Fall comes to the old frontier

Fall on the old Virginia frontier was, above all, a season of preparation against the coming Winter. The foundation of the cabin would be banked against the cold wind with a thick matting of cornstalks and pumpkin vines, or straw if they had it, or even banked with earth. And naturally a substantial stockpile of [...]

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Season of mists …

Many will recognise the title as a phrase from Keats’ “To Autumn”, and so it has been here recently, with many of these early autumn mornings laden with mist and dew. The spiders must hate them, as the mist renders their webs temporarilly useless. The little tenants of these dew-soaked webs are [...]

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Strolling through the Fall Festival at Pricketts Fort

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First color . . .

The days have been decidedly cooler, with the result that we are all lingering a little longer beside the fires in the main cabins. There have been other signs of autumn as well: a large maple behind the Bray Blacksmith Shop took on a yellow hue almost overnight a couple of days [...]

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These autumn mornings . . .

Finally the weather has turned autumnal, with cool nights and mornings, which in West Virginia, in the river valleys, often means a heavy mist.  This shot of the fort was taken about 7:30 yesterday morning.  After the fog cleared, the day became mildly warm, sunny, and very pleasant.  Greg Bray stepped out of his blacksmith shop [...]

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