Pam’s Pictorama Post: I recently bought this photo in one of my jaunts to the Red Bank Antiques recently. It is the kind of quiet photo that catches my eye sometimes and seems fitting for the house here in New Jersey.
This pair has been picking something although hard to say what, my first thought was apples. I don’t know if this a local photo – there’s nothing on the back for date or location. Those wooden buckets could have held peaches or even cherries just as easily. There is a nice rock fence behind them.
The woman’s dress puts this at the 1910’s or there abouts. She looks cool despite her layers of cotton. The man looks a bit warmer in his rolled up shirtsleeves and suspenders. I love the way the sun filters through the leaves. I think it will find its way to our guest room in anticipation of a friend coming at the end of the week.
I wrote a post about picking cherries at my grandmother’s house as a kid. (It can be found here.) Those cherries were cooked down into preserves that we would eat all winter.
Before and…after!
A friend suggested peach picking this summer, but we have not attempted it. The peaches seem a bit off this year and as a result I have taken to cooking them down in an easy recipe shared by a friend.
I take all my overripe fruit and cut it up – today will be peaches, nectarines and blueberries. I sprinkle just a bit of sugar, spoonful (I am using regular but you might want to use brown), lemon juice and most importantly lemon zest. Pop it in a baking dish at 375 for about 45 minutes until bubbly. Yummy hot, but great in yogurt or over ice cream once you have refrigerated.
Pam’s Pictorama Post: Today I have an unusual post and not just because it is a dog day, but I am going down the rabbit hole of silent film, an occasional tributary. However, it has been a very long time since the films of Deitch Studio have been up for discussion. Those of you who know us, or have been readers for a long time, know that silent and early films are among the programming here at Deitch Studio. There are lots of film links and recommendations here so get ready.
While I have devoted some space to silent cartoons, stills like this one are most likely to turn up in my collection. My affection for Frank Borzage has lead me to several (nonanimal) acquisitions which adorn the walls here (posts about those can be found here and here for starters) and of course Felix, who posed with a number of actresses of the silent era, is robustly represented on our walls. Dogs do occasionally turn up and a post with Peter the Great can be found here based on a still of him with Bonzo. Sometimes even short stories of the period lead to a silent film discovery such as in this post here.
Another still from The Devil’s Circus. Not in Pams-Pictorama.com Collection.
Today we started with the film, not the photo which was acquired after. Recently Kim stumbled on this splendid Norma Shearer silent film, The Devil’s Circus, a 1926 film which neither of us had ever seen or heard of. We watched it on Youtube and a stunningly gorgeous print can be found there. I am unable to share the link but it is easily searchable there. (There are some much lesser bad print versions so look for the one in excellent condition.)
Directed by Benjamin Christensen, a young Norma Shearer is already getting her name above the title in this drama with co-stars Charles Emmett Mack and Carmel Myers well below. (Full credits for the film can be found on the IMDb database here.) A 24 year old Norma Shearer is playing a bit younger as a girl who, with her dog, is looking for work in a circus in a non-specific European locale, when she meets Mack and they become a couple. I won’t spoil the plot for you, but there are great circus scenes and my only complaint is that is would have been even better if Mary had come with a dog act for the circus because this little fellow was up for even more screen time. Buddy the dog emerges as the star of this post today, but really, I can’t say enough good about this film. Run, don’t walk, to Youtube to watch it.
Buddy does his turns admirably with Shearer for about half of The Devil’s Circus and we miss him when he’s disappears. It is clear that they clicked together and he is very believable as her pup. This photo Kim found on eBay embodies it best – the two of them looking together off screen, joyfully ready for action. This photo was identified as having come from a print made in the 1970’s but it must have been from the negative as it does not appear duped. It came from the Marvin Paige collection and he was evidently a longstanding casting director in Hollywood. It is identified only with the name of the film written in pencil on the back. Additional photos of Buddy are not easily available online and are probably best found unidentified in film stills like this one.
