July 5, 2010
Who Are those Red Ring-Necks?
Anytime I see Melvin Poe, I always make a point to speak to him and show him his Florida strain of the Orange County red ring-neck foxhounds. He’s always so approachable and friendly and, of course, always interested in the red rings. In fact, last year at the Virginia Foxhound Show, I nearly missed one of our classes because I was talking to him just outside the ring. Luckily, Mac came running over and told me to get in there!
Our association with Orange County began in 1996, during our first season, when Kerry Glass, former Master and huntsman of the Norfolk Hunt (MA), contacted Melvin and arranged for us the draft of Orange County Boots, Bundles, and Britches. After our very first breeding to Boots, we instantly shifted our previously tri-color pack to red. Whenever we come to Virginia, we visit the Orange County kennels. It’s a ritual.
Melvin
The young lady was waiting in line—a long line, all the way outside the building—at the Virginia Foxhound Show when a soft-spoken, older man started a casual conversation. Where are you from? What hunt? Did you bring hounds to the show? How are they bred? What is your country like? He was interested in all she had to tell him about her hounds and her hunt. Then he strolled off.
"Do you know who you were talking to?" gushed a friend nearby.
Poplar Grange: Hunting Country Preserved
Poplar Grange is the happy outcome of a potential problem: loss of hunting country to the Piedmont Fox Hounds and unwanted development next to Zohar Ben-Dov’s Kinross Farm.
In 2007 Ben-Dov learned belatedly that more than a hundred acres to his north had been sold almost as it came on the market, and, most worrisome, to a developer.
The Carriage House
At the outset of any major renovation, addition, or restoration, the physical goal is to create a pleasing, functional space. But it’s the essence and character that brings a house to life, that intangible "something" that charms, welcomes, and envelops family and friends alike. Such is the Carriage House, which at one time was a true carriage house and stables for a larger property called Pine Grove, but is now a stand-alone residence in the heart of Aiken, South Carolina.
