visiting with ancestors

Forty years ago when my parents died I inherited a box filled with many  unlabeled photos, newspaper clippings, and scraps of paper with handwritten notes. At that time I was a busy working mother and after a few half hearted attempts to unravel it all I tucked it away for later.

My children are grown, I'm retired and we have incredible tools and resources to use in our quest for ancestry.

I've made family trees, photos albums on line of various family members with notes about their lives that I've shared with cousins, and I feel like I really know many of my ancestors well. Of course, one branch in particular kept very good records and photos.

My great, great grandparent on my mother's side had some poignant and interesting tales to tell since he was a doctor in the plantation south during the Civil War and after.

After the war he lost 2 of his children and a grandchild to diphtheria. He kept journals of patients and their treatments and a narrative about the loss of his children. I could feel his despair at not being able to save them.

My great, great, grandfather Dr. David Raymond Fox ( from a tin type)

Great, great grandmother, Tryphena Holder Fox

I have spent so much time with them uploading photos, reading and copying letters and sharing their stories that I feel that I actually knew them.

I also learned that Tryphena's letters to her mother were made into a book by someone researching southern history.

Their home was on the lower Mississippi River . We visited it often when I was a child. It was where my great aunt still lived. A hurricane destroyed it in 1965.

The challenge to get as much of it saved and documented goes on. I joined ancestry.com recently and am trying to put as much as I can there for others to use.

a last rose of summer

Where did autumn go? A sudden and severe cold front sent the thermometer plummeting to freezing.

I struggled to get tender plants in the house while the wind and rain swirled about me. No bright autumn days this year.

I stopped to pick this cluster of roses to sniff and admire, a last rose of summer.

something pink

Always scanning as I ride in the car...,ponds, fencerows, fly overs ..and Sunday I was rewarded as I passed the neighbors overgrown and almost invisible pond,

Wait! I saw pink!!

So I backed up and struggled to peer across the weedy field at a glimpse of a wading bird that could be/ maybe pink!

I drove back to the house for binoculars and camera and up to the old milk barn that rises above the pond. Hoping it was still there I raised the binoculars and, yes!!! THEY still were!  3 of them!!

I got a few photos for eBird and then stood and savored the moment.

These beautiful tropical, exotic birds were on a weedy pond in hilly pine land on an overcast   cold day in November.

And the best part is that at least one was back the next day. I only managed one quick in flight shot. 

One of the joys of birding is that you never know what’s coming your way. 

Halloween

A pleasant evening spent trick or treating with my grandson.

The weather was overcast and breezy, and the temperature mild. We walked the usually quiet streets of an older neighborhood in the town where my son lives.

Everyone was pleasant and the kids were having a great time. Residents had their yards decorated with witches and cemeteries set amongst the old oaks.

sunset fire

After many weeks of nonstop rain and flooding in central Texas the sun reminded us that it’s still there 

the boggart in the hollow

The tree which sheltered baby raccoons and

opossums has been reduced to a ghost of itself. 

I think it makes a great Halloween scary as it raises it arms and twists its mouth in a frozen scream.

butterfly visitors

Though no cooler weather has come and the temperature stays in the 90s each day, the creatures know...autumn is here and they are flowing through in a river to the south.

Swarms of hummingbirds crowd the nectar feeders and tantalizing snippets of unrecognized birdsong taunt me from the trees.

Butterflies migrate too and everyday brings new ones to the last flowers of the season.

Variegated fritillary, monarch, gulf fritillary, checkered skipper 

pink and green

Checking on my latest bromeliad and found it has the perfect companion

Did he somehow adapt to fit in that bright colored home?

He’s perfect! 

walking at sunrise

a beautiful sunrise

wispy grasses coated with dew glowing in the dawn

a drive in the Texas hill country

A short drive and and heart attack inducing lunch in the Texas hill country—-

Hoping to find great carpets of wildflowers we took an unscheduled drive down a few back roads, and stopped for a “famous” hamburger at a fun rural cafe deep in the hills.

I found some nice prairie verbena and beautiful fields of flowers at a wild seed farm.

a visit to the botanical gardens in New Orleans

Finally I managed a trip to the New Orleans botanical gardens. It was something I used to do regularly when I lived there in my youth, but just can’t seem to do now.

All was great! The rose garden was a bit reduced, but there were great specimens of ferns, succulents, and tropicals. The orchids are always colorful, and  inspired me to do better with mine.

a trip down the bayou

On Easter break we took our grandson on a swamp trip down the bayou. Of course, it included many alligators, garfish, and snapping turtles.

 Cemetery with victims of 1915 hurricane.

 Trapper's cabin no longer used.

 Beautiful cypress trees hanging with grey moss. The very large ones were harvested over a hundred years ago for lumber.

Thankfully we didn't see any snakes that day. Generally they are quite plentiful, perhaps the weather was too cool for them yet.

white violets

Returning from a cloudy day ramble I discovered these little stars blooming in a long swath beneath the trees near the pond.

Finding gifts like these are the biggest reward on one of my unplanned walks. 

Other surprises were a crushed goose egg, probably from the Canadian geese attempting to nest on a island in the pond, a singing common yellowthroat in the cat tail rushes, and a ghost like visit from the grey male harrier as he swooped down to flush killdeer from the field.

A brief rainbow was a perfect end to a walk that started off overcast and without much promise.

rushing through spring

We've gone from frigid winter to mid spring before February ends. I took a trip to California to visit my granddaughter, and when I returned many bulb plants and fruit trees had already flowered and then leafed out! The lawns are green and need mowing. 

I am beginning to learn what the freezes did to some shrubs and perennials,  and planning on placements or just eliminating some.

One of my returning favorites is this iris usually called cemetery white because it's often planted in graveyards across the South. It requires no care and emerges every spring in forgotten places. Mine was here at the house when I arrived 50 years ago. It comes in up the same location and has not spread beyond that point.  

lunar eclipse

An eclipse on a cold frosty morning. The temperature was 26, but I bundled up and gave it a try anyway. The coyotes gave me a chorus of encouragement and the sky remained clear. Using only the iPhone I managed to record our dance with the spheres.

The bloody shadow begins to eat the moon.

A last glimpse of the eclipsing moon as it sinks pass the old oak.

after the big cold

After two snows and two big freezes—the landscape is rather bleak. The dark clouds on the horizon to the north promise another cold front.