I visited the family farm east of Peoria for the last time this year, but will be back up in the spring, as usual. The harvest has been over for weeks, so the landscape has been transformed to the fallow fields with its stark beauty. I photographed this corn crib to the northwest of the…
Tag: Farms
Storms, Central Illinois, August 2025
I determined with a weather app on my phone that the lightning I was witnessing was over fifty miles away, so I thought I would see what my iPhone would capture. These are raw, unedited photos that I thought turned out interesting. I never tried photographing thunderstorms so far away in the pitch darkness of…
Family Farm, August 2025
I somehow managed to miss the hottest day of August in St. Louis by escaping to the family farm near Deer Creek, Illinois. It was still hot up there, and I was treated to an amazing light show both nights as storm rolled through the area on Friday, and then on Saturday, I witnessed a…
The End of the Former Orthwein Estate
The “old estate” I was referring to back in September of 2018 was the Orthwein property in Huntleigh, and since then the property was sold off and subdivided. Large McMansions have gone up on the western end of the property. It was by far the largest tract of undeveloped land in St. Louis County outside…
Family Farm, Early June 2025
I visited the family farm last weekend, and it’s perhaps evident, if it wasn’t already in the photos of the tornado damage, that the smoke from another natural disaster, the wildfires in Canada, was affecting the sky in the background. Longtime readers will know that the farm was hit by a tornado back in March…
Family Farm, Late March 2025
Time to get back to the family farm now that the weather is getting warmer and the sun is staying up later. Planting has not begun yet, of course, so the landscape has not yet transformed.
Farmsteads, Southwest of Washington, Franklin County
Southwest of Washington in Franklin County along Route KK are a collection of beautiful central hall houses that sit on prominent hilltops, probably built as early as the 1840s but certainly complete before the Civil War. Certainly many of the original owners/builder of these houses were Germans brought to this country by the famous work…
Family Farm, November 2024
I was up at the family farm in Illinois in mid November and things were looking good after harvest, which had finished by the time I visited. The cattle had been let out into the corn field for the purpose of cleaning up any missed cobs that had been left behind by the combine.
Family Farm, Last Day of Summer 2024
Things are looking good around the family farm east of Peoria. Harvest will begin in a week or two, and the crops are looking good. Cattle have returned to the pasture, as well.
The Day The Music Died
The plane carrying Buddy Holly, The Big Bopper and Ritchie Valens didn’t make it very far, and it crashed in a field several miles north of Clear Lake. The local news has a good summary of the cause of the crash, so I won’t rehash it here. Unlike the freezing cold, snowy winter night of…