Not Fairfax County | Rural Fairfax

The Parker house in Triangle, Virginia. From the looks of things, it's about to become a part of the neighboring K. Hovnanian commune of personality-free McMansions.

This is the back window of an interesting old stone house off of Smith Switch Rd. I don't have any idea what the history of this property is, but the home (according to the stone column I posted previously) appears to date back to 1924, and burned down sometime between then and now.

(Here's a picture of the house from before it burned down.)

I have no idea what the future holds for this farm. Perhaps it's used as a horse farm now, and will be around for a while. Or maybe, Prince William County's insatiable demand for taxable (read: micro-urban residential) land will be the end of it.

Speaking of which:—I know I don't really do a whole lot of "writing" per se over here. It's not that I don't have anything to say, it's just that I'd much rather try and speak through the pictures instead. And, in most cases, I don't have the time or resources to find out about everything I shoot.

I'm not sure if that's the right location, but it's close to here. This entire area, if you use Google Earth's historic imagery feature, was still very recently farmland back in 1989. Not sure what the story of this guy is, but it'll most likely be gone the next time they widen Interstate 66.

Believe it or not, this is how most of Fairfax County looked. Except perhaps not quite as rolling. Mount Air, a former plantation located in Lorton, looked almost like this. As late as 1920, it was said that you could see straight from the third floor of the Manor all the way down to the Potomac River.

A disused home out in the woods near Hollin Farms. Seems to be at least a hundred years old, but I could be off by a touch.

There's also another disused and boarded up home right next to it that appears to be much younger—1960's at the latest.

The old iron fence that used to surround the Strother family cemetery, here on Delaplane's Hollin Farms. It has since been replaced with a beautiful new rock wall.

This little fellow was hard at work.

An idle farm implement at Hollin Farms in not-so-sunny Delaplane, Virginia.

A driveby shot from my ever-handy Blackberry Storm, yesterday in sunny Dumfries, Virginia. The original photo wasn't all that great, but Photoshop's "Make Aged Photo" at least made it somewhat interesting.