In The Moody

Almost missed this one. I knew from Find A Grave that it existed but had no photographs, so I made a mental note to stop and photograph it when I passed it (other excursions, other tales).

If anyone needed elegant proof that I am a determined, if not overly bright, bunny, this would be it. 

If you look VERY closely you will see the iron fencing enclosing the cemetery. All that vegetation? It is half vines and half Briars From Hell. We all know from the stories that old Br'er was "born and bred in the briar patch." But this one damned near killed me. When briar thorns reach the inch long stage and the vines are about a quarter inch thick even a rhino would be hard pressed to shrug them off.

I swear, if you hired Hollywood Effects Artists and Set Decorators you would be hard pressed to come up with anything as eerie and creepy as this spot. The only things missing are darkness and a fog machine.

Naturally in my abundant wisdom I had left all the tools behind. I did not expect to be pushing into any brush so saw no need to bring them on this excursion.

Dumbass, I. I could have used napalm on this stuff! Fortunately I did wear jeans, boots, and longer sleeves.. Between the vines grabbing my feet and the briars stretched taught across every possible path, it took me almost half and hour to merely reach the gate. Getting the photographs would prove to be an even greater challenge. Thankfully there were only eleven graves and several shared markers. That took another half hour to complete as I picked my painful way over, under, around, and through the barriers in order to get the photos.

Even then there were two that I could not actually reach due to a massive tree having collapsed on that area. Sadly there was considerable damage to the fencing. But miraculously neither stone was damaged. Though I would hazard a guess that unless some kind of heavy equipment is utilized, any efforts to remove it will result in it falling and crushing the markers. And leaving it untouched will probably have the same end result as the tree rots and give way.

In the end I did get all the photos. To be honest though, one of them is lousy. I could only determine whose it was based on the first name ending with an 's' and having already accounted for all the other graves. Ya gotta work with what you have.

Sad to see any cemetery so abandoned and derelict. I can only speculate that the family sold out and moved, or died off. That is still no excuse for the property owner not doing basic cleaning and maintenance.