Here’s what my desk will look like after I get organized. Meanwhile I’ll keep this handy as a reminder of Belmont’s July 29th field trip to the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts in Richmond. A few other snaps from, in, or outside:
What we really went to see, a day or two before the exhibition closed July 31st:
Above, one of a pair of pre-Civil War catalpa trees in front of Chatham Manor, facing Fredericksburg on the far side of the Rappahannock River. Below, 1, the Fredericksburg railroad bridge seen from the Chatham bridge, and 2, the city dock with Gary the white goose supervising his adopted Canada goose family.
But rain then snow expected tonight.
A few new pics of Belmont, the Gari Melchers Home and Studio, Falmouth, Virginia: the recently restored horseshoe staircase, the freshly repainted putta garden statue, the summerhouse looking down on the Rappahannock River, the library, the dining room, Capt John Smith AD 1608, river view looking north from near the house.
That’s a 40′ ladder which he put up and took down without help but not without difficulty. The task was to repair the crown, the rubberized cement which surrounds the chimney pot. The stainless steel chimney cap (temporarily parked between roof and ladder) did not need replacing.
Gari Melchers, 1920 <> Charles Street, Fredericksburg, 2021
Although Gari Melchers’ painting is called St. Georges, that’s actually Fredericksburg Presbyterian in the foreground, with the steeple of St. George’s behind it on the other side of Princess Anne Street.
Looking upstream on the Potomac towards Washington DC from Stafford, Virginia
Woodbridge, Virginia
From the Neabsco Creek Boardwalk, we’re looking southeast 1.3 miles to the railroad trestle at the creek’s mouth with the Potomac River. The Maryland shoreline is barely visible above the bridge, an additional 3.5 miles beyond. That would be the southwest tip of the Indian Head Peninsula. The newly opened $4 million 3/4-mile boardwalk is a pedestrian delight, open dawn until an hour after dark. We saw a couple of egrets but only at a distance, a few redwing blackbirds, and we heard more than we saw numerous tiny chattering birds. Will have to return at a more opportune hour. The only bird I caught on camera was almost as big as a crow but I don’t know what it was yet. [Nick must be right: a crow.] I was of course pleased to catch the southbound CSX freight train through my big lens.
The red marker (top, middle) is where we parked and entered the Neabsco Boardwalk on foot. My orange ink highlights the boardwalk winding 3/4 of a mile across the wetland. The orange line at lower right is the aforementioned railroad trestle, to the right of which is the Potomac River. The as yet unrenamed Jefferson Davis Highway shown on the left is the old main road south to Key West (1,300 miles) or north to Montreal (650 miles).