Maryland House & Garden Pilgrimage Tour

On June 7 we were privileged to host visitors from all over the Mid-Atlantic region for the Maryland House & Garden Pilgrimage in Washington County. Almost 400 visitors came through our garden and house and they also enjoyed the other nine properties open on that day. The tour was a great success, raising money for the Heart of the Civil War Heritage Area, in particular the Newcomer House near the Antietam Battlefield.

Getting ready for a tour like this is not for the feint of heart. Painting, caulking, cleaning, construction and organizing went on for almost a year to get ready and now we don't need to do anything for at least another six months. Haha. Old houses like ours (and indeed all houses) take constant maintenance, but at least it looked good in June.

My farming partner from Whispering Flower Farm in nearby Rohrersville gave a demonstration of flower arranging in our newly completed design studio. Her arrangement was fabulous, made with flowers from both her farm and ours.

Flowers by Whispering Flower Farm

It's always fun to have visitors and we met some really interesting people with extensive knowledge of old houses like ours. This house was built around 1790 and the barn was built earlier, both being made of locally quarried limestone. It seems that everyone loves a stone house--perhaps because of the craftsmanship, their quaintness and as a connection to another time. I love to look at the corner stones and think of the men who quarried and cut them and then, hardest to imagine, hoisted them up into place. The stone corners are still as straight as arrow after 235 years. What a commitment they had to doing good work.

Here's some pictures from that day. Enjoy!

Artifacts found on the property. Mostly from digging holes to plant.