Many thanks for all your sweet comments and well wishes for our anniversary. We had a wonderful weekend away and wanted to share some of the pictures here with you.
As usual when we travel, we like to find a local farmers' market to see how other towns' vendors set up. White tents and colorful veggies...and lots of folks heading in that direction led us to the right place.
We saw all the usual luscious veggies and delicious baked items but also jewelry and several craft tents, whereas our market doesn't allow crafty items...like Granny's baskets, unfortunately.
The official sign for the Manassas Farmers' Market welcomed customers:
I love the creativity...this vendor displayed wax beans falling out of a basket: 
And, of course, I spotted the Mason jars of flowers for sale: 
Being a Civil War Weekend, some re-enactors came strolling into market from the encampment across the street...I think mainly to excite everyone and for a photo op, because they didn't even pick up a single veggie! The bearded man in back was portraying General Stonewall Jackson: 
After we browsed the market, we attended the Re-enactors' Parade...very interesting seeing all the ladies' dresses: 
We walked over to the grounds of the Manassas Museum where several dozen tents were set up, campfires were blazing, horses were stomping, cannons were being fired, and drizzle was starting to fall:
The rain was on-again, off-again throughout the morning, but then began coming down quite steadily and making a mess of the day: 
This was a good time to go inside the museum to see the quilt displays. Actually, many more items than quilts were on display, but that's the main thing that I saw:
And another beautiful one: 
It was at this point that my cell phone started ringing...my sister was calling from SC to let me know she had just called 9-1-1, and they had rushed Granny to ER with shoulder and chest pain and feeling terrible. So the rest of the day I spent praying off and on as we went about our activities for the doctors to have wisdom to determine what was wrong and that all would be well.
Granny spent the weekend in the hospital and yesterday had a Heart Catheterization done; the doctor ballooned out three small blockages. I spoke with her this morning, and she's doing okay and will probably go home after lunch today. We are so thankful! Thank you for your prayers for her smooth recovery!
Okay...back to the Civil War days...
These guys' wool coats were drenched as they sat in pouring rain giving their presentation, but they continued taking questions from all of us huddling under umbrellas: 
We then rode an open-air, tractor-pulled wagon over to Liberia Plantation and toured the house and grounds. There was also a quilt display here...mostly modern quilts versus Civil War era. The quilter was on-site, and it was interesting meeting her and seeing her expertise: 
Here's another quite colorful one: 
By the time the wagon took us back to the main area, I was ready to go to the motel for a hot shower and to change my wet clothes and shoes before the evening concert. There are so many more pictures I could post for the first day, but I'll just wrap up Anniversary ~ Day 1 with the Sound of Music concert.
Here's Tom waiting for the show to start. Thankfully, we had seats under cover in the 6,800-seat indoor/outdoor theatre...tons of people had tickets for the wet upper lawn.
Before the movie began, folks were invited to take part in a costume contest. See that row of folks on stage below...they're all dressed up as "something" from the Sound of Music. There's a family on the far left that was dressed up as "brown paper packages tied up with string." Down just a bit from them there was a couple who was costumed as "tea with jam and bread." So creative!
I was actually sitting next to "girls in white dresses with blue satin sashes." And all the little girlies dressed like Gretl were so adorable. Tons of nun costumes, too. Folks went all out for the show!
The large screen movie was a sing-along complete with words written on the screen for the audience to sing. We also had "props" to display at various times to really liven things up and to help everyone feel a part of the show.
What a very nice time at Wolf Trap!
Anniversary Day 2~
The next morning dawned dry and sunny! Yay! As we approached the campsites again, everyone was drying out their blankets and clothing. The String Band was playing Amazing Grace and other tunes, and we sat near their tent to listen: 
Our next stop was Ben Lomond Manor House which included the main house, slave quarter, dairy and smokehouse. The main house was used as a Confederate hospital, so some of those rooms were quite gory...though very interesting: 
My main interest here was the Kitchen Garden: 
Sage, asparagus, rosemary, and lavender were growing here:
The only plant I didn't recognize was tansy planted in this garden bed below (bottom center):
So I looked up tansy once we returned home and found out it has many uses. Does anyone plant tansy in your gardens?
Tansy can be used for conceiving and preventing miscarriages, insect repellent, placed in coffins, repels beetles if planted by potatoes, placed on window sills to repel flies (we need tansy here in the Valley!), and as a flavoring in omelets, so maybe that's why this cook planted it in her kitchen garden.
Also dried tansy is used by some bee-keepers as fuel in a bee smoker. I'll have to tell Jonathan this when he starts his bees again. I'm thinking I should plant some tansy next spring in our garden! You can read more about it here. Very interesting!
And last, here's the heirloom rose garden (although it looks quite neat with the layout, it really could have used a Master Gardener's loving touch!). Unfortunately, the roses were not in bloom when we were there: 
Well, did you feel like you went to Manassas with us? We thoroughly enjoyed spending time together for our anniversary, and now...it's time to quit playing and get back to work!
~Deb
(Photo courtesy 
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