Tag: agriculture

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All Things Connecticut New Print Releases The American Northeast

Simsbury Blossoming

Yankee Farmlands № 83 (Field of decorative flowers, Simsbury, Connecticut)
“Yankee Farmlands № 83”
Field of decorative flowers, Simsbury, Connecticut
© 2016 J. G. Coleman

Exotic blossoms invite vivid color into a dusty farm field in Northern Connecticut where decorative flowers have reached maturity. Blue skies and a leaf-dense woodline embody the warmth and vitality of late summer in New England.

I’ve recently finished shooting for my Yankee Farmlands project, an endeavor which I thought would require roughly a year of work. Well, here we are now… nearly two and half years after I shot Yankee Farmlands № 1 at a hayfield in East Granby. It’s been a far longer, and far more rewarding, journey than I could’ve anticipated.

Over the coming weeks, I’ll be rolling out all of the final installments of the project, picking things back up where I left off in late summer, transitioning through this past autumn and concluding with pieces I produced recently this winter. I sincerely hope that you enjoy the visual story I’ve sought to tell about Connecticut’s agricultural landscapes; it’s certainly been a pleasure to create the final chapters.

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All Things Connecticut New Print Releases The American Northeast

Square Bales and Summertime

Yankee Farmlands № 71 (Square bales and windrows in hay field, Bloomfield, Connecticut)
“Yankee Farmlands № 71”
Square bales and windrows in hay field, Bloomfield, Connecticut
© 2016 J. G. Coleman

Summertime sunlight beats down on a warm field dotted with freshly-bound hay bales. Looking toward the wooded field edge in the distance, we find windrows of drying hay awaiting the baler once the tractor arrives for a new day’s work.

Despite their rectangular shape, bales of hay such as these are typically referred to as “square bales”. Weighing in at only about 50 pounds, they offer the convenience of being easily moved by hand. That’s something which certainly can’t be said for larger, round bales which can weigh up to a ton and must be moved with a tractor.

But while square bales are easy to handle, you’ll generally find them only at smaller farms. Large operations produce and use so much hay that juggling all those tiny bundles would prove overwhelming. For all of the labor involved in loading, hauling and stacking a dozen square bales, it tends to be far more practical to fire up the tractor and move just one half-ton, round bale.

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All Things Connecticut New Print Releases The American Northeast

Making Hay While the Sun Shines

Yankee Farmlands № 69 (Windrows in hayfield, Bloomfield, Connecticut)
“Yankee Farmlands № 69”
Windrows in hayfield, Bloomfield, Connecticut
© 2016 J. G. Coleman

Windrows of freshly-cut hay snake through the corner of a quiet field bounded by woodlands as hazy morning clouds drift over the humid landscape.

Although hay may seem like a rather simple farm product, there’s a fairly involved series of steps and machinery that go into producing those tidy bales. Hay must first be cut and raked, usually with a tractor, into long piles known as “windrows” which are left to sun-dry in the field. Fair weather is a necessity, as excessive rains at this stage could drench the hay crop, causing it to spoil before it’s even gathered.

Once the windrows have sufficiently dried, a tractor equipped with a baler scoops up the hay, compressing it into round or rectangular forms before firmly tying the bundle. Finished bales are dropped upon the field so the next bale can be started. Thus, the final step in the process involves gathering the bales from the field for storage.

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All Things Connecticut New Print Releases The American Northeast

Beyond the Old Ways

Yankee Farmlands № 66 (Bloomfield, Connecticut)
“Yankee Farmlands № 66”
Field with plastic mulch, Bloomfield, Connecticut
© 2016 J. G. Coleman

In a small field in northern Connecticut, rows of freshly-planted sprouts dance in the breeze amidst cloud-marbled skies and nearby woodlands.

Modern farming represents a fascinating blend of old and new. After all, there’s something refreshingly timeless about a quiet pasture dotted with grazing cattle or a sprawling orchard of wizened apple trees. But advances in technology and technique have also enabled farmers to be more efficient and productive than ever before.

Case in point: the use of plastic sheeting, known as “plastic mulch”, seen in this field. Covering crop rows with plastic prevents the growth of weeds and better retains moisture, meaning less field maintenance and less water usage throughout the growing season.

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All Things Connecticut New Print Releases The American Northeast

Holsteins Abound

Yankee Farmlands № 61 (Holstein cows on Connecticut's largest dairy farm, Ellington, Connecticut)
“Yankee Farmlands № 61”
Holstein cows on Connecticut’s largest dairy farm, Ellington, Connecticut
© 2016 J. G. Coleman

Hazy clouds glide over flatlands in Northern Connecticut where we find a sprawling farm bounded only by the soft contours of distant hills. Before us, a herd of dairy cattle mingle about, some wandering casually while others are content to lounge upon the ground in the warm springtime sun.

Ask just about anyone to describe a cow from memory and they will almost certainly mention the blotchy, black and white pattern of the iconic Holstein. This exceptionally popular breed accounts for 90% of the dairy livestock in the United States, owing largely to its remarkable knack for milk production. The average Holstein yields around 25,000 gallons of milk per year; exceptional specimens can supply 70,000 gallons!

