The Johnson Farm

An old rural mailbox at rest.  The farmer has died and his wife is in the nursing home. The land has been rented out and the house sits vacant. The heartbeat of the farmyard has slowed, and come to a full halt.

The final act was to tear out the mailbox and post from the edge of the rural road, leaving it hidden from view, leaning against an old shed. A mailbox that has held a lifetime of messages, good news and bad.

A typical old red barn sitting in a farm yard which has now turned into a hay meadow. It always seems so quiet when I visit an abandoned farm. I try to imagine the place back when it was a busy working farm with teams of horses harnessed up and hard at work. Milk cows lowing in  the barn and chickens running to and fro, chasing bugs.

The barn windows have been beaten and weathered through countless storms till only a single pane of glass remains.

 The door to this old farm building has seen a lot of activity. Those days are gone and the farm has been abandoned. The boards are weathered to the point you can just barely see the remains of the original bright red paint.

The door has sagged so the hardware is no longer in alignment. I love the old style latch and handle that was probably crafted in the shop out of left over materials.

The steps and porch of the house have been taken over by raspberry canes, as life struggles on. Long after these photos were taken the house was destroyed and the remains buried.

The outhouse has served its time and is slowly being enveloped in vines and ferns.

I took these photos over ten years ago and in recent years the farmyard has been  purchased by a young couple who have move in another house. The barn has a new steel roof. Children’s voices are once again being heard and so the cycle repeats itself.