Fall Has Arrived in Its Glory

North Fork Rivanna River at Advance Mills

North Fork Rivanna River looking Downstream

Rivanna River at the Advance Mills pond

Throwing Knife Sheath Project

OK, I admit it – I really enjoy history and I enjoy common daily history most of all.  I want to know what folks wore, what they ate and what their homes were like.  I want to know about the crafts, about what was made & what was bought as well as who did the making and who did the buying.  I want to know who lived in a community and what did they do as a community.  I want to find the window on the past that lies hidden in the things from that past.

This interest has lead me first to Civil War reenacting and then on to Colonial American living history and rendezvousing.  Those hobbies in turn have gotten me back into sewing and then basic leather stitching.  I’ve been pretty busy this summer with home maintenance but that doesn’t mean I didn’t have plans for some cloth and leather work.  My current project involves making a sheath for my throwing knife.  Tomahawk & knife throwing are done competitively at rendezvous right along with rifle, smoothbore and pistol shooting.  I’ve been taking my hawk & knife to the range in a haversack and decided that its about time I make proper sheathes for them both, sheathes I can wear on a belt. 

This is phase one of the project.  Throwing knives are much thicker than standard knives and don’t have cut-the-steak sharp edges.  So they need a heavy sheath to handle the weight of the knife but don’t need to keep the user safe from cutting themselves.  I’ve made the belt loop big enough for my widest belt and stitched it down on the back of the sheath.  The sheath front has the leather folded over to give the sheath entry area a rounded edge.  The brass “63” button is purely decorative, its just there to match the “63” button that will secure the flap on the throwing hawk sheath I plan on making next.  The ‘U” shaped piece of leather is as thick as the throwing knife blade and will be sewn between the front and back of the sheath.  The smaller little rectangles of leather are spacers to give clearance for the knife handles.

I’ve discovered the really good history videos on YouTube – stuff from museums, academic conferences, BBC etc.  This is very very dangerous.

October Lawn

Just some photos from around my yard as October begins.  I love October.

These mushrooms favor the area around the white pines and the maple tree in the front yard.

This is what they look like at maturity.  They’re only about an inch around when they first appear and about 4.5 inches in diameter fully grown..

There are orb spiders around the yard from mid-April on but their numbers are largest in October.  This nest is about 7 inches in diameter.  Soon I should come home to nests like this all over my yard.

As the days get cooler more critters sun themselves on the side of my house.  I wish this granddaddy long legs liked stinkbugs for dinner. 

There are plenty of stinkbugs to go around.  The day Da Urchin & I went car shopping (Da Urchin got a silver Subaru Advante AWD) there were over a hundred of these obnoxious things on the side of the house.

There are also some awesomely large spider webs made by some not very large spiders.  This little lady is less than half an inch around but her web is over 2 feet in diameter and is at least 6 feet from its nearest anchor tree. 

Yard mowing will end soon as the leaves here are beginning to turn.  I haven’t had to turn the heat on yet but I did get out the flannel sheets.  Unfortunately I am working on Halloween – but there’s another Rendezvous on the way and plenty of fall days between now and then.

Have I mentioned how much I love October?

1st Ever OVPR Women’s Wine-e-Vous

A group of Notorious Ladies who are known to frequent the Shady Side of the Street were hatching various nefarious plans at the OVPR ‘Vous last spring when some benighted soul suggested a “Ladies Only” event.   From thought came action and thus at the end of September  various women of questionable repute could be seen setting up camp in a secluded section of woods rather near some stockaded Necessaries.  (I am more than a bit wary of any settlement that finds it expedient to stockade its Necessaries.)   Thus the 1st ever  Primitive Man-less Settlement Wine-e-Vous came to be at the OVPR site near Surry VA.  Oh the poor colony named after Our Good Queen Bess will never be the same.  (Although I think Bess might have enjoyed herself greatly during the festivities.)

My PMS Lodge

I arrived and set up my lodge on Thursday before noon only to find several substantial lodges and dining flies already in place.  I strolled over to the nearest and found various dark plans were already in progress aided by a bucket or two of libations.

Main Gathering Area Thursday Evening

As more and more ladies arrived and dinner was over it was decided (by persons who shall remain nameless to protect the guilty) that a visit to the “Other Side of Camp” was needed.  There were rumors of MEN hiding out over there near an abandoned inn and this was not to be tolerated. 

The “Men's” Camp

Obviously from the laundry we were misinformed – or other ladies had preceded Yours Truly and left their calling cards for one and all.  Well if the men are here, they have been warned!

The Bad Kids

Well what can you expect when the Bad Kids are in charge.  This whole thing was their idea – with some help from their friends.

