View of Short Mountain from the Valley Pike

Winter View Near New Market, VA

Here we are looking toward Moreland Gap in the Massanutten Range. In the foreground is U.S. 11, the old Valley Pike.

Related Posts:

• Moreland Gap in March
• View of Short Mountain

Mid-day on February 3rd

Looking toward Great North Mountain

Our View on February 3rd

Yesterday we awoke to six inches of fresh snow. The sun was shining and the view was glorious!

More snow is forecast for tomorrow and I'd rather that it miss us. I'm really tired of getting snowed in.

Left: A bird tries out our new suet feeder.

A View from Stony Creek

From the Resort Drive Bridge Over Stony Creek

To the right of Stony Creek is the air strip and to the left we can see the ski slopes.

Read about Virginia's Small Towns

I came across Co-op Living's Down Home web pages featuring small towns in Virginia. The linked articles date back to 1997 and feature quaint towns and a few mid-size cities including Mount Jackson, Staunton, Raphine, Millboro, Montross, Port Republic, Wachapreague, Cape Charles, Strasburg, and so on.

Originally published in Cooperative Living, a magazine distributed to electrical co-op customers in Virginia and surrounding states, the articles tend to romanticize the towns but are still informative. And the photos are fun to look at.

Abandoned Buildings in Basye

Seen from Orkney Grade

I don't know why these rickety old buildings haven't been torn down. They look rather hazardous. I once came across a blog entry in which someone posted some interior shots of the old hotel, which clearly involved trespassing and some risk of injury. They mentioned a leaky roof, mold, and postcards strewn about.

Saturday's Snow

We had snow on Friday night and throughout the day Saturday. I was glad I had filled the bird feeders for birds flocked to our yard. Can you see the cardinal?

Sometimes Great North Mountain disappeared behind the snow and fog, but here we see it rising in the distance.

Icy Fingers

Winter Tubing

The resort uses the same hill for snow tubing as it does for grass tubing. Looks like folks are having fun!

Civil War Marker at a West Virginia Rest Stop

At the West Virginia Welcome Center along northbound I-81 there's a Civil War Trails marker for the Gettysburg Campaign. Lee's army passed through this area on their way to Maryland and Pennsylvania. You can read the sign's text below the photo.

Actually, the area was traversed numerous times by troops on both sides during the war. (See our field trip Into Virginia from the North in 1861.)

See also our Gettysburg Campaign Tour.

Gettysburg Campaign
Invasion and Retreat

After stunning victories at Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville, Virginia, early in May 1863, Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee carried the war through Maryland, across the Mason and Dixon Line and into Pennsylvania. His infantry marched north through the Shenandoah Valley and western Maryland as his cavalry, led by Gen. J.E.B. Stuart, harassed Union supply lines to the east. Union Gen. Joseph Hooker, replaced on June 28 by Gen. George G. Meade, led the Army of the Potomac from the Washington defenses in pursuit. The Federals collided with Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, on July 1, starting a battle neither side had intended to fight there. Three days later, the defeated Confederates began retreating through Maryland, retracing their steps to the Potomac River and crossing into Virginia on July 14 into what only a month earlier had been Virginia. On June 20, after Lee crossed the river heading north, the Union had admitted West Virginia—the only state to secede from a seceded state.

P.S. I added a site feed on my Civil War Field Trips homepage to display recent posts on this blog that have the label Civil War. You'll have to scroll down the page to see it though.

I've Been Wondering About ...

Reusable Shopping Bags - Are they Sanitary?

I own a bunch of cloth shopping bags: two that we got free an environmental group, one labeled Kroger, two from Martin's (of which one is insulated for cold goods), and even one labeled Walmart. I bought the last one after my husband appropriated a couple of the others for storing maps and stuff in the trunk of the car.

But I've been wondering if bacteria are lurking in the bags, contaminating whatever I carry in them. One study shows that yes, the reusable bags are sources of bacteria, but that study has been accused of bias because it was funded by the plastics industry. Still, the logic is there.

