Sign of life

Inside this old house, other than the large snake in the kitchen, I am the only noticeable occupant and I am temporary. The last residents of this place bailed out years ago. Afternoon sun makes a valiant effort to light the room and gives us a glimpse of what the residents saw outside their home. In this instance, a farm field and a huge pecan tree. We can be sure the mouse hole came after the folks left and before the snake arrived. From a philosophic standpoint, we can readily see that sometimes the wall between good, and not-so-good is very thin. One more thing, anyone remember Tom & Jerry?

Mother Nature and her faithful sidekick gravity have ways of dealing with abandoned structures upon which deferred maintenance has been thrust. This old home now under management by the aforementioned pair and following their procedure is self-destructing right on schedule. Remarkably, the floor handled my 230 pounds with aplomb for which I am grateful. Having ones feet on the ground with the floor at knee level is inconvenient at best.

See the window outside

Before we venture further, we would be remiss if we did not invite you to see how the story of this old dwelling place started.

You can do that by clicking here, which will take you to the Photo of the Week page at Corndancer Dot Com where you can find out how the window looks from the outside and see other views of the old house and tree. We’ll patiently wait here while you look.

Home improvement

Many, perhaps most older southern rural homes have add-ons. The family got larger, momma or aunt whatsername came to live with her progeny and/or nieces and nephews necessitating more floor space. Most of the time, little attention was paid to aesthetically matching the original construction. This home was true to that form. The original outside planking was vertical, the new, horizontal. Well, they did make the porch overhang vertical. Score one for aesthetics.

The add-on, a typical southern configuration accommodates the needs of growing families either by birth or in-migration of relatives. The large front porch appeared to have been screened in. In pleasant months, it could have well been a sleeping porch. The porch is not long for this world.

As with most country homes, this one had an out building, the use of which escapes us. I’m betting there was a barn as well, but I see no evidence. Perhaps a fire dispatched it, or heaven forbid, perhaps there wasn’t a barn. The outbuildings, other than “comfort stations,” were smoke houses, chicken houses, or storage of some sort. See the out building in our Weekly Grist Gallery here.

This picture was shot December 5, 2010. The other pictures were shot in March of 2009. There is not much difference. The shrub outside the window is taller and one more pane is missing. Unseen deterioration continues.

The pecan tree is huge, as we pointed out in our Corndancer article. I am generally reluctant to subject you to images of myself, but since I am a known height and width, I serve as a good comparison to establish the size of this immense pecan tree. I am 6′-3″ tall x 46 xl. As you can see, I am dwarfed by the tree.

This gives you an idea of the size of the tree. Yours truly is 6'-3."

As Mother Nature and her minion gravity stay in business, our glances at these old structures are fleeting opportunities. At a recent visit to this place, a neighbor hinted that this location is scheduled for razing. Better look fast.

But wait, there’s more

See more pictures

Every week we shoot more than we have room to show on this page and Corndancer. So we put all of our weekly pictures, including some not seen anywhere else on our Weekly Grist Gallery. The pictures are higher resolution and bigger.

This week we have more pictures of the house, the out buildings and tree. Click here to see the pictures. You will like what you see.

Thanks for dropping by,

Joe Dempsey

Weekly Grist for the Eyes and Mind
http://www.joedempseycommunications.com/
http://www.joedempseyphoto.com/
http://www.corndancer.com/joephoto/photohome.html

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