In the Cold Countryside.

After an appointment in Woodstock yesterday, I decided to take a ride even though the temperature was below freezing. After all, the sun was shining and there was still pretty snow on the ground.

I turned onto Chapman Landing Road and drove less than a mile before turning around when the cleared pavement turned into a snowy, slippery surface. I went back, pausing to get a photo of the suspension bridge at Narrow Passage. I drove across the low-water bridge and turned left on the Valley Pike.

I stopped at a pull-off by the turkey statue near the Rockingham County Line. He deserved a picture! I also took photos of farm lanes and fences.

After that I had lunch and did a little shopping.

Yesterday: Birds in the Snow.

It's Wild Bird Wednesday and Wordless Wednesday.

Stone House, Manassas Battlefield

Since today was a snowy day, I'll start with a snow scene. I took this picture many years ago, but even then the car was an antique. I don't know why someone had it out in the snow. This was at the historic Stone House on Manassas Battlefield.

Here's the stone house as it looked three weeks ago.

Tuesday Treasures.

A sign tells us that "In times of peace the Stone House was a tavern and travelers' rest. During both battles wounded soldiers found shelter here and some left their mark on the house."

This building is on the grounds of Manassas National Battlefield Park, site of two major American Civil War battles, the first at the beginning of the war on July, 1861, and another in late August of 1862.

Historical marker #C44 stands nearby along with two other markers. I'm a bit mystified by the misspelling of the word "repulsed" (as replused) because a photo of this same sign on Historical Marker Database has the correct spelling and also the font appears to be different. Perhaps that photo was taken from the reverse side or perhaps the marker was redone when moved a few years ago.

First Battle of Manassas

On the Matthews Hill, just to the north, the Confederates repulsed the attack of the Unionists, coming from the north, in the forenoon of July 21, 1861. The Union forces, reinforced, drove the Confederates to the Henry Hill, just to the south. There the latter reformed under cover of Stonewall Jackson. In the afternoon, McDowell vainly attempted to rally his retreating troops on the Matthews Hill after they had been driven down the Henry Hill.

Snowy Dusk, Snowy Trees.

Wordless Wednesday on Tuesday.

Modified in PicsArt.

Mural at Schenck Food Company

Schenck Foods in Winchester had a mural painted to celebrate 90 years in business. I stopped by their warehouse on the Valley Pike to take a picture of it. On the far left corner is information on the artists: Sherando High School Art Students.

Let's also view the far right end of the painting and see why it has been called a moo-ral!

Sharing with Monday Murals. 

Along Refuge Church Road

I like driving through the country so often I'll combine some errand with exploring the back roads.  The other day I turned off 340/522 before reaching Lake Frederick and wound up at Refuge United Methodist Church. The building dates to 1920.

There's a farm next to it and I think this building is a stable.

 I continued down the road and passed some nice barns. Some were not safe to photograph because the road has few places to pull over, but I did get a few for the barn linkup.

Today I'm also joining with InSpired Sunday and Shadow Shot Sunday.

Commonly Seen Critters

1. Blue Jay
2. Cat
3. Geese
4. Squirrel
5. Cardinal

Sharing with: Caturday,

Saturday's Critters, and

The Bird D'Pot.

Cloudy, Round, Colorful.

Willy Nilly Friday.

1. I am so glad the government shutdown is over, for now. Our national parks will be staffed again, and other government services will get back underway. My friends who have government jobs will get paid again. I hope that politicians will stop playing power games with people's lives.

Skywatch: Clouds seen from Shenandoah National Park. I was up there on Wednesday afternoon. I took a trash bag with me just in case I saw litter, but the grounds were clean. Skyline Drive was only open as far as Dickey Ridge because there is still snow to be cleared from the road, and with the government workers furloughed, the work did not get done.

2. For Black and White Weekend, I chose a picture with symmetry and contrast. These are outdoor cymbals at the Music Park at Rockland, near Front Royal.

3. Another blogger has mastered the art of creating beautiful frozen bubbles. Before I saw her instructions, I tried blowing regular bubbles on a freezing day. This is the only one that landed where I could photograph it.

I haven't tried her method yet of thickening the mixture with corn syrup. Watch Rosemary's video on How to Make Frozen Bubbles.

Sharing with Weekend Reflections.

