inFauquier Magazine Fall 2018

FALL 2018

That’s the

Spirit... and more Spooky spiders

Haunted houses Paranormal patrol Spirit photography a how-to guide

PLUS: Unexplainable phenomena Yeah, we’ve got that

FALL 2018

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FALL 2018

“Above and Beyond�

IN THE

Fall 2018 – We’ve Got Spirit

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PHOTO BY BETSY BURKE PARKER

PHOTO BY TAYLOR DABNEY

FACES & PLACES 18 The new (para)normal 19 A host of local ghosts 20 Who's haunting the old Mosby House?

(Probably not him.)

LIFE & STYLE 36 Spirit photography poised to take off this season as a return to Victorian style 37 Local realtor Sandy Sullivan recalls her role in 'The Exorcist'

21 History of haunts 23 Kerry Waters, teaching yoga with a twist 25 Waterloo Bridge primed for a third century 28 Restful resting place 29 Weimaraners: graceful party animals

39 Reeves Blackmon serves up a cup of conservation 40 Call the cops: they give meaning to 'the graveyard shift' 43 Great Pumpkin Ride 44 It's Samhain season

30 Meet history pro Suzanne Obetz

EXTRAS

48 PHOTO BY BETSY BURKE PARKER

FOOD & WINE 48 They're the spirit guides of Granite Heights 49 Taking to the Virginia Wine Trail 50 Winner, winner: local wineries rule in Governor's Cup 53 It's la dolce vita at Grioli's Italian cafe 53 The higher power that's behind a new cookbook 54 Wine, booze, beer, cheer: Take your pick at Old House winery

62 PHOTO BY SALLY HARMON SEMPLE

HOME & GARDEN 58 Translating shinrin yoku into renewed health and well-being 59 Follow our guide for successful season of fall-planted trees 61 Along came a spider (and, boy, was she surprised.)

62 Discover the magic behind a fairy circle 64 Stately cemetery trees live out their long lives in a most restful place

55 Falling for autumn beer

ON THE COVER

n County tidbits ..................8 n Then and now ................11 n Side by side ...................18 n The Last Word ............... 66

18 PHOTO BY RANDY LITZINGER

Photographer Chris Cerrone says the colors of this former church steeple in Paris selected for the cover caught his eye one bright autumn morning.

"The color contrast was amazing," he says, noting that the rich blue of the sky and tawny stucco went well with the red fish-scale slate roof.

The former Trinity Methodist Episcopal Church was built in 1895.

Now known as Ashby Chapel, it is used for private events at the adjacent Ashby Inn. Chris manually set his camera – a Nikon 5500 fitted with a 70200mm lens at 150mm, apeture f9, shutter speed 1/800.

"The strong lines in the photo draw your eye upwards." Chris describes using "negative space to emphasize the subject.

"I like the interaction of spiritual and scientific, the old steeple and the moon."

He felt the same balance in his other cover submission, the serene morning scene at right at a local graveyard. "Dawn and dusk are my favorite times to shoot because the light can be used to elicit emotion. I liked the diagonal line of the gravestones creating movement across this shot."

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Published quarterly by Piedmont Media Address 41 Culpeper Street Warrenton, VA 20186 Phone: 540-347-4222 Fax: 540-349-8676 Publisher: Catherine M. Nelson cnelson@fauquier.com Editor: Betsy Burke Parker betsyburkeparker@gmail.com Editor-in-chief: Chris Six csix@fauquier.com Advertising director: Kathy Mills Godfrey, 540-351-1162 kgodfrey@fauquier.com Consultants: Evelyn Cobert ecobert@fauquier.com Renee Ellis rellis@fauquier.com Patti Engle pengle@fauquier.com Tony Ford tford@fauquier.com Marie Rossi mrossi@fauquier.com Liliana Ruiz lruiz@fauquier.com Heather Sutphin hstuphin@fauquier.com Design Page designer: Taylor Dabney tdabney@fauquier.com Ad designers: Taylor Dabney tdabney@fauquier.com Cindy Goff cgoff@fauquier.com Sawyer Guinn sguinn@fauquier.com Annamaria Ward award@fauquier.com

Sending chills down a contributor’s spine: “Have you ever seen a ghost?”

See what they say to our autumn issue query.

Pat Reilly of Marshall, a former newspaper editor and government spokesperson, says she’s never seen anyone from the “other side.” She did once attend a seance in Manhattan long ago where she was spoken to through a medium by an unidentified Irish ancestor, who quite accurately predicted several events in her future.

New York native, editor and author Steve Price says the only ghost he’s ever seen was Hamlet’s father in a Shakespeare In Central Park production.

While Master Gardener and environmentalist Sally Harmon Semple says that though she does not believe in ghosts, she admits to hastening her step when walking near a graveyard at night. And her work on climate change has taught her “that people will not see what they refuse to believe.”

Local writer Connie Lyons has been showing Irish Setters for 60 years and judging them for 35.

Award-winning writer Anita Sherman is the Community Editor for the Fauquier Times.

Calling Virginia home since 1988, she’s been involved in local journalism for nearly 20 years.

“A spirit? I caught one walking across the hall in an old stone home that we rented,” Anita recalls. “It took my breath away but appeared more curious than malevolent.”

Associate editor for the Fauquier Times, John Toler has authored a number of books about Warrenton, Fauquier County and the Civil War. An avid history buff, John isn’t sure if he saw a ghost as a kid. “When I was 11, I was playing in a field with a friend, and up in the sky was a large silver triangle, which hung there for several minutes before disappearing. Ghost, or UFO?” Even more than 60 years later, John’s still not sure what he saw.

Pam Owen is a writer, editor, photographer, and passionate nature conservationist living in

the Blue Ridge Mountains. Not believing in the supernatural but loving “creepy crawlies,” she finds autumn a great time to have a beer on her deck while watching spiders spin their webs.

Alissa J. Jones is a leader in her church, has been published in compilation books and leads writers groups. Working in ministry, Alissa says she’s felt spiritual activity on several occasions, once seeing a gargoyle-type creature while in an old building.

Betsy Burke Parker has worked for Piedmont Media and its predecessors since 1990. She hasn’t seen a ghost, but definitely “felt something” when in the upstairs living quarters of the allegedly haunted main house at historic Edgeworth Farm near Orlean.

John Daum has been a teacher at the Hill School in Middleburg for two decades. John spent eight weeks in Europe this summer sampling beer. He’s “never seen a ghost, but I felt their presence in many castles and battlefields” while on his trip.

Local writer Nora Rice is a Kundalini yoga guide and herbalist at Pranapiloga Yoga Studio.

Recently, she was “surrounded by the ghostly shimmer of glamour while hiking the Salkantay Pass to Machu Pichu, Peru. Plants, soil and rocks all sparkled with brilliant points of light.”

Freelance photographer Randy Litzinger worked for Piedmont Media and its predecessors for 14 years. Randy Litzinger (randylitzinger.com) figures he’s an outlier when it comes to spooks and spirits. “I’m probably in the minority, but I don’t believe that humans can communicate with the dead. I believe that ‘ghosts’ are actually demonic spirits who impersonate and communicate with humans.”

Writer Janet Heisrath-Evans, mother of three, lives in Warrenton with her husband Scott. She

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says she’s never seen a ghost, but is “always on the lookout for a great ghost story.”

Years ago, Middleburg photographer Chris Cerrone was told his rented house was in close proximity to a couple of ghosts. “I never had a first-hand encounter, but they were some of the best neighbors I ever had. Very quiet.”

Documentary filmmaker Stephanie Slewka once came upon a ghost lounging in plain daylight. It’s hard to say who was more startled, “but he – it was definitely a he – vanished into thin air,” leaving Stephanie, as she says, “in her plain old body.”

Roxie Beebe-Center writes for multiple newspapers and was a summer intern at the Rappahannock News. She says she’s never seen a ghost, but sometimes “feels a presence” at Day of the Dead celebrations.

Craig Macho is a retired police officer and a former award-winning journalist for newspapers in California and Virginia, including the Fauquier Times. While he has never seen a ghost, he has witnessed many puzzling events that have left him perplexed.

Wine expert Mary Ann Dancisin has worked in the wine trade more than 30 years. She is certified by the Society of Wine Educators, and holds a Level 2 diploma leading to a Masters of Wine. She’s never really believed in ghosts, though she “sensed one in my basement bedroom as a teenager.” When her baby sister took over the bedroom, the ghost – named Dave – “made himself known to her, too.”

Designer Taylor Dabney lives in Washington, D.C. She doesn’t really believe in ghosts but does admit to being “terrified of the dark.”

Award-winning poet and writer Phoebe deBrevedent is a high school freshman.

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It’s a grave situation

If you don’t know where you’ve been, how can you know where you’re going?

Ivy Hill. Cool Spring. Hearts Delight.

They sound serene, places you might like to visit and stay a while.

Maybe forever.

Just a few of Fauquier’s 24 listed cemeteries – not counting dozens of private plots and church graveyards, these are among the prettiest spots in the county.

Regular maintenance means that weeds don’t take root here, powerlines and roads don’t encroach here, and the greenspace is forever shielded from development.

Graveyards aren’t places you often consider, and perhaps visit only occasionally, if ever, but cemeteries retain a sort of grace that evokes solace and comfort.

When many of the region’s cemeteries were created, oral narrative ensured history would be passed along. Family members knew who was buried where, and how they fit in the family tree. This changed around World War I when cars meant we began to travel farther for community and for worship, and communal graveyards became more common than family plots.

“

It’s not the strength of the body that matters, but the strength of the spirit.

– J.R.R. Tolkien

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explicable The Fauquier Family Cemetery Foundation grew out of a subcommittee of the Southern Fauquier Historical Society to preserve these small plots not protected as town or church graveyards. FFCF works with the African American Historic Association in The Plains to catalog slave cemeteries in the county as well.

It was a visit to one of these simple country parish graveyards that inspired a unique magazine theme for this fall issue of inFauquier. Linking the spirit to the season, the writing and photo team assembled a carefully curated look into the subject of “spirit.”

Taking it directly to the core topic, John Toler unearths the story of Warrenton’s historic town cemetery, past, present and future. Sally Harmon Semple discovers the finest of specimen trees in the same space.

Alissa Jones has her own take on “the spirit,” meeting with two local teams that call the paranormal the new normal. Nora Rice links the spiritual to the physical in an interview with yoga instructor Kerry Waters.

Tying “spirit” and inspiration, graphic artist Cindy Goff studies old-fashioned Victorian spirit photography, while Pat Reilly goes even further back to trace the history of equinox celebrations and what pastoral civilizations considered to be “a thin veil” between the worlds this time of year.

In everything, there’s a beginning, a middle and an end. Autumn is the beginning of the end. The days and nights fall into balance at the start of the season, and in three short months climax on the longest night of the year. As fall ends and winter begins, light increases, the world renews and the spirit regenerates yet again. It's the perfect season to study that notion of revival.

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COUNTY TIDBITS

Fun for fall Fauquier’s full of it this season There’s so much to do here this season, and our list is but a starting point. Not many plans for Thanksgiving and Christmas holiday activities had been released at press time, but more gets added daily at fauquier.com

Sept. 28-29 39th annual Warrenton Oktoberfest St. John’s Catholic, Warrenton 4-9 p.m. both days German food, beer garden, rides, games, music, crafts warrentonoktoberfest.org

Weekends in October

Sept. 29

Fall Farm Fest Sky Meadows State Park, Delaplane 540-592-3556 virginiastateparks.gov Flying Circus airshows Bealeton flyingcircusairshow.com

National Public Lands Day Sky Meadows State Park, Paris dcr.virginia.gov

Middleburg Ghost Tours middleburgghosttours.com

Oct. 5 First Friday Old Town Warrenton Oktoberfest theme partnershipforwarrenton.org

Oct. 6 Fall harvest days Ayrshire Farm, Upperville visitfauquier.com A stroll through Warrenton – Old Town Warrenton an architectural tour

Oct. 12-13

Weekends in November

Oct. 20-21, 27-28

Oct. 13

Halloween Hop Marshall Community Center Masquerade dance with the Silver Tones big band fauquier.com International Gold Cup Great Meadow, The Plains 540-347-2612 vagoldcup.com Spooky cocktail creations class Salamander Resort, Middleburg

Oct. 20 Howl-O-Ween party Northern Fauquier Community

Kitchen Witch: Tasty or scary?

Kitchen Witches are a Norwegian custom, inherited from early Scandanavian settlers.

This witch was a good witch, said to make the kitchen a spot of warmth and happiness.

Gentle, whimsical and loving, she created such magic that the mischief of the bad witch, who curdled milk and would not allow cakes or bread to rise, had no power.

When you hang a Kitchen Witch, legend indicates that rice, beans and toast will not burn, pots never boil dry and there will never be too much salt when baking, boiling or stewing. The spices you mix will be perfect, as well as the tea and coffee you serve.

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Virginia’s famous crispy crop has peculiar tastes Growing apples in the home garden can be an enjoyable and rewarding experience, but consistent production of high quality fruit requires knowledge of horticulture.

As with many varietals of wine grapes, Virginia is actually on the southern fringe of the U. S. apple-producing region. We’re a little on the hot and humid side for preferences of apple trees.

Most varieties produce the highest quality fruit when night-time temperatures are cool (less than 60°F) at harvest time. Apples grown under warmer conditions tend to be large, soft, poorly colored and less flavorful than when grown under cooler conditions.

Our warm humid summers are also conducive to infection from disease. For

Warrenton Ghost Tours fauquierhistory.org

Oct. 27

Nov. 3 Harvest Hoedown Marshall Community Center Free. Live music, arts and crafts and games for the kids

Nov. 17 Turkey Trot 5k Remington southprogrammer@fauquiercounty.gov

Dec. 8 Col. Mosby walking tour Warrenton

Dec. 15 Mysteries of the murals tour Warrenton visitfauquier.com

these reasons, the best Virginia apples are grown at elevations higher than 800 feet above sea level in the western part of the state. Most hillsides west of U.S. 17 are good to go, though, with most productive orchards located in the Markham and Linden area.

However, even apples grown at lower elevations are still superior to out-of-season or distance-shipped apples from supermarkets.

Pickin’, grinnin’

Park, Marshall Free. Kid and dog costume contests, magic show, moon bounce, caricature artist, face painters, arts and crafts, Fauquier County Sheriff’s Department K9 Unit, dog adoptions.

Picnics are encouraged, but food and ice cream will be available for sale Family fall festival Tri-County Feeds and Fashions, Marshall Live music, food and drink, vendors, activities, door prizes, giveaways, tricountyfeeds.com

Homesteaders conference Front Royal Demonstrations and vendors homesteadersofamerica.com 37th annual Remington Fall Festival Fauquier County Fall Farm Tour 540-422-8280 fauquiercounty.gov Children’s festival Crockett Park, Midland fauquiercounty.gov

Apples to apples

Pick-your-own this season Fall crops can be picked around here September through November, and depending on our killing frost date, sometimes a little later. From apples to corn to pumpkins to cider, here’s a starting point to stock your pantry and freezer for fall.

PHOTO BY EMILY DAY

This "ghost pumpkin," so-called because the outer skin is an otherworldly pale white, and decorative gourds were surprise "volunteers" in Day’s Millwood garden. They make a perfect, if unexpected, autumn display, she says.

October is:

• Adopt-a-shelter dog month • Breast cancer awareness month • Clergy appreciation month • Country ham month • National diabetes month • National pizza month • Oct. 8: Columbus Day • Oct. 31: Halloween

November is:

• Native American Heritage month • Model railroad month • Peanut butter lovers month • Adoption awareness month • Nov. 1: All Saint’s Day • Nov. 2: All Soul’s Day • Nov. 4: Daylight savings time ends • Nov. 6: Election Day • Nov. 11: Veterans Day • Nov. 22: Thanksgiving Day

December is:

• Spiritual literacy month • Bingo month • Dec. 2: Hanukhah begins • Dec. 7: Pearl Harbor Day • Dec. 21: Winter begins

Hartland Orchards Markham, 540-364-2316 hartlandorchard.com Hollin Farms Delaplane, 540-592-3701 hollinfarms.com Seven Oaks Lavender Farm Catlett, 540-272-7839 sevenoakslavenderfarm.com Stribling Orchard Markham, 540-364-3040 striblingorchard.com Valley View Farm and Orchard Delaplane valleyviewfarmva.com Apple Manor Farm Markham, 571-296-3787 applemanorfarm.com

Farmers markets Archwood Green Barns The Plains Sundays through November Buckland Farm Market New Baltimore Year-round Messick’s Farm Market Catlett Year-round Warrenton Farmers Market Lee Street and WARF Wednesdays and Saturdays through November

Fall corn mazes Cows-N-Corn Remington 540-439-4806 cows-n-corn.com The Corn Maze in the The Plains The Plains 540-456-7339 cornmazeintheplains.com Buckland Farm Market New Baltimore 540-341-4739 bucklandfarmmarket.com Hartland Farm and orchard Markham 540-533-6901 hartlandfarmandorchard.com Hollin Farms Delaplane 540-592-3574 hollinfarms.com

Oh, deer

COUNTY TIDBITS

Daylight savings time, deer-breeding season collude for collisions Daylight savings time ends Nov. 5, and it puts many Fauquier commuters driving home in the dark.

This, combined with the annual autumn deer “rut” – breeding season – makes it so much more likely you’ll have a deer caught in the headlights on one of the county’s rural roads.

