October in Virginia

October 8-28, 2017                                                                          Most Recent Posts:
Charlottesville Virginia                                                                 Back in Virginia – A Carrie and Celia Meet Up
                                                                                                   A Spectacular Send Off From Schoodic Point

I’ve written many posts in the past seven years on Charlottesville and all the things to see and do here including Shenandoah National Park, Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello and the University of Virginia.   You can find any or all of those by googling those terms using the search bar on the top left of the blog.

When we return here it’s mostly for medical appointments, to see friends and the big one, to see Carrie and Celia.  So most of my posts from here are about seeing them as our friends are tired of having their pictures taken and I don’t tend to carry my camera around everywhere like I do outside of Virginia.

All that said this post will have a few things that happened while we were in Virginia including a visit from Carrie and Celia.  I left out all the visits and meals with friends and  picked 3 things that are at least a little different from those we’ve done before.  

I went for a hike at the Ivy Creek Natural Area originally the farm of Hugh Carr a former slave.  You can find a previous post that tells all about Ivy Creek and its history here.   I  stayed for a presentation in the education building by local author Jennifer Ackerman on her new book The Genius of Birds.  My pictures of Jennifer were too blurry to use so I borrowed one from her web page. 

Her presentation was excellent with unbelievable examples of the genius of birds from the enormous amount of field research she did.  Her slides of bird photographs were outstanding. 

I also took a beginning calligraphy class at my beloved Gordon Avenue Library.  Libraries just have everything.  I’ve always loved calligraphy and beautiful handwriting in general.  The Instructor was a local calligrapher and the class was wonderful.  In fact the instructor was so good that I do think with regular practice, as in until it became rote, I could become proficient enough to suit me..  Just not sure where to fit that into my life around the hiking, kayaking, biking and all the rest. 

Our local absolutely stunning 1931 Paramount Theater does vintage movies at least twice a month and I walked on down there to watch Some Like It Hot with great performances from Marilyn Monroe, Joe E. Brown, Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon.  I only had my phone so some of the pictures here are………well Galaxy S5.   Therefore these are a combination of ones from the Paramount website and mine.

Some of the nearby restaurants were all decked out for Halloween.  Sal’s gets the “most creative” award.

I asked David to choose some pictures of what he did while we were in Virginia and laughingly he chose not play but projects.   I guess those are fun for him.

Well this first one was not so fun.  Seems wasps had decided inside the shop was a great place to build nests.  David not so much.  Gives me the creeps just to look at them swarming all over

Next in line to deal with is the toad lighting problem.  Last post I mentioned that we had to drive home from Maine separately because none of the lights on the back of Ruby were working when hooked up to tow.

The Blux Ox cord connecting the electric from Winnona to Ruby is of course  blue

The 4 wire flat harness had pulled loose from the Blue Ox Mounting.  Apparently water had gotten in the rubber boot, had  no where to drain and caused the wires to come loose. 

You can see the water line and the rust from water accumulating inside the boot and being unable to drain.  This seems to be a poor design.  Blue Ox of course has never heard of this problem though they did agree that it could be a problem and it might be a good idea to drill a small seep hole in the bottom of the boot.  That done square off the wire ends, restrip and clamp and it should be better than new.  Or at least it’s been working fine since this was done.

Getting things fixed is very satisfying but some things are more fun.  The granny smith apple, tree planted YEARS ago for Carrie since it is her favorite, had a bumper crop of apples.  Lots of folks were notified to come on and pick.  Carrie took a bag home with her from her visit and some of them ended up in pies.  YUM!   But there are still apples for the deer and whoever else wants a share.

All organic with a bit of cosmetic cedar apple rust.  Cedars grow in farm fields and it is absolutely impossible to keep them out so apples have rust on them.  A rag wipes it off.  No danger to health. 

We have views of Humpback Rocks on the Blue Ridge Parkway from the yard.   This one is zoomed in over the trees   We kept waiting and waiting for the usual Blue Ridge color display.  October has always been THE month and one of the reasons we hang out here then and do medical appointments but color was so late this year that we missed it.   Of course there is no climate change.

This crib is on its 3rd generation now that David put it back together and cleaned it up.  I used it, Carrie used it and now Celia is using it when she visits.

Winnona doesn’t spend her time in Virginia at the farm because there is a 3/4 mile driveway that is too rough for her and lined with trees that need trimming for her to drive through.  We’re never here long enough to make much headway on that but some was made this year.

Truck fulls of gravel are picked up by David’s antique 1986 Chevy S-10 pick up truck

Then it is spread and graded sections at a time.   A lot of work.

But at the end of the day there are beautiful sunsets over the Blue Ridge.

The very best thing we did of course was enjoy a visit from Carrie and Celia.  That’s up next.