Lorton Prison, VA, and an Artistic Evening

On Saturday DCUE met for a private tour around Lorton Prison which had its last prisoners transferred in 2001. It's been left abandoned since then but in upcoming months work will begin on developing the area so we were fortunate to get a look before it's changed forever. We were sharing the tour with a photography club and I was delighted to see MJ and Martin from the Vienna Photographic Society there. A couple of members came up to me recognizing me from the urbexing presentation I did at their group so it was great for them to experience DCUE and urban exploring first hand.

We condensed into cars and drove past the watch towers through the gates and parked on one of the roads inside. We discovered once we got out how bad my parking was, with one of Stuart's wheels almost hanging over a hole.
We watched as the guards started walking round the buildings clanking keys as they opened doors allowing us entry into many of the buildings. It felt a little odd not having to look for our own point of entry. I waited until the large group had dispersed a little then started wandering around the brick structures.

This photo was taken with the macro lens on my phone. There were some tiny plastic balls on the window sill with a piece of broken glass on top.

We were allowed access to many cell blocks, dormitories, the kitchen and laundry area. The area was pretty big and spread out. It was interesting to see so much of the graffiti left on the walls with scraps of personal belongings on the floors or tucked behind cupboards or hanging on bars. Apart from the writings and drawings on the walls I'm not sure how much of it was genuine or staged by previous photographers but there was still a sense of gloom hanging over the empty corridors and it was easy to imagine how claustrophobic the cells must have been. Many of them saw little daylight; I saw none with windows.

We were also allowed inside the old power plant, the only building which offered some color, albeit paint crumbling on the pipes and walls.

I ended up in some back rooms with water dripping from the ceiling and was so engrossed in exploring back there that when I returned to the cells everybody had gone on elsewhere so I was fortunate to have the place to myself for a while and set up some shots without anyone around. Fine at first but I soon got creeped out and called Emily almost begging to know where everyone had moved on to. I scurried down the road and was mightily pleased to see a security guard who pointed me in the right direction so that by the time I saw the others I was very happy to trot through some huge gates into the maximum security compound.

Many of the blocks here were the same and because I'd arrived so late I lost the opportunity to explore thoroughly but I was content enough to wander around some of them and work my lens until the whistle sounded the end of our visit. We were escorted out rather quickly and once our group was together naturally the next priority was food and beer.
We found a gyro place, filled our tummies and then the group broke up. Emily, Huggy and I were going down to Artomatic in the evening for Meet the Artist night but we had a little time to kill before then so we went with Lewis to find a nearby geocache. I have the application on my phone but this was the first time I'd used it and only the second cache I've ever looked for. This was a nano cache, something tiny, but we followed the compass on our phones and ended up by a pond and a deck where we all immediately became engrossed in locating the treasure. Lewis spotted it first and it took a good 5 minutes before I found it too. It was tiny!

There are 2 bolts on this post and the top one had a magnetic cache attached to it. We signed the log and entered the details on the application. I really have to get more involved with this activity, there's so many caches around Marshall and at work that I have no excuse. Well I do, lack of time.
Later that evening we got to Artomatic and each spent time by our walls answering questions and talking about our projects. To be honest, the place wasn't as busy as I'd hoped and I've wondered if 1300 artists on 10 floors is really too many. Last Saturday while working on the 11th floor, I had people come up saying that they were just too overwhelmed.

I didn't take many photos, just these flowers made of cassettes caught my eye. A couple of Emily's friends, James & David came down from NYC and we hung out with them for the rest of the evening touring various floors and drinking beer, and laughing. We spent a lot of time laughing.

I thought I was seriously wilting after my long day but after Artomatic we realized we hadn't had any dinner so 6 of us piled into a car and we ended up at a kabob restaurant which was doing a roaring trade. I was actually really sensible and barely touched my carbs, eating just the lamb and salad as I was a little fearful of falling asleep at the wheel on the way home. So after fun conversation had ended and plates had been cleared we piled out to the car again and I was very kindly driven to Stuart. I was soon on 66, got caught in roadworks, yet the endorphins of the evening buoyed me on the drive back and I arrived at Meadow House feeling surprisingly bright eyed and bushy tailed at 3:30am. I even considered staying up but common sense prevailed and I went to bed with two pussycats snuggling up pleased that I'd finally arrived home.

