Stories from the Farm - The Jacksons' Barn

View from the parlor window when we first moved in (2005)

I've entered 2016 with a series of three posts relating to the joys and pains of prairie winters and living in old farmhouses. To go along with the photography theme of this blog, I included several photos, mostly winter scenes of seasonal birds and lovely sunrises and sunsets. Now before I "lay down my pen," I want to tie off a common thread that runs through these previous posts. In a couple of them I keep mentioning the view of our neighbors' pole barn across the field and against the horizon. Truth is, I have particularly enjoyed this scene ever since we moved here ten years ago. It is nicely framed by our parlor window and by the window over my kitchen sink. It changes with the seasons and looks spectacular at sunrise. I also enjoy it whenever I'm out in the yard.

So to wrap up this January 2016 series, following are glimpses of the Jacksons' barn in different seasons:

Over the rainbow (March 2011)

Spring daffodils (March 2012)

Beyond the lilacs (April 2012)

Cloud drama at sunset (May 2012)

Nimbus clouds (June 2010)

Part of the pleasure of seeing the Jackson's barn is that it brings to mind our neighbors of many years, Ray and Sharon Jackson. Here's a closer view of the barn at Ray and Sharon's 85th and 80th backyard birthday celebration (2013).

In an interesting side note, our neighbor Ray Jackson (and his brother Dale who lives further down the road on 700 S) grew up in the farmhouse where Ben and I now live - back in the 1930's and '40s when it was a working farm, complete with acreage! Oh, the stories they can tell - like waking up in the morning in the upstairs bedroom with snow on their blankets and how the old farmhouse used to look and where the old barn stood. Ray's wife Sharon can chime right in with tales of the days she and Ray were courting and she would visit this house. Ray and Sharon are engaging story-tellers! (And of course a complete history of our old farmhouse would also need to include our good neighbors the Ricks's who also grew up on and farmed this property after the Jacksons.)

In closing I thought it would be fun to collage some of the photos I've included in this January series of posts so that my readers can compare and contrast the view of the Jackson's barn through the different seasons. :)

Through the seasons and through the years (2006 - 2012)  - collage done with the Atlantas App for Windows 8 and Windows 10

And now that I'm hopefully done with this series, it's time to look toward spring. It may still be January, but the days are definitely getting longer!

JuneBug

Stories from the Farm - Over My Kitchen Sink

Last spring I posted an article On Armchair Photography and Other Vantage Points. At that time the magnolia tree in the back yard was still blooming and I could admire it from a rocking chair that sits by a window in the old summer kitchen (which has long served as anything but that, including a work-room, sun-room, guest room, office, and on occasion a one-room apartment).

A cleome seems to peek in at my kitchen sink clutter (2013)

A hummingbird enjoys a drink from the feeder right outside the window (2006)

View of Jacksons' barn after harvest 2005 (one of my first photos of this vista)

Today I want to talk about a different vantage point, the view from over my kitchen sink (same room designation, different room). Whereas the summer kitchen looks out from the back of the house in three directions (southeast, west, and north), my kitchen sink window looks out toward the front of the house (due east). This unassuming little window has surprised me with  many beautiful views through the seasons. A flower bed with two magnolia bushes wraps around this corner of the kitchen. Beyond it the front yard stretches out to the drive way which curves gracefully in from the road welcoming any visitors. Across the road which is bordered by a field the Jackson's red barn stands out against a wide prairie sky in the distance. So in early spring I enjoy the delicate, glowing magnolia blooms and the colorful spring bulbs in the flower bed; in the summer it's the cleomes and the susans that reach clear up to the window sill, the Queen Anne's lace growing across the road, and the hummingbirds that frequent the feeders; and in the fall it's the view of the Jackson's barn after the corn has been harvested.

A pair of Christmas Cardinals adorn my snow-covered magnolia bush (2007).

But in the winter, it's the beautiful sunrises and the winter birds.

