Horseback riding near the Fenton Inn.

 

Just forty minutes from Fenton Inn is Star B Stables that is near Staunton, Va.  The property is large and well kept. You can make reservations for horseback riding lessons even if you never tried before. They accept children from 6 year of age.

Saddled up and ready.  The platform makes it easy to climb up in the saddle even for the novice rider.

Two pony tails, not sure which one is longer.

The trail loops around through the fields, woods and even a river, but the horses know the way back to the barn. Entire trails takes about one hour. Kids really enjoyed their first lesson.

Handmade Figured Maple and Cherry Dresser

This chest of drawers is made from a figured Maple that reminds me of fudge swirl ice cream, add to that the cherry accents on top and that it is joined together with biscuits (yes that is what they are actually called.)  and it sound more like an ice cream Sunday.  Even the handles and the attached hand plane where made from the same wood.

A closer view of the hand plane made from Maple and Cherry.  I left the final edge detail stop under the hand plane, as if the work was still just a few passes away from being finished.  I have made historic hand planes in different styles, but wanted this one to be a bit cute, with curved lines and more childlike proportions.  In the older styles of planes, the adjustments were from either tapping the wedge to lower the blade or the heel of the plane to raise the blade. 

If you look closely to the figured Maple on the plane, you can see two tiny worm holes.  Acid from the worms eating the wood cause the color staining to travel with the grain, producing the wild patterns in the wood. 

To join the top and side boards, I used a curving river of black cherry that runs up from one side, across the top and down the other side. 

To jazz up the bottom, I went with an asymmetrical twist of a standard double S curve that I have used countless times even in the background timberwork on the Fenton Inn Bakery.   This new twist is either a wave or a bird with wings out.  The sides curves stem from the off centered cherry that flairs like a tree trunk as it touched the ground.  I wanted to do something interesting with such nice figured maple that complimented the natural organic shapes.

Hiking the Appalachian Trail near the Fenton Inn

A short hike along the Appalachian Trail starting from the Humpback Rock Picnic Area, leads to a rocky cliff overlook facing the Wintergreen Ski Resort.  From this point on the AT you can see the entire ski area, the serpentine row of condos on Blue Ridge Drive and the new water tank that is used in the winter for making snow.  Just beyond Wintergreen Mountain is the familiar slopes of Three Ridges (the mountain we view from the Fenton Inn).  Beyond this in the distance is the Priest, which has Crabtree Falls at its base.  Each of the three mountain tops are about 4000ft in elevation. 

Here is the sign on the Blue Ridge Parkway showing where to park for the start of the trail. Drive into the picnic area and go all the way to the very back.  There you will find the Blue trail which connects into the AT in a short distance through the woods.  Turning left (North) on the AT takes you to the cliffs in about 40 minutes of fairly easy hiking.

The gates on the picnic area are closed in Winter, however the AT can still be accessed at Dripping Rocks rest area, just around the corner from the Picnic area.

While there are bear warning all around the Blue Ridge Parkway and Wintergreen, this picnic area is frequented by bear looking for left overs and picnic baskets.  As always, don't feed the bears or they can become troublesome.  We did not see any bears, but did see a number of large stones flipped over along the trail as they searched for ants.  About half their diet is plants, acorns and berries, the other half is insects, grubs and scavenging.  This is altered in areas where garbage and hand outs give them a taste for junk food.

The Blue Trail from the picnic area leads off through the woods.  The area is heavily wooded today, but is covered in stone walls of an old farm.  During the time of the Blue Ridge Parkway's construction in the 1930s, much of the land was still open fields.

A closer look at the trail head leading to the AT.

The AT, some 850 miles from the start in Georgia and 1200 miles from the end in Maine.  About 2000 people complete the trail each year reaching our area in June.

The AT trail marker at the intersection of the Blue trail with the AT.

The sign show distances to nearby landmarks.  A walk back to the Fenton Inn, which is 0.5 miles from the AT at Reeds gap, would be around 6.6 miles.

Another look at the view of Wintergreen. 

