Waning Days of Fall

More and more leaves are falling and it's getting cooler every day.  Nowhere is it more evident than at Creamer's Field.

You can definitely see a difference from my header photo taken September 11th.  It won't be long until we're seeing winter scenes.  

I'm linking with Tom at The Barn Collective 20.

Below is a photo taken at Creamer's Field on April 16, 2012,

at the other end of the migration cycle.   

It's my Index No. 9998 for 

Gaelyn's Foto Friday Fun 129

and my critter entry for

Eileen's Saturday's Critters 92.

Inside the Barn

The old Desjardins barn has stood about 100 years and is looking remarkably well for being so old.  Earlier posts this week about the barn are HERE and HERE.  Today let's take a peek on the inside.

Lots of daylight shows through the old boards and the metal roof.  For the last several years the barn was used for hay storage, but in preparation for the auction all the remaining hay had been moved outside, except for one bale.  Hard to say what repairs may have been done over the years and what is original.

I don't know what is in store for the barn and the hay pasture, but I hope one of the few early Fairbanks barns that is still standing will be around for many more years.

I am linking up with the Barn Collective at

Tom The Backroads Traveller.

Fences By The Barn

In my last post I featured an old barn in Fairbanks HERE.  An estate sale was being held and I went with Marty to the preview for the auction.  I've taken many photos from the road side of the barn, but I took the opportunity to get photos from the back side.  Today I'm featuring the fences around the barn.  In the photo below you can see some of the auction activity, including a dust cloud from the very dry farm road.  We hadn't had any rain at that point, May 22nd, but we've had enough rain since then to ease our concerns of wildfires.

There was still some hay left from last summer, and the sign says it was for the auction.

The barn and the cabin were built on a homestead filed in 1914 by Charles Desjardins.  I'm not sure how long either will be standing and am amazed they have weathered the last 100 years.  Note the fence below that uses horseshoes to hold up the rails.

Back in early September of 2011 there was a big garden planted inside that fence and they were also selling the produce.

The winter view is a little different, as in this photo taken in January of 2011.  You can see more winter views in a previous post, HERE.

I'm linking with Good Fences

at the Run "A" Round Ranch Report.

Estate Sale

We drive by one of the early barns in Fairbanks often.  A homestead was filed for the land in 1914, so the barn would have been built shortly after that.  When we drove by a few weeks ago we saw an auction sign posted on the gate.  Naturally when Marty said he was going to the auction preview I and my camera tagged along.  I couldn't pass up an opportunity to get some closeup shots of the barn!  I'll post some of those next week, including shots from the inside out.

I've posted photos and history of the barn before, including this collage I made in September of 2011 when we were cruising in our '55 T-Bird.

Other posts in 2011 are HERE and HERE, and one in January of this year HERE.  

I'm linking with the Barn Collective HERE.

Tom the Backroads Traveller is taking over from Amy.

Thank you, Tom.

Back In Time

There aren't many old barns still standing in Fairbanks, but there is one that was built by Charles Desjardin on the homestead he filed for in 1914.  He grew potatoes, hay, produce, and livestock.  I did a little editing on a photo that I took in July of 2011 to take us back in time. 

The photo below is the same shot before editing.

I've posted photos of the barn before and linked them to Barn Charm, so some of you may remember the barn.  The photo below was taken on January 3rd of 2011.  And yes, that is an old cabin next to the barn.  Winter would have been very long in that small space!

I gave more of the history of the barn in the earlier post, and you can find it HERE.  Be sure and click on the photos to see them larger as I was posting them in a smaller format then.

I'm linking up with Amy's Barn Collective #14.

Creamer's Barns at Solstice

The old farmhouse at Creamer's Field was brightly lit up on December 22nd as the setting sun reflected in its windows.  It was around 2:00, with sunset at 2:45.  We do have long twilight hours though, with an hour of civil twilight after sunset.

A bit further out the barns were still lit by the sun, but not quite as pretty as the farmhouse.

Looking away from the farmhouse and barns the sunset was beautiful.  In the shot below my camera was aimed just a little different from the last shot in this post, and also the photo in the header and the one in my last post.  Although they were all taken within a few minutes of each other, just a little change of perspective can make a dramatic difference.

We get some wonderful sunsets and sunrises this time of year.

