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Barns of Sibley County |
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Entries From the Recent Past
On the Road Again........
June 12, 2010 Well, we are heading into midsummer already and it is hard to believe
that we are this far into the summer so quickly. We had an early spring this year with
all the snow gone by Easter which was early this year. A lot of crops went in early
but it did stay cool for most of the spring. The corn and soybeans are looking good and
the small grains really look good with all the cool weather and rain that we have been getting. This first part of June
has seen a lot of rain with this past week seeing cold rain nearly every day. Some hay is down and has been rained on all
week so it probably will not make good hay anymore. I have been printing books as usual and especially the township
books which people seem to like a lot because I can put their barn on the cover. I took copies of the township books to
the annual Sibley County Historical Society Meeting which was held in New Auburn this
year. They seemed to be a hit. It was a good meeting with one of our members - Steve
Briggs - giving a really good presentation and slide show on a trip he made to New Guinea
in search of MIA's and planes from World WarII. Rommie Petersen, the President pf the Society, always has a good
program prepared for the annual meeting. I also was invited to give a talk about the barn project at the old one room
school house out at St. John's Lutheran Church in Bismarck Township north of Winthrop. Karen Klenk had invited me to bring
some books and talk about what was involved in doing the Barns of Sibley County over the last 5 years. They have a celebration
at the school house called "The Last Day of School" and open the school for a day for people to look at how children
went to school in the county during the first part of the past century. I still go out to take photos of the barns
in the county and sort of update the photos that I already have. It also gives me a chance
to visit with the farm owners and hear their stories. I do hope that people are writing
down their memories of life on their farm. There are not so many left to tell those memories
and it is sad to see that history go. We also did a fun trip in early May when we drove to Arkansas
to do a workshop that a great nature and wildlife photographer from that area offers to digital photographers. My 10 year
old grandson accompanied me for the workshop and we both had a very good time and even learned a few things. I have a link
to Tim Ernst's website on my website if you would like to look at some of his wonderful work. Well, I do hope you
all have a wonderful summer and enjoy the beautiful area that we live in. With the Good
Lord's Blessing we will have good crops again this year and receive a good price for
the crops and for the milk that the few dairy farms remaining in the county are able
to produce. I spoke with a dairy farmer in Jessenland Township recently and she informed me that the number of dairies
in Jessenland was down to two and there were only 56 left in the entire county last year. That is sad. February
14, 2010 January of the new year has slipped by and we are well into February already. We have
had a good bit of snow for the winter but not nearly as bad as some other parts of the country. Washington DC has been blanketed
with a few feet as has most of the northeastern section of the country. Even Dallas has had record snow this winter. I
have been out and about only on a couple of ocasions and so I do not have many photos
to add to the site today. I did go out about a week ago to deliver some books and visit
with some of the great farm people that I had met in my travels while photographing the
barns throughout the county. I learned that one of the barns that I had photographed several years ago in New Auburn Township
had burned down on February 2nd. The barn was still in use with the owner and his family
housing sheep in the barn. They lost over 70 sheep, including 43 new lambs. A very real
loss for the family. I will post a photo of the barn on this page today. We
continue to lose dairy operations in the county. The price received for milk continues to be quite low at
under $15.00 average per hundreweight while the cost of producing the milk is much more than this
amount. Dairy farmers work is never rewarded as well as it should be. I will try
to get out and about to capture some more of the barns in winter settings. But I am really
looking forward to some warmer weather and green grass once again!! January 6, 2010 It has been a long time since I made a posting to this blog. Thank you to all those who still
check back once in awhile to see if I have added anything to the site. Time goes by way too fast for me and I don't get
back to some things as quickly as I should! In my last post I mentioned that I
was planning a trip with my two sisters to Ireland in September. Well we did go to Ireland
for two weeks early in September and had just a wonderful time. We saw so many things
and travelled all over County Kerry (the county that our great grand parents had emigrated from in 1850.) as well