The Virginia Game and Inland Fisheries has seasonal advice for area drivers: • When driving, particularly dusk to dawn this time of year, slow down and stay attentive. * If you see one deer, there are likely to be more. If one deer crosses the road as you approach, take caution, as others may follow. * Deer habitually travel the same areas. Deer-crossing signs are installed by the Virginia Department of Transportation where a regular game path has

PHOTO BY DOUGLAS LEES

been established. Use extra care when you see these signs. * To avoid collision, apply your brakes, even stop if you can, but never swerve out of your lane to miss a deer. Wrecking into another vehicle, tree or other object is usually more serious than hitting a deer. * Rely on caution rather than unproven automobile deer

whistles. * Anyone involved in a collision with a deer or bear while driving a motor vehicle, thereby killing the animal, should immediately report the accident to local law enforcement. You can keep it, but only if you report where it happened. The officer has to see the animal, submit a report and give you a possession certificate.

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FALL 2018

THEN & NOW

SPOT THE DIFFERENCES

Then Nov. 1, 1948: Halloween prank at The Plains Pharmacy Then Aug. 11, 2011: Closing day at The Plains Pharmacy Now Sept. 20, 2018: Happy Creek Coffee and Tea 1

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On Oct. 31, 1948, passions ran high in The Plains, with a Halloween prank causing havoc in the village business district. Not content with the usual 1940s holiday antics of soaping car windows – the quaint, mid-century equivalent of smashing mailboxes, a band of revelers had spent all night carting junked metal from a nearby dump site to the downtown intersection of Route 55 and Route 245.

The 1948 Fauquier Democrat photo shows only a small part of the debris deposited near the town drugstore throughout Halloween night. In addition to a scrap car and piles of metal, harvested corn stacks were stolen from a field nearby and laid blocking the store’s entrance.

By the time the Warrenton newspaper reporter arrived on the scene, pharmacy owners Dr. and Mrs. Schulze had already cleaned up a portion of the mess so customers could enter the shop.

The Plains Pharmacy was established in 1943, originally housed in the building across the main street where Payton Place is located.

Dr. Schulze died in 1962, and the business was sold to Dr. William F. “Toby” Merchant of Manassas in 1967. Merchant’s store was one of the first pharmacies to offer compounding.

He died in 2004, and two other pharmacists operated the store until it closed in 2011.

Today the building is home to Happy Creek Coffee and Tea, a coffee roaster, cafe, gluten-free bakery and bike shop. Happy Creek, with stores in Front Royal and Shepherdstown, is a popular stop for bike riders who explore the region’s rural roads spring, summer and, especially, in the fall.

– By Norm Schulze

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Key 1. The power pole on Route 245 – Old Tavern Road – is exactly the same, though the wiring has certainly changed, and there’s no longer a pole in front of the building facing Route 55.

2. The U.S. Route 15 sign, visible in 1948, is no longer there because it is no longer valid. The Old Carolina Road, through the 1970s a major north-south U.S. highway, went from Maryland via Leesburg and Aldie to Middleburg. It went through Halfway to The Plains, making the stillused dog-leg turn in town then tracing 245 to U.S. 17 to Warrenton.

Today’s U.S. 15 joins U.S. 29 at Haymarket to Warrenton, Culpeper and beyond.

Today, the posted town speed limit, like all small towns and villages, is 25.

3. The dirt and gravel road from the ‘40s has long been paved.

4. The wooden double-paned door has been replaced with a full-glass door to allow more light into what’s today a cafe and coffee shop designed to encourage lingering.

5. The neon sign in the 1948 photo advertised “sandwiches” and “ABC Lic.” It became a hand-

painted “25% OFF ENTIRE STORE” in 2011, today reading “Coffee Bikes” with a steaming coffee cup and saucer in case there was any question of their specialty.

6. The 1948 “drugs” sign was changed to a placard that hung lower, at eye level, reading “The Plains Pharmacy – where friends meet,” 7. A brick apron of front steps replaced 1940s concrete risers, which were nearly hidden by debris after the 1948 vandalism. OSHAapproved handrails were added and remain, along with one of two green awnings.

8. Visible to the west down Route 55 in the 1948 shot, a Lone Pine Dairy Farm delivery truck makes a right turn off a side street. Proprietor Hunter Payne (1922-2014) made home deliveries of dairy products until at least 1975.

9. At the far right in 1948, students walk to The Plains Elementary School, built 1900. The school closed in the mid-’60s.

10. Barely visible today because of midday window glare, Happy Creek’s picture window shows a busy cafe at lunchtime, patrons sipping coffee and nibbling gluten-free delicacies behind the extremely modern “hate has no home here” placard.

PHOTOS BY FAUQUIER DEMOCRAT, NORM SCHULZE AND BETSY BURKE PARKER

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That’s the spirit Hear how the notion of the supernatural has evolved through the ages

PHOTO BY CHRIS CERRONE

By Steve Price

In autumn, we come across lots of references to “the spirit of the season.” Spirit is a word with many meanings, all of which – individually and collectively – have had a worldwide grip throughout civilization.

The most recognizable and relevant meaning of spirit refers to a supernatural being, usually an intangible or otherwise non-physical entity such as a ghost, fairy or angel. Often a spirit is considered to be the wandering soul of a dead person, and in the case of a ghostly spirit, the two words are used interchangeably.

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A well-known literary instance of ghost and spirit is in Shakespeare’s beloved play when Hamlet encounters his late father, referred to in stage directions as “Ghost.” The character even introduces himself: “I am thy father’s spirit.”

Another royal who reputedly returns in ghostly form is Anne Boleyn. Many believe she regularly appears at the Tower of London and in various British manor houses and castles. She sometimes appears as happy, young and beautiful as she was in real life, but more often she’s reported to appear with her head tucked underneath her arm after the unfortunate encounter with Henry VIII’s

From ghoulies and ghosties and long-leggedy beasties And things that go bump in the night Good Lord, deliver us!

– Old Scottish prayer

headsman’s axe.

In a theological sense, Christianity includes the concepts of “Holy Spirit” and “Holy Ghost” with reference to part of the Trinity. The Native American concept of the Great Spirit is known as Wakan Tanka among the Sioux, Gitche Manitou in Algonquian and in many Native American cultures as the Creator.

Whatever the name, the Great Spirit is a concept of a supreme being, a universal spiritual force.

The Latin root of the world spirit also gives us “respiration” and “aspiration.” Respiration is strongly linked with the very occurrence of life, another sense of spirit separating living from dead.

Unlike a soul, which is often regarded as eternal and sometimes believed to pre-exist the body, a spirit develops and grows as an integral aspect of a living being. The expression, “he has a good spirit” or “she’s always full of spirit.” Moreover, the word also applies to a person’s true self that is capable of surviving separation, including death, as in, “He’s here in spirit.”

Close to that sense is spirit’s meaning of collective enthusiasm and devotion. Are you a strong supporter of your group in which you work, and are you willing to go that extra step to help it achieve its goals? Then you have team spirit. Are you a strong supporter of your alma mater? That’s school spirit.

Two well-known uses of the word are “The Spirit of ’76,” that painting of the Revolutionary War fife-player, drummer and flag-bearer trio, as well as the transatlantic plane “The Spirit Of St. Louis.”

Another phrase for group spirit is the French esprit de corps. And another meaning of the word in that language translates as “wit.”

Spirit can stand for an intention, as distinguished from a literal definition. Thus the spirit of the law views rules as intended as distinguished from its antithesis, the letter of the law, or rules as written. As an example, the letter of the law might read, “No vehicles permitted in the park.” However, the spirit of the law would prohibit cars, trucks and other large vehicles while allowing bicycles, motorized wheelchairs and children’s pedal cars.

Old-time liquor stores advertised themselves as selling “wines and spirits.” A distilled alcohol like whiskey, rum, vodka or gin, this use of “spirits” derives from alchemy: to distill to its essential elements.

Finally “to spirit” as a verb means to remove or carry away without being noticed, as if an invisible non-human creature was doing the work.

In this season of the year with Halloween upon us and dusk coming earlier, you’re well within your rights to feel a little spooked when you hear leaves rustling and an owl hooting. Are they the sounds of spirits walking the land? Or are they the result to one too many glasses of spirits?

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Magnolia Vineyards & Winery is located in Amissville, just off scenic Route 211 in Rappahannock County, approximately 10 miles west of Warrenton. Owned by Glenn and Tina Marchione, we are a family-run boutique winery and vineyard, making small lots of mostly Bordeaux varietals. Quiet country peace, tranquility and great mountain views. Come relax in our cozy farmhouse tasting room or surrounding grounds. Our regular tasting is paired with cheeses and chocolate. The Tasting Room is open year-round on weekends, holiday Mondays and Fridays from April through November. We also offer events on select weekends such as Paint & Sips, local artisan exhibits, as well as live acoustic music with great local musicians. Check our website (www. magnoliavineyards.com) or Facebook page for current hours and events.

Make an afternoon of it and visit Magnolia, Gray Ghost and Narmada Wineries, all within a few miles of each other on the eastern end of the scenic Route 211 wine trail. For more information on all venues on the Route 211 trail visit www.skylinewinetrail.com.

The prettiest tasting trail in Virginia!

200 Viewtown Rd., Amissville, VA • 703.785.8190 • magnoliavineyards.com FALL 2018

13

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Small Business Saturday November 24

Small Business Saturday is dedicated to supporting small businesses across the country. Show your support for Warrenton’s local shops while doing your holiday shopping!

Merchants are hosting a welcome table in front of the Post Office with complimentary coffee, cocoa and tote bags. Take advantage of special merchant deals and a chance to win a shopping spree.

A special Thank You to Framecraft and local merchants for hosting this event!

Join Experience Old Town Warrenton for the award-winning GumDrop Square event!

Come for photos with Santa, live entertainment, Christmas carolers and Santa’s Secret Workshop!

Nov. 30 - Dec. 2, Dec. 7-9, Dec. 14-16 and Dec. 21

The Town of Warrenton’s Christmas Parade is Friday, Nov. 30 at 6 pm, and GumDrop Square will begin immediately afterward. *NEW! On Fridays during GumDrop Square, enjoy live music on Main Street and special deals and festivities hosted by Old Town merchants!

Interested in being a volunteer, sponsor or vendor? Contact us at experience@oldtownwarrenton.org www.oldtownwarrenton.org | Find us on and @experienceOTW FALL 2018

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FALL 2018

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Faces & Places WHO WE ARE AND WHERE WE GO

Lasting beauty

Ride along with the local Paranormal Patrol to find out how and why they’re in touch with the past.

(It’s the ‘where’ that might surprise you.)

Photo by Randy Litzinger Story by Alissa Jones

Inside this section:

n We asked, you delivered: A selection of your personal ghost stories n Resting in peace at the comely Warrenton Town cemetery n Suzanne Obetz and the Historic Building Foundation, working to preserve the county’s past FALL 2018

17

SIDE BY SIDE

Members of the Culpeper Paranormal Investigative Team say the work energizes them.

Culpeper Paranormal Team: Fearless foursome takes history’s mysteries very seriously The Culpeper Paranormal Investigative Team formed in 2015.

Founder Kimberly Lillard; husband and wife, Paul and Amy Warmack; and Amy’s mother, Janie Ramirez, make up the fearless foursome that’s taken the serious study of the supernatural from weird hobby to a mainstream, full-time business that keeps them busy most of the year, particularly in the autumn.

Lillard, a music teacher at White Dove Studios, stresses that her team is not obsessed with hunting demons. She says she’s energized by the correlation between teaching music and investigating the paranormal.

Lillard approaches the music potential of each student and each potential haunting as pieces of puzzles that reveal a bigger picture. “Just as you wouldn’t evaluate every student’s music ability the same, you cannot evaluate every haunting the same,” she explains.

Culpeper Paranormal conducts investigations in residences and landmarks, but their primary work is in older, historic buildings. They use modern cameras, electromagnetic devices, and hot and cold sensing equipment, first educating themselves to the history of a suspected haunted building.

“Without a history there’d be no paranormal activity,” says Lillard, “and without what Paul, Amy and 18

FALL 2018

Janie bring to the table, there’d be no way to solve the puzzle.”

The process normally takes four to five hours.

Paul Warmack is responsible for acquiring and maintaining all equipment. He also watches the videos for evidence and clues that support suspicions of hauntings. Amy Warmack’s education in history helps target key background information on properties and buildings.

Lillard says Jamie eagerly picks up the slack, helping wherever needed, which includes setting up equipment.

They use lots of specialized materials, including a spirit box for manipulating sound frequencies of disembodied voices, EMF detectors to measure electromagnetic fields for temperature change and a special camera system that detects a figure or apparition on screen as a stick person. They also use infrared and thermal cameras, and a structured light sensor 3-D camera. cparanormal15@gmail.com – By Alissa Jones

The Virginia Paranormal Team rehashes historic scenes to conjure spirits.

Virginia Paranormal Team: Moving their structured military background to a whole new level Virginia Paranormal Investigative Team of Hampton Roads was founded in 2008 by former military buddies Jeff Santos and Scott Forsythe.

Santos, now an elementary school teacher, says their law enforcement background in the military, combined with a fascination for the supernatural, is what brought them to join the ranks of sleuth slayers.

Santos maintains their approach to investigating the paranormal comes from the investigative routine they perfected in a military unit. Together, with their core team of investigators – David Ramsey, Kyle Ann Jordan and Linda Cassada – they “provide solid, indisputable evidence to debunk, or support, any [haunted] claims about a building or property.”

They approach unexplained paranormal phenomena with “logic, precision and professionalism,” Santos says. “We do not automatically believe someplace is haunted just on hearsay.”

Interviews are conducted, and they look for all natural explanations first. “We look into any religious, or occult affiliations people may have

taken part in and we methodically rule out possible hoaxes or underlying motives by people claiming paranormal activity,” Santos says.

Widespread use of Photoshop and sophisticated graphic design has made investigating the paranormal a much harder job these days. The team relies heavily on Cassada’s expertise as a graphic designer to discern fact from hoax.

“Linda can tell if photos taken have been doctored or altered in any way,” says Santos.

Forsythe’s schooling in history helps shed light and answer key questions about past events that may have opened the door to spiritual activity in buildings and properties they investigate.

The team primarily investigates residential buildings, but also studies UFO sightings, cryptozoological creatures, urban legends and more.

Investigations are free.

Virginia Paranormal hosts ghost hunting lectures regularly.

Equipment includes EMF detectors to measure electromagnetic fields for temperature change, K2 meters to detect spikes in electromagnetic energy, trail cams with motion activation, night vision cameras and ambient thermometers to detect hot and cold spots. vaparanormal@yahoo.com 757-759-0244 – By Alissa Jones

“

“

FACES & PLACES

Local lore lives on through personal tales We asked for your Fauquier ghost stories. And you gave us chills.

When we asked: “Have you ever seen a ghost?”

Fauquier responded with an emphatic: “Yes.” We knew all the old stories about the historic Odd Fellows building, about the confederate soldiers that yet ride at the Waterloo Bridge and the death and desolation at Warrenton’s Old Jail.

But we wanted more.

We wanted your personal, deeply touching stories. They came in – sometimes haunting, sometimes hysterical. Here are a few of the best ghost tales we compiled for an autumn feast.

“

pered voices continuing.

When I was nearly done, I stopped to go over and see who was still there to let them know I would be leaving soon.

When I walked across the hall and looked in, I saw that no one was actually there.

No one real, anyway.

The place was empty.

I looked down the hall, half expecting to see someone in the process of leaving, but, again, no one was there.

I started to feel chills up my spine at this point.

I decided it was time to leave myself.

A love story

BY RACHAEL MCCARTHY

I didn’t see him, but I sure felt him, and my mom saw him.

It was (the ghost of) a boyfriend that she didn’t want me dating.

Bo was killed in a car accident, and, for years afterwards, I always felt that he was with me, though I never saw him.

This was a very dark time in my life.

One evening (shortly after his death – I was a teenager) my mom came into my room. I yelled at her to get out.

The next morning, I came downstairs and she said “Brad (my boyfriend at the time) looked so happy last night.”

I asked her what in the world she was talking about. She said when she came in, a boy was laying longways on my bed, wearing a white T-shirt and jeans, looking happier than she had ever seen him. He had his head resting on one hand.

I burst out crying. Brad hadn’t been there.

I had been shut in my room trying to contact Bo – listening to the same music we used to, trying to talk to him. I felt him with me, but I wanted so badly to see him.

He showed himself to my mom. She, of course, blamed me for bringing a demon into our house.

Eventually, Mom said she was glad Bo showed himself to her. She realized maybe he wasn’t a demon, but perhaps my guardian angel who showed himself so we knew he was there for me.

It wasn’t until years later, when I got married, that I no longer felt him with me. I think he stayed with me until he knew I was safe.

AN ANONYMOUS TALE

“

BY GLORIA GINGER

For the longest time I could just feel ghosts. I lived in a few haunted places, and had friends with ghosts.

A few years ago I was looking at an old farmhouse in New Hampshire near my house and saw a figure of a woman in a high window. I later learned she was a well-known ghost.

More recently, I went to bed and breakfast where I was commissioning some jewelry. The owner was showing me around, and I saw the ghost of a sea captain sitting in a chair, as plain as day. He even nodded to me.

Part of it has been that I have more of a sense of myself now. Twenty years ago, I wouldn’t have been able to handle seeing the ghosts in my house, but now I am much more okay with their presence.

PHOTO BY SUSAN CARTER

A frisky feline haunts for fun AN ANONYMOUS TALE

My family had a wonderful Siamese cat for many years. He passed away from renal failure.

A short time later, I remember I was walking through the house when I felt something tug on the back of my bathrobe as it flew out behind me.

The pull was quite hard, and I lost my balance a bit.

Now, that was a favorite trick of this cat – he loved to wait as you passed him, then he’d jump out at you and pounce on your legs.

I remember being startled and puzzled, but it never occurred to me at that time that it might be him.

Until I got another visit. One day I was taking a nap and I felt something jump on the end of my bed and walk up the bed and start to get on the pillow behind my head. I jumped up and of course, there was nothing there.

