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Old houses make me sad. Abandoned, and often overgrown with vines and thickets, they stand sentinel to the past. They hold their secrets jealously while seeming to mourn the long gone families that once inhabited them.

The county that I live in is sparsely populated, and many dirt roads still ramble through the countryside. I’ve traveled many of those roads, and run across these derelict homes.

Their gaping windows and sagging doors beckon to me, daring me to discover the barrenness they now enclose.

I ache to know their history. I wonder who originally owned them, and whatever became of them.

I long to step over their thresholds and peer into every corner, searching for some hint of what once was. But alas, being that I am but a trespasser, I wistfully stand at the boundary, and bid them my own farewell.

photos courtesy
Robbie Wright

Summer Day in Georgia

Great, billowing clouds sail across my skies today, teasing the thirsty land. The heat wave has broken here in the Coastal Plains of Georgia, as we see our temperatures fall from triple digits into the lower 90’s.

Outside, the birds swoop through the brush to take a sip from the birdbaths, and I’m reminded I need to go and refresh the water. The water warms too quickly in the summer sun.

photo courtesy
Robbie Wright

Wednesday Musings

A dragonfly soars past my window as I lift the curtain back, and an airplane drifts against a cloudless sky. Near the ground below, a tiny yellow butterfly flutters in the weeds, pausing only seconds as it flits from leaf to leaf.

As a flock of bluejays sails across the field and disappears into the pine forest, and the occasional bee zips across my vision, I sit here in my air conditioned space and struggle to write.

It’s another hot day in the coastal plains of Georgia, with hotter days to follow, and July is fast approaching. My world seems limited to what is behind my curtain, and I struggle with the need to communicate, yet fall short.

I watch the wind stir the young oaks, and two brown thrashers flying between the branches. A gray cat catches my eye as she preens in the brush, and the afternoon shadows begin to fall.

photography courtesy http://rwrightphotography.blogspot.com/

A Monday in Georgia

Outside the window, my blue skies have given way to gray. As Debby churns in the gulf and tries to decide which way she’ll turn, her associating winds rustle through my oak trees and bow the pines.

A lone buzzard takes advantage of the wind currents and sails over the pine forest, while below, a brown thrasher rummages in the brush.

Rolie, the resident tom, makes a bed in the fall leaves between the yucca plants and the bloom-less jessamine vines. His nemesis, Skittle, prefers to sit straight upright in the sand. He stares at me through the window like some soulless Halloween cat, a dash of white on his collar offsetting his otherwise rich black fur.

As afternoon begins to wind down, a bluejay flies through the oak branches and disappears into the field. The first sunlight I’ve seen all day illuminates the clouds and brightens the pines.

Rolie retreats from his leaf bed, pauses to stretch in the grass, then rounds the corner of the house out of sight.

photography courtesy http://rwrightphotography.blogspot.com/

The View

Outside my window, the world is bright.  A mix of oak, persimmon, and sassafras wave their branches gently in the breeze, and long leaf pines stand sentinel against a pale blue sky.  Motionless white clouds hold no promise of rain as the afternoon wanes, and the dog scurries into the shade.