I am fortunate to once again live where I grew up. Literally. I live in the house that my parents built when I was six years old. The site is not as rural as it was in 1959, but it’s still considered “country.” I can see two other houses from my house, but I don’t exactly live in a neighborhood as most people define that today. The local landscape is rapidly changing, and there are things from my growing up years that I miss.

I invite you to come with me as I take a walk down memory lane. All the photographs in today’s blog post were taken by me.

Cars

I used to know almost everyone who passed by the house. There was less traffic then, and each make and model of car was more distinctive than today. It was easy to tell a Ford from a Chevrolet.

Bobwhites

For a good part of my life, a covey of quail (also known as Bobwhites because that was their wonderfully-distinctive call:  Bob-White!) nested on the ground near a bed of daffodils and a pale pink rose bush in the front yard. I haven’t seen or heard a quail in probably 10 years. Those daffodils still bloom around the first week in February. The climbing rose bush is no longer there, but my brain can still call up the delicious scent of those roses!

Woodpeckers and Flying Squirrels

I haven’t seen a Red-Headed Woodpecker since I was a teenager. We have Downy Woodpeckers but no Red-Headed ones. I miss them.

We’ve seen flying squirrels in the huge old red cedar tree at the south end of the house some years, but not in a long time. I’m afraid they are no longer in our area. One summer our nightly entertainment was sitting on the porch and watching the flying squirrels fly in and out of the feeder in the cedar tree where we put dried ears of corn.

Eastern Bluebirds

Eastern Bluebirds almost became extinct due to chemicals that were being used for agricultural purposes. After the problem was figured out and stopped, the bluebirds made a comeback. They nest in bluebird boxes in our yard every spring and are a joy to see!

Crimson Clover, Daisies, and Queen Anne’s Lace

My uncle used to plant red clover in the field across the road from our house to enrich the soil for other crops planted other years. I loved the way a breeze would gently blow through the crimson clover blossoms in waves. That memory calls to mind “amber waves of grain” from the song, “America the Beautiful.” That field is beautiful today with wild daisies and Queen Anne’s Lace. No doubt, someday, the wild flowers will be replaced with houses.

Tractors and Cattle

There are several farmers on the road I live on who still grow crops such as winter wheat. They raise beef cattle and goats. Some of the cattle have won blue ribbons at the North Caroline State Fair. These are serious farmers. I like that their tractors pulling various farm implements pass my house daily. I dread the day that I will have to add farm tractors to the list of things I miss.

Air-Conditioning

Lest I become too nostalgic about the 1950s and 1960s, I will also admit that I do not miss the days before air-conditioning. I do not miss those nights when it was so hot, humid, and still that I just lay in bed watching the clock because it was too hot to sleep.

Hoppy Toads and Mollypops

 

I enjoyed having a vegetable garden for many years. Along with a lot of hard (and hot!) work, came brown and bumpy toads we called “hoppy toads,” box turtles, writing spiders, gossamer-winged dragonflies, and wild passion flowers that produced a fruit we call “mollypops.”

Not having a garden any more means I rarely see a toad, a box turtle, or a writing spider. I haven’t seen a passion flower since the last year I had a garden, but now we’re overrun with white-tailed deer, raccoons, skunks, gray squirrels, and rabbits. As their habitats get bulldozed down to make way for more and more houses, animals such as deer are being pushed into our yard.

Hungry White-Tailed Deer

 

One interesting bit of information is that I never saw a deer in our area until I was an adult. Now it’s common to see several grazing in the yard. The deer were the reason we stopped planting a vegetable garden a few years ago. We planted tomatoes, green beans, summer squash, corn, bell peppers, okra, and radishes. The deer ate everything. Well, almost everything. We did get six radishes for all our hard work! Needless to say, that was the last year we tried to have a vegetable garden.

I have truly been blessed to have lived here as a child and now again as an adult. I can’t imagine growing up in a better place! A part of me bemoans the fact that this area’s population is growing so fast, but I’d rather live in a vibrant, growing area than in one that is losing people and becoming a ghost town.

Until my next blog post

I hope you have a good book to read. I’m reading The Midnight Cool, by Lydia Peelle and Killers of the Flower Moon:  The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI by David Grann.

I’m still working my way through Barbara Kyle’s “Your Path to a Page-Turner Program.” I’ve learned a lot about the art and craft of writing from the first 16 videos and look forward to the remaining seven lessons.

If you’re a writer, I hope you have lots of productive writing time.

Janet