Old Granbury Road

When I'm exploring, I honor deep-seated sense of respect for those who passed before me.  I feel a responsibility to record what once was, to tell the end of a story, even if I am its only audience.  I can only hope to capture the soul, the life force and essence, that will continue as long as the building stands.  Because, even after the people leave, the walls begin to crumble and the roof starts to cave, the memories will remain.  

There's a long stretch of "back-road" that travels through rural Johnson County, all the way into the southern edge of Fort Worth.  I would drive Old Granbury Road on my way to work everyday,  for almost ten years. 

Sometime had gone by, I'm still not exactly sure how long, before I became aware of this property.  It's one of those things that seems to have slowly crept into my conscious, until one day, I just realized it was there. 

A couple houses and a handful of farm buildings dotted the sprawling acreage of flat, wind whipped farm land.

No discernible driveway leads to or from the property.  The buildings are all set back a ways from the main road, behind a row of trees.  

In fact, it's only after the leaves fall in Autumn that any of them can really be seen.

Of course, me being me, I really, really wanted to get up close with my camera.

Funny thing, though.

Maybe it was because the property was right off he main raod, and too visible to explore without raising suspicion.  Or, maybe, it was the opposite, and the buildings sat too far back on the land for me to feel safe. 

Whichever it was, I was kinda-sorta creeped out (ok, ok, totally creeped-the-hell out!), and I decided this one wasn't to be done alone.  Lucky for me, I didn't have to fly solo... 

 Soooo.... Maybe I wasn't totally wrong in my hesitation on this one.  The barns were scattered with old clothing, mismatched tennis shoes and beat up furniture.  It struck me that squatters had been using them as shelter, and recently.  While I never actually saw another person, there was a definite sense of trespass that couldn't be ignored.

 Some of the most incredible things about exploring these abandoned properties, are the objects I find inside. 

Though mostly unappreciated or unremarkable, some items catch my eye.

Sometimes, it's the light reflecting off an antique beer bottle, or the way a vintage glass jar sits in a busted window. 

Other times, the interest runs much deeper.  It's the realization, the recognition, of the life that once took place in these empty places.

In this particular house, this tiny frame-box of a home, I could imagine the life that, at one time, might have been.

I could imagine a little old lady, someone's sweet grandmother, who spent her days near the window in her favorite chair.  An aging mother who, despite her failing health, insisted on her independence and lived alone. 

I imagined this lady, her hearing fading with age, using this TTY machine to keep in contact with the family she loved, for as long as time would allow...