Late Summer at the Farm

Our last chance to get away to the farm before Grace and I start school this week coming up. 

Hitting all of our favorite Roanoke spots on Saturday – IHOP still has pancakes!  Ian found to his temporary dismay that his favorite card shop was relocating.  Barnes and Noble had a better than usual bargain sale.  We found a new Kroger’s to try and Grace was delighted to spy a little cafe with gelato called Pino Gelato!   We took a “new” route back to the farm that involved a fun but slightly unnerving road paved (barely) with gravel, and wide enough (barely) for one vehicle, which wound all around and up and down the mountain called Adney Gap Rd!  We found a beautiful little Hidden Valley (yes, like the ranch dressing!) on Wade’s Gap Rd (just before Adney Gap).  

We were blessed with the most restful Sabbath in a long time.  Cinnamon rolls and scrambled eggs started us off, followed by Scripture:  Grace reading from Matthew, Ralph reading from Exodus, Sara reading from Psalms then Deuteronomy and Ian reading from Job (Chapter 2 – the prayer from the belly of the whale!).   Grace led us in a round of “Love the LORD your God with all your heart,” and then the kids went out to skate in the barn  and shoot hoops.  The temperature was in the lower 70′s and Ralph and I sat in the shade of the Chestnut Tree and drank coffee, checked email and watched wild turkeys and the occasional deer cross the back field.    After lunch we moved to the other side of the cottage under the bigger Chestnut Tree and enjoyed a fabulous breeze and watched clouds high and white and fluffy sail over the ridge, while the kids played a card version of Monopoly.  The clouds turned dark and a storm rolled in with big fat drops of cool rain, and flashes of lightning and a few strong gusts of wind.  The deer raced toward home, and we rushed to gather up laptops, blankets, cards and chairs and hurried to reluctantly close the windows that were open all over the cottage.  We watched the storm bluster across our little farm.  To our joy we were gifted with a stunning rainbow drenched in rich brushstrokes of color! 

Monday we all enjoyed a fun family adventure hike to Fallingwater Cascades at Mile Post 83 on the Blue Ridge Parkway.  The path was well-defined, and scattered with byways and benches and boulders, and a butterfly bush covered with enormous butterflies!   We followed the path of the water down, and then hiked back up, appetites stoked for lunch!  It was mid-afternoon so we stopped in the Peaks of Otter Lodge to find their Dining Room fairly empty.  Despite our hiking apparel we were welcomed to sit down, so we enjoyed a delightful lunch overlooking the lake and Sharp Top,  followed by a lighter hike around the picturesque lake (to burn off the Blackberry Cobbler!)  We drove home along the Blue Ridge and found the Syon Abbey and the other side of our little ridge before heading home.

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The Road Less Travelled…

The six-hour drive from Norfolk to our family farm tucked up amongst the gently rounded mountains of the Blue Ridge, is long.  We have taken many different roads to the farm in an effort to save time, improve food choices, and increase options for rest-type breaks, always remembering that time is of the essence.  Lately, flatter and straighter roads have become important due to some with sensitivity to motion. This requires larger highways and often involves a tunnel, which everyone in Hampton Roads tries to avoid.  

Leaving in late morning we hit The Tunnel at just the right time to see sailboats and fishing boats navigating dark gray water.  In the haze, an  international container ship stacked high with cargo entered the Bay, but  there was no traffic back up.  We stopped for lunch in Richmond at Short Pump, formerly farm country quilted with fields, now blanketed by vast stretches  of dining, shopping and hotels.  It never ceases to surprise me.  We enjoyed the climb over Afton Mountain, smaller now that it used to seem, and turned south around Staunton.  At which point the drive started feeling very hot, very crowded and very rushed.   Suddenly it didn’t seem so important to make time.  Turning east, we took a small road through Buena Vista and entered the Blue Ridge Parkway, and that made all the difference.

Immediately the car was 10 degrees cooler in the thick soothing shade of trees clasping hands across the road, an arch for a promenade, as  we wheeled southward.   We saw few others, just a few motorcycling couples.  The relaxed pace of the Blue Ridge Parkway, with it’s many overviews, hikes, and byways invites travelers to slow down, dawdle even.

Otter Creek was trickling by, first on the left, then on the right.  Finally, our curiosity got the best of us and we stopped, the first time just looking, peering down the embankment.  A second time, a much broader expanse of clear creek water sparkling in rogue rays of dappled sunlight seemed to invite, no, require, recently bared feet to step in and cool off, as it tripped over smooth, round stones of all sizes.   Small fish skittered away at our intrusion.   Larger rocks proved perfect for sitting, others were stepping-stones up and down and across the creek.  There was only one slip into the very shallow water, and I really don’t think it was a slip…Reluctantly, we gathered our shoes and returned to the car.  

Another few moments spent along  Thunder Ridge brought to mind a recent read-aloud scene from The Hobbit where very large trolls turned to very large stones in the morning sun.  This quick leg-stretcher hike wraps around a chain of immense boulders, which we cautiously skirted until ensuring they were, in fact, boulders.  The path then led through thickets of green, and with a sudden turn revealed a stone block parapet from which we surveyed the world like royalty surveying the kingdom!  Below us, a small valley spread out green and leafy, lined with trees, and far off across the expanse, sister ridges rose up in layers of purple, and shades of blue, and finally faded to misty grey as thin wispy clouds passed by.

The miles melted away as the parkway took us through the Jefferson National Forest where shafts of sunlight angled through the branches, and took on substance as the sun sunk lower in the sky.  Seemingly translucent leaves glowed golden green, and glossy.  Bright spring green meadows and glades appeared between stretches of trees, the fields dotted swiss by an abundance of creamy white Queen Anne’s lace swaying softly in the late afternoon breeze.  

The Peaks of Otter rose up on our left, and we stopped there too,  just for a moment, and soaked up the compositional beauty of the mountain, perfectly reflected in the lake just below, surrounded by cool green lawn. 

Continuing South on the Blue Ridge Parkway,  our destination demanded that we eventually emerge onto our next road, which led to progressively smaller roads, finally turning into a gravel drive that dips, then climbs, then stops before a small cottage, by a big red barn, which means we are at the farm.  Papa Gene was there, waving…

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I love Robert Frost – HERE is a link to a poetry site with the text to his poem, The Road Not Taken, and a voice recording.