This & That: George Washington's House

On another of our outings with the boys, we went to see George Washington's house....aka Mt. Vernon. A couple of interesting notes here. After the subfreezing weather watching the airplane take off, it was in the low 60's about 2 days later here. I always thought the DC area had a more "typical" winter weather pattern, but Collin says it's been like that all winter so far...wild weather mood swings.

I found Mt. Vernon to be totally fascinating and could have spent more time there wandering. We actually weren't able to go into the house itself because we unfortunately timed our visit during their annual 3 week refurbishment time but still, I really enjoyed what I saw.

There are 2 trees on the property that are original to George Washington's time. There were 3 until last October, when a windstorm took one of them down.

The exterior of the house looks like stone, but it isn't. It's wood that's been painted and then sand is thrown at it while the paint is still wet and sticks there to give it a stone-like texture. I forget the name of this technique, but there wasn't a quarry nearby and this was the solution they came up with.

The preservation society that owns the property now has done an amazing job of keeping as much of the original buildings as possible and when not possible, recreating something pretty exact. They have an active blacksmith shop on the property where they fabricate metalwork to match the time period.

Mt. Vernon is located on the Potomac River, or as James calls it, "The Mictomick River." You can see that it was a very hazy day when we were out.

Collin and I spent a lot of time taking pictures...

...and I had a hugely difficult time winnowing them for this post.

Every little detail seemed interesting. I sort of expected the house itself to be bigger, though. It is a big house, don't get me wrong,

...but I guess I expected the house of the first president of the United States of America to be something bigger. Another preconceived notion shot down.

This is a latch to keep shutters open. You can see the gritty appearance of the sand in the paint.

There's a wall like this all around the property closest to the house. The tour guide said it was to keep the pigs out.

There are still animals to be seen, and I think that was David's favorite part.

Mt. Vernon is 8,000 acres. A lot of it is wooded, and we were told that George Washington was a good manager of all the resources on this property. On the river, there's a dock that enabled them to harvest fish that was dried for storage. You can see there are a lot of geese wandering around with that cow. We passed several fields filled with geese, and my husband the hunter couldn't resist postulating how long it would take to get a limit.

Vegetables are still grown in the gardens,

and the formal gardens are also maintained.

This was the greenhouse, and in Washington's time it was heated by a large fireplaces at each end, which enabled them to grow citrus fruits.

This was the Washington family's original crypt. George Washington worried that it was too close to the water and that erosion would encroach on the area, so he ordered a new one built further up the hill,

...where he and Martha are buried. There are also other family members interred behind the small, square door you can see in the picture.

It seemed like there was something interesting everywhere we looked. I'm not sure what this stuff is, but it was growing along a lot of the wood fencing.

Lots of ivy drawing over things.

And up things.

This picture is for Collin....remember when we thought I missed the shot of the cardinal? OK, it's not the best one ever, but at least you can see red.