Another Week Passes and It's Almost Christmas.

Willy Nilly Friday: Cell Phone Pics.

1. I've done enough complaining about all the rain we've had. 2018 is now the wettest year on record for the northern part of Virginia. It creates extra reflections, at least.

2. We toured a community in Bridgewater for retirement-age people. Not sure we are old enough or wealthy enough!

This black and white image is looking upward in their atrium.

3. I went with Lynn to her doctor appointment in Baltimore on Tuesday. This will be the last one for a while because she is cancer-free and has recovered from the multiple surgeries that it took to get well.

Doctor Chang's office has pink ribbons on their Christmas tree.

4. She bought me lunch at Cracker Barrel in Frederick. It was a late lunch, and by the time we came out, the sun was going down. After all, it was almost the shortest day of the year.

Skywatch Friday

5. The last picture is a selfie with some of my birthday presents: a maroon jacket, a Civil War book edited by Professor Noyalas, and a shaker bottle. Lynn knew I needed the shaker because I lost one when we were in Baltimore in October for her surgery.

Near Bentonville: A Farm and a Flooded River

Cows are often busy eating, but these were curious and looked at me.

Sharing with Fences Around the World.

Not far from there is the South Fork of the Shenandoah. The river was out of its banks on Monday, covering what is a normally a gravel walkway and a canoe launch area.

Do You See the Great Blue Heron?

After an appointment on Monday, I took my lunch to Shenandoah River State Park. I enjoyed getting a little sunshine there and walked down by the South Fork. I was hoping to see an eagle but spotted a heron instead.

Tonight as we were coming home, I spotted another great blue heron fishing in our community pond. I was surprised to see him out there after dark in the cold water. The air temperature was slightly below freezing!

Sharing with Not-So-Wordless and Wild Bird Wednesday.

Willow Shade

On Saturday it was pouring rain. Since I had pretty much recovered after not feeling well for three weeks, I was anxious to get out. I read that there was a craft sale at Willow Shade near Winchester, and since it is a historical site that is almost never open to the public, I decided it was worth the drive.

This was the childhood home of writer Willa Cather. I read her novel My Antonia many years ago.

Despite the impressive brick exterior, the house is similar to many Shenandoah farm houses on the inside, although the owners have made improvements such as electric fireplace inserts. Our hosts were very friendly and the art and craft items were nice.

We took several pictures of the historical marker out on Route 50 but the rain was coming down so hard that all the pictures are dark and blurred.

Willow Shade

This house, built in 1858, was the childhood home of novelist Willa Cather from 1874 to 1883, when she moved with her family to Nebraska. It was the setting of the final chapters of her novel SAPPHIRA AND THE SLAVE GIRL. Willa Cather was born December 7, 1873, one mile south in the community of Gore then known as Back Creek Valley.

Mid-December Random-osity

The Good, The Random, The Fun

The Good:  This mural in the Strasburg Post Office was painted in 1938 by Sarah Blakeslee. Called Apple Orchard, this was created under a New Deal program that provided art in public buildings.

It is mounted under glass over a door. I was unable to totally eliminate the glare cast by fluorescent ceiling lights but I did fade the reflection and restore some of the color using Photoshop.

Monday Murals.

 The Random: These are rural summertime scenes that I combined in a collage.

Sharing with Mosaic Monday and The Farm Collective.

The Fun: I got a thrill today by seeing my daughter Marie listed in The Matriarchy Power List: 29 Women Who Took Over The World In 2018. "Refinery29 has chosen the 29 women actively reshaping American culture in their image—and yours."

Marie is #5 on this list, which includes some pretty famous people.  She has been in the comic book industry since serving a college internship with a major publisher in New York.

Second Opequon Presbyterian Church

I took this picture in the pouring rain yesterday so it's dark. Opequon is a village in Frederick County, Virginia, and shares its Native American name with nearby Opequon Creek, which flows 64 miles to the Potomac River.

This church was built in 1939, replacing an earlier church which stood on this site. The little town around it dates to about 1736.