as a little bit into Counties Clare, Galway and even a foot into County Cork. We had the most wonderful weather while there with plenty of sunshine - something the people
of Ireland had not seen most of the summer. They had record rains in July and August
and more record rains with flooding after we left. The farmers over there were having
a very difficult time with their hay crops and small grains. Since
we came home I have been busy putting the whole adventure into a book for my sisters and
myself so we can keep the memories of our trip fresh for a long, long time. Altogether we took over 6000 photos and choosing
from them has been a challenge to put into the book. I kept a journal every day while in Ireland so that made writing for
the book much easier. I completed it just around Christmas with 120 pages and hundreds of pictures and everyone who has
seen it has really liked it. That makes the effort worthwhile right there! I will try
to put a couple of photos of the book into this post. I did manage to get out with all the snow
and take some photos but not a lot. It has been way too cold for taking good photos. I do hope it warms up soon so that
I can once again get out to do one of the things that I like to do best. I
have been kept busy with printing out the barn books to fill orders for books and a lot of people were also looking for
the township books with a photo of their barn on the front and back of the book. They
do turn out pretty good and everyone likes it when their barn is on the cover. And I have printed out more calendars than ever
this year. I try to include a calendar in with the book orders this time of the year. And Joe likes to
give the calendars to his clients as a 'thank you for your business' promotion at this time of year also. The fall photos were really a bust this past year. With all the rain that we had in October the colors
were really poor. The outstanding reds and oranges that we had the previous year were nowhere to be found this time. Well, I am going to try to post a few additional photos and I wish everyone who
visits this site the Happiest New Year ever this year. I will try to capture more good
barn photos this year and try to talk with more of the fine farm people who live in
Sibley County. I am working on putting together a children's book about the barns and
if anyone has some suggestions for it I would love to hear from you. You can contact me trough my email address that is
on this web site. July 28, 2009 An update to my website
is long overdue and I will attempt to do that this evening. Time goes by very fast for me with lots of things to keep me
busy all the time. I still work full time (fortunately, as so many seem to be losing
their jobs through downsizing of one sort or another during a rather rough economic
time) and with a couple of grandchildren here a lot - whom I love to have with us - working
on the barn book - which has been completed with two different versions being published at this time. I have set
up my own small publishing company - Silver Creek Publishing - and I am attempting to print the book myself as they are
requested. I hope to have them listed soon on Amazon and with other booksellers. I will
let you know how to search for them as soon as I get it set up. The book does look good and I am proud of
the way it has turned out. All the wonderful people I have met through this project have encouraged me so much
with what I have been attempting to do. I hope I have done justice to photographing all their barns. I will add some
of the more recent photos to the site before I publish this again. This week is the start of the Sibley County Fair in Arlington. I hope to display the books at the Sibley County
Historical Museum's booth which is located in the small one room schoolhouse that is
situated on the fairgrounds. They will have lots of information and displays from the
museum there throughout the fair for all to enjoy. Please stop by if you are going to
the fair. The fair begins on Thursday and runs though Sunday. We have been having a wonderful summer here in our area this year. The crops look very good and the garden has
been super abundant. My husband Joe has been doing the gardening this summer and he planted
an awfully large garden for just the two of us! We have been enjoying fresh peas and
green beans for about a month already. Now the cucumbers and tomatoes are beginning and
so is the sweet corn. Freezers are full already and I have been sharing the extra with people where I work and
with whoever would like to have fresh vegetables. There have been plenty of area festivals and events to attend also. With the
grandkids in tow we have been to church festivals, Bar B Q Days in Belle Plaine, tractor
shows and parades with Joe's Allis Chalmers tractors, swimming with the boys and of course
4th of July and a 70th birthday party for Joe hosted by our children. It has indeed been a busy summer (Ithink most
of that was just at the end of June and beginning of July). My 2 remaining sisters and I are planning a trip
to Ireland in September so that is occupying some of my time also. We are really looking
forward to spending the time together and walking on the soil where our great grandparents emigrated from before 1850.