Night Sky over the Fenton Inn

Being in the mountains at 2000 ft elevation we can enjoy beautiful views of the night sky. Just another night  we had a very clear night sky  with a new moon, the stars, Jupiter and its four moons that were on display for our guests that brought with them a high powered telescope and knowledge of the night sky.

Jupiter was up directly over head as the night sky slowly darkened.  As much fun as the telescope was, the reclining chairs and the high powered binoculars were ever better.  I was surprised how many different satellites were passing over head each night, invisible with out the binoculars.  Most of the suburban and urban world has too much light pollution to see many stars and most days people are so busy with life to take the time to look up from their phones to take in the night sky.

The telescope set up to view the moons of Jupiter.  Being at medieval village, I couldn't help but think about the first views of the universe with the discovery of curved lenses.  Suddenly the inventions of the telescope and microscope showed the universe was vast beyond our grasp, and made up of parts smaller than we could imagine. 

Even in our high tech age, the light from a distant star, that traveled for a million years to get to this spot, is still exciting to see.

Natural Bridge

The journey to the Natural Bridge from the Fenton Inn.

Considered one of the natural wonders of Virginia, the aptly named Natural Bridge is just a hour drive from the Fenton Inn.  Two centuries ago, when the Blue Ridge Mountains were the frontier of Virginia, Thomas Jefferson bought the land with this unusual stone pass through.  It was about a two days journey from his Lynchburg estate, Poplar Forest.  The Natural Bridge would remain in private hands until just last year, when the park service bought the land.  Earlier attempts as a profitable roadside attraction had struggled in recent decades, in spite of laser light shows and even a wax museum.  All that is gone, leaving the short walk through the woods to a rocky canyon and the pathway to the natural bridge, a bit more natural than before.

A Monacan Indian village has been built upstream from the Natural Bridge, and helps visitors to see the wigwams and farming that would have been in this area.  The Monacans believed the Natural Bridge formed after they were cornered by their enemies and the rocks opened up to allow their escape, much like the parting of the Red Sea. 

The Monacan long house using Tulip Poplar bark and bent saplings for the frame.  With a single fire inside, the entire village could keep warm in winter.

 A view of the waterfall at the end of the canyon and where our pathway ends. 

Back in the days of black powder muskets and cannons, the success of a battle might hinge on having a good supply of bat poo.  Though technically it is from the bat urine.  Bats eat insects and have a very high protein diet, putting more nitrogen in their waste.  These salts when mixed with carbon from charcoal and sulfur make black powder.  Original recipes in the middle ages for black powder used human waste, preferably from a wine drinking monk.  So compared to this, the switch to bat droppings was down right sanitary as well as significantly more powerful for your cannons.

An unnatural bridge at Natural Bridge, that takes you to the bat caves.

Virginia Safari Park

Our trip to the Virginia Safari Park from the Fenton Inn.

Just an hour drive through some back country road, is the town of Natural Bridge.  Aside from the Natural Bridge, the town has a few road side relics that might have seen better times.  The Safari Park is the exception to this, as a newly build and animal friendly drive- thru experience.  They do have a small zoo area with the tigers and a few other animals you probably would not want to feed from your car, but most of the park is devoted to the friendlier herd animals that roam around in series of large pastures and woodlands.  Above is an Alpaca, a member of the "Llama mafia" that greets each car as it crosses into  park.  One will stop the car by standing in front of you, while the others look you in the eyes to see who will be the most generous with the food bucket. 

A Llama mama with a young one learning the proper way to get attention.  Beyond are Fallow deer from India. 

A few Black Buck Antelope with their spiraled horns.  Deer, elk and moose have antlers, that are shed each year and regrow. The antelope, Ibex, cattle and goats have horns that are kept year round and grow longer with age.

I think this is a Pierre David Deer, although with so many types, it might be some other deer, so to be certain we can call him Bob.  As this is the spring time, Bob's antlers are covered in velvet while they grow. 

