Happy Friday — we’re back with more Hot Bones and a small but mighty book update.

It’s Free Little Library week across the country, and if you’ve ever walked through literally any neighborhood in Charlottesville, you know we like reading. I checked out the official Free Little Library map and counted 55 of them in our area, including Bear Haven Library in the Key West neighborhood and the Book Nook in Fry’s Spring, which the sponsors said was built as “a tribute to our dog Noodle who used to encourage walks to little libraries everywhere.”

If you’re inclined on this cold, rainy holiday weekend, do Noodle proud by picking up a new book and sharing one of your favs.

Do one long thumb scroll for more Cville-specific updates like local events, cool houses, and pets to adopt. And check out Bike Cville for details on those ^ rides.

🐶 Speaking of pets: Rufus! This guy has ears so huge and triangular, they could be pizza slices. He’s down for leisurely walks, plenty of sniffs, and calm quiet evenings (hound mix, 6 years old, 50 lbs).

🐱 Plus a mystery cat named Madeline …

Longtime Hot Bones readers will know G and I spend an inordinate amount of time at Ethos Wine & Tea. So I’m super stoked about this new thing they’re doing: The Ethos Collective.

It’s a wine and tea club where every two months you get the adult version of a bday goody bag:

There are two pricing options depending on how many bottles you want, and members also get lil perks when they visit the shop and discounted pricing on events.

The Collective launches in a few weeks, and there’s a pick-up party on June 6 with the Virginia wine makers.

Learn more.

Last weekend, I hustled out the door on Saturday morning to help paint a mural as part of the Virginia Street Art Festival in Waynesboro. In my mind, I always think Waynesboro is just 15 minutes down the road, so I was surprised when I got in the car and Google Maps said actually no, make that 30. Best of luck getting there on time.

Of course I was late, but the good thing about mural painting in rural towns is that it’s often happening in vacant lots and beside unused buildings. So parking was not an issue.

In this case, we were meeting in the parking lot off main street next to Augusta Cleaners and, I think it’s fair to say, not much else.

I hopped out and caught the end of Jon Murrill’s intro chat. About a dozen people were listening to him explain his half-finished mural in front of us:

It’s called “Birdwatching” and initially it was intended to be about a local guy watching birds, but when Jon arrived on site a few days ago and saw that his friend and fellow muralist Humble was painting a giant sleeping black bear on the wall on the other side of the parking lot, he directed our birdwatcher’s gaze that way. How could you not? It’s a huge bear.

So now the eastern bluebird, Carolina chickadee, and eastern meadowlark will be watching him, not the other way around.

Everyone in the crowd was listening intently, but we were all also eager to start painting. We kept glancing at the clean paintbushes and immaculate paint trays and stacked paint cans. The group inched closer and closer to the materials.

I smiled when I saw Jon clock the shift. This man must have been a teacher. Surely he put all the good stuff there on purpose. Oldest trick in the book: To get your students’ attention, put the Schoolhouse Rock DVD at the front of the classroom, but don’t press play until you’ve talked about how to actually use conjunction junctions in a sentence.

Later in the day, Jon and I shared notes on our former lives as teachers. He explained that he’d been a high school art teacher and charcoal portraitist for a decade before going full-time as a muralist.

“Eventually I decided to change directions into an art form that allowed me to engage the public rather than work from my studio,” he said. “After trying my hand at a few smaller local murals I realized that public art was a natural fit with my experience as an educator and my love for the outdoors.”

And boy was last weekend a great time to be outdoors. Bright sun, blue skies, hot but not yet the brutal peak of the heat wave. Also not cold and rainy. Perfect mural conditions for us volunteers.

Plus, Jon had driven up from Roanoke and spent the past few days doing the hard parts already. We got the pleasure of basically painting-by-numbers on the birdwatcher’s deep green jacket.

Finally! Time to pick up a paint brush.

I partnered up with a lovely woman named Veronica, who had moved to town this winter right before the ice storm. Most of the other people there were couples, so we got to chatting while we mixed the paint and started covering our section of brick with splatters (me) and perfect brushstrokes (Veronica).

And then we were instantly back in high school art class. Loose chatter, long pauses, moments of focus, quick giggles, and once in a while a wildly revealing statement that the whole class obviously heard but which was meant only for your best friend sitting next to you. Between 8am English lit and some sort of scientific horror class afterward, that art period was always the respite. You could express yourself through the project (developing film, sketching, sitting at the pottery wheel), and you could also literally express your thoughts without getting yelled at for talking during class.

Many years later, when I became an English teacher, I discovered the corollary to this phenomenon: The art teachers were always the ones with the good student gossip. (Sports coaches coming in second place, and of course guidance counselors coming in deep last.)

Our conversations during the mural painting were slightly less jeujune than what I remembered from my ninth-grade pottery class, but I think just as juicy in adult terms.

Key gossip: Real estate prices are off-the-wall crazy. Sam’s Hot Dogs is good if you like hot dogs, but it won’t convert you into a hot dog fan. And try the River for burgers (turkey and garden varieties too).

There have been plenty of studies on why murals are so great for local communities (like improved mental health and public safety, a deeper connection to place and people, and increased foot traffic as a boost for local businesses). There’s even a Yale project showing how murals made with reflective paints can help cool off buildings and prevent urban heat islands.

But beyond all the complicated economic and behavioral explanations, I think it’s really just a matter of standing somewhere ugly (parking lot, alley) and seeing something pretty (birds, birdwatcher).

Plus, as Jon mentioned, “public art can engage communities much more directly than artwork seen in a gallery or an exhibit.” For starters, it’s free. And there’s no chance a docent will remind you to wear your backpack on your front, lest you brush against an oily Rembrandt.

“Our responsibility to each community is to inspire them and sometimes shock them outside of their normal day-to-day visuals. Think about all of the insurance and corporate billboards you pass going to your job or going to pick up your kid every day,” he added. “To turn a corner and see large-scale artwork for free, how can you not be surprised in some way.”

Waynesboro is really leaning into this (adding six more murals this weekend alone), and Charlottesville certainly has a ton of murals as well, but honestly what I couldn’t get out of my about Jon’s statement was how much better my trips to CVS and Wegman’s would be if I pulled up to get my RX and Rice Chex and a giant black bear was there to greet me.

And if we all got to paint a claw or two, well wouldn’t that be swell. I hope the 50 volunteers who helped paint “Birdwatching” would agree.

At some point during our painting, likely when Veronica and I were deep in conversation about her own daughter’s birdwatching habits, a sonic boom shook the parking lot and sent half a dozen empty paint cans rolling across the asphalt.

I screamed. My wet paint brush went flying. The rest of the group looked flustered, but not nearly enough considering we’d surely just heard someone drop a bowling ball from space.

“Cannons,” the woman next to me explained. “There’s a military school down the street.”

Ah. Well, if that’s not a good segue for stepping out of art class and back into the real world, then nothing is.

Actually, scratch that.

A few minutes after the cannon fire and a few minutes after we all said our thank yous and waved goodbye, I turned on my car and the Please Refuel indicator light popped up. Then I patted my pocket to grab my wallet and realized it had been left at home. 30 miles away. With 25 miles left in the tank.

So if you think painting a mural in real-time is thrilling, then let me tell you about the adrenaline rush of putting your vehicle in neutral and coasting down the Blue Ridge Mountains to save gas.

➡ Buy an EV! (You start every morning with a full charge.)

➡ Get Apple Pay, which is accepted at the BP in Crozet. (Nice to not have to call my ever-tolerant, amazing spouse to pick me up due to my own stupidity.)

➡ Try your hand at painting something, anything. (We could always use another mural in Cville, even if it’s just a big smiley face on your garage door, maybe with the caption “did you remember your wallet?”)

You don’t have to go full tilt into muralism, or whatever your artistic pursuit may be, but if you do, Jon’s advice is pretty solid:

“For me to be a muralist at this stage in my career still seems a bit surreal. I did a complete 180 and found joy and inspiration in a totally new field by taking the risk of trying new things. One of my favorite quotes is ‘be comfortable being uncomfortable,’ and I try to live by that as a muralist.”

Here’s to more birdwatching and mural-watching in our backyards.

Waynesboro now has a ton of new, nature-y murals. Not to get competitive or anything, but Cville folks …

🎨 Festival of the week: Speaking of art stuff, the 6th annual Cville Art Fest is this Saturday and Sunday at IX Art Park, with over 50 visual and performance artists, live music, immersive art experiences, and hands-on workshops for things like Japanese woodblock printing.

👟 Runner people, start hydrating now: Early bird registration for this summer’s Montalto Challenge ends on May 31. This year’s course is 500 feet of elevation gain over 1.776 miles to the summit of Montalto (also known as Brown’s Mountain, the one across from Monticello).

👣 And if walking is more your speed: Get your presidential fix with a walking tour of nearby Pine Knot, Teddy Roosevelt’s summer getaway, thanks to Ragged Mountain Running. This Saturday at 2pm, rain or shine.

🏠 Historic house of the week: 1950s brick cottage with a storybook front gable, a double-decker side porch, and a washing machine so old you know it’ll keep working forever (3 beds, 2 baths, $350k in downtown Orange). Peep the vegetable garden in the back.

🏡 Cool rental of the week: Bright Belmont bungalow, with a huge front porch and back deck, plus hardwood throughout and a tiny window above the shower (2 beds, 1 bath for $2,400/month). There’s also a storage shed for your vast collection of unused flower vases.

🌤️ Listen, we’ll take the win: Dominion certainly isn’t perfect (and the proposed merger with NextEra Energy is raising a lot of eyebrows), but there’s also good news, like the permanently closed Ivy landfill being turned into a solar farm. According to Dominion, the 14 acres of panels can power up to 750 homes. (And according to the Census Reporter, there are roughly 450 homes in Ivy.)

👠 Sad news for my well-dressed friends: Everlane, the brand that somehow made sustainable and stylish clothing, just did another remarkable thing … selling out to the god of ultra-fast fashion, Shein.

💼 Jobs of the week: Homestead Oven is looking for bakery help (20 hrs/week, learn from the pros on how to make incredible gluten-free sourdough). And Rockfish Wildlife Sanctuary is hiring for a Wildlife Rehabilitator and Educator ($20/hr, 40 hrs/week).

💾 Remote job: Writer and Associate Editor at Climate Central ($72k - $75k).

➕ Pro tip: Peter Chang is officially open, the renovations look great, and they’ve got a new menu to test out.

➕ And don’t forget, there’s no trash or recycling pickup on Monday because of the holiday, so everything gets pushed back a day.

Have an event or rec you’d like to share? Hiring? Interested in advertising? Share any and all info here.