Like a monument, this chimney soars high but is almost completely hidden from sight. It is located within 100 yards of some farm buildings and a open well. There are several wolf trees surrounding it defining the home's yard. The bricks are solid, hand formed and secured with mortar. Another pile of darker bricks may have been the the front entrance. A rectangular water filled hole likely was a cellar.
Obviously, this was a two story home. Fireplaces warmed 2 downstairs rooms and two upstairs rooms. The lower fireplace here looks like it may have been an oven.
A large grand fireplace was probably the main room of the home.
Smaller upstairs fireplace
This is a fancy corncrib
The barn has survived due to the roof being almost fully intact. It is slowly succumbing to weather and nature.
The skinny purlins indicate to me the roof had always been metal. The ladder accesses a hayloft. The right side of the barn has several animal stalls.
Possible grain storage bins
Mortise and tenon joints are solidly held in place with pegs throughout the structure. The wood beams show circular saw blade cuts.
Strawberry bush. However, I prefer the more whimsical "Hearts A'busting". Deer love the leaves. Often all you see is the sleek green woody stem. Don't try to sample it, for us humans it is poisonous. So poisonous it plays its way into the Grimm's fairy tale - Sleeping Beauty. The strong woody stem of the European counterpart - Euonymus europaeus (our version is Euonymus americanus), was used to make spindles. You'll recall that an evil fairy caused the young princess to prick her finger on a spindle. Instead of killing her, a good fairy was able to save her from death by changing that to 100 years of sleep.
This creative bridge looks like a troll hangout. Several 55 gallon drums filled with concrete act as buttresses for the timber bridge. We found several large timbers down creek.
Our tour of the property included following a creek for about a mile. It was a lovely rock filled creek with many snakeskin liverwort covered rocks. Liverworts are nonvascular plants. Without a vascular system to transport moisture and nutrients throughout the plant, liverworts tend to be small and grow in moist areas along creeks.
The property had a long dry ridge of large rock outcrops.
One member of our party had to depart early and encountered this dam. She texted a photo, so the rest of us altered our course to check it out.
This dam appears to have impounded several acres of flood plain along an unnamed tributary of the Uwharrie River. It is completely built of dry stacked stones probably from the creekbed. The dam has been breached where the creekbed is, on creek right. Lots of stones are just downcreek as a result of the breach. There is a small stone portion on far creek right that survived. That portion has a small conduit opening with no water flow. The dam does not appear to have spillway abutment walls like the check dams of Caraway Creek.
About 130 feet in length, 5-6 feet wide with a level top and varying height, 8 feet at its highest point. It is located in a narrow area with rather steep hills on either side.
Just downstream is a flash board riser laying on its side which appears to have been recently made (within 10 years). It likely was secured in the breached area for raising and lowering the pond level.
No comments:
Post a Comment