Route 11B From Nicholville To Dickinson New York - Part 1

The day after my Rutland Trail hike with the dogs (see previous two posts) dawned gloriously beautiful and, if not warm, at least warmer than usual for this time of year. I decided to take a driving tour of some local roads in Franklin County. I began driving east on Route 11B to get there but then realized that the sun was right, the traffic was sparse and the scenery was spectacular. So I changed my mind and began shooting photos of the farms along Route 11B - such as this impressive Amish farm:

Another view of the same farm as the above photo:

This small house and two tiny outhouses seemed unoccupied, but I have on other occasions seen clusters of Amish children playing old fashioned games on the grass. I suspected that this might be an Amish school house which, perhaps, was not in session today - or maybe they were all inside, studying:

Cornfields were being harvested:

This old silo was no longer used and the house and barn, to which it once belonged, no longer existed:

An old, tiny house which still showed remnants of its former curtains. This was once home to someone:

An Amish farm and vegetable stand:

The Amish house which went with the vegetable stand (which you can see in the lower right of the photo). The clothes on the line usually (but not always) means the household is Amish:

A brown barn which sat rather far off the road. A man was pruning apple trees nearby and stopped to watch me, no doubt wondering what mischief I was up to:

The lovely old farm house which went with the brown barn:

This appeared to be either an old farm house with much modernization or a new house, built in the old style. I couldn't tell which:

Another old farm house with a comfortable looking front porch:

I don't now remember, but this farm may have been Amish. The electric wire running to the house is not definitive as many Amish buy homes which are already electrified and just don't use it. Amish or not, it was a beauty. But I had more road to travel and more photos to take, and will post Part 2 tomorrow:

October Harvest

You've seen photos of the corn field across the road from my house. Well, one morning they were harvesting the kernels and I opened my upstairs window to record the process. It made for pretty scenery, with the horses and cattle next door and the colorful trees in the background. The harvester took down eight rows at a time, stripping the kernels from the cobs and shredding the stalks and leaves:


You may have noticed, in the previous video, that the harvester was not shooting any golden corn kernels into the collector wagon. In this video, it begins at about the halfway mark:


In this third video, the collector wagon dumps its corn kernels into the waiting truck. It was a three person operation, with one operator for each vehicle. The truck driver, I noticed, had his small child along for the ride. The truck left with a load about every fifteen minutes, so they pulled a lot of corn out of that field in short order: