Early Morning Tour

Here are some pictures I took yesterday morning. It is hard to get a good idea of what the farm looks like from just a few pictures, but maybe these will help.






These Canada geese spend a lot of time in our pond. There are three sets of parents, and the rest are babies. They were so sweet when they were small. We like to watch the geese, but we also have to watch our step!



The pond covers about three quarters of an acre, and it is very deep. Someday we'd like to build a dock so we can play in it, but we think the kids are too small right now. The morning mist often sits over the pond like this.



This picture is of some of the hay and corn fields, looking out from the top of the creek bank that borders our back yard. The bank falls steeply down to the creek, and these fields lie beyond. This is where we look to see sunsets.




Here is the creek that runs all the way through the farm. It has a steep, high bank in most places. That makes it kind of hard to work around, but also beautiful. Further up, the creek runs through a ravine full of old, old trees and big rocks. Gorgeous! The kids like to catch crawfish and other various slimy things in the creek. Once, Rachel caught a whole cup full of these awful, nasty, wet, sticky orange slugs! Horrible! My feminine daughter!



At the right of this picture, you can see the barn. The old, tall section faces the road, and the long, rounded back section extends away toward the back pastures. You can see the biggest silo in this picture, too.






This is the barn. The gray building is the milk house, and houses the bulk tank and the control equipment for the milkers. The tall red part of the barn holds hay and straw, as does the upper level under the round roof. The square doorway to the right of the milk house is the door we use all the time, going into and out of the barn. To the right of that doorway you can see three little, square windows. These look into the tie stall area, which is in the lower level beneath both the red part of the barn and the round-top section behind. (You can just barely see the near end of the rounded section at the right of the picture.) The cows come in to be milked in the tie stall area.



The milk house and bulk tank were installed here in the 1960's. Before that, the Dearborns used milk cans, and brought them out to the little block milk house at the extreme left of this picture. The milk cans were cooled there with spring water until the milk man came to pick them up. That is quaint, I guess, but I am glad we don't lug milk cans! The old milk house now houses the generator, used in case we lose power. The milk cans are on my front porch.