I checked up on the family farm east of Peoria in Central Illinois the last weekend of April, and things were looking good even if the fields were very wet, delaying spring planting. It was very windy, and it was alternating sunny and cloudy all day long. No longhorns could be spotted at the neighbor’s…
Tag: Family Farm
Deer Creek Township, Late January 2024
A dense fog blanketed the area around my family farm in late January as snow and ice persisted on the ground. January in the country is a time of hibernation and preparation, as the spring is closer than you think. If you look closely, you can see the neighbor’s longhorns, an ubiquitous presence now for…
Family Farm, August 2023
My last stop on my August travels was my family farm east of Peoria in Central Illinois. As longtime readers know, the cattle barn was destroyed by a tornado in late March. These photos are from late August, but the destroyed barn is now completely cleaned up. I also had a surprise, as the last…
Family Farm, Late June 2023
Update: See the farm in August of 2023 for updates after the tornado. Two days after I posted these photos on March 29 of the family farm, a tornado struck, destroying several structures and trees. Thankfully, the historic horse barn, built in the late 1800s, survived with minimal damage, losing only a few pieces of…
Family Farm, Deer Creek Township, Illinois, March 2023
I woke up to a dusting of snow on the ground, which I was not expecting at this point in the season; apparently the same thing happened in St. Louis. It was very, very cold out, to say the least. But the sky was clear and blue in the morning.
Family Farm, Deer Creek Township, Illinois, June 2022
I took a short trip up to my family’s farm east of Peoria and the crops were just starting to mature out in the fields. I didn’t expect to find these flowers growing so big on the north side of the old ice house. And the tree that is just about dead seems to have…
Dawn, Family Farm, Deer Creek Township, March 2022
I woke up early and caught the sunrise coming up over the fields to the east. The fields are fallow for now, but in a month or two they will be brought back to life.
Clouds Breaking, Family Farm, March 2022, Deer Creek Township
As everyone in St. Louis knows, last week the weather was horrible, and it was elsewhere in the Midwest, but late on Friday the clouds broke and the sun came out, leaving dramatic light and shadow over the prairie at the family farm. As the sun set, pink and purple light shone across the fields…
Early Morning, Family Farm, Deer Creek Township, Tazewell County, Illinois
When I first woke up the sun was shining, but then the fog materialized an hour after sunrise. As I drove up the road to the north to photograph the longhorns at a neighbor’s farm, the mists suddenly lifted only enough for me to take pictures of my family farm’s barns emerging from the mist….
Dusk, Family Farm, Deer Creek Township, Tazewell County, Illinois
The sun sets early in December but I was still able to get these photos of the family farm. Update: The cattle barn below was destroyed by a tornado in March of 2023.