poplar duck

Curt and Susan Ada have been quite busy about Lynchburg recently. Susan Ada surprised Curt the other day with a trip to a local garden. Randolph Macon college has a few interns living in tents out at their organic garden and Susan Ada's friend suggested we all go take a look at the place. They had ducks.

And some chickens.

Funny looking chickens to be exact. Curt tried to catch some of the cuter young chickens but didn't meet with any success. That afternoon we went out with our realtor to take a look at some houses. We did see one that is potentially interesting; however, we've got to decide how much work we want to commit to.

Later on that day Curt surprised Susan Ada by pretending to be a japanese hibachi chef. Well, there were no onion volcanos or flying shrimp pieces but he did make a tasty dinner. The "shrimp" sauce wasn't the best though. Don't use assertive canola oil based mayonnaise when you should be using the cheap bland stuff.

We might also like to look out our windows at what's going on in downtown Lynchburg; that night it was Friday night music down by the river. Apparently this guy didn't want to lay out the $5.

The next day we decided to head out to Poplar Forest just outside of Lynchburg.

It was Thomas Jefferson's rural retreat from Monticello and only in the last couple decades have attempts at preserving and restoring it begun. It was pretty interesting to tour a historically important place in the midst of repairs. It was built as a perfect octagon with, apparently, little regard for how liveable the space would be. But Jefferson didn't spend a whole lot of time out there so apparently it wasn't a big deal.

There were some trees.

Betcha can't guess what kind they were.

We'd picked up a Groupon to head out to Poplar Forest in the first place -- $20 for a year long family membership whereas just showing up would have cost us almost $30 to see it once. They've already marked out some of the locations of original plantings outside and we're looking forward to going back as the restoration progresses.

In other news, we might have had some professional photos taken for our almost one year anniversary. This is the one preview shot we've gotten.