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2023-03-29 06:30:52
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 RobertB
    
Location: Skeeterville, TX
Gender: Male
Maybe I shouldn't be using my real name...
 |  |  | West Texas Home on the Range
< on 11/8/2007 6:35 PM >
|  | | | The Panhandle is beautiful, but it's an unforgiving landscape. It's dotted with the remains of homes where people made a living on the semi-arid land, but eventually left. It's hard to tell when a house was abandoned, because the dry air preserves it, and the lack of development lets it remain in statis.
On the way back from a Panhandle town we'll call Yellowville, my kids and I found this little place we call the Bird House. The whole time we were exploring, swallows (?) swooped in and out, clearly surprised to have their daily routine disrupted by us humans. Note: these pictures are from this past summer, and were taken with a cell phone camera. They came out better than I would have expected.
The front of the Bird House. You can't see the old electric wires strung across the front; when we pulled up, they were covered with swallows.
The view from the "driveway". We were right by a major 4-lane highway, but were shielded from prying eyes by a combination of tall weeds and apathy.
We went through a gate (making sure to close it back!) and around to the side of the house. I don't know if it's a Texas thing, but visitors to country houses almost never come in the front door. It's always the side or the back.
Looking out the side door at the wide open spaces. Note the intact light bulb above the door. I don't recall seeing a single broken bulb in the whole house.
Illumination provided through much of the house through "skylights" like these.
The kitchen stove. Dinner will be ready in about five minutes, so you kids better wash up!
The lunch menu today is Sole Food.
Old Mother Hubbard's fridge.
Maybe a little overdramatic, definitely a little overexposed.
The reality is more mundane. Half-open drawers, all filled with debris assembled by the home's ground-level residents -- the rats. All covered with bird poo -- more on that later.
Wood chips and some sort of stuffing. Where would the stuffing have come from?
Source of stuffing revealed. Over the years, the rats have carried everything but the metal springs off to make their own beds.
It took a while for the impact to sink in when we saw this. Under the bed, you can see a trail. Everything else is completely covered in a thick layer of dried rat poo. Thanks to the dry conditions, it didn't stink... but you get a better idea of how that whole hantavirus thing might work.
Outside the bedroom is a small porch, falling in like much of the rest of the roof. You can see the highway, and the car nicely tucked away in the scrub.
Another perfectly intact light bulb, ready for duty.
Through a small closet, you can see the light pouring in. It looked like this was where you got access to the attic, back when such access wasn't so universal. Also, note the wall-mounted gas heater.
A fallen door, and an opportunity to join it in an uncomfortable position. The floor wasn't in as bad a shape as the ceiling, but there were several gaps and a few soft spots. We tread carefully. Note the rodent highways cutting through the layer of plaster and poo.
Not sure if this hide-a-bed sofa was real leather, or if it's from the hide of the elusive Nauga. The stuffing, of course, is neatly tucked away in the nearby drawers.
In the other bedroom, though, there was a mattress with much of its stuffing still remaining. Not sure what would have happened if we'd poked it... better that we didn't think of it at the time.
I wish I had more pictures of these structures that were being built all through the house. They're stalagmites of bird poo! I suppose an ornithologist could calculate how long the house has been abandoned by measuring the height and cross-referencing with the average swallow family's annual "gross domestic product".
J'ai toujours fait une prière à Dieu, qui est fort courte.
La voici: "Mon Dieu, rendez nos ennemis bien ridicules!"
Dieu m'a exaucé. |
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Bustedknuckle
  
Location: The Lone Star State
Gender: Male
"I'd rather laugh with the sinners than cry with the saints"
| | | Re: West Texas Home on the Range
<Reply # 1 on 11/8/2007 6:53 PM >
| | | | Pretty good pics for a camera phone. That is the benefit of living in the country....lots of abandoned stuff. Love that stove!
Nice pics Rob, thanks for sharing them!
"It's not a fanny pack, it's an exploring pouch!"
-"Yes it is, it has fanny written all over it" |
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Happiedaze
Location: Galveston Area, TX
Gender: Female
| |  | | Re: West Texas Home on the Range
<Reply # 2 on 11/9/2007 5:23 PM >
| | | | Wow... those are good for being a camera phone. That house looks really awesome. Way cool stove and fridge. Thanks for sharing 
'Our plans are all laid out,
take all these unmarked roads,
we blaze the trails to places no one goes, yeah!' -Rise Against |
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RobertB
Location: Skeeterville, TX
Gender: Male
Maybe I shouldn't be using my real name...
| | | Re: West Texas Home on the Range
<Reply # 3 on 11/9/2007 5:42 PM >
| | | | I just found a few more pix that had ended up in another directory -- I think they're the ones my daughter took with her phone and sent to mine later.
A better view of the hazards underfoot.
Another view of the kitchen. I forgot that there was a place to sit. Kinda.
The tub, where you would tend to NOT get clean. Note the stalagmites growing in the corners. Remember, a stalactite holds tite to the ceiling, and a stalagmite one day mite reach the ceiling.
And the most glaring omission from the previous set: the obligatory toilet. Since the lid is down, I'm guessing that the lady of the house was the last to leave. Although I've taught my son to put the seat down -- having two older sisters helps develop that habit as well.
J'ai toujours fait une prière à Dieu, qui est fort courte.
La voici: "Mon Dieu, rendez nos ennemis bien ridicules!"
Dieu m'a exaucé. |
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Happiedaze
Location: Galveston Area, TX
Gender: Female
| | | | Re: West Texas Home on the Range
<Reply # 4 on 11/9/2007 6:30 PM >
| | | | Posted by RobertB
I just found a few more pix that had ended up in another directory -- I think they're the ones my daughter took with her phone and sent to mine later.
A better view of the hazards underfoot.
Another view of the kitchen. I forgot that there was a place to sit. Kinda.
The tub, where you would tend to NOT get clean. Note the stalagmites growing in the corners. Remember, a stalactite holds tite to the ceiling, and a stalagmite one day mite reach the ceiling.
And the most glaring omission from the previous set: the obligatory toilet. Since the lid is down, I'm guessing that the lady of the house was the last to leave. Although I've taught my son to put the seat down -- having two older sisters helps develop that habit as well.
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Wow.. that has got to be the nastiest tub I have ever seen in an abandonment.
'Our plans are all laid out,
take all these unmarked roads,
we blaze the trails to places no one goes, yeah!' -Rise Against |
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Wiccan
 
Location: Hamilton Ontario
Gender: Female
| | Re: West Texas Home on the Range
<Reply # 5 on 11/9/2007 6:36 PM >
| | | | Thanks for the look,though I'm really glad I wasn't there myself!
*shudders at the thought of rats*
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0U812
Location: Lubbock, TX
Gender: Female
Texploration
| | Re: West Texas Home on the Range
<Reply # 6 on 11/9/2007 9:34 PM >
| | | | Great pictures. Yep, good thing about living in good ol west Texas, abandoned farmhouses aplenty.
I figured out what's wrong with life:
It's other people. |
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White Winged Dove
Location: Too far away from the beach
Gender: Female
| | Re: West Texas Home on the Range
<Reply # 7 on 11/13/2007 6:45 AM >
| | | | Love the kitchen sink! Reminds me of the one my grandma had when I was a wee child, before she moved into a modern house. That bathtub looks like a serial killer dissected his victims there.
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musket boy
Location: Maui
Gender: Male
It smells like your grandpa and your feet stick to the floor
| |  | | Re: West Texas Home on the Range
<Reply # 8 on 11/13/2007 11:24 AM >
| | | | nice pics
uering |
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