Turns out that Health Canada has published some hints for dealing with this issue. In Food Safety Tips for Reusable Grocery Bags and Bins, they tell us how to reduce the danger of food-borne illness by sanitizing our shopping bags.

First of all, we should wash them regularly "especially after carrying fresh produce, meat, poultry or fish." They also suggest wrapping meat, poultry and fish "in plastic bags, such as the clear bags you can find in the produce and some meat sections. This will help prevent the juices from leaking out and contaminating your reusable bags." It seems like this defeats the goal of avoiding plastic bags, but I have been doing this with poultry all along, since raw poultry is a known source of salmonella.

They also suggest the following, which I'm a bit embarrassed to admit I hadn't thought of: "After putting your groceries away, clean the areas where you placed your bags or bins while unbagging your food, especially the kitchen counter and the kitchen table." This makes sense even if you use disposable bags, because your bags could have picked up bacteria or other bad stuff in the grocery cart or in your car. It's funny, I wouldn't put my shoes on the kitchen counter but the grocery bags may have been in the trunk or on the floor of the car or even on dirty pavement, and I still didn't think of them as particularly dirty. Well, I'd better go clean my countertops with vinegar and water while I'm thinking about it.

Watch Cats

Birds at the Eaves

I spotted these little birds under the rafters at the ski lodge.

View through the Banister

Early yesterday I looked out and saw deer browsing in front of the house. I tried to take still pictures but the light was too dim. I got readings of half a second and a full second, and even if I had hauled out a tripod, the animals movement would have blurred the image. I decided to see if the video feature on the camera would work better.

By this time, one of the deer had disappeared across the road. The deer I see in our yard regularly are in a family group of three. The third one hadn't showed up yet, but he was not far behind. When I walked Benny about ten minutes later, the deer were still nearby. Ben was busy sniffing the ground and did not see them. I guess he saw them in his own way, through his nose.

Mist in the Bryce Valley

Yesterday morning after arriving at our library shortly before 10:00 to work for a couple of hours, I took a couple of pictures of the mist as it rose from the valley.

The library shares a building with the small airport that serves the resort.

Not Supposed to be a Pond

Warmer temperatures melted most of the snow here. Then we had days of rain, hail, more rain... and Sunday night it rained so hard I woke up and couldn't get back to sleep.

On Monday, local creeks expanded out of their banks. Here we see Stony Creek forming a bonus pond on the golf course.

Shrine Mont in January

The outdoor cathedral at Shrine Mont is a quiet place in the winter, peaceful yet with an aura of mystery.

It was built of local stones in the early 1920's. Located near the end of Orkney Grade Road, it's in a lovely mountain area known for its mineral springs.

Earlier Post: Stone feature at Shrine Mont

Shrine Mont's Lonely Greeter

This friendly cat greeted us at Shrine Mont. It doesn't get many visitors in the winter, for the nearby hotel has closed down and the little town of Orkney Springs has only a few year-round residents.

I've been greeted by this cat before and used it in halloween pictures in 2009 and 2007.

Click for Haiti

Care2 has added a new feature to help earthquake victims in Haiti: Click to Donate for Haiti.

So far, 65,887 people have clicked 101,886 times for earthquake relief.

Another site where you can click to help is The Hunger Site. They are donating to Partners in Health for relief and medical supplies for Haiti. Advertisers supply the funds and our clicks determine how much the advertisers are willing to contribute.

FreeRice.com is another place to click and it provides a vocabulary game at the same time. And don't forget the search engines that let you pick a charity that your searches will help: Goodsearch and I Give.

Free Kibble for Shelter Dogs and More

FreeKibble.com provides a place to help animal rescue groups without spending money. Your click on the trivia game (added to the clicks of hundreds of other internet users) generates a donation to animal shelters.

Other sites where I click to help animals include Care2 Pets and The Animal Rescue Site. I've been donating to Care2 this way since June 2000, making it my home page so that I click through before I start my daily journey on the web.

The Animal Rescue Site is currently providing help to animals in Haiti. My understanding is that feeding goats and poultry is an emergency priority because farmers desperately need to keep these animals alive to protect their livelihood and provide food (including milk and eggs) to hungry people.