Petunia rambles on and on….

Today is my oldest child’s birthday. I was young and scared, and I grew up fast, matured, became somewhat responsible because I had to; he needed me. There is a special bond there; he was the growing up of me. I look at him and see things that no one else does.

This morning, Patsy wished me a Happy “Birth” day, and I knew exactly what she meant. She was there at the hospital that day. After he was born, a nurse came out and said “family” could see me. She barged right in, and if she “mis-spoke” that she was family, it was no lie. She’s more like family to me than many who have blood ties. That baby I had is 42 today, and she’s been my friend for even longer than that. She knows everything there is to know.

That baby, here held by my mother, was 8 lb. 6 oz. at birth and started out tall at 22 inches!  He is probably about 10 days old here. See date on side of picture – that was kind of nice back then that they printed month and year right there. Picture has apparently seen a bit of wear and tear over the years and if I had a week to play in PhotoShop, I could clean it up. Also note the ‘70’s Harvest Gold in the sofa – I think the carpeting was Avocado Green!

I won’t show 400 pictures of growth through the years. Just one picture that I’ve always liked.

It was taken a few years ago, but one of the few I’ve got where he’s not annoyed that mom’s out there with the damn camera again. His kids were in the water with him, and he was busy keeping his eyes on them – and not on me and the damn camera!!

Oh, and this one, taken quite a few years ago, with his baby sister, just to show he cleans up pretty good (and the sister is beautiful) – and that’s Joey Fulkerson in the back!

And well, one more. He’s about 15 here, maybe just turned 16? And that’s Patsy. Flew her up from Florida cause I needed a Patsy “fix.” I get that way when we haven’t seen each other in a while.

Better quit before he gets annoyed with me again!!

And today is also Steven Tyler’s birthday, if you care or need to know.

And today is 5 years since I quit smoking. I stopped on Jim’s birthday because I knew that would be a date I’d never forget. After 2 piss-poor attempts at quitting before, this time was the one that would succeed. I have not had a single cigarette in all of these 5 years, not one sneaky one when no one was looking. No cheating at all, and truly, I have no desire or interest in starting back. Too many better things to do with my money than set it on fire.

So I’ll do something without pictures of spring flowers. Y’all know this place – it’s the John Dickinson Plantation and I’ve been there many times before, and I’ve been going there since the kids were little. It’s less than 10 miles south of here.

I like finding things with texture, and then getting to a spot where the lighting will show off that texture best. OLD shingles fit the bill, but positioning is an issue for me. I damn sure am not going to climb up on that roof, no, not afraid-of-heights me! Got way the hell back with a long telephoto lens. And note the uneven-ness (is that a word?) of old handmade bricks on that chimney. They look like I made them!

Front doors were fancy in those days, I guess, and tradition was to put a new coin under the door sill when it was built, for luck. It also served to date the construction!

This is the back of the house, but the side you first see when you arrive from the current parking area. The other side, the “front” of the house, faces the St. Jones River, or where it used to be in the 1700’s. The river originally went from the Delaware Bay to Dover following a meandering path that was probably determined by where the mud was the softest when the tide was going out. At some point, the river’s course was straightened, to shorten the trip and possibly to make dredging easier?? The river is no longer visible from the house – or at least, I couldn’t see it. There’s been much restoration here, and enough modernization to make it safe to take visitors though. See addition of a wheelchair lift beside the back stairs into the main part of the house.

The local spinning guild meets here once a month on a Saturday – I work every Saturday.

Coming around to the front of the house, and it surely was a beautiful day to be out walking. It felt so good to be outside again, wandering about in the sunshine! And I need the exercise.

Here’s the true “front” of the house, the side with the formal gardens, the side that faced the waterfront, and in a day when most guests would have arrived by boat up the St. Jones from the bay, this would have been their first view of the manor house. Near to it, there are English Boxwood, and I could sit nearby them for hours and just enjoy the smell.

           

An old barn on the side of the property and again, my fascination with textures, and oh, how I love that lens!!

We’ve had such freaky unseasonably warm weather for weeks now, after the mildest winter that I can remember. Will it snow tomorrow?

 

Doesn’t anybody stay in one place anymore?

It would be so fine to see your face at my door.

Doesn’t help to know that you’re just time away.

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In my head, that song has always been for someone else, someone else from long ago, so far away in time and space. But never apart in our minds.

Today, I think about this little one.

Holding you again could only do me good.