Slick Marketing

I saw this and I couldn't help but laugh...


Hot Springs Spa sales, DIRECTLY in front of the infamous Rt 29 South Sinkhole....

Goodbye Weekend

It's been a wonderful weekend. Beautiful skies, just a smidgen of rain, hot, but not too obscenely hot.

At the beginning of the month we noticed that the female Bluebird had suddenly disappeared after the second broad of eggs had hatched. The male appeared only occasionally to eat. We suspect foul play. Suddenly in the last two weeks we noticed the male is back and "a" female has been hanging out in the bluebird house. After the pair left briefly this morning Steve peeked in the bluebirdhouse and discovered a new set of three eggs. We're surprised, all research evidence suggests two sets of eggs a season only, three is very rare. We think the male hitched up with a new female and got busy, very quickly...He's certainly the man, doesn't waste any time in eating or the family life...

Photo Friday ~ "Portrait"

The Theme for this week's Photo Friday is "Portrait".



For lack of "subject matter" for this theme, you're stuck with my mug...

Disappointing

One of my all time favorite things in Cville is the view of the Valley from Pantops. I would to drive up to the top just to look and take pictures of the valley at sunset, it was always awesome. Many an evening I saw photographers trying to capture the view too...

This morning driving down the hill I could see the very foggy valley before me and loved it... so I took a quick trip back up and parked attempting to get a good picture.

But the powers that be have decided to give the go ahead to builders on Pantops and it seems they are going to make use of every possible free square inch...Needless to say, the great valley {un-obstructed} view is now no more and I'm disappointed...

Ooopsy

Can you imagine being the cause of this little mishap? Slightly Embarrassing? Glad it wasn't me...
11:45am, Wendy's parking lot, Preston Ave.

Photo Friday ~ Common~ Heron

The theme for PhotoFriday this week is "Common". Another morning that I managed to get up early and go down to the lake to see how the view was. I stopped at the 11th & 12th hole because the sprinkler systems were going full force and I liked the view. It seemed fairly "Common" I thought; I had just released my finger from the shutter and looked up and noticed a very large bird flying in my direction...

{click on the pic for a bigger view and the Heron in the middle of the waterspray}

It was a Blue Heron. God it was beautiful and huge. It flew right over top of me and as it went by {while I tried to unsuccessfully get a picture} I had a flash of Jurassic Park with the Pterodactyls in my head. Hey when you haven't your highly caffienated Latte yet, it can do funky stuff to ya.

Fascinating

After weeks of watching, I'm still totally fascinated and transfixed by something this tiny....

Yoders

In my hunt for new places for things I had been unable to find previously {like my Plum Jam} a co-worker told me about Yoders Country Market. I was immeditately intrigued and had to check it out.

But they closed at 6pm during the week. So last week after leaving work a little early I rode out to Yoders. I couldn't believe I had gone so long without finding this place. It's right off of Rt29N on Rt231, not even a couple of miles down.
Even at 3pm on a Friday this tiny little store was really busy. I think I strolled the isles a least 3 times trying to not miss anything. Natural country products either produced by the Yoders or locally in Virginia. Almost all of the dry goods could be purchased in small qty's or bulk qty's. Homemade mixes like Oatmeal cookies or Buttermilk biscuits that you just add water too and at dirt cheap prices. Bulk Spices. The old fashioned bulk candy isle was very popular, I had to seriously resist temptation there. Fresh made pies and breads....And the deli counter where you can have a fresh sandwich made while you wait is great.

I suggest a drive out to check them out if you haven't been yet...oh and I found yummy Plum Jam...

Temporary?

Since the One Lane Bridge on Proffit Road is being rebuilt and the bridge shut down during construction I've avoided Polo Grounds Road because the Railroad one-lane road crossing makes me nervous. Well during the infamous Rt29 Sinkhole repair last week and nightmare traffic that resulted I tried the Polo Grounds route.

I found out they have put up a Temporary Stoplight because of the increased traffic detouring from Proffit Road.

I was surprised and relieved. It was so much better to go thru the crossing with that light. Now I'm wondering what can be done to have a Stoplight become a permanent fixture for the R/R Crossing...

Photo Friday ~ Remarkable

This weeks theme for Photo Friday is "Remarkable"

It's Back...

Apparently the Rt29 south Sinkhole is back... Of course it wasn't good for the evening rush hour, traffic crawled for miles between the Research Park and Hollymead

The hazy,hot tension in the air the past couple of days has been oppressive...

but as soon as it busts loose it's a relief...

