Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: This just showed up in the mail recently, in the last batch I picked up from New York I think. It comes to me via Heather Hagans on Instagram (@marsh.and.meadow.home). Over time I have purchased many bits and pieces from her. (Some other posts of items from her accounts can be found here and here. Although these are both jewelry posts.) Arguably it is an unusual photo for my collection, but it caught my eye.
You can probably tell from the shape that this is an actual photo and not a photo postcard. There is nothing written on the back and no real sense of the year.
This young girl is in a great costume although for what we know not. Somehow it feels more theatrical than Halloween. She’s wears shiny silk black heeled shoes, one white stockinged leg up and the other with a bit of some sort of petticoat or pantaloon showing on one side – a very careful look shows a bit of musical notation there too. However, it is the trim of her white skirt with lines of music along the bottom that really sets the tone for this outfit.
Her black top has cut out shoulders and exposed arms, making it a bit racy really. She sports a patterned scarf around her neck and, best of all, a crown with a large G clef in the center. She holds a white fan and she’s pretty hotsy totsy. I don’t know why but I imagine she went and performed after this – she has the right attitude to be a performer I think, but what instrument did she play I wonder?
The room she is in doesn’t appear to have anything to do with performing – fireplace mantel with a vase or urn, another side cabinet with a vase behind here. There are what appear to be sheer curtains on the windows and a very faded carpet on the floor. There is also what we’d think of as an old-fashioned radiator on her other side.
So just a snippet of a post today. I have a few other Jersey treats in the works – we brought several paintings to live down here and I will be sharing those too I think.
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Dahlias, cosmos and zinnias. They are enjoying the rainy weather even if I am not so much.Hard to see with the green on green but we have a great many peppers on this one to enjoy!
It is a rainy day here in New Jersey, but I have snapped a few pictures of the flowers – which have enjoyed all this rain – and my bumper crop of jalapeno peppers. Hot peppers seem to be my best crop this year so far.
Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: Today is the first day of vacation. First thing this moring I wandered outside in my pj’s, admired the dahlias and some just emerging zinnias and popped a few ripe strawberries in my mouth while the coffee finished perking in the kitchen. I have fortified myself with one of my friend’s popover, provided earlier this week, and now I sit with my second cup of coffee (coffee so good this morning I texted a friend that I felt like I was swilling it) and share this new favorite card with you.
Strawberry plants offer a few nibbles every morning.
I purchased this postcard just before we left New York and it has just made its way here from Britain. I haven’t acquired one of these big kitty chair photos in a very long time. This cat chair is a bit smaller than some and sitting sidesaddle on him seems quite easy. My very favorite part is the way she is holding onto his (her?) little round cat ears!
The woman is wearing a white dress and sandals and she is dressed a bit differently than the general sort of togs we see in these holiday photos. (Early examples from my collection can be found in posts here, here and here for comparison.) The woman is smiling sort of placidly – a good sport but not embracing it quite as much as I think I might have given the opportunity. (I would have been bouncing with excitement!)
Meanwhile, Kitty is a bit bowlegged which gives him an especially cheerful look. He has a ribbon around his neck and a Steiff-y sewn on nose and mouth. We can barely see it, but kitty has a big fluffy tail up behind her. There is some vegetation in the background and what appears to be ivy climbing up a stone wall. This doesn’t have the seashore feel that some of these have and as I said before, this appears to be a somewhat smaller cat so likely a different location although obviously it is a resort area of sorts. This card was never mailed so we don’t have any sense of date or precise location. Oddly it has a narrow fold at the very top like maybe it was kept in a book and sticking out just the slightest bit.
The dahlias in the garden have either gone plumb wild or not come up. It’s an odd year.
I am savoring the delicious moment of my entire vacation stretching ahead of me. All things are possible at the beginning, and it is a cool morning here in New Jersey which beckons us outside. My dahlias are blooming and the red ones in particular are attracting my favorites, the hummingbirds. (I have not captured them in a photo and am unlikely to as they are so mercurial.) Evenings under the fairy lights are ahead as well as good food and friends visiting, cats to be fed and petted. More to come but enjoy this grand kitty chair for now.
