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Posted 8 months ago
walksoftly
(132 items)
This is the farm that my Grandparents bought in 1942, this photo was taken around 1953/54.
Highlighted in the second photo on the far left is the original homesteaders house.
Built from logs it measured apx. 12' x 14', the man that built it, took in his sister & her child born out of wedlock.
Highlighted on the right side of photo 2 is the house that was built to replace it. Built in 1898 it measures 14' x 20' , 1 & 1/2 stories.
The other part was added on in the twenties, around the same time that the large barn was built.
My wife & I moved here in 1982, & raised our four children here on the farm, although we needed more room so I built an addition on the right side in 1985.
PhotographsFrom Mathew Brady's Civil War photos to Ansel Adams' landscapes to Irving P…
Great pictures with great stories behind them!
What a wonderful farm walksoft ! I love it . Now what is the square area in back in a perfect square in field. It looks like a a square lake :-) A great place to grow up .
Thanks Ted for the love & those kind words.
Thanks for all that love Mani :-)
The square corner that you see behind the buildings is a field, the common practice for that era was to leave a field fallow for one year. This allows nitrogen to build up in the soil for the crop the following year, the term for this was summer fallow.
The area starting center left behind the barn & running diagonally to upper right corner is a hill, to stony to be worked but it allowed drive in access to the loft with the hay.
Way up in the upper left corner barely visible are two work horses.
That was a long winded answer, I hope it actually answered your question. ;-)
David
Thanks for the love, pw-collector & bratjdd.
We just rotated crops here david :-)
Guess it isn't what it could be with the orig. settlers? Incest: The sport the whole family can enjoy. OK if kept in the family.
Sorry, the devil made me do it! You can delete if you like.
Wonderful photo!
Blunderbuss I didn't say it was the brother, you do have a warped sense of humour!!! He just took her in as she would have had nowhere else to go. Not to say it doesn't happen then or now.
Thanks for the love on this post & stay out of that Island heat I think it's getting to you :-)
Hey Mani, they always did a three year rotation two years of different crops & a year of fallow.
This caused two things to happen, first the cultivating always brought up an endless supply of rocks for us to pick. The second was the risk of the top soil blowing away.
My father & grandfather planted miles of shelter belts, to alleviate the latter.
Thanks for the love & the kind words Bellin & miKKo.
Thanks for the love, Kathycat, chinablue, & kerry.
Yes Dear! I do have a warped sense of humour, but just couldn't resist the opening to throw a couple of off-centre jokes in. Actually it's cool here now. Sorry, feel free to delete if you don't think they are funny.
I'll try to behave myself in the future but can't promise anything.
No need to apologize Blunderbuss, I didn't word my description very well, I left that open to interpretation!
Now you have me wondering about what I was told, just how true were those stories... Hmmm..
If you don't behave we'll send you to the brig or wherever they send retired military personnel for punishment.
I'm not retired military, more free-lance. I've got another really Alabama joke but will spare you.
Hey, we have fun!
This brings back good memories, I grew up in a farm house and spent alot of time at the farm across the street, thanks for posting.
Have you had any other ariel photographers come to your farm with pics they took more recently than 53/54 ? Our farm photo they took in 1965 thereabouts and they took in black and white and painted it for us, we had to draw in the "new" chicken coop and that was painted in also. Still have the painted version of the framed picture they sold us. The farm now is grown over and have to fight trees to find the house.
Looks like a beautiful farm by the way, the stone base of the barn is quite wonderful, beautiful photos too !~
Hi Phil, I do have one that was taken later, hand tinted. It has some damage, but will try to get a photo of it today & post it.
Sadly these photo's are all that are left of many rural homes & yards.
It was a great barn, but that wonderful stone foundation would be it's undoing.
The mortar used was very soft, by the time my grandparents took over the farm part of the front wall had been replaced with wood. By the time I moved back home the back foundation had started to fall in. I eventually tore down the barn, & re purposed some of the lumber in the addition that I built on the house.
Thanks for the kind words.
Thanks for the love, collector4evr .
Thanks for the love EJW-54 & glad it brought back fond memories.
I actually grew up across the road from here, but spent lots of time here.
We would play in the loft, stringing ropes & pulleys between the beams & use them for zip lines.
Fantastic post David. A beautiful home for sure! I wonder what type of plane and aviator took the picture.
Kind regards,
Steve
Thanks for the love & the kind words, we love it.
It could very well have been a WWII surplus plane, all the trainers were sold off after the war, when the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan was terminated.
Are you familiar with that?