The story goes that Buddy, a stray terrier or terrier mix, was found and trained, and was well into his film career when he made The Devil’s Circus. His working life seems to start back in a 1923 film call F.O.B., a Lloyd Hamilton short. (It’s unclear if F.O.B. still exists; I cannot find it at this time.) His big break was with Charley Chase in something called Speed Mad (1925, while prints appear to exist I cannot find it to show at the time of writing) and then he’s off to the races with one called What Price Goofy in 1925 where his name morphs from Duke the Dog to Buddy the Dog and sticks.
So his early days and his entree into films seems to be with Hal Roach and Leo McCarey. All in he makes about 25 films, a mix of shorts and features, from 1923 to his last film credit in 1932 in the sound film Hypnotized also linked below. The Devil’s Circus appears to be right after his rechristening.
So there you have a capsule history of film dog star Buddy, a somewhat forgotten but very talented canine from the early days of film and ample examples to watch him at his craft. Settle in and have a little film festival (like we are – catching up with these additions) celebrating this fine fellow.
Pam’s Pictorama Post: Today is a pile of Easter bits. I looked and it appears I haven’t really written about Easter since 2021 which was a spring still fraught with pulling out of the pandemic. At that time I wrote a bit about the family Easter/Passover traditions from my childhood there including glorious Easter egg hunts at my grandmother’s house. (That post can be found here and another from an earlier post about my grandmother can be found here.)
When weather permitted we were outside in her yard and finding Easter eggs and treats among the nascent tulips and hyacinth planted there. In retrospect it was likely my uncle who did the Easter planning since mom and dad were with us and my grandparents were already older. I think there was at least one year when weather did not permit and we did it inside.
My sister Loren and I back on Easter 1966.
As it happens, I have a photograph from one of those Easter Sundays above. It is not an especially good photograph but it is family history for me so I am stretching the point. I (on the right in the yellow flowered dress) would have just turned two and my sister Loren (in a very unlikely pink dress), would be a month beyond her fourth birthday. We are seated on my grandmother’s green couch which was covered in impossibly scratchy fabric, flowered wallpaper behind us and and window where in particular the blinds were not raised in my memory. The living room was always cool and dark. There was matching green figured wall-to-wall carpet on the floor there.
Somewhere in my possession is a photo of us all outside on an Easter Sunday morning and I am wearing a light blue coat and Easter bonnet I feel like I can still remember being very proud of. Perhaps we’ll have that one next year if found.
Loren, true to form, looks like she is only seated reluctantly for the moment this photo took. She’s smiling but I recognize her tightly wound energy – she’s ready to go tearing around. While meanwhile yours truly was more of a jolly lump who would go along with whatever. We never wore dresses, let alone ones like this, and if I had to guess I would say these were a single symbolic for Easter only wearing.
This photo hung in my grandmother’s house forever, actually right near the couch shown here if memory serves, and this snapshot shows its wear. I can’t remember if this is before or after the egg hunt. I suspect they did it first thing before we had time to ruin our clothing.
Mom and Dad, Loren and I in November 1964.
I found it in an ancient plastic sleeve and behind it is a photo I prefer of the four of us, above. Printed neatly on the photo is November 1964 which makes me, shown in my mom’s arms, only 11 months old here; Loren in the plaid coat is only three. Mom and dad are very young here, Betty about 26 and Elliott 36. They are in what appear to be matching trench coats (normal for dad, a bit unusual for mom, dad must have bought it for her) and I love the little plaid jacket Loren is sporting. This the same front yard of my grandparents, my mom’s dad, Frank, would have still been alive, now a bit barren for fall. We lived in northern Jersey then, about an hour’s drive, and would have come in for a Sunday visit. This is more evocative for me – I can feel the fall air and smell that yard.
****
Yesterday Kim and I shook the dust off a bit and went downtown. Ostensibly, I had new eyeglass prescriptions to fill and I dropped those off in the East Village but it was a gorgeous unusually warm spring day. I was pleased I decided to stop next door to the eyeglass store at Porto Rico Coffee Importers as my favorite Danish roast was on sale. Particularly with the expectation of rising coffee prices I stocked up.
I love his toes! look at the size of the Steiff button in his ear!
However I also detoured us to the John Derian stores where I heard there was a large display of Steiff toys. I was not disappointed. We were greeted in one store by the giant elephant below (I should have taken a close up picture of the Steiff button in his ear – it was enormous, consistent with his enormity) and at the one devoted to fabrics, by the even more spectacular nodding warthog! For me these were well worth the price of admission right there. All three stores were nicely done up for Easter with a lot of vintage bunnies.