This will be the first time that any of us has been across the pond so we hope it all
goes well. I continue to take photographs of barns
around the county and I am still looking for stories to go with those barns. So if you
do have a story or know of someone who does have an interesting story about their barn
I really would like to hear it. I can always update with a second book and add these stories. I will try to stay a little more current with updates and I really would like to
hear from anyone who stumbles across this site. October 10, 2008 Summer has rapidly turned into fall with all its spectacular
color here in the county, especially along the Minnesota River Valley. I have been out
as often as I can to try to capture some of the beauty before it disappears and is replaced
by barren fields and landscapes. The colors do not seem to last nearly long enough this
time of year and it is amazing how fast the summer disappeared again. The crops do look very good in the area. We seem
to have had ample moisture throughout the growing season and a late frost gave the crops
a chance to mature after a late start for the planting season. I haven't heard what
yields are like for the corn and beans but I believe it will be good for most farmers
in the county. With some good drying weather it won't take long at all to finish the harvest. I have posted a few new photos to the site so I do hope you enjoy them. I have completed
photographing the barns that remain in Sibley County and have close to 1100 barns in
total for the 17 townships. I think I have captured about 95% of the barns and I am
working on putting them into a book. July 9, 2008 Well, I am getting ever
closer to finishing this project that I began almost 3 years ago now. I have met so many wonderful people
along the journey and photographed around 1000 different barns and I have enjoyed every moment of it!
The last Sunday in June I finished photographing the barns in Severance Township. I
have 64 barns from that particular area and I know that I missed out on several that
were recently taken down. I do hope that someone else recorded the last days of those barns. I
have just a small section of Cornish Township to finish at this point. I will need to do this fairly soon as the
corn will soon be high enough to obscure any barns from the road for good photos of them. I am continuing to place the barn photographs into their respective townships
in Publisher and am seeking out stories on the barns as I get the opportunity. I recently
attended a program that the Sibley County Historical Society presented on the David Kahle
farm south of Gaylord which featured Pete Pinske giving a very informative talk about the family business of Pinske
Built Barns. It was a perfect summer evening with around a hundred people taking in the event
and enjoying the potluck dinner that was served by members of the historical society.
Mr. Pinske gave a demonstration of how the early barns were built and the tools that
were used in the construction of the round roof barns that were their specialty. He also presented a Powerpoint
slide show in the hayloft of the Kahle barn that showed the evolution of the barn building business
of the Pinskes. Summer is going by fast and the crops are really beginning to stretch out. The
corn is shoulder high or better in most places by now and this year there are more fields
of spring wheat than there have been in many years. The prices for the crops remain high
and the farmers are hoping for good weather to see them through the rest of the summer with ample rain
and no hail or strong winds to damage the crops. I will add a few new
photos from my travels through Severance township. And again, if you have any stories
to go with any of the barns, please feel free to contact me. I would love to hear from
you. September 22, 2010 We
are quickly sliding into fall again and our summer has disappeared just as quickly.
The Sibley County Fair was the first weekend in August and it was a very hot weekend.
I think it really held down attendance this year but it was still a fun time. The Historical Society once again were located
in the Boy Scouts' building on the fairgrounds and enjoyed many visitors stopping by
to look at the displays and sample the fresh baked bread and homemade butter that Dorothy
Peterson and her young voluntters helped to make. I had the township barn books and the
Barns of Sibley County books on display. There was a lot of interest, wonderful comments and quite a few orders
for the township books customized with owners own barns on the covers. It was fun visiting with
each and everyone who stopped by. We lost one of the most beautiful barns in the
county on the 9th of September when the large Jaus dairy barn in Moltke township was
destroyed by fire. The barn was almost 90 years old and still was in use by Martin and Loretta Jaus in
their organic dairy business. No cattle were lost in the fire and at this point they are still milking
but are not sure about rebuilding this magnificent old barn. I am looking
for some colorful fall weather to show up pretty soon. Last year was a very poor year
for color so I am really hoping that this year will be much better. We have had an extremely wet
year this year and I am not sure if that will have any effect on the color. We need some extended dry weather
to be able to get the crops harvested. Everything is about ready to harvest already so
if the dry weather comes the farmers will be going around the clock to get the harvest
in. It looks like a bumper crop for both soybeans and corn. We have not had a frost yet
so there are still fields of sweetcorn being harvested at this time. A great growing year statewide it seems. JULY
11, 2010 We are well into the middle of summer already having passed
the 4th of July a week ago. The crops look so good this year with corn more than shoulder
high on the 4th and beans and small grain looking excellent. Harvesting of peas for canning
has been going on for quite some time already and that crop is also quite large. We have had ample rain
all season already and getting the hay crop out continues to be a challenge for a lot of farmers. Summer
church and town festivals continue every weekend and they are needed fundraisers for
both. So if you have an opportunity to partake of the many in the area please do. You
will meet your friends and neighbors there and find out everything that is happening in
the area as well as get to enjoy some foods that you will only find at these events. Yesterday hubby Joe took
part in the all day tractor ride put together by Wally Vorwerk who farms near Gibbon.