My mother told me she had had the same experiences. We realized it might have been that cat.

It was just too coincidental.

“ “ I’m okay, you’re okay

“

Condemned but not forgotten

Nocturnal news is quite a fright

BY ANITA SHERMAN

I haven’t ever seen a ghost but I have been places where there was definitely a “presence.”

I used to work for a small police department.

We had to patrol the area where the city had condemned all the houses because they were apparently too close to the airport approach area.

It was so sad – people left stuff behind – special china, figurines, pictures, furniture. I’m sorry I didn’t have the presence of mind to go back and retrieve some of it for them.

But a couple of the houses were just plain creepy.

One of them, there was most definitely some evil presence there. My other officer and I both felt we were being watched, even though there was no one there. We couldn’t search that place fast enough and get the hell out.

We never went back, but other officers told us of the same feeling when they went there.

“

I was working late – this was in the days when the newsroom was on one side of the historic 39 Culpeper St. building, and advertising was across the hall.

All of us who work at the Fauquier Times – used to be the Fauquier Times-Democrat – had heard the stories of spooky things going on in this old building, but I’d never given it a second thought.

That night, most of the lights were out as everyone had gone home except me. I was busy on the computer attempting to finish a story before I left.

While I typed away, I could hear distinct voices coming from the advertising department. I didn’t pay any attention because I figured a few of the ad staff were still over there.

I kept typing with the background of whis-

Goldvein's noisome normal AN ANONYMOUS TALE

My property and the neighboring property used to be one piece, with the house on the neighbor’s property on the “hill.” The old well and rocks from the foundation are still there.

My house has ghosties in it that are ornery and active, plus one who is just an invisible cloud of rose smell, I call that one Rosie. It wanders around outside; it would walk the pups with us.

When the paranormal investigators came, they were able to get a visit, surrounded by the rose smell, out in the field by my house. They had their RemPod gadget. I’m a bit skeptical, but they asked “Rosie” to touch it, and it lit up.

I think I know who Rosie is. “She” joined me on my porch on the 105th anniversary of her death.

A few months later, I found a granddaughter of the couple who owned the property who had died shortly after marriage, weirdly matching the day she sat on the porch with me. Roses were mentioned in her wedding announcement.

My neighbor’s wife has actually seen “people,” a man and a woman crossing the yard. The woman had a long braid, dark hair, a checkered shirt and a long skirt. The man was in military uniform. I’d guess that to be the husband and wife. Glad I can’t see people!

FALL 2018

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FACES & PLACES

Col. John Mosby – Does he still reside in Old Town?

Chamber of commerce members quietly agog about spooky visitations

PHOTO BY BETSY BURKE PARKER

Meet John Singleton Mosby John Singleton Mosby, known locally as the “Gray Ghost”, was a Confederate army cavalry commander in the American Civil War. His command was the 43rd Battalion, Virginia Cavalry, known as Mosby’s Rangers or Mosby’s Raiders. The unit was renowned for its astounding ability in lightning-quick raids and eluding Union Army pursuers: they’d disappear, blending in with local farmers and town residents.

The area of Virginia in which Mosby operated with impunity was dubbed Mosby’s Confederacy. Fauquier County is part of the historic area, and the Mosby Heritage Area Association – based in Atoka – works to this day to preserve the region.

After the war, Mosby became a Republican – the party of President Lincoln, and worked as an attorney in Warrenton.

Under the presidency of his former enemy commander, U.S. Grant, Mosby served as consul to Hong Kong and in the U.S. Department of Justice.

Brentmoor history

Brentmoor was constructed in 1859, first owned by Judge Edward Spilman. He later sold the grand home at what used to be the edge of Warrenton’s downtown district to James Keith, president of Virginia’s Court of Appeals.

Confederate Col. John Mosby purchased the property after the cessation of Civil War hostilities in 1875, only to sell it two years later to Confederate Gen. Eppa Hunton.

Brentmoor was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1978. It briefly housed what was to become the Mosby Museum, founded by Patricia Fitch in 2001, but was sold to private owner Kirk Goolsby earlier this year.

Brentmoor is a two-story Italianate style house. It is three bays wide, and has a porch across the front of the house. A courtyard occupies the back of the house, containing a brick two-story kitchen and smokehouse.

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FALL 2018

Karen Henderson definitely had some weird experiences in the former Mosby Museum, but she’s not completely sure who’s still roaming the halls of the now privately-owned Warrenton home. It could be the ghost of Col. John Mosby, she says, but then again it could be anybody from Brentmoor’s 157-year history.

By Phoebe deBrevedent

Karen Henderson may not have seen a ghost in person, but swears she not only “felt” the spirits that allegedly inhabit the historic Mosby House in Old Town Warrenton, she saw photographic evidence.

“When I was CEO of the Fauquier County Chamber of Commerce, one of our After Five Socials was held at the Mosby House to highlight the fact that a new visitor center would be built on the property,” recalls Henderson.

“It was the Main Street house that Confederate General John Singleton Mosby lived in several years after the Civil War, before his death in 1916.

“Having a member event there came with its limitations,” she explains. “There was no electricity and no water, which meant there were no (bathroom) facilities. A porta potty with a garden hose stretched from next door took care of the needs.

Candles – apropos to the original Civil War period – illuminated the interior of the house for tours. I do remember staff all thought no electrical lighting made things feel creepy.

A small band, dressed in period costume, completed the presentation.”

Henderson figures as much as anywhere or anytime, the setting was right for ghosts and spirits – if your brain goes there, she adds. “All you had to do was think of the many lives and deep history that happened in the Mosby House, and you could give yourself chills,” she added.

Chamber staff had mentioned several times how unsettled and creepy the house seemed to be, Henderson notes, citing it was oddly cold in places.

PHOTO BY RANDY LITZINGER

Brentmoor, also known as the Mosby House.

“I could definitely feel something otherworldly present in the dwelling, but didn’t want to appear ‘strange’ and kept my perceptions to myself,” she says. “I do not believe in ghosts, but I believe the veil between the ‘worlds’ can be very thin in certain circumstances.

“I kept having the nagging feeling that a person - or something - was approaching me from behind. When I’d turn around to greet what I thought was a chamber member, there was nobody there.

“That strange feeling happened to me several times, enough to send me to the bar for some fortification.”

The bar had been set up inside the house itself, dispensing wine and beer to chamber members from a dark corner of one room. A fierce rainstorm hit the area just minutes before the event began, so things were much darker than normal inside the candlelit house, Henderson recalls.

“It was difficult to see, and we knew that photographs we attempted to take would not really come out well,” she says. She figured photos would be a bust.

“But when we got the film developed, we (saw) people we had taken pictures of around the bar area where it had been darkest, were ‘accompanied’ by strange streaks and sworls of light,” Henderson says. “Some were quite evident behind and beside people in the photographs.”

Strangely, the living people’s imag-

es appeared fuzzy, but the anomalous grayish-white streaks dancing around the people came out crystal clear. “It happened in several pictures,” Henderson stresses. “So we were sure it was not an isolated incident.

“It was totally spooky, as there had been absolutely no reason for the visual disturbances,” though, Henderson adds, there may have been another reason for the odd feelings.

“Having no working bathrooms may have contributed to that oogy feeling.

You know what I mean.”

Still, she remains guarded about returning. “From that day forward, it’s been difficult to get myself or our staff to go inside the house again,” she says.

Henderson insists she’s never felt ghosts or spirits before, or since. “I have yet to see a spirit,” she says. Yet, she’s not so sure about that isolated incident. “Science tells us that energy never dies,” she says. “Just continues on and on. Could it have been the Gray Ghost himself?

“Your guess is as good as mine.

Mosby is not the only person to have lived at Mosby House - in fact, I believe he only lived there for a very few years.

So if it was a discorporeal spirit, it could have been any of hundreds of people.

“Or just bad lighting.”

The historic home, once slated for update as a museum, is once again a private residence. There’s no word from owner Kirk Goolsby whether the “ghosts” remain active.

FACES & PLACES

A history of haunts ANCIENT TIMES

DARK AGES

The Egyptians kept body snatchers away from pyramid burial sites by scaring them. By using mazes, traps, snakes and insects, dead royalty and the treasures buried alongside them were protected from petty thieves.

Greek and Roman folklore, too, is rich with labyrinths and mazes, all filled with monsters. As theater became part of culture, special effects like fog machines, trapdoors and ghostly images with fake blood became part of the burgeoning entertainment industry.

Halloween was born of pagan and Celtic tradition. Samhain (pronounced sow-en) is a fire-festival from sunset of Oct. 31 through Nov. 1, the traditional “end” of the Celtic summer and beginning of the “new year.”

Wearing festive costumes and dancing around the fires, villagers played out the cycle of life and death of the prior year. Celts believed that on this night, souls were set free from the land of the dead, and the veil between the physical world and the afterlife was thin on Samhain.

When Christianity enveloped most of the pagan peoples by the 800s, the early Church of England re-designated Nov. 1 as “All Saints Day,” and decreed Oct. 31 as “All Hallows Eve” in an attempt to Christianize the ancient Celtic festivals.

1800s

EARLY 1900S

Mediums, fortune tellers, spiritualists and conjurers became a form of entertainment for the elite, with many clairvoyants becoming celebrities themselves.

The world’s first wax museum paved the way for walk-through attractions that played with the patron’s sense of reality.

The height of the traveling carnival and rise of the freakshow allowed patrons to gawk at human deformities and other oddities, though many were faked.

Darkened mazes filled with mirrors became popular at the amusement parks that started to spring up across the nation and the world.

1960s

1970s

1980s

TODAY

Disneyland’s Haunted Mansion opened in 1969, featuring a spectral sea captain and headless horseman.

It swiftly became the theme park’s most popular attraction.

Jaycees Jim Gould and Tom Hilligoss wrote a book about hosting a charity haunt, including detailed directions on makeup, scary scene ideas and marketing strategies.

Horror movies rose to prominence in American cinema, carrying the popularity of haunted houses along with it.

Haunts are everywhere, and no longer are they limited to houses. There are haunted hayrides, mazes, scavenger hunts, even murder mystery dinners.

into the un-dead Breathing life uier History Museum will host

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FACES & PLACES

6

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FALL 2018

FACES & PLACES

The spiritual connection of yoga

Kerry Waters brings personal style to this exercise linking body, mind

By Nora Rice

Yoga teacher and artist Kerry Waters brings her own style of yoga and philosophy to the practice, blending her life’s experiences with a unique energy.

Waters, who lives on a small farm near Marshall with husband Eric Lucas, says there are many ways yoga can develop fitness, increase flexibility, lower tension and deepen spiritual awareness.

“I can make you a better rider by teaching you yoga,” she says, adding that she can help clients develop a yoga practice to manage pain from Lyme disease and immune disorders. “(Though) yoga is a science and not a religion, it can deepen spirituality.”

Prior to their move to Fauquier a few years ago, Waters and Lucas were professional actors in Washington, D.C. Lucas is still an actor, and a painter, and works as facilities manager at Barrel Oak Winery west of Marshall.

About 15 years ago, Waters earned her first yoga certification with Patty Ivy, owner of Down Dog in Washington. She pursued advanced yoga certification with Rolf Gates, learning more about chakras – powerful energy vortexes in the body.

Waters traces her early interest in the healing power of yoga to a pivotal year in her life. In March 2005 she lost her father. Later that year, she toured Ireland with the Keegan Theater, playing the role of Blanche in a production of “A Streetcar Named Desire.” Waters recalls she “kept emotional balance by practicing yoga before playing the volatile Blanche” in each performance.

Another change was in store before year’s end – Lucas, who played Mitch in “Streetcar,” and she were engaged and married by December. “My husband is a jewel,” Waters says. “This was the first happy ending to the story of Blanche and Mitch.”

When the couple moved to their farm in Marshall, her mother moved in and lived with them until she died in 2016. Waters calls it “a gift” to take care of her parents when they were dying.

“Yoga gave me more grace … dealing with it,” she says. “To come back to compassion.”

Waters and Lucas perform Oct. 27 in an Edgar Allen Poe short story, “A Cask of the Amontillado” at Slater Vineyards near Upperville.

Testing the Waters

PHOTO BY BETSY BURKE PARKER

• Kerry Waters was named after County Kerry, Ireland.

Her great-grandfather Waters was the first in the family to emigrate to the U.S. He was what she calls a “horse wheezer,” Waters says, taking what she calls “asthmatic racehorses” for rehab in the drier Arizona climate. There, he healed their lungs so they could compete again.

• She graduated from Vassar with a degree in theater and art history.

• She offers yoga classes currently at the Core Loft in Marshall, at Spencer Sporthorse in Hume and at Old Town Athletic Club in Warrenton.

• Find Kerry Waters Yoga on Facebook or email kwaterspirit@yahoo.com FALL 2018

23

FACES & PLACES

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FALL 2018

Call or fax in your order and we’ll have it waiting for you

Waterloo Bridge:

FACES & PLACES

Haunted

or just historic?

Some argue ‘both’ of Virginia’s oldest metal truss span

Local icon getting facelift through $4 million reno project

By Roxie Beebe-Center

Ghosts don’t only have to be the phantoms that lurk in storybooks and abandoned houses.

A ghost can be a memory, a forgotten item or a crumbled building.

By any argument, Fauquier’s Waterloo Bridge has two centuries of ghost stories to tell.

And to hear the tales of those who frequent this famed local icon after dark, it speaks of a haunting history, loud and clear.

Bridging the gap between Culpeper and Fauquier since the early 1800s, the Waterloo Bridge links the two counties across the Rappahannock River. When it was closed to motor traffic in 2014, the latest Waterloo structure – a decorative green iron span built in 1878 – was the oldest metal truss bridge in use in Virginia.

The Waterloo bridge qualifies for the National Register of Historic Places.

A bit like a patchwork quilt, different parts of the handsome structure have been added and removed, with some of the old materials still visible, dangling off the edge over the water. On foot, you can jump up and down on the bridge and feel the entire 367 feet move under you.

Today’s metal structure, earmarked for expensive renovations next year, isn’t the first Waterloo bridge. Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee once led his soldiers across a long, wooden Waterloo bridge, given that in the 1850s this was the only bridge spanning the Rappahannock River for miles up and down the wide waterway.

Retreating Confederate Gen. P.G.T. Beauregard burned the bridge to protect his forces. Later in the conflict, the area became base of operations for Union Gen. John Pope’s troops. Union Gen. John Sedgwick used one of the houses by the bridge – still standing today – as his headquarters.

Until the Civil War, Waterloo was the bustling terminus of a 58-mile canal that once stretched to Fredericksburg. The ghosts of four locks that helped to lift the barges are buried under years of dirt and silt near the structure, leaving only shallow water in a pool as its remnants.

On the Culpeper side of the river, there used to be a general store, two large warehouses and a sawmill.

On the Fauquier side, there were a woolen mill, a blacksmith shop and canal boat repair. All of these buildings, except for two houses, were eventually burnt or torn down.

The Virginia Commonwealth Transportation

PHOTO BY BETSY BURKE PARKER

The green metal trusses of the Waterloo Bridge will be renovated in a project to preserve the history of the Rappahannock River structure linking Fauquier and Culpeper counties.

Board voted in June to rebuild – and reopen – the historic bridge in a $4 million renovation project slated to start next year. Work is expected to take 18 months to complete. The plan is remove the main truss to repair and then reinstall it. Some bridge components will be replaced with new materials, but everything will look like the 1878 bridge, right down to the green paint.

The project got a $1 million boost last November, when Russell Hitt, chairman of Hitt Contracting, donated money to rehab the bridge. Hitt, who grew up near the bridge, told the board he wanted to save it for his children and grandchildren.

Visitors yearn for bridge re-opening

An elderly woman helps her husband around the orange “Road Closed” barricade guarding the bridge from automobile traffic. Stepping over bottlecaps and cans left behind by recent partygoers, they make their way to the middle of the span.

She snaps pictures, playing with the dials on her camera, as he talks to strangers about everything from his childhood to his small hometown to his father who preached at a church near Marshall.

As they head off to the Fauquier bank, she starts humming “Across the Bridge,” a gospel tune that was a hit 60 years ago, one she says she and her friends listened to as teenagers.

From the Culpeper side of the river, a young couple arrives on foot. Stefanie Kohl has on a Day of the Dead T-shirt. Her husband, she explains, just lost his grandfather that day. They were on a drive through the countryside and decided at the last minute to visit the bridge they once used as a shortcut.

Stefanie was excited by the chance to visit at night, though she’s not sure the bridge is really haunted.

“It’s a possibility,” she says.

Those who hear ‘galloping ghosts’ ringing on the metal bridge aren’t paying attention

If someone tells you they’ve stood in the dark by the iconic Waterloo Bridge on a moonlit night and heard the hooves of tired Civil War mounts ringing on the iron structure, put it down to vivid imagination. The metal Waterloo Bridge wasn’t built until the late 1870s, long after hostilities ceased.

FALL 2018

25

FACES & PLACES

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FALL 2018

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FACES & PLACES

The tell-tale heart of Warrenton: historic town cemetery

Peaceful graveyard provides quietly contemplative respite just south of busy Old Town

By John Toler

For nearly 200 years, the Warrenton Cemetery has served as the final resting place for many of Fauquier County’s sons and daughters.

With the exception of Union soldiers using the grave markers of Confederate dead as firewood during the Civil War, nothing had happened until a 2017 vandalism marked the first desecration of the hallowed grounds.

Similar to wanton vandalism at the Marshall Cemetery 25 years ago, grave toppling last year at Warrenton Cemetery saddened and outraged the community.

Soon after the vandalism was discovered, members of the Fauquier Historical Society launched an effort to raise money to have the damaged stones restored. The Town of Warrenton contacted cemetery conservator Robert Mosko of Mosko Cemetery Monument Services of Hanover, Pennsylvania, who assessed the damage.

