Morning Walk at Holy Cross Abbey

I was a little surprised to find myself the first one awake on Sunday morning. While it's typical for me to awake before many of my peers, the folks in Berryville were a more mature group and I expected many to be early risers. And I think maybe they were ... it's just that I still got up before them. I missed sunrise proper, but the light outside beckoned, so off I went on a walk about.

Farms: where trucks go to die.
I loved walking the fields, avoiding cow shit and keeping a respectful distance from the cows themselves. If I got too close they'd all look at me in a way that creeped me out. I imagined walking up to them and then having them all stampede me to death.
Thistle?
Giant mushroom.
Pretty pretty.
This was just one of four or five junked trucks in one field. I took a photo of all of them on my phone, but that will be for another 'phone photo round up.'

This truck lost its guts and hood. A shell of its former self.

I love when the phrase 'rolling hills' really makes sense.

Nuts?

Yellow bird flying away from its friend.
Itty bitty mushrooms. Hallucinogenic? Dunno.
Farms: where tires roll their last breath. What?



Here is a photo of the triplet calves. I petted them because they were too tired to bother running away/hadn't yet learned that they don't want humans touching them.

Berryville Sunset and Chicken

After my river walk I returned to the house and sat with H. and Dad on the porch for a while. Then H.'s friends M. and P. arrived and also sat outside for some time. I again meandered away and talked with some friends/employees of the farmer, who pointed out that the baby cows (also known as calves) I noted in a pen near the house were all from the same mother. Triplets! This was, according to them, nearly unheard of. I wish that I had managed to get a good photograph, but I didn't. So instead you'll just have to deal with sunset photos.

I think sepia toning many of these images is the right move.
This is not sepia toned. It's just sunset.

This, however, is sepia toned.
Eventually H.'s brother and his wife arrived after a long journey from Athens, Georgia. We ate in the Spanish style. Ie. late. Here is H.'s brother doing an excellent job of carving up a roasted chicken that I had nothing to do with making.
The finished product.
And scene. It was a nice evening full of laughter and stories of muggings and kidnappings and robberies and quick engagements and flights to Kenya and the like. I guess most all of us eventually have them.

Holy Cross Abbey Part II

My father was already at the guest house when I arrived, as was H. I sat briefly with Dad after bringing in the mother load of cheese and other treats for the next day's 'mezze' but then began itching to walk around and see if the memories I had of the place matched up with its reality. And it did.
I've come to terms with the fact that I am not really someone who could actually be a farmer, but I've lately wondered if there's a way to live on a farm to soak in its essence without necessarily having to get up at 5 in the morning (or earlier) every day for the rest of my life. I completely understand that being a farmer, whether the sort raising cattle or growing corn, is hard and I know not to romanticize that existence ... but damn they work hard in a pretty place. I'd like to work hard in a pretty place, even if my work was on a computer. Things to think about.

Just ridiculously pretty.
The guest house, exactly as I remember it. With the exception of kittens underneath the kitchen door's entrance and a sanctuary type room off of the living room. After my first walk about I sat on the porch with Dad and H. for a bit. But then I got antsy and wanted to take another walk to the river, which I did.
This is a nest in a bush by the porch.
This is me midway to the river.
I couldn't stand the glare of the pretty, so I put my sunglasses on.
I've been pretty liberal with photoshop and not all of these photographs are truly color correct. But I think they best represent the way I saw it, even if things weren't quite so green or contrasty.

There had been a fair amount of rain in the last week, so the banks of the river were quite high.
The river. It is behind me.

The river is behind those trees, which are behind this Jesus. And the house is in front of Jesus across the small gravel/dirt road.
I have more thoughts about beauty and country and memory. But I'll have to expound upon them at a later point in time.

Arrival in Berryville

Last Saturday I drove to Berryville, Virginia to meet up with my father and his old friend H. and a bunch of other friends of H. H. is a monk and lives at a monastery. It is very pretty all around there. I drove across the Shenandoah and the Potomac Rivers. They were close to majestic in the brief time I saw them out the corner of my eyes while I was driving. After downshifting from highways to county routes, the views around me just got lovelier and lovelier.


The drive onto the monastery's land is long and beautiful. A great field of I don't know what with a smattering of yellow butterflies flitting from one stalk to another.
I hadn't been back to this place in years. I can't even begin to tell you when I might last have gone. It somehow was a place that always captured my imagination, or appealed to some deep part of my heart. Driving on a road and not being at all surprised to encounter a few cows in the middle of the road. The teeth rattling bump, bump, bump of the cow guard on my car's tires. It was all so familiar and invoked a sense of nostalgia as well as, well, something close to wonder. It's just so pretty.
I took a million photographs so I'm rolling them out slowly. This was the drive to the guest house/old farm house where H.'s guests stayed.

Happy Hour Slider c/o Rembrandt's

Last week, maybe Thursday, LW and I went to Rembrandt's for happy hour. We just made it and quickly ordered our beers and snacks. I was so fond of the sliders when I met up with A.S. there a while back that I ordered them again. Tasty little treats, they were. Later She-J. met up with us and then I force fed her lasagna on the porch while we chatted.

Neighborly Wine and Lasagna with Salad

Last week I enjoyed a glass of wine with my next door neighbor J. and baby S. while sitting on their new sidewalk bench. It was a nice wine, I forget what it was.
Then I contributed some lasagna to dinner with them. He-J. made a nice salad to go with it, which may have been the first green thing I'd eaten in days.
Thanks for the wine, company, and making a solid dent in the lasagna!

Mushroom and Parsley Ricotta Lasagna

On Labor Day proper I got myself together and made a lasagna. It was a success. I added garlic and parsley to the ricotta, made a bechamel sauce minus the nutmeg, sauteed the mushrooms and did a few other things to make this a delightfully decadent dish.
We're talking at least six layers folks.

Weekend Spatchcock

On Labor Day weekend I generally did very little in the way of socialization. But I did, at one point, decide that I would spatchcock a chicken. LW came over to enjoy. I was a little impatient with the coals, which led to my putting on the chicken (not even over direct coal) waaaaaay too soon. This, in turn, led to a very blackened outer skin while parts of the inner chicken still needed more time. In the end the final product was a little too dark on the outside for me to be really pleased with - but the meat itself hadn't given up the ghost of its moisture, so really all was fine. Thanks to LW for joining!