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| Mount Vernon from the Potomac River |
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| George and Martha Washington's tomb |
Location, location, location. Whoever chose to situate Mount
Vernon atop the hill overlooking the Potomac River sure knew what they were
doing. The house is clearly visible from the river, but it’s not until you actually
visit that you get the full effect. We anchored across the river and dinghied
over to the wharf and met the very congenial wharfmaster, Bill. We intended to spend
maybe an hour or two, and ended up spending most of the day. There’s a lot to
see: the house and outhouses, the gardens and orchards, the farm plot and
animals, not to mention the informative visitor center and the museum. It turns
out that George Washington was also much more than just the leader of the Continental
Army and our first president (as if that wasn’t enough). He was a farmer at
heart who devised an innovative schedule of crop rotation and soil amendment to
maintain and improve soil quality. More
than half of his 8,000 acres was native woodland, which he also managed with an
eye toward conservation. He developed a
sixteen-sided barn with two stories – grains were strewn on the floor of the
outer ring of the upper story, and horses were trotted over them. The freed
grain heads fell through the narrow spaces between the boards onto the wooden
floor of the first story. This enabled the process to be conducted indoors, and
the grain to be kept clean on the floor instead of in the dirt. I thought that
was pretty ingenious. He was an amateur architect, designing two additions to
the main house. Several heritage breeds of animals are kept and bred at Mount
Vernon, including Hog Island sheep, Milking Devon cattle, Shire horses, and Ossabaw
Island hogs. George and Martha are both entombed here. What I found
particularly fascinating was that George Washington was originally a British
soldier (because all colonists were British citizens) who rose quickly in the
ranks due to his skill as a commander, but quit the army because he was denied
a senior promotion. Consequently, a number of years later he was available to
lead the Continental Army during the Revolutionary War. If the Brits hadn’t been
so disdainful of the colonists, and promoted Washington, would we still be
British? Mount Vernon is well worth the trip by land or by sea (I know, I know,
that’s Paul Revere’s line, but it is
Revolutionary War related).
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| Beautiful heritage-breed cattle |
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| This is where horses would trot around in the 16-sided barn, knocking the heads off the grains |
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| Fruit trees expaliered across the garden wall |
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| A 3-seat necessary (outhouse) |
So, we walked all over DC for a couple of days, visiting museums.
En route, there are several sculpture gardens that we strolled through. Is it just
me, or do these sculptures make you feel like you’re in a D&D or Pathfinder
bestiary? Not that that’s a bad thing – I quite like it – but I don’t know how
many others share my odd tastes.
We've been working on this book non-stop for the last few weeks, and it's finally out. We got such good reviews on our Weapon of Flesh trilogy, we've continued the series, this time from Mya's point of view. Mya started out as a minor secondary character in the original Weapon of Flesh book, and quickly worked her way into a major story element. Well, now she's got her own trilogy - Weapon of Flesh Trilogy II! How do you like that great new cover from our most-fabulous cover artist, Noah Stacey? And look at my name up there!
