DC on Days 2 & 3

On Monday the Godon family and Kevin, along with Shelli and me, visited Mount Vernon, the estate of George Washington. I have avoided duplicating pictures that are on previous blog posts so I'll be skipping right along. That evening we took the same boat ride I had taken in September during daylight hours. There was a lot more to see in the daytime, but it was a pleasant way to spend an evening.

The families meet. George really was tall for his era.

I can't remember the name of this tree, but I love the color!

The education building does a nice job of telling about George.

This is part of Mount Verrnon's front lawn facing the Potomac River...it's just not directly in front of the house.

The Lincoln Memorial is right by the Potomac also.

We expected rain on the following day so those of us who had thought of going to the Botanical Gardens opted to join everyone else and visit the native Indian museum. Both are Smithsonian museums, but part of the gardens are outdoors. This was our last full day in Washington DC.

We learned that there is a free show every evening at the Kennedy Center so off we went.

I didn't manage to get any good pictures of the dancers, but it was an enjoyable hour. Actually, the show could have been anything and I would have been happy as long as I was off my feet!

After this we went home to pack. We would be leaving after breakfast the next day and heading north to spend some time with my sister, Nancy, and her husband, Dale.

Dale is a great tour guide for the Elmira, NY area so I had left the planning up to him.

Saying goodby to Shelli.

Godon family visits DC

Early in the morning of August 2nd, a Saturday, Mary drove me to the train in Albany. Some hours later at Penn Station I didn't have time to even look around when someone was tapping me on the shoulder. There was Lauryne Godon and we needed to catch a train to Newark Airport where her mom and dad would be waiting with a rental car. Running is not my strong point. We reached the first NJ train as the doors closed. Fortunately we didn't have to run for the second one!

Francis and Marie-Annick were waiting for us, loaded my baggage into the car and plugged in the TomTom, GPS, that I had brought with me. We were off to Alexandria, VA to stay with Shelli while touring Washington DC. That evening Francis and Lauryne met Kevin at Dulles Airport while Shelli, Marie-Annick, and I went food shopping. Shelli decided to be more than just the host. She would play tourist along with us. That made my life a lot easier. Shelli understood the subway system!

We decided to take a tour bus around Washington DC. That would give us an overview of the city and allow us to get off and on again where we wanted to spend some time. Since I put pictures of most of the memorials and monuments that are near the Tidal Basin on this blog for the trip to DC I had taken last September, I didn't bother taking those same pictures again...

I can't tell you what all the places are that we passed, but this is the train station. It has a gold ceiling. The gold flakes off the ceiling so they put a net underneath to catch the gold...otherwise we might have been interested in wandering through the place.

This is where our politicians make sure that the common man sees less and less "gold" while the wealthy see more and more.

We had brought bag lunches and found a table by an outdoor snack bar. The birds were busy gathering crumbs.

The scaffolding is off!

This is what the Tidal Basin looks like close up. Definitely not conducive to swimming.

 

The World War II Memorial

By the end of day 1 my feet were glad to reach "home" and relax while the younger crowd got dinner on the table. It was a merry group. I never did find time to read the book I'd brought along!

Garden Tour with Jeb

Jeb finished the pond on the same day as the Mount Holly Garden Tour. My yard had been part of that tour last year, but I couldn't imagine anyone wanting to pay to see my mess this year. Jeb and I both wanted to see the 2014 gardens so after he took the Kubota home, we met at the Belmont Store.

I've been in this garden before, but I didn't remember there being an elephant!

No rock border around this pond, but a nice fake heron.

Jeb (center) and I met up with Jack and Linda checking out more of Jeb's walls.

This house lost half of its back yard with Irene, the hurricane that flooded Vermont. Jeb was hired to build a wall so the erosion couldn't continue and threaten the house. The wall is about 30 feet high and built in 2 sections...

When Jeb was about halfway up, he created a platform so he could build the rest of the wall. The rock steps continue all the way to the grass below. It was pretty amazing to climb the wall!

 

 

 

 

This is the small pond in the lawn below the monster wall. I was comparing ponds, getting ideas.

3 ponds become 2

Making 3 ponds in 2013 turned out okay. They accomplished the intended purpose of allowing really soggy land to dry out enough to walk over without wearing high boots, but the water didn't want to flow from one to the next along the path we had planned. At least we'd had time to mull things over. Over the winter both Jeb and I had come up with a few ideas and, with dryer land, Jeb was able to do in 2014 what was not possible the summer before. He would go home at night, but his work horse stayed in the yard. By the time he finished I was thinking of his orange Kubota as a member of the family!

Looking down from my deck, there is Jeb and his dog looking over a pile of rocks they had uncovered while digging. There are actually 4 ponds in this picture! The furthest one is the beaver pond, on my land, but designated as a federal wetland. The next pond with the white dinghy floating in it is being connected to the smaller pond above it. Then there is a perennial garden, not yet very colorful because it is too early for the red bee balm to be blooming. To the right of this garden is the smallest pond. We now refer to it as the "silt pond" because we hope that eventually it will catch the dirt and keep most of it out of the big pond.

All of the dirt between these two ponds is going to disappear! It will eventually raise the level of the field and some will be carried up the hill to increase the more level part of my yard by the house. The raised beds in the foreground are my original veggie garden. The ones below have been added this year and not completed in this picture.

Even this year the ground where the Kubota is working was wet enough to be treacherous. Note the pile of rocks on the right. Amazing things will happen in that area,,, 

This is looking up from the bottom of the field. There's Jake in the background checking out the silt pond. The pile of rocks has become a waterfall and a terrace, but the yard is an awful mess.

And the mess wasn't just at the bottom of the field. A lot of that dirt was coming up the hill!

Cleaning off the stones is a minor problem. How do you turn this ground into lawn? We hired a fellow with a machine to push the sticks and small stones into the earth, smooth the ground and then add grass seed and mulch.

The bottom ring of stones was the level of last summer's pond. It's hard to see, but in the middle of this pond is a BIG rock.

It's easier to spot that monster rock with water around it!

As the pond fills, the rock disappears, but it's always there. Someday I hope to be in a bathing suit and standing on it.

In the close foreground are red tomato cages. For the pond there is a gravel "beach" and stone steps into the water.

I found a purple chair! The water may be muddy, but things are looking a lot better.

A simple stone wall separates my planting space from the forest. The silt pond now has a stone walkway around it.

That's one of 2 willow bushes (pot in right background) we planted. They should grow 8 feet tall and 8 feet around. We don't want to have to mow behind the silt pond...the ground is still awfully wet...so hopefully we can fill that area with some spectacular plants.

The terrace wasn't pre-planned. Jeb found bedrock that couldn't be moved, so he turned a lemon into lemonade. It's an absolutely delightful place to sit and listen to the waterfall. Later in the summer Mary found a matching purple chair so company can join me.

Vera and Maryann who work at the high school during the school year help me keep my perennial gardens going. They helped me get over 75 plants in the ground around the pond areas. I'm looking forward to next year's show.

The red bee balm is blooming in the perennial garden. We planted some behind the silt pond where it will have room to spread.