Spring Springs

I participate in a couple of online photo groups. One of them has a weekly theme, and this week’s theme is “Spring.” I couldn’t resist playing with the word, so I posted four pictures today of springs, the kind where water flows from the earth.

I took these pictures today at Orkney Springs, a beautiful place on the side of Great North Mountain. It’s been a resort since the horse and buggy days. Some of the springs are now channeled into pumps and protected by a roof. 

One of them comes out of a pipe set into a rock wall. It’s known as Chalybeate Springs or simply “the Orkney Spring.”  Chalybeate refers to water with a taste of iron, and the iron-rich water here turns the rocks brown.

This plaque includes a date of 1783, which I assume is when the spring was first written about. I don’t know when it was discovered because people of the Senedo tribe lived here long before. Although they didn’t leave written records, they left artifacts.

Most of the historic resort is now owned by the Episcopal Church and managed as a retreat center known as Shrinemont. 

Easter Bunnies and Other Critters

A grocery store had a display of flower arrangements with bunnies. I didn’t know that was a trend, so I stopped and took pictures with my phone. 

It's spring, and rabbits seem to be everywhere. Sometimes Charlie sees them and wants to chase them. I have to plant my feet and hold onto the leash.

Right now, Charlie is napping so I won’t wake him. Here’s a picture of him under a bench at the dog park in Strasburg. He was about to eat some grass.

I was surprised to see someone riding through that park on a horse. I saw her again a few blocks away.

Happy Easter to those who celebrate it. Hold onto hope that there will be a miracle and things will get better tomorrow.

Trying to Buy Local

This afternoon I went to Front Royal in hopes of finding a locally-made gift for Marie's birthday. There's a number of gift shops on Main Street, but I failed to find anything suitable. I'm sure she doesn't want a scented candle or a tea towel printed with a joke about drinking wine.

I ate a small lunch in the small park by Happy Creek.

I made a stop at the grocery store and then took a quick trip into Shenandoah National Park. I shopped at the little gift shop at Dickey Ridge. I wasn’t surprised that they didn’t have anything for Marie either, but I did buy a shirt for myself. It’s a long sleeve tee (and I prefer long sleeves) in blue with a bear design. I wanted to support the park by purchasing something. 

I tried to take a selfie of myself holding the T-shirt with the view behind me, but the sun was also behind me so the shirt appears too dark.

Build the Rail Trail!

🎼 The steel rail still ain’t heard the news… 🎵 
This train got the disappearing blues.

    ~ Steve Goodman

There is an unused railroad line that runs the entire length of Shenandoah County plus additional miles in Warren County. The railroad company is interested in selling it to the State of Virginia for use as a trail. There is enthusiastic public support for this idea, but there is also some opposition, and there is a competing proposal for rail with trail, which is resurrecting the railroad and putting a trail beside it. The state of Virginia is studying both ideas.

I went to a meeting on Tuesday where an update of the VDOT study was presented. Several hundred people attended. The state does not know yet how much it would cost to build a rail with trail, but they have diagrams showing what it would look like. Probably the cost would be prohibitive because additional grading would be needed, and fencing would be erected between the tracks and the trail. Additional bridges would also have to be built unless bypasses for the trail could be built along roadways.

I’d like to see the recreational trail built without further delays. No railroad company has expressed an interest in using the old rails. There are other railroad tracks providing freight service to the valley, and passenger service is available in Staunton but not heavily used. Updating the old rails for passenger trains would be very expensive. 

Freight is still carried over the other railroad lines, but even more freight volume is hauled by truck to the “Inland Port” at Front Royal.  This is a specialized depot where the huge containers which replaced old style boxcars are transferred from trucks to trains, and vice versa. These same containers are transferred to ships at seaports.  It’s remarkably fast and efficient. I think it was the opening of the Inland Port in 1989 that sparked the demise of the railroad line now in question. A short section of that line remained in service until 2020, when the publishing plant in Strasburg closed. I think it was their last customer and Norfolk Southern had continued service to it in order to honor an old contract.

