Grand Gulf Military Park - Scotia

Claiborne County, Mississippi 

In 1768 Thomas Foster built this "dog-trot" house with an open hall flanked by one room on each side. Later the second story rooms were added for the family to live in, and the downstairs became stage-stop accommodations for travelers. The hand-hewn heart pine logs are assembled with wooden pegs and dovetails; no nails were used. The house was moved log by log from its original location in the community of Scotia, Franklin County, Mississippi and came to the park in 1976.

Looking through the door of one of the downstairs rooms, across the "dog trot" into the room on the other side.

Thanks for reading Photography In Place. Have a great weekend!

Grand Gulf - The old town

Claiborne County, Mississippi 

By the end of the 1830s, Grand Gulf was the third largest town in Mississippi. As many as twenty steamboats a day stopped at Grand Gulf and the town boasted a hospital, a theater and numerous retail stores in a commercial district of over seventy blocks.  A series of disasters struck the town beginning in 1843 with a devastating yellow fever epidemic. By the time of the Civil War, Grand Gulf was a ghost of its former self, with just 150 inhabitants.

Two important military battles were fought here, one in 1862 and one in 1863

Abandoned church in Grand Gulf

I will have more to say about Grand  Gulf when we visit Rodney, another deserted river town. The story of Rodney and Grand Gulf have several interesting features in common, and the fate of both towns was sealed by the fickle Mississippi River.

Memorial Day - 2013

Vicksburg, Mississippi 

This summer marks the 150th anniversary of the Siege of Vicksburg (May 18 - July 4, 1863).

Five thousand confederate soldiers, many of whom gave their life during the fierce fighting at Vicksburg in the struggle to control the Mississippi River, are buried here. This monument to their sacrifice stands among the graves at Soldiers' Rest, which is part of the Vicksburg City Cemetery, know as Cedar Hill.

Saturday Morning - Cicadas

Greene County, Virginia

The birds were in an uproar around here last week. I stood in the yard under the trees Tuesday around dusk  and wondered what all the fuss was about. A cat maybe, or a snake. Agitated birds flew in and out of the branches overhead. The plaintive meow of a catbird came from somewhere along the fence. It was a pleasant spring evening and I could see nothing to threaten what should have been a peaceful settling into night.

The cicadas also came out last week. An indistinct buzz at first, like a distant alarm, but by the middle of the week the noise was nearly overbearing. Birds enact their ritual of nest and egg and chicks each spring, but cicadas experience the joy of spring renewal but once every 17 years. They celebrate with a loud and continuous unison chorus, presumably to make up for lost springs.

Perhaps the unrelenting and monotonous song of the cicada is what put the birds on edge.  Seventeen years is a long time, and the birds heard the cicada song for the first time in their short life. I remember the cicadas of 17 years ago, and it is not impossible to think I might hear them again 17 years hence. Their noise puts me a bit on edge too.

Last night the cicadas and the birds were quiet. I suspect the cool weather on Friday is responsible for the cicadas' silence but maybe their song is done, and another 17 years of cicada silence is beginning.  In the meantime, my aging refrigerator has started to make a chirping sound rather like the song of a cicada; it will need to be replaced before long. Life goes on.

Flowers from the garden

Greene County, Virginia 

I have recently been interested in still life photography and have been trying to learn a bit about it. In my mind, I can see the results that I want, but I am not sure how to get there.

My wife's arrangement of mixed garden and wild flowers caught my eye the other day and I did a simple set-up and took a few pictures mostly to figure out how to make the light work. The result is more like a product shot for a florist catalog than a still life, but I learned a few things. A step along the way.
 

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For those of you that are looking forward to a long Memorial Day weekend, be safe and enjoy. Thanks for reading Photography In Place—hope you will be back for a visit next week

Azaleas

Greene County, Virginia 

Like most everything else around here, the azaleas are a bit late blooming this year. Yesterday was summer-like, hot and a bit muggy. Even though summer does not officially start for a few more weeks, Memorial Day weekend traditionally kicks off summer here in central Virginia. The azaleas in our back yard are about bloomed out, but I found these azaleas blooming in the shade of a red-bud tree, a spring splash of color in the new summer green.

Windsor Cemetery

Claiborne County, Mississippi 

Just down the road from the Windsor Ruins, there is a small sign indicating the location of the Windsor Cemetery. There is barely room to get off the road, and an overgrown path leads through the woods to an old Indian Burial Mound. On top of the mound, the inhabitants of Windsor and their relatives dating from the very early years of the 19th century are buried. Captain Frisby Freeland, who fought in the Revolutionary War and died in 1826 is buried there, along with the Daniells family who owned Windsor Plantation.

Today, the cemetery is untended and overgrown. The low brick wall that surrounds the cemetery is crumbling and many of the tombstones are deteriorating.

 A deep gully is encroaching on one side of the cemetery and threatens its continued existence. One corner of the cemetery's brick wall has collapsed into the ravine.

A wrought iron gate still guards the entrance, but can bar neither time nor neglect. It seems sad, but somehow fitting that this cemetery, where the hopes and dreams of those who once lived in the doomed Windsor Mansion lie buried, should itself fall into ruin