Ozzy

Ozzy is 5 months old today! He was just 5 weeks old when we got him, weighed less than 5 lbs and is now 68 lbs! He's such a smart guy too, potty trained easily and sleeps in bed with Dalton and shares his pillow for his head!

Barn Charm Tuesday

An old barn still kickin out in Floyd County, VA

To see barns from all over or to participate, visit Tricia @Bluff Area Daily Photo

Mabry Mill-Floyd County

Operated by E.B. Mabry from 1910 to 1935 and made famous by artists and photographers the world over. A trail takes visitors to the gristmill, sawmill, and blacksmith shop. Old-time skills are demonstrated in the summer.

I know it's been a while since I've been blogging...summer has gotten so busy! I had taken Ashlyn to have her senior pictures done at a photographer in Bedford, Mark Hubbard Photography. I would NOT recommend this place to my worst enemy, unless of course you love high pressure sales. The pictures turned out great but when I went to "view" the photos I was asked to sit in the sales office while viewing them on a wall monitor. After about an hour of choosing the pictures I liked, I was then shown the price for the first package she tried to sell me, $1000+, yeah, right...so I dwindled the package down, with the sales lady still trying to sell me everything under the sun. When I asked for proofs I could take home to show my husband and think about what I want, she looked at me as if I had gone crazy and said "you had no intention of buying anything today"? Um, NO...who goes and makes that big of an investment without being able to talk it over with your spouse and think about it? I was not given a disk of proofs or anything that I could view from my house like most good photographers will give you. SOOOO, this was about a month ago that I walked out of this place and have not heard a peep from them. So in a nutshell, I would not recommend Mark Hubbard Photography and find a photographer who doesn't pressure you into buying a high priced package right there on the spot! What a waste of my time that turned out to be!

Festival Food

Saturday we went to Floyd County's Antique Farm Day festival. It was ok, I wouldn't call it a festival, just a big yard sale and auction, but they did have fair food. We had hamburgers and hot dogs and home made ice cream (which was yummy!).

Haven't been posting obviously...was having internet problems. I've been using Google Chrome now and it seems to have cured my issues.

SkyWatch Friday

Looking at blue skies over Gettysburg from the right side of the cannon...to see skies from all over the world, visit Skyley!

Gettysburg - The Slyder Farm

The farm of John Slyder was on the western side of Big Round Top, just down Plum Run from the Devil's Den. John had moved from Maryland and bought the 75 acre farm in 1849. By the 1860's it included a two story stone house, barn, blacksmith and carpenter shops, an orchard of peach and pear trees, and thirty acres of timber and eighteen of meadow.

On July 2nd Confederate General John B. Hood's Division swept across Slyder's farm in its advance toward the Devil's Den and Little Round Top, and the farm became a Confederate field hospital.

Two months after the battle, in September, John sold the farm and moved to Ohio.

The Slyder family had a couple of connections with other Gettysburg families. John's wife Catherine was the sister of Lydia Leister, whose house became General Meade's headquarters during the battle. And in October of 1863 John's son William married Josephine Miller, the granddaughter of Peter and Susan Rogers, whose farm lay on Emmitsburg Road.

The farm passed to the Snyder family, who owned it around the turn of the century. It is now owned by the National Park Service.

Gettysburg - 90th PA Memorial

This is the memorial for the 90th Pennsylvania. It's in the shape of an oak tree shattered by artillery fire. The story goes, that during the fight there, the tree was hit by artillery fire and the limbs fell among the men. On the ground was a robin's nest, filed with, shaken, but unharmed babies. A soldier, witnessing the scene, picked up the nest, and under heavy fire and great risk to his own life, the soldier climbed up the shattered stump and replaced the nest. Today, Bronze accoutrements, a knapsack, a rifled musket, and a canteen are slung over one of the shattered branches. Ivy, also sculpted in bronze, has begun to grow up the shattered trunk. At the top of the tree is a bronze nest with baby birds resting inside. Perched on the nest, the mother bird watches over her brood. The intention was to symbolize are generation of life amidst the debris of battle and the start of a new era of peace and goodwill.