Sunset on Overall Beach

We celebrated Christmas at Mum's this past Saturday. We looked out the window, and snow flurries! The kids ran out and starting catching snowflakes on their tongues. I knew that the sunset would be pretty spectacular, so I got in the car to race down to the bridge to take some pix. My nephew & niece jumped in with me & off we went.

Mum's driveway.

Shenandoah River. That little land mass is Overall Beach.

And then! My nephew jumped over the guard rail and ran down the mountain side!

All the way down to the river.

He did this twice, and on the third time, my niece got brave and decided to go down as well. On her backside.

See the River House across the river up on the hill?

Hullo! The photo doesn't do this justice. It's REALLY steep & far down!

OK, kids. Come on back, now!

GORGEOUS day.

Winter Wonderland

The snow is so BEAUTIFUL, especially when I don't have to drive in it! So I thought I'd post a few pix before it all melts.

Ms. Cardinal

I have a bird feeder that I move to center stage on the back porch, after the hummingbirds leave. I had a huge bag of bird seed that the squirrels & birds made a mess of. Bird seed all over the table, the porch, the bench, etc. There's one kind of bird in particular, don't know what it is, that would sit at the feeder and chuck out all the seeds it didn't like; hence the mess! I got a different brand of bird seed this last time, and apparently it doesn't attract the Messy Birds. In fact, what it seems to attract the most of, is our state bird. So in the little tree that is the Hummingbird Tree in the summertime, is the Cardinal Tree in the winter. :-)

Mr. Cardinal

And his harem.

This is my front yard, which changes according to the season, the weather . . .

. . . and the time of day:

In the summer time, you can barely see the trains going by:

I call them Tree Trains. There's a children's story in there somewhere . . . 

Stripey train cars add just a splash of colour to the winter white landscape.

Cedar tree behind the woodshed; lost that top part in last year's blizzard.

Let's take a walk down to the post box, shall we?

Overall Bridge.

Overall Creek.

Walking to my postbox:

The road looks OK on this part. I always think of Candy, our Mail Gal having to drive this everyday!

 Oh, lookit!  A coupla more birthday cards!

Click on card to embiggen. Mum's kinda card.

Newsy card from Philly Gal, as John calls her.

And back up the hill to the house:

You can tell Neighbor Dave is out of town with the non-plowed road!

Shades of Green

This spring has been so extra-glorious-beautiful. It's beautorious! It's gloriful!

This a.m.'s sunrise.

Inside. Twinkle lights. :-)

Yesterday, I ventured over the mountain thru Fort Valley into Woodstock.

On top of the mountain. AWESOME!!!

Pioneer Sister & I went to the Fibersmyth shop. All things fiber-and-yarny. They also have a sweet restaurant with so many things I could eat. Usually it's a challenge eating out when you're gluten free. But you could order any sangwich as a salad. With real greens. How cool is that?! Sometimes I'm stuck staring at the menu saying, "Um. I'll have the wilted iceberg lettuce with the anemic-hothouse-tomatoes-prolly-genetically-modified. No dressing, thanks." Bleh. Pioneer Sister and I had a big pot of proper tea. After lunch, we popped into the shop. The owner, British Elizabeth, sat behind her desk clicky-clacking away with knitting needles as we chatted. Can't wait to take Mum!

I told Elizabeth that her shop was Yarn Pornography. ;-)

Then it was back down the mountain & thru the forest:

Ended with tea with Mum & her famous omelets.

Overall Beach, a 2-minute boat ride or 50 minutes by car to get home.

Delicious day. :-)

Day of Rest

HAPPY 3rd Day of Xmas!

Sunset over Overall Beach.

Cafe Press Calendars

I've been working on 3 different calendars for different friends. Here's a sneakpeek of the cover of one. It's photos from this year that I've taken along my road.


Photo on right is the beginning of our road. There's Fisherman Willie on the top right, and just below is the back of his wife's head as we were heading back from picking blackberries. Summer seems very far away right now!

This is a shot from across from where Fisherman Willie fishes. In the summertime, people hang out on that little peninsula. My friend Paula-of-Overall calls it "Overall Beach." I'm thinking I'll get some summery photos next season and make postcards. Greetings from Overall Beach. ;-)


The next calendar is for my friends who own the Chestnut House just up the road from me. They also own the house I live in. So I did a combination of photos from the first calendar with ones of the house thru the seasons.



This is an animal collage that I didn't use, so I'm posting it here:

There's the baby woodpecker I rescued after it flew into my bay window. And the motherless fawn who came to visit, and the bear is on the lower left. No, really! That's a bear! If I can figure out how to add the calendar to my Cafe Press Store, I'll put a link on the side bar & have these available to buy.