Memories

Mrs, C's mother, Elvira Kruse, passed away about two years ago at the age of 98. Today would have been her hundredth birthday. She had help, of course, but kept her own little apartment and remained mentally sharp. Her memory was astounding.

My wife had the brilliant idea of having some of the younger kids say a little bit about their memories of her. I got to be the director and cinematographer. (Pity I don't know how to edit video but I better learn fast.) There was a wonderfully soft blanket that Ellie admired at Elvira's home, which she immediately gave to her. That's the kind of person she was.

Elvira and my mother, Annette Koral, were born about a month apart in the fall of 1918. Annette has been gone almost 44 years. 

Lieutenant Joshua Kruse, United States Army

There is something of a family tradition on the farm the day after Thanksgiving, but it has changed over the years. The younger men and a few of the women would go out in the nearby fields to hunt quail. After restrictions were imposed on hunting coyotes the quail population fell. For a couple of years someone would go out early on that Friday morning and buy a few boxes of quail (heaven knows where) and then scatter them in the bushes. The hunt resumed. I used to joke with the guys that I was better armed: they had shotguns but I had a Canon.

 

Eventually the marksmen turned to shooting clay pigeons. (See https://flic.kr/p/dvLvNN). As the years passed and most of that generation had families, the turnout decreased. Now it's just target practice out behind the house with whoever is around. This is my nephew who graduated from West Point last spring, Lieutenant Joshua Kruse. He is supposed to know how to use these things.

Not making any comment about guns here. No one in my immediate family has ever owned one. It is an integral part of the culture in rural Kansas. My relatives there use them with the highest safety standards.        

Old Barn

There is an old, rickety barn on Mrs. C's family farm. It has been there longer than I have been visiting the place, 45 years. Now it is used mostly for keeping equipment out of the weather. That wagon, though, could be as old as the barn itself.       

Power

I think this is Mel's harvester, a huge machine that tears corn ears from the stalks and strips the kernels from the cobs (probably by magic). The kernels come out of the chute on the left and into the trailer seen yesterday.

You can get a rough idea how tall this is from figuring out where my eye level would be. Heaven knows how much it costs. Best to stay out of its way.       

Children of the Corn

Lots more fun than the Stephen King story and subsequent movie. Brother-in-law Mel grows corn. His giant harvester machine dumps it into this trailer. Over Thanksgiving weekend he gets a ladder and some adults to help the kids climb in. It's strange new fun. That's Eiile in the aqua and pink.            

Rural America

What's a dazzling urbanite like you doing in a rustic setting like this?

                - Gene Wilder to Cleavon Little, Blazing Saddles, the funniest movie in the 
                history  of American cinema IMHO

Having a wonderful time. Mrs. C asked me if I remembered the first time I came here with her about 45 years ago. I do. The first memory was her father, a stern, conservative Lutheran farmer. I had two strikes against me: Catholic (by origin) and a New Yorker. The way I won him over was that I could recite the Lord's Prayer in German (Vater unser, der Du bist im Himmel. Geheiliget werde Dein Name) so I couldn't be that bad. I foolishly climbed the windmill and expressed passing interest in cattle. Good thing he didn't find out I was at Woodstock.

This is beautiful, rolling, gently colored country. Mrs. C's family are the most delightful people you could hope to meet. (She's not so bad, either.) I enjoy every trip here.

The Farm

The farm where Mrs. C grew up has been in the family for a long time. It's now owned by her youngest brother and his wife, although you can't make a living on it without another full time job. This is the view from the house to the west, something my wife saw every day.

The corn here looks great. However, there were pockets around the area where it seemed to be on death's door. I asked about it - all anyone could tell me was micro-climate, irregular and narrow bands of rain, and drainage. The plot below might not even be good for silage. 
     

Moo

Brother-in-law Mel's cattle in the far pasture. They might be curious because they had never seen a lens as big as my telephoto. At least it kept me at a safe distance.         

It's Okay, He's Supposed To Know This

Guns are as much a part of the culture of rural Kansas as lenses are of mine. I'm not going to editorialize about it. Some people hunt. Some just shoot targets, which is what is going on here. Above is my nephew Josh with (I think) an AK 15. He is a third year cadet at West Point, the United States Military Academy, so he is required to know this stuff. Below, D.J, my niece's husband, gives a lesson to Brody, my - I'm not sure - grand nephew? I get confused about the terms for more distant relations.

I've never owned a gun and never will. I've fired one just a few times, probably all in Kansas. The great emphasis on safety these people have is impressive. Where I grew up, the only people who had guns were the police and a limited number of bad guys. Different worlds.

      

Long, Straight Road

When you get off the main roads around Marysville the farms stretch beyond the horizon. Out in the countryside there are gravel roads, as straight as the land permits, spaced a mile apart. The square mile they enclose is known as a section.

It's pretty quiet out here except for the sound of farm equipment and the wind.                

