Bradford Pears

Hadn’t realized the Bradford Pear would get this big. Nor did the city. The cafe is the Recreation Center (opposite Bike Works), where Erin says you get the best chili dog in Fredericksburg. Friend Morgan of Tree Fredericksburg says they are not good trees (despite their beauty); they tend to split and are very messy. “Bradford Pears are a disaster… grow way too tall to be planted under power lines!”Entering Fredericksburg after crossing the Rappahannock River by the Chatham Bridge. That’s Saint George’s on the left, behind the Old Stone Warehouse, then Bike Works in the middle, and William Street as the avenue of Bradford Pears. Below, having turned right onto Sophia Street then looking back over the river into Stafford County, see Chatham Manor up on the hill, where Lincoln addressed the troops and Walt Whitman served as a Civil War hospital volunteer.

 

Keeping the facts straight

Here is Jupiter, from the bottom of the garden at Sunset Corner, home of Uncle Hughie, Auntie Ceturah, John, Chris, and Ruth. (Photos kindly sent this week by Helen.) I must have been told as a child who it was, but over the years I somehow remembered it as Karl Marx. At some point I must have wondered aloud what Marx was doing at the bottom of that garden. Now furnishing hard evidence setting me straight is Helen, below, with a group of her colleagues in Highgate Cemetery, Islington. Thank you, Helen!