My World Tuesday = Historic Virginia Farm = Meadowlark Gardens

My World Tuesday = Historic Virginia Farm = Meadowlark Gardens Regional Park

This Tuesday I want to show you what happened to a large farm estate in northern Virginia. The owners willed their farm to the state to be turned into a regional park with the emphasis to be put on floral displays. So this land has become Meadowlark Gardens Regional Park and it is worth several trips each season to see what is currently in bloom. In the above photo you can see the remains of the spring house that the original farmers used for storing food, dairy products, etc.

This is the lovely visitors' center that is at the entrance to the park. It is a large building with displays and information on the park and its botanical programs. Jack and I played hooky last Thursday to visit the park. This park also has a large pavilon that is used for hosting weddings and other social events. The day we were there a botony class was getting a guided tour of the park and its native trees and plants.

This was a couple that was having their wedding photos taken a couple days before their wedding so that they could savor some time alone in their wedding finery.

We found lots of tulips in bloom in pots

and in the ground.

Here is a nice stand of daffodils. My mother used to grow this variety.

Their were lots of yoshino cherry trees surrounding the lake and big lawn. The trees were slightly pass their peak with the high temps that we had last week so their was a "snow" of pink petals on the grass and on the lake.

In the middle of the lake is a gazebo that you can access by a long boardwalk.

There are lots of park benches for sitting and taking in the views and the aromas of fresh blossoms.

These tulips near the visitors center were quite colorful.

Doesn't this just warm your heart.

And in the children's garden there was a little Maypole!

Mothers and toddlers were enjoying the children's park.

Here's a little boy coming from the "twig house". Behind him is seated a red and blue "pot lady."

Well, I hope you enjoyed this visit to Meadowlark Gardens. Now please go visit some more My World Tuesday memes by clicking here: http://showyourworld.blogspot.com/

My World Tuesday = Jefferson's Poplar Forest

My World Tuesday = Jefferson's Poplar Forest

His Vacation Home down south in Bedford County

When Thomas Jefferson tired of all the guests who came to see him at Monticello outside of Charlottesville, VA he would head south to the vacation retreat home he designed and built in Bedford County Virginia. Jack and I toured it in the summer of 2003.

Here is Jack waiting at the entrance for the tour guide to usher us into the home.

And here is the tour brochure the guide gave to us after we entered the home.


Popular Forest is an octogonal house. It looks very much like a minature Monticello.

This is the very old boxwood garden that Thomas Jefferson had planted at Popular Forest.

Well that is our Virginia house tour for this Tuesday. Now please go visit some more My World Tuesday memes by just clicking here: http://showyourworld.blogspot.com/

My World Tuesday = President Thomas Jefferson's Monticello

My World Tuesday = President Thomas Jefferson's Monticello
Thomas Jefferson designed Monticello atop a hill overlooking the Charlottesville, VA area.

He later designed the original grounds of the University of Virginia and could view it

from atop his mountain estate at Monticello.

Above is the visitor's guide we received in 2006 when we showed our

good friends Sandra and Gene Jefferson's home.

It was a warm fall day and the leaves had turned so it was a perfect day to visit Monticello.



The main house has dependencies extending on each side.


You can stand on the roof of the long dependencies and see the University of Virginia in the distance.

And here is where President Thomas Jefferson is buried.

Relatives that can prove they are closely related can also be buried here.

The vegetable gardens at Monticello.

Now go visit some other My World Tuesday memes by clicking here: http://showyourworld.blogspot.com/

My World Tuesday = Historic Woodlawn Plantation

My World Tuesday = Historic Woodlawn Plantation

Across The Road From George Washington's Mount Vernon

Folks, when you go to Mount Vernon enjoy the tour of the home, grounds, and museum.

My favorite part of the tour is the view of the Potomac River from the home.

But listen up.

When you leave Mount Vernon go across highway #1 to Woodlawn Plantation

which also belonged to George Washington.

It is so beautiful.

It is a gorgeous red brick Georgian style home.

In 1983 I made sure my niece Diane Gariety Siegrist and her husband Ron Siegrist got to see

this beautiful mansion. Diane and Ron are pictured here with my two daughters Jennifer and Jeanine.

One time Jack and I and the girls were going down highway #1 and we noticed a gov't helicopter

had landed at Woodlawn and we noticed a slew of cars parked on the lawn. The next day we read in the Washington Post that President Ronald Reagan had given his wife Nancy a birthday partyat Woodlawn Plantation. I believe Nancy Reagan's birthday is in July so this garden party must have taken place in July.

Now go visit some more My World Memes by clicking here: http://showyourworld.blogspot.com/

My World Tuesday = Another Historic VA Home

James and Dolly Madison lived in this duplex home with his parents. James Madison had his good friend and fellow Virginia Thomas Jefferson, our third president design this home. The home eventually was sold after the presidency of James Madison and Dolly moved to Washington D.C. to live.