This moving warthog greets you at the John Derian fabric shop!
John Derian and I seem to have a more or less separated at birth sensibility. I know where he acquires much of his antique stock (or at least the type of places) and how much he pays so I can’t really ever buy from him – the mark up is too high. That doesn’t mean I don’t like seeing what he’s found and how he’s put it together. I purchase this or that small item, sort of on the edges of what is available. Somewhere deep inside what I really want is to see his house which probably has all the really good stuff! Sadly I do not think an invitation is forthcoming. (Some photos of the shops to scroll through below.)
Lastly, a teaser, something I can’t remember doing before but we have the chance today. I leave you with this photo of Cookie atop box she has happily commandeered. It contains a major toy purchase so she won’t be enjoying it for too long as I plan to open it today and share the contents with you soon. To be continued as they say.
Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: Today is a somewhat rare occasion, a family photo post. I have done them before when I discovered some very early family photos (a few posts of those can be found here and here), but I am not sure I have done many from my own childhood – except maybe in passing to document a toy or a beloved cat.
Today is a photo my mom sent to me, matted and framed, as a surprise several years ago. A cousin had given her two photos of me and my sister as small children. She kept one, which hangs in the kitchen in New Jersey, and sent me the other. This one lives on a shelf in direct eye shot of my “home office” desk. I am looking down and on the left. So like us that Loren is running toward the camera and I am turned aside, a bit diffident.
Undated photo of Loren with our cat Winkie.
I don’t remember these matching outfits at all. We were rarely dressed alike, although photos seemed to be taken when we were giving the impression after the fact that it happened often. Probably the outfits were gifts and the pictures documenting our wearing them. These are the sort of typical dresses of the late 1960’s to be expected on little girls. Most of our time was spent in indestructible things like Danskin shorts or jeans. (I had a flowered pair of jeans in red and blue I was especially fond of a few years later. Very 1970’s fashion forward. They live on in my memory.)
We are in a yard I cannot identify – probably a long forgotten, not especially distinct yard where the cousin in question was living. There’s not much to it. Just the sort of suburban yard of my youth where we’d just run around with chasing each other and some imagined foe or friend until exhausted.
Loren with I believe Mitsy, a lovely little tuxedo.
I have also rarely written about my sister, Loren, before. I did a tribute to her rugby trophies a while ago (that post can be read here) but I have not written too much about her. Loren Butler (married name Feffer) was born on March 15, 1962 – two years my senior and a fact that I was unlikely to forget. Loren was definitely an older sister. She died after a long fight with breast cancer on January 20, 2003, just shy of her 41st birthday.
She was quite brilliant (a PhD in mathematics), did not suffer fools gladly, and was very athletic most of her life – she had a constant need to burn off her restless energy. Loren was also very opinionated (about all things), extremely generous and extraordinarily loyal. As my sister and fairly close in age, Loren and I had that weird symbiotic relationship that siblings have. Hatched over time in the same protective family bubble of early childhood, we shared experiences and a history that only we experienced together. (My brother Edward entered the story a bit later and adds another chapter to the Butler clan story.)
Loren probably about 1990 judging from the car she is driving.This photo also lives near my desk at home but was actually framed to take it to the office which somehow has not happened.
As we know, death means spending the rest of your life limited to a now one-sided dialog with that person. In this case many of my earliest memories were shared only with her – conversations in bed at night when we shared a room as small children, games and of course epic battles with each other. Her opinions (memories of real ones and now imagined based on her track record) play in my brain. These range from world politics to my most recent hair cut.
Someone contacted her widower about publishing some of her work recently while a recent wedding celebration of a mutual friend was a chance to hear a few stories I had not heard before which is always a good day.
It has been 23 years since I have been able to wish her a happy birthday in person. (For her 40th birthday I gave her gold hoop earrings, still hopeful that there was a future and that she would wear them for years to come. I have those now with most of her other jewelry.) However, she still lives large in my mind and a day doesn’t go by without thinking about her, so here’s to Loren on what would have been her 63 birthday.
Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: I purchased these photos on Instagram quite a long time ago. One night after dinner they showed up by a seller I follow but rarely buy from – a guy who had a store here in Manhattan on the Lower Eastside and then packed up and relocated, I think, to Florida. (A couple of posts of the joys of his store can be found here and here.)
These sat unopened for a long time and then they went to New Jersey. I photographed them for this purpose while I was there. They are not yet hanging and I am not sure of a spot for them, clearly the need to remain together.
I was shocked to discover that the frames are plastic and incredibly light. I had assumed they were painted wood, all the better for hanging but potentially a bit fragile.
I peg this one for the older kid. Pams-Pictorama.com collection.
Sometimes I wonder how or why a particular photo makes it through time and being sold while others clearly whittle away. It is easy to see why these hung together somewhere and the appeal of these kids and these clown costumes is self-evident.
These were either commercially purchased costumes or made by a fine seamstress. The one with the stars is showier and catches your eye better, but really they are equal in their greatness. The hats are especially nice and seem to be made as part of the costume, the tie on ruffs around the neck. The button closures seem to be some sort of passementerie or Soutache. The sleeves on the one hang a bit long.
Giving you a better look at this one too – Pams-Pictorama.com collection.
Each photo is taken in the same spot in front of this older garden apartment which could have been anywhere – I haven’t a clue where these came from originally. The walkway does a nice job of zipping up the composition and taking our eye right to the back. Each figure is placed visually between the lanterns at the front entrance.
I have gone back and forth on this, but my current thinking is that both are girls. The one in the star decorated costume definitely is, and I would say she is the younger. She is sort of bubbling over with enthusiasm. The other is a bit more studied, arms folded, but a big grin nonetheless. Both are very charming.
While I assume these are for Halloween, but it could have been another costume or fancy dress opportunity. Lucky kids – if the costumes were any indication a good time was had by all!
Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: This photo came to me via the antiques mall in New Jersey, purchased shortly before Christmas this year, among my minor holiday decoration purchases. It is a bit faded and the mat it is attached to is a bit stained and tatty. It caught my eye however and overall it is sort of wonderful.
I brought the photo back to New York where I have been looking at it under a loupe and I have managed to read the very faded and overexposed writing on the side of the truck. I have deduced that this truck was decorated for a company picnic and outing. After cleaning I can just about read the writing on the side of the truck despite it being very over-exposed and faded, Annual Outing and Picnic for Employees Pulaski Trucking Corporation. Sadly, if there was a date I can no longer decode it. (These days I can find a Pulaski Heavy Hauling company in New York – hard to know if this is this company is the ancestor or not.)
This fits neatly into my collection of yard long photos of outings and employee picnics which decorate the walls of the house in New Jersey. (Posts about those can be found here and here.) I will most likely bring it back there to live, although if I could find a spot for it here in New York I would enjoy that too. There is something endlessly appealing about people in their best bib and tucker posing on a special outing. It is in some ways the essence and premise of much of my collection.
These yard long photos are hard to film (but worth it) so you’ll have to go to the post above to really see it!
It is a deeply male enterprise and picnic or not, these fellows mostly dressed for the occasion. (I’ll assume the wives and girlfriends and children are nearby but elsewhere.) Understanding that it is a picnic it is surprising that so many are in suits or wearing ties. Some wear hats and others took their off for the photo. There are two men in dark suits on the end, one holds a newspaper in his hands while the other has a black mourning band on his arm and smokes a cigarette.
The fellow on the very end is the jauntiest, leaning on one arm, straw hat and all attitude. Next to him, almost ghost-like due to movement during the exposure, being over-exposed and fading, is a small child in shorts, lumpy high socks (bad idea!) bunching down his legs. He is the only kid to sneak into this otherwise all adult photo.
The Tydol sign, hanging off the side of the garage, indicates that this photo was probably taken in front of the garage. There’s no way to know where this was taken. The three and four story buildings in the background make the setting at least a bit urban, but could easily be small town urban. Although found in NJ there is of course no guarantee that this was taken there and as these were truckers, we assume the fellows in the photo roamed a bit afield.
