Oatlands

Summer is coming to a close, but there's still time for a trip or two, and Labor Day weekend offers several choices.On Sept. 2 you could travel to Oatlands Plantation near Leesburg, Va. Draft Horse and Mule Day will be celebrated there as a tribute to the American workhorse, once the mainstay of the American farm. Workhorses and mules will compete in trail classes, team log pulling, jumping competitions and cart and wagon obstacle courses. During the horse pull, you'll see teams pulling a sled carrying more than 6,500 pounds.

Labor Day Weekend brings the usual rash of activity as summer comes to a close. One event the whole family can enjoy is Draft Horse and Mule Day Saturday at Oatlands Plantation in Leesburg, Va. Here, you can spend a day in the country, enjoy free pony and wagon rides and see large workhorses in obstacle races, log pulls and carriage-driving demonstrations.Sponsored by the Virginia Draft Horse and Mule Association, this 10th annual event pays tribute to workhorses, gentle giants that once were the mainstay of the American farm.

Labor Day weekend offers many fine opportunities for daytripping -- crab races in Crisfield, boat races on the Chesapeake Bay, a koi festival near Frederick, arts and crafts in Lancaster, Pa., and a tour of horse farms in Maryland's "horse country."One popular Labor Day weekend event is Draft Horse and Mule Day on Saturday at Oatlands Plantation near Leesburg, Va. In fact, it is the best attended event of the year at Oatlands. Sponsored by the Virginia Draft Horse and Mule Association, it's an occasion to pay tribute to the workhorse, those "gentle giants" that once were the mainstay of the American farm.

The Celts will return to Oatlands Plantation near Leesburg, Va., for the second annual Celtic Festival next weekend, rain or shine, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. The plantation's 260 acres of rolling green hills, shaded glens and beautiful gardens provide a perfect backdrop for the festival, which features the cultures of Cornwall, Ireland, Scotland, Wales, the Isle of Man, Galicia (Spain) and Brittany (France).Here festival goers will find lively Celtic music, Irish dancers, Welsh choirs, Scottish games, storytellers, artisans and many others.

3/8 TC The Hunt Country Fall Antiques Fair will take place Sept. 23-24 under tents on the grounds of Oatlands Plantation near Leesburg, Va. More than 135 dealers from Maine to Florida will offer 18th-, 19th- and 20th-century furniture, as well as garden antiques, folk art, art deco items, estate jewelry, rare books and many other items. Hours are 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday; 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sunday. Admission is $5. House and garden tours are available for an additional fee. Oatlands is on U.S. Route 15, six miles south of Leesburg.

Weeks before the new leaves unfurl and paint winter's brown landscape Kelly green, Loudoun County heralds the arrival of spring as gloriously as anywhere in Virginia. Sometime later this month or early in April, fruit trees -- pear, peach, plum, apple and especially cherry -- blossom in pastel pink and white puffs. Lacy dogwoods and brilliant redbuds splash shadowy woods, and dainty toothworts, Virginia bluebells and aptly named spring beauties blanket the ground. But what distinguishes springtime in this northern corner of Virginia is its gardens.

More than 50 photographs by Linda McCartney show the world of musical celebrity from within when the exhibit "Linda McCartney's Sixties - Portrait of an Era" opens tomorrow at its only venue in the mid-Atlantic region, the Delaware Art Museum. The one-woman photography exhibition by the late wife of former Beatle Paul McCartney features color and black and white images of such music legends as the Rolling Stones, the Who, Jimi Hendrix, the Beatles, the Doors, Janis Joplin, B. B. King, Bob Dylan, Frank Zappa, Otis Redding and Aretha Franklin.

Landslide Farm's Ivory Poacher, coming off a near record-setting victory at My Lady's Manor, is the clear favorite to win Saturday's 99th running of the Maryland Hunt Cup at Worthington Farms in Glyndon.Ann Fenwick trains the 10-year-old gelding, who is the only starter in the 10-horse field to have won the grueling 4-mile race over 22 timber fences.Only three other Hunt Cup veterans -- last year's runner-up Florida Law as well as Hello Hal and Reputed Dancer that were fifth and sixth, respectively, in 1994 -- are in the field.

Costumed interpreters will take visitors back in time to the year 1792, as George Mason Day is celebrated today at his plantation home, Gunston Hall in Lorton, Va. Mason was the author of the Virginia Declaration of Rights, which served as a model for the Bill of Rights.Scenarios involving Mason, his family, friends, neighbors and servants will take place continuously from noon to 4 p.m. One scene portrays a visit to Gunston Hall by Thomas Jefferson that occurred one week before Mason died.

Finding one horse capable of making it around the difficult timber course at the My Lady's Manor Steeplechase Races is tough enough.But trainer Jack Fisher has six horses entered in the three jumping races in Monkton today, including a four-horse entry in the featured My Lady's Manor Point-To-Point.All three races are over the same hilly three-mile turf course over 16 board or post-and-rail fences.Fisher, who has come to dominate Maryland's spring timber races the past few seasons, seeks his second victory in three years in the $15,000 Manor feature.