Boston part 2

We also re-traced Aaron's recent steps by walking through the North End for a bit. At the famous Mike's Pastry, Dad spied his heart's delight-- marzipan!




Here I am re-enacting what Mom and Dad tell me was a highlight of each journey from the daycare co-op. The ball in this lion's mouth moves, so if you reach up, you can try to get it out! (How long have people been trying?)

re-visiting

Mom and Dad and I re-visited our old haunts in Boston, including the Harvard campus. Here they are near the Science Center at the Tanner Fountain, designed by landscape firm Peter Walker and Partners. At one time, Walker's work was very much influenced by minimalist art. I am not sure when this Fountain was installed, but it seems to suggest those influences-- a space shaped by a circle of stone, water, air, and light.

http://www.pwpla.com/prj_project_details.php?prjid=44

birthday!

thanks Mom!

playing a show

I played a show with my new music friends on Saturday at the Blue Moon Diner. We had practiced a few times on Taylor's porch, which had the benefit of a breeze, and friends and neighbors coming by to listen (and sometimes join in!). We didn't have a big crowd, but some good friends came out and we were pleased with our playing.

Salubria

On Friday Will Rieley and I returned to Salubria, my site for the Garden Club fellowship, to do some surveying around the house. The mansion dates from the mid-18th century, when this area was still the frontier of colonial Virginia. Salubria was built for the Reverend John Thompson, a wealthy planter who owned over 30 slaves and about 7,000 acres of land. His first wife was also very wealthy, since she was the widow of former governor and proto-industrialist Alexander Spotswood. Salubria was a plantation, although no outbuildings or slave quarters remain. It is still surrounded by farms as well as some suburban development outward from Culpeper.


The boxwood oval in these photos was designed and planted in the 1950s by Alden Hopkins, who was then the resident landscape architect at Colonial Williamsburg. Beyond the oval are the falling gardens, three flat terraces and two slopes that are now grown up in (and obscured by) trees. These terraced or "falling" gardens were very popular in the mid-Atlantic colonies and were a sign of wealth and status. Some terraces were planted with vegetables and flowers, some were planted only with turf. On the Chesapeake Bay, the James, and other rivers, the terraces stepped down to the water, creating a dramatic entry for visitors arriving by boat. I am planning to look at this garden type in this region and time in order to learn more about how it developed, technologies used to create them, how they were used and planted, and how they varied depending on site.