The old tracks are now overgrown and deteriorating. I miss hearing the sound of the trains. When we lived in Waterlick, we could hear train passing through late at night because it blew its whistle at the road crossing. Trains are beautiful, but they’re not coming back without an economic need.

I’ve been following online discussions about the competing proposals. There are some very vocal people who don’t want a trail at all. Basically they don’t want “strangers” around. You might be surprised at how many people who have lived in a rural area all their lives are suspicious of city people. I’ve heard it expressed as the “from heres” versus “come heres.”  They even say that newcomers should go back to where they came from because they bring changes. 

Backyard Photos with my Nikon

Although the majority of my photos now are cell phone pictures, I still use "real" cameras at times. I keep the Nikon next to my back door for bird photos, simply because it has a good zoom lens.

It also has a memory card (SD card). For a long time, I always used the laptop to process pictures from these cards. After all, it has a slot and the software to make transferring easy. But I finally gave up on using the laptop, at least for now. Peculiarities of my vision make it painful to look at that screen. For some reason, I can still look at the iPad screen, although I often wind up closing my left eye, which has not recovered from cataract surgery, even after 11 months. (I’m going back to the retina specialist next week, but I don’t expect he can do much more.)

Here we see a nuthatch. They don’t mind perching upside down.

I also selected a picture of a dark-eyed junco to show today. 

The final picture shows blossoms on my neighbor’s magnolia tree. This was before the temperatures dropped below freezing and these blooms turned brown.

Dragonfly Chimes

 Seen in the Dental Office

Wordless Wednesday on Tuesday

Animal Series at the Enchanted Garden

These murals were a delightful surprise near a parking lot in downtown Harrisonburg.

The artist is Sue Ryan. I have seen her artwork at a gallery in West Virginia.

Flowers were blooming nearby.

Mosaic Monday / Murals

Shades of Red

April Flowers

The redbud tree, crocuses, and grape hyacinths are common here, but I had to look up the orange flower. It’s a wallflower, which is not native to Virginia. It came up in my garden, and I guess it’s from a seed mix. I’ve scattered quite a few seeds in there.

Tulips are not native to Virginia, but are easily grown from bulbs.

Some Paintings and Charlie’s Report

We’ll have a report from Charlie in just a minute, But first, I’ll show you a few paintings , partly because I fear that my Saturday Critters posts are becoming repetitious. I photograph the same types of animal over and over, and I haven’t been traveling anywhere exotic.

Art at the Mill is starting on April 26. Here are a few pictures from previous years.

The painting of the zebras was affordable, and I brought it home with me. A lot of the work in this venue is out of my price range, so I have to content myself with admiring it on their walls.

~Linda

Charlie’s Report

ArRoo! That’s what I sang to the owls. I can sing a beautiful howl!

This was not a very exciting week. It rained a lot and Mom was sick on Monday. She still coughs so we don’t do a whole lot. We did visit my friend Sadie yesterday, and that was the highlight of my week, except that Mom left me there for a while to go to the store and I was worried about when she’d come back. Sadie tried to comfort me by licking my face, but that didn’t help. I like to keep an eye on my mom.

We did go to Seven Bends State Park a few times this week. We took very short walks. 

I’ve seen Tripod the cat a few times. He lives across the street and he’s my friend. He walks a little slow because he only has three legs. Here he’s laying in the street, taking a stretch. I like to do that too, but Mom always tells me to get out of the street. 

And I guess that’s it. I hope next week is more exciting. I want to go to the dog park.

~Charlie the Beagle

Springtime Greens, Reflected Trees

At the Lupton Entrance, Seven Bends State Park

North Fork of the Shenandoah, for Reflections and H2O

Although I came down with a bad cold on Monday, I recovered enough to get out of the house on Tuesday. I have kept my distance from other people all week in case I was contagious. I took the self-test for Covid and two types of flu and it was negative.

These picture are from Wednesday. I took Charlie for a short walk in the state park and snapped a picture from the car as we left. 

And here’s Charlie in the car. He didn’t change the radio station this time, but he looks like he was thinking about it.