The photo is evidently glued into a pressed paper decorative mat. It was super grimy and it appears to have become one with the pressed paper mat. The back is cardboard and some torn brown paper, but with a wire that seems serviceable and ready to hang so I will be looking for exactly the right spot to install it.
Pam’s Pictorama Post: I stumbled on today’s find although I do search for local photos of my New Jersey area which I will ultimately decorate the house. (See my post on one of my family’s favorite restaurants, Bahr’s Landing here!) However, this one was served up by eBay’s master brain as something I might like and for once they were right.
When I checked it out it also served up several options and I ultimately went for this one which was never used. The one I didn’t purchase was mailed in September of 1904 to 532 West 51st Street here in New York City. That helps us place it in time; its an early photo postcard.
This is the (unnamed?) pond I think is pictured in the postcard.
Those of you who followed my photographic running journal may recognize this. It is a lovely little lake not far from my house. In the way that water does, this one travels around quite a bit and one end is a series of small estuaries that pop up around my neighborhood. One has a terminus (or a beginning?) at the grammar school at the foot of my street where a large pipe issues and takes in a small stream of water. It grows larger as it gets toward River Road, but with fingers that create a series of creeks running through backyards in a few directions. Presumably it flows to and from the river, the Navesank, on the far side of River Road.
When purchasing our house my mother was seeking to get away from the troubles of life on the water. Having endured a lifetime of battling floods while living on the Shrewsbury river, she was done with that. I would say mom managed it as there is no evidence that this wandering water body runs under our house, but it is much closer than I would have thought without the on the ground inspection my runs granted me. (I am grateful for this as I seem to have enough trouble with water incursion which has included but is not limited to needing a new roof and endless tweaking of the pump system in the basement there.)
Another view of it as it creeps further back passed some houses not seen from the main street.
During significant flooding events I would guess that some of these creeks could rise to notable levels. Gratefully this has not happened during my heretofore brief tenor of home ownership.
The pond we call McCarter’s Pond, a few more blocks in the other direction, heading away from Red Bank and on the Rumson border.
They have labeled this Lake on Fair Haven Road near Red Bank, NJ. That would make it a pond we call McCarter’s Pond today. However, I would argue that this is actually the water body where Fair Haven connects to Red Bank on River Road. I offer contemporary photos of both for consideration.
McCarter’s pond was part of an eponymous estate. Mr. McCarter, Thomas, a prominent attorney, lived from 1867-1955 and owned a swath of land which is now developed with pricey homes doting the whole area. It is man made and quite shallow, not exceeding an average 3.5 ft deep. It is used for an annual fishing derby. An article almost a decade old talks about lighting it for ice skating in the winter which I have never seen. I used to skate on a pond near our house in Rumson but never remember going over to McCarter’s pond to skate. Having said that, a shallow pond like that must freeze fairly quickly and solidly.
Looking at these photos gives me a bit of a yen to run again. I fell while running, too tired, early one morning and have shelved it for now. I think with the new job and other things going on it was too much but I would like to get back to it. I miss the outdoor time, although I log a little more than 3 miles walking to and from work daily.
This is a somewhat poorly made card and an image depicting the pond on a wintery, leafless day. The image trails off with a sort of chewed off look at the bottom and has a sort of twig frame at the top. It looks as if a tatty found image was applied to this postcard. In addition to the writing mentioned above there is a photo credit, Photo by C.R.D. Foxwell etched into the corner. Lastly, there is the odd addition of a little campfire drawn in next to the location writing.
Odd little detail from the bottom left corner.
Nonetheless, I am pleased to have stumbled on this very local early image of Fair Haven and it will find a nice spot, framed on the wall, in the house there.
Pam’s Pictorama Post: A friend and colleague who began her life in Finland (she lives in Ohio today and works remotely for me a few hours a week), told me the other day that when she was little parents were so invested in the idea of the Christmas holiday that it was common to hire a Santa to come to the house. She said that when she realized that Santa wasn’t real, she felt she could not say anything because it would hurt her parents.
I love that story, and I have great affection for this card I just bought which shows the other side of Nordic holiday spirit. I am unsure what country this originally hailed from, although I purchased it from someone in the Netherlands who also did not know the origin of the card. There is a tiny NTG in the lower left corner and writing in another language and incredibly small that I cannot decipher. The internet was not much help on this front although another seller of postcards thought NTG was German. I have not found evidence of other cards like it, but perhaps a series of them lurks somewhere yet.
