Mt. Vernon

 We spent a day at Mt. Vernon, George Washington's home/farm.  It's beautiful, the setting is gorgeous, the house not as large as one would expect but certainly enough so. And no, I didn't take photos of the house.  It was so ungodly humid and hot it was all I could do to put one foot in front of the other.  When we were on the way home we could say it was the hottest and muggiest and most uncomfortable day of all.  And that counted the day the heat index in Williamsburg was 110 degrees and they pulled everyone off the streets, including the animals.

I did get this photo of Elizabeth and PH enjoying a rest and the view of the Potomac River from the chairs that are usually on GW's front porch but now sitting on the front lawn because the porch is being renovated, along with most of the house. We were able to tour two rooms under construction and the outbuildings the slaves worked in.

That's the thing I struggled with.  All of our Founding Fathers but one had slaves.  The South was built on the backs of slaves.  The homes, farms, every single thing about the South existed because of slave labor.   Look at this chart.  The green are the slaves the Washingtons owned.  The black are paid servants and their families. and the gray are the five members of the Washington family.  That's 270 people to make the Washington family comfortable.  

This is one of Martha Washington's quilts.  There seemed to be a lot about her quilts lately.  There was this one on display here, and in Gettysburg and a magazine article on her quilts.  Apparently, she wasn't unlike lots of us.  She worked the centers of the quilts and had someone else finish the borders and the quilting.  She would get just so far and either get bored or busy and pass it on. They are all this style, a medallion center and bordered.  She used scraps from her clothes.

On as aside, it's peach season here now.  Yesterday I made two peach pies, they must weigh 15 pounds, it takes two strong hands to hold the plate!  But oh, so good!!!