I’m moving!

I’m moving my blog to my own domain (thanks to Jeremy for hosting), so I will not be adding posts here anymore. For all future stuff check out http://blog.tiffanybroadbent.com

Thanks!

Brandon Plantation and Gardens

Brandon Plantation House

This past weekend we had a turn of nicer weather so Jeremy and I made a day trip on Saturday to visit Brandon Plantation on the James River. We started the day at the first Williamsburg Farmer’s Market of the season, had breakfast at the Trellis, then just started driving. We didn’t have a particular destination in mind, only that we wanted to take advantage of the sunny (most of the time) weather and get out of the house. We decided to go across the Jamestown-Scotland ferry and found (using a paper map, craziness!) a place called “Brandon Plantation“. After a bit of Googling on my Droid we found directions and I called to make sure they were open (they were, until 4pm).

As we came up the long drive the weather started looking a bit grumpy, but the clouds had been coming in and then dissipating all day so we decided to stick with the “being outside” plan. We pulled into the parking lot and were the only car there, there was no sign of anyone else at the plantation aside from a car next to one of the secondary buildings. The admission fee is $8 on an honor system so we decided to poke around quickly, see if there was more than just the immediate area to see (there definitely was), and then pay our fee. Just as we walked up to the house there was a random downpour for about 2 minutes but then after that we were given a break from the rain and Jeremy and I explored the freshly rained-on gardens and grounds (yielding a few fun “raindrops on plants” photos ;) ).

The house (which is not open to the public) is a really cool bit of architecture and the gardens are broken up into little “rooms” with a single entrance to each. The daffodils were in full bloom as well as many of the trees. The plantation was built right along the James River so we stopped at the riverside and enjoyed the views, snapped some photos of the storm clouds go over the opposing shore and then headed home. The entire time we were there we only saw one other person, the gardener, but it was a great afternoon trip and definitely a spot to come back to as the flowers continue coming up (it’s also on the Garden Club of Virginia’s Historic Garden Week list of places to visit).

Brandon Plantation Flickr Set

So those have been all of my photo trips as of late. Hopefully I can be a bit more diligent about posting as the weather gets nicer and we go out on more excursions.

Happy Spring!

Botanical Gardens and PicPlz

Jeremy and I went to Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden at the end of January in the pursuit of flowers in the midst of the crazy winter we’ve been having, thankfully they have a great greenhouse with seasonal flowers on one side, tropical plants in the center, and orchids on the other side. It was great to get outside and walk around (and go inside the greenhouse and enjoy the warmth and lovely flower smells) so we decided to buy an annual membership since we usually go to the gardens two or three times a year, and with the admission price for two people it was worth it to buy the pass. The extra bonus with the membership is that it gets you into a whole slew of other botanical gardens around the country (including the gardens in Norfolk), so it’s a really great deal and is now in the rotation of default places to go take photos when we need some inspiration. Flickr sets linked below.

Lewis Ginter Botanical Gardens Flickr Set - trip 1

Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden Flickr Set - trip 2

Norfolk Botanical Garden Flickr Set

I’ve joined in on the “use your smart phone to take pictures and then add filters to it” trend and have started using an app called PicPlz to try and practice taking more “random” photos of everyday stuff. So every once in a while either in my Twitter or my Flickr stream (or both) you’ll see a photo or two appear from something random I noticed during my day. My first PicPlz photo was taken at on our first trip to Lewis Ginter.