Many Lives of an Old Barn

After my first husband and I moved from the city to the small rural town where I still live, I continued to work in the city for several years.  My route to work had me driving past this old barn twice a day.  I seldom have a reason to go that way anymore but last month I had to make two trips into my old neighborhood a few days apart.  I snapped one set of these shots each trip.  This first set were actually taken on the second trip.   

This barn is on highway 100 between the towns of Pond and Gray Summit.  The above shot was taken going east into the city and the one below is the other side taken from the east on the return trip  

As you can see this barn sits in the middle of a sharp curve and only a few feet from the edge of the road.  I watched the changes in this old place over the course of forty odd years because my parents once lived a half mile down the road.  I even remember when it once got a fresh coat of paint, but you would never know that now.  

I almost missed taking both of these shots, as the cut off rooflines will attest, on my first trip into the city. Knowing I would be returning in a few days I swore to do better next time around.  

Just out of sight on the right is a large two story farm house that shares this property. It has had several owners over the years.  The original (to my knowledge) actually farmed the land, another fenced in the property and started raising livestock.  Over the years I have seen cows, pigs, donkeys, mules, sheep and even lama's.  Currently, there does not appear to be anything in the pens or fields but a ever growing collection of broken down salvaged machinery.  

Between this visit and the one above the grass had been mowed and the fence developed a decided lean.  The sign on this end of the building has gone through many changes as well.  For a couple decades it contained a huge sign that filled the entire space between the windows advertising Camp Fiddle Creek which has its entrance just down the road. Camp Fiddle Creek is a summer camp for girl scouts.  After a change of ownership a "Rent this space" sign went up for a short while and now I expect it goes to the highest bidder on a yearly rental.  Purina Farms is the research center for the animal feed division of the Ralston Purina Company.  

Linking to Barn Charm 

It's Baling Time

It's baling time in my part of the world.  Hay baling that is.   In a good year when all conditions are right a farmer can get a third cutting from his hay fields.  I'm guessing that may be the case this year. Seems everywhere we have been the last few weeks we saw hay being cut, raked or baled.

This girl in Campbellton, Mo. was cutting a hay field the day we drove past.  Check out the close up of this lovely young lady I post on my photo blog a while back by clicking here.  

I'm always surprised to see so much new hay being cut, when there are stored bales left over from the last several years or longer (or so it appears) scattered around.

 You will see them wrapped in plastic, hidden under tarps, in rows near barns,

Some seem to be rotting in the fields 

 stored in every nook and cranny possible 

 Most of the hay around here is now baled in big round bales but I do see the smaller square bales lined up in some fields.  I have to admit that I enjoy seeing fields full of hay bales.  I must have hundreds of photos of them.  We do not have to take a ride in the country either to find a field full of hay bales.  My most recent shots were taken in my own back yard.   And, I mean that literally.  

We returned home on Monday to find the field behind our place had been mowed and baled during the time it took to go into the city for a doctor's appointment.  If you knew where to look in this shot you could make out a sliver of our fence that I posted about on Friday Fences last week.

 My daughter lives just down the street from us and her car happens to be in this shot.

I doubt to many of you expect to find hay bales inside your city limits-- much less your own back yard.

Yep, it is hay time in Franklin County, Missouri 

 I'm linking this post to Rural Thursday 

Amish Country

This week, for the Rural Thursday Blog Hop, I am posting another group of photos taken during our anniversary trip to Missouri's Amish community of Jamesport.  

I enjoyed seeing the horse and carriages on the roadways.  Some families even had smaller pony size versions of their carriages for the children to drive to school.  The Old Salt especially enjoyed hearing the clip clopping sound of the horses hooves and carriage wheels traveling over the cobblestone streets near our B&B. 

I was amazed at how well cared for all the farms were.  So many of the barns in our area are in serious need of repair, but, I did not see a single neglected barn among the Amish of Jamesport.  In fact, all their homes and out buildings were in excellent repair.

I really had to do some thinking to figure out how long it had been since I had last seen clothes drying out on the line.  We must have been there on laundry day because this was a frequent sight.   Reminded me of all the clothes I pinned out while I was in high school.