Setting up the Table for the Wine Tasting

Friday began with a fine breakfast of scrambled eggs, pancakes and bacon – no one will go hungry at this Settlement!  About midmorning Chantel introduced the ladies to the fine art of wine tasting and no, vintages aged in coolers very like those of the local 7-11 were not in evidence. 

Ladies at the Wine Tasting

Of course wine can’t be tasted without food, so after we sighted, swirled, sniffed and sipped we had several kinds of cheese and crackers to enjoy between wines. 

Wine, Cheeses, Bread & Lemons at the Tasting

Checking the Wine Tasting Menu

And thus we wiled the morning away seeing, swirling, sniffing, sipping and eating our way past lunch and into the afternoon. 

BUCKET!

Of course wine tasting wasn’t the only way to go – later in the afternoon there were buckets passed as well with Unholy Concoctions that never saw the inside of a church being passed from hand to hand.  Friday ended with a camp wide dinner and an evening of camaraderie.

Saturday brought an all day drizzle with periods of rain.  Yours Truly did get in a fine bit of hawk & knife practice but the shooting and archery others had planned was put down by the rain.  Another wine tasting was held, this one stocked by the participants.  The Rkatsiteli I had brought for just this purpose was well received.  Various Sundry Other Things were also pursued in the way of fun – Games to be precise.

Stacking the Dice

  This game requires the participant to stack dice one at a time on top of one another on a tongue depressor held between your teeth.  After each di added the stacking hand must touch the table for the move to count. 

More Stacking of the Dice

Since several buckets had come and gone before the games began this went better than I had anticipated. If memory serves me right, the winner had 7 dice on her stick. 

Coin Tossing

There was also a Coin Toss with nickels & dimes.  The buckets got smaller as they got farther away and of course the score for getting the coin in the bucket increased as well.  The cloth on the ground makes the misses easier to find. 

Clothes Pin Tag

The day ended with Clothes Pin Tag in the gloaming.  Each woman had 5 clothes pins on her back to start.  The goal was to grab clothes from other women and add them to your back.  Highest pin count after 5 minutes wins.  (It was decided after the game that next time 2.5 minutes was plenty long enough for the sport.  We ain’t spring chickens ya know.)  The Day ended with another evening of fine dining for one and all.  No parched corn & jerky in this settlement!

Dinner at one of the Camps

Meanwhile rumors of odd doings over near the abandoned inn continued to circulate.  Finally a denizen of the deserted camp we had scouted on Thursday appeared out of the night.  Something is just not right here.

The Inn Camp “Lady”

Perhaps there was more in some of those buckets than meets the eye or palette.  Anyway, this apparition soon disappeared and the evening ended with a song swapping session under the communal fly.

The 1st OVPR Wine-e-Vous Medallion

The Rumors of a 2nd Gathering next year appear to be true.  I’m ready.

Fall Equinox

Well its official – Fall Has Officially Arrived with the Equinox on September the 22nd.  Personally I view the seasons as straddling the equinoxes and solstices but the modern world at large sees this as a personal eccentricity and the natural world ignores my thoughts entirely.    

Pine Tree area Mushrooms

Meanwhile another kind of fall mushroom has popped up in my yard.  These grow near the pines and can get to be 5 inches across.  Like the earlier ball shaped fungus they have no stems.   I normally get 8 or 9 types of fungal growths in my yard during the year, more if it’s a wet spring or fall.

Looking North to the Blue Ridge Mountains

I had wonderfully ambitious ideas about starting fall by getting a bunch of maintenance done around my yard but the day was far too nice to let that happen.  I didn’t take the same ride as last time but aimed for panorama views rather than woodland solitude.  The blue skies of fall have always seemed deeper than those of summer.

Creek into the Beaver’s Pond

I did check on the Beaver Pond again. The mud has settled out in the creeks and rivers as well as the pond itself. The rivers have dropped down too but the pond is deeper.

Beaver Pond

There were 4 Pileated Woodpeckers and a Lesser Blue Heron on the far side of the pond in the trees – too far for a photo.

Robinson River looking Upstream

The Robinson River is running about 12 to 18 inches deep which is a good flow for September.  I did see 3 Great Blue Herons hunting dinner in the river it didn’t seem good to disturb them for a photo.

Mind you, I did get the windows and storm windows in the kitchen and both front bedrooms done along with my laundry, the dishes and some stuff sorted.  I even finished getting most of the photos on my desktop computer organized.  So it wasn’t totally a labor free day.  And Saturday was spent with Da Urchin here as she went car shopping – she got herself a New-to-Her low mileage Subaru Impreza and I got a sunburn.  It was a very good weekend. 