The weather was perfect and all that participated in the event had a good time. Someone
recently told me that they couldn't find their barn in the Moltke township book so while
I was over in the area yesterday I checked it out and found that I had missed about 1 1/2 miles with several barns
along it. So I did take photos of them and will include them in their township book. If anyone
else thinks I may have missed any barns please let me know and I will be sure to check
it out. I appreciate everyone's help with the project!! I met somemore wonderful
farm people yesterday, too. I had spoken with Loretta Jaus many times by email over the last few years
as I wrote about their organic farm in Moltke township and as I was in the area yesterday I stopped to
see if she was home. She was and her two beautiful young grandchildren were keeping
her company while their parents helped with the hay baling. We had a really nice visit
and it was good to finally get to meet her. Also met a young woman who thought I might be
having car trouble as I was taking some barn photos. She thought it was a really warm day to have to walk for
help so it was really kind of her to offer to help. When I told her what I was doing
she said that she had heard about the project and my books. We took a little break
over the 4th of July and went out to the Black Hills with our two young grandsons, Micaheal
and Alex. We all had a great time camping and seeing as many sights as we could including going to the Mount Rushmore
monument twice. Well, I do hope that your summer is going well for you. It is always
a busy time of the year and always way too short! June 14, 2008 Last weekend I had the opportunity to photograph a log house
in Jessenland that was built around 1875-80. The house was a remarkable example of the craftsmanship of the builders of that
era who only had minimal tools to work with but could still produce a home to live in that was weather tight and very sturdy.
They had ample trees in the area and the size of the logs they selected gave very thick walls on most of the houses built.
The land that this house sits on was purchased from the Minnesota Valley Railroad Company which had been given land grants
by the U.S. government in order to built railroads through the territory and open it up for farming. This particular grant
was for 85.71 acres and was sold to Christopher Cook for $428.55. Jessenland township was located
in the Big Woods area so log buildings were easily built but clearing the land for agriculture purposes was a harder task
for the farmers of the period. This particular log house is scheduled to be dismantled very soon.
I have put some of the photos on the web site for you to see how well built it was. Be sure
to check out the pages on the rest of this site. I have added a few more photos. Enjoy!! June 5, 2008 I haven't forgotten about the site although it may seem like it since I haven't posted since the beginning
of March. The cold wet spring has not allowed me to do much for photographing until just lately. I did manage to get out to
Grafton township and have that area all finished now. I still need to finish Cornish and Severance townships and then check
out some areas around Arlington and Green Isle to make sure that I have the barns that I photographed in those area placed
in the right townships. I have also been working on moving the
photos into a Publisher program for each of the townships. I have printed out draft copies of the books that I have done so
far and they are looking good. I also managed to get some interviews
done, although not nearly as many as I would like to have done by now. Roman Jaus wrote up a nice piece for me about the barn
on his farm that his father and uncle built in 1928. There is a lot of history in the barn. Roger Just from the Henderson area gave me a lot of information on the barn that is located on what was his family's
homestead. I took a lot of photos of the barn also as he talked about it. The U shaped barn in Grafton township has been taken down. I am glad that I took the time to take photos of it last
spring before it was demolished. I will post a few new barn
photos to the site today. March 2, 2008 Well we are still waiting for winter to end its hold on us. We haven't seen much in the way of snow as other
parts of the country seem to be experiencing this winter but it has been colder than the past few winters that have spoiled
us with warmer weather. We are into March now and I have been
out a couple of times in the last few weeks to get some additional winter barn photos and to make sure about township lines
for getting the photos that I do already have into the correct township for each. It gets a little difficult at times to know
for sure which township I am actually in. Do you think a GPS might come in handy once in a while? I did come across a few barns in Henderson and Kelso townships the last weekend of February that I hadn't photographed