Many of the Amish in this community were either self employed in a trade or worked part-time for the English.  Therefore, they did have a telephone, answering machine and fax machine for work use, but they were not allowed in their homes.   Each family had these small phone sheds standing some distance off from their back doors.  The equipment was powered by propane.   

Linking to the Rural Thursday Blog Hop

Can You Identify this Location?

I snapped this shot from the car during our trip south last May. 

 When we are traveling I am prone to cat-napping if I'm not driving.  I would miss a lot of great shots if the Old Salt didn't nudge me occasionally.  I will sometimes wake up snap the picture and promptly fall back to sleep.  So, I have no idea where we were when this shot was taken.  All I can tell you is that it is on I-65 south in Alabama, somewhere between the space needle and Birmingham, based on other identifiable shots taken in that photo stream.


 This was one of those shots that just amazed me when I got home and downloaded my camera.  It was just too good to be true.  In fact, it looks so much like a painting that I have been hesitant to use it.  I have been waffling over this shot for a year now, and I was hoping to solve the mystery of its location during our recent trip south.  As luck would have it, we took a different route down, and coming home I ran true to form and napped through that part of the trip.  So I have finally decided this shot is too beautiful not to share.  Perhaps, someone out there will recognize this pastoral setting and be able to give me some information on this lovely barn.

I am linking this post to Rural Thursday, Friday Fences and 

Scenic Sunday. 

Cornfield Surprise

I live in a small rural riverfront town named after our first president, George Washington.  Just across the river is an even smaller town that some believe was named after Washington's wife Martha. 

Marthasville is located in the Missouri river bottomlands and is mostly an agricultural area.  The bottoms consist of hundreds of acres of farmland.  We have friends who live there and every time we travel to their house we pass an old barn that sits in the middle of a huge cornfield.  

During a trip to visit with out friends last fall, the Old Salt and I decided to leave a bit early so we could photograph a few points of interest along the way.  

First, being that old barn. We were even lucky enough to find a dirt road that took us right up to it.  

Please click to enlarge 

It was a chilly, overcast day and not ideal for camera shots, but, stopping to take the above shaps of this barn turned out to be a better photo opt then either of us expected.  

 

Hidden behind the barn, we found a large brick house buried under years of vines and other growth.  The old house must have been quite a showplace in its heyday.  Now it was nothing but rotting wood and broken windows. It is sad to think someone had to leave such a beautiful home knowing it would fall victim to age and neglect. 

While trying to photograph the surrounding hazy cornfield the sun poked its head out for a few minutes, as if in answer to a prayer.  The resulting shots of sun dappled trees was like the frosting on the cake for this photo shoot.  

I am participating in:

Scenic Sunday

Barn Charm
Mosaic Monday

Ruby Tuesday 2

Rednesday

Outdoor Wednesday 

 

Old Barns -----Tulsa ok

Sorry all, I can't seem to keep my day straight for this great meme on Old Barns. So here I am again, a day late. Perhaps, next week I will get it right and post on Monday night.

I photographed this old barn during our recent trip to Oklahoma. I believe it was somewhere near Tulsa. What captured my attention was the rather unique paint job.

I hope you liked seeing my Old Barn this week. I am linking it to my blogging buddy Tricia's meme "Old Barns."

To join the fun by posting your old barn photos or to just enjoy the photos taken by others visit Tricia and her friends at Bluff Area Daily.

Old barns ----- advertising barns

Since I am not a well traveled person I can't speak for the rest of the country, but here in Missouri it is not uncommon to see old barns that show the faded paint of some old advertising. During the heyday of the Old Route 66 that travels through our state it was commonplace for farmers to rent the rooftops of their barns to companies that agreed to keep the entire barn nicely painted, year round, in return for using the rooftop as a giant billboard.

You can still see the faded advertising on many of the old and often dilapidated structures in our state. But, one of our major tourist attractions that is still in operation on the old route 66 has continued to maintain all of the old structures with their advertising that are still in continous use. It is not unusual to pass an old barn with a fresh coat of paint like the one in the following photo, that I captured a few weeks ago on Highway 44 near Springfield, Mo.

