See the whole set here, with larger versions available.

Start Slide Show with PicLens Lite

See the entire set here.

Start Slide Show with PicLens Lite

Franklin House – circa 1904

Stegall House – circa 1900

Hamilton House – circa 1900

Start Slide Show with PicLens Lite

Link to larger version

Start Slide Show with PicLens Lite

New Echota is located just north of Calhoun, and I spent a couple of hours there today.

Here is a link to the entire set of photos.

Start Slide Show with PicLens Lite

Click on each image for a larger version.

Start Slide Show with PicLens Lite

Each picture is linked to a larger version.

Start Slide Show with PicLens Lite

There are two places I love to eat, the Smith House and the Dillard House. They both serve old Southern dishes in the family style which means that they put family sized portions in dishes and have you pass them around the table.

The Smith house has made the news recently with the discovery of an old mining shaft under its basement. The old story goes that no one really knew how the founders got their money and mining was not allowed in the city of Dahlonega. Rumors had it that the founder had found gold under his house and mined it. With the proceeds he created the house. Whether or not there is gold under there, finding the shaft struck gold for the Smith house as it pushed it into the news again. When I was there several months a go, they were expanding.

Start Slide Show with PicLens Lite

Columbia Square is the home of the Isaiah Davenport House, which you can see in the right of the photo. It was completed in 1820, and was the first restoration project of the Historic Savannah Foundation in 1955.

The house on the left is the Kehoe House, which is now a popular bed and breakfast inn. It was completed in 1892.
One other note, the photo was taken on St. Patrick’s Day several years ago. That’s why the water in the fountain is green!

Click here for larger version

Start Slide Show with PicLens Lite

My great grandmother was a 5’2″, 92 pound dynamo till the day she died. She had eight children and many nieces and nephews and lived to be 102. Due to the fertility of her and her sisters I have over 100 cousins in this small town of Camilla.

It is confusing for newcomers. There’s a saying down here, “Don’t say anything bad about anyone because you don’t know who they are related to.”

Family runs deep. These flowers have been transplanted several generations and now grow in my yard too. I don’t know the species but we call them “heirloom old fashioned roses” and they bloom on long spindly vine like extensions of a sort of a bush each spring. I prune them severely after they quit blooming and they spread profusely.

When I look at these, I think of my family and how what I do will be passed down long after I’m gone. Flowers, habits, traditions, kindness, love, and even my faults. I am reminded to pass down the good.

Start Slide Show with PicLens Lite

Click for larger version

Start Slide Show with PicLens Lite

Wisteria is one of the most beautiful spring vines but is so very invasive that in the throes of summer we are often sweating and swearing as we deal with its winding tendrils and running roots. This particular vine was killed last summer using several applications of round up after being cut to the root and pulling up many roots by hand. I guess I’m glad it resurrected this spring (amidst my old fashioned roses) because it was truly a beautiful display, but I dread the work that will be coming in a week or two.

Wisteria, like the azalea, was an Oriental import that took exceptionally well to our southern acidic soil. Many people do not know that the azalea and wisteria aren’t native to Georgia but were brought from the Orient in the early 1800′s as trade opened between China and England. I found a copy of a sales bulletin for an azalea in a London catalog from the 1810′s. You can learn a lot about trade and the world in the 1800′s simply by studying the azalea (and wisteria), its proliferation and uses.

Start Slide Show with PicLens Lite