I don't go to many restaurants in Gettysburg.    Gettysburg is a tourist town, and most tourist towns mean expensive and not so healthy food.   There are a couple of out of the way places just outside town and a couple of Inns which don't fall into the "touristy trap"......these are ones locals are usually inclined to frequent.

One of these Inns has a nice glass enclosed front "porch" area for seating guests.   You can dine inside, but feel as though you are outside and enjoy the views.  

Recently, during dinner, just outside our window, this little dinner companion decided to "pop in."   He stayed for most of the meal, scampering about for fresh grass, then scurrying back to the shelter of his den beneath the rock wall.   Soon, word got out that this was a nice restaurant and more of his friends showed up.   I would have loved to share some of my salad with them.  

I love having company for dinner, especially the furry kind........

I have decided to move my blog to my photography website.  This way, finding my artwork and my writings will be easier.  I will slowly move some of my blogs to here, and will now write each day on this page.

Those that have followed me on wordpress are welcome to join me here.

I will post the link on the wordpress site until you all have become accustomed to finding me here.

Thank you for supporting my literary and artistic work.

Sincerely,

Shirl 

I love photos; not photos of cousin Joe’s wedding, though those are nice.   I love photos that tell an instant and a lifetime in one click of the button, or flash of the light. 

I love wandering cemeteries.  There is a name given to people like me, taphophiles.  Years ago, I didn’t know there was a name for this addiction, until I stumbled upon it on the computer one day.  Lo and behold, I found fellow taphophiles and treasure troves of stories in the photos taken at both famous and abandoned cemeteries around the globe.

I look for little snippets of the heart……touching mementos left at a gravestone, or weeds left to wind with abandon, each tell their own story.

For me, finding that moment that I know will transcend into my camera and into your heart is like finding a diamond in the rough.

Each resident is a diamond, some polished with manicured landscapes and some in the rough, with overgrown weeds and dandelion blossoms adorning their grave.

To me, they are all precious jewels of time, shining in the sunlight or waiting in the rain, for a taphophile’s heart and camera……………

Namaste,

Shirl"To the Light"

"Wispy Ghost" One of the most active places for me in Gettysburg is the Grove.  The Grove is the wooded grounds surrounding the Gettysburg Middle School.  There are stories of encounters in these woods,  of a little girl who looks innocent until you get close enough to see her glowing eyes…….of Soldiers wandering about above graves

where their war torn bodies were hurriedly buried.

Fighting at the Grove was so savage that weaponry became the dismembered limbs of dead soldiers, swung at the enemy when there was nothing left to fight each other with that day.

I constantly get orbs at the Grove, the trees there are especially “haunted”……..

One evening, while photographing the trees, in a matter of seconds, my camera found only darkness, then a peculiar ghostly shaped wisp, then nothingness again.  This is perhaps my favorite paranormal photo, I think the little wisp even has a little curly headed ghostly “do.” 

There are many stories of encounters and sightings at the Grove.   A guide once told me of a classroom in the Middle School busily taking an exam when the image of a soldier ran through the room and into the opposite wall.  He said the exam was cancelled for the day…….I would imagine no one felt like taking a test after that.

Whenever you build upon tainted ground, the energy remains and “moves into” the new foundation, the walls, the classrooms.   When you visit Gettysburg, be sure to stop at the Middle School.  You can see it from Baltimore Street.  Walk through the woods at night, if you dare.  I can tell you there is one spirit there with a negative energy; it followed me back to my room one night……..But that is another story, for another blog post.

Namaste,

Shirl

“The Strength of a Woman”

"Nature's Canvas" On this day, in the year 1892, Edna St. Vincent Millay was born.

And on this present day, this blog writer thanks her for this……

“The Little Ghost”………

I knew her for a little ghost
That in my garden walked;
The wall is high—higher than most—
And the green gate was locked.

And yet I did not think of that
Till after she was gone—
I knew her by the broad white hat,
All ruffled, she had on.

By the dear ruffles round her feet,
By her small hands that hung
In their lace mitts, austere and sweet,
Her gown's white folds among.

I watched to see if she would stay,
What she would do—and oh!
She looked as if she liked the way
I let my garden grow!

She bent above my favourite mint
With conscious garden grace,
She smiled and smiled—there was no hint
Of sadness in her face.

She held her gown on either side
To let her slippers show,
And up the walk she went with pride,
The way great ladies go.

And where the wall is built in new
And is of ivy bare
She paused—then opened and passed through
A gate that once was there.

I love this poem….it conjures so vividly the image of this Little Ghost…..as one so interested in the Spirit World, it has always been a favorite poem of mine.

I wonder where Edna’s ghost chooses to wander…..I hope it is in a garden as lovely as this one, and she is happily, at peace…….with no trace of sadness lingering on her spectred face…….

Namaste,

Shirl

"Remember Me" What you are…………we were”

“George Washington’s Ghost at Gettysburg”