Tuesday

I think I pretty much covered all that happened on the earlier posts as I missed a couple days then caught up all at once Monday night when we got back from our 4 day 3 night visit to Northern Virginia. I'm always amazed at how beautiful the landscape is in the Shenandoah Valley nestled between the Blue Ridge Mountains. The huge farms that are still producing are manicured to perfection with just a few exceptions. The lonely large barns that have been abandoned when there are no heirs to work the land or when the farmers give up due to whatever and sell the land to developers who build modern houses that stand out between the old abandoned houses and barns. It's no wonder the Valley was the breadbasket for the South during the Civil War and was a must for the South to hold. When they lost control of this food producing area the war was virtually over.

We saw lots of historical markers that indicated where many battles took place along route 11. Many of the towns were established in the 1700's and we found or saw lots of the original buildings that are still in use from that era. The history is just abundant throughout the Valley and throughout Virginia.

The Goochenour dairy farm next door to Dee and Mike's home is enviable. He milks along with several members of his family Holstein dairy cows twice a day and raises or grows all the feed he needs for them as well. The fields of corn, soybeans, alfalfa and wheat are beautiful as well are his gardens for their own personal use. I also believe he raises hogs for slaughter as well. This is just a beautiful farm that butts up to their sub-division that was once part of the original farm land. I think that is why Dee's garden is such a good producer. Her garden is bearing an unbelievable crop of tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers both hot and sweet along with Mike's sweet onion's. They blessed us with a bag of all of the above as our garden here in the mountains is zilch for this year except for a few things that love lots of rain. Speaking of rain it rained hard last evening after we got settled in from the trip and it's raining now at 7 AM this morning as I make this post.

Well it's back to a routine with just the two of us for a couple weeks then Mike and Dee will visit us over the Labor Day week-end. I sure hope we get some sunshine this week and at least a few hot summer days before Fall sets in and then winter, LATER