The Front Yard Ten Years Apart

The Depression was taking its toll in this mid-1930s photo of my family's home, the 1766 Daniel and Charity Leete House. The house needs painting and some repairs. The lawns are unkempt, trees overgrown. My then 17-18 year old mother runs from the camera, lol.

 

By 1946, just postwar, some optimism was returning to the family and the country, even though my grandfather had died in '42 on that very lawn. But the house had been painted, the lands re-landscaped, and all the damage from the historic hurricane of 1938 repaired. This is my aunt Hoohoo, then 20 years old.

National Little Yellow Car Day!

Not really a national day, lol, but I felt like this table needed a bit of brightening up today. I walked around and found a bunch of yellow cars that were just right. I also added those cute little yellow vintage banana salt-and-pepper shakers.

Let it Snow, Let it Snow. Oy.

 

Looking out my livingroom window, facing west, in the middle of our most recent snowstorm. Cardinals nest in this cedar. That's the road to town going off in the middle of the photo.

This vigilant hawk hung around outside my livingroom window for close to an hour before flying off in search of victuals.

Looking out eastern-facing kitchen window, over the flat roof of the apartment below. Ancient tree resembles an elephant from certain angles.

Midstorm, looking out at the train tracks. The trains develop comet tails when it snows. The snow clouds swirl maddeningly creating flame- and smoke-like whirls and eddys.

Twilight and it was still snowing. Ceiling and lights reflected in window.

Vintage 1939 license plate frame reading "Guilford" reflected in the glass. Snow was really coming down at this point.

 

My 36-inch tall bamboo plant reflected in the glass.

Flowers in the Attic

The plants in the attic are wintering over just fine. I have some begonias in bloom, above, and a few sprigs of Christmas cactus have flowered. Whenever a stem comes off a cactus I root it and stick it in any plant with empty dirt! They have very small roots and can exist with almost any other plant. They're doing quite well this winter.

 

 

Randomness

 

Self portrait, 1983. Cut paper, Rapidograph pen on cardboard, covered with Saran Wrap since new.

 

USS Goodrich, 831, Destroyer. Commissioned at just about the end of WW2, this was one of my Dad's ships. He was in the Navy from 1938-50 and then the Army until 1961. Image faded from hanging in the sun for years.

Lithographed letter from the LBJ White House, 1964-68. For some reason, LBJ sent out letters like this thanking deceased servicemen for their service. My grandfather died at home in 1942, and was a veteran of the first world war. While the signature is printed, not handwritten, the gold eagle at the top is nicely embossed. Faded/discolored from being framed and hung on a wall for decades.

 

This print of a WW1-era Fokker biplane probably dates back to only the 1960s or '70s. After taking it out of this wooden frame, I've decided it's actually probably cut from a calendar and then framed. Probably a garage-sale item. My parents used to love to go out weekends and find "bargains" around town, lol. I love the colors on this image, probably the reason my dad bought it. He loved colors as much as I do.

 

One of my mother's keepsakes, this 1938 Ice Follies program has lovely typography and period photography. This would have been my mom's nursing school days in prewar New Haven. She loved to go to the theater, events like these Ice Follies, restaurants, you name it.