Ordinary Critters

I looked out on my porch to see if any packages were there, and yes, there were two boxes, and guarding them was a cat! When I opened the door he dashed away, but only as far as the shed. I see he has a collar so I guess he's a neighbor's pet. I've seen him in my yard a number of times.

I stopped in the library on Thursday and saw this holiday bird.

Back in my car, I saw an odd shaped animal up by the fence. It took me a minute to recognize that it was probably a ground hog. I'm not positive because I didn't see his tail, but he was large and there was no water around so I'm guessing ground hog. Usually when I see one, he's standing beside a road looking around.

On the day before, I was also in Front Royal, so I took a brief ride up on Skyline Drive to drink a cup of coffee and look for animals. They had just opened a section beyond Dickey Ridge so I didn't see other cars on that part of the Drive. I did see deer though. I didn't go far because daylight was fading, and for the same reason, I only got a few pictures that were bright enough to show off these fine animals.

A Bit of Color on a Gray Friday.

It's Willy Nilly Friday so this is a good time to jump around to a few photo topics. 

1. It's been rainy here and I longed for something bright so here's a poinsettia photo plus a darker variation that I made in Photoshop.

Floral Friday

2. I posted some autumn scenes from beautiful Capon Springs on Tuesday. Here's a reflection in a pond there.

3. For Skywatch Friday, we have a late afternoon view with clouds and the Massanutten Range.

4. A local photo group has the topic "symbols" this week. I used some from this blog and also photographed a few pictograms in Woodstock, at the library and a pharmacy.

5.  Early this month I drove Frank down to Spotsylvania to pick up doors for his old Jeep. On the way back we stopped at Country Cookin' in Culpeper. I was surprised that it was still there, actually. It's been at least 15 years since I've been to that one. The foods not fancy but there's a variety of vegetables, which is unfortunately rare in restaurants.

 

Below the Valley Pike

There's a new bridge that carries U.S. 11 (the Valley Pike) across Cedar Creek. There's a small parking lot where the old span crossed, with a lane going off it that leads to a farm.

Now that the old bridge is gone, you can clearly see the location of an old ford that predates any of the bridges. It would have been impassable in high water.

Sharing Photo #1 with Fences.

Canada Geese on a Cold December Day.

Sharing with Wild Bird Wednesday and Wordless Wednesday.

Capon Springs Resort

We came upon Capon Springs while "leap peeping" in George Washington National Forest near Wardensville, WV. This charming town has been a resort since at least 1850, and was known for its mineral springs long before that.

These pictures are from late October.

A sign on the 1920's spring house tells us "Capon Springs was called by local Indian tribes Cape-Cape-pe-hon (healing waters) rises through 1600 ft of rock the last 300 ft. being sandstone a natural filter." 

The bandstand was originally built in the 1880s. After a fire in the nearby hotel in 1911,  it fell into disrepair and was razed. Rebuilding of the resort began in the 1930s.

Capon Springs is on the National Register of Historic Places. We were enchanted by how lovely it was on a fine autumn day and Frank wanted to stay the night. We had not brought any supplies though, and really it was not far from home.

The town reminds me of Orkney Springs in Virginia, which was also a resort centered around mineral springs.

Sharing with Tuesday Treasures 

and Through My Lens. 

Blog Post #6555

Random-osity 

The Good: I have two farm scenes to link to the Barn Collective.

The Random: A man in our county was fined $500 for feeding bears. He had been warned in the past that this is illegal but continued to do so, drawing bears to his community to the dismay of neighbors, who reported "vehicle and home damage, bears looking in windows, bears staying around their homes, injuries to pets, and reports of bears with visible symptoms of mange."

The man admitted to conservation officers that he had been spending over $10,000 a year on food for bears in the area to keep them safe from poachers and help the "sick and injured" ones.

The Fun: There's a model train in the Gainesville Wegman's. It loops around on a track overhead in the back of the store.  Behind it is a mural showing Henry Hill on the Manassas Battlefield. (I did not realize that's what it depicted until I examined my photo and recognized the stone monument next to the old house.)

Monday Murals.