This is how the house looked in 2008 when we toured the mansion for about the fourth time. We keep going back to see how the historic renovation is going. As you can see the house is now down to the original bricks that have been cleaned and repaired in places. And the home has a colonial style roof instead of a tin roof. Now look below to see how James Madison's Montpelier looked back in 2003 before the renovation.

What a difference! Over time this home had been sold and resold until it eventually came in the early 20'th century into the hands of a woman who was a DuPont. She is the one who added two huge wings to the mansion and had the home stuccoed over and then painted pink. We toured this home a few years earlier when the home had just been opened for tourists after a lengthy drawn out feud among the heirs who did not want to follow the stated guidelines of the deceased DuPont who stated that the home should be rightfully restored to days of James and Dolly Madison.

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What I remember most about the house on that very first visit is that the DuPont furnishings in the foyer, dining room and living room had not yet been removed to be given to the heirs. There were some beautiful Persian carpets and a huge mahogany Chippendale breakfront with all the crystal and china still on display.

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The wildest room in the house was the DuPont hunt room that looked like a 1950's era black, white and red room with dreadful looking 50's modern furniture. This room had been used for fox hunt social functions and it displayed photos and trophies of the DuPont horses that had won many awards on the fox hunt circuit. The decor made Elvis's Graceland look good!

Sidenote: James and Dolly Madison like Thomas Jefferson and George Washington owned slaves.

When the Madison's had garden parties the small children of the black slaves were required to go out on the big lawn with buckets to pick up all the droppings of the sheep. Can you imagine that!

Oh, we also learned from the tour guide that the reason there were sheep roaming the great lawn was that they were used to "mow" the great lawn by eating the grass.

Here is a Greek style temple on the grounds leading up to the home.

And here is a beautiful summertime view of the formal gardens of the home with the mountains

in the background.

I took this photo of Jack with all the white hydrangeas and shrub roses in bloom.

Hope you enjoyed this week's tour of a historic Virgina home. I'll be showing you another great Virginia estate next week. Now go visit some other My World Tuesday memes by just clicking here: http://showyourworld.blogspot.com/

One last comment if you have time. The Washington Post ran an article this week about the old train station that the DuPonts had built for their servants on the grounds of Montpelier. Jack and I have been in this train station. Before the recent renovation and the new visitor's center was built one had to park at the defunct train station, buy your visitor's pass inside the station and then hop aboard a bus to go up to the home.

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Now the defunct train station has been restored to its early pre-civil rights era of the twentieth century which means that when you tour the train station you will see how it looked when it was actually two stations in one: one for whites and one for colored people. If you take the tour you will notice two doors: one labeled whites and one labeled coloreds. Then after you enter you will notice that the white station waiting room was larger and spacious while the colored station was smaller and narrower. Also the restrooms for the colored were in the basement and I think the news article said that you had to exit the building to use them. But there was only one train attendant so there was a cubicle where the two waiting rooms intersected and the train attendant helped both groups. Of course, the whites were always waited on first and the coloreds had to wait till there was a free moment for the train attendant.

My World Tuesday = Shirley Plantation

I'm late.

I'm late.

For a very important date:

Posting my My World Tuesday pics.

(This what happens when you upgrade to Windows 7 and you have to reinvent the wheel so to speak.)

Above is my very favorite plantation home in the state of Virginia.

It backs to the James River and has been farmed by the same family for over 14 generations.

Can you believe that. Do take note of the beautiful wood moulding and paneling on all the walls.

This is one of the main drawing rooms of the three story home. Jack and I first came here to tour it in July of 1983. While we were listening to the tour guide we saw a man in farm jeans and shirt enter and go up the grand walnut staircase to the second floor. The tour guide then told us that this man in work clothes was the current owner of the plantation and was coming in for lunch in the family quarters after being out in the field harvesting a crop. I think the crop was either wheat or hay. Since 1983 we have made two more trips back to Shirley to tour it.


It was on the 1983 trip that Jack and I got into big trouble. The plantation owner who lived upstairs had two yellow cats and they would follow us from one room to another and both my daughters who love cats couldn't resist going up to the cats. Jack took a picture of Jennifer looking at one of the the cats on one of the big colonial beds (see above pic) and he also took a picture of three year old Jeanine looking at the same cat. (see below pic)

In the next room that we visited with the tour guide and about twenty other tourists I was concentrating on what the tour guide had to say when the tour guide stopped and announced that the parents of the children who are pulling the cats' tails in the colonial crib need to attend to their children. Jack and I look around and oh, my gosh, we were the terrible parents who were not watching their kids close enough and allowing them to pull the cats' tails in the crib!

Oh, we were so embarrassed but not as embarrassed as our two redfaced girls! By the way, the crib that the cats were lounging in was the very same crib that Robert E. Lee from Virginia used as a crib when he was a tiny baby.


Well, that is my Virginia home tour for this Tuesday. If you haven't done so already, please go visit some other My World Tuesday memes by just clicking here:
http://showyourworld.blogspot.com/