Pam’s Picotrama Photo Post: As I write I have the pleasure of being on an immobile NJ transit train, having sacrificed breakfast to hop on it and now am just sitting. They have informed us that we are held for an indefinite period. There is a young man who has taken off his shoes and is playing loud music on his phone – he thoughtfully turns it off for the overhead announcements about not know how long we will be here. For some reason he also keeps yanking his trouser leg up to obsessively scratch his calves.
I stayed in New York last night to have dinner with a friend who is sick and it was a rare chance to see her so I cannot regret it. Dinner, after a rather biblical rain last night, ran too late for a train back to New Jersey but now I am regretting not trying for it.
Friday commute into NYC. A better day.
All that being said I have whipped out my laptop to share this recently acquired treat with you. This family was having a far superior summer morning in England some time about 100 years ago. This card was never mailed and nothing has been written on it.
Shortly after writing that it became clear that no trains were leaving Penn Station for the foreseeable future and the lack of internet on the train, making further decisions difficult at best, meant that I packed myself up again and went back upstairs. What followed was a series of mishaps, breakfast with a friend who lives nearby and a hot more or less five-hour journey on a very hot day to our house in New Jersey, less than an hour and a half away under normal circumstances. Not sure if it was breakfast, dinner the night before or the heat, but my tummy started to scream in protest. All this ended in bed and a book for the remainder of the day after getting home and sadly, no Pictorama Post for you all. My sincere apologies!
This photo postcard deserves our full attention, however. It has been long time since I bought a Felix photo card and this is a worthy entry.
Dahlias this morning.
Our featured family is in clear focus while the rest of the scene is a soft blur. The sun is pretty high in the sky it seems – a rare sunny day on a British holiday we’ll assume. Dad looks a tad uncomfortable dressed in a full suit and tie, complete with dark socks and heavy shoes, sitting in the sand nonetheless. Somehow mom looks more comfortable in her layers of dress and hat despite the many layers which we would never sport at the beach, although it does keep sun exposure to a safe minimum. The smaller of the two children has got Felix by the ear and may even be holding him up. This Felix, while very jaunty, he is even tinier than the kid.
The older boy, who I assume was the primary architect of this magnificent sand structure, is also in a jacket along with his short pants, high socks and cap. He looks very pleased with himself.
Popped one strawberry in my mouth but several others ready soon if I can beat the birds and animals to them.
The sandcastle is more pyramid than castle, aside from its decorative topper which I somehow assume was a sand mold or toy with a sort of castle scene on it when you look very carefully. The tunnel under the structure makes me think of cars passing through.
Mom perches on a beach chair, other chairs are scattered about. There is a sort of mysterious stack of planks (?) behind here, other beach goers are behind them (also in hats and British layers) off into the distance – I see a little girl digging to the far left. All the way to the back is a high wall.
A banana peppers a brought in this morning. Animals appeared to attempt to eat them but found them too hot.
The registration number is would have been tracked by is both in the upper left and lower left corners – presumably how the family’s card found its way to them. The card has been sloppily placed to the right side of the card with a fat margin on the left but very little on the right.
I am better this morning and it is a pretty day here in New Jersey – making up for the journey yesterday! My pepper plants (green peppers, jalapenos and banana peppers) are full of peppers, the tomatoes are trying their best and the dahlias are blooming. The recent hard rain damaged some of the nascent blooms but they are coming back! Here’s to a quiet summer day at the Jersey shore and in the garden.
Pam’s Pictorama Post: Writing from our New Jersey outpost today – more about that maybe tomorrow. However, I am fresh off a Saturday morning of cat chores – multiplied of course by the number of cats and also with my commute less gets done during the week. There is a day of gardening ahead too – the first of the dahlias is blooming and I have even cut a few for enjoying here in the kitchen.
I tucked a few cards in my computer bag for posts, although there are also a few items that have come with us to live here which I hope to feature in the coming weeks as they get unpacked and are fully available for consideration.
Beau Butler, acting senior cat.
Today, this little tidbit however, purchased at the most recent card sale. I chose it as I am now in a bevy of kitties here in the House of Seven Cats and I am reminded of their pecking order. Although Milty is the oldest of cats here (and male) he is so old that Beauregard, the five or six year old all black fellow, is really top cat for all intents and purposes these days. Beau (and Milty) are fed first among the Jersey kits. (Cookie and Blackie, aka the New York cats, are fed in separate rooms to keep the peace.) Gus, Peaches and Stormy wait to eat after. The older boys also get their pick of the choice sleeping spots. Alas, the feline world is a sexist one.
