~white oak (Quercus alba) on the Charlottesville-Albemarle Airport property~
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Did you happen to see this wonderful piece over at Wired titled 'The Oldest Trees on the Planet"? Wouldn't it be fun to be able to stop everything and just go and take a look, from a distance even, at each of these trees? I know I'd love to do that.
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I'm back in the Airstream.
Whew.
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~Mom's back garden daffodils~
During my last evening in Virginia, before neighbors arrived for dinner, I took a few more images of my Mother's daffodils - I can't seem to get enough of them. After dinner, a neighbor and I played my father and the neighbor's spouse in a game of canasta (the 'men' vs the 'women') - the only card game that my family remained addicted to over the years. The three of us weren't sure how my father would do, but he always loved to play, so we thought we'd give it a try.
My father's team won. He played perfectly. Actually, if you know anything about the game, he even had a concealed canasta one game - which of course means that he strategized. And of course he was thrilled that his team won.
What can I say?
The mind is a freaky thing. I don't claim to understand it.
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According to my observations, I think that my Mom's garden has at least 15 or more daffodil varieties: these four, these eight, plus I know of three others that I don't have images of (thalia, another larger all white one, and another one that is totally unfamiliar to me - it's almost speckled).
~Mom's front garden daffodils in the early evening~
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~Pleasant Grove Baptist Church, 1875~
Today as I was driving out of Earlysville, heading back to South Carolina, I stopped briefly at the church (above) and the old white oak (where I've stopped before, at the end of December 2007 and again in December 2009). When the Charlottesville-Albemarle Airport expanded a number of years back, it obtained land that included an old church and the second largest white oak in Virginia. The church has always looked so nice, nestled in a grove of trees on the top of a small hill (to the right of the image, out of view, is the white oak). I always worried about this church - wondered how much life it had left, with the airport breathing down it's neck, and on this trip my father told me that they were now planning on moving it. Sometimes 'growth' (and not the plant kind) isn't the kind of change I like to see, but then, I also know that places like this airport don't care too much about what I think (for about a million reasons, many of them quite legitimate).
~Pleasant Grove Baptist Church, 1875~
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~white oak~
Partway down the hill from the church is the white oak. If you look to the left of the white oak in the image above, you'll see a lighting structure that looks like part of a runway - I worry a little about this tree once the church is moved (and the trees around the church are taken down). I'm not sure what will protect it then. But then maybe I'll have to decide that this white oak is 'not on my worry list', a phrase that my Mom's sister reminded me of today when she called - a phrase that my mom would often use with her.
However, for now - this white oak is supposed to be protected by the airport. It does have a lovely view. Today was the first time I walked up the hill to see exactly what that view was, and I must say it's a nice one. Like that old General Store in Nortonsville, I could have just sat under that tree for awhile. But I had to get back to Charleston in order to rescue the Pointer Sisters from the Paw Plaza Hotel. Tonight they seem happy to be home...in fact, I'd say we all are.
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