4. I went to the post office to get stamps before the price goes up on January 27, and what did I get? John Lennon stamps!

5. Not many flowers are blooming in our frigid weather so I took pictures of artificial flowers in a local big box store.

Floral Friday and Friday Bliss.

Dusk at the Warren County Public Safety Building.

Blog Post #6600

On the outskirts of Front Royal near Skyline High School.

Fences around the World.

Geese on Lake in January

We had some cold, wintry weather and part of the lake froze. Geese and ducks tend to sit on ice at the edge of unfrozen water, when possible.

The tracks along the edge of the lake were probably made by the fox that marched past the trail cam . 

The Canada geese seem to prefer landing and                    taking off on the open water.

Temperatures warmed up today and much of the ice melted. I heard honking outside and saw that geese appeared to be having a party!  They were flying short distances and landing noisily.

Have fun, geese! I like warmer days too!

Wild Bird Wednesday and

Not So Wordless Wednesday 

A Couple of Barns near Guard Hill.

Barn Collective; Wordless on Tuesday.

Randoms for the Day.

Random-osity.
 

The Good: It's Martin Luther King, Jr. Day.  In 1963, my older brother and 200,000 other people heard Dr. King speak at the Lincoln Memorial.  "I have a dream!"

This record of civil rights songs is one that I remember playing as a teen. Perhaps my brother bought it, although I don't recall. I was very interested in folk music, which included protest songs, so I played it many times.

The Random: The colorful mural is in an organic market in Merrifield. I recognize the purple item as cabbage, so I assume the green one is also cabbage or some similar vegetable.

Monday Murals

The Fun: Today is also Squirrel Appreciation Day. They can be a nuisance when they eat way too much bird seed, but they are fun to watch. I think these two are siblings.

Toms Brook UMC

This Methodist Church was built in 1955. The original church was built in 1879 in a different location. 

The church is located along U.S. 11, the historic Valley Pike. 

InSpired Sunday.

The town of Toms Brook is small but is known for a Civil War battle fought throughout the area in 1864. A nearby interstate exit is also called Toms Brook but you can't see the town from the exit.

There is no apostrophe in the name because the highway department standard for signs and maps is to drop apostrophes.

What the Trail Cam Saw.

It's been almost a month since I last checked looked at pictures from the camera by the lake. When I put the SD card back in the camera, I pointed the lens more toward the bushes because it was getting sun-struck in late afternoon. Now I see it is still picking up glare, although not as much as before. Here's one of the images. You can see the light streaming in and making an odd squiggle on the right.
 

Here's a cropped and brightened version of the shot. I'm sure that's a great blue heron flying, although it looks almost like a vampire bat with those drooping wings!

I've cropped the rest of the pictures in this post. It took me a moment to realize that the woman in black is Marie in a hoodie. This was on Christmas afternoon when we walked around the lake.

There were over 1600 images on the card and I choose 113 to save on my laptop. The rest were not worth saving, mostly moving branches and blurry birds.

Here we have geese on the water and a cat walking through. These geese are used to cats hanging around.

Almost obscured by bushes is another heron. He looks ready to fly away.

The rest of the pictures are from January 14 to 18. You can see the 8 inches of snow that we had. It's been melting steadily, and tonight we have rain that's washing most of it away.

If you look carefully at the geese on the snowy lake, you can see some of them are taking off.

Viewing Nature and Birds.

Deer visited again. I imagine they were hungry.

Just before the deer walked off to the right, little deer stopped and stared at the camera. Supposedly it doesn't flash but there is a little light that you can see if you look at it. Night photos use infrared technology, and as you can see, they are black and white.

By the time I finally made my way out in the snow to get the SD card out of the camera, it had melted down to a point that walking was easy. I noticed footprints that were too big to be a squirrel's, and no doubt some of them belonged to the deer. There were others that I thought were a dog's, but then when I reviewed the pictures, I saw exactly who walked through.

I knew we had a fox or two. They've shown up in blurry night photos. This one strolled through at 2:50 in the afternoon yesterday. I wish I'd been looking out the window, or taking pictures of the birds when he went through. I don't think I'd have gotten a better shot than this though.

I guess Mr. Fox was hungry because the snow has covered up some of his usual food, so he was out in the open in broad daylight.