Milty, true elder statesman senior cat.
In this card we have a fellow who is indeed a tough guy after a fashion. He sports a pistol, knife and has a cig hanging out of his mouth. (Arguably though he has a fluffy kitty tummy being shown!) The newsboy cap pulled over one eye, a kerchief knotted around his neck, here is something of a Frenchmen about him, an apache. His Wanted poster is on the wall behind him, sporting the same, striped, vest and presumably a list of his sins below. His hands (um paws) are on his hips. He is looking to the left of the viewer at something, above him Tough Baby! is inscribed.
Peaches, meanest cat ever, just shown here for the heck of it.
If I was going to draw comparisons to my New Jersey cats this chap would be Milty not Beau who for all his top cat status isn’t really a tough guy – just the largest kitty here. Milty, even in his dotage, is more like this swaggering fellow.
Faded back of card.
This card was mailed, although the message and address are quite faded. By happy coincidence it is postmarked July 30, 1940 from Margate, Kent. So as of yesterday, it was mailed exactly 86 years ago. As best I can read the message on the back, in faded blue writing it says, Dear Andrew and Timothy, We are having…time here and the weather is lovely. How are you getting on Andrew with your work, not working…hard I hope. How is Timothy, I’m sure…love the sea. Love from Heidi & Madelaine. It is addressed to, Master A. Marr, ‘Kilroney’ Swan Lane, Edwin Bridge, Kent. The card is British published.
So that is your quick Pictorama post for today. I’m off to do household and cat chores and find my way to the garden, weather permitting.
Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: A quick post as we head to the Jersey shore later this morning. I purchased this from a vendor who had it in a pile of Monmouth County postcards and I purchased a few. It was mailed to and from locally, so it seems like a fair assumption although there is nothing identifying it really on the front. It has the right feel though – pure Jersey shore. Sadly this card is damaged, folded along the bottom but that did not stop me from paying up a bit for it.
A hand-painted sign advertises Sale and Retail Fish-Daily and we have this group piled together in various stages of beach wear and summer dress – and undress.The fellow in the middle appears to have googles on (I’m thinking driving not swimming) with his swimsuit. He has women, one in a dress and the other possibly in a swimsuit, on the other side. On the far ends, a woman in a pretty flowered dress and hat and on the other side it is hard to see the fellow with the white hat and what I assume is a swim suit.
The back row is four people, a combination of men (hat and even bowtie on one and collared shirts on the others) and all the way in the front a kid in a sort of sailor shirt, looking annoying. I can’t figure out what that little wooden structure is – it looks like the cabin of a boat which maybe it could be if they are actually on a pier.
The big news is a really careful look reveals that they are actually all perched on and around an absolutely enormous fish! It took a long time looking at this card before I realized that there is a huge fish tail hanging out the bottom. The kid in the sailor shirt is holding out a fin and below the man in the white hat is the gaping mouth.
Back of the card. No room wherever they were staying!
A tiny bit of the ocean can be seen in the upper right, a wooden shack near that and two cars help date the period of the picture. However, this card was mailed and therefore we have a postal cancellation. This card was mailed from Farmingdale, NJ on August 28 1930 at 5 PM. It was mailed to, Harold & Floyd Woolly, Box #1, Toms River, N.J. It says, We set up our own camp. The didn’t have room to hold us all so they scoured the country and got us cots & tents and gave us the dryest, finest place of all under the Elms. I have a little private tent of my own up here. Adolph. No mention of the big fish!
This photo scratches at the back of my brain for looking like family photos from the same period and place. I think it is going up on a wall in the house this summer, returning more or less to its place of origin for a few more decades of Jersey summers to come. More next week from the other side!
Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: As we ease our way out of the month of July this summer, I thought I’d share this card made in July of 1918 – as noted and underlined in the white handwriting (probably) of the photographer when printing in the lower left.
At first I thought these were a dozen devils, but not quite. These kids are each in pointed cap hood but (most) grasp lanterns and not pitchforks. Just as I thought Imps! I saw it written in white next to the date in the lower left as above. Some of the kids look pretty happy about the situation and others less so. I’m going to assume that it was less hot and humid there than it would have been here which would have made them all quite miserable.
