The Way Farming Was

As I have been finding quiet places to get my daily walks, I've noticed how farming has changed over the last 75 years.  The massive hay barns are decaying, as are the silos.   Their economics are poor compared to making big round bales left out in the field and putting silage in long plastic tubes or bunkers.  Add the fact that small farms cannot compete with the big automated equipment. So, here are some images of a type of farming that is leaving only remnants.

The fields are leased but the house is unoccupied.  The four lane highway likely cut the access to much of their fields.  

This same farm still has a cattle gate, but not a trace of fencing.  A sign on the decaying dairy barn is  for a dairy co-op absent for 3/4 of a century.

 The twin wooden silos surely go back a full century. 

Is anyone alive who remembers working in this barn?   It will only take one strong wind to collapse the flimsy roof.

Elsewhere, a small barn has lost the window glass.  Inside is a stack of drying rough cut lumber. There is not a trace of paint on the walls.

The same small barn still has a hand wrought iron latch on the sliding door.  Was it farm-made?

All of these farms predated the arrival of electricity.  That would have been when well water depended on the wind.

This old windmill was torn down when the local hospital was built on the land - likely because of liability should someone try to climb it.  I miss seeing it on mid-winter walks. 

Looking closer one also finds other remnants of the old farm. This metal-wheeled wheel barrow could no longer be repaired, so it was left behind the barn.

Same goes for a broken cement mixing trough and decayed parts of a horse drawn sickle bar mower.  I say that, in part, because the wheel spokes are wooden as is much of the frame.

There were also places where children played in a wood's cabin.  How many Boy Scouts had a weekend outing in this cabin?

Then, it too was a resting place for family pets.

There are rough headstones for Susie and Ginger.

Paul Schmitt