Waterford, Virginia

 

We had read about the small town of Waterford, Virginia which is protected as a national historic monument since with the urban sprawl into Loudon County, there are few historic towns from the eighteenth century which remain undeveloped.

 

The town is built on Catoctin Creek and Waterford Mill, a working mill until 1939, was very important to the town.

 

Sadly it is unrestored and the old mill wheel is in a very bad state.

 

The mill race is quite dry..

 

We had the impression that the mill may occasionally be open to the public, but not today.

 

 

The street signs in Waterford give a feel for its history and apart from parked cars it does look as if major parts of it may not have changed for many many years.

 

 

Some of the houses were very modest in size and style..

 

Others were considerably more grand..

 

 

Today was much milder than it has been this week and so much of the snow had melted overnight.  It was a lovely day for wandering through the village.

 

Vintage Things

 

This doll in her 'car bed' dates from the late 1960's but looks rather quaint.  I photographed her to put together a Facebook post for tomorrow to highlight some of the items on sale at the Bargain Loft.

She seems to fit rather well with this set of baby weighing scales..

 

Again these are not so very old but it is hard to imagine them in use in these days of digital scales.  They claim to be able to weigh up to 30 pounds - it would need to be a very non-wriggly larger baby!

 

The faces on the dial look very angelic!

 

St Patrick's Day Eve

 

In the Giant supermarket today there were plenty of decorating and entertaining options for tomorrow's celebration of St Patrick's Day.

 

 

I had hoped to find the usual potted chrysanthemums done up as leprechauns, but there were none of those this year.

 

In the instore bakery, the usual understated cakes and giant cookies..

 

 

 

A few slightly more subtle cakes too, including, mysteriously, an Irish 'Dougal' dog.

 

 

 

The small items were obviously the big sellers..

 

 

We have no particular plans to celebrate tomorrow, but we may be in the minority!

Show Gardens

One of the most remarkable features of large Flower or Garden Shows are the small but elaborate complete gardens that are created just for the show.

 

There were a number of these at the Philadelphia Flower Show on Saturday.  It was a little strange to see them in completely artificial light and with walls and ceilings visible around them, but in other respects to they were very real gardens.

In the one pictured above, a relaxing water garden, the creator was reclining on a wooden deck but kept getting heckled by passers by!

This garden had an elaborate summerhouse and mature trees, shrubs and plants, together with some substantial rocks!
 

 

This garden was rather more architectural in style with its rather industrial looking water feature and bicycle wheel theme.  Also some rather regimented tulips!

 

It cannot be easy to bring on and transport flowering trees of this size - although at least these will have escaped the ice which is coating the cherry blossom outside at the moment.

 

This red bud tree is in advance - these are not yet blooming outside but should be soon.

 

This garden was very difficult to photograph as it was quite dramatically lit but it had the most beautiful bronze screen/ gate which would be great to have in any garden.

 

One of our favorites was this rather wild garden with a large wicker nest which looked pretty cosy!

Snow in March

 

Today the promised snow arrived and, although we had much less than New York and Boston, it was enough to give everything a very wintry feel!

 

We put out extra food for the birds and then watched to see who came along - quite a variety of birds!

 

Some of them like this Dark Eyed Junco looked very cold when the snow was falling.

 

The Cardinals are always colourful but these Goldfinches are in the process of growing their Spring coloured feathers.

 

The Starlings turned out in force as usual, but were shooed away by the Pileated Woodpecker when he arrived..

 

Because we have had such a mild winter and an early Spring, this snow seems very unseasonal but today I looked back at photos that I took in early March last year..

 

And the year before...

 

This afternoon, David was able to fulfill his promise to Lauren to make a snow cat..

 

 

The Art of Floral Design

 

At the Philadelphia Flower Show, many professional floral artists were showcasing their work in large, flamboyant, displays.

 

 

 

The colour orange and the bicycle theme were prevalent in many of the displays.

 

These smaller arrangements were entries to various different flower arranging competitions.

 

This final set is a combination of entries made from herbs and spices and a competition where the components were all supplied to each entrant.