They are posed on a small, covered riser or stage and in their midst, behind the child standing out in front, is some sort of stuffed dummy, clad in a hat and scarf – a bit overdressed for the time of the year. they are posed in front of these open French doors and in front of a brick facade with some climbing plants on either side (ivy on one?) of the doors. I wonder what kind of presentation they were preparing for or just completed.
I believe that this is not an Owers photo but shows us Southsea, clearly a shore resort town.
In the lower right corner, fairly hard to read in drop out white, it says Owers Southsea. Thanks to the always amazing internet, I found that Oscar Owers was a Southsea (England) photographer of photo postcards at the dawn of the 20th century. He did local scenes, sporting events, weddings and the like and evidently things like whatever was being gotten up to in this image. He’s captured this nicely in how they are grouped and their variety of expressions and positions. This postcard was never mailed and I think we can assume that it was either one of a kind or a limited few printed for those who hired him.
I found this one is by Owers and I guess was the sort of meat and potatoes of his local work.
I am keeping things a bit brief today – we are packing up for our New Jersey bivouac tomorrow. Cats have been put on notice with their carriers out and there is a flurry of art supplies and books being packed by Kim and a fridge that needs to be emptied and other household bits for me. Wish me luck and more in the morning before we depart!
Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: This is a sort of genre of Pictorama cards – beautiful woman in a photo collage or otherwise manipulated, sometimes on the moon, but today is bubbles being blown and bubbling up from a clay pipe. (It’s a loose category but have a look here, here and here for a few others to get the idea.)
This one has the added appeal of a pampered looking kitten being held by the woman who is looking at it adoringly. (Likely a studio puss who earned his daily keep but has a natural look of feline entitlement.) She is in an absurdly befrilled hat, dripping in ribbons, lace and feathers. (One can only imagine how long before kitty wanted a go at the feathers; you’ll notice she is holding onto his paws.) She sports a gold necklace, rings and a bracelet. Even her dress seems to have feathers at the neck. Her make-up is evident, heavy lipstick and eye make-up which probably was considered a bit tarty for the day.
Somehow the illusion has been created that she is in a bubble – in fact her image in the bubble is repeated in the different size ones to make four on the card creating the illusion of bubbles floating out of the pipe. If I were to guess I would say maybe they started with a photo of a reflecting ball like you might have in a garden. (Or the witches balls I have discovered more recently that hang from the ceiling, usually in a window – to show that witch already lives there so that witches just move along – or so I am told.)
The photo is hand painted with a swath of pink on her and green and yellow around her. The smaller bubbles just get a dollop of yellow, the smallest remains in just black and white. The pipe is in black and white. It appears to be a clay pipe and I don’t know much about them. I wonder about what appears to be a hole in the bottom and how that worked with bubbles or even to smoke – but maybe it created a better flow of air somehow.
The postcard maker has a very tiny emblem in a circle also, in the lower left corner and a serial number (464/20) on the right. It is a stylized NPG which seems to stand for Neue Photographische Gesellschaft, an earlier German maker of photo postcards. Arthur Schwarz founded the company in 1894 and helped create the photo postcard boom of the 1900’s. The company was interested in technical advancements, color photos and without knowing more than this, I would say this is a good example.
Pams-Pictorama.com Collection. Well, actually Deitch Studio Collection.
Without noting the maker when I posted about this, today I discover that this postcard I gave Kim for his birthday a few years ago is made by this company as well. I show it above and the post about it can be found here.
This postcard was mailed and it is postmarked April 6, 1909 from Jacksonville, Florida and mailed to a Miss Ora F. Wagner, Noblesville, Ind 170 S9h. I can’t quite read the top of her message – it might read, Peeps and then says, This is a dark and gloomy day so I am sending you a “smiling” card. Yours HOH.
Back of card.
I like the sentiment and being a bit out of sorts after a long week at work it seems appropriate and like a good shot in the arm early this Saturday morning, many decades later.
Pam’s Pictorama Post: although this is clearly a photo collage of sorts somehow on the fence about calling it a photo post today; nor is it a cat card. However, it is one of many made to entice people to the Catskills on holiday with current revelers sending word home on them. (With their funny cat images my collection of them is burgeoning. Recent posts with Catskill cat cards can be found here and here.) This is a nod to those folks who are commencing their holiday and vacation travel on this July 4 weekend. Let the summer begin!
