Alabama Front Porches: The official website for Alabama's Black Belt

I can honestly say I have lived to see shocking things on the streets. Let me alter that to say they would be very shocking on the streets of rural Southwest Alabama. In New Orleans at Mardi Gras, they had an air of normality. That is how strange New Orleans is to the rest of the South.

A glance at the calendar, our backyard bird feeders and the forest tells us that we still have a few weeks to go before the end of winter. Although we’ve had red and dark green of Teaberries to brighten the forest floor and occasional bursts of colorful fungi after a frontal passage, winter in Alabama’s hardwood forests is still largely a study in browns and grays.

We in rural Southwest Alabama live close enough to the coast that we have always paid attention to Mardi Gras. When we were in high school, the local band always marched in Mobile parades until the year that some of our girls threw water balloons out of a hotel window and ruined some society matron’s mink coat.

I know spring is here when I see the daffodils, the bridal wreath, the flowering quince and the camellias all abloom. We’ve had such an unseasonably cold winter that our earliest spring blooms are more appreciated than usual. My wonderful camellias that usually grace the garden from November to April have just started blooming. My white camellia is at least 20 feet tall.

Living in an old house is both a delight and a responsibility. Like old people, old houses require more maintenance to keep them looking good. My old house was built in 1897, The man who built it owned a sawmill. He said he never wanted his house to pop and creak. Mr. Alex Gunn was a 90 something year old neighbor of mine said that there is enough lumber in the foundation of my house to build two houses, This fact turned out to be true.