Only the wind in the trees and scampering squirrels provide company for this abandoned house, lost in time in Daydreaming on the Porch

It’s probably been more than ten years now since I’ve driven to a place way out in the country to do some walking and take pictures of an abandoned house, surrounded by old oak trees and set apart in the mists of time like a long-forgotten dream of an old home place.

I don’t know anything much about the history of the house. It may have been used as a hunting lodge at one point. It’s in a large wildlife refuge. It’s also one of only two structures for miles around. I love the feeling at this place of long-ago habitation, this crumbling, yet still defiantly standing relic of the past, windows and doors open to the elements, furnishings strewn about, the whole enveloped in silence except for the occasional rustling of wind in the trees. Mostly it’s just still.

I like to get out and walk in the area around the house. Listen to birds. Hear the squirrels on the forest floor. Linger in the stillness, alternating between feelings of melancholy and wistful contemplation. I seem to be apart from time and civilization here, the house the only reminder of what once was.

I don’t go in this house. Never have. Many years ago when I first started photographing abandoned houses, I was young and foolish and wandered in to explore, not realizing that in these remote Southern outposts, I could have easily gotten shot following the trail of curiosity. It’s trespassing after all.

Now I am just an outsider looking into these places, poking my camera here and there as I did last weekend. And this house is on land open to the public, a refuge. So I was free to wander all around. Just not enter it.

The house:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/camas/sets/72157603902804695