I am linking up with Amy's Barn Collective #13.

Creamer's Barns

I've taken a bit of hiatus from blogging, but hopefully I'll be back to my normal routine now and can catch up with everyone soon.  Thursday afternoon when I passed Creamer's Field the sun was shining and most of the fog that had been hanging around the old dairy barns had lifted. 

Our snowfall had been much lower than normal, but early last week we got about six inches of new snow.  It was a welcome sight, and everyone who likes to play in the snow was happy.  Skiers, dog mushers, and snowmachiners finally have enough snow to get out and enjoy the season.  It looks more like a normal winter now!

I'm linking up with Amy's Barn Collective #10.

For a bit of summer color, the photo below is from my garden on July 27, 2012,

and is Index No. 6952 for Gaelyn's Foto Friday Fun 88.

Creamer's Field Residents

As many of my posts do, this one features the old dairy barns at Creamer's Field.  Today I'm also featuring one of the critters you'll almost always see when you visit there, and you can see them lined up atop the barn in the photo below.

There is a large flock of pigeons who love perching on the barns, and they especially like the cupolas.

The photo below was taken in August of 2013 on a gray day, and I did a little playing with it to brighten it up.

It's my Index No. 7777, which I'm submitting to

Gaelyn's Foto Friday Fun 84.

I included it in a collage on a post I did in 2013, A Walk Around Creamer's Field, which you can see HERE.


I created another collage with some of the photos of the pigeons I took that same day.

I am linking up with Amy's Barn Collective #7

and

Eileen's Saturday's Critters

Red Barn in Washington

For a change of pace, I'm going back to April when we were visiting in the Pacific Northwest.  If you exit the freeway at Woodland, Washington, you can see some beautiful farm country.  We drove up into the hills to visit some friends, and this beautiful red barn sits along the roadside.  

The afternoon before I took a shot of the same barn going the other way.

I'm linking up with Amy at

The Barn Collective #4.

Muskox at the Muskox Farm

Last week I posted photos from the Muskox Farm and focused on the Caribou.  The Muskox were not cooperative on that visit, choosing instead to stay back in the woods.  I did get a shot of one of this year's calves through the fence. 

Here you can see some of the Muskox lounging back in the trees.


I did do better last year on a visit on August 23, 2013.  I posted these photos last fall, but to give you a better shot of the Muskox thought I would repeat them here.


Because it was a rainy day, I added some enhancement to the photos in the collage below to bring out the definition a bit.


The old log barn that still sits on the property is used to store lichen for the Caribou and Reindeer.  Click HERE for more posts on the Muskox Farm.

I am linking up with The Barn Collective

and with Good Fences

at the Run "A" Round Ranch Report.

Different Views of Creamer's Barns

Last week I posted photos of the old dairy barns at Creamer's Field Migratory Waterfowl Refuge at different times of the year.  Those photos were all taken from the front viewing field and are the most common photos that you see of the barns.  However, walking around the barns gives you many different viewpoints.  I've posted a few of the photos or ones very similar before, but thought a walk around was worth doing again.  If we take the trail to the right of the barns, from left to right, we see the farmhouse, the creamery building, the large Iowa-type barn built in 1938 in the back, the smaller Iowa-type barn built in 1950 in the front, and to the right the original log barn built around 1914.  The dairy ceased operation in 1966. 

 July 29, 2013

Zooming in, we see the six cupolas on the barns, all lined up in a row.

July 29, 2013 

If we walk around the barns and back on the Farm Road Trail, we can get a view of the barns from a little further out.

September 27, 2013

If we take the Seasonal Wetland Trail, we come around the back of the barns and around to the other side.

 July 29, 2013

If we keep walking we'll get a view of the face of the larger of the Iowa barns.

August 26, 2013

We can look up and see a closeup view of one of the cupolas.  The two large barns were designed by the Louden Machinery Company of Iowa.

August 26, 2013

On around to the front is a view of the side of the large barn.

August 12, 2013

That brings us back around to the front of the barns.  This photo was taken October 18th of last year.  Usually we would have snow on the ground at that point, but last year the snow held off until the night of Halloween.  A different story this year, and, yes, we do have snow on the ground now and have since Saturday.

October 18, 2013

I am linking up with Amy at Rose Street Reflections for

The Barn Collective #2.