Likely roads

I turned off Missouri State highway N on a “likely road” south of Rockbridge. The road climbed a nice hill and eventually gave me this vista of verdant pastures, trees, a hay barn, and silo. I had just completed photographing another silo at the point where the road leaves Highway N. See that silo on the Corndancer Photo of the Week page. One would have never guessed this scene would be available. But for the turn down the likely road, we would have surely missed it.

 How to find a likely road

Check out this silo and more at Corndancer dot-com.

Since I have been plying the back roads, pig trails, pathways plus other odd and assorted byways in the bowels of rural areas, I have informally amassed information to pass judgment on the probability of finding something cool down a given road. The ones with the best opportunities I call “likely roads.” Likely roads are predominantly gravel or perhaps dirt. Most do not have utility lines running down the sides, although this is not a deal killer. Before we go to much further, we encourage you to check out the Corndancer Photo of the Week page where this story got its start.

This is a likely road off the famous “Pig Trail” in north central Arkansas. If it were less traveled, the likeliness index would be higher. If the roadway was less traveled and sunk below the roots of the trees, the probability of finding something cool to shoot is even higher. Its siren call is saying “travel me!”

Likely roads generally have trees butting up to the road bed. Since the current trend of highway and road departments is to make shoulders nude of vegetation, when you find a road with trees abutting the right-of-way, it is a good bet that little has been done to the road, other than occasional grading, since it was first a road. This is a good sign of age. The older the road, the better. Roads into timber dedicated areas are usually non-productive for camera fodder since producers want every square foot growing trees. This means that former buildings or other structures were probably flattened long ago.

Before I stumbled across the silo scene, I found these two old trucks, a ’54 GMC winch truck and a ’53 Chevy pickup at an abandoned residence on the same road. Further down the same road, I found the old barn you will find over the caption “Not so Big” on the October 19 Corndancer Photo of the Week page.

Here’s a second look at the old trucks.

A 1954 GMC winch truck individual portrait.

A 1953 Chevy pickup individual portrait

On another likely road, near Romance, Missouri, I found this “down on the corner” scene.

Still in the Romance MO neighborhood I found this old building.

On Souder Road near Rockbridge MO, you will find this old barn. I originally visited the old barn and property owners in October of 2009. See how the barn looked in 2009 in our October 26, 2009 post.

Here’s a second look at the old barn — behind a weather grizzled tree.

Further down Souder Road, this Angus heifer was a tad curious. Remembering the sixties TV show “Secret Agent” theme song, Secret Agent Man, by Johnnie Rivers, she seems to be saying “They’ve given me a number and taken away my name.”

With these handy instructions in mind you may now sally forth to discover “finds” on likely roads. In the event you become lost, if you happen across electric power lines, you can generally follow those until you find a hard surface highway or someone who can steer you right. If you take a few notes about landmarks as you go, you can refer to those and backtrack. Otherwise careful out there. There are booger-men lurking.

Thanks for dropping by,

Joe Dempsey,
Weekly Grist for the Eyes and Mind

http://www.joedempseycommunications.com/
http://www.joedempseyphoto.com/
http://www.corndancer.com/joephoto/photohome.html

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Barns and critters

This old barn in southern Missouri has to be at least three or four stories tall (if that is an acceptable term for barn height). The lower walls are poured concrete which probably have fortress-like strength. The front appears to be “tar-paper” covering. One of my fellow travelers guessed, with that construction, it was probably a dairy barn in its glory days.

Barns and more barns

I recently departed the depths of the LA (lower Arkansas) Delta for the hilly environs of LM  (lower Missouri). I traveled north with a fellow curmudgeon toward Rockbridge Trout and Game Ranch  to meet some mutual friends for a good ol’ boys weekend in the boondocks. Save for a few wi-fi hot spots at the resort, cell phones and tablets become battery-operated paper weights. In all fairness, I must report that not all of the area is so deprived.

Click on the barn for more barn pictures at Corndancer dot-com.

While other members of the party attempted to forcibly remove trout from the pristine mountain stream winding through the premises, I sallied forth to capture images and convert same to pixels. You can see more of these pictures on the Photo of the Week page at Corndancer dot com.

I found old barns, silos, an old post office,  a few critters plus miscellaneous and sundry other suitable targets. For this epistle, we will show some of the barns with a critter or two thrown in for good measure

This is old barn shows remnants of its beginning as a log structure. I shot if from the highway. You can see other views the barn shot from the barnyard at Corndancer dot-com.

This big ol’ Hereford bull chills out in front of his barn. He is not showing any signs of work-related stress.

I lied. Not all of the barn pictures are from Missouri. This is a homeward trip capture north of Calico Rock, Arkansas. It is a small structure which holds hay but looks more decorative than utilitarian.

Here’s another barn north of Calico Rock on Arkansas Highway 5. This one and the one above are nearly in domino sequence.

Parting shot

While tooling around on the maze of country roads in southern Missouri, I spied this hen pecking around. She gave me a couple of quick looks and departed as seen above. And with that, I depart for the week.

Thanks for dropping by,

Joe Dempsey,
Weekly Grist for the Eyes and Mind

http://www.joedempseycommunications.com/
http://www.joedempseyphoto.com/
http://www.corndancer.com/joephoto/photohome.html

Rock houses and other recent finds redux

Click on the old buildings to see our original October 2012 post — lots of stuff.

Back in October of 2012, while in North Arkansas, I decided to find as many “rock houses” as I could for my photo prosaic pursuits. In polite circles, these domiciles would probably be called “native stone homes.” I doubt that moniker was applied very much in North Arkansas (or LA either).

Disappointment salved

I did not find as many rock houses as I would have liked.  But, my meandering resulted in finding other interesting old home sites,  a barn, and a silo, all of which salved my disappointment with the lower inventory of my preferred target. See all of these fortuitous finds in our original October 2012 post.

Click on the old dogtrot house and see a bunch more pictures.

In our sister article for the week we reported on finding an old dogtrot house at Cleveland, Arkansas. Well “finding” it may be a stretch. One would have to be blindfolded to miss it.

On the other hand, we were fortunate to find a person who had first had knowledge of the house, its former occupants, and the community of Cleveland in general. He is a retired minister with a good sense of humor. Check it the old house and the preacher’s wit on the Photo of the Week page at Corndancer dot-com.

A Delta sampler

One of the few traffic jams seen in small Delta communities is a long line of semi-trailers full of freshly harvested rice and soybeans waiting at the local elevator to be unloaded. There are only three trucks here now, but you can bet the farm that before now and later on there were and will be a bunch more. Turning space becomes a premium commodity. This particular installation is the Producers Rice Mill elevator at DeWitt, Arkansas.

Driving through the Delta is like bank fishing on the river: you never know what you are going to catch (and or see). My most recent swing started at the International Headquarters in Pine Bluff and snaked generally northeast to the outskirts of Helena, Arkansas and back to Hqs. by a slightly, but not completely different route. In that end of the world, for some destinations, there is not a plethora of roads from which one may make a selection. (Therein lies some of the charm).

I spied this field burn-off fire on the horizon, but my trip plan took me in the opposite direction. Turns out, I found and even bigger field fire and made a lot of shots. See them on the Photo of the Week page at Corndancer dot-com

Click the pic for more field fire pictures

The afore-mentioned trip takes one through pockets of civilization; wild, wooly, and critter-filled boondocks; and lots of farmland, all of which offer fertile opportunities to burn pixels. The resulting pictures in this report are presented in the order in which I encountered the circumstances which made them possible. One of the phenomena I stumbled across was a large field burn-off southwest of Helena, Arkansas. I have posted 14 pictures of the fire with a few words of commentary on the Photo of the Week page at Corndancer dot-com.

Right in the big middle of DeWitt, Arkansas, across from a school, I found a large flock of egrets. Of course, the nearby, freshly-harvested cornfield might have had something to do with their presence. This big boy decided to break from the flock and pose.

Shooting from the truck window when egrets are close is normally necessary since they immediately spook the minute the door comes open. To get this picture, I drove toward them a few feet and then starting shooting.

If you follow this blog, you have seen this poor old ’54 Chevy truck before. It is on one of the main highways out of DeWitt, Arkansas. I shoot it every time I pass it.

Up the road a piece from DeWitt in St. Charles, Arkansas I discovered a predecessor to the ’54 Chevy in DeWitt — this one is a 1935 model Chevy.

This cotton near the junction of Highways 1 and 318 northeast of St. Charles appears ready to pick.

This old gin at Watkins Corner near the junction of Arkansas Highways 316 and 318 reminds us of the days when cotton was king in the Delta.

Here’s a closer look at the gin. Farmers would bring picked cotton to the gin in a trailer like you see in the picture. A gin worker would climb in the trailer and maneuver a large metal vacuum tube descending from the overhang through the cotton to suck the crop into the gin.

Let’s talk dirty. You may remember me mentioning the famous “Gumbo,” aka “Buckshot” Delta soil. Well these clods are the real thing, dry as the desert, and hard as a brick. When this soil is wet it is gummy, sticky, and generally a pain in the nether regions. On the upside, as crop land, it is so good it could probably get a marble to sprout provided it was properly planted.

I am not certain why anyone would leave this water valve running. Perhaps there is a good engineering reason which eludes me. One thing of which I am certain: They did not leave it leaking because it looks neat when back lit by setting Delta sun. Despite lack of intent, I still appreciate the opportunity. Back lit stuff is fun to shoot.

There are a lot of abandoned homes in the Delta. Despite the lack of residents, this one still enjoys attention from someone with a mower (or bush hog). The setting sun behind it was a fortuitous circumstance. Thank goodness for fortuitous circumstances.”

Not far from the old home is this abandoned gin glowing nicely in the Delta Sunset. The grass grows green in memory of better days.

Though we posted a version of this picture last week, it is appropriate this week as well since it was among the last shot on this foray through the Delta. The light went away fast not long after this click.

There you have it, an afternoon swing through the Delta. Though you never know quite what to expect, you are never disappointed. And, you are close enough to Mississippi to catch some good blues on their public radio station.

Thanks for dropping by,

Joe Dempsey,
Weekly Grist for the Eyes and Mind

http://www.joedempseycommunications.com/
http://www.joedempseyphoto.com/
http://www.corndancer.com/joephoto/photohome.html