The newly formed Friends of the Warrenton Cemetery became involved and took over the fundraising. A year later, after several visits by Mosko’s crew, most of the stones have been restored and are back in place.

Digging deep for the story

The origin of the cemetery, which is owned by the Town of Warrenton, goes back to Colonial days when Warrenton was known as Fauquier

Courthouse. One of the earliest mentions of the presence of a cemetery there appears in the Aug. 23, 1759, minutes of the Court for Fauquier County.

Less than four months after the county was chartered, the court met and selected the site of the first county courthouse and jail, which were to be built on two acres “…between the cemetery and the residence of Mr. Moses Green,” most likely near the center of what is today the newer section of the cemetery.

Construction began in early 1760, but after building two unsatisfactory courthouse-jail projects, a new courthouse was built on property on Culpeper Street, now belonging to Mr. and Mrs. Walter Hitchcock. A small jail – known as the “Debtor’s Prison” – was built on Main Street, believed to be the site of the former BB and T Bank building.

With the buildings gone, the property became exclusively a cemetery. In addition to new burials, graves were moved there from other, less accessible cemeteries. These reburials included the remains of Charles Lee, (17581815) who served as attorney general under presidents George Washington and John Adams and was originally buried in the cemetery of the old St. Mary’s (“Turkey Run”) Church off present-day Meetze Road.

The Civil War had an impact on the cemetery far greater than just the burning of the wooden grave mark-

ers. The “Defenders of Virginia” monument, erected in 1877 by the ladies of the Memorial Society of Fauquier, marks the mass grave of the 600 Confederate soldiers who were re-interred together after their markers were destroyed.

Most had been wounded in the two major battles near Manassas and brought to Warrenton, where they died.

Others died from disease at nearby camps. But the names of those buried there were lost for more than 100 years.

Robert E. Smith of Carpentersville, Illinois, discovered documentation for 520 of the dead buried there while doing research on his great-grandfather, Pvt. Charles Wilburn Smith.

In October 1996, Smith contacted Biz Lineweaver, asking if she could get permission “…to erect something like a small mailbox to house a looseleaf notebook listing the names near the site, so the public could have access to it.”

Lineweaver, wife of longtime Warrenton Mayor Bill Lineweaver, has ancestors who fought in the Civil War, and is a member of the Black Horse Chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy. She was astonished by the depth of the detailed information, and quickly gained the support of her fellow UDC members, especially Lelia “Mickey” Kehoe and Adelaide Neily, and vowed to do something much better.

Others joined the cause, including Meade Palmer, an internationally-

known landscape architect. Palmer felt that without the names of the dead the 1877 monument was never really completed. Others involved included Joe Winklemann, Caren Pressley and Gen. Lewis Marshall Helm.

After the design was approved and fundraising conducted, “The Memorial Wall to Name the Fallen,” actually a re-dedication of the 1877 monument, was held on May 24, 1998.

In addition to the 600 Confederate dead, many local Civil War veterans are buried in Warrenton Cemetery. These include Col. John S. Mosby (1833-1916), Gen. W. H. F. Payne (1830-1904) and Maj. Gen. Lindsay Lomax (1835-1913).

In the years that have followed, veterans of subsequent wars, prominent citizens and their families – and those not-so-prominent as well – have the Warrenton Cemetery as their final resting place.

The last regular burial plot in the cemetery was sold several years ago; all that remain are a limited number of cremation sites. The sole mausoleum in the cemetery contains the remains of Commodore John Cropper Wise (1848-1922) and presumably his wife (the second crypt is unmarked).

A long, long time ago

The earliest tomb in Virginia with a legible inscription is that of Mrs. Alice Jordan, who died in 1650 in Surry County, along the James River at Four Mile Tree Plantation.

PHOTO BY BETSY BURKE PARKER

Warrenton’s town cemetery is one of 24 in Fauquier County, not counting family plots, slave graveyards and other sites that have been long lost to history.

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FALL 2018

FACES & PLACES

THE CANINE ‘GREY GHOST’

Meet the graceful Weimaraner

By Connie Lyons

His appearance is as strange and graceful as any shadow. One of the most beautiful of dogs, the Weimaraner is tall and slender, more than 2 feet tall at the shoulder. The coat is the color of burnished pewter, the eyes a strange, pale, almost translucent amber.

Photographer William Wegman exploited the Weimaraner’s unique appearance, posing the dogs in wigs and costumes, using props to capitalize on their uncannily human-like expressions.

Highly intelligent, self-willed and opinionated as well as inflamed with boundless energy, the Weimaraner needs a firm but gentle hand, extravagant amounts of exercise, and early and vigorous training.

Exasperated owners report that their dogs operate the refrigerator ice maker, open securely closed doors and drawers and gleefully demolish the contents. The average garbage pail is a snap. One especially determined young male, having managed to pry apart the metal bars of his crate but unable to open the kitchen door, ate his way through it to freedom.

Another so defeated his novice owners that they in desperation consulted an expensive trainer.

“We have this Weimaraner,” began the anxious young woman. The trainer smiled and nodded.

“And he rapes and pillages,” he observed.

Weimaraners were bred to hunt small game.

The highly-developed prey instinct occasionally in-

PHOTO BY MONIQUE BERNARDO

Weimaraners Jewel, left, and Niko are smart and personable, says owner Monique Bernardo. cludes the pursuit and wanton destruction of small pets: cats, rabbits and little dogs. A young child on a bicycle may be a dangerously attractive target.

But for adults, couples and families with older children – with strict training or without the allure of little animals – Weimaraners can make wonderfully devoted and entertaining companions.

The breed was developed during the late 19th century in the German court of Weimar, where noblemen wanted an intelligent and courageous hunting dog. They were initially known as Weimar Pointers.

Likely progenitors were the bloodhound, the German shorthaired pointer and the great Dane.

In 1897, an exclusive club was started to maintain and protect the breed; no one was allowed to buy a Weimaraner unless they agreed to join the club.

In 1929, American sportsman Howard Knight saw the dogs and was smitten. After much persuasion the club allowed him to join and sent him home with two dogs. In 1942 the Weimaraner

Club of America was formed.

In the 1950s, Life magazine ran a cover article on what they decreed “the Grey Ghost” of the dog world. There were then about 1,500 Weimaraners in the U.S., all owned by members of the Weimaraner Club of America. The club tightly controlled breeding to ensure that each generation retained the best of the breed’s characteristics, in particular the signature friendly and loyal personality and a solid record as a hunting companion.

The American Kennel Club recognized the breed almost immediately, and they first appeared at the Westminster Kennel Club show in 1943.

Today they rank 34th in popularity out of the 190 breeds recognized by the American Kennel Club.

“My husband and I got involved with Weimaraners when we were looking for a short-haired, medium-sized dog and started doing some research,” says breed fan Renee La Follette. “I (also) wanted a running partner. We found a breeder just outside of Leesburg and were able to get a puppy."

They were hooked.

La Follette says the breed can be a challenge.

“The ghost part is because they can be very stealthy,” she says. “It has not been an unusual occurrence for the dogs to sneak up on us, across a wood floor without any of the tags making noise on their collars or their toenails [making noise on] the floor.

“They are extremely personable and like to think they are more human than dog. They are very loyal and very smart.”

Want your own?

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FACES & PLACES

Powerhouse Suzanne Obetz and the Historic Building Foundation

Discovering the legacy of place is her passion

tory began leaping off the pages and coming alive for her.

The first time she drove through the Manassas Battlefield after moving from northwest Tennessee as an adult, Obetz was struck by the rich stories crying to be told. “I can tell the bigger picture,” says Obetz. She works with local teachers to create hands-on history lessons that will teach the next generation of historians to view history with a broader perspective.

By Alissa Jones

Touching and teaching are at the heart of Suzanne Obetz’s vocation.

And her avocation.

Combining the two passions was behind Obetz’s motivation to recently form the nonprofit Historic Building Foundation to save historic structures in Fauquier, just as it drives her work at the Warren Heritage Society.

“There are tree huggers,” she says.

“Well, I’m a building hugger. Every building has a story, and that story is built into the walls of old buildings, pieces of stories left behind.”

One of the foundation’s ongoing Fauquier projects is Sibby’s on Second Street in Warrenton. Built in 1912, the restaurant is in the oldest building in Virginia owned by the same entity, the Masonic Lodge.

The foundation has been involved with restoration of the Waterloo

Coming in contact Suzanne Obetz Bridge and is working on preserving the history of the Free State near Marshall.

“I like to touch history, and I like to teach,” she says. Obetz earned a degree in historic preservation from the University of Mary Washington.

“I am) able to do both.”

Obetz says her calling to preserve history was apparent early in her life. Both her parents were school teachers, and both mastered the art of storytelling. She recalls the very moment in seventh grade when his-

Obetz’s job with historic restoration has brought her in contact with spirits from the past, she says. Whether they’re “real” or just perceived, Obetz says understanding history – what happened and why – is at the root of her passion to learn more.

Sometimes with renovation projects, she hires a paranormal team to monitor possible activity. “People love to connect with haunted stories,” she says. “When you have a legitimate team come in and verify what others say they are seeing and hearing, it makes all the difference.”

From flash sightings of moving objects to little girl giggles, Obetz

says she personally experienced the supernatural when working as director at Warrenton’s Old Jail museum.

She discovered that a young girl named Josie had lived, and died, in the jail with a parent who had worked there. “I heard her giggles,” Obetz maintains, “and (saw) things move as she walked across a room. I’ve even heard my name being called.”

What she’s seen and heard hasn’t scared her, Obetz insists, but it changed her view of her profession.

“It helped me see the bigger picture and ask the deeper questions,” Obetz says. “If you hear a little girl giggle, as I did at the jail, and there is no little girl around … that’s creepy.

“But if you find out the history of a place, you’ll have a better understanding of why things happen the way they do. I realized Josie was just a little girl wanting to play.

“If you’re purchasing an historic property, go [investigate the records of the] county deeds and do your research. Find out what happened there.

It’s not only fun, but it sheds light on why they are the way they are. You’ll have a better understanding.” historicbuildingfoundation.org

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Inside this section: n Cops: Explaining

34

FALL 2018

the unexplainable

n Autumn

reading list (don't do it in the dark.) n Pedal power in support of Fauquier Trails

Life & Style THE WAY WE LIVE IN FAUQUIER

Old-fashioned photo technique, made modern

What happens when you mix six co-workers, a pile of costume jewelry, a box fan and a puff of post-processed mist?

(The results might surprise you.)

Photos by Cindy Goff Story by Betsy Burke Parker

FALL 2018

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LIFE & STYLE

Spirit photography – A modern take on a singular art form

No need to conjure an actual ghost to recreate traditional technique A modern twist on an old-fashioned photo technique is making the rounds this season.

So-called “spirit photography” is due for a big comeback, experts say, some 150 years after it was first, inadvertently, introduced in Victorian England as a way to revive long-lost relatives. Though it was quickly debunked as false, “capturing a ghost” on photo images to this day remains a fun way to turn pictures into art.

Spirit photography was invented

by William Mumler in the 1860s.

Mumler discovered the technique quite by accident: he developed a film image and found a “second person” in a self-portrait he’d taken. Actually a double exposure, the ghostly apparition startled him enough that he began to research how to capitalize on the technique.

Mumler set himself up as a spiritual medium, shooting portraits and doctoring negatives in the developing process to add ghostly images of deceased loved ones into the background.

His clients ate it up.

But Mumler got sloppy, and his fraud was uncovered when he started using identifiable living people in the

PHOTO BY TAYLOR DABNEY

Behind the scenes: Photographer Cindy Goff works the angles to get the ‘money shot.’

photos as “spirits.”

Though spirit photography had been debunked as a hoax, other selfidentified spiritualists insisted the images were real, dots of light being of a fluid substance called ectoplasm in which spirits take form, they maintained.

Today, visual artifacts are rec-

ognized as a result of flash lighting reflecting off solid particles such as dust or pollen, or liquid particles such as raindrops.

Whether or not a spirit photo contains an actual spirit, Dreamspeed Photography’s Cindy Goff calls the Victorian technique an amusing, easy, modern way to

create art. Especially appropriate in autumn, today’s spirit photography is more fun than fiction, Goff says.

“I love using these spirit photography techniques,” she says. Goff is Art Director for Piedmont Media, parent company of inFauquier.

“When I heard the theme for the fall magazine, ‘The Spirit Issue,’ I knew a spirit photo would be perfect for the Life and Style cover.”

Goff researched double-exposed “spirit” photos to prep for the assignment. “There are tons of ways you can do it,” she says. “It’s actually really easy, either in your set design or in post-processing.”

Goff, 52, lives in New Baltimore. A native of Chilhowie in southwestern Virginia, she studied at the Art Institute of Pittsburgh, graduated from George Mason with degrees in English and art, and earned an MFA in creative writing from Mason in 1993.

Goff taught college English for five years, but her heart was in design.

Goff worked in the art department at the Loudoun Times-Mirror in 1997, joining Piedmont Media and opening Dreamspeed in Warrenton in 2014.

PHOTOS BY CINDY GOFF

photographer ing the Spirit photo shoot, says urally into a dur d’ cte tra dis tely ple com gling and talking and the scene unfolded nat Fauquier Times were at first ‘gig they got set tled into the work, ertising sales representative Jeanne Outtakes: Five co-workers at the ps made everyone a little excitable, she explains, but once adv in Chief Chris Six, classified pro Cindy Goff. The costumes and on set were designer/videographer Sawyer Guinn, left, Editor ed rman. legitimate period piece. Includ and Community Editor Anita She ney Dab lor Tay er ign Cober t, des 36

FALL 2018

LIFE & STYLE HOW TO MAKE YOUR OWN SPIRIT PHOTOGRAPH Lights

For her spirit photo shoot, photographer Cindy Goff used two AlienBee speedlights to “create a shadowy look,” though she says you could easily achieve the same by taking the shade off a lamp and holding it near the ceiling, or making a low-tech umbrella light out of scrap posterboard, duct tape and a flashlight.

Goff sealed off all natural light with dark curtains but says you can also use early morning or late afternoon light to your advantage. “It’s all about mood,” she says. “Take dozens of practice shots to see what works.”

To add the puff of mist that Mumler would have insisted was a ghost from the past, Goff used “layers” in post-processing.

She says a similar effect can be achieved incamera: Set up a filtered light beside your camera position – a light-colored, gauzy silk scarf draped over a small flashlight would work – to pop a mysterious orb into a corner of the finished image.

Camera

Goff used a Canon EOS 5D Mark III, but says she created much of the mood in Photoshop. “I added a sparkle to Jeanne (the medium’s) eyes, and put it in sepia tone to give it a Victorian look.”

Most of this can also be achieved through set design, she stresses. Set up a dark backdrop – Goff used two $5 shower curtains – and make certain

there’s nothing distracting in your viewfinder as you stage the shoot.

Have your “actors” dress in similar tones, and plain colors – even black, white and gray. This helps if you don’t have the expensive, benchmark Photoshop program available. “But honestly, all photo editing programs can do a lot of this,” Goff says. “Take time to understand what you’ve got.”

Goff used a simple box fan, she says, “to create the swirl of ‘wind’ that caught Taylor’s hair and made it look like something else was at the table with them.”

Action

Spirit photography can use many actors, one or none at all. You could do it with a pet, or a meaningful background.

Goff pressed five co-workers into service, asking them to dress in plain, timeless clothing and bring in old-fashioned costume jewelry and props like candles, a crystal ball and a bell.

“In the beginning, everybody was talking and giggling,” Goff recalls. “It took a few minutes to settle down. They felt a little silly, in costume, out of their comfort zones.”

Goff directed the actors touch the table with their fingertips as if they were calling on the past, later asking them to look up as if they could see the “spirit” she planned to add in a second layer. “Everybody did great,” Goff says. “We had a total blast with it.”

Local realtor Sandy Sullivan recalls her role in ‘The Exorcist’ Warrenton realtor Sandy Sullivan played a part in one of the world’s most iconic horror films, "The Exorcist."

“I was modeling, and I was registered with central casting,” Sullivan recalls. “I got called as an extra for that scene on the stairs in Georgetown.

“If you blinked, you didn’t see me. As far as the filming was concerned, it was always ‘hurry up and wait’ for the extras on set, and you never knew if you were even going to get in a scene.

“It was fun because you would see some of the movie stars, though never up close enough. Extras are very low on the totem pole. Extras were referred to as ‘atmosphere.’

“The director or his assistant, in this case, would simply be told get the ‘atmosphere’ in place. Then they would tell us where to look, how to look, and where to move for the action scene.”

Even though “The Exorcist” remains known as one of history’s scariest horror flicks, Sullivan says it wasn’t looking very scary during film-making. “The filming of the step scene wasn’t really scary because most of us really had no idea what the script was all about. After the film came out, it was a scary.

“Then it made sense why the actor was falling down the steps.”

Even today, Sullivan can point out

PHOTO BY TAYLOR DABNEY

If you stop by the iconic stairs in Georgetown today, you will probably find exercising rather than exorcising.

the still-famous staircase. “I used to work for a lot of the Georgetown shops, so I often drove past. They (have) the steps and the house that was used in the movie on a tour of Georgetown.”

Based on a real-life exorcism in Maryland, “The Exorcist” was released in 1973. It has been remade into a series, and remains popular as a rental.

