The last two things
These old houses decay in the same pattern. The people go, whatever yard there was goes to weeds, a storm peels off a few shingles, rain gets in, the roof gets a hole, then some more shingles go, more rain gets in, the front porch starts to sag, the roof sags, the porch falls off, the roof caves in.
But through it all, the satellite dish and the tress hang on..
near New Deal, Texas
photographed 1.26.2013
Posted on September 16, 2013, in architecture, Photography and tagged 365 photo project, abandoned buildings, architecture, black and white photography, melinda green harvey, new deal, new deal texas, one day one image, photo a day, photography, texas. Bookmark the permalink. 11 Comments.
One Day | One Image 
I like this photo a lot. The sky has the “gray” look of a solarized print, yet the house has white in it for the most part. A nice look.
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Thanks, Ken. I had to go back and look at the original photo to see what color the clouds really were that day. (Grey, as it turns out.) I’ve noticed that once I convert a photo from color to B&W, I almost always forget what the scene looked like in color. Don’t know if that’s good, or bad, or a sign of something seriously wrong in my brain, but that’s what happens.
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What, no chair?
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No. Not a single one. And you know what else was missing? A fruity odor. It was awful.
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Maybe not a chair, but sumptuously fat trees are a good replacement. Most of these shots with conifers seem to tall skinny ones – not sure if that is your preference, or the preference of the settlers, but it is interesting to see that both fatty and skinny *are* out there.
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Those trees do look pretty healthy don’t they? I think that people who are smarter than me can probably date the age of the house by what sort of tree is growing beside it. In addition to these trees, which I believe are cedars, the other popular tree is Italian cypress (which a lot of people out here call “cemetery trees” because most old cemeteries were lined with them. If you don’t know where a town’s cemetery is, you just look for the cemetery trees.) Here’s a house with a skinny tree: http://bit.ly/15FAELN
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I was thinking of that skinny tree when I was looking at these fat ones. I think you are right that you could date places by their plantings. But I am too lazy to research that one.
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It sounds like a lot of work. Let’s just assume the skinny trees were planted in an earlier era than the other ones and call it good. OK?
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OK
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Quite ironic that you found this old house is in the interestingly named city, New Deal.
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I’ve also found an old house in a town called New Home: https://melindagreenharvey.com/2012/07/29/july-29/
There’s a song called “Amarillo Highway” that uses local town names – it starts like this:
I’m a high straight in Plainview
Side bet in Idalou
And a fresh deck in New Deal
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