This is my home. I'm a 29 year old female, married on the land last July just like my mother, grandmother, and the two generations before her. My mother grew up in this house and my grandfather hoped one day a grandchild would take it over. The farm has been in the family for 5 generations and has been passed down through the matriarchal line. It has known a life of farming and we are thankful it can continue to produce for the generation to come.
The polebarn on the right still stands and was new to the farm when this photo was taken. A fire only a year or two before engulfed the old barn. Thankfully my uncle and grandfather made it safely out with a couple bags of seed corn in tow. Through the trees, directly behind the house is the old salt box barn. Aging at the time of the photo, it still stands today and remains (as were told) to be the only saltbox barn remaining in McLean County. Today the trees are not so full in the front. In years past, lightening struck the tall twin to the right and soon it will face its ultimate demise. It remains my 2nd favorite tree however. If only it still offered the cool shade and great sprawl of its large neighbor to the West under which I've enjoyed the cool shade and recalled the story of my great great grandparents planting it with the knowledge that it was a hydrangea bush. I'm glad the horticulturist was wrong. Far to the west, a lonely pine now stands in company which will grow in the years to come. The large barn in the middle left of the photograph no longer stands but the foundation remains, holding a new structure, a simple high tunnel for a simple farmer - or an overzealous gardener. And just left of center the small fruit orchard still remains but aging dwarfs are ready to be put to rest.
When I look at this photograph, I can feel the energy and live still vibrant on the farm. Polebarn doors await, spread open, for Grandpa to return from the field. A heavy load of gravel laid neatly, I disturbed by the hampered plant life below. The ground sees too much activity to worry about little seedlings leaping out as encroaching stakeholders of the land, as they do now in 2017. Today, the gravel and the combine aren't likely to return. The farm still feels a bit lifeless, and nostalgia draws me into the memories and stories I know of this farm in its younger days. But with time, new life will return, and grow. And future pictures of the farm will again be vibrant with life.