The Old Farm

 Recently, the kids and I took a day trip north of Omaha. During our adventures, we happened upon an old, abandoned farm. If you live in an area with lots of farmland, you know that you can find bits and pieces of yesteryear farms scattered about in some varying degree.

When I was growing up, there were a handful of old abandoned farms in the countryside near the tiny town I lived in. My friends and I would check them out once in awhile to see if we could find any treasures or interesting things inside.

Nowadays, more often than not, in my experience, these old abandoned farm buildings are either located next to or on an existing farm. This means that stopping and grabbing pictures isn't always the easiest thing to do.

I find old abandoned places fascinating, and I sometimes find myself wondering about their history. It was here that my mind wandered as we found a stand-alone abandoned farm that we could stop and take some pictures of.

As we briefly walked the grounds, snapping pictures, I tried to imagine the family that once lived here. Was it a mom, dad, and a few kids? Did they grow wheat in the winter, corn in the summer, and oats, millet, & barley the rest of the year? Did they have a few cows and chickens? Did they have a large garden?

If they were a typical farm family back in the day, then the answer would be yes for many of those questions. I imagine the fields that are next to the old farm - now plowed by large farm equipment - used to be part of the family farm. They used horses and plows to till the land to grow crops. Father and son would do this job along with feeding the animals, harvesting, baling hay, and chopping wood.

Mother and daughter would tend to the garden, prepare meals, sew clothes, do the washing, and keep the house clean.

It won't be too far down the road before these old remaining buildings either collapse completely, or are torn down to make way for something else. Until then, they stand as reminders of a bygone age, and a small walk down memory lane.