Big Spring is located about 5 miles from our home and the property is adjacent to the old Highland Belle Middle School where I taught for years. It is now the central office for our county school system, and I go there each day to pick up and deliver the mail. Pretend you have just gotten the mail for the day and are walking out the side door of the school into the parking lot. Stop...stand there...and look straight ahead. This is what you are going to see....UNBELIEVABLE...Big Spring as the fog is lifting and the sun is rising on a winter morning. It is one amazing and beautiful sight, and it changes every single day. These pictures are all a part of the collection I am putting together to give to my friend, the school’s superintendent , when he retires. I taught his sons a LONG time ago.
Drive out the driveway, turn right, and drive just a bit and you will see this mail box on your left...I know, I took it from the other direction just to confuse myself :-)
Drive on a wee bit past that mailbox and you will see it....Big Spring. It looks like a big lake and is fed by a natural spring. Between 1998 and 2003, Nestle’s Waters, the parent company of Deer Park Water tried to purchase the property for the production of Deer Park Water. Nestle started bottling water around 1844. The output of the spring is 3.3 millions of water per day. Well, we all rose up and fought with every breath we had. It went on and on, but finally we WON! It is still privately owned, and the new owners are fixing up the entire farm and have built a wonderful new barn. I am saving those photos for Tricia’s "Barn Charm" on Monday.They have also built a little dock and have canoes which you can see in the photos.
{Nestle started bottling water around 1844. Deer Park was founded in 1873, and was formerly known as the Perrier Group, the top bottled water company in the US.}
Drive past the old vintage weighing barn (I am saving that, too) and the beautiful new barn, and you’ll see the “mini-fence” and this little building with the other end of Big Spring behind it.
Then, just to the right and up the hill a bit is the old homeplace which the new owners have completely renovated. The lake wraps around the back of the house and can be seen from I-64. I am hoping to get a better shot of it before I post the fabulous new barn and other vintage structures.I just wanted you all to see the pretty old house up on the hill. I cannot even begin to imagine what it must be to awaken in the morning and look out upon that gorgeous body of water.
If you haven’t figured it out already, Bud and I live in a beautiful part of VA. There is no shortage of wonderful sights to see or hikes to take. I feel very fortunate to have lived 22 years a block from the Atlantic Ocean on the island of Palm Beach, Florida, 18 years in Asheville, North Carolina, which is surrounded by the Smokey Mountains, and 33 years in Lexington, Virginia, in the heart of the Blue Ridge Mountains.
