One of the things that I enjoy looking at is pictures of old time farming. It is one of those things that has changed drastically over the last 100 to 150 years.
This is a picture of the farm where I grew up. It was taken around 1940 prior to the date the house I grew up in was built. It would be on the right side of the road between the two barns. If you look at the far left side of the picture you can see a grove of trees. They were walnut trees and we're cut down before my memories begin. It was common when homesteading to have a grove of trees because with horses and hand work 80 or 160 acres is lots of ground to cultivate. When we built our house we used some of the lumber from those walnut trees to floor one of the bedrooms. There was enough wood left that we had a dining room table and benches made.
The picture above means a lot to me. The fellow on the far right is my great grandfather. This picture was taken around 1910 on the farm picture above. There is nothing in the picture that can tell me exactly where they were working. Please note that there are 5 men out working harvesting corn. What would take them all day back then is now accomplished in less than one hour.
The picture above was of hay harvesting in 1957 or 58. I'm the young fella in the bib overalls holding the hand of my mom's brother Johnnie. My dad is on the far right and the other small person is my older brother Jay.
The tractor in the picture is an Oliver. I cannot see enough to be sure if it is a model 70 or 80. I'm sure it is not a Super 88 because that would be too much tractor for this job.
The truck pictured above remained on the farm until the sale following the death of my grandfather. It was parked in the barn for years. I remember sitting in it as a young boy and pretending to drive.
Once again times have changed and very little hay is grown in this area. When it is, it is not grown on flat highly productive land like this. If you noticed in the first picture there were feedlots. Very few farmers in the area raise livestock any more and even less feed outside of confinement buildings.
Times change but there is still something special about walking on and working the same land that was farmed by your great great grandfather, great grandfather, grandfather and father.
What a great entry. I'm a sucker for glancing back through time and finding our place in that history. As you approach your sixth decade within that epic, we see things impossible to notice in younger years. It's like the veil is lifted, and we see with a new kind of clarity.
ReplyDeleteI also love the colors of old photographs, as if they age along with the subjects. Those old Kodachrome pictures really bring to life those seconds in time. I wished you'd kept your grandfathers truck, that old cab-over looking thing would be a real jewel at a car show.