  Wish I’d listened to her.  I did take one with me in our travels and had so much trouble with the sun in Chaco Canyon that I wore it.  Lots of comments.  This one was made for me as a girl about Celia’s age.

I love this.  Aunt Carrie would love her namesake wearing it.

Then it’s off to the Rockfish Community Center playground.  The building was the elementary school for years and the playground, tennis/pickle ball court and skate park are a favorite place out here in the country.

They have recently upgraded the playground equipment to include the mother and child swing.  I think Celia is facing the wrong way.  Colin is in the child swing with Molly, Celia’s dolly.

They love these skateboard ramps and are lucky there were no skate boarders around so they could use them.

In previous visits, the favorite dolls were the original Cabbage Patch twins which were also Carrie’s as a child.  This year Nana got out the original American Girl Dolls, Samantha and Molly.  At this point they must be about 36 years old. 

They go everywhere all week-end though Molly is the favorite.

The park also has a stream which they have never investigated  before and are again sorry they didn’t bring boots.

Back to some climbing.  I wonder how many more years they will want to do this together.  It’s wonderful right now.  Lately, I’ve been trying recently to pay close attention to what makes me happy and this definitely does.

I remember winding my swing up and spinning back.  Do you?

Back at home it’s a hike up the mountain behind where the wonderful barn used to be.  Carrie and Colin are in in the distance.

Colin is collecting “things” with Carrie’s childhood wheelbarrow.

The only nice thing about the barn being gone is the view of the barnyard.

I could definitely get used to having my shoes tied for me.

In the afternoon Carrie’s childhood friend comes from Richmond to see us.
We all love Kate and are so glad she’s made the trip.

That evening we head over to Devil’s Backbone  brewery for dinner.  This week-end has been full of hikes, the park, games and eating.  Somehow I have no pictures of food.  The only one I have of the restaurant is Celia and Kate coloring while we wait for our food.  Celia wears ear protectors.  She doesn’t like loud noise.

SUNDAY OCTOBER 20

This morning we’re out to visit a different stream on the farm that begins as a spring below the house, flows through the pond and on to the Rockfish River.  When we first moved here the spring was our water source.  After a couple of summers of drought we drilled a well about 10 years later.

This time I get out my boots purchased for this summer’s flood in Vermont.  They are miles too big for the kids but they take turns wading and are thrilled despite the low low water levels due to this year’s summer long drought and extraordinarily high temperatures.  Even the rainy rainy September couldn’t fill things up after such a drought.

Time for Celia to give the boots to Colin.

He tromps around happily trying to keep them on his feet.

Even the water fall is small though its sound is lovely regardless.

Back to the house for lunch, some coloring and a raucous number of games of slapjack.

Mommy gets this one.  These two were jumping up and down as the picture shows.

And guess who was the winner in the end after so so many rounds of cheering and groaning..

Then sadly it’s time to get on the road back to Maryland for school tomorrow.
Celia hugs Samantha and Molly goodbye before leaving. 

We temper the goodbye a bit with a visit to Nellysford’s  Black Bear Creamery for some ice cream and they leave from there.

Molly and Samantha wait on the bed Celia sleeps in in her mother’s former room.  I am sure they are anxious for Celia’s return.

I sit down in the too quiet yard to catch my breath.  Although I’m sad they have left, I try to remember to be thankful for how happy their visit made me.

September in Virginia: Rain & Covid

September 5-30, 2024                                                     Most Recent Posts:
Greenfield Mountain Farm                       Last Days of Summer in Vermont
Virginia                                                   Having a Wonderful Time and Then . . .

As I talked about in my previous post (link above), I left Vermont the day after Labor Day and arrived back in Virginia on September 5th. 
The next day, I took my friend Mary out for lunch as a thank you for all she had done for me while I was away.

We went to one of our favorite restaurants, Mellow Mushroom, where she got the veggie and I got the Holy Shitake (shown in the picture).  I bought us both the medium size which you can see is BIG.  But that was so we could have left overs for several days.  When you only have one person to cook for the motivation to bring back leftovers is high.

September in Virginia was like my summer in Vermont.  Over the summer my friends in Virginia were telling me to send the incessant rain to them.  They were in a months long drought.  Sure enough as soon as I got to Virginia the rains came and stayed into early October.   There was also Covid round 2.

