Lovely Saturday

Mary and I went to Virginia to do several things. On our way down, just passing Charlottesville, we saw a young black bear racing toward the interstate! I swerved into the left lane to avoid it, and it thought better of crossing the road, and ran back up into the woods. It was my first encounter with a bear in Virginia.

Anyway, Mary and I went on to Edible Landscaping in Afton to pick up blueberry plants, strawberries, a pomegranate tree, lingonberries, wintergreen, and cranberries. (We also got a garlic chives to plant on herb hill.) After that we drove down to Virginia Gold Orchard, just south of Lexington to buy a box of Asian pears. These pears are huge, and delicious, and ORGANIC! So good!

We then went into downtown Lexington to buy tickets for the "Alternative House Tour" for Rockbridge County. This was why we went down in the first place, but tied the other errands on to the trip. Mary and I then spent the rest of the afternoon touring some of the "alternative" homes in that county. Mary and I are finding that we are turning more and more extreme in our practices and beliefs of what can be done for 1) less money, 2) less work, and 3) less overall energy cost. The highlight of the tour was a completely solar (active and passive) home built on pilings in a flood plain. It was a small home, with a lovely couple of porches, and had interesting ship's ladders to save even more space. Bill, the owner was knowledgeable about the solar aspects, and was in the process of reclaiming his 20 acres of land to meadow. I think Mary and I could learn more from him on some things, since he is living off the grid now, and seems to be thriving.

Driving from one of the homes, I saw black walnuts along the roadside, so I stopped, backed up, and got a bag full. I'll have to take care to clean them, and then put the shells out in the garbage, because black walnuts tend to kill other plants. I may take a couple of them down to the college and see if I can find a place to start a few there.

It was a very good day.