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

Prairie Light

Here comes the sun  (encroaching sunrise, November 2015).

Dear Readers,

Isn't it surprising how the plainest of statements and the briefest of moments can make a lasting impression on our lives? The longer we live, the more meaning some memories take on, becoming the permanent mile-markers or snap-shots in time that continue to shed light on our journey. Truth is, any seemingly inconsequential encounter can inadvertently plant a seed, open our minds to new possibilities, introduce us to something new (usually something that's right under our noses), enhance our powers of observation, or make us more aware of what's around us ... what's in us ... and what's been given to us. For instance, sometime last year I read advice from a photographer who wrote that instead of focusing on objects, we should instead focus on taking pictures of the light, e.g. choosing the camera settings that will best capture the light in the frame rather than the objects.

The lighting effect in this photo looking out from the front stoop of our old farmhouse is due to the time of day (sunrise) and atmospheric conditions of frozen fog or hoar-frost (note how it  covers the tree branches, February 2010).

That comment stuck with me (and if I ever find that link again, I'll share it). I guess one way I come close to doing that is when I take pictures of subjects that are more ethereal to begin with such as clouds, sky, and mist. Such subjects are (usually) far away and less defined; since they are not "solid," they can be challenging for automatic cameras (and everyday photographers, like me) to meter and focus on correctly to bring out their magic. This is especially true in low-light conditions which are when these subjects tend to be at their most dramatic, e.g. dawn and dusk (or as photographers tend to say, the golden hour and the blue hour).

November sunset behind our garage (2015)

In our little corner of the prairie, we get some absolutely glorious sunrises and sunsets. These are especially evident during the late fall and winter months, from November through March. It's taken me a while to realize why that is. During the long days the sun's daily trajectory moves way north on our horizon, starting behind our neighbors' grove of trees in the east and ending behind our outbuildings in the west. While billowing summer skies make spectacular subjects, sunrises and sunsets tend to be problematic because there is no unobstructed view of those points on the horizon. Any pictures of summer sunrises or sunsets tend to be "flanked" by buildings, hidden by trees, and obstructed by telephone poles and cell towers. That's not to say you can't sometimes get a good shot especially if the trees act as a light filter or the silhouette of their branches and leaves gracefully frame the composition.

One of my all-time favorites - the sun rising behind the Jacksons' barn (December 2007)

During the short days the sun's trajectory moves far south on our horizon, starting on the open prairie behind the neighbors' barn and ending behind our horse pasture. Simply put, the sunrise and sunset are much more visible during late fall and winter in our neck of the woods. Amazing that it's taken me ten years of living here to finally reach that conclusion, lol! Anyway, during winter when nature's sounds and colors fade away, don't forget to look upward! :)

Following are some scenes of the the winter prairie that I hope you will enjoy.

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 - 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

Introducing a New Photo Exhibit: the Tippecanoe-County-Fair Antique-Tractor Parades and Exhibit 2015!

Greetings, everyone who happens upon these pages! A few months ago I wrote a blog post introducing readers to my "Scrappy" photo gallery site. Today, I am announcing the website has just gotten its new "summer look" with new feature photos and one new exhibit:

Tippecanoe County Fair Antique Tractor Parades and Exhibit 2015

Ben pulling a wagon with the Allis Chalmers D  in Sunday's parade at the fair

Ben always exhibits his old Allis Chalmers D and Ford Series 2000 tractors at the County Fair Antique Tractor Exhibit and he and his son Steven drive them in the three tractor parades that take place during fair week. This year I tried to get a picture of all the entries at each parade. I didn't succeed 100% but I got most!

If you like county fairs and enjoy old tractors, drop by my photography site and have a look! While you're there, check out my other feature exhibits:

• Workers' Rally at the Statehouse March 2011
• Lafayette Columbian Park 2014
• Tippecanoe County Extension Community Gardens (*new additions for 2015*)
• Prophetstown State Park 2007
• Indianapolis Fairgrounds Flower and Patio Show 2015
• This Old Farmhouse Tour 2009

To find out more about these exhibits, read below or better yet drop by for a visit!

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