FALL 2018

37

LIFE & STYLE

Mount Gordon Farm

Harmony Creek

128 acres and immaculate 3 level, 13,000+ sq ft stone & shingle main house • 5 BR • 8 FP • Exceptional finishes on every floor • Caterer’s kitchen • Elevator • Spa • Separate guest cottage • Pool • Farm manager residence • 3 additional tenant houses • 12 stall centeraisle stable • Pond • Extraordinary land w/ incomparable views extending beyond the Blue Ridge Mts • Orange County Hunt Helen MacMahon (540) 454-1930

Hill top setting with beautiful distant views • Farm house circa 1920, completely restored and enlarged, • 3BR, 3 BA, 2 fireplaces, wood floors, large country kitchen • 129.15 rolling & useable acres • Improvements include 3-bay equipment shed/work shop, guest house, 4-stall barn complex, riding ring, spring fed pond & stream.

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A long hard surfaced driveway leads to this special home built in 1985 • 6 bedrooms, 5 1/2 baths, 5 fireplaces • High ceilings, large rooms with good flow • Formal garden overlooks Carters Run. Large pond • Pool with pool house • Barn could have 4 stalls • Rolling land, very private - yet very close to Warrenton Paul MacMahon (703) 609-1905

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Old Goose Creek Farm

Piece of Heaven

Pristine equestrian property • Exceptional location • Stone home expanded to approx. 7,000 sf. includes 4 main level suites • Lovely gardens, pool, garage apartment & pond • Blackburn designed 6 stall stable w/70x210 indoor arena includes observation deck, tack room, 2 wash stalls & office • Additional 4 stall barn • Entire property is fenced and cross fenced on 26 acres & 8 paddocks Helen MacMahon (540) 454-1930

Absolutely impeccable custom home on 50 acres with lake frontage 10 minutes from Marshall • Beautiful millwork, extensive plantings, porches & terraces • Fantastic mountain views from oversized windows, rolling pasture & private dock • 5 BRs, 3 FPs, hardwood floors • Extremely well built home with endless amenities • Very special home in pristine condition Helen MacMahon (540) 454-1930

Middleburg • $4,500,000

Marshall • $1,490,000

Salem Hill

Winchester Road

Prime Fauquier location, well protected • 6 bedrooms • 4 full and 2 half baths • 3 fireplaces • Great views • Pool with large flagstone terrace • Large county kitchen • 4-car detached garage with apartment/office • 9-stall barn • Covered arena • Outdoor ring • 4 stall shed row barn • 51 fenced acres Paul MacMahon (703) 609-1905

1.69 acres with frontage on Route 17, right off Route 66, currently zoned R-4 • New Marshall code zoning calls for Gateway District, potential office building, etc. • Solid stone house on property • Sold in “As Is” condition • Owner licensed real estate agent in VA Paul MacMahon (703) 609-1905

Marshall • $3,690,000

Marshall • $795,000

Game Creek

204 Chestnut Street

A remarkable property located within a private enclave just minutes from town • Stone and stucco manor house with main level master suite • 7 additional BR • 5 stone FP • Beautiful gardens, terraces, salt water pool, cabana, carriage house & stable with 2 paddocks • Lovely finishes throughout & sweeping lawn to private trails to Goose Creek • 31 acres • Private, elegant & convenient Helen MacMahon (540) 454-1930

Great light & minimal maintenance • Main level living on a charming street • Walk to town, library & restaurants • Large master bedroom & sunroom • Fenced lot with plenty of room for expansion or a pool • Lower Level offers private entrance, separate living space & room for 3rd BR with private BA • Beautiful plantings, large front & back yards • Oversized storage building with many uses and possibilities • Very private Helen MacMahon (540) 454-1930

Middleburg • $2,985,000

Middleburg • $599,000

Waverly

Oak Ridge

Circa 1755, prime Fauquier County location, between Middleburg and The Plains • Additions in early 1800’s & 1943 • Home recently restored • 62 gently rolling acres in Orange County Hunt • 4 bedrooms, 4 1/2 baths, 6 fireplaces • Improvements include salt water pool, pool house, large party house/ studio, 2 tenant houses, stone walls and pond Paul MacMahon (703) 609-1905

Prime location, off Springs Road • Surrounded by large farms & estates • House circa 1890 with 2 BR, 1 1/2 BA, FP, hardwood floors, new kitchen • Garage • 2 sheds/studio potential • Tenant house • Property shares large spring fed pond • Private setting on 13.21 acres Paul MacMahon (703) 609-1905

The Plains • $2,950,000

Warrenton • $595,000

Sheridan-MacMahon, Ltd. | 110 East Washington Street Middleburg, Virginia 20117 | (540) 687-5588 info@sheridanmacmahon.com | www.sheridanmacmahon.com 38

FALL 2018

LIFE & STYLE

Gregarious gift for gorillas Meet activist naturalist Reeves Blackmon

By Anita L. Sherman

When it comes to the study of gorillas, Dian Fossey is a name that comes to mind. An American primatologist and conservationist, she is best known for her decadeslong study of mountain gorillas in the forests of Rwanda. She died in 1985, but her legacy lives on in such vehicles as the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund, which celebrated a 50-year anniversary in 2017.

It was very warm Saturday afternoon at the WARF in Warrenton as hundreds of children with their parents and friends poured onto the fields for soccer games, roller hockey or the playground area. It was also an opportune time for folks to get introduced to the work of Dian Fossey and the fascinating life of gorillas.

His cheeks blushed from the day’s sun, 7-year-old Reeves Blackmon, along with his parents Phillip and Laurel, and brothers Thomas, 4, and Lincoln, 2, were manning a table selling lemonade.

Correction, LemonAPE. Last fall, Reeves, a homeschooled student, became interested in gorillas. “I read about them, that they are endangered, and I wanted to do something,” Reeves says with a broad smile. “My mom said ‘yes'."

His idea became reality when the family helped him set up a stand. Chillier then, he first sold hot cocoa – he called it hot Koko.

Koko is a gorilla made famous because of her ability to use sign language.

Sadly for Reeves and her many fans, Koko died in her sleep at age 46 in June at her longtime home in Woodside, California.

Far from her passing stopping Reeves’ devotion to the cause, it made him more committed.

Over the summer, Reeves was back with lemonade, with plans to go back to hot Koko this fall.

Asked if Reeves has seen a gorilla, he acknowledged that he has and was quite impressed.

“When I was 6, I saw one at a zoo in Knoxville,” he recalls, re-

COURTESY PHOTO

Reeves Blackmon dressed in a gorilla suit for Halloween last November. He served up hot ‘Koko’ cocoa to bring attention to the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund. He strives for habitat conservation education as much as fundraising. membering the delight when the gorilla’s baby approached him.

“But the mother grabbed her back.

“It drew attention, so people would ask about it and then I could tell them what I was doing and perhaps they would donate.”

Reeves thinks gorillas are very cool beasts that are threatened from poachers, disease and the loss of their natural habitat. His table has books about gorillas, and when you buy a cup it may have a label with a gorilla fact.

The Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund supports ongoing work to help gorillas in the wild. Reeves’s mission is to aid their efforts.

In the short time the young entrepreneur has been in business, at press time he’d raised $2,020.

Setting up a GoFundMe account was fortuitous as the organization gave him $1,000 for being a “young hero.” The remainder he has raised through his sales of lemonade and Koko.

$1 at a time Donations

are

usually

$1,

Reeves says as he pours lemonade to thirsty customers who inevitably ask about his project.

“I really like math,” he says, “and drawing…and adventuring.”

Reeves enjoys playing outdoors, climbing trees and visiting a nearby creek with his friends.

The family moved to a small farm in Jeffersonton from Arlington about three years ago to give their three active sons more space to roam.

“I was a teacher and administrator for many years and am now an educational consultant working with schools on curriculum and social justice education through LCB Consulting. I am also a doctoral candidate at the University of Maryland in teacher education and professional development,” says mother Laurel. Reeves’ father Phillip is a commercial real estate attorney in D.C. “He’s always been compassionate and an activist,” his mother adds, noting she was more than happy to accommodate her son’s vision. “We are thankful to join

PHOTO BY ANITA L. SHERMAN

LemonAPE is a summer treat sold by young conservationist Reeves Blackmon to support gorilla habitat half a world away from Warrenton. the warm, vibrant Fauquier community.” gofundme.com/thelemonapestand FALL 2018

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LIFE & STYLE

Things that go bump in the night

The perilous witching hour of law enforcement graveyard shift

By Craig Macho Police and sheriff’s departments throughout the country have different names for their overnight shift, those late-night and early-morning hours when normal people are comfortably tucked into bed and the denizens of the dark rule.

As my father always said, nothing good ever happens after midnight.

In my former police department, we called the overnight hours the graveyard shift. And during the fall, when Halloween and those who celebrate it produce goblins by the hundreds, this was an especially appropriate title for those wee hours when it seems like only cops and crooks are out and about.

While most law enforcement are somewhat skeptical of hauntings, we’d occasionally come across a situation that defied explanation. Sometimes, logical consideration of the facts would lead to more questions.

Driving through a shopping center in my police car during the witching hour a number of years ago, my eyes caught a slight movement near the front door of one the stores. I quickly focused on

a man dressed in dark clothing backing into the shadows near a brick pillar, trying to hide from view.

This was the moment a police officer lives for – the opportunity to interrupt a crime in progress.

This shopping center, really more of a strip mall, had suffered a couple burglaries the previous week where a suspect had used a brick to break a window to gain entry. It seemed I’d run across a suspect. And while at 3 a.m. it was possible the man I saw was just out for a walk, his attempt to hide from me and the spate of burglaries gave me just cause to stop and talk to him.

But in a flash, as I got out of my car and approached him, he took off. In my best cop voice, I yelled “Police! Stop right there pal!”

Even weighted down with my duty belt and vest, I caught up to him as we neared a corner leading to a side alley. I could hear the sirens of my beat partners closing in as I mentally prepared for the likely physical confrontation that would occur when I caught up to him.

The suspect rounded the corner, and I lost sight of him for three seconds or so.

I turned the corner, and, to my amazement,

Law enforcement is just as prone to unexplainable situations as the rest of us, says a retired officer.

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found myself alone.

There were a couple pallets, a dumpster and some loose cardboard surrounded by a chain link fence, but no one was there.

Within seconds a couple other officers drove up on the other side of the alley. We checked the dumpster, the pallets and the tall fence, which was intact with nary a hole or opening for a person to crawl through.

He’d disappeared into thin air.

One of my friends hummed the theme of the Twilight Zone, asking with a snicker if perhaps I’d seen a flash of light.

Which witch?

A cop friend had an experience with a witch, and maybe a real one. He detained a woman, skinny with long dark hair, after he’d found her wandering in traffic near a freeway overpass. Her behavior, he thought, indicated she might have been under the influence of drugs.

Sitting in the caged backseat of his police car, handcuffed, the woman suddenly sounded sober and quite menacing, my friend recalled.

“Let me go right now, or I’ll just leave later,” she PHOTO BY BETSY BURKE PARKER

LIFE & STYLE warned him.

He chuckled as he left her to briefly talk to a witness. Every cop in history has people say they’ll escape. He wasn’t worried.

When he returned to his car a moment later, the backseat was empty. And his handcuffs were sitting, still locked as if they around a pair of wrists, on his back seat. The woman had been seatbelted in, there was no way to open the back doors from inside the caged portion of the car she was in.

There was no way she could have escaped.

For years he’d say he was just glad she didn’t cast a spell and turn him into a toad.

Forgive those that trespass against us

Fauquier Sheriff’s sergeant Rob Moline spoke of a couple spooky encounters with what might have been a sports-minded spirit. He and two other deputies were responding to a report of a homeless person trespassing at a two-story colonial farmhouse near the Fauquier High baseball fields.

There was no power at the residence, and it was overgrown with vegetation, a house that horror movies are made from, Moline said.

Moline joked with the other deputies, one a rookie, that they’d do some ghost hunting while inside.

“They both were hesitant and not on the same page as I was,” he recalled.

The empty house gave off what Moline described as a weird vibe, causing the air to feel different and the hair on their arms to stand up. Still, it was their job, and they started their search on the downstairs level.

“I noticed a tennis ball on the floor and picked it up. I asked if anyone wanted to play ball and

tossed it in a room on the main level,” he said. The ball was quickly forgotten as the deputies climbed to the second level.

“We continued to search the residence for any trespassers,” Moline said. “All three of us stayed together. I was searching a back bedroom when the rookie said ‘Ha, funny, when did you do it?’

“I asked what he was talking about, and he replied, ‘the ball.’”

Moline said it slowly dawned on them they’d been together the entire time. Moline couldn’t have played a trick.

The rookie led them to the staircase they had just ascended. There, at the top, was the tennis ball.

“Obviously someone or something wanted to play ball,” Moline said darkly.

Another incident occurred when Moline conducted a premise check of the Marshall Manor building, which used to be a nursing home.

“The structure was known in the community to be vacant so a lot of juveniles frequented the area.

I decided to check the property and found a rear door open. I entered the building and stood in the hallway quietly to listen,” Moline recalled.

The building was completely furnished, only missing its staff and patients.

Moline heard footsteps of several people running on the second floor.

He radioed for help, and continued listening as he waited for other deputies to assist.

The deputies searched the entire building. Moline shrugged. No one was there – sometimes there’s just no explanation.

“There was always a weird vibe there,” he said.

Explaining the unexplainable In a profession where ordinary men and women are often asked to do extraordinary things, one of the more difficult tasks of police officers and detectives is to aptly describe and explain events that sometimes defy explanation.

After 23 years in law enforcement, where I worked as a patrol officer, robbery and homicide detective and watch commander, I found myself in a career as a reporter.

I recently retired, again, after working as a journalist for a dozen years.

It’s a tossup which was harder.

Journalists and police officers often struggle to figure out events that have no ready explanation.

Law enforcement and reporters throughout the country have been documenting unexplainable events and incidents for decades. In “Cops’ True Stories of the Paranormal: Ghosts, UFOs, and Other Shivers,” retired police officer Loren Christensen asked police officers and sheriff deputies to talk about their experiences with the paranormal.

One unfortunate policeman working for the Department of Veteran Affairs was fired after reporting that he was seeing ghosts at the New Jersey VA hospital he was assigned to protect. Officer Valdo Vaher was dismissed in 2014 after he swore to a colleague that the hospital was haunted.

A 2015 article in USA Today talked about a number of local Montana police officers and sheriff’s deputies who reported seeing strange mists, noises and apparitions while patrolling backcountry locations.

It’s a paradox that many police officers and journalists struggle with: we’re asked to make observations.

But sometimes all of us, in the force as well as the newsroom, have to admit there’s just no explanation.

– By Craig Macho

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LIFE & STYLE

The Great Pumpkin Ride

Bicycle tours of the county benefit Fauquier Trails Coalition, which in turn benefits everybody

By Stephanie Slewka

Trail tale

The scariest thought about the 2018 Great Pumpkin Ride may be how to pedal the home stretch back to Warrenton on a full stomach.

The lunch stop on the popular annual bike ride through some of the prettiest fall scenery in Fauquier County offers everything pumpkin: pumpkin soup, pumpkin bread, pumpkin pie, pumpkin bagels and more.

“We take care of our riders,” says Jimmy Messick, president of local non-profit Fauquier Trails Coalition that benefits from ride proceeds. It is a fundraiser for the organization to extend and connect biking and walking trails in the county, he says; all event staff are volunteers.

For the occasion and for the season, Old Bust Head Brewing Company pours Old Jail Pumpkin Ale, a brown ale that the Vint Hill brewery says is “haunted but not overpowered with pumpkin and peach.” Named after one of Warrenton’s oldest buildings, the Old Jail, the beer is a nod to the ghosts of those hanged in the yard who are said to roam one of the best preserved jails in Virginia.

Old Bust Head partner Julie Broaddus has participated in the bike ride. She’s proud of Fauquier and “the more folks appreciate the beauty of this place, the more they will take care to preserve it, so good trails are a win-win.”

The Great Pumpkin Ride offers 32, 53 and

A ghost of a chance Curl up with the best in classic horror this season (if you dare)

By Connie Lyons Ghost stories raise the possibility, however frightening, of a world beyond this world. Some of the greatest writers in history have composed chilling, classic tales from the dark side: The actions of Hamlet were driven by a ghost; Henry James, Edith Wharton, Charles Dickens and Edgar Allan Poe all guided the reader through the spirit realm.

Some scary reading and watching to keep you on your toes this season include some new, some classic.

PHOTO BY BRIAN CLARK HOWARD

67-mile rides over mostly gentle terrain. All riders depart from the 4th Street trailhead of the Warrenton Greenway. Departure times are staggered to avoid bike congestion.

The entire route is staffed so your bike and you can get a ride back to the start if necessary.

“It’s local and it’s a good cause,” says Bob Leftwich, owner of Bike Stop in Warrenton and ride volunteer. Leftwich, official bike tech for IronMan North America, helps to plan the route and sends help to riders in trouble. In the early days of the ride that began a quarter-century ago, Leftwich zigzagged along the course on his own bike, carrying emergency repair supplies and helping the stranded.

Ride participation is capped at 1,350, and the event usually sells out.

• “The Little Stranger” by Sarah Waters. A young country doctor is called to a crumbling decaying country house inhabited by a crumbling decaying family. The house may or may not be haunted, and the doctor, who seems at first the epitome of sanity and rational thought, is gradually revealed to be something else entirely. The writer does a masterly job of slowly unmasking his true nature. Waters is a gifted and undeservedly obscure novelist. She writes psychological creepy thrillers, all of them with a vague aura of nastiness about them, and they are impossible to put down.

• “The Woman in Black” by Susan Hill. A young attorney travels to a small coastal village to settle the estate of a deceased client. Her old and rickety house sits on the edge of a salt marsh, swept by sudden and treacherous incoming tides. The house is the repository of a dreadful secret history and haunted by a suitably vengeful ghost.

• “Duma Key” by Stephen King. Of King’s many novels, this one is the most ghost-ridden and one of his best.

A terrible construction accident has destroyed, physically and emotionally, the life of the protagonist. In the hope of healing he moves to Duma Key in Florida and takes up a long-neglected hobby of sketching and painting.

