Recent Visitors

Oct 24, 2018

In addition to the many individuals and families who visit for scheduled tours, we’ve hosted more than 40 groups this year.

Fifteen members of the  Madison Presbyterian Church Green Team visited the QGs in late September, and the two in the featured photo, above, made a souvenir selfie. Beyond beautifying their church, these garden and environmental  educators also maintain a meditation garden on Buford Road in Richmond.

On September 29. Will and Margaret Shaw collected seeds to propagate into plants for the Virginia Native Plant Society’s spring 2020 plant sale. Among the many seeds collected were those of three species of mountain mint, two of Asters, Carolina rose, Yellow false indigo, and Shrubby St. John’s wort.

Having recently completed a unit on geology, 17 of the 6th graders in Mrs. Sharon Cross’s class at  Central Virginia Christian School in Dillwyn came to check out rocks at the QGs in October. They completed an amazing number of sketches.

We’re honored to be the meeting home of The Blue Ridge Mycological Society, which held its first event at the QGs October 21. The group drank chaga (mushroom) tea and foraged briefly in natural areas near the Visitor Center. There wasn’t time to identify all of the great variety of specimens found, but documented findings will be shared with the Microflora Project, and many new species will be added to the QGs biota. They’ll be back November 11. If you would like to know more, contact Bernice through the QGs website.

Lorraine Momper brought a few of her plein air painting group to spend a chilly but brilliant October day. No shortage of vantage points.

Lorraine chose the overlook at the north wall of the south quarry. Julia Lesnichy chose a handy view of the road. The group will be back next week—when we hope the leaves will have turned.

Trains, Plans, and Pics

Feb 16, 2016

February 10, 2016:

We are making some progress despite the cold, inhospitable weather. Bernice will cover the plant side in the next post, and here I’d like to share with you some new stuff about trains, plans, and pics. Mark Chase, our soapstone and train guru, brought over a small 3-d model of what the proposed train layout and diorama may look like. As you can see from the key photo, it will be in four sections, from left to right depicting Rockfish Junction, the factory complex at Schuyler, a representative quarry, and the village of Esmont. Here is a close-up of the quarry diorama on the left and of the Esmont village on the right. (The quarry will have a cut-out section below the table level.)

The proposed first engine will be an O-gauge (pretty large) model similar to the actual Nelson and Albemarle Number 14 seen below, but in reality that engine had been delivered to the N & A with Albemarle misspelled as “Albermarle,” and that’s the way we will letter it.

On a related topic, Fred Oesch, our architect, came over to meet with Mark so the two of them could set the parameters for the train display, and Fred shared a preliminary drawing of the layout of the interior of the administration/educational building. It’s not yet finalized, but we are getting close. (Click on the link for the full drawing.)

QG Plan 020816

Finally, Sharon Wray shared an old photo with us of the New Alberene plant at some unknown date, probably in the 20’s or so. We are very much interested in getting more such old pictures, and if you have any or know of any, please let me know at athieblot@me.com . Thanks.