The people who owned this old farmhouse for many years must have loved birds. For many years when Ben and I rode our bikes past this place, there was a purple martin house on a tall pole in the front yard. When we purchased the property in 2005 the purple martin house was gone but we inherited several little bird houses hanging in trees. The flower beds and bushes around the old house with its modern picture windows seemed designed to draw in the birds for all to see. For instance the winter birds shelter themselves from the wind and sun themselves on the bare magnolia-bush branches just outside the kitchen sink window. For that reason I have gotten into the habit of taking out the screen during the cold weather months for a better view - and for the occasional photo opportunity.

So let me introduce you to some more of our fine feathered friends:

Stories from the Farm - the Different Faces of Winter

New year's greetings to one and all, and I hope everyone is getting used to writing 2016 instead of 2015 on all their documents! Speaking of transitions, when you live in a four-season climate like Ben and I do, there seems to be such a marked contrast between life in December and life in January. It's not just about the end of the holidays or about a new start although those transitions play in to the equation; it's about how we shift so abruptly from the warmth and gentleness of December's festive preparations and celebrations into basic survival mode of winter in January. I've experienced this transition all my adult life (and even written a poem or two about it). I've lived in this little section of southern Tippecanoe County for thirty-five years, twenty-five of them in a modest ranch-style home on one corner, and the past ten in a old yellow farm house on the next corner. I like to tell people we moved a mile down the road and a hundred years back in time. :) In all these years of country living, the shift in focus as we move past the holidays has always seemed abrupt - like jumping into a tub of ice-water!

Put Christmas away slowly
December dark and deep with verdant hues of gold and ruby, Laughter mingles with the scents of baked ham or turkey in warm houses where candles burn in windows, and carols drift over snow-covered, glowing branches.
The new year stretches out before us in stark, dark, frozen silence.
It hints at promise, like the half spent candle floats and flickers faintly in a clear glass bowl of water.
Once again we deal with the basic survival set, do battle with the elements.
Yes, put Christmas away slowly.
As the days grow longer, gently fold the last Christmas card away with its newsletter into a torn envelope, and lay it on the heap of Christmases past.

Winter winds bring us winter bouquets

More  of Junebug's writing at www.secondlooks.biz/writingsite/

This year is no different. December was extremely damp and wet. Sunless, in fact. No snow, however. But 9 days into January (and right on schedule) the winter winds picked up and the January temps dipped down to zero. This is when I brace for the usual onslaught of "winter woes." This year with all the rain in December, our outdoor faucet-handles locked up, our door-locks wouldn't turn, and the garage doors refused to stay shut. As a rule, the heating bill triples in January and the plumbing in this old house gets kinda slow and funky because the ground is either too frozen or too wet. In fact last winter some of the old galvanized plumbing between our outdoor pump and our indoor pressure tank which supplies the house with water rusted out. The cellar started to flood and we had to shut off the cold water to the side of the house which contains our laundry room and spare bathroom. So for about a month I was filling the washing machine with cold water from the kitchen sink until the ground could dry up enough for the excavators to dig up and replace the pipes. =:o Ah, the joys of living in an old farmhouse.

2016 found us emerging from a lovely, albeit somewhat hectic, holiday season and facing a hernia repair surgery for Ben the first week of January. All farm boys prefer to have their surgeries in the winter months with plenty of time to recoup for spring planting. It is now January 14th and Ben's recovery is going as well as can be expected for having a hole in his abdomen patched (ouch). But then one of our tires sprang a slow leak that won't seem to fix; and it snowed and of course Ben is not allowed on the tractor.

Stories from the Farm - Morning Mist, Dew Drops, and Some Very Artistic Spiders

Every once in a while Mother Nature sends us a beautiful misty morning when the clouds appear to rise up from the ground and end just above the tree-tops. Gaggles of geese fly low, cloaked in mist, and the shrouded sun rises on a hazy horizon. On these mornings, literally everything is drenched in dew, beads lining each blade of grass; each flower petal, stamen and pistil; and each little insect leg and antenna.

These mornings don't seem to come often.* This year there were two of them.

