It’s a big week for Oak Grove Plantation Bed & Breakfast as we open our 31st season. We’ll we’ll have an open house on Saturday (April 27 10 a.m.-2p.m.) to celebrate our Earth Day and to host visitors along the Barn Quilt Trail. And this Thursday (April 25), Pickett is traveling to Harrisonburg, Va., to accept a Virginia Green Leader award at the Virginia Green Travel Conference.
In front of Oak Grove, we have a barn quilt—a large piece of painted wood that looks like a single quilt block, the kind that are used to decorate the side of a barn. For the second straight year, there will be a celebration of the barn quilts that are displayed in front of churches, farms, houses and even a jail, as part of the Halifax County Barn Quilt Trail.
At Oak Grove, the beautiful star quilt was sewn together by the great-grandmother of Pickett Craddock, who runs the 199-year-old plantation house as a bed & breakfast. Appropriately, the marvelous quilt hangs in one of the three guest rooms, the Thomas Day Room.
Besides the tour of the elegant house, visitors will get to examine the solar panels and the electric car-charging station, one of the few in Halifax County, and hear about furniture maker Thomas Day and his relationship with the house. Guests will see a square from the star quilt in front of the B&B at 1245 Cluster Springs Rd. in Cluster Springs (six miles south of South Boston.) Bathroom facilities are available for touring quilt fans.
Also on April 27, we are taking part in the Earth Day Extravaganza at the Halifax Farmer’s Market. Virginia Clean Cities and the Carolina Solar Energy are among participants, along with Oak Grove, which will have brochures and information about the solar panels and other energy-conservation measures.