A Water Buffalo from Asia.  The camels are now kept in a separate pen from the feeding area, as they stole buckets and would spit on the cars.  It was a bit amusing but not the best car wash.

 

The giraffe have their own feeding station, as they eat special food from a coin operated gumball machine.  We were with out any quarters and they seemed to sense this lack of currency and wandered off to graze. 

We did get bird feeding sticks, and as it was a low crowded day, the birds were still interested in food that day.  We were circled by a large flock of multicolored budgies as they decided one side of the enclosure was better that the other.  Then some trend setter would fly off, and they would all go again to new spot.

Not quite a unicorn was looking for any last food in our buckets.    The Llama mafia had gotten a big share before they would let us drive out of their territory, so we ended up running out about midway.  Of course they have feeding stations with the same food as we had in our bucket, but perhaps the whole interaction makes the feeding more fun for them as well.  The bucket is always fuller on the other side of the car.

Frontier Culture Museum

Our day exploring the Frontier Culture Museum in Staunton.

A scenic half hour drive from the Fenton Inn is the quaint town of Staunton.  Tourists like to pronounce the U, but locals seemed to have dropped it to be called "Stan-ton" and are just as sure that way is correct.  Either way, the town has a few good restaurants and one of our favorite museums, The Frontier Culture Museum.  They have taken old houses from where the Shenandoah valley people came from, to show how the melting pot of architectural ideas made our American styles.  The museum has representation from Africa, England, Ireland, Germany and Native American and finally some American farms from the area.  Above is the English farm.  In England, as in much of Europe, social mobility was nearly impossible.  Most families were renting land they farmed, where as in America they would own their land and have the ability to keep their profits from the farm.

The blacksmith shop in Ireland.  Before the industrial revolution took hold, tools, hinges and nails were made locally by the village blacksmith.  Old metal objects could be reheated and formed into new tools over and over.  It was in little shops like these where the ideas for new plows and farming tools would help to start the agricultural revolution.  This boom in food production and labor saving farming would result in the massive migrations from rural farming villages through out Europe, to rapidly growing cities and to the Americas.

An African farm from central Nigeria.  What looks like a village would actually be one extended family.  They would raise goats and grow yams as their primary food source.  This region of Africa, home of the Ibo tribes, was the primary location for most slaves in Virginia.  While we tend to think historically of large plantations in the South, most farms in the central Virginia region were much smaller and had 3-4 slaves on average. 

Playing an African game.  The goal is to get more stones as you move them around the board and keep the one stone from each end.  I am sure there is a bit more probabilities to figure to know where best to start each turn,  because like chess there are no random dice in the game. 

The German farm from the early 1700s.  Having built our own Bavarian Village, we are a quite partial to this one.  Wood was a bit more scarce in much of Germany at the time, and so they used some trees to timber frame that most Americans would  not even bother to cut into firewood.  I really like the almost cartoon effect of the wavy and curved timbers.  I tried to reflect a little of that in our Village at the Fenton Inn, particularly on the Wilhelm's House.   Just as the Germans used what ever wood they could get, we made use of some rather curved trees from our property.  It was not due to a wood shortage, but rather to honor the trees that stood here by making full use of even the quirkiest of logs.  In a world of factory made objects, these custom curved boards and timbers seem to really make people smile.  As I say about wood and people, it is the flaws that make them interesting.

Wooden shoes in the German house.  Long before people wore a bathrobe and pink Crocks to go out to the mail box, the wooden shoes were all the fashion.  Somehow the wooden shoes never really made it to America.  The Native American were skilled at leather and furs, and the leather shoes were the standard for Americans for the next 300 years, that is until the Crocks.

A Native American Wigwam.  Depending on the area, they would use tree bark, reeds and cattails, or in more western locations, the teepee used buffalo hides.  The Native Americans that were in this area are called the Monacans.  Long before the Appalachian Trail along the Blue Ridge Mountains, the Monacans were the master hikers and hunters of this area.  Arrowheads and stone tools can be found on mountain ridges and near streams, but try as I might, I have yet to find anything.