The locust posts piled at the right side seem tobe holding this barn in place.
Looking back at the same barn. What a beauty.
A quick shot out the back window of daffodils lining the road beside an abandoned farm. I love my digital cameras but sometimes that delay before snapping is just too long.
The sun was dropping low as the road stretched before us.
Rolls of hay are barely visible in the setting sun, and manure in the road testified to this farmer's activities of the day.
An abandoned homestead in a field obviously still being mowed for hay. We tried to see if this was a log house but couldn't tell from the road.
I want to go back--there were numerous side roads to explore (who would not want to see what it looks like along Silver Valley?) and pictures I missed for one reason or another.
Which brings me to something I think about frequently: I explore my little part of the world, often places within an hour's drive of home. There is a wealth of sights to see and appreciate, from small things like budding trees to old barns to rivers and streams, old bridges and stores. Sometimes a different time of day or different season brings new insights, making each place new again.
How much can one person see, just in their own back yard? How long would it take to record it all, in words or in pictures? I suppose that was a question Thoreau also explored in his year at Walden Pond, yet I would bet he still missed some things even with his careful attention to daily changes.
This world is an amazing place indeed, and never boring.
I love that barn! I have seen some around here with huge logs inside as the frame. I want to stop and explore but I worry about private property. Those drives of yours I envy. When we were kids, Dad would take us on Sunday drives and no destination. Sometimes we would end up at the end of a dirt road and have to backtrack. Gosh, it was fun.
ReplyDeleteI've been on one of those WV shortcuts! Pretty sights along the way, sad to see so many abandoned farmsteads. I always wonder about the abandoned houses in this area, what happened? Did they die, move away, build a new house on another part of their land? The old houses always have such character as they sit sagging with their memories.
ReplyDeletetm
I've been on those long short cuts too but if they are through the countryside I don't mind. There is always something to see even in your own little patch of land but I think you are right about Thoreau because seeing some things is a matter of looking in the right direction at the right moment.
ReplyDeleteYou could never show me enough photographs of West Virginia and I love these!
ReplyDeleteWe have 'dying' houses too, though ours are made of stone. The thatch falls in after a few years but then the stone stays forever: the fields and forests literally reach up to pull them down, with ivy and brambles and spreading tree roots. The process is often very beautiful even as it's heartbreaking to think of the family memories that once happened there.
All of which means, Hey I love this post!
LOL