Kind regards,
David
Oh yes I know all about the "Empire Air Training Scheme". I believe Canada was the main power-house behind it. Didn't you have 200+ bases over there? I know Canada trained thousands of aircrew and pilots and without "The Plan" and the output from Canada, it is likely that WW2 would have had an entirely different outcome!
You think the photo of your farm might have been taken from a "Harvard" or perhaps even one of the last "Bi-plane" trainers that would have been sold off when "The Plan" was wound up?
Thinking about it....... When the War ended, there would have been a lot of qualified pilots "kicking their heels"....so I bet there were a lot offering ariel photography to Landowners and Farmers! Thats a thought!
I looked at that pic closely & see no evidence of wing-wires so discounted biplane. I also couldn't see any evidence of when the pic was taken. Am I missing something that indicates shortly after the war? I don't assume anything.
Is there a date on the back of the pic.? It was done by somebody who knew what they were doing as no evidence of low-wing leading edge or strut if high-wing. Of course it could be done from the back seat of a tandem.
It was an idea that popped into my head, based on the available aircraft, trained pilots, & reconnaissance personnel,seems like a perfect fit.
But I could be wrong I was once before. ;-)
The picture should have been taken in 53/54 based on house renovations & lack of another building in the photo.
The BCATP had a big impact on the war as well as the economy,at the local & the national levels.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Commonwealth_Air_Training_Plan
One base was only 20 miles cross country from this location,
The barn is next to a hill it looks like. Usually the hill went into one of the ends of the hayloft making it easy to unload bales into the hayloft. Too bad about the barn coming down, prob would have cost a fortune to save. What about what looks like a windmill base near the house ??
Hope you can post the hand tinted version if you have it handy.
Hi Phil, yes the hill provided access to the barn on the back side, you could drive right in, you could also use the hay sling at the end of the barn.
Yes it would have cost a fortune to repair it, thats is why there are very few of these big barns remaining.
There was a windmill, used for pumping water for the livestock.
I did get the other photo out turns out it is the same photo, it measures 16 x 24
I will try to get a picture of it later on today.
I remember when we were buying the 2nd barn and we drove by the Indian Head stone barn that is famous. It was a round barn, and this guy bought a farm and tried to do mass farming of a lot of land back in around 1908. The other farmers were mad and glad when he sold the land but now everone left farming is pretty much doing it by huge machines and more men. He was just way before his time.
They tore it down before 2000 stone by stone - numbered, and were supposed to rebuild it __ never did look on line yet to see if it was ever completed now.
That photo you have is a big size. We bought an oil version mounted framed in probably an 8X10 size of our farm.
I remember seeing photo's of the round barn & found a link
http://bellbarn.ca/
What a daunting task to rebuild something like that, but at least they have modern equipment.
Thanks for sending the link. I never knew that all those photos of the massive house are there. It really was the largest stone house I seen anywhere on the prairies. Also I never knew that the famous photographer, Notman came out from Montreal to take some snaps for the C.P.R. - thats amazing. Also a few of the workers cottages were shown, some even made of stone !! Thanks for sending the link !
@ Phil, that house was huge, it must have taken a lot of wood & coal to heat that place. I wonder how many square feet it was?
I do not know David, how big ? First time I saw that picture which showed how big that back wing was. It was his home but also the headquarters for the big farm. Quite amazing photo to me, as I had only seen pictures of it from the front and did not show how huge that side wing was -- only from the side can you possibly imagine. Must have been around 5000 sq ft if not more, no.
The house was made of stone, but somehow the pictures of this side was taken from the south side of the house and strangely there does not seem the normal care of the quoining of the stones around the windows here -- so not even sure if this wing was made of stone. Always heard it was but because all the pictures I seen before were taken from the north side.
But then the photo is taken from a distance so it would not show the cuts of the stone so it may have been quoined well around the windows also.
In one of photo's taken from the south side, it sure does look like stone. I'm going to have to visit there the next time we go out to Saskatoon.
Great idea, too bad the house is gone though.
Ya, it's long gone, but the barn is worth seeing.
Thanks for the love, official, gargoyle, toolate, inky & beachbomb.
What a beautiful farm! Did the Government pay you to fallow or not grow on some land? In USA they do or use to.
Thanks for the love & the nice comment torocat, I appreciate it.
The gov't didn't pay us do leave the land fallow, it was simply done as a management practice.
I remember the US having the set-aside program.
The farm is just out of this world. A great looking barn.
Thanks so much Wendling for the love & the kind words, I miss that old barn.
Thanks for the love filmnet, I appreciate it.