I can’t resist tweaking the snow photos in Gimp (which, like Photoshop, is a photo editor) the better to imagine what the house might look like if it were old instead of new. Here it is converted to a duotone, with a Gaussian blur. The Jeep has been edited out.
4 Comments
Hi, David:
These are marvellous pictures and do look old. I have not finished reading all of youe blog enteries on your new home, as I’ve just discov ered it, so this question may be answered somewhere….will the siding on your home darken as it ages? If so, this will add to the aged look.
Being a garden lover (presently snowed in in Canada!) I look forward to seeing your home and surrounds become “overgrowed” and Zephirine Drouhin is a lovely choice for a variety of reasons…it is an “old” rose, almost thornless and does repeat. There is a site in Canada for Pickering Nuseries, rosegrowers, that you may want to google as it’s easy to use and well illustrated and notated….they do ship to the US but I’m sure the US has many nurseries – I suggest it only due to it’s ease of getting around the site. The David Austin roses, if your region is climate compatible, would be a wonderful choice as they are nearly all repeating and wonderfully floriferous and have the look of the wonderful old English cottage garden roses that settlers brought and planted around their homes to have something of what they’d left behind centuries ago. In our area if you see and field growing up in shrub and there are a few old crooked apple trees – there may also be some lovely old pale pink and very double roses growning as well.
You had pondered who the “new dropouts” will be….I believe they are us..the boomers going back to the land and the things we loved and in the process rediscovering our creativity, which was derailed in order to survive and raise our children.
As I type I hear my son, who turned 25 this week and is living with me temporarily playing music…Dylan singing Mr. Tambourine Man. Perhaps that other old song is correct when it says “all my life’s a circle”.
Regards
Hi Rebecca… Thank you so much for your comment and your suggestions on roses. Yes … the white pine siding will turn gray, like an old barn, as it ages. I’m not sure how long that will take. Years, I’m sure. But that’s the look I ultimately want — old an overgrown.
You are so right about how we Boomers were derailed by necessity. I want to live to be a hundred so that I can make up for lost time…
Hi, David – Sounds to me like you are just hitting your stride!
Was it necessity that derailed us or did we just cop out? That is something I ponder the older I get -or was “the dream” impossible to achieve in the first place? My brother told me once there is a Joni Mitchell line that says something to the effect that idealists all wind up pessimists in bars…not so! and then of course someone, can’t remember who, said “If we can’t be idealists at seventeen, when CAN we be?” MY answer to that one is at 60… perhaps and older, wiser idealist, but an idealist all the same and I can’t help but thinking that even though we got sidetracked, we must have made it easier in some way for all those who came after us.
Your fireplace looks ….heavenly!!! (a sigh goes with that!) Can’t wait to see your house age and grow old….but I guess I’ll have to, won’t I….does this mean I have to live to be 100 to?
About the hens….I was raised on a farm and I’ll prove that to you in a moment….but weasels, raccoons, hawks and fox LOVE hens who are, bless ’em, SO stupid. Are you going to bury your chicken wire down a few feet to stop the “diggers” from getting in? Now, here’s how you’ll know I’m a bona fide country girl….when you get your hens, sing to them….they’ll shake their heads like they have something in their ears they are trying to dislodge…it’s really funny and I discovered it by accident. It was my job to feed the hens and I was always singing.
Are you an Eric Andersen fan? Love him. Trouble is Paris is good. My son just introduced me to a new website called allmusic.com where you can type in anyone’s name or any song and it pops up and gives you their influences, why THEY influenced, who recorded their songs, etc. It’s great. There are even little bits of their songs to sample. There is a chap out of Ontario by the name of Garnet Rogers who has a great voice and is a great writer…give One Bullet a listen – his brother Stan Rogers was the famous one- at least here in Canada and died in an airplane fire (ensuring the legend, poor devil) so Garnet has been overshadowed but he’s really good and wonderful in real life with a million little stories of common everyday things.
Anyway, must go. Will be watching your house grow old – and loving it!!!
It’s been years and years since I’ve had chikkins, but everyone keeps telling me how stupid they are. I will try to make mine smart by having them listen to Mozart or something… I will sing to them (great idea!) but I doubt that my singing will make them smart. 🙂
I’m not familiary with Eric Andersen, but I will listen to some samples on iTunes…
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