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My dad went to run some errands this weekend, and while I normally wouldn’t go with, he said he was going to go out to the farm, so I grabbed my camera.  It’s been years since I’ve been out there, despite only being 19 miles away.  Nearly 2 years ago, my parents decided to sell the farm, so while it isn’t actually ours anymore, there are still a few things that haven’t changed, even though many things have.

First we stopped at the first farm we lived at.  It wasn’t much of a farm, it was really just an old yard that we lived at.  The actual farm was where grandma and grandpa still lived, but it was only about a mile away.  The house was sold and moved years ago, but the old shed is still there.  Way back in the day, my aunt went to school in that shed.  I only remember it being a ‘shop’ of sorts, and somehow dad managed to put a full size, regular cab pickup in there.

There were some intriguing finds inside too, as we discovered what I am told was my first bed.

We didn’t stay too long, before we moved on to where most of my memories are from.  When I was about 3, grandma and grandpa moved to town, so we moved into their old house.  We lived there on the farm until I was in 6th grade, when we moved into town.  The old house has been gone for several years, being sold and moved somewhere else.  The tree on the left side of the picture is where the north-east corner of the house was.

If you follow the curve of the scoria trail, which was once a driveway, south-west of the house was our swing set, which has to be nearly 20 years old by now.  You’ll notice that it’s bent, that’s from when my uncle sat on it.

From the front of the house, looking to the north-west part of the yard, you could find the spot for the fuel tanks over to the left edge of the picture, you can still see an old wooden stand in the shade.  North of the fuel tanks was dad’s shop.  It didn’t have all of the stuff that grandpa’s did (the building wasn’t much different), like the welder and big air compressor, but it did have a newly cemented floor, which was really nice.  Continuing north, there were a couple of grain bins, and just beyond those, we used to have a pole barn for the cattle, but that’s been moved away too.

This picture is to the north-east, taken from a spot about 50 feet north of where the north-west corner of the house was (I’m feeling too lazy to word that better).  You can see the back edge of the old quonset, as well as part of the corral, with the pasture in the background.

West of the trees behind dad’s shop, was where most of the equipment was at.  This picture is taken from straight west of where the grain bins north of dad’s shop were.  It’s mostly facing west, with a bit of a southern angle on it.  It shows the ‘new’ quonset, and the trees on the right side always had implements lined up next to them.  On the left side of the picture are a row of grain bins, and at the eastern edge of those bins is what we called the butler building, most people would call it a machine shed.

It was nice to see everything was so green on this trip.  The last couple of weeks have been a bit cloudy, but we’ve also had nearly 3 inches of rain in the area, which is a tremendous amount of rain compared to most years over the last decade.  I’ve heard some of the ‘old-timers’ say it was a worse drought than the great depression.  This time around though, farmers had adopted techniques such as no-till seeding that keeps every bit of moisture possible in the ground, so it wasn’t as dramatic, and the dust didn’t blow nearly as badly.

I remember back in elementary, that every student would get a tree for arbor day.  Every year I planted my tree, but only one survived the summer, and it’s still there today.  I was so proud of myself for keeping that tree alive that summer, diligently watering it 3 times a day all summer, and making sure I always got to the riding mower first, so nobody could mow over it.  That was 15 years ago, and it’s really nice to see it next to the other trees, taller than me!

I challenge you all to tell us a little bit about a place that you grew up that holds some precious memories.  Be sure to use the trackback URL for this post so I can find you, maybe I’ll even send a shout out to you in the future on here.  I’m from southwest North Dakota, and I’m proud of it.  I may have spent Jr. High and High School in town, but I’ll never forget the years growing up on the farm, I wouldn’t trade it for the world. (yes, I know how cliche that sounds)

More pictures from this quick trip to my past can be found here on Flickr.