One such morning came for me in the early spring. The winter had been hard and very cold, but on the morning of April 17th, the world was newly green and blooming in the sun-kissed mist. I grabbed my camera to look for beaded spider webs and other wonders and was rewarded with the following pictures:

Magnolias in the mist

Morning dew and mist

Pasture through the mist

Reflecting dew drops on lily leaves and spider web

Another such morning came just this past September 12th. As the winter of 2015 had been unusually cold, so had the summer of 2015 been unusually wet. When the calendar reached August, I began to notice a predominance of spiderwebs in the yard. Actually I couldn't help but notice because I was always walking into them and brushing them out of my face and hair. =:o They would stretch from the tree branches all the way down to the ground and from the clothesline clear over to the flower beds that hug the summer kitchen. They adorned all the shrubs and bushes. On a sunny day I couldn't walk outside without unintentionally walking through a spider web! So when I awoke on this misty September morning, I grabbed my camera and went outside hoping to find spiderwebs bejeweled in dew. I was not disappointed. Our yard was literally decked out in spiderwebs that morning, especially along the shrubbery and the chicken run. I decided we'd been blessed with some very artistic spiders! I will end this post with a few samples from this once-in-a-lifetime misty-morning exhibit:

Ornate web

Stories from the Farm - Little Visitors

It's a cool morning three days past mid-August. There is no need to run fans, night or day, and the windows remain wide open even though an intermittently cloudy sky has been spitting rain. Through the windows floats a cool breeze and the almost constant crescendo and diminuendo of the cicadas' chorus, drowning out other songs of summer. The school buses have started running their routes again. In stores and nurseries all over town, the traditional stock of summer plants has disappeared almost overnight, replaced by Mums and pumpkins. Even though the bean and gold-tipped corn fields are still green and yards are awash in blooms, there's a feeling of fall in the air, signaled perhaps by the scent of summer growth maturing and seeding out, the aging light of a sun sitting lower in the sky, and by a slight change of pace as the traffic-flow starts to increase. The days are getting noticeably shorter.

Hello, World. Perchance send a gnat or a mosquito my way?

Welcome to  my world!

Signs of encroaching fall aside, however, it is still mid-August. The tomatoes are red-ripe on the vine and the vegetables are fresh from the garden. There is still plenty of summer left to enjoy!  

One morning last week, a slight movement on a leaf of one of my cleomes drew my eye to this little baby tree frog outside my kitchen window. By the time I got outside with my camera and found him again, he was clinging to the cleome's seed pods - he's only about an inch long with his little spindly legs and suction-cup toes tucked around him - so tiny! Made me think of all the little tadpoles that occupied our flooded ditch this wet, wet summer and wonder if he had been one of them.

Tussock Moth Caterpillar

And WOO HOO! I finally have Monarch caterpillars on my Milkweed plants! The Milkweed plants I came by a few years ago at the Master Gardeners' Garden Expo. I always look forward to this annual spring event at the fairgrounds because the Master Gardeners dig and sell plants from their own yards and gardens. It's a great way to get inexpensive starts of plants that are resilient in this area of the country. Various vendors also participate and the Master Gardeners offer educational lectures as well. This particular year, I stopped at the booth of a lady who was advocating to save the Monarch butterfly.  I made a donation and she sold me a Milkweed plant. Milkweed plants have been happily thriving in my garden ever since. I had never really noticed any Monarch larvae on them, however. (Probably because I didn't know what Monarch larvae looked like, lol.) Then this summer I spotted five or six of the creatures shown above right crawling around on my Milkweed Plants. I was so excited! I assumed they were Monarch larvae. False alarm. They are actually Tussock moth larvae.

Monarch Caterpillar chewing away on a Milkweed leaf

So I was somewhat disappointed - and humbled because I had uploaded a photo on Facebook and told all my friends it was of a Monarch caterpillar. But a few days later, along comes the real deal (as show to the left)! I have spotted three of these on my Milkweed plants so far.

So, enjoy the rest of your summer, and keep your fingers crossed along with me or send up a prayer that my little visitors survive to have long, happy, and productive lives!

JuneBug

Mysterious pupa on my Milkweed

Another Monarch caterpillar grazes behind a pupa

Stories from the Farm - Parting is Such Sweet Sorrow

I wrote this post almost a couple of weeks ago at the end of July, so if the seasonal information seems dated, that's why. Today is a misty, cool August morning; the sun is not yet up and the ground is drenched with dew as are the spiderwebs. I hear the coo of the mourning dove at dawn. Then a honking sound alerts and I look up to see a flock of low-flying geese cloaked in mist making their way over our barn and I wish I'd had my camera at the ready.