And while we’re on the topic of impressive numbers, it’s worth mentioning that the Holsteins seen in this piece are just a handful of the 4,000 kept on 2,800 acres at Connecticut’s largest dairy farm. An operation of that size is remarkable for a small and crowded state like Connecticut, especially when you consider that the average US dairy farm only keeps around 200 cows.

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All Things Connecticut New Print Releases The American Northeast

A Sweet Harvest

Yankee Farmlands № 57 (Tapped maple tree beside farm, New Hartford, Connecticut)
“Yankee Farmlands № 57”
Tapped maple tree beside farm, New Hartford, Connecticut
© 2016 J. G. Coleman

Against a bucolic backdrop of barns, pastureland and leafless forest, a tapped maple tree at the edge of the farm silently siphons sap into a collection bucket. Delicate clouds glide through blue skies overhead, heralding the arrival of milder weather as spring nears.

While we can’t say for certain when Native Americans living in the northeastern reaches of North America discovered the wonders of maple sap, the practice of collecting and boiling the sap down to a sweet, condensed liquid was already well-established when settlers arrived from Europe in the 1600s.

Although Canada now supplies most of the world’s maple syrup, New England remains the top-producing region in the United States. Vermont alone generates well over a million gallons each year, amounting to more than 5% of the world supply.

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Click here to visit my landing page for “Yankee Farmlands № 57” to buy a beautiful fine art print or inquire about licensing this image.

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Be sure to check out more work from my on-going Yankee Farmlands project, a journey throughout Connecticut’s countryside in celebration the agricultural heritage of New England.

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All Things Connecticut New Print Releases The American Northeast

Snows Fall over West Simsbury

Yankee Farmlands № 53 (Simsbury, Connecticut, USA)
“Yankee Farmlands № 53”
February snowstorm descends upon windswept farmlands
Simsbury, Connecticut
© 2016 J. G. Coleman

Winter snows descend upon the farmlands of Northern Connecticut, blanketing hay wagons and a time-worn pasture shelter. Bare shade trees dot the landscape beyond, eventually giving way to the hazy silhouette of distant woodlands.

At first glance, snow-laden farms may seem rather dormant: tractors sit parked, fields lay barren and barns slumber away the winter. But historically, tireless New Englanders found ways to keep busy on the farm even during the colder months of the year.

With no fields to tend, farmers set off into their woodlots to fell trees which would eventually be used in the springtime to build and repair barns, fences and sheds. Seems like a terrible time for such strenuous outdoor labor, right? Maybe so, but there was an important advantage to this approach: it was far easier to haul heavy timber back to the farm on a sled over the snow than it would be to overload the frame and wheels of a creaky, old wooden cart in the summertime.

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Be sure to check out all of the work in my on-going Yankee Farmlands project, a journey throughout Connecticut’s countryside in celebration of the agricultural heritage of New England.

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All Things Connecticut New Print Releases The American Northeast

Remembering Pastoral Colebrook

Yankee Farmlands № 48 (Old Hale Farm, Colebrook, Connecticut)
“Yankee Farmlands № 48”
Old Hale Farm, Colebrook, Connecticut
© 2016 J. G. Coleman

When author John Barber wrote of Colebrook in the 1830s, he described the land as “hilly and mountainous”, the soil as “generally stony” and the climate as “rather cold and wet”. It would be difficult to paint a bleaker picture of this village in Connecticut’s Northwest Hills. As if he felt obligated to offer at least one redeeming quality, Barber conceded that it “affords tolerable… grazing.”

In truth, Colebrook proved to be a productive area of the state for dairy farming, even if agriculture mostly vanished from its hills over the last century. Unlike many of Connecticut’s towns, which became densely populated with suburbs after farming declined, Colebrook’s abandoned pastures and hayfields were largely covered over by expansive forests. Today, less than 1,500 people make their home among its 30 square miles of remote woodlands. This barn, built in the late 1700s, and the surrounding pastureland is preserved by a local land trust and stands as something of a memorial to generations of hard-scrabble farmers that settled Colebrook long ago.

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Be sure to check out all of the work from my on-going Yankee Farmlands project, a journey throughout Connecticut’s farms in celebration of New England’s agricultural heritage.

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All Things Connecticut New Print Releases The American Northeast

Corn Cribs and… Broccoli?

Yankee Farmlands № 47 (Old Corn Cribs beside broccoli field, Bloomfield, Connecticut)
“Yankee Farmlands № 47”
Old corn cribs beside broccoli field, Bloomfield, Connecticut
© 2015 J. G. Coleman

Rows of broccoli wave flowery, yellow crowns beneath a December sky marbled with sunset clouds. Atop the nearby hill, an aging flat-bed farm truck sits parked amidst the wiry frames of vacant corn cribs.