Gnomes are evidently thought to deliver Christmas presents in Scandinavia in the 18th and 19th centuries, helpers to Father Christmas. (Families left bowls of porridge for them – perhaps a bit less appealing than our cookies and milk!) I would suspect this is where the idea of our elves as Santa’s helpers come from.
I will say that I purchased this card on eBay for very little and utterly uncontested! I gather that I am the only one who was looking who saw its charm, but I am pleased to add it to the Pictorama collection.
Of course it turned up for me because of the weird tabby cat. If you look very closely he appears to have a tiny antler, possibly drawn on. Puss seems to be pouncing on him while this gnome protects Santa with this long stick. Santa and the gnome are small children in costume and the cat is, well a cat, probably one that hung around the photo studio catching mice and playing bit parts. His tail is curled upward and we can see his nice white tummy and white feet. I think we can assume if left to his own devices he would have liked to knead biscuits on the Santa suit and take a cat nap.
Santa plays his role with some drama – oh no, the antlered cat attack – his cottony beard, brows and hair contributing to his look. The gnome goes at it with great gusto as well. Also beard and with curling hair coming out of his pointy cap (his own?) he grins with gnome-ish fervor as he saves Santa. I like his pointy shoes.
One can imagine that the day shooting this was pretty much a good time for all. The set certainly is stark with a few large stones to the left and in front and this sort of nest of twigs behind the gnome. In addition to that odd little antler being drawn in, a very careful examination shows a very small smattering of white dots down the middle of the card which I assume are meant to be snowflakes. Otherwise this is a rather barren set making it feel a bit like Santa on the Moon.
Back of the card – no evidence of being mailed despite being addressed.
I share the back of this card which I cannot decipher although omitie appears to be Romanian and means to omit – I assume that this was meant to say – I didn’t forget Edmund! While fully addressed there is no evidence of it being mailed with a stamp or cancellation. The writing in pencil seems to be earlier seller’s marks. So was it just dropped by a mailbox perhaps?
So here we go, kicking off this holiday season here at Pictorama. This photo postcard embodies both some humor, but also a tiny bit of historic grit and well, a pleasant sort of meanness. Just what we need as we sally forth into the season ahead.
Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: Today’s photo was a photo postcard and it was cut down at some point into this more or less perfect square. Man, the mind boggles a bit at what the rest of it looked like and why it was ultimately cropped – to fit in a frame perhaps?
It comes to me via @marsh.and.meadow on Instagram. While my usual gig with them is jewelry (see one of those posts here), I find that Heather (Hagens) has expanded over time and other tidbits come over the transom. Of course some of them catch the interest of Pictorama. She has expanded her footprint to @marsh.and.meadow.overflow for most of these non-jewelry items. Even for what I don’t buy, I admit to enjoying the passing parade of eyeball kicks.
There is writing on the back and it was mailed. The cancellation survives and it was mailed from Detroit on July 28, 1912 at 8:00 PM. It was mailed to, Hildie Cullen (the name cuts off here), in Nellie, Ohio. A few words exist down the side but not enough to string together, it was a dense note of sorts.
Back of the card. Looks as if there was a whole story being told on the left side.
It wasn’t for the man in drag I purchased this photo, but for the very large, marvelous teddy bear, who stands on his haunches and bears arms! He comes up to the man’s elbow.
If teddies came into being in 1902 (famously Roosevelt declined to shoot a small cornered black bear and the toy was invent and dubbed in his honor) this is how Teddy has grown in a decade. He could be a Steiff made bear and they had plenty of time to grow them this large. He reminds me of my beloved enormous Felix toys which people will pose with across the ocean in another decade or so.
(I can’t say much for the visuals on this, but I thought I’d share Bing singing The Teddy Bear’s picnic for the heck of it below.)
Meanwhile, I wonder if the gun the bear holds is a sort of salute to the Roosevelt story which certainly was likely still in popular memory at that time. It appears that somehow Teddy has an empty Coke bottle balanced on his head as well. Could he be both shooter and target practice here?