Gradually he realizes that his brush is being manipulated by supernatural

Jimmy Messick works seven days a week farming and serving customers at Messick’s Farm Market in Bealeton, but he still makes time to bike.

On his vacation this year, the Fauquier Trails Coalition president rode 226 miles across Indiana with his wife. Over the years, he has cruised twothirds of the U.S. on a bicycle. “There is just no better way to see America than on a (bike),” he says.

One of the frustrations of building trails is the time it takes. “It doesn’t happen overnight,” Messick says, “especially if construction depends on state grants.”

Existing trails are dotted piecemeal around the county. “The goal is eventually to connect them, to assist county officials to build routes or corridors that would connect these trails in different jurisdictions,” Messick explains. “With more and more emphasis on healthy lifestyles, it just fits right in.”

The county’s newest bike trail opened in time for the school year, allowing pupils to ride their bikes to Cedar Lee Middle School in Bealeton.

“This is an appealing transportation alternative for many in this community who want to live a healthy and active lifestyle beginning at an early age,” says David Graham, board member of Fauquier County Parks and Recreation.

Fauquier Trails Coalition meets second Tuesday of each month at the Warrenton Community Center. fauquiertrails.com

forces, producing paintings beyond the scope of his formerly modest talent, and full of dread and hidden meanings.

• “The Innocents”: This film version of Henry James’ superb ghost story, “The Turn of the Screw,” is a masterpiece of ambiguity. A governess comes to a beautiful and remote country house, where she is given complete charge of two young and beguiling children. But the children are not as they seem; the title is ironic. The governess fears they have been corrupted by evil spirits. Ghosts appear, but only to the governess: first a man, then a woman, both of whom died in suspicious and violent ways. Do the ghosts actually exist, or are they projections of the fevered imagination of the sexually repressed governess?

The late Deborah Kerr is wonderful in the leading role.

• “The Others”: This film also takes place in a remote country house, and it also centers on the psyche of a woman who is protecting, or overprotecting, her two young children. The children are supposedly fatally allergic to sunlight; therefore, the windows must be kept heavily curtained. The Victorian house is large, gloomy, and has no electricity or telephone. An atmosphere of dread slowly envelops the characters. The mother hears laughing and weeping; a piano plays itself. Nicolle Kidman maintains an aura of icy reserve punctuated by frenzied feeling.

• “The Haunting”: Based on Shirley Jackson’s novel, “The Haunting of Hill House,” the movie stars Claire Bloom and Julie Harris as psychics who are taking part in an experiment aimed at documenting supernatural occurrences at a reputedly haunted house. There is no overt violence; everything is suggestion: thumping, screams, gunfire, inexplicably bulging wallpaper, and as is often the case, the implicit is far scarier than the explicit.

• “The Sixth Sense”: Despite unenthusiastic reviews, this 1999 film starring Bruce Willis and Haley Joel Osment was a box office sensation and was nominated for an Oscar. Willis plays a child psychiatrist who one evening is shot by a former patient. One year later, he takes on Osment as a patient.

“I see dead people,” the child quavers.

There’s a shocker of an ending, which blindsided virtually all its audiences.

• “Ghost”: A romantic thriller starring the late Patrick Swayze, Demi Moore and Whoopi Goldberg. Here the ghost is the good guy; the scary and threatening villain is human. Swayze and Moore play young lovers; Swayze is murdered and his ghost returns to protect Moore from his murderer. Goldberg, who won the Oscar for her performance, plays a medium who, greatly to her surprise, turns out to be the real thing.

Suspenseful and funny, the film is an unabashed tear jerker, and was the highest-grossing film of 1990; it was nominated for five Academy Awards.

FALL 2018

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The Celtic roots of Halloween in Samhain Ancient fall festival marked the end of harvest, the start of the dark months

Irish tradition alive and well in Warrenton

By Pat Reilly The direct antecedent to the modern Halloween celebration, the early Celts in Ireland celebrated their equivalent, Samhain, on Nov. 1.

Pronounced “sow-in,” Samhain is Celtic for “summer’s end.” Samhain eve – in Celtic oiche samhna – is Oct. 31, a night when the souls of the dead return to earth doing good or committing mischief.

The next day is the beginning of the Celtic new year, with pastoral Europeans taking heart from the fresh start before winter set in.

All fires were extinguished on Samhain, making it the darkest night of the year. Fires are lighted again on Nov. 1 to celebrate the new year. One big community bonfire would serve as the focal point of Samhain festivities, with locals lighting torches from the big fire to relight their own home fire.

Instead of today’s traditional pumpkin jack o’lantern, Celts carried carved-out turnips to port their candles for lighting their home fires.

Costumes were worn throughout Samhain, intended to hide the living from roaming predatory spirits.

Since the earliest written records, before the 5th century common era, in Europe Oct. 31 became a festival time to separate the lighter part of the year from the darker months.

Most early populations created similar fall harvest and pre-winter celebrations.

Mid-fall marks the end of harvest for grain growers. In herding societies, mid-fall was the time when the cattle and sheep were brought down from summer pasture to enclosures closer to home for winter feeding.

Animals too weak to survive the winter were processed at festivaltime for meat, though this was more a practical than ritualistic habit.

The Christian church co-opted the pastoral tradition, in 834 Pope Gregory IV making Samhain a church holiday honoring all saints.

The night before was the same costumed celebration – All Hallows Eve, and Nov. 2 was deemed All Souls Day, when the departed are remembered.

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PHOTO BY BETSY BURKE PARKER

Samhain is a fire festival on the Celtic calendar.

PHOTO BY RANDY LITZINGER

McMahon’s in Warrenton features lively Irish music at Halloween.

Warrenton’s Erica Fusco, coowner of Warrenton’s McMahon’s Pub is a native of County Kildare in Ireland. She recalls neighborhood bonfires growing up, collecting old tires, wood and other combustibles to build the blaze.

There were foods that were special to the holiday, such as peanuts. “We only got them in the shell like that at Halloween,” she says. Her family would wrap potatoes in tin foil and toss them in an open fire to roast.

There were games and bobbing for apples. Costumes were made with things you had at hand, Fusco says.

A particular food that became a game was the centerpiece of Irish Halloween. Bambrack is a savory loaf made from cabbage, potatoes, salt and pepper. Baked into it are objects – a pea, a stick, a coin, a piece of cloth. When found in your portion, Fusco explains, the item would portent an extremely specific map of the year ahead – the pea meant the person would not marry that year; the stick meant an unhappy marriage; the cloth augured bad luck or poverty. A coin meant you’d have good fortune, a ring would mean a wedding, and finding a holy medal meant you’d be called to the clergy.

Fusco says many such ancient traditions are still very much alive back home in Ireland, even today.

She remembers giving wide berth to “fairy forts” in the farmland around Kildare. Small, circular areas of dirt and overgrown vegetation that were actually probably pre-Iron Age structures built by the island’s early inhabitants, fairy circles have long been considered magic areas. Legend developed that the ringforts were imbued with Druid magic.

Pre-Celtic inhabitants of Ireland – Tuatha Dé Danann and Fir Bolg – came to be associated with magic fairies, and the forts became known as entrances to their world. Eventually, entering the circle or even cutting back the brush on fairy forts was reputed to bring bad luck on anyone entering or altering the area.

They’re still all over Ireland, Fusco says, farmers plant around them, not over them, in their fields, and highway departments even divert road projects to avoid disturbing the sites.

At McMahon’s, Halloween is a mix of American holiday and Irish tradition. With live Irish music and costumes, McMahon’s will be a twoday holiday party, Fusco says. mcmahonsirishpub.com

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Food & Wine WAY BEYOND EATING AND DRINKING

Taste of the season Granite Heights Winery owners act as spirit guides for their thirsty patrons Photos by Betsy Burke Parker Story by Mary Ann Dancisin

Inside this section: n See

which local wineries earned gold in the prestigious Virginia Governor’s Cup competition n Discover la dolce vita at Bealeton’s Grioli’s Italian restaurant

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FOOD & WINE

Granite Heights: Award-winning local winery moves into second decade

Sustainable and serious, Luke and Toni Kilyk dedicated to tasteful stewardship of historic farm property near Opal

“Intense” sums up Granite Heights Winery owner and winemaker Luke Kilyk.

It’s also an apt description for the wines he crafts at the historic farm vineyard and winery near Opal.

Piercing blue eyes that remind you of Anderson Cooper flash as he speaks of his passion for his farm and his wines. The development of the property between Warrenton and Opal has been a long-term process, he says, but one that required serious investment – in knowledge, in property renovations, in equipment – along the way.

And, in the end, what Luke and wife Toni have created is a tightly-focused winery that concentrates on a sole intent – producing the region’s best wine.

In Virginia wine country, wineries range from wedding palaces to arts-and-crafts venues; others are wine bars with music on weekends.

At Granite Heights, Luke says, the wine comes first.

But in addition to the busy harvest season this fall, Luke says that, at last, the couple is able to focus more on adding a few decorative touches to the historic property, most recently installing handsome stone entrance pillars.

“For the past 10 years,” Luke says, “all our money went into the vineyard. Nothing came before the wine.” Granite Heights owners Luke and Toni Kilyk share a laugh on the tasting room porch.

Granite Heights averages 1,000 cases per year, quite an undertaking for Luke, who still works as a patent attor- doun, and she and Luke next went to A white-railed front porch, heart-pine ney in the district, and for Toni, who help pick grapes there, learning more floors and a steep, old-fashioned stairis a practicing physician. Luke laughs about operating a vineyard, installing case speak to the authenticity of the when he explains how he does it, but a winery and getting a feel for running place, and to the couple’s care in reit’s no joke when he stresses how dif- a farm winery as they considered ex- storing it for offices and tasting rooms. ficult it’s been to build and maintain a panding operations on their farm.

Formerly called Beebercoop, the professional commercial operation. “No Classes with Virginia wine guru farm had been briefly under contract to sleep,” he says. “No vacations. This is Jim Law of Linden Winery followed, a developer who planned to subdivide the most difficult thing I’ve ever done.” and the couple learned each painstak- the 168 acres a decade ago, but when ing part of the complicated process. the developer backed out of the deal, How it happened Once they decided to go for it with Luke and Toni already had envisioned It all started with one of those Granite Heights, the first step was Granite Heights, so they jumped at winemaking kits available to home to plant vines, and create the winthe chance to purchase the farm. winemakers. ery and tasting room.

They had a big They put in 12 acres of high-grade Luke says he soon outgrew the headstart in the original home on the grapes, mainly ENTAV-certified ready-made juice. former farm property.

The Granite clones.

Though she’d grown up in Toni knew winemaker Dr. George Bazaco of Doukenie Winery in Lou- Heights farmhouse dates to the 1820s. the distinctly un-agricultural neigh48

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What’s in a name?

Cecil Leon Lomax lived next door to what’s now Granite Heights Winery. When Toni and Luke originally arrived to the former Beebercoop farm from Centreville, Lomax greeted them with a neighborly “Welcome! What can I do for you?”

Lomax passed in 2007, and Granite Heights’ first commercial wine – 2008 Lomax Reserve – was named in his honor.

What’s in a name, part 2 Visitors often note that the farm is not actually, well, on a height. And, oddly, there is no granite. Luke and Toni laugh. “It’s actually a reference to Toni’s alma mater, Dartmouth, which is located in the Granite State, New Hampshire.”

Tasting menu Granite Heights Evening Serenade 2011 A classic Bordeaux blend of 39 percent merlot, 38 percent cabernet sauvignon, 12 percent petit verdot, and 11 percent cabernet franc. Garnet in color with cherry/berry flavors and a pleasant herbal undertone complemented by woodsy notes.

Granite Heights Lomax Reserve 2013 Reminiscent of a right bank Bordeaux, that is, smooth and easy to drink now rather than cellar for the long-term. Soft fruit flavor, oak nuances and silky tannin; very flavorful. 55 percent merlot, 45 percent cabernet franc.

Granite Heights Lomax Reserve 2012 59 percent cabernet sauvignon, 27 percent merlot, 8 percent cabernet franc, 6 percent petit verdot. Deep garnet in color with an intense bouquet of coffee and dark chocolate. Black cherry notes are highlighted by minty eucalyptus and echoes of coffee/ expresso on the long lingering finish.

borhood of Riverdale in New York City, Toni had methodically, and thoroughly, educated herself on best farming practices as the couple began to work towards a commercial winery. She acts as vineyard manager, nurturing the vines and calling them her “babies.”

She’s meticulous in keeping the vineyard trim. The rainy summer caused some stress on the vines, Toni explains, but she’s been able to correct the problems too much moisture can bring.

Luke takes pride in the fact that both he and Toni are completely hands-on as winery owners. He can run every single piece of equipment, and also maintains and repairs them himself as much as possible.

Somewhat unusual for a Virginia winery, Granite Heights has its own

bottling line. This particular piece of equipment is quite an investment; most wineries here make use of one of the commercial bottling trucks for a once-or-twice a year bottling process. Luke is adamant that his wine comes first, that is, the wine gets bottled when Luke determines it is ready, not on a schedule that is convenient to a tightly booked vendor.

In fact, during critical times in the fermentation process, Luke stays close to the project by making use of a sleeper sofa in the winery’s lab.

Also unusual is the winery’s approach to sampling the wine. Rather than bellying up to a bar, tastings are conducted seated at tables in one of several unique rooms in the farmhouse. The wines include Bordeaux-style reds, red varietals, petit manseng, Chardonnay and Port-style wines. The tasting menu changes regularly, allowing guests to discover different wines on each visit.

In his book “Beyond Jefferson’s Vines,” writer and eminent East coast wine

expert Richard Leahy made note of Luke’s “obvious and passionate focus, and a very careful, deliberate approach to wine quality, and purity of fruit expression and finesse in all wines.”

Granite Heights was awarded three gold medals in the 2016 Virginia Governor’s Cup wine competition, with Evening Serenade 2010 making it into the top 12 known as the Governor’s Case.

In this year’s Governor’s Cup, Lomax Reserve 2012 achieved gold.

“In a short time, Granite Heights has established itself with other top wineries in Fauquier County, and shows versatility and style for the trendy new white varietal petit manseng, as well as impressive finesse and Old World quality and style for red Bordeaux blends,” Leahy wrote.

“This estate will never become a subdivision, or a luxury resort, or anything but a vineyard. Our plan is to slowly increase our planted acreage and to keep this place sustainable into the future,” Luke firmly states.

FOOD & WINE

Virginia Wine Trails The Fauquier Wine Trail is one of 26 wine trails in the state.

The purpose behind the trail system is to link wineries in a contiguous area and market its wines as a regional whole.

Virginia Wine Trails:

Artisanal Wineries of Rappahannock County Bedford County Wine Trail Blue Ridge Wine Trail Blue Ridge Wine Way Blue Ridge “Whiskey Wine Loop” Botetourt County Wine Trail Chesapeake Bay Wine Trail Colonial Virginia Wine Trail Eastern Shore Wine Trail Explore Nelson Wine Trail Fauquier County Wine Trail Foothills Scenic Wine Trail Heart of Virginia Wine Trail Jefferson Heritage Trail Loudoun Wine Trail Monticello Wine Trail Mountain Road Wine Experience Nelson 151 Shenandoah County Wine Trail Shenandoah Valley Wine Trail Skyline Wine Trail Southern Virginia Wine Trail

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Virginia American Viticultural Areas:

• The Middleburg AVA encompasses the town of Middleburg, bounded by the Potomac River to the north and mountains to the east, south and west.

The viticultural area covers 190 square miles and contains 229 acres on eight commercial vineyards and 24 wineries.

• The Shenandoah Valley AVA is Frederick, Clarke, Warren, Shenandoah, Page, Rockingham, Augusta, Rockbridge, Botetourt and Amherst counties in

Virginia, and Berkeley and Jefferson counties in West Virginia. It is bounded by the Blue Ridge to the east, the Appalachian and Allegheny.

• The Monticello AVA is nestled along the eastern slopes of the Blue Ridge and encompasses the small ridge known as Southwest Mountain. It is historic in that it is home to Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello, where he spent years trying to grow European grape varieties.

• Virginia’s Eastern Shore AVA is located on the southern end of the Delmarva Peninsula.

The area is defined by the Chesapeake Bay on one side and the ocean on the other. It benefits from breezes from the bay and sandy soil. virginiawine.org

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Going for gold (we got it)

Five local wineries win top marks in prestigious Governor’s Cup contest

By Mary Ann Dancisin The Virginia Governor’s Cup wine competition has measured the commonwealth’s best for 30 years.

Master of Wine Jay Youmans – one of just 370 Masters worldwide – was tapped by the Virginia Wine Board and Virginia Wineries Association to create a seminar program designed to improve the quality of Virginia wine overall. The top 12 wines are honored in the Governor’s Case, and those winemakers present a seminar on techniques in growing and making.

Fauquier wineries won five gold medals this year. Granite Heights Lomax Reserve 2012, crafted by owner Luke Kilyk, scored high. “Put the money into the vineyard,” Kilyk advises. His 12 acres support Bordeaux grapes, plus the Italian barbera.

Fox Meadow Vineyards in Delaplane, won gold for their 2015 Le Renard Rouge. Tom Payette, a

noted Virginia-based winemaking consultant, collaborated with owner Dan Mortland to craft this wine.

Fox Meadow grapes are handharvested and sorted twice: in the vineyard and as they arrive at the winery. Payette ferments in small lots, keeping individual grapes or vineyard rows in separate vessels until it is time to blend.

“We – through blending only – tweak, review and refine each layer,” he explains. “Aroma, flavor and mouthfeel (for) complexity, smoothness and typicity.”

