Wednesday, January 5, 2011

Winter Scenes from Peaceful Valley

I like this picture of the rough lumbered corn crib with the ancient tree beside it. Lots of texture in this photograph.   Beyond the tree you can see the levee that holds the "catfish pond" that Fessie had built in the late 60s.





Porch on Fessie and Beck's house, flanked by old nandina bush with winter berries.  The house was built during World War II while Fessie was away serving in the Navy. The porch facing north was added later to replace an original porch on the west side of the house.













English Branch, and site of former grist mill, just a few yards from Fessie's house.  Click here for a previous post about the English family and this small creek that's a tributary of the old Tombigbee River
Fessie's barn with black walnut trees growing in Fessie's former watermelon patch south of the barn.  That white blur is our dog Rupert who seems to think every click of the camera should include him.  He is barely out of view in the other photos, and yes he swam the river slough, twice, and waded through the creek.
Tombigbee River slough, full of bald cypress trees and knobs. This is the only time of year you would want to walk through this swampy place, but it is beautiful year-round.  I have been itching to come here in the dead of winter to take pictures.

 Another view of Fessie's barn, this time from the north with sawtooth oak planted in the foreground.

Tombigbee River with brambles and briars along its banks.  High water marks on the nearby bald cypress trees show the flood stages of the old river.






No telling how old this tree is.  A forestry expert couldn't positively identify it; he called it a hybrid oak, a mix of the various oak trees found on Fessie and Beck's farm An old houseplace used to stand nearby; it's been long-gone.   Dusk was settling in when I captured the last rays of the sun in the wintry western sky.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Folks, our Min Pin and I met Rupert in November. . . .He, like Kricket needs that exercise of swimming the slough numerous times, but I don't see how Rupert made it and didn't drown! I'm just teasing, Rupert and Mike!

Mona, you can see how Fessie enlarged his corn crib. I only hope that none of his grandsons had corn cob fights in that crib - oh, my deceased Uncle Murray Dyer late of Tremont wore a glass eye caused by a corn cob tossing while shelling corn in the '30's.

How large will those black walnut trees grow? I do have memories of seeing them and hickory nut trees growing in the woods around Granddaddy Stone and son Lecil's property in Bexar where I assume they had been planted as dropped nuts by squirrels and those trees were quite tall to a pre-teenager - the time of my memories about Bexar, the adjacent "suburb" of Tremont! bettye

Kirk said...

Mona, this has to be one of your best. I could not help from tearing up. In every picture, I saw myself standing as a young kid.

I couldn't count the times for crossing those pastures. Somedays would be to play around the barn or maybe, go fishing. Somedays, I would cross over at daylight to go hunting in the river bottom. I would pass that big oak tree and it always caught my attention.

There were many summer days of us being in the creek. Every chance we were given, it was to jump into the water. We would even try to make the creek, our daily bath!!

While looking at the front porch photo, I felt like I was waiting for someone to come out that door. Many, many people stepped upon that porch.

LPM said...

Mona - The pictures are so beautiful ... and peaceful. I know you needed a little Peaceful Valley time.