Visiting the farm

I’ve gone country for this week’s Random 5.

I’m joining in with Nancy of A Rural Journal for Random 5 Friday, where, as Nancy says, “you can share 5 random facts about you, your day, your pets, your kids, whatever!”

Thanks to Nancy for hosting this fun meme!

Note on the photos: I took them in the 1980s with my 35 mm camera. They have faded with time and poor storage, though.

 One

I was a back in Evington on Wednesday. One of Virginia’s gubernatorial candidates for this November’s election was in the county and visited a dairy farm where another politician gave his endorsement.

My editor wrote the story, while I took the photos for the newspaper.

The dairy farmer gave the politicians a tour of his place. It included a walk through a cow lot and a visit to see calves.

I grew up on a farm, and my uncle had a dairy farm nearby. On Wednesday, I smelled things and saw things I haven’t seen in many years. I also picked my way through manure like I haven’t done for a while.

Two

My family lived in a white house with a red tin roof on the farm until I was 10 years old. The farm had been my father’s grandfather’s, then had gone out of the family. My father rented it, and then when he and my mother were first married, they bought it on a five-year note.

It was called Terrace View Farm.

The white farmhouse, my first home,  in a photo taken from the yard of the second house. On the right, you can see the roof of the old red mill across from the white house.

Three

When I was about 5 years old, my father started working for the post office as a rural letter carrier. He kept farming, but eventually, my parents decided to sell part of the farm, along with the house, to make it easier on him.

They built a new house, a brick ranch, in sight of the white farmhouse, and we moved there in 1973, when I was 10.

My parents sold the rest of the farm and the brick house in 1989.

The lower pasture below the brick house. This was a good place to go sledding when we got a good snow.

 Four

Once we moved, my father limited his farming to raising beef cows, Black Angus. But when he was farming full time, he also had milk cows, pigs and chickens, and he raised tobacco as a main crop. My mother made butter and sold it and eggs.

Farming can be a 24 hour/7 day a week endeavor. It’s hard work. I was reminded of that as I toured the dairy farm Wednesday and heard about all the tasks that needed to be done to get the milking done and take care of the animals.

The stable at the second house. The wood was for the woodstove that my parents had in the house.

 Five

My father built the stable and tractor shed at the second home. I put my footprint in the footing of the stable. I wonder if it’s still there?

Old barns and sheds have a smell that takes me right back to childhood. It’s a mix of musty and dusty scents with some oil from the tractor thrown in. I smelled some of those scents on Wednesday.