Spiderweb in the morning mist

I'm always a little sad to see my ditch lilies go away at the end of July or early August. Actually it's kind of like that with every seasonal flower, starting with the forsythia, pussy willow, crocuses, daffodils, and hyacinths of early spring, then progressing to the tulips, lilacs and all the blooming trees and bushes of May, and as we approach Memorial Day, of course the peonies. Then there are the roses and hollyhocks of June. Watching these favorites fade away gives me a feeling a wistfulness mixed with hope - like how it must feel standing on a shore watching a ship-load of your friends sail away on a year-long voyage and wondering if you'll live to see them all again.

But it's especially like that with the ditch lilies - I suppose because they accompany me most of the summer not only in my flower beds but in my house.

Stories from the Farm - Riding Katie

Three little friends on their first mule ride

In the country the pace of summer usually picks up in July, right after Independence Day celebrations. The county fair is two weeks away and there are projects and entries to ready for the Home Show and 4H exhibits. There's pre-registration. Then there's getting these items to the Fair. And then there's the week of the fair, By then the weather usually turns blistering hot and the vegetable garden starts producing. There are summer family reunions to attend, the usual home chores to complete, the yard to mow, and the garden and flowers to water (but not this year). People start to meet themselves coming and going. 

Ben and I really enjoyed the week of the fair this summer. Ben participated in three tractor parades and one night I brought my ninety-year-old mother, so we were there almost everyday for one reason or another. We usually ate dinner at the pork and cattlemen's tent and visited with friends and neighbors we hadn't seen in a while. Ben also loves the stand that sells roast'n ears (corn on the cob). The Extension Homemakers run a Country Kitchen that is air-conditioned. They serve breakfast and family style meals in the evenings - we usually eat there at least once with our friend Lowell Oesterling. And then there's the carnival. We get ice cream cones and lemon and orange shake-ups from the carnival vendors - and ever since I discovered funnel cakes at the State Fair a few years ago,  I am always sorely tempted to buy one. YUM!

Ben pulling the surrey in Monday's Antique Tractor Parade

Ben defied the unusally rainy weather and drove his Ford and Allis-Chalmers tractors in for the Antique Tractor Exhibit the Friday before the fair, the Allis in the morning and the Ford after lunch. He pulled a little surrey with a fringe on top behind the Ford for the grand-kids to ride behind the tractor in the parades. I drove behind him on that second trip to town. Our half of the sky was sunny most of the way but all the while a vast black sky loomed before us. I could tell by the water tower that it had swallowed the fairgrounds. The rain cut loose a few blocks before we reached Teal Road. Ben pulled over and made a dash for the car but still got absolutely soaked. Good thing I thought to bring along a change of clothes, just in case! 

Dairy Tent

The grand-kids worked in the dairy booth and showed dairy calves this year as well as participating in the rabbit and chicken exhibit. The rabbits and poultry are usually housed in the same building at the fairgrounds - one of my favorite exhibits, but this year sadly 4H participants couldn't bring their chickens, ducks, and geese in because of the avian flu. Instead the cages had photos in them - and I think the actual  judging took place at people's homes and farms. We missed seeing all the beautiful and sometimes exotic poultry.

Double-page Scrapbooking Layout for the Fair

For my part, I usually bring entries for the Home Show's photography and scrapbooking exhibits. Every year I say it's going to be my last time, but every year I seem to end up with a few photos earmarked for the fair.

But today's farm story, while it occurred during fair week, actually took place at our farm - as a sort of respite from all the commotion and activities of a rather muddy fair. (Coming home to our old farmhouse in the country always seems so peaceful after being at the fair.) Tuesday of fair week, some former neighbors called and asked if they could bring their new neighbors out to see Kate and Annie, Ben's draft mules.

Stories from the Farm - Saga of the Sunflower Seeds

This little farm story starts with a Christmas gift a few years ago:

One Christmas I got a cute sunflower-seed bird-feeder in the shape of a snowman from my daughter. I hung it on a tree by the driveway to feed the winter birds.

