Skywatch Friday-Reflections from Lexington, Virginia-December 22, 2008

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Skywatch Friday-Scene from a Disused Graveyard

The living come with grassy tread
To read the gravestones on the hill;
The graveyard draws the living still,
But never any more the dead.

The verses in it say and say;
The ones who living come today
To read the stones and go away
Tomorrow dead will come to stay.

So sure of death the marbles rhyme,
Yet can't help marking all the time
How no one dead will seem to come,
What is it men are shrinking from?

It would be easy to be clever
And tell the stones: Men hate to die
And have stopped dying now forever.
I think they would believe the lie.
In a Disused Graveyard-Robert Frost


Please visit Skywatch Friday for more fabulous photographs from throughout the world. Photographed at Godwin Cemetary, Fincastle,Virginia-December 6, 2008 in the howling wind and bitter cold. I laid on the grass to take this shot through the gravestone. The tree in the picture is over two hundred years old.

SKYWATCH FRIDAY-A Day in the Countryside

This past Sunday the weather was freezing but the skies beautiful and blue. The wind was whipping and the temperature was in the teens but, I decided to brave the elements and hit the road. Traveled about 18 miles up the road and was blessed with many great photographic opportunities including this of a side channel of the James River near Eagle Rock. Please visit Skywatch Friday for more fabulous photographs from throughout the world.

The James River is a 410-mile (660 km) long river, including its Jackson River source. It drains a catchment comprising 10,432 square miles (27,020 km2). The watershed includes about 4% open water and an area with a population of 2.5 million people (2000). It is the 12th longest river in the United States that remains entirely within a single state.

The James River forms in the Allegheny Mountains, near Iron Gate on the border between Allegheny and Botetourt counties from the confluence of the Cowpasture and Jackson Rivers, and flows into the Chesapeake Bay at Hampton Roads. Tidal waters extend west to Richmond, the capital of Virginia, at its fall line, (the head of navigation). Larger tributaries draining to the tidal portion include the Appomatox River, Chickahominy River, Warwick River, Pagan River, and the Nansemono River.

The navigable portion of the river was the major highway of the Colony of Virginia during its first 15 years, facilitating supply ships delivering supplies and more people from England. However, for the first five years, despite many hopes of gold and riches, these ships sent little of monetary value back to the sponsors. In 1612, businessman John Rolfe successfully cultivated a non-native strain of tobacco,which proved popular in England. Soon, the river became the primary means of exporting the large hogshead of this cash crop from an ever-growing number of plantations with wharfs along its banks. This development made the proprietary efforts of the Virginia Company of London successful financially, spurring even more development, investments and immigration. Below the falls at Richmond, many James River plantations had their own wharfs, and additional ports and/or early railheads were located at Warwick, Bermuda Hundred, City Point, Claremont, Scotland, and Smithfield, and, during the 17th century, the capital of the Colony at Jamestown.

Navigation of the James River played an important role in early Virginia commerce and the settlement of the interior, although growth of the colony was primarily in the Tidewater regions during the first 75 years. The upper reaches of the river above the head of navigation at the fall line were explored by fur trading parties sent by Abraham Wood during the late 17th century.
Although ocean-going ships could not navigate past present-day Richmond, portage of products and navigation with smaller craft to transport crops other than tobacco was feasible. Produce from the Piedmont and Great Valley regions traveled down the river to seaports at Richmond and Manchester through such port towns as Lynchburg, Scottsville, Columbia and Buchanan.

Today the river offers a variety of recreational activities including rafting, fishing and boating.

the chain-skywatch friday

Listen to the wind blow

Watch the sun rise

Run in the shadows

Damn your love

Damn your lies

And if You dont love me now

You will never love me again

I can still hear you saying

You would never break the chain.

Listen to the wind blow

Down comes the night

Run in the shadows

Damn your love

Damn your lies

Break the silence

Damn the dark

Damn the light

And if You dont love me now

You will never love me again

I can still hear you saying

You would never break the chain.
-Fleetwood Mac-

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Skywatch Friday-Giving Thanks This November 2008

Photograph Taken at Stuart's Draft, Virginia-November 2008

When you arise in the morning, give thanks for the morning light, for your life and strength. Give thanks for your food, and the joy of living. If you see no reason for giving thanks, the fault lies within yourself-Tecumseh

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SKYWATCH FRIDAY from Stuart's Draft, Virginia

Went to dinner last Saturday at the Eidelweiss Restaurant just outside Staunton, Virginia and some 8 miles from Stuart's Draft, Virginia. Had a wonderful dinner of schweinshaxe and shared a dessert of bread pudding with my husband. Leaving the restaurant I noticed the sky was spectacular and changing quickly as a storm was coming in. This photograph is untouched and was taken just outside Stuart's Draft. I thought the cloud formations and colors unbelievable.
Enjoy. Click on it to enlarge...

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Potts Creek at Paint Bank, Virginia

Please click on photo to enlarge...makes quite a difference.

SKYWATCH FRIDAY from Virginia

This picture was taken two weeks ago in Bedford County Virginia off Route 460. We were on our way to Forest, Virginia to visit a friend who owns an Italian restaurant. We met Joe seven years ago when we first moved to Roanoke and have kept in touch with him as he moved to Florida and again back to Virginia. Enjoyed visiting with Joe and his family and having a yummy meal.

There is no black-and-white situation.

It's all part of life.

Highs, lows, middles

Van Morrison

Shades of grey wherever I go,

the more I find out the less that I know,

black and white is how it should be,

but shades of grey are the colors I see

Billy Joel

SKYWATCH FRIDAY-

I just love the Virginia sky. The clouds are awesome. One of my few joys since moving East is the beautiful skies and countryside. Please visit Skywatch Friday for more fabulous photographs from throughout the world.

Change is inevitable, except from vending machines...

thought this a great quote for the day after no matter what your party affiliation.

Let Us Remember as We Vote...

We believe...that faith in God, as recognized by our Founding Fathers, is essential to the moral fiber of the Nation.

Took this picture outside the social hall where I recently attended a baby shower. Did not realize how great the shot was until I was going through my photos at home. It actually is a very mystical depiction. I had saved it to post for election day as sort of a election-neutral comment but, one that expresses my faith as well and my belief in our Nation.

Paint Bank Virginia

Had the opportunity to take a nice long drive in the country on Saturday and was lucky enough to come across these trout in a pond near the restaurant we had lunch at. Will be posting more photographs from my trip into the Virginia countryside in the days a head.

Happy Halloween-excerpt from The Legend of Sleepy Hollow

An opening in the trees now cheered him with the hopes that the churchbridge was at hand. The wavering reflection of a silver star in thebosom of the brook told him that he was not mistaken. He saw the wallsof the church dimly glaring under the trees beyond. He recollected theplace where Brom Bones's ghostly competitor had disappeared. "If I canbut reach that bridge," thought Ichabod, "I am safe." Just then he heardthe black steed panting and blowing close behind him; he even fanciedthat he felt his hot breath. Another convulsive kick in the ribs, andold Gunpowder sprang upon the bridge; he thundered over the resoundingplanks; he gained the opposite side; and now Ichabod cast a look behindto see if his pursuer should vanish, according to rule, in a flash offire and brimstone. Just then he saw the goblin rising in his stirrups,and in the very act of hurling his head at him. Ichabod endeavored tododge the horrible missile, but too late. It encountered his craniumwith a tremendous crash,--he was tumbled headlong into the dust...