Heavenly Birds

On Sunday Rob came up and we set off to see a local air show. I spotted a sign advertizing a plant sale and decided to pop in and see what veggie plants they had. I pulled into the driveway and immediately spotted metal poles with white gourds hanging from them, meaning only one thing, purple martins.
I developed a keen interest in these birds when I saw their unusual man made homes for the first time in Marshall. I then found a book in Marshall Hardware on them and soon became engrossed, learning about these beautiful birds that nearly became extinct until a town called Griggsville, IL, started a study that soon had the whole town helping in the preservation of these birds. They became especially popular because of their ability to eat 2000 mosquitos a day and those folks that encouraged their nesting soon discovered that in turn their environments became almost bug free.

We met the owner of the sanctuary, Jerry, and his daughter, Tania, and soon became involved in a conversation that would last the whole afternoon. Jerry delighted in telling us how he built his home himself and planted the now 30 year old trees that offered a welcome shade from the sun for us sitting in our chairs and the house. I wandered around looking at the plants and chatting with Tania, soon collecting a tray of peppers, tomato and broccoli plants which I sincerely hoped I'd be able to find a deer free zone for once I got home.

As the sun peaked in the sky and threw down hot rays we sat and chatted under the cool leaves relishing the breeze that brushed through and the constant bird song in the air. I did notice an absence of mosquitoes. Jerry talked about his land and would start each tale with. 'There's a story about that' which I found endearing. And soon enough we were asked if we wanted to see the martin houses up close. I nearly leaped out of my chair, I was so keen.

He explained that the homes with a rectangular entrance as shown at the top were the best as starlings could get into the crescent shaped ones, as above, but not the rectangular ones. The gourd concept started with the Indians who used gourds as bowl and containers. They noticed that when they were washing them out then hanging them up in the bushes to dry, the purple martins would start nesting in them.
Both starlings and sparrows are a purple martin's enemy as they kill the babies and take over the nests. Jerry monitors his homes very closely to help prevent this. He has also installed snake guards at the base of each post. He then proceeded to lower some of the homes to show us the contents of the nests. The birds don't mind this at all; they have an affinity with humans and understand their dependence on us for their nesting boxes, and actually want to nest close to our houses. They are also incredibly clean and will not defecate in or near the nests but will fly off to do this, also cleaning up their babies waste and dropping it off away from their home too.

We were ecstatic as Jerry opened houses, showing us small white eggs in one and then baby birds in others. He will have a colony of around 400 birds at the end of July that will put on an amazing aerial display at dusk for a few days before they begin their long flight to Brazil. He's going to call me to come down for that. The parents will return to Jerry next year to nest again but the babies will go elsewhere to avoid interbreeding.
Even after just a few minutes, the birds were getting bolder with their new visitors and I was able to get closer with my camera. The birds with the pale chests are the females with the males being a solid purple.

Click here for a short video, listen to the bird song, it's beautiful.

Here's a wonderful photo that his wife took last year.

And there's a story about this hydrant. Another visitor spotted it amongst the foliage and immediately got excited, offering to buy it from Jerry who didn't want to sell it. The guy got quite agitated and Jerry was concerned that he might even come back just to take it, so desperate was this man to have it in his possession. Apparently this kind of hydrant is quite rare and is known as a Dolly Parton...

There's a story about this piece of farm equipment too. Jerry heard about an old guy who had been trying to get rid of this piece with no success almost to the point of junking it. He was giving it away so Jerry took it. Unfortunately my female mind was unable to retain any relevent information about this piece of equipment but I do remember that Jerry was very impressed that the wood on it was well over a 100 years old. He has other old pieces of machinery dotted about the place also.

We wandered down to the pond which he dug out himself, it's about 7ft deep even at the banks, and walked over the bridge on to the island of Hawaii which even has its own U.S. flag. We heard the story behind the evolution of his Hawaii, called that because he's always wanted to go to the original island but not yet made it.
We fed the fishes and then strolled back up to the greenhouses.

After some more chatting, it was time to get some late lunch. We'd been there for hours and both Rob and I agreed that we'd had a much more enjoyable time than we could have had at the air show. I was overjoyed that I'd been in close proximity to the birds which I'd developed such a fondness for and it had been nothing but complete pleasure to meet such a friendly expert in these creatures.
I collected my plants and we drove off in the car with many backward looks, and I thought what an absolutely perfect name Jerry had chosen for his home, Almost Heaven.