That next summer, up pops a magnificent volunteer sunflower in my horse-hitch flower bed, close to where the bird feeder hung

One day after the sunflower matured and went to seed (sometime in July),  I noticed a little goldfinch absorbed in eating the sunflower's seeds. I was able to get close enough to take this photo. 

A few weeks later, the seeds were all gone!

So fast forward to this summer of 2015:

Stories from the Farm - Operation Tadpole Rescue!

A portion of our yard between the road and our peony bed has been under water for at least two months because of the heavy rains in the mid-west this year (20 to 28 inches in a two-month period, according to different sources). Part of this area of the yard is actually intended to be a drainage ditch, but the rain water backed up over our driveway and into our row of peonies and stayed there, so a portion of our row of peonies as well as the surrounding lawn has gone aquatic. Ben thinks the pipe under the road is clogged, so yesterday, he got out the old sump pump, some blue discharge hosing, and a very long extension cord and proceeded to pump the water to another area of our yard where it could drain. When he was through, he commented that he had seen lots of tadpoles in the ditch.

Stories from the Farm - A Very Rainy Summer!

In 2005 Ben and I packed up and moved to our present location just one (country-size) block down the road and a 100 years back in time. This was because we purchased the old yellow 1900's farmhouse with the two tall pine trees at the next intersection - after having lived in a modest 1950's ranch-style home since the early '80's. My husband being a country boy, both properties had some acreage - the one where we live now having 2.77 acres; so in 2009, just a few years after heart-valve replacement surgery, Ben bought a team of draft mules, Kate and Annie. That same summer we added chickens. And of course, the dog and cats go without saying, as most people who live in the country know (country folk don't have to buy their pets - their pets just show up on the door step). So we feel like we live on a little hobby farm, but I never thought to tell some of those country-living stories until I came across an interesting and attractive blog Fresh Eggs Daily.  Lisa, the author of the blog, talks about raising chickens and ducks and using herbs in the nesting areas. She also sends out a weekly email entitled "The Week in Farm Photos."

So I thought, "Hey, there's an idea! Why not add yet another topic to this already over-crowded blog of mine and tell some of our own hobby-farm stories? LOL!

My readers in the Midwest will know how strange this summer has been. Almost like clockwork, everything seemed to go haywire after I turned 65 this spring. I strained my knee doing yard work and experienced complications going off some maintenance meds (luckily at age 65 I also became eligible for Medicare and can now afford medical services!) and the weirdness just went on from there. We have received anywhere from 18 to 28 inches of rain in May, June, and July, according to various sources. =:o This alone did a pretty effective job in keeping me off my leg and out of the yard not to mention keeping the farmers out of the fields to do their spraying and what-have-you. The rivers and creeks have overflowed their banks and remain unusually high for this time of year. And the vegetable gardens have been particularly hard hit by all the rain and lack of sunshine. Personally, I think this all started back in the winter of 2014. The infamous polar vortex of 2014 never quite went away, and as happened last year, summer and winter fought it out til the bitter end to see which would prevail - resulting in two cooler summers (I wore my flannels to bed in July both years) - as well as a very wet one this year with a bumper crop of mosquitoes and flies!

July started off, of course, with the 4th, which seemed unusally quiet this year. Practically right on its heels - or so it seemed, anyway - came the county fair with the Home Show and the Antique Tractor Show and the grand kids showing in 4-H. After that came the Alward-Davis Reunion. Now that's all past and we can focus on the rest of the summer - which seems strangely empty without fruits and vegetables to pick and cook and put up. Some of my flowers have been pretty happy with all the rain, especially the lilies. It's been a great year for transplanting and for planting new flowers - clear up til August! Everything I've stuck in the ground this summer has been generously watered-in by Mother Nature. However, I have never seen such a poor yield from the vegetable garden as we've had this year - and many of our neighbors tell the same story. Fruit and vegetables are sparse and small - our cabbages were about the size of small grapefruits. Our squash, zucchini, and cucumber vines all bear beautiful blossoms, but nary a fruit. Our tomatoes are small and not too abundant - but they do taste great! Even the apples are small - little bite-sized treats for Kate and Annie. We're thankful for the rare neighbors whose gardens somehow managed to prosper in spite of the rain and who took pity on our scraggly little garden and brought us green beans, cucumbers, and corn!