Squash

I don't have any new local material so I need to pull from this and that. This is a run-down but colorful wagon that my sister-in-law, Pat, keeps beside the farmhouse in Kansas, full of a variety of squash. Just for decoration.

This made me curious about the origins of the word, since it has another, very different meaning in English. It's more complicated than you might think.                   

The Force Awakens

Mel keeps his giant harvester in a shed, looking ready to burst into action. It seems menacing to me, like some evil machine in a Star Wars movie. There was a post a year ago showing it in action on a sunny day.            

Rehab Job

The old barn needs lots of work but that doesn't mean that the family farm is down and out. There is another wooden barn in good repair (but not so photogenic) and new metal buildings for the machinery, as in the second picture. Mel and Pat still have cattle and grow hay and corn. They still need side jobs, though.                             

Very few photos this weekend. Freezing rain continued off and on through Saturday, limiting movement. The sky was leaden. The annual Santa parade, held on the Saturday after Thanksgiving, was postponed due to Marshall County's icy roads. It should get progressively warmer as we drive east on our way home today.

Winter In Kansas

We drove from Kansas City to Marysville, Kansas, Thursday morning in a cold rain. Nothing dangerous. We awoke Friday to find about a third of an inch / 8 mm of ice on the car. The main roads were fine but the rural gravel roads were glazed over. Slow, cautious driving.

Mrs. C's brother Mel and his wife Pat still live on the old family farm. They throw a big potluck dinner for the family on the day after Thanksgiving. The barn out back is in bad shape. It may be that Mel intends to restore it but there was such a crowd I didn't get to ask him.                 

In The Corn Truck

So what's inside the corn truck, besides corn, I mean? Kids, for one thing. I wasn't up to climbing the narrow ladder into the truck bed but the children and son Andy were. (Andy will climb anything available.) He took my camera with him and got the first and third photos. His wife, Claire, took the middle one.                   

City Daily Photo Theme Day: Workers

No shortage of workers on a farm, even though it can look like fooling around when company is over. The big four wheel drive pickup truck can get to most places in the fields but if you want to get anywhere fast you use an ATV. Brother-in-law Mel, a certified, actual farmer, demonstrates.

Just below, my son Andy pretends to be working. That's him in silhouette in the cab of the combine. Some corn got harvested but no job skills were acquired that are useful within the city limits of Chicago. In the end, Mel and his son Ryan got the corn kernels into the truck.

Photos of workers around the world from City Daily Photo members here. 

On The Farm

Out to Mrs. C's family farm for the day yesterday. It's been owned for some years by her youngest brother, Mel, and his wife, Pat.

There was one cornfield that hadn't been harvested. Mel said it had been too wet. So, having little better to do, he brought out the combine and grain truck and got to work. The combine is a monstrous, complicated machine that rips the ears off the stalks, the kernels off the ears, and then pumps it out a chute into the truck bed.

Mel gave son Andy and his wife, Claire, a lesson on driving the combine. Lots of levers and pedals. Not a driving experience he's likely to have on the streets of Chicago.                  

Seven-Toed Farm Monster

This behemoth sits out back on the old family farm, now run by borther-in-law Mel and his wife, Pat. I think these cost the better part of a zillion dollars and do something mysterious, possibly involving the harvest of corn. Their automation is so advanced that once you have run it around the perimeter of a field, you can press a button and the machine will, on its own, finish the rest precisely without human intervention. And some people want to know where their food comes from. Probably one of these.

Below, niece Tricia's husband Steve goes bombing around on one of several ATVs on the property. They have some purpose for work but mostly they are used for, well, just bombing around.          

                   

A Big Boy And His Dog

Here's STL DPB's version of Field & Stream, or at least Field. Niece Trisha's husband, Steve, and his trusty dog, Dakota, led the way on the annual day after Thanksgiving quail hunt. It was unsuccessful, as usual. I got off more good shots than the hunters. Good exercise tromping around in the fields, though.                 

Claire's Shooting Lesson

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A tradition on the Kruse family farm on the day after Thanksgiving is to get out the shotguns. They attempt to hunt for pheasant, quail or whatever other innocent but edible birdies happen by. Yesterday morning there were more game birds on my decorative coffee cup than out in the fields. Some of that tomorrow, maybe.

After the usual enormous buffet lunch, a bunch of us go out to the back fields for trap shooting. This year, son Andy and special friend Claire drove 600 miles / 965 km from Chicago for the weekend. Claire grew up in a town in north central Michigan, about as rural as this area. Despite the environment, she had never fired a gun before yesterday. Not that Andy is steeped in rural lore, but his country cousins have taught him the system.

He provided patient instruction to an eager student. She might have understood it better if Andy had taken his cup out of his mouth. Note the look of concentration on Claire's face. Note the reason in the last picture for him to be very nice to her when they get home. She's ready for the streets of Chicago.