Fall Along the Rapidan & Conway Rivers

One of my favorite local motorcycle rides goes past the Advance Mills Dam.  The dam is still there, its maintained mostly as a water take-out place for the local volunteer fire companies.  Its also a nice quiet place to sit, watch the world go by and think. 

Advance Mills Dam

There isn’t any place to put a canoe in here, but the sunfish are obliging from time to time.  The jewel weed is thick all alone the Rivanna River here, so the hummingbirds and butterflies are much in evidence

Advance Mills mill pond

When I first moved into my house there was a little store here in what was once the local grocery.  It closed about 2 years later, reopened as a country thrift store with some groceries for a year or so and then closed for good.  The building itself was torn down several years later. 

This historic marker was put up the year the grocery was torn down.  It was the last building in what was once Advance Mills.  At least someone thought it was important to mark its grave. 

Creek on the Middle River Road

This area was home to a thriving beaver colony and a pair of swans with 8 cygnets the year after Da Urchin graduated from college.  The next year the beavers were gone and it was just a meadow with a small creek meandering through it. 

The Beavers are back

Well the beavers are back, they have repaired the old dam and built 2 new ones.  The meadow is once again flooded although its too late in the year to see if the swans are nesting here again. 

Another view of the Beaver Pond

The main dam can be seen in the distance.  This is a good amount of water for this time of year.  Its actually hard to photograph due to the thriving cattails, jewel weed and various bushes.

    

Conway River near Teal Mtn. Looking Upstream

Rain over the mountains quickly becomes rain in the rivers.  A few days ago this river had 18 inches of water in it on average and clearly visible rocks.  Now the rocks are underwater and the river is running almost 4 feet deep.

Conway River near Teal Mtn. Looking Downstream

The rocks on the downstream side of the bridge I’m standing on are totally submerged.  There are several pairs of Great Blue Herons and a pair of Great White Egrets that nest along this stretch of the Conway River.  They are generally in residence until early October although I didn’t see any of them today.  With the river so high they were probably off seeking dinner in quiet farm ponds.

Conway River at the Shenandoah National Park Boundary

Nearer the headwaters of the Conway the water was 24 to 30 inches deep.  That creek joining the river on the left is actually the Conway River Trail.  The road used to ford the river here but the ford was obliterated by the nameless storm that also put the Rapidan River bridge on US29 at the Greene-Madison line 8 feet under water.  The Weather Channel broadcast footage of the bridge under water that Da Urchin and I saw in Florida while we were visiting family there.  It was a very scary and very destructive flood. 

Stone Wall on the Conway River Timber Company Land

The area above Fletcher on the Conway used to be home to a dozen or so seasonal camps as well as several year round homes.  As of this year most of the camps are gone and in their place are “No Trespassing” and “Conway River Timber Lands” signs as well as this very impressive stone wall.  Unfortunately there is still no parking along the road here even though there are several trailheads for Shenandoah National Park along the road.  I’ve never figured out why establish a trailhead if there is no parking so it could actually be used. 

Virginia Whitetail Doe getting an Afternoon Snack

This lovely doe glanced at me as I stopped to watch her, decided I was no threat and went back to trimming the verge.

A bit farther on this group of 6 deer crossed the road in front of me to snack in this camp’s yard.  They looked up when I stopped for the photo op but were otherwise not bothered by my presence. And thus I headed home to my own dinner with the rain tapping the roof of my van.

Have I mentioned how much I love living in the mountains of Virginia?

20 Years and Counting

My Little Home

Twenty years ago on September the 15th I signed my name a couple of times & became a homeowner.  Many many things - good things & bad things but good things mostly - have happened since that day.   My daughter has grown up, learned to drive, found her wings & now has a home of her own in the hills of Virginia.  I’ve changed jobs twice, owned 7 cars & trucks & shared my home with a wonderful array of cats & dogs.  I had 2 white pines damage my roof & watched the 3 foot tulip popular Rita gave me grow into a grand tall tree.  Its been a good home to me & mine. 

Rita’s Gift Tree Now

So I think its OK that I’m in a somewhat reflective mood today.  Typically rainy days are quite productive for me.  I put on music, do rendezvous crafts, get various little projects done, clean house, practice music & the like.  And today was monsoon rainy.  I got new strings on the guitar, set up an online account for my HD insurance, did the laundry, took the trash to the recycling center & then just plain stalled.  My get up & do got up & went. 

Another View of the House

So I got up & went for a drive with my camera.  I drove past where Da Urchin trained for Cross Country & then where she practiced driving with me.  I drove past the stretch of the Conway River where it looks like Minobu-San & where I would go when she was in Japan because I felt closer to her there.  And I opened my mind to all the good memories of this home in the last 20 years.  There were too many to count, too many to remember all at once.  Deo Gratias.