The crops are looking really good in the surrounding fields, however (except for the low spots). As a friend pointed out on Facebook recently, the corn truly is "as high as an elephant's eye!" I worried that the farmers would never be able to get into the fields and get the hay baled - and in that case how would we feed Kate and Annie this winter? But today Ben brought home six large bales and our supplier (a neighboring farmer) anticipates another cutting in September or October. The last few days of the fair and since have been absolutely gorgeous so maybe summer and sunshine have finally won out. Almost. I do like these temperate sunny days in the seventies and low eighties and the cooler nights - many of  which we haven't had to even run a fan, let alone the air conditioner!

Anyway, this post is my way of introducing the topic - so stay tuned for the occasional Story from the Farm!

JuneBug

On Armchair Photography and Other Vantage Points

I belong to a community of photographers at a site called YouPIC. Photographers on YouPIC take marvelous photos from all over the world. They rise early, they take their camera (and sometimes other gear) in hand, and they venture forth into the world to find that shot. They find wonderful vantage points and take photos of unbelievably beautiful places. And people. And animals. But I am a retired lady who lives in southern Tippecanoe County near Lafayette, Indiana. Let's face it - I'm more of a point-and-shoot photographer. I take pictures of everyday beauty as I go about my everyday life.

Thinking into this further, I realize that much that catches my eye is from a vantage point that is unattainable to the camera, for instance the driver's seat of a car speeding down the highway. Or at home from behind my screened, locked-against-the-wind (as much as against any intruders), plastic-wrapped window. Somehow when I pull the car over or step out of the house to get the shot, the image is different - because the vantage point has changed.

One evening a couple of weeks ago before sunset - the golden hour - I was quite happily resting in my favorite spot, my old rocker by a tall narrow window in the summer kitchen. I looked out the window at the view and saw my beautiful magnolia tree in bloom, with some of the petals starting to drop. The day had been cloudy but had cleared around sunset and the light was beautiful on the tree and that section of my yard. I spent a half hour or so quite contentedly taking photos of that scene. I opened the window and threw up the screen - the breeze was pleasant, really the first mild spring temperatures we'd had this year. After a while my kitties wandered into the yard and sat on a tree stump and in the grass to enjoy the peacefulness and serenity. So then the subject of my shutter-bugging changed. Afterwards it occurred to me that the reason I had not seen this view before was that we had sadly lost  a big old tree last summer in that section of the yard (ergo, the stump). It had been blocking the view. So these are probably the best shots I've ever gotten of the magnolia tree in the ten years I've been trying from various other vantage points outside!

Armchair Magnolia	Armchair Magnolia
Yard at Sunset from Back Window	Yard at Sunset from Back Window

I think I need to invent a new genre called Armchair Photography - vantage points for the rest of us! :)

Here's a photo I had during another armchair session just this evening during a beautiful golden hour!

And yet another later in the season during the early morning!

Happy shutter-bugging!

The Armchair Photographer (JuneBug)

Stories from the Farm - Joys of Gardening

I've been out east for six of the past ten months, due to family illness. You can imagine what shape my flower beds are in!

Stories from the Farm - The Adventures of Kate and Annie among the English

Or an impromptu tour of our neighborhood through the eyes of Kate and Annie ...

Monday evening around 7 pm, Benny was finishing up a fence expansion for the mules, and I, accompanied by my cat, had just plunked down on the white adirondack chair on our infrequently sunny back porch of late. With a glass of blackberry wine in one hand and my laptop in the other, I was ready to relax after a rugged day of landscaping, cleaning the carpets, and preparing for a flight to Dulles the next morning for my brother's surgery. I had barely taken the first sip from the glass when our neighbors Mike and Jacci pulled into our driveway. They climbed out of their Suburban to inspect the latest additions to our family, Kate and Annie - a team of Belgian mules who used to work for the Amish.