yet so I added those photos. I will attempt to post some of them in this update. I did get out to do some interviews over in Transit Township earlier in the month. I visited with Ardina Hed at her
farm and she talked about her memories of growing up on the farm where she still lives. Also visited with David Pieri who
has lived only about ten years on his farm north of Winthrop but has acquired a lot of history about his farm. I have 7 of the 17 township books completed in a publishing program. They are looking
very good I think and I will add more information to them as I travel around the various townships talking to as many people
as I can about the different barns and any memories that they might have about them. If you see any barns on this site that
you might have information about I would really like to hear from you also. Keep warm. Green grass will be here again soon!! January 19, 2008 We are experiencing a little Minnesota global
warming today with the temperature rapidly rising from -16 degrees this morning to almost 0 degrees as I write this. The small
amount of snow we have on the ground is quite crunchy underfoot when walking but the sun is shining!! I went out last weekend
before this recent cold spell and photographed a couple of barns in the Arlington area. I needed one of them for placing in
the barn calendars that I have been doing and although it was a little cloudy on Sunday morning I did manage to get a fairly
good photo of the barn with a few cattle near it. I will post that one to the site today. Also took another photo of the barn
on State Highway # 19 south of Arlington that has the leaning silo. I think it is leaning a little more since my earlier photos
of it about 2 years ago. I wonder how much longer it can stand at the angle that it is at without gravity finally bringing
it down? I have been working on the township books for the barns
that I have done. They will look good I believe when I have finished them. Looking forward to seeing them in print. I have received quite a few favorable comments on the photos on the this
website and I really do appreciate the feedback. One writer from Wisconsin whose column appears in newspapers here in Minnesota
has asked for permission to write about the project in one of his columns. He writes a lot about disappearing barns, windmills,
fences and other farm related things. I do hope that everyone
stays nice and warm through our brief cold spell and I do hope also that you enjoy the latest photos that I have added to
the site. I am looking forward to hearing from you if you have any comments. September 29, 2007 Moltke township is where I headed on
Friday to do a full day of photographing barns. I had heard about the Jaus barn that was in that area and wanted to be sure
to get photos of it. It was a great day for taking pictures with a beautiful blue sky and wispy clouds showing up in the background
of the pictures. I photographed 85 barns in the township. That is the largest number of barns that I have been able to do
in one trip. There were also a good number of dairies still operating in the township - one really large one and several of
100 or more cows being milked. It is harvest time so many combines were out in the fields with huge clouds of dust surrounding
them. Soybeans are the crop being harvested at the moment and some cornfields were also being opened up. Large semi trucks
were parked along the edge of many fields to receive the golden crop being removed from the fields. And this year it is a
golden crop in more than one way with the price of the grains being substantially higher than it has been in the past. I found
many barns with new roofs and siding, but again, I found many that were run down and in need of lots of TLC. I will post a
few of the barns that I captured on this trip in the album.I have also been keeping an eye on the fall color change along
the Minnesota River Valley between Blakeley and Henderson and trying to get some good fall color photos of the barns and the
old St. Thomas church that are in the area. We spent most of the week up in the Brainerd area and traveled home through Duluth
and part of Wisconsin on Thursday and the fall colors in the area were spectacular!! Hope you get out to enjoy the beauty
of this all too short season of the year!! October 4, 2007 With plenty of sunshine and blue skies I headed to Severance township this afternoon
to begin photographing the barns located there. This is actually the very first time that I have ever been in Severance. As
usual there seem to be a lot of barns that stand empty of livestock now. I found only 2 farms in the area that still had dairy
operations on them. I ran across one barn south
of Gibbon that had a rather interesting story about it. The couple that own it have a small museum of their farm history in
the hayloft of the barn. They have various items of equipment and household appliances, both electric and non-electric, that
show the progress of life on their farm. There is even a side rake and a dump rake in the loft and it is not a drive-in loft!!
