… basks on the balcony; hummingbirds buzz the feeders. Time for Les UDs to head back down to the flatlands. They go home today.
Their visit yesterday to White House Farm was spectacular, especially their walk through the haunted old white house itself, its flooring gone through generations of Shenandoah River floods, but the beauty of its fireplaces and windows still there, under the dust, after 250 years. Chris Anderson, the foundation’s executive director, narrated the history of the house (it has seen, among other things, Stonewall Jackson burn the adjacent White House Bridge in 1862, blocking the progress of Union forces), and talked about the foundation’s plans to restore it.
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Large prints of Thomas Jefferson and John James Audubon on the upper landing of the farmhouse reflect the new owner’s engagements in the civic and natural worlds.
We met the owner, Scott Plein, as we walked through the house to its open kitchen; he sat at a table set beside long windows that overlooked sunflowers and karst ponds and heirloom tomato plants and black cattle. The whole property is surrounded – sheltered; made somehow beautifully self-contained by – the vast Appalachian range.
The place was a perfect utopia of yellows and blues. The blue of the sky and the range, the yellow of the sun and the cornfields. It was dreamy – a dream of river and land and harvest and house. The wind rippled the soybeans and made a green ocean.
August 10th, 2011 at 3:41PM
Cute lizard! And as Randall would say, “Jesus has returned, as a lizard!”
August 22nd, 2011 at 12:15PM
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November 23rd, 2013 at 5:26PM
Margaret Soltan?
Your last name seems quite familiar. Any links with Karol Soltan – my former HS classmate ..?
From Minnesota where the winter just started, very sincerely, Marek O.
November 23rd, 2013 at 7:22PM
Marek: I’m married to Karol. He’d love to be in touch. His email:
[email protected]