Pearmund Cellars had two gold medal winners, 2015 Ameritage Reserve and 2016 Petit Mansang. “Every wine is its own child,” says Chris Pearmund. “It develops its own way from the fruit it came from.

“Alcohol is important, as is canopy management, and dozens of other decisions and things that happen to wine along its way to the bottle.”

Canopy management, he says, is

thinning leaves on each vine to allow sunlight to ripen the grapes and to increase air circulation to help prevent mildew, another common issue exacerbated by Virginia’s hot humid summers.

Naked Mountain 2016 Tannat won gold as well. “We knew from the moment the fruit came in that it was going to be something special,” winemaker Joe Burgess says. “Not only was the chemistry dead on for ripeness, but the fruit just looked beautiful - like ripe blueberries – coming out of the destemmer.”

Burgess ferments grapes in bin, then malolactic fermentation takes place in barrel, the process by which the crisper, apple-like acidity in the grapes is transformed into the smoother lactic acid, somewhat akin to milk.

A quarter of Virginia wines in the Governor’s Cup received gold medals, attesting to the increasing number of quality wine made here.

Wine industry fast facts • There are 280 wineries and 300 hundred vineyards in Virginia • 3,800 acres of farmland are dedicated to vineyards • More than 8,200 people are employed in the industry • Virginia is in the top five states in number of wineries and wine grape production • Virginia wine sales reached an all-time high of more than seven million bottles • More than 2.2 million tourists visit Virginia wineries each year The Virginia Wine Marketing Board actively promotes the top 12 wines. “We have been pleased with the success of the Governor’s Cup Case program,” says director Annette Boyd. “Shipping these awardwinning wines to top wine media has yielded positive results. Not only have many recipients written articles, we also have started building relationships and an ongoing conversation about Virginia wines with top wine writers.”

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FOOD & WINE

Grioli’s puts molto amore in Italian food Taste the Sicilian roots of owner Vince Vitale at Bealeton favorite

By Sandy Greeley

Native Virginian Vince Vitale embraces life in Bealeton, but in his heart, he’s Sicilian through and through.

Vitale’s parents moved from their native Sicily to New York City in the 1960s. There, they opened the first of their more than 30 Italian restaurants across their new nation.

This explains how their son, raised in a restaurant-oriented family, opened up 11 years ago Bealeton’s Grioli’s Italian Grill and Pizzeria.

“I learned about cooking and the restaurant business by working in restaurants,” Vitale said. “I have no formal culinary training.” He spends his days overseeing the kitchen staff, and working in the kitchen.

It was Vitale who created the restaurant’s signature dish, the Stuffed Chicken Gorgonzola.

“An Italian twist on Chicken cordon bleu,” he said. “It is very flavorful.”

Vitale returns to Sicily often to see his extended family. He’s picked up home-style recipes there, all handed down from his grandparents.

Vitale said his parents are proud of his accomplishments. “They are excited for our successes that we have had over the years. That is a seal of approval,” he said.

Grioli’s Italian Grill and Pizzeria 11085 Marsh Rd. Bealeton 549-439-3332 Open daily for lunch and dinner. griolisbistro.com

Upcoming cookbook offers divine inspiration for fall

By Sandy Greeley

As the calendar turns to autumn, it’s time to switch from abundant summer produce to hearty fall favorites like winter squash, apples and pumpkins.

A Colombian friend, Al Ugaz, gave me a great seasonal chicken recipe for use in my upcoming cookbook, “Cooking with Catholic Saints,” published by Sophia Institute Press.

Covering the globe in 12 monthly chapters – five saints per chapter – the book showcases authentic international fare, some of which may be totally unfamiliar to the American palate.

This chicken stew, for instance, with many versions throughout Latin America, contains mostly common ingredients – chicken thighs, potatoes, carrots, red peppers and green beans. Serve this on the feast day of Colombia’s Saint Laura of Saint Catherine of Siena, Oct. 21.

Pappardelle aglio e olio (Pasta with Garlic and Oil)

1 pound pappardelle or fettucine 1 garlic bulb, peeled and cut into ¼-inch slices ½ cup extra virgin olive oil 1 teaspoon crushed red pepper 2 ounces fresh basil leaves, stacked, rolled and sliced into thin ribbons 1 Roma tomato, diced ¼ cup white wine ¼ cup vegetable stock

Siena chicken stew ¼ cup olive oil 1 large onion, peeled and diced 6 garlic cloves, peeled and minced 6 chicken thighs, sliced in half 4 cups chicken broth 6 to 8 bay leaves 2 tablespoons dried oregano 2 teaspoons Goya brand adobo powder, or to taste 1 teaspoon ground cumin 3 large potatoes, peeled and diced 2 extra-large carrots, sliced 2 cups diced green beans 1 red pepper, seeded and chopped One 14.5-ounce can diced tomatoes with juice ½ cup Sofrito tomato cooking base or 5 ounces regular tomato paste 1 small bunch cilantro, chopped Salt and pepper to taste

Heat a large skillet over me-

Cook the pasta until al dente.

Heat a skillet over medium heat.

When hot, add ¼ cup olive oil and the garlic. Cook, stirring, until the garlic caramelizes but does not burn. Add the tomato, red pepper and basil, and stir.

Add the white wine, stirring to deglaze the skillet. Stir in the pasta and vegetable stock. Cook for one minute, and remove from the heat.

Put in a serving bowl, drizzle with the remaining oil, and serve.

dium heat. Add the olive oil.

When hot, add the onions and garlic. Sauté for 5 to 8 minutes, or until the onions are translucent. Add the chicken pieces.

Panfry, turning, until all sides have changed color and no more pink is visible, about 5 minutes.

Remove from the heat. Set aside.

Pour the chicken broth into a large stock pot. Stir in the bay leaves, oregano, adobo powder, and cumin. Add the potatoes and the carrots. Cook for 15 minutes.

Add the green beans, red pepper, diced tomatoes, and tomato cooking base. Cook another 15 minutes. Adjust seasonings to taste. Garnish with the chopped cilantro. Serve over plain rice.

Mexican-spiced pumpkin hummus One 15.5-ounce can pinto beans, drained ½ cup pumpkin purée ½ cup salsa 2 teaspoons olive oil 1 to 2 teaspoons taco seasoning ½ cup chopped cilantro leaves ½ cup toasted pumpkin seeds

Put beans, salsa, lime juice, oil, garlic and cumin in food processor or blender, and purée until smooth. Spoon mixture into a serving, and stir in pumpkin seeds and cilantro. Use immediately, or cover and refrigerate.

Serve with taco chips.

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On tap: Craft triple play at Old House

By Janet Heisrath Evans

Even before the first snap of cool weather, the region is bursting with the spirit of the fall season. From apple picking at Hartland Orchard in Markham, to a day walking through a corn maze in Midland or taking a stroll on a local hiking trail as the leaves change color, there are lots of choices.

If your interest turns to liquid spirits, Old House Vineyards is Virginia’s first to combine all three potent potables, offering a craft brewery, distillery and its namesake winery.

Joining Warrenton’s Wort Hog in Warrenton, Vint Hill’s Old Bust Head and Midland’s Powers Farm offering locally-brewed craft beer, Old House will have six beers on tap this fall, according to general manager Ryan Kearney.

Purchased in 1998, Old House started traditionally, producing their first vintage in 2002. There are currently 30 acres under vine.

Beer production was next. “Dual offering of beer and wine can help offset the years of lower wine production and adds to our overall customer diversity,” Kearney explains. “Some people enjoy beer and others wine, and knowing we

Old House Vineyards offer both may encourage a visit.”

Tastings are held inside the actual Old House and in the backyard beside a brick oven where they bake homemade pizzas Sunday afternoons. Tables on the front porch, back patio and under the tall shade trees of the yard invite visitors to linger with a beer or one of Old House’s signature wines – best-sellers include vidal blanc and chambourcin.

Old House didn’t stop at beer and wine: they completed the triple-play by opening a distillery in 2015. World War II museum relics decorate the distillery tasting room. Offerings include Dude Spirit vodka made from grapes, a blue agave nectar, four rums and limoncello.

The Ruptured Duck Tasting is the name given to the distillery tasting

at Old House, named after the patch given to members of the U.S. military who were honorably discharged during WWII. Old House offers half-price tastings to active and retired military.

“We began the distillery with the intention of being able to distill our wine into brandy which could then be used to fortify one of our dessert wines - thereby making a Port-style wine completely on site as opposed to having to bring brandy in from California,” says Kearney. “We also were looking to extend this service to others looking to create dessert wines.

“As we went through the ABC licensing process for liquor, the idea evolved and we began own distilled spirits line.”

Old House operates with a completely self-sustaining mindset. When the brewery is fully operational next spring, they plan to recycle brewery water via a Bio-Bay Wetlands to irrigate the hops field. Growing their own barley and hops allows for greater control and a single-sourced product.

This fall, the vineyard’s 17th annual chili cookoff is Oct. 21, with soup tastings offered through November. Other plans include a malting house, grass fed beef and nine-hole golf course. oldhousevineyards.com

Ale vs. lager

Ales tend to be darker, have a cloudier appearance and a higher alcohol content. Ales have a full, fruity and more robust flavor with stronger bitter tones from the higher amount of hops used to craft these beers.

Check out the IBU (international bitterness unit) for your beer. A one to 100 scale tells you how bitter, or hoppy the beer is. If you like a bite to your beer, crank up the IBU. Lagers tend towards a lighter body, have a clear appearance and lower alcohol content. Lagers have a sweeter, smoother, more crisp flavor from their higher sugar content, slower fermentation and cold treatment.

These aspects are most strongly affected by the yeast and brewing practices, with the additional flavors and post-fermentation handling also playing an important role in the final product.

Brewers will tell you that ales are top-fermenters and lagers are bottom fermenters, but when you’re choosing ales and lagers for your flight, taste is what really matters.

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Beer for the season

berfest must come from one of the six historic breweries of Munich; Löwenbräu, Paulaner, Spaten, Augustiner, Hofbräu and Hacker-Pschorr.

There can be some variations in the style of beer served en masse at the festival, but they generally fall in the “festbier” or “märzen” categories of lagers. Festbier is golden-hued, somewhat sweet with a slightly bitter finish. Märzen beer is mediumbodied with toasted notes of caramel and an amber color.

Adapting to, and allowing for, European tastes

By John Daum

With the recent Renaissance in American brewing, beer lovers look forward to changing seasons as an opportunity to savor new brews traditionally tied to a specific time of year.

Under the tyranny of mass-produced beer the seasonal choices are self-limiting: light-colored beer in spring and summer, dark beer in fall and winter.

Sure, there were occasional bright spots such as Anchor Steam Christmas Ale, or maybe some weird Belgian holiday beer that someone brought back from a business trip abroad, but your local brewery was not making any fresh seasonal beer because your local brewery did not exist until recently.

And that, across our region, across Virginia, and across the nation, is the bright spot of our modern era.

For many of us, the most exotic, seasonal beer we recognized was from a tiny, nationalistic festival in

Stateside adaptation

John Daum, right, ate and drank his way around Europe’s craft breweries this summer.

Germany. The original seasonal debauchery that began as Oktoberfest in Munich has spread worldwide.

More than 7 million people attend the annual party – strangely enough which is celebrated chiefly in September. Last year, more than 7.5 million liters of beer were consumed at the event that lasts a fortnight.

The Oktoberfest tradition dates to 1810 when Crown Prince Ludwig I of Bavaria was marrying Princess Therese von Sachsen-Hildburghau-

sen. The citizens of Munich were invited to join the nuptial celebration.

It must have been some party because they have been doing it every year since (the party, not the wedding.) They still honor the Princess every year by naming the Oktoberfest grounds Theresienwiese – Theresa’s fields. Party tents swell with oompah bands and revelers singing “Ein prosit der gemütlichkeit” – (“a toast to cheer and good time.”)

Beer served at the original Okto-

In the United States, the typical Oktoberfest beer is darker in color than its Bavarian cousins and often packs a slightly higher punch of alcohol.

Here in Fauquier County, the spirit of Oktoberfest can be sampled at Tin Cannon Brewing in Gainesville.

Their Oktoberfest Ale is brewed with Kölsch yeast and cold conditioned for a month to create a smooth Märzen rendition of the classic style.

Another local option comes from Lost Rhino in Ashburn. Their special Rhin O’fest has become a local favorite for fans of Oktoberfest. It is a pleasant pairing with a stout platter of sausage, sauerkraut and potato salad. tincannonbrewing.com lostrhino.com mydaumadventures.com

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Home & Garden LIVING WELL INSIDE AND OUTSIDE

Forest bathing:

Ancient Asian practice takes root as a cure for the modern condition Photos by Chris Cerrone Story by Nora Rice

Inside this section: n Look, admire, but

don’t enter (unless you’re super brave) and try to unravel the mystery of the magical fairy circle n A towering citadel of magnificent specimen trees that live their long lives in a very unexpected place FALL 2018

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HOME & GARDEN

Forest bathing – Shinrin-yoku – Simple cure for a common condition

Take in the trees for this crazy easy, but wildly powerful, practice “We are present in every step. When we wish to speak, we stop walking and lend all our attention to the person before us, to speaking and to listening.

Stop, look around and see how wonderful life is: the trees, the white clouds, the infinite sky. Listen to the birds, delight in the light breeze.

Let us walk as free people and feel our steps growing lighter as we walk.

Let us appreciate every step we take.”

– Tich Nhat Hanh, Vietnamese Buddhist monk

You don’t need a bathing suit for a forest bath.

Shinrin-yoku, Japanese for “forest bathing,” isn’t a plunge in a frigid mountain stream that comes out of the deep woods. Instead, this ancient Asian practice has long been credited as preventive health care for any age.

Forest bathing was recommended as a common sense approach to improve mental and physical health in 1982 by the Japanese Government’s Forest Agency.

How you do it is simple: just take a walk in the woods. Or doze under a tree. Or stand under the canopy of an urban grove. There’s no right or wrong way to tap the healing power of nature, say experts. However you do it, just do it.

Taking in the forest atmosphere has become a cornerstone of preventive health care and healing in Japanese medicine, and it’s becoming a more widespread practice. The health benefits of spending time under the embrace of a living forest are simple to attain: visit any of thousands of acres of natural area still preserved in Fauquier County, or take a stroll down a forest path for a wealth of calming, rejuvenating and restorative benefits.

Making sense of all your senses

Research shows forest bathing decreases stress, increases creativity and bolsters the immune system. By immersing yourself in the forest – standing, sitting, even dancing or napping, and even under a single sapling in your yard or a public park, you use all your senses to connect with nature.

The changing leaves this season wash your eyes, the scent of the rich earth tingles the nose. The sound of 58

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wind through the drying autumn leaves sounds like the season, and the taste of a nut or fruit scavenged

from beneath a producing tree leaves a taste of the forest on your tongue.

Feel the rough bark or a leathery leaf

to complete the sensory circuit.

On average, Americans are indoors 90 percent of the time, according to the EPA’s Report on the Environment. In 2015, Americans had life expectancy of 78.8 years while Japan had the world’s highest at 83.7. Many believe a heightened link to nature could play a role in the jarring difference.

The Association of Nature and Forest Therapy Guides and Programs documents many health benefits from time spent in a forest. U.S. National Institute of Health studies show lower pulse rate, blood pressure and levels of the stress hormone cortisol after walking in the forest for as little as 10 minutes.

Japan’s Chiba University Center for Environment, Health and Field Sciences research shows forest bathing lowers hostility and reduces symptoms of depression. Nippon Medical School Department of Hygiene and Public Health published Qing Li’s study entitled “Effect of forest bathing trips on human immune function,” showing increased anti-cancer killer cell among participants who spent three days in the woods.

Many consider forest bathing as something of an “un-hike,” a relatively effortless way to witness the natural world, to methodically “allow” rather than actively “do.” For those still a bit skeptical about the touchy-feely aspects of it, consider that a 2017 NIH study found that trees and plants emit oils called phytoncides which enhance the immune system. Thusly, toxins are removed from the human body by simply breathing forest air, quite literally enhancing our health for the better. shinrin-yoku.org nutriunify.com

HOME & GARDEN

Fall is the time to take root

Take advantage of cool temps, increased rainfall for fetching garden additions this season

By Pam Owen

Fall is not only a good time to tidy up landscapes and gardens, it’s also the perfect time to plant trees.

In the Virginia Piedmont, many shade and flowering deciduous tree seedlings do better if planted in fall, between the middle of September and November. Newly-planted trees do best when exposed to moderate temperature and rainfall.

They need time to root and acclimatize before the weather extremes of summer or winter.

In fall, fewer and less drastic temperature swings occur. If you plant in the spring, hot temperatures can suddenly set in and threaten young trees that are not already acclimated.

Heavy spring rains can also make the ground too wet for planting or for roots to fully take hold.

During the growing season, most of a tree’s activity is focused on drawing up water and nutrients from the ground to support photosynthesis for growth and reproduction aboveground. As the ground slowly cools in fall, trees start drawing down these resources.

Most deciduous trees and shrubs that are grown in containers and have had their roots encased in soil and wrapped in burlap should do well when planted in fall, and planted properly, they need

little maintenance through winter. While mulching helps newly-planted trees survive freezing temperatures when they come, fertilizer is not needed.

Cooling temperatures also lessen the activity of bugs and disease that can affect young trees.

During winter, most life processes of trees go dormant, but individual cells continue to perform the biochemical reactions that keep them alive.

By the time spring comes, the young tree’s roots should be well equipped to handle the tree’s activity during the growing season.

Fall is also a great time to shop for trees since you can see which trees provide the best fall leaf color, one of the glories of the Piedmont.

The outliers

While fall is ideal for many trees, some species do better when planted in spring. In general, plants with shallow, fibrous root systems can be planted easier in the fall than those with fewer, larger roots. But broadleaf evergreens, such as rhododendrons, and narrow-leafed evergreens, such as yews, do better with spring planting. Conifers generally benefit from warmer soil and do best when planted in late summer or early fall.