I havn't noticed any new barn advertising in our area for decades until last month when we decided to take a scenic detour during a drive home from a visit with friends who live in the country. In fact, I almost missed the golden arches on the roof of this old barn for the overgrowth of trees surrounding it.

I hope you enjoyed seeing my barn advertisements this week. I am linking them to my blogging buddy Tricia's new meme "Old Barns."

To join the fun by posting your old barn photos or to just enjoy the photos taken by others visit Tricia and her friends at Bluff Area Daily.

Old Barns ----- Warren County Missouri

Since taking the summer off from blogging I have gotten very far behind on checking in with some of my favorite blogs. Tonight I finally had time to catch up with one of my favorite photo bloggers. Tricia, is a fellow Missourian whose blog "Bluff Area Daily" records daily photos from around the southeastern part of the state and the Poplar Bluff area especially. I love her work and it keeps me up to date with a part of the state I do not get to visit very often.

I can't tell you how excited I was to discover that during my absence from blogland, she started a new meme related to old barns. Hunting down and photographing old barns is one of my favorite activities. The Old Salt is convinced he will have to bail me out of jail for trespassing to capture some of these old structures one of these days.

Thank you Tricia for giving me this chance to post my first of what I hope will be many entries to your new meme.

While I probably have hundreds of old barns in my archives, and many that have long been abandoned, this happens to be one that was still in my camera. I snapped this shot a few days ago during a drive into the next county to pick up an item I found on Craigslist. This old barn appears to have been standing for quite a while, and it is still in daily use. In fact my next shot in the sequence was of a group of cows that are just out of camera range in this shot.

To join the fun by posting your old barn photos or to just enjoy the photos taken by others visit Tricia and her friends at Bluff Area Daily.

Ruby Tuesday and Rednesday --- a flash of red

Tuesday is the day that Mary at "Work of the Poet" hosts Ruby Tuesday. Rednesday is a Wednesday meme hosted by Sue at "It's a Very Cherry World." Both memes are dedicated to the color red. To join the fun or just check out what Red others are excited to share visit Mary and her friends at Ruby Tuesday and Sue and her friends from Rednesday

Last week we were traveling home from the city on a chilly but sunny afternoon. We decided to avoid the rush hour traffic by getting off the interstate and taking a slightly longer but very scenic route home. Since that detour would take us near the Hawthorne Inn located in the small historic town of Labadie we decided to go there for dinner. As I was getting out of the car in the restaurant parking lot I noticed a patch of red poking out from behind a building across the street. Naturally, I was headed that way, camera in hand before the Old Salt realized I wasn't headed into the restaurant with him.

I came back across the street a few minutes later (with the following photographs in my camera) to find the Old Salt standing by the restaurant door shaking his head and grinning at me. I knew I was about to receive another of the Old Salt lectures about the trouble my trespassing ways will get me into one of these days.




Yes, it was probably private property but the buildings were crumbling away (one was actually sinking into the soft wet earth and canted to one side like a ship in a storm). I was sure no one would object to my wandering over and shooting a few photos.

Manic Monday ---Country

Mo is the host of Manic Monday, and this week he has chosen the word "Country" for this weeks theme. Now that is a word that I know something about. I grew up out in the country. Way out in the country. We were twenty miles from the nearest town big enough to have all the services a large family needed.

I currently live in a small rural town and I do not have to get more then half a mile from the city limit sign to know that I am heading into a totally different life style. In fact, signs that "the country" is not far off have been seen passing through town on a regular bases lately. It is hay baling time in our part of the world so trucks loaded with fresh hay bales are driving through town a lot.

Below are just a few of the photo's I shot during a recent trip to a neighboring town less then twenty miles down the road.

Approaching the back door of a house I was greeted by this chicken.

Barns come in all types, sizes and colors these days. Many places have constructed modern barns but have left the old ones to fall into disrepair in the fields.

Hay time means there is hay in town, in the fields, in large and small bales and stored in modern plastic huts.



The field are full of crops in every color and stage of growth.
Around here many of the hillsides are green with grapes that will find their way to the local wineries.

I hope you enjoyed your ride with me on a short trip out in the country. To check out how others interpret the word "country" or to join the fun visit Mo here. http://www.manicmeme.com/