The rakes were disassembled and put back together once all the parts were moved into the loft. The couple's story about
this adventure is quite interesting to hear. Many combines and tractors were in the fields this day hurrying
to get out more of the crops before the next round of rain is scheduled to appear. We seem to be getting rain quite often
the past couple of weeks so it makes harvesting the crops a little bit more difficult. The young fields of alfalfa are lush
and green and cover crops of grain are also a beautiful deep green due to all the rain. With October rushing along, there are not too many days left for capturing good
photographs as the leaves disappear and the crops are removed from the fields. I will try to get a couple of more days of
photographing in before the end of the month but will then need to wait until spring 's return to finish up this project.
I really am getting close to the end now and feel that I will have more than 90% of the barns in each of the townships captured
when I finish. I will try to post again within
the next couple of weeks after I have ventured out to the western end of the county one more time. Get out and enjoy the lovely
fall weather - we know what will come next!!! October
27, 2007 With plenty of sunshine on Thursday (25th), I took the afternoon off from my "day job" to
head towards Bismark township to capture some photos of the barns in that area. I had taken some photos over a year ago in
the area on the north side of #10 but wanted to find as many more as I could before the fall season had ended and all crops
and leaves were gone leaving a pretty barren countryside for taking photos. I believe there are no dairy farms in operation
in this area - I did not see any in the number of miles that I covered on this day. There is still some field work being done
because of all the rain that fell during the month but the majority of the crops are out now and there are plenty of fields
turned over already too. All in all it was an enjoyable afternoon for getting out with the camera again. I have added a few
photos on the "recent photos" page from Thursday's trip. And on my way home I happened to be in the right
spot to get a nice photo of one of my favorite barns in Faxon township with the full Hunter's Moon rising above it. Hope
you enjoy the new photos!!! December 16, 2007 I
haven't had the opportunity to post any pictures for over a month now but today I will add a couple of different ones
to the pages. Recently had a short piece published in the Sibley County Historical Society newsletter with this website mentioned
and have had a few people contact me to let me know how much they like the photos and what I am doing as far as the barn project.
It is always good to hear from those who enjoy bans as much as I do. With the cold weather here and really not a lot of snow yet I haven't been out much to take any photos. I did
go out on our first snowfall a couple of weeks ago and headed over to Larry & Bev Fahey's place to try to get some
more photos of their barn with the horses out by it but they didn't have the horses out so just shot a few of the barn
anyway. I don't have any snow photos of barns yet with my Nikon so am anxious to take a few. Maybe we will get some snow
after the first of the year. Christmas is almost
here and I hope that you are enjoying the season with your families. Browse through the site to check out the photos that
I have added. November 5th, 2007 Well,
with the onset of colder weather along with barren trees and fields, it looks like I will be winding down the amount of time
that I will be out in the field (literally) searching for the remaining barns in the county. And unless we get some really
pretty snowfalls for capturing barn photos I will probably await the arrival of spring and the greening of grass, trees and
crops that will accompany it before I venture out for anymore all day photo shoots. Instead, I will concentrate on moving the photos that I do have into a program to be able to submit for a book at
some point in the future. Any suggestions for how to proceed would be greatly appreciated!! I will also select a certain number of barns from each township and attempt to
get as much information on these barns as I am able to obtain. That means going out on the road again to do some interveiwing
of the owners of these barns, trying to learn as much as I can about what makes the barn unique and the history of each barn.
This will be particularly enjoyable since I will get to meet and visit with many wonderful people again. I have moved my other posts from this area into an archive
page for those of you who are interested and also to remind myself of what I have been doing. Another thing I will try to do is to update the photo at the top of this column
on a regular basis with a different photo. The one from this posting is of the full Hunter's Moon that was rising above
one of my favorite barns to photograph in Faxon township in October. I would love to hear from you if you have any comments about this site or about any of my photos
that are displayed on the site.
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