Saturday morning at 10am, a huge red Kenworth truck pulled into Belle Grove Plantation bearing lots of beautiful new plants! We also had 17 wonderful volunteers who gave of their time and worked hard in the heat to help us unload and plant 1/3 of the plants! We can’t begin to tell you how much we appreciate all our volunteers! We could have never done this alone!

Thank you to the following:

Mr. and Mrs. Hudson

Mr. and Mrs. Moore

King George Board of Supervisors Ruby Brabo and her daughter Clara

Mrs. Veazey and her son Warren

Mrs. Durrette and her daughter Rachel

Mr. and Mrs. Crosson

Mrs. DeGroat from Chesapeake

Mrs. Barnett from Chesapeake

Mrs. Goodall and her friend Alex from Richmond

We had the following plants to arrive:

Blaauw’s Pink Azalea – Delaware Valley White Azalea – Girard’s Renee Michelle  Azalea – Karen Azalea – Milky Way Dogwoods – Old English boxwoods – Golden Mop Cypress – Pink Velour Crepe Myrtles – Monarda Petite Delight – Karl Rosenfeld Peony – Okame Japanese Cherry Trees – Double Red Knockout Roses – Double Pink Knockout Roses – Crown Jewel Gardenia – Leyland Cypress – Twist and Shout Hydrangea – Limelight Hydrangea – Charles Joly Hydrangea – Sunny Yellow Knockout Roses

As we were digging holes, we were finding more artifacts! One find was more than we could have hoped for! Alex found two parts of a white plate and two pieces of green glass. As soon as I saw the green glass I knew it was from an old wine bottle. But you just couldn’t date it because it lacked markings. But the white plate looked really interesting! I held my breath and hoped until today. I ran to Ferry Farm to get it dated! Mara confirmed my wildest dream! It dates from 1740 to 1755! It is now the oldest pieces we have found on Belle Grove! And the date would have been when James Madison’s Grandmother was still here! Can you believe it?! James Madison’s Grandmother, Rebecca Catlett Conway Moore and his mother, Nelly Conway Madison could have held this plate!! It just blows your mind!

While we were hard at work on the landscaping, we had a crew of hard working masons from Betts Masonry working hard on our sidewalks. You know that we have been pulling our brick from the Riverside to move to the front. Well Saturday we started seeing the fruit of our labors! We love this sidewalk! It should be done by Friday if we don’t get delayed by the weather!

And I know we haven’t talked much about Hurley , our Official Plantation dog, because I have been at Belle Grove and he and Brett have been in Chesapeake. Well Hurley has arrived back at Belle Grove Plantation! He has a photo shoot on Tuesday with a soon to be bride.

Just like me, he is discovering lots of new things, like this fake owl on the porch! I don’t think he cares for it.

After all the hard work, the end of the day gave us a wonderful sunset!

Just another great day at Belle Grove Plantation!

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It’s the weekend and we are so excited!

The term “TGIF” has a whole new meaning to us these days.

Yes, tomorrow we are heading back to the plantation for a full day of fun.

But we won’t be taking this trip alone!

We will be taking our favorite staff member…

Hurley!

We have two or three meeting set up for tomorrow.

Our first is with our favorite archaeologists from Ferry Farm. They are coming to see the plantation for the first time! We are so excited to have them there! Who knows what we are going to find out with expert eyes viewing the plantation for the first time!

Afterwards we are meeting with a bride-to-be to discuss having her photo shoot at the plantation. We expect to have many photo shoots and weddings in our future! We can’t wait!

We may also have a group of ladies stopping by to see the plantation and to discuss a future meeting and luncheon with Belle Grove Plantation. I am so excited to have this group come to see us. We are much honored to have them. I will reveal the name once I talk with them to make sure it’s okay to let you know too.

All while this is going on we are going to start pulling up the bricks that are laid out as the sidewalks on the Carriage side and pathways on the Riverside. There are tons of them! But we have to get them up before they can do the grading on the grounds. We are going to “repurpose” them as part of the new sidewalks and arrival area on the Carriage side.

If we have any left, we are going use them to upgrade the front entry gate. They are about four feet tall and have been painted white. They use to have a topper that would have been most likely a ball and the wrought iron gate has been removed. The wrought iron more than likely went during the Civil War.

But I have an idea of what I would like it to look like now. I want to replace the ball toppers with a finial topper like the one in the picture. It matches the ones I have used in my design for the road sign at the entry.

Best of all I have my father’s really nice camera to take tomorrow. Maybe we can finally get a good shot of the eagles that are flying over all the time. I think I could sit all day and watch them!

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