Family Farm, August 2011

It's late summer, and things are looking good around the family farm.

Little B, Family Farm, Deer Creek, Illinois

More Family Farm, March 2011

The cattle barn was built around ninety years ago; the two large sheds were built by my great-uncle to help support the barn and to store farm implements.The pasture is still brown from the winter.Replacement trees for the cottonwood trees that were all struck by lightning are coming along nicely as well.The ice house, one of the oldest buildings on the farm, sits on the south side of the property.

Horse Barn, Family Farm, Deer Creek, Illinois

The over one hundred year old horse barn on the family farm is still looking good, even after all these years.Preventative maintenance helps as well.Look at the size of those timbers holding up the roof.

El Cheapo Sign

Typical State of Illinois quality.

Family Farm, Late Summer 2010

The family farm was a treat this Labor Day weekend, as the weather was perfect, with sunshine and white, puffy clouds buffeted by a pleasant breeze.
Grass has begun to grow in what had been a muddy cow lot only a year before. Ongoing efforts to regrade and clean up junk have been largely completed, leaving the barns in more idyllic, accurate historically settings.The corn is about ready to be harvested, and should be ready in the next couple of weeks. The stalks, already drying out, are rustling in the wind.I like how this ear of corn is peaking out from the row. This is field corn, meant for animal consumption, not human.Below is the last of five cottonwood trees, planted approximately one hundred years ago, still clinging to life. We were sure it was a goner.Everything is green, and the whole area is lush despite a dry August. Off in the distance, you can spot a neighbor's barn and house.This huge granite boulder was moved by my great-grandfather and a hired hand with horses; there were no bulldozers available one hundred years ago. It was deposited millenia ago by glaciers, and was deposited here to get it out of a field.Wild grapes have begun to return to rural areas of Illinois, after being decimated by Roundup. Hopefully next year they will bear fruit.A cow has just given birth to a calf in the last week, and we were delighted to see it prancing around its mother's side while we were looking at a pasture.See earlier posts about the farm here.

Barnyard Animals

One hundred years after their construction, the barns on my family's farm still are used for their original function.

Apple Tree, Family Farm, Deer Creek, Illinois

I planted this tree with seeds from an apple I ate twenty years ago. It now has some sort of blight, so it will have to be cut down if it shows signs of spreading to other nearby trees.

Cattle Drinking, Family Farm, Deer Creek, Illinois

Planting Season, Family Farm, Deer Creek, Illinois

The family farm outside of Deer Creek, Illinois is doing well, and the paint and repairs to our two 100+ barns are holding nicely.Off in the distance, one of our farmers is planting something, not sure what.I love this picture up into the hayloft of the older, horse barn. The light was perfect at this time of day.The shed that was blown over in the wind storm has finally been cleaned up, and awaits its fate on the "burn pile" up the road on our farm.See it from space here.

Frozen Land, Family Farm. Deer Creek, Illinois

Family Farm at Sunset

I snapped these pictures coming down the road from the north to my family's farm. The sun was setting and the whole countryside looked beautiful, in many ways unchanged for almost two centuries of settlement.

Harvest is underway, very late in the season. This combine is working on a field nearby and not at my family's farm.

Cleaning Out Shed, Family Farm, November 2009

My forefathers are known for having a real problem with cleaning up after themselves. Which is funny, as I am obsessed with organization and carefully storing away things. I guess it figures that I work in an art museum now. But nonetheless, my father, the renters' son Sam and I had to clean up Naffziger Brownfield Site #1, a collapsing shed, this Saturday, and many hands make quick work.Thankfully, most of the mortar buckets were empty, but several were filled with an unknown liquid. My dad ingeniously poured it out on top of the mound of hay that Sam and I scooped out of the piles of hay stuck to the floor. Logically, the liquid will help the hay burn on the "burn pile" that all farmers have if it was not simply water. I remarked to my father that it was a good thing the EPA was not around. I also found a bag of purple stuff that fell out of a rotten bag. My father, a chemist, could not identify it, which rarely happens.Weirdly, buried under a pile of straw were some jugs, with those Japanese beatles clinging to it like some sort of underground cult worship center. I got them all over me.

Heading Out of Town