Store-bought broccoli is actually clusters of flower buds that are cut from the plant just before they begin to bloom. If the buds were left alone, they would burst into bouquets of tiny, yellow flowers. The broccoli plants seen here were probably harvested in mid-autumn; residual flower stalks began blooming in November and December thanks to unseasonably warm weather.

The corn cribs on the horizon are wire-mesh towers in which the farmer could air-dry corn on the cob for use as livestock feed (back when corn was grown in this field instead of broccoli). Although corn cribs of various designs were once widely-used, they became rather obsolete after the mid-1900s when advances in equipment made air-drying unnecessary. Relatively few corn cribs remain in Connecticut these days and clusters of this particular design are quite rare.

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All Things Connecticut New Print Releases The American Northeast

The Advent of the Barn Cupola

Yankee Farmlands № 43 (Barn with ornate cupola, Avon, Connecticut)
“Yankee Farmlands № 43”
Barn with ornate cupola, Avon, Connecticut
© 2015 J. G. Coleman

Long shadows reach across the landscape as the sun sits low upon the horizon in Connecticut’s Farmington Valley. Nestled among the shadows and vivid foliage of shade trees, a barn hoists its tall weather vane into the air atop a stately cupola.

For the first two centuries after European settlement, farmers in New England sided their barns with a single layer of long boards. This kept out rain and snow, but the narrow gaps between each board meant that the barn interior was still rather drafty. Livestock housed within needed to eat plenty of food in order to stay warm in spite of the chills. So, in the spirit of efficiency, 19th-century farmers began trying to seal the sides of their barns with shingles or additional boards, letting in less cold air so that livestock would consume less feed in the wintertime.

It worked, but there was one glaring problem: those gaps had served as much-needed barn ventilation. Without any air circulation, manure fumes grew overwhelming and the excess humidity caused rampant mold growth. Simple cupolas solved the problem, venting stale, damp air through the roof. By the late 1800s, intricate cupola designs emerged which were just as beautiful as they were functional.

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Click here to visit my landing page for “Yankee Farmlands № 43” to buy a beautiful fine art print or inquire about licensing this image.

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Be sure to check out more work from my Yankee Farmlands project, an on-going journey through the farmlands of Connecticut in celebration of New England’s agricultural heritage.

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All Things Connecticut New Print Releases The American Northeast

Silage and Watertown Farmlands

Yankee Farmlands № 40 (Farm and machinery, Watertown, Connecticut)
“Yankee Farmlands № 40”
Forage harvester and dump wagon on hill beside barns, Watertown, Connecticut
© 2015 J. G. Coleman

Amidst the gentle hills of Watertown in Western Connecticut, the warm light of morning strikes a distant complex of barns flanked by bales of hay bound in white plastic. Quietly stationed on the hill nearby is a dump wagon and forage harvester, machinery that finds use in the autumn months when acres of spent cornstalks are cut, chipped and stored for use as wintertime livestock feed.

Most of us are familiar with hay as a staple of farm animals; we’ve all seen the round or rectangular bundles of dried grasses. But livestock is also fed “silage”, which is produced by harvesting hay, grains or chopped cornstalks and quickly storing them in an air-tight environment to ferment. Farmers in the north use this silage to provide their livestock with moist, nutritious feed even during a frigid winter when the fields are frozen over.

Traditionally, fermented feed was produced by storing fresh-cut greens in tall silos (thus the term “silage”), but advances in durable plastics have largely made silos obsolete in modern times. Farmers now have machinery which can wrap individual hay bales in plastic, essentially creating small, self-contained silos that are easy to access and transport. Similar plastic is used to cover silage that can’t be baled, such as chipped cornstalks, which are collected in long heaps on the ground and tightly covered.

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Click here to visit my landing page for “Yankee Farmlands № 40” to buy a beautiful fine art print or inquire about licensing this image.

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Be sure to check out all of the work from my Yankee Farmlands project, an on-going series which celebrates the agricultural heritage of Southern New England through the beautiful farmlands of Connecticut.

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All Things Connecticut New Print Releases The American Northeast

The Beauty and the Hardship

Yankee Farmlands № 39 (Wolcott, Connecticut, USA)
“Yankee Farmlands № 39”
Barn and pastureland at dawn, Wolcott, Connecticut
© 2015 J. G. Coleman

In my latest piece, “Yankee Farmlands № 39”, dawn breaks over weathered barns beside a chilly pasture where dew-speckled grasses shimmer like a verdant, green sea.

In an era such as ours, when most of us are no longer tethered to our land for crops and livestock, it’s understandable that farming would be romanticized to some degree. An intimate relationship with the soil, bucking cubicles and corporate bureaucracy: sounds great, right?

There are myriad things that can be said in praise of the farming life, but the labor is often hard, the money is sometimes uncertain and the work can be quite dangerous. Consider the bitter case of the Rufus Norton Farm, which is seen in this piece. “Rufus was killed in the 1930’s by one of his bulls,” recalled a Wolcott historian. “His wife kept the farm going by working as a school bus driver.”

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