Timing is Everything.

I had a week off, did my taxes, ran a full backup of my computer, and the next day the Hard Drive crashed. Didn't lose a thing. It's been 2 weekends of installing programs and moving files onto the new hard drive!

In between, of course, I went to work.

I went walking at Ivy Creek Natural Area with my friend Sue after work Monday. I left my good camera behind but got some pics with the Treo. Ivy Creek's a hilly 215-acre preserve at Ivy Creek and the South Fork Rivanna Reservoir.



Once upon a time, a freed slave turned sharecropper worked, saved and bought land which became River View Farm.



He raised and educated 7 children, 5 of whom earned advanced degrees. His oldest daughter Mary and her husband ran the farm after his death.



She was a school principal. Her husband, Conly Greer, was Albemarle County's first black extension agent. 2 years after Mary's death, The Nature Conservancy bought the farm. The city of Charlottesville and Albemarle County later purchased the property, as well as adjacent parcels with the help of the Ivy Creek Foundation. Today it's the Ivy Creek Natural Area.