Pantops Excitement

Went into town this morning to get some errands done and found out Pantops was all a buzz with excitement and activity...

Turns out someone tried to rob the Bank with a Bombthreat right across from Applebees. The suspect is still on the loose.


But what was almost as interesting as the robbery, was the spectator action....People standing in groups everywhere, the parking lot ready to overflow from the combination of shoppers and people trying to drive by slowly and as close as possible to see what was going on. I lost count of how many people sat in the vehicles with the A/C running trying to watch. The resturant Sticks must have been very happy, there was a huge crowd of people sitting in front outside eating and spectating...



The sleepy little town of Cville, where there's acutally never a dull moment and die hard serious when it comes to their spectator sports...

Photo Friday~ Summer

This weeks theme for Photo Friday is "Summer"

I adore La Cocina Del Sol in Crozet, Virginia. Such Yummy Mexican food with just a little bit of twist to it.

Everytime I see this photo it brings back memories of biker trips on Sunday afternoons from last Summer...It was so much fun to jump on the Harley, ride out to Crozet and sit in this colorful restaurant and eat lunch with an icy beverage...

Shrooms part1

I love the day after a good rain, because chances of this happening around here lately are damn good...


These are among the hundreds that covered the edge of the road for a 1/4 a mile...I could have spent the entire day walking and looking for shrooms. But then if I had I would never have been able to enjoy this...

Around the Bend

Driving last night at 9:30pm, raining...come around the bend in the road to be hit with a mega, monster high beam and heart racing thinking I was about to run head first into a tractor-trailer only to realize it was a train coming around the bend from the opposite direction...

Adrenaline, it certainly woke me up. The train at night was cool. Might have to do that again...

Happy Birthday America

I hope you have safe and wonderful 4th of July!

Testing, 1...2...3...

Hey is this thing on? ...Picking up where I left off....Saturday during my powerwalk I found out that the resort was undergoing festivities for the 4th of July...Live Band, and Fireworks over the Lake...See excerise is good for other things like making sure you don't miss out on the good stuff...

So around eight o'clock, I made myself a nice cold pack dinner, wandered down to the Lake with dinner, blanket and knitting bag in hand. Sat on the waters edge, ate my dinner, watched the ducks cruise by and knit my little heart out till it was too dark to see anything.

The entire resort was jam packed with cars and people. I'll spare you the lodge side of the lake activity, not quite as tranquil. The Lakeside would have been totally perfect if it weren't for the dag gone bugs...I was drowning in bug repellent and I was still having bug issues...

This was right before the last minutes rush at 8:45. I was actually surprised I could take any pictures at all because it was already dark.
For a tiny little resort they put on a damn decent display, 25 minutes worth.

I spoke too soon, blogger is misbehaving again...sigh.. photobucket to the rescue.

In other assorted totally non important bits...Between the good week long rain and Steve's major greenthumb & TLC, we've got some major wild grass going on...the lawnmower is getting a robust workout.

Due to circumstances beyond my control, I've had to explore non-dairy product alternatives. I thought my daily Latte was going to become a distant memory.I discovered Lactose free milk doesn't taste horrible, in fact I can't tell a difference. Soy...Got a Soy Latte at Starbucks today and I decided Soy is accecptable but it didn't get my groove on; my Latte was "ok" but not nearly as satisfying...Toffutti Ice Cream is pretty good, not Bryers but good. Soy yogurt...one word...Foul...not going there again, ever...

I stopped by Rebbecca's Natural Food Store today at Barracks Road for the first time to check out some dairy alternatives. The staff was very friendly and helpful. As health food stores rate, it's a dang cool store...

Still Here...

I'm still here; I've been trying to upload pictures to this post since Saturday morning, I give up Blogger wins. Critter wise it's been extremly quiet around here from the week of almost non-stop rain which meant we hadn't had a chance to fill up the fill up the feeders and all the birds stopped showing up. But after tending to everything first thing Saturday morning everybody is back to their usual routines.

Like this beautiful cardinal; I love it when I get to see one, they rarely sit still long enough to get a good look at them.

Lovely new color on the back deck. I can't attest to their hummingbird attracting abilities, but their bug attracting abilities have been verified...




I am so in love with this glass window hummingbird feeder. It was a little nerve racking testing out this thing yesterday. A couple of hours testing the suction cup, then a couple more hours testing out attaching the feeder, then finally adding the hummingbird food.
So far no hummingbird attraction...but again, guaranteed bug attraction; I'm waiting for the inevitable line of ants up the door....