Important update from my post about Smithfield Church - the fire on Blue Mountain is out! Our entire community is deeply grateful to all of the fire companies who helped to bring the disaster to an impressive end - no one was injured and there was no property damage, apart from several hundred acres of trees. Hopefully it recovers quickly. Meanwhile, additional thanks to everyone who contributed in some way to the relief effort, our home company was truly overwhelmed by the generosity. Even the visiting representatives from FEMA were astonished by the community response.
I'm still doing my best here to try to get the blogs caught up, but it's a slow process. I keep an awful lot of balls in the air at one time, and then sometimes life randomly tosses in a chainsaw or two. I appreciate the patience and the words of support I've received from many of you!
Kevin and I were at a meeting of my beloved White Rose Irregulars this past Saturday, where I talked for a little while about the family tree of Sherlock Holmes. Public speaking might be the greatest fear of a lot of people, but it honestly doesn't bother me very much at all; I quite enjoy it, even though I'm not overly fond of the sound of my own voice. After the meeting, we detoured off of the road home to collect today's marker - I found the subject so interesting, both visually and historically, that I had to make it the focus of this week's post because I couldn't wait to share it with all of you.