This card was both written on and addressed but not stamped, so unclear if and how it got to its destination. At the bottom is says, Dear Ethel how is this. Iva Ott November 4, 1907. It is addressed, in a more adult hand, to Miss Ethel Sanford Kelly Coss Del Co, N.Y.
It’s a nifty card and kudos to the person who put it together. The bottom is a landscape photo of the mountains the area is known for, dotted with houses and farms. A space of white has been left and then the sky. The couple are originally from a photo although how the sky and the moon were actually made is lost to me. There is a sort of deckle edge at the bottom of this portion like it was actually carefully torn by hand for the effect wanted.
Appropriate for today! An Uncle Sam puzzle card by Huld I found online.
The couple sit close to each other, hanging off the moon, with a very long spyglass, evidently peering down at the people and places below. It is held by the woman while the man is pointing to something (or someone) specific in the landscape below. Printed at the bottom it says, Viewing Fleischmann’s, Catskill Mountains, N.Y. They seem quite jolly and content with their perch in a cat bird seat, high above the valley.
A close examination of the surface shows sort of half tone dots which means the images came from something already printed. This really is a collage of probably three images.
One section of a Puzzle card also found online.
Along one side there is the publisher’s copyright. It says No. 4003. Copyrighted 1906 by Franz Huld, Publisher, New York. An interesting article on Huld that the internet spit out can be found here. (Someone named George Miller is the author and he has done some extensive research in order to write it.) Some highlights from the article are as follow below.
His first business address appears at 170 Fifth Avenue in Manhattan in a 1900-1901 era directory and is among the first listings for postcard publishing. The author of the article describes his wares as occasionally ugly, without gilt trim or compelling pictures of children or animals. However, he was creative (as evidenced by this card) and according to the article, primarily Huld published commemorative issues, views, comics (especially “write- aways”), collector’s issues, and novelties. That makes a lot of sense skill and sensibility-wise when we consider the construction of this particular card.
The only feline postcard I found among his images.
Huld’s New York listing remains only until 1910 with a filing for bankruptcy in 1914. It is believed that Huld died in October of 1928 at age 67. The man liked a good novelty card (including some puzzle ones that were mailed in an envelope), and I recommend the article above for more information and some additional images. Clearly he was an early player in the business of postcards and a somewhat formative one.
With our temperatures still hovering around 90 after days over 100 here in New York City, we do not have any travel on our agenda here at Deitch Studio. We will be staying here in the city with air conditioning (we hope), cats and ice cream to keep us company on the country’s 250th birthday weekend.
Pam’s Pictorama Post: I bought this clutch of postcards for a few dollars at the recent postcard extravaganza. They all depict the early days of the shore area where I grew up and now have my mom’s house. Like most areas it has largely been built up and built over, but some of the buildings remain or did during my childhood. All of these postcards appear to be from approximately the same period. Only the one from Rumson at the bottom was mailed and that is dated 1910.
If I had my way we would have spent a lot more time in Asbury Park when I was a kid. It was on hard times in the ’60’s and early 70’s and generally we migrated to things north of us rather than south of us in Monmouth County. This pier, as above, remained and even back then I was fascinated by it. It was somewhat derelict although still in use. There was a carousel in another building that I never got to ride. To my knowledge that remains – it was used in the recent Bruce Springsteen bio pic (which for a Jersey girl like myself was a wonderful compendium of places I grew up hanging out at) so I assume it is in reasonable repair.
The boardwalk is in all its glory here with women in long white cotton dresses of a turn of the century or early ‘teens summer. Parasols and hats abound. The amusements are largely hidden although there is a place for your photo to be taken and where film is sold. (Sadly absolutely no evidence that you could have your photo taken with a giant Felix doll. It just doesn’t seem to have been a thing in the US.)
The North End Hotel is the large building in front of us and below it is identified as Boardwalk and North End Hotel. Asbury Park, N.J. North End Hotel or not, I’m pretty sure the lower pier is what goes out toward the water, the boardwalk above and the sand leading to the water to our right below. I assume some of the long building was bath house space where you could rent a locker for the day, change and leave your things. Although the pier in Long Branch existed into my young adulthood (it was eventually consumed by a fire), it is the only one of the long piers into the water I remember – although maybe Asbury did or does still have one. I am scheming to get there for an ephemera sale this summer if possible and to spend the day checking it out.
