Maple Ridge Road In Brasher, New York - Part 1

When Upper Ridge Road became Maple Ridge Road (see yesterday's post), I continued on in search of family farms and picturesque rural scenery. At first, however, I saw mostly suburban style homes:

But it didn't take long to enter farm country, beginning with this large field, filled with baleage and haying equipment:

A picturesque farm with a log home, red barns, silo and tractor:

A large barn, filled with hay for the winter:

It was difficult to get a good photo of these outbuildings, but I tried:

The road crossed over a small brook. With grassy fields on both sides of the brook, it was sure pretty:

This pile contained logs big enough and straight enough to possibly be saw logs instead of firewood. There are a lot of farm sawmills in the area:

Forage wagons, used for collecting chopped corn on its way to becoming silage:

Lots of farm equipment, stored along a row of trees:

Well, this wasn't very scenic, but it's the way most farms used to dispose of their trash:

This old homestead was picturesque, and I would have said no one lived there except there was a pickup truck parked in front of it, leading me to wonder:

I came to a field of Holstein calves who watched me with interest. There was still a lot more to see on Maple Ridge Road, and I'll post Part 2 tomorrow:

Franklin County Route 16 - Part 2

I was taking a driving tour of Franklin County Route 16 and yesterday's post ended with a photo of the other side of this farm, with the clothesline on the porch and barns out back:

This concrete block shed and three topless silos stood all alone, with no buildings nearby:

An old, abandoned farm with sheds, barns, equipment, truck and lots of miscellaneous things left behind. Trees were growing up and camouflaging the former farm:

Another abandoned shed, part of the above farm, which was beginning to lean precariously:

A barn in fairly good shape - except for the addition on the back:

A sugarhouse, getting ready for the season to begin:

I began to have crippling leg cramps and had to stop my car and try to walk out the cramps. I took a photo of this lovely farm house while I was hobbling up and down the road:

That's also when I snapped a photo of this old, abandoned pickup truck. Alas, when I could drive again, I stopped taking photos and decided to get home as quickly as possible. Nonetheless, it was a picturesque rural road if ever there was one. I am thrilled to be living in a place with so much scenery - farms, lakes, rivers, mountains:

Around The Farm - Part 1

The first two months of winter weather were blessedly mild, but that doesn't mean that everything went smoothly. For instance, there was the day I detached the tractor bucket and replaced it with the bale spear. When I attempted to reverse the process, I accidentally pushed the bucket too far and knocked the bush hog off its wheeled dolly. It was too heavy to lift, so I had to put the bucket back on the tractor, take it outdoors and set it on the ground. When all that was done, I reattached the bale spear and ever so carefully used it to lift the bush hog. I got off the tractor and positioned the dolly back underneath it:

And on the same day as the bush hog incident, opening the heavy barn door pushed several sections of the roller track apart. A catastrophe was imminent and I could never have lifted the barn door back into place. But I carefully climbed up on the tractor bucket and used a sledge hammer to tap the track back into place. Another disaster averted, at least for the time being:

And then there's the cow manure and frozen urine left by the cows every cold night when they sleep inside the barn. This truly doesn't capture the horror of it on the worst mornings, but you get the idea:

Poopsicles everywhere!

And then one day, winter truly arrived, albeit belatedly:

The apple trees probably needed a good dose of winter. They seem to thrive in this climate. If so, they got their wish with a goodly dose of below zero temperatures, high winds, blowing snow and freezing rain:

Indoors, however, my fall blooming cactus was so warm and happy that it began blooming again. I guess it's a multi-season cactus:

For the first and only time this season, my neighbor had to put the snow plow on his truck. I am blessed with the best neighbors in the world and he came over and plowed my driveway:

I declared a truce with the local Red Squirrels and decided to make friends with my home squirrel instead:

I don't know if it's a male or female, but it's not very afraid of me - or of the Chickadees who share its taste for sunflower seeds:

One last look. Notice the icicle covered lilac in the background: