It was a fabulous weekend with some long-deferred chores accomplished down at the farm. The pastures and yard were cut, the foliage around the house got trimmed and inside there was some housework accomplished- vacuuming and such to prepare for the First Fire and vacuumed inside and drank a bottle of good wine and a cocktail with Belmont Farms Distillery vodka to close the day. Outdoor plants are going to be moved in against the onset of the First Frost, which is coming.

The new cast iron double dutch oven from the nice people at Lodge (“American made in South Pittsburg, TN since 1896!”)arrived in time to start cooking the first pot roasts and savory stews and chilis of the coming chilly season. But not yet. There is time to season the oven and get things just right. It is very cool- the top can be flipped over and used as a back-up skillet. Clever people down there.

It wasn’t my fault- Ann at the front desk had been taunting me about cast iron cooking for a week or more, and I decided to retaliate with Gary’s pulled pork recipe- so simple it is impossible to screw up:

Ingredients:

One bottle A&W Root Beer
One medium sized pork butt
One bottle of Sweet Baby Rays Barbecue Sauce.

Directions:

Unwrap the pork.
Put it in the Lodge Dutch Oven
Pour the A&W Root Beer over it and slide in the oven on low heat (180-190 degrees).
Pour a beverage. Or two.
Go to bed.
Sometime the next morning, drain the pork and shred with two forks, mixing in the Sweet Baby Ray’s.
Your idiot football buddies will be amazed.

It was a glorious day with racing small gasoline engines whining to cut the abundant foliage all up and down the farm lane. I ducked off Rt 29 at Brandy Station to take a look at what is happening at Fleetwood Hill, the epicenter of the great cavalry battle that marked the commencement of Lee’s Gettysburg campaign.

As a little background, the property was private then, regardless of the presence of the Army of Northern Virginia, and it was private in the aftermath of the fighting, in which Union casualties totaled 907 (69 killed, 352 wounded, and 486 missing, primarily captured). Beau Sabreur J.E.B. Stewart’s force incurred 523, In the day-long encounter some 20,500 men were engaged in the largest predominantly cavalry battle to take place during the war. (Yes, there were infantry there, about 3,000, and the battle of Trevilian Station in 1864 was the largest all cavalry battle).

Anyway, Brandy Station was also the main logistics hub for the Union and the rail station at the foot of Fleetwood Hill was an amazing site in the winter of the next year when the Army of the Potomac replaced Lee’s troops as the major occupying presence in Culpeper.

The second set of battles began in 1990 when a Formula One racetrack was proposed for the battlefield, and I have been a regular contributor to the effort to preserve the rolling land in the form it had back in the day. One of the most symbolic acts of public vandalism was the construction of The Spite House, which was erected by a local developer on the summit of Fleetwood Hill, site of some of the fiercest fighting and Stewart’s HQ during the battle.

It was a three-story sprawling McMansion that I have railed about before.

The place broods atop Fleetwood Hill in easy view of By the time I stopped yesterday, two older and more modest structure had been razed, and work to dismantle the mansion was in progress. It felt good to se it come down. The last major campaign by the Civil War Preservation Trust was to raise the money to buy the place- and rip it down.

I had to be back up North for a funeral at Arlington and a chance to see the cousins, but Monday was so breathtakingly beautiful that I served off Rt 29 to take the old Orange Road and see what had happened at the summit of the hill.

The two one-story 1950s vintage houses are already gone. The McMansion’s core is still there, but they are making great progress in tearing it to shreds as efficiently as Gary does the pulled pork. By November they will be attacking the asphalt of the driveways and by spring the grass will grow thick and green where the cavalry thundered long ago.

The weather was absolutely perfect, the blue skies bottomless and the breeze fresh and crisp with just a hint of Summer’s last warmth against the skin. There was a hint of color on the trees. It confirmed the simple fact that October may be my favorite month of the year. Except for the Finance Committee meeting, but there is absolutely nothing that can be done about that.

Aside from that, sometimes it seems that the good people can win, and there are some things that are good in this world.

Copyright 2014 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com
Twitter: @jayare303