Visit to Auburn, June 28-29, 2008

Last weekend, I spent a quick 2 days in Auburn. If a photo is worth 10,000 words, then I have a long essay here. Click on any of them to get a bigger view.

Here's the big green barn at the farm. It had some wind damage four weeks ago and you can see the new roof metal on the east end here. Good as new...actually better.

In place of the cattle and hogs Dad used to have south of the barn, our renter, Joe Moody, now uses it for storing his extensive grain handling equipment.

On the north side of the road, we sold the house and two pastures to Andy Beherends and his wife last fall (and now their 7 month-old son). He is renting the two pastures out for crops. Here's the view of the house from the top of the hill, looking east. You can see the beans planted where we used to have pasture.

The house and yard look fantastic! The Beherends have really cleaned up the place. It is very neat, clean and crisp. I met Andy and he told me of more plans he had for tree trimming, painting and making it more their own. I went in the house and, boy, does it look good. I'm thrilled to have a family living on the farm. They are thrilled to have their own place. They get along well with Joe Moody...the whole thing works.

Remember the green shop on the north side of the road?? Andy has cleaned it up well too. He added brown paint to match the house, put on a new garage door and cleaned out a lot of junk.

Speaking of houses, here's the house many of you remember well from Auburn. Anne and I grew up here. I could hardly get a good photo of the house as the trees in front of it are so big and healthy. The place looked good. And, as I look at the photo, I see the TV antenna endures, even in this world of cable and satellite!!

And, in quintessential Auburn fashion, the mailbox is no longer on G Street, but on 16th Street, even though the address remains the familiar 1607 G!!!!!

And for all you fans of erosion control, here's the photo from the top of a big waterway we built about a mile north of the house. We put this about 10 years ago...with time, the grass has matured, the terraces are now draining into the waterway and it is simply handling all sorts of storms with no sign of soil erosion. Hard to grasp this from the photo...but to walk it slowly on a summer day was a thing of utter joy to me.

Here's the same waterway from the bottom, across the road.

The farm is doing well. Joe Moody has done a terrific job as a steward of the land. It is highly productive and adapting to the very different agricultural climate we have now.

Hope you enjoyed the photos here.