My older son Tristan works on his early garden in Grays Chapel, North Carolina. It’s funny how when you look at your children sometimes, you see your parents and grand-parents.
(photographs copyright 2009 by Dan Routh)
Category: Family
Carousel
(photograph copyright 2009 by Dan Routh)
I was looking through my film archive and decided to post an image from years back that I still really like. Shot on film at a slow shutter speed with no real post-processing, the image is of my son on a carousel in Raleigh.
Easter Eggs
(photograph copyright 2009 by Dan Routh)
The Easter Bunny didn’t visit us yesterday, but the Easter Guinea did. My son Tristan was watching our guinea fowl when one of the hens ducked into a fence row. Tristan found this clutch of fresh eggs hidden in the hedge. The size of a bantum chicken egg, but with a thicker shell, they are very rich and are wonderful to cook with or eat plain.
Smokey the Cat
(photograph copyright 2009 by Dan Routh)
It’s been about a year since we lost our 15 year old cat Smokey. We’ve been lucky throughout the years to have a long line of very special long-lived pets. Smokey was no exception. She was prim and proper and totally regal in her pose. She was also one of the mouthiest cats I have ever known. In cold weather she would sit in front of the doors to the fireplace, stare at me and meow incessantly until I built a fire. Of course, then she would crawl into my lap and warm me for hours. I miss her. We are not alone, however. Currently on our farm we have 2 dogs and 6 cats to go along with a horse, 19 cows, 5 guinea fowl and 10 chickens. Each has their own special personality, but there will only be one Smokey.
Poetry by a Young Man
My younger son Devin is finishing his studies at UNC this spring and among his academic leanings is poetry. He is also of that age where his writing tends towards romance and love. He handles words the way I wish I could handle photographs. Here is one of his latest works.
Painted dreams grow painted flowers,
Endless plains need countless hours,
Distant worlds feel stardust showers,
And all I want is you.
Stroke by stroke the mind’s brush colours
Every petaled leaf of summer,
All alive but all are duller
Than days I spend with you.
Sun soaked fields that reach forever
Into brazened sky that never
Can be reached unless I feather
And learn to fly with you.
Spinning spheres in constant gloaming
Feel the cosmos ever growing
Catch the sunny solar snowing
Of stars that glow like you.
Every thought I’ve ever wondered,
Every dream I’ve reached in slumber,
Bows before the rippling thunder
That claps when I touch you.
Besides the romantic thoughts of a young man, Devin understands my feelings as well. Last night on Facebook, a friend of mine commented on a photograph of my late father. After a comment by me about how I miss my Dad, Devin wrote the following for me.
Close your eyes, and look inside
to see your heroes from the past.
Soon you’ll know those heroes go
on pearl white ships with silken masts
to seas of joy that are so vast
they hold a place for you and me,
and everyone we’d love to see,
to dance on waves eternally.
Pretty cool I thought. For more eclectic verse, visit Devin’s blog at http://dranian.blogspot.com/
(photographs copyright 2009 by Dan Routh, poetry copyright by Devin Routh)
Uncle Billie and Grave Hunting
My wife Dedra is very interested in family genealogy, so in the winter when the leaves are off the trees, we often go looking for old family cemeteries and home places. Sunday we went to the New Hope area of Randolph County with her Uncle Billie Cranford and looked at several plots. We also went by the old Hurley store (below) close to Dedra’s grandmother’s home place in the Uwharrie Mountains.
(images copyright 2009 by Dan Routh)
My Son’s Poetry Blog
If you have an interest in poetry or prose, please take a few minutes and check out my son Devin’s poetry blog. I think you will find it worth reading.
Phi Beta Kappa
It’s just a tiny little key, barely an inch long if that, but what it lacks in size, it makes up in importance for a proud dad. Yesterday my son Devin joined his brother Tristan in being inducted into the Alpha Chapter at the University of North Carolina, of Phi Beta Kappa, the oldest academic honor society in the United States. Two sons and two keys, which they both earned by their own hard work and study. Pardon me for dwelling on my kids, but I can’t help it. As parents we always want our children to do better than we do, and mine have. Congratulations Devin, I’m so very proud of you.
(images copyright 2008 by Dan Routh)
Family Paparazzi
(image copyright 2008 by Dan Routh)
I am a commercial advertising photographer, not a Paparazzi. I’ve never quite understood chasing celebrities around to get a shot. This week, I did shoot a job for a inhouse corporate magazine where I followed an employee for a day. She must have felt like I was a Paparazzi because I had my camera in her face all day. She was a good sport about the whole thing.
My family is a different matter sometimes. Growing up with a Dad as a photographer, my kids as well as my wife have always had a camera forced in their face, they are always the standin or the model when I need one. Sunday my wife and I went down to Chapel Hill (home of UNC) to see the kids, and of course I carried a camera. The image above is my Paparazzi shot of the family for the day.
Packhouse Window
I went for a walk yesterday afternoon and passed an old tobacco packhouse on our farm.
A packhouse is a structure with an attic for storing cured tobacco and an earthen basement for adjusting the humidity of the leaf, or to get the tobacco “in order” so that it can be graded and packed for market. I spent a lot of my early youth watching my grandmother and the other women in my family grade tobacco leaf by leaf. My grandmother also used the packhouse to hang her quilting frame and I can remember the ladies gathering there to work on their quilts.
Not far from the packhouse is an old curing barn, where the harvested tobacco was hung and cured, first by wood heat and later with oil or gas-fired heaters. As you can tell, neither structure is in use today, but both stand testimony to another time.
(images copyright 2008 by Dan Routh)