Boardwalk at New Point Comfort Beach, Keansburg, NJ. Fronting the three largest hotels.
Keansburg was north of us, however I was (sadly) never taken to the beachside amusement pier there. It too still exists in some form. (There used to be ads for it on local television – Keansburg Amusement Park.) I don’t think any of these beachside hotels still exist however. To my knowledge only the tinier waterside homes still stand in that area. I have to admit I have never been on their boardwalk, although I spent much time in neighboring Highlands and even Matawan where my sister lived for several years.
This is what the towns of Long Branch and Sea Bright would have also looked like, the shore dotted with large hotels and rooming houses on the water which largely no longer exist. The trip down Ocean Avenue between Sea Bright and Monmouth Beach and then to Long Branch is still lined with some of the old single-family mansions overlooking the ocean and somehow surviving both tides and progress, mixed with new construction and the occasional beach club.
Until just a few years ago, the highway referred to in this photo of a swath of Atlantic Highlands would have been the very same one which people routinely walked over in order to go to and from Sandy Hook state park and connecting to Sea Bright. A new much higher and larger highway was installed to much construction mess, expense and fanfare. I guess you can still walk (and bike) across the new one, but it is vastly larger for more cars and most importantly, more boats below it. (It is no longer a drawbridge.)
Scene from the scenic highway highest point on the Atlantic Coast Highlands, N.J.
While likely more crammed and with contemporary stores and some more modern homes, my guess is that this view has remained somewhat the same with small cottages dotting the shore. This would have the Shrewsbury River just in view to the left with the bay to the ocean (and New York City in the distance) behind the viewer. The ocean is just on the other side of the tiny spit of land that is Sandy Hook and Sea Bright and the photographer, standing on the highway, could easily have seen all these things by turning around.
There was a time when this was a major stop on passenger pleasure cruises heading south and I assume for day trippers, even as it is by ferry in the summer today. (I could take the ferry today but beach traffic will snare on the weekend so instead I will take the train which will leave me closer to the house.) One of my ancient novels had a stop there on a cruise which I enjoyed finding immensely.
Finally, I get to my hometown of Rumson. There was a time when I knew the length of Rumson Road like the back of my hand from years of being a passenger traveling up and down it. A major artery running not just through the town but connecting the beach communities with the rest of the area, it is fairly long and famously heavily trafficked. (The Sea Bright bridge at one end was also a drawbridge and traffic during the summer would back up for miles for boat traffic. That bridge has also been replaced recently, leaving only the Rumson bridge in a state of sad decay and planned replacement.) Having said that I am puzzled by this view. While small water tributaries create a number of manmade and natural ponds and streams throughout the area, I am stumped by one of this size. (I wrote about a photo of a small pond near my house in the town of Fair Haven here.)
Glimpse of Rumson Road Lake on the Rumson Road, N.J.
I am wondering if this was ultimately filled in to make the golf course or country club. I will ask some of the folks who have lived there longer than I have. For all of that I like this card because it captures the feel of Rumson and Rumson Road. In the fall it is the most beautiful drive lined with old trees, leaves turned. It has always been a sort of millionaires’ row of mansions, old and new, despite being a few blocks in from the river which you would think would be more prime real estate. Perhaps the flooding discouraged the largest homes perching there and I grew up on an inlet of the river, a block off this road. If I calculate correctly though I lived much further east, where Rumson Road begins at the Sea Bright bridge. This would be on the western part as you head into the town of Little Silver, my current home in Fair Haven where these three towns connect.
As noted above, this card was mailed. On the back it says (in one run-on sentence), suppose you have been after chestnuts before this wish I was there to go along Harold. It was mailed to Miss Mary Crawford, Pine Bush, Orange Co, NY. It was mailed from Sea Bright, NJ on October 13, 1910. (Until a few years ago the post office in Sea Bright would have been this one. Sadly a larger and more modern building replaced it too.)
As I head out today I am tucking these in my bag to take with me. I will round up some frames for them and put them up at the house where both local images, beaches and piers in general and wider New Jersey images rule. (Some of those posts can be seen here and here – I have a passion for panorama photos but they are hard to document!) Keep an eye on Instagram for some garden pics. My project for the weekend is to acquire and plant some tomatoes.
Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: I am heading to New Jersey tomorrow for a few days and this card has me in a pleasant mind of backyard time I hope to enjoy. My roses are in bloom and the gorgeous purple-blue hydrangea, both front yard and back, is starting its ascension into its first flowers of the season. The herbs are well on their way and I understand my grapes have finally come back with a will. Strawberries have already made an appearance and the dahlias are shooting up en force!
I will, of course, be greeted to varying degrees by the resident cats there. Beauregard will claim as much lap time as possible while Milty and Gus will shove in where they can. Stormy and Peaches, my girl cats, are my scaredy cats and although they may (or may not – thinking of you Peaches!) be glad to see me.
The grapevine has returned with a vengeance I am glad to see. All the garden photos are via my friend Winsome.
If you pay attention to all things cats on the internet, you know that catios are all the rage and you can purchase them pre-made (think screened tent for your cats) and less expensive, or you can build a more elaborate version. Ideally the cats have free passage from house to safe outdoor harbor in the catio, but there are an increasing number where the expectation is that you will plop them in and take them back out yourself. Of course, I have considered these but I am not carrying my precious pusses outside to put them in a flimsy screened enclosure. No, I would have to be one of those folks who built something solid and give them cat door access to it.
Although I grew up with cats that roamed free in the yard and divided their time in and out of the house as a matter of course, this is no longer the way in the area where I grew up and where we now have a house. At some point, keeping your cat inside, or with a collar for brief outside turns, became the way of things. Cats are chipped now in case they are lost, although something about putting that in her cats always made my mother nervous. Although all these cats came from living on the streets, none of them has set a paw outside since.
The aforementioned Peaches.
There is something wonderful however about my childhood memories of cats wandering in and out, more or less at will, without thinking about it. They enjoyed it so much and all the better if we were outside with them. As I kid I would sit outside and play with them for hours. I actually haven’t thought about it for years.
Like this photo we might have had a light indoor chair outside, although it would likely be alongside a bunch of lawn chairs. (My father eventually bought heavy outdoor chairs and tables at garage sales, but I was older by then.) If we were outside at least a few of the cats and the dog would be out with us although, maybe someone was sleepy inside too. There were no particular rules. We just never thought about it. Everyone pretty much came in at night unless for some reason they had a mysterious kitty rendezvous and were off on a toot for the evening. Noted but not a cause for alarm.
The dahlias are showing early promise.
Looking at these folks and their cats in their backyard in the dabbled sunlight it makes me think about it. The women are in their long dresses of the day but summer versions and the man, seated behind them, is in a suit with a tie. (One could say he is sort of not quite fully participating.) Those summer cottons which while beautiful must have required difficult laundry and endless patient ironing. Hard to see but the woman in white is leaning on a bit of a chicken wire enclosure behind her. When we look closely there are beds of plants, something leafy and green climbing up an arbor to the viewers left and behind them.
It was clearly a bit of an occasion. Girl kitty (my assumption) is wearing a big bow and looks a tad unhappy about it although not in full on revolt. She perches in a timid way on the chair with a cushion. She is a light-colored tabby-ish kitty, orange most likely? The other looks like a tom and he is in a loving if tightly gripped hold for the photo. Look at the stripes on his legs! Those black bands! Both have white faces and front paws. Handsome fellow!
Backyard is blooming!
The yard has a high fence around it as far as we can see, although technically not one that would keep an interested (let alone determined) cat in or out. My backyard is also fenced, but given small spaces as entry points near the ground I have found all sorts of animals back there including a fox who got in and admittedly didn’t seem to know how to get out. (I opened the gate and invited him to take his time leaving.) Cats do come by occasionally – that is how Stormy and Gus came to live with mom. Some of you might remember the stray tom I christened Hobo who we fed on and off for several years.
Hobo back in 2023.
This photo was never sent and nothing was written on the back. On the back there is a very faded company logo for Central Studio, and an address, 103 College Street, Burlington, VT. It is easy to imagine that this was taken in Vermont, a singular photo postcard and the cats were clearly rallied for the photo opp. It is a wonderfully distilled moment from a long ago summer.
Meanwhile, on my way to the Jersey shore so a Jersey summer specific card to come tomorrow!
Pam's Pictorama 