The very next day after lunch with Mary, 2 days after returning to Virginia,  I had the now familiar high fever and total exhaustion.  It was Covid AGAIN for the second time in less than a month and exactly 2 weeks since I had tested negative twice.   Thankfully Mary did not get it from me.   And also thankfully my friend Pam drove all the way out to the farm to bring me N-95 masks and soups and comfort food.   Thank you Pam.

I had so many things planned including doctor appointments, car and RV maintenance and people I wanted to see. I had to reschedule everything.   Within 4 days the exhaustion was gone but a low fever (99 degrees) remained. I was still testing positive on Day 8.  On day 10 my fever went back to normal and stayed there.  On days 11 and 12 I tested negative.   AGAIN I’d lost nearly two weeks of my 8 weeks in Virginia.  To say I was irritated is an understatement.

I quickly remade all my appointments for Winnona, the car, to have my water tested, to have my washing machine, which will spin but not fill, looked at.  Went to my annual physical appointment, got a long over due hair cut and so on.   This smile is not how I was feeling for at least the first half of the month.

 

I celebrated the Autumnal Equinox with a foggy walk around the farm.  It definitely looked and felt like fall. 

Some leaves are turning others have just fallen off the trees with all the rain. 

We call this the landing.  The farm road comes back through the woods and curves around to this spot before dropping into the lower field.  Shannon, the man who helps with the farm, has game cameras here and has sent me some great bear pictures which I think I’ve posted before

Here’s probably a repeat of my favorite bear shot.  He must have had his nose in the camera.

On my walk, I found all kinds of fungi no doubt because of all the rain.  I’d shown so many mushroom pictures of my rainy days in Vermont that I’m only including this one from the field.  It’s a work of art.

Even seasonal streams had water which wouldn’t be the case at the end of a summer of drought like Virginia has had but they have made up for the water deficit in spades in the past 3 weeks.  Apparently I brought it back from Vermont since they have had almost none since I left in early June.  This is the little stream along the edge of the lower field that Colin and Celia like to wade in when they come.  If you’d like to hear its babble, here’s a short video.

So much moisture.  I woke up several mornings, looked west out off the master bedroom upstairs porch and saw no sign of the mountains or Humpback Rock on the Blue Ridge Parkway.  They were fogged out of view.

One Saturday, I headed in to town to do some grocery shopping and stop by
The McGuffey Art Center to see some human created works of art.  My friend Laurie was showing 4 of her works during the month of September..

The Art Center is housed in the wonderful early 20th Century building that was once the McGuffey Elementary School in downtown Charlottesville.

Can you even imagine a school today with the carvings above the tall windows and the half moon glass over the door?

The exhibits are shown in the main floor central gallery, along both sides of the main floor hallway, on the staircase to the second floor and on both sides of the second floor hallway.

In the main Gallery were two exhibits.

Collage Works by Charles W Peale

This one was unfortunately over my head and even standing back and zooming in didn’t help the angle or the reflection of the ceiling lights.

Arron Farrington does wet plate photographs with a 1910 camera. Wet-plate photography was invented by Frederick Scott Archer in 1851. It predates film and instead captures photographs on glass or aluminum plates.

Up the two flights of stairs there were works on the walls, on the landing and hanging from the ceiling.   McGuffey’s former classrooms are now studios for a variety of artists in every medium imaginable.

From the top of the 2nd set of stairs looking down to the first landing you can see two small child size chair exhibits.

The works on both sides of the upper hall were mostly from the class my friend took and with which she was exhibiting.

These were two of the instructor’s works that she exhibited.  They are done in oil.

This is the first of Laurie’s submissions.  All four of her works were monotypes.

Monotype is a unique, one-of-a-kind print making process, that involves applying ink or paint to a flat sheet or metal or glass  to create an image which is then transferred to paper either manually or by using a press.

Her other three works are on the right.

It is now the end of September and it has rained over half of its days.  Most recently the rain is remnants of Hurricane Helene which did bring flooding to the area but luckily not to the farm. 

On the very last day of September I went to lunch with my friend Pam.   We arrived at Guadalajara at 2:30 and didn’t leave until 5:30 and in all that time I took not one picture.   We had to leave big tips to compensate for taking up the waitress’s table for so long.

I’m hoping my October post will be the first in 4 months not to talk about constant rain.