More heavy equipment on the Kruse family farm, and once again, I do not know what it's for. The green and yellow color scheme says that it is made by John Deere, and it looks good in the late afternoon light.
The St. Louis Fringe Festival starts tonight and runs through Sunday. I have 22 shows on my calendar to shoot, and that's not nearly all of them. We'll be seeing lots of theatrical photography for a while.
What's a dazzling urbanite like you doing in a rustic setting like this?
- Blazing Saddles
Okay, that's a pretty broad exaggeration, but it's one of my favorite movie lines. The scene is just behind the house on the farm where my wife grew up. I'd be lying if I said I knew what the machine on the right did, except the spout on the side puts corn kernels into some kind of hopper. The corn isn't quite as high as an elephant's eye, as the old song has it, but it's getting there.
Out on the prairie in rural Kansas, where Mrs. C grew up. There was a semi-annual reunion of the descendants of her great-grandfather, Jurgen Kruse, German immigrant, Civil War soldier (which got his citizenship) and farmer. Granddaughter Ellie came along. She was bored with all the old people sitting around and yakking. My brother-in-law, who now owns the farm with his wife, took the kid out to the pasture to feed hay to the cattle. Big fun.
West of Marysville (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marysville%2C_Kansas), where my wife went to high school, on our way to a 50th anniversary party for her brother and sister-in-law. It was held in the town of Bremen, population 50, where you can rent out the firehouse for events.
Because, well, I’m scrounging for material. However, how would you like to end most of your days looking at this? It might be hard to see at this resolution, but I like the row of telephone poles vanishing toward the horizon.
Lots of stuff coming up. There is a free blues festival at the Arch this weekend, and the St. Louis Fringe Festival (I’m the photographer) is about to start.
These often-graded gravel thoroughfares in rural Kansas are called county roads. That’s who maintains them and keeps them (mostly) free of washboard ridges. This one runs precisely east-west in front of the family farm. You can see the dust kicked up by an approaching vehicle. Not hard to drive on it this weather, but I have scary memories of an ice storm on Thanksgiving weekend.
It’s just bloody hot here today, 100 F / 38 C, and we just got home from Kansas City. Too much to get back out on the street yet, although tomorrow should be much cooler. So for now, we’re still on the family farm. Ellie was fascinated by the farm animals and equipment, a long way from her city kid experience. My brother-in-law, Mel, took her out in the tractor and let her steer on the way back. Big time fun.
A mechanical monster in the fields, something that might chase you in your dreams. I didn’t ask my brother-in-law, but my guess is that it strips the corn cobs off the stalks, and there is a lot of that kind of work to be done in the vicinity.
Lots of gently managed nature for a city boy. I could make a bad art joke and refer to this as a color field painting.
My wife grew up on this farm in Marshall County, Kansas. I grew up in an apartment in New York. The combination has worked for more than 50 years. This is beautiful country, rolling, not flat as some would imagine. Her family is a delight. The crop in the middle distance is corn, at least 2.5 m high with adequate rain this year.
Marysville, Kansas, is a town of about 3,300 located where the pink heart is in the outline of the state. Mrs. C went to high school there, riding a bus from her family farm about 16 miles / 26 km away. It seems to be doing pretty well. I saw new businesses on this visit and fewer signs of decay than several years ago. The sunflower, of course, is the Kansas state flower. This mural is at the place where the weekly farmers market is held.
It's been quite a weekend. Mrs. C grew up on a farm in rural northeast Kansas. Her family, the Kruses (very German) had a periodic reunion Saturday afternoon in the town of Hanover, population 690. They are lovely people. I get to be the photographer and take all the group pictures.
So it's getting to be time to leave and Ellie notices that the right front tire on our rental car is flat. I call the auto club and their nearest service person is 75 miles away. A couple of my brothers in law, whose hands work a lot better than mine, got the temporary use spare tire on. Then it's 16 miles careful drive to the bigger town where we were staying. It's now Saturday night and not a prayer of getting it fixed there.
There was a Walmart with an auto service center 60 miles away that was open on Sunday. We drove there gingerly, fortunately on arrow-straight prairie highway, anxious about the temporary tire. Walmart got it done, cheap, too. (Walmart - always the low low price.) So then another hour and a half to Kansas City and Mrs. C's sister and brother in law's home. There is a pond with koi and Ellie just loves to feed them.
By the way, the reunion had a German quiz. This Irishman tied for first. Home this afternoon.
Placed directly opposite the exit from the Walmart where you can't possibly miss it. Keep in mind, however, that Kansas just resoundingly defeated a ballot initiative to remove a provision in the state constitution protecting a woman's right to make choices about her own body. But I wouldn't blame the sign-maker for anything. We could have done so much worse.
This is far from my usual kind of post but it has its charms (plus I still don't have new material). The reason for the trip to Kansas was the bi-annual get together of my wife's extended family. They are descended from Jürgen Kruse, who emigrated from Bremerhaven, Germany (where there is a superb museum of German emigration, https://www.dah-bremerhaven.de/en), and earned his U.S. citizenship by serving in the Union army during the Civil War. This is Mrs. C's branch; there are others. She is in there, as are my daughter and granddaughter.
Years from now, if someone looks at this family's records (if there is someone to look at them), my presence may be unnoticed. As the family photographer, I'm always on the other side of the lens.
Still in Kansas. We had some big thunderstorms roll through here last night. It's the Midwest, so normal, but there was a big temperature drop. Maybe that will let me get back out on the streets.
So another infrared shot on my brother and sister in law's farm. There is a simple but not obvious technique to get this kind of color manipulation. Let me know if you want to know how it's done. The corn looks like it has been touched by King Midas. That wouldn't taste good to us or livestock.
It's beastly hot and humid here so I haven't been out to shoot any new local material. We'll poke around Kansas a little more, then. Another sign from the Empty Cup Cafe in Marysville, country humor with extra social sensitivity.
Seen in the Empty Cup Cafe in Marysville, Kansas, where the food is good and varied. Good behavior, however, is expected of all, or else.
