Thanks, Jeannine! You know all about the trespassing . . .
here’s the end result!

Dear Steve: I am stirred by your comment. Today I’m working on a post about memory–mine is failing. It’s so important to me to capture, any way I can, the past before it’s gone.

No, Steve, we will not be forgotten. You won’t let us be forgotten because you tell the stories. I won’t let us be forgotten because I share those stories and ones that aren’t mine. I will continue to take those photos because I see the march of development everywhere in our native state.

To be honest, there are days when I wonder why I try to remember or risk breaking an ankle to take a risky photo or wonder why I care so much about the marginalized people who we used to know, who are still there, and, heaven forbid, who we might become ourselves.

Thanks for writing. It helps more than you know.

Your pictures will live and last at the library, recording the past of the Virginia where generations of our families
lived and left a legacy, as did so many people trying to live as best they could under all conditions.
Houses do have stories to be told and just felt.

At the golden hour as the long yellow rays of sun filter through my window, I wish to thank you for these visions you have provided me and others as we seek sense and order in our lives.

I remember a note I wrote after a day alone in rural Virginia. “Please don’t let us be forgotten” and I haven’t
and through you words and pictures they won’t be.

When your home is taken away from you, in my case not once but twice, and you visit houses every single night in your dreams, you realize that home forms us. We all need some place to be from, and later, to create a place.

When I first walked into your house, I wanted to sit right down at your big work table and color. Coloring was always comforting to me, and to this day I have that visceral reaction when I see crayons. This is the highest compliment I can give your house, truly a home to everyone.

Hi Laurie: The house with the piano on the porch is near Hollins property–fallen down now. My photos of that place are terrible (it was almost pitch dark in there), but I plan to put them on the website. Those pictures got me started . . . thanks for dropping in!

Sheila, I didn’t think anybody loves buzzards as much as I do, but you are my buzzard compatriot! I never thought of counting them. I’m distracted enough by determining if they are black or turkey (length of tail, tilted wings, lots of flapping or no flap). If only I could photograph buzzards, I’d be so happy. But they won’t sit still and I don’t have a long-distance lens.

Probably the raptor was a red-tailed hawk, but it’s hard to tell with a quick glance considering all the variations–juvenile, male/female, red-shouldered juvenile, etc.