Trees benefit us in many ways. Deciduous trees feature lush foliage and flowers in spring and summer, bright color in fall and beautiful bones revealed in winter when bare of leaves. Evergreens provide relief from the otherwise earth-toned landscape in the winter and privacy screening year-round.

Through shade and shelter from winds, trees help conserve energy, prevent soil erosion and

PHOTO BY PAM OWEN

provide fruit and nuts to eat.

Most native trees offer more value to native wildlife than introduced trees and require less care. Planting trees of different sizes encourages more wildlife diversity, since different animal species occupy different vertical niches in forests.

Even after trees die, they offer shelter for many cavity-dwelling animals, and as perches for birds.

Consider slope, drainage, sun exposure and soil in choosing a location for a tree, or a tree for a location. Also factor in spacing between trees, and between trees and buildings (allowing for limb and root expansion), and height, especially if planting near utility lines.

Planting long-lived native species, such as oaks, help Virginia’s wildlife and the environment we share with them, and acorns feed a wide variety of wildlife. Oaks and many other native trees serve as hosts for the larvae of a variety of butterfly and moth species, which are critical food for more than 90 percent of songbirds and for other wildlife.

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Ballistic

HOME & GARDEN

Spooky spiders: Nature’s architects spin a tangled yarn Freaked out by all those legs and all those eyes?

Just think how many flies they eradicate and give them some respect.

By Pam Owen

One day in September, I was lying on my sofa, watching a baseball game on TV. Suddenly, a huge, hairy spider crawled out from between my couch cushions, inches from my face staring me eye to eye (to eye to eye to eye.)

I was startled, but I would have had the same response if a butterfly suddenly appeared that way.

I recognized the intruder was a harmless female dark fishing spider (Dolomedes tenebrosus), one of the largest and most common among Virginia’s native spiders.

I knew she was not interested in biting, or eating, me and probably would prefer to be outside.

I scooped her up in a jar and, before turning her loose in my garden to help with bug control, measured and photographed her. Her body alone was 1.25 inches long, big even for this species; adding in the legs, she was a little more than 3.25 inches long from toe to toe.

Rather than fearing spiders, I’ve always found them fascinating. To make sure the boys I played with as a kid understood I wasn’t to be picked on for my gender, I’d gather up a bunch of big, hairy wolf spiders, put them in a jar and, in the presence of my male peers, would pour the spiders onto my hand.

Although I always released the spiders as soon as the demonstration was over, as an adult I now regret disrupting their lives this way.

Spiders definitely look scary, and almost all species have venom. But most spider venom is only strong enough to paralyze their tiny prey.

Like most wildlife, spiders would rather avoid humans, biting only in defense. Even dangerously venomous spiders tend to hold back on the amount of venom they deliver to threats, saving it for their prey.

Virginia has only three species of spider known to be dangerous, the brown recluse and two black widow species. Black widows like to nest in woodpiles, so it’s a good practice to wear leather gloves when hauling in firewood and carefully inspect each log before bringiing it in the house.

Every year, as Halloween ap-

Above, the large black-and-yellow garden spider is also called a writing spider because of the densely woven vertical strip she extends from the center of her round web. Left, a female marbled orbweaver wraps up prey caught in her web.

PHOTOS BY PAM OWEN

proaches, seasonal decorations feature big, black spiders, often in the iconic round web we associate with spiders. Although I imagine the decorative paper spiders are intended to be black widows, widows are actually quite small, shy and have messy webs.

The beautiful round webs are woven by spiders in the orb-weaver family (Araneidae), which includes approximately 3,500 species worldwide. Like most spiders that weave webs, orb weavers usually eat theirs when they become damaged to recycle the protein in them to make new webs.

Spiders come in a wide variety of shapes, colors and hirsuteness, and

many are quite beautiful. Depending on the species, their hunting styles vary. Some, including jumping spiders, crab spiders, wolf spiders and fishing spiders, lie in wait and pounce. Others, such as orb weavers, widow spiders, funnel-web spiders and house spiders, build strong, sticky webs of varying designs to trap prey.

Spiders in some species are good parents. For example, the female wolf and nursery web spiders (Pisauridae family, which includes fishing spiders) carry their egg sacs around to protect them and also protect the spiderlings once they emerge.

While some spider species breed

Black-and-yellow garden spider: Argiope aurantia, commonly known as the black-and-yellow garden spider, is the largest species in the Argiope genus. It’s about the size of a fishing spider but hairless. Its body is boldly colored in black and yellow and more streamlined than the other two spiders described below. It also adds a distinctive feature to its web: a more-densely woven, squiggly portion extending vertically from the center, which gave this spider another common name, writing spider.

Marbled orbweaver: Another boldly colored araneid, the female marbled orbweaver (Araneus marmoreus) has a fat body that is about 0.8 inches long.

Her abdomen can vary in color but is commonly bright yellow with brown to purple markings, and her head, thorax and upper leg portions are orange.

The male is thinner and smaller, with a more-subdued color pattern. The female, after she builds her web, the hides somewhere along the top edge it, in a den she makes by rolling up a leaf in silk. A long, strong thread running through the web alerts her to prey landing in it, which she retrieves and often eats in her lair.

Barn spider: Similar to the marbled orbweaver in size and shape, the barn spider (Neoscona crucifera), aka Hentz orbweaver, is bit hairier than the two other orb weavers. Pretty but not as brightly colored as those species, its scientific species name, crucifera (from the Latin word for cross, crux), comes from the light-brown, crossshaped design on its back.

Dangerously venomous spiders: • Black widows – northern (Latrodectus variolus) and southern, (L. mactans) • Brown recluse (Loxosceles reclusa) Spiders often mistakenly thought to be dangerous: • Jumping spiders (family Salticidae) • Wolf spiders (family Lycosidae) • Nursery web spiders (family Pisauridae) • Funnel weavers (family Agelenidae) • Common house spider (Parasteatoda tepidariorum)

in spring or summer, orb weavers get busy in fall. As is common with spiders, the female orb weavers are larger than the males. They also weave the webs, which serve as storage for their egg cases and as a trap for prey to feed themselves and their young when they hatch out.

While it’s fun to get scared and scare others at Halloween, it’s good to remember that spiders are not our enemies; they help control insect populations that can pose a much bigger threat to us. When I see an orb weaver spinning her web, I marvel at the wonder of nature that she is creating and leave her to carry out her important work.

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HOME & GARDEN

Mushroom mystery at root of a fairy circle?

It may be obvious to science why it happens, but it looks a lot like magic

By Betsy Burke Parker

A fairy ring, sometimes called a fairy circle, elf circle, elf ring or pixie ring, is a naturally-occurring ring or arc of mushrooms. They’re pretty common in mid-Atlantic upland forest areas and former woodlands that have been turned into pastures.

Many feel a special kind of magic is at work to make these odd circles of toadstools pop up seemingly in an instant.

The truth, as usual, is far more rote.

Mycelium, which absorb nutrients for mushrooms, move outward from the center of the spores. When nutrients in the center of the mushroom growing area are exhausted, the center dies, a living fungi circle from which the fairy ring arises.

“When you ponder the many mysterious forms of life that can be found growing wild in Fauquier County, it’s hard to ignore mushrooms,” says local naturalist, outdoors expert and skills trainer Tim MacWelch. “Particularly when you stumble across a patch that is growing in a perfect ring or crescent shape.

Fairy rings, MacWelch says, carry “age-old superstitions. (Some think) the ring is a physical sign left after a

mystical meeting of magical creatures, or a portal to some other realm.

“Today, we might be more prone to believe science over fantasy, agreeing that the iconic ring is caused by mushroom spores expanding outward into new ground – from an original fruiting in the center of the circle.”

But whichever explanation you favor, MacWelch cautions, “it’s important to note that these rings consist of very real fungal bodies, some of which can be deadly if eaten.”

Several species of Amanita – Death Caps – are known to grow in ring formations. These would be the last mushrooms you ever ate, MacWelch says, especially “if you don’t have (immediate) access to definitive medical care, or maybe a liver transplant.”

Instead, he recommends admiring the circles, photographing or painting them – “dance in them for all it matters,” MacWelch adds with a chuckle, “but heed that old piece of superstition – that destroying a fairy ring brings bad luck. Especially true if you destroy the ring by plucking (unknown) mushrooms for your dinner.” Poisonous and non-poisonous mushrooms, MacWelch notes, are hard to tell apart.

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PHOTO BY BETSY BURKE PARKER

A wilderness skills instructor more than 20 years, MacWelch has written three New York Times Bestselling outdoor books. His new “Ultimate Bushcraft Survival Manual” has more specifics about eating off the land.

The Fauquier native is teaching a hands-on course in “Fall Wild Edible Plants” Oct. 10, 13 and 19. earth-connection.com

Airy fairy

• About 60 mushroom species can grow in the fairy ring pattern, the best known being the edible Scotch bonnet (Marasmius oreades.)

• A great deal of folklore surrounds fairy rings.

Names evoke supernatural origins: they’re called ronds de sorciers (“sorcerers’ rings”) in France, and hexenringe (“witches’ rings”) in German. In German tradition, fairy rings were thought to mark the site of witches’ dancing. Irish superstition routinely warned against a mortal human entering a fairy ring. French tradition reported that fairy rings were guarded by giant bug-eyed toads that cursed those who violated the circles.

• “The Pixies’ Church” is a rock formation in Dartmoor surrounded by a fairy ring.

• Fairy rings have featured in the works of European authors, playwrights, and artists since the 13th century, including Shakespeare in his “Midsummer Night’s Dream.”

HOME & GARDEN

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HOME & GARDEN

From death springs growth. And a lot of it.

Cemetery trees are part of the allure in sacred spaces

By Sally Harmon Semple

Poet and activist Andrea Gibson stirred a range of emotions when she wrote: “Forests may be gorgeous, but there is nothing more alive than a tree that learns how to grow in a cemetery.”

Trees in cemeteries are not only powerfully symbolic, they are indeed particularly beautiful. Unencumbered by buildings, power lines and property lines, coupled with enough regular and professional maintenance to remove choking vines and undergrowth, a tree in a cemetery may grow to its natural height and spread. Many of the nation’s – and Virginia’s – celebrated arboretums are in cemeteries, notably Hollywood Cemetery in Richmond, Old City Cemetery in Lynchburg and Arlington National Cemetery Memorial Arboretum.

Trees set the mood for a cemetery. An interlocking canopy of live oaks draped with Spanish moss evokes an eerie feeling in a cemetery in the deep South, as much as a bright sugar maple offset by a white New England church steeple beckons with light and color.

Warrenton’s 200-year-old, 17-plus-acre town cemetery has its own arboreal sensibilities, with outstanding specimen trees seting a tone of quiet grandeur.

English Yews, (Taxus baccata)

PHOTOS BY SALLY HARMON SEMPLE

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HOME & GARDEN Just to the right of the stone pillars that frame the main entrance to the cemetery is a beautiful, century-old Little Leaf Linden, (Tilia cordata). While there are other even larger lindens in the cemetery, this particular tree is significant for its remarkably full form. Lindens were introduced to the U.S. from Europe and bear smaller leaves than our native linden, the American Basswood (Tilia americana). Both Tilia have shiny heart-shaped leaves, and fragrant, although inconspicuous, flowers in the spring that are appreciated by honey bees.

Summer through fall you will see round nutlets that look to be springing out of the center of skinny leaves.

These narrow light green leaves, known as bracts, are eye-catching and lovely in contrast to the dense dark green foliage.

Holding court over the cemetery’s central drive is an impressive American Sycamore (Platanus occidentalis). Soaring to well over 100 feet, with a spectacular 100-foot spread of draping branches to match, this tree’s trunk measures almost 14 feet around.

Sycamores are identified by mottled, camouflage-like peeling bark, white branches, and large palmate (maple-like) leaves. Large sycamores like this one have dark, tough bark on the lower trunk.

Sometimes confused with London Plane Trees (Platanus x acerifolia) which have

Who, yew?

American Sycamore (Platanus occidentalis) olive green inner bark and seed balls that hang in pairs, native Sycamores have a white inner bark, with seed balls that hang individually from the tree.

The gnarled and exfoliating maroon bark in an isolated stand of English Yews, (Taxus baccata), growing amongst the tombstones has particular allure. The old yew trunks burst with watersprouts of green needles in star-like clusters that hug the bark. While yews are capable of growing leafy branches directly from the trunk, these yew trunks are carpeted with needles. This phenomenon may

be the result of the trimming of small branches to retain the yews’ upright form, from the stress of crowded roots, or from deer grazing – deer being one of the few animals who can feast on these toxic trees.

American boxwoods in the cemetery have been limbed up to expose their multiple trunks. These trunks look like skinny, knobby legs ready to pick up the bush at midnight and tiptoe off to another grave site. Together, the trees stand sentinel with grandeur and charm over one of the county’s most peaceful places.

Yew has long symbolized death, sorrow and eternal life.

Egyptians, Greeks and Romans used yew foliage as a symbol of mourning.

Romans built funeral pyres from yew wood.

In Irish mythology, the yew is one of the five sacred trees brought from the “Otherworld,” the land of deities. The long pagan history of sacred tree groves led to an unsuccessful attempt by some in the Catholic counter-reformation to ban the planting of yews.

Ironically, yews are often associated with British churchyards.

An extremely toxic plant, every part of the yew is poisonous except for the fleshy red portion of the “berry” (aril) – although even the aril contains a poisonous seed.

Yew trees may live for hundreds of years.

Virginia’s largest yew is in Fauquier County. bigtree.cnre.vt.edu/ index.html

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Don’t rune the moment

If I was really psychic, I should have been able to predict what would happen when I tried to interview a local clairvoyant I never set out to be a tarot card party reader, but in the end, that’s what happened.

It seemed like a winding road to get from point A to point B, but, looking back, I guess it wasn’t so hard to follow.

Decades ago I joined my first Unitarian Universalist women’s spirituality group, the first of many.

This was a safe place to discover many layers of the spirit, and learn about tarot cards, runes, meditation and guided imagery. We followed the Celtic calendar and held celebrations on the solstices and equinoxes. As part of the celebrations, we often read each other’s fortunes.

Time passed, and the group dissolved. I turned my spiritual attention elsewhere, and delved into Native American spirituality, herbs, nature and art. Tarot cards and runes largely fell by the wayside.

Fortune-telling is something I hadn’t done in years until I tried to set up an appointment with a psychic for a story for this issue of inFauquier magazine. I had no idea that arranging an interview with a business that advertises on a huge billboard in front of their building located on a fourlane highway blocks from downtown would be so tricky.

The psychic broke the appointment at the last minute, explaining that tarot and crystal readings are private matters.

I suppose that if I was a real psychic, I should have “known” the appointment was off before I drove there for our interview.

Instead of stewing in my irritation, I decided to spin the story assignment into something far more personal.

The change of storyline sparked a renewed interest in my old sets of tarot cards and runes. I dug deep in my closet, and there they were, tucked away on the bottom shelf of a small bookcase. I found the full set of Rider-Waite cards, a treasured deck of Peruvian textile patterns and my husband’s bag of Celtic Druidic Runes.

I caged my dear friend Rose to help me try my hand at fortunetelling after many years out of practice. She was eager to assist, so 66

FALL 2018

THE LAST WORD

BY NORA RICE

Historical roots to modern card game Devised in 15th century Italy as a pack of playing cards, the tarot has taken on a more mystical meaning in modern day, with special decks created for fortune-telling. Playing cards first entered Europe in the late 14th century, most likely from Egypt.

The oldest surviving tarot cards are from a mid-15th century Italian deck painted for royals in Milan. After the widespread use of the printing press made mass production possible, tarot expanded outside Italy, first to France, then Switzerland and throughout Europe.

A deck was designed for occult purposes around 1789. Cards include the Magician, the High Priestess, the Empress, the Emperor, the Hierophant, the Lovers, the Chariot, Strength, the Hermit, Wheel of Fortune, Justice, the Hanged Man, Death, Temperance, the Devil, the Tower, the Star, the Moon, the Sun, Judgment, the World and the Fool.

Tarot cards are a form of divination, literally, “working with the divine,” or your higher self. It is considered similar to yoga in terms of becoming in touch with your own, inner spirit.

Card readings are designed to help understand your past and present as they relate to your future.

we met at her house south of town for a cup of tea and a reading.

We laid out all the fortune-telling card decks and runes on her dining table, and lit candles to set the mood.

Rose decided on the “three card” tarot reading, choosing cards representing past, present and future. When I read her cards, they showed an accurate picture of her life, ending with a fulfilling future.

Next, Rose selected three runes. I took a look, but realized something was odd. As I read the runes, they were the same as the tarot cards, but “backwards” in time. That is, her card

PHOTO BY BETSY BURKE PARKER

Writer Nora Rice dusted off her fortune-telling cards and runes for a last-minute story substitution. showing her past had the same meaning as her rune showing her future.

First I was puzzled. Then I laughed.

I was crazily out of practice, I reminded Rose with a chuckle. I’d read her runes backwards.

Runes are read from right to left, I explained to her, and I’d read them from left to right, the same as the cards. She agreed good-naturedly that my skills were rusty, but we were fascinated that the results were the same whether she chose the cards or the runes.

As we finished up and I got ready

to go, Rose said she planned to smudge her house by burning sage after I left. Smudging clears the energy, she explained, just make sure to open a door or window so the smudged energy can leave the house.

It must work – her house always feels warm and inviting, attesting to the positive energy she’s nurtured there.

As I drove home, I was excited and motivated by this look at past, present and future. But even though it was fun to revisit these long-buried treasures from my past, something tells me being a psychic is not in the cards.

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