The man, carrying a parasol, is in a long flowered print skirt which would have been an old one even for the time. (I’m saying he is not fashionably attired!) He maintains his man’s shirt and a tie, but sports, upon very close inspection, some greenery (leaves) stuffed in his shirt and some sort of ribbon pinned to it. His basket is loaded with some posies and more of the same leafy greens.
I thought he was an older man, but the same close inspection shows that he is young. (Perhaps that shouldn’t surprise me.) His man’s boots just about make it into the photo of the cropped edge, peaking out under the long skirt.
Behind him we see a barnyard scene of doors open and closed. It may have been sent in July, but it looks as if the ground is littered in leaves making me wonder if it wasn’t take in the fall and maybe for Halloween. The quality of the photo isn’t great, a bit over-exposed so it is hard to say. Whoever cut it down had a good eye for composition and it works well in this square format.
It is of course the teddy that earned this photo a place in the Pictorama archive, but it is a well cared for picture and I am glad that it has come to rest in a place where we can enjoy it.
Pam’s Pictorama Post: This photo postcard makes me think about my mother who loved ducks, geese and swans. Frankly she was less romantic about chickens which she grew up around although she bore them no ill will and being a vegan did not eat them nor their eggs. Mom did tell stories about her childhood and how they roosted in the neighbors trees and would occasionally torment her on her way to or from school.
It’s a pity this photo was poorly made, overexposed and with an odd sloppy line of poor printing at the bottom. (I have improved it some before sharing with you.) However my mom would have liked this card.
Those things notwithstanding, it is a compelling image and caught my eye online a week or so back and I purchased it for the house here in New Jersey. It is a photo postcard and was never used.
Photo of a photo of the house I grew up in.
As some readers know, I grew up in a house on an inlet of a river here, the Shrewsbury River. It was within walking distance of the ocean and as a result my childhood was full of time on the water – swimming in the ocean and walking the beach or crabbing off our dock or taking a rowboat out in the backyard. Mom’s nascent passion for animals first took the form of cats and dogs, strays and kittens that needed home.
However, later in life mom started feeding a flock of swans inhabiting the secluded inlet near our house. Then, slowly, she started helping out with an injured swan, goose or duck. Before long she was traveling to fetch a stranded pinioned one here or one that swallowed fishing line there. Betty became the go to for injured waterfowl for not just the surrounding counties but even in the surrounding states. Swans and geese that could not be released back into the wild were placed in areas in New York and New Jersey with appropriately large water bodies where food would be available and people would care for them.
A dahlia also on the hummingbird path of nectar.
Betty fought for these birds as well as other animals – helping to shut down puppy mills, purveyors of sick dogs. So many rescued bunnies found a home in our backyard that they were all so tame they would come right up to you if you sat out in the yard. I would come to New Jersey for a visit and the guest bathroom would be commandeered by a swan. Even at the same time, a rescued cat might be healing in an upstairs room. Somehow it all seemed quite natural at the time. Or at least it was our normal.
Strawberry plant currently on the deck which seems to be a happy stop for hummingbirds.
In her last years mom had a commanding view of the deck and the yard from the chair she spent virtually all her time in. It was planted for the explicit pleasure of birds, bees and butterflies. However, it wasn’t until after her death that I started spending time outside here and on the deck and began to realize how successful she was. Furry bees buzz busily everywhere, but especially early in the morning and evening. Hawks fly overhead, but sparrows, robins and a host of other birds amass. Bunnies of the more shy variety nibble greens in the yard – I think they and the chipmunks eat more heartily when unobserved, or so it seems from the consumption of my berries and veg.
Front of the NJ house earlier this week.
Most notably I never knew about the hummingbirds. I have loved the idea of them from the first I learned about them in sixth grade, but it was years before I saw one in person. I used to try to temp them to feeders with syrup water concoctions. It turns out that they love this yard! They appear to have a path from my dahlias, to a strawberry plant with bright red flowers and then to two Rose of Sharon trees (one white and one purple) that technically belong to my neighbor but hang heavily over my side of the fence. and amazingly enough, if I sit quietly on the porch long enough, one will pause en route, pausing, suspended in front of me in greeting.
Pam's Pictorama 