Tag: Connecticut

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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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All Things Connecticut New Print Releases The American Northeast

Autumn Frost on the Fields of Southbury

Yankee Farmlands № 42 (Corn field during Autumn Frost, Southbury, Connecticut)
“Yankee Farmlands № 42”
Corn field during Autumn Frost Southbury, Connecticut
© 2015 J. G. Coleman

The Housatonic Valley awakens to a chilly autumn morning as sunlight dapples the brilliant woodland canopy in the distance. Before us, cornstalks rise defiantly from a field besieged by frost; an unmistakable chill in the air foreshadows the coming winter.

But when it comes to cold New England weather, the chill in “Yankee Farmlands № 42” (above) and even the most brutal winters of the past decades can’t begin to compare to the disastrous chills of 1816… a time which would come to be remembered as the “Year Without a Summer”. Freezes killed the fruit tree blossoms in May. Come June, there were still reports of snowfall and slabs of ice drifted steadily down the Connecticut River. Frosts persisted well into August. By September, a reverend in Northern Connecticut lamented in his journal that “no person living has known so poor a crop of corn in New England… as now.” Famine engulfed the American Northeast when it became clear that there would be no harvest.

At the time, nobody could explain this perplexing weather: a day of frost in June might be followed by a day of seasonably sweltering heat, just to be followed yet again by a day of snowfall! Scientists now believe that a volcanic eruption in Indonesia had cast massive plumes of dust and ash into the Earth’s atmosphere which periodically blotted out the sunlight and caused the bewildering conditions.

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All Things Connecticut New Print Releases The American Northeast

Autumn at Bull’s Crossing

Autumn at Bull's Crossing (Bull's Bridge over the Housatonic River, Kent, Connecticut)
“Autumn at Bull’s Crossing”
Bull’s Bridge over the Housatonic River, Kent, Connecticut
© 2015 J. G. Coleman

Bull’s Bridge, one of Connecticut’s few remaining historical covered bridges, is seen in my new piece (above) during a radiant sunrise as it weathers autumn for the 173rd time since it was constructed in the mid-1800s. But long before the current Bull’s Bridge was built –at a time when the trees that would eventually produce its heavy lumber were still just spindly saplings– the colonists of Connecticut had already been raising bridges at this spot on the Housatonic River. The first on record was constructed in the 1760s by the industrious Bull family in order to transport iron to New York from their Connecticut foundry.

I have visited Bull’s Bridge on numerous occasions over the past years, very much taken with the heritage bound up in this place and the striking beauty along this run of the Housatonic River. Of course, I am forever seeking new ways to interpret and express these qualities… striving to craft imagery that encompasses my own impressions of this centuries-old river crossing. “Autumn at Bull’s Crossing” is my latest interpretation, produced this October, and I felt very strongly about this piece from the moment that I visualized the composition and set to framing it up.

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All Things Connecticut New Print Releases The American Northeast

Of Horses and Farmhouses

Yankee Farmlands № 41 (Horses pasturing beside old farmhouse, Hebron, Connecticut)
“Yankee Farmlands № 41”
Horses pasturing beside old farmhouse,Hebron, Connecticut
© 2015 J. G. Coleman

Autumn advances upon Connecticut’s Eastern Uplands where horses huddle beside one another amidst a pasture strewn with fallen leaves. A creaky, old farmhouse nearby sits in shadowy repose beneath a towering shade tree, whispering forgotten tales of times long past through fissures in its frail siding.

Connecticut’s scattered farming districts may not be as numerous as they once were, but those places where agriculture does persist have often been worked almost continuously for centuries. Consequently, it’s not uncommon on these farms to find a mingling of barns, outbuildings and silos of wildly different ages, each constructed at different times over the course of several generations.

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All Things Connecticut New Print Releases The American Northeast

Shipyard Abyss

Shipyard Abyss (Waterfall at the old shipyard, Middle Haddam Historic District, East Hampton, Connecticut)
“Shipyard Abyss”
Shipyard Falls, Middle Haddam District of East Hampton, Connecticut
© 2015 J. G. Coleman

In my new piece, “Shipyard Abyss”, sunlight struggles to reach the depths of a dark ravine where Mine Brook plunges over tiers of jagged bedrock in an eager race to join the Connecticut River nearby.

Although I can’t find any formal name for this striking cataract in the Middle Haddam Historic District of East Hampton, it was once at the heart of a bustling shipyard and trading port throughout the 1700s and 1800s and the brook along which it is formed drove several mills. In those early times, before trains and tractor trailers made it possible to transport large amounts of goods over land, the entire navigable length of the Connecticut River was lined with thriving cities and maritime villages that served as crucial hubs for shipping and shipbuilding.

The advent of the railroad in the 1830s marked the beginning of the end for maritime culture along the Connecticut and, within a few decades, business began declining steadily. By the late 1800s, when the rail system in the state had grown to extensive proportions, commercial shipping traffic nearly vanished and the river grew quieter than it had been in centuries. These days, several of the smaller riverfront villages such as Middle Haddam are beautiful wooded hamlets which bear little resemblance to the noisy, frantic ports that they once were.

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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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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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All Things Connecticut New Print Releases The American Northeast

Simbury’s Flower Bridge

Iron Bouquet (Old Drake Hill Flower Bridge, Simsbury, Connecticut, USA)
“Iron Bouquet”
Old Drake Hill Flower Bridge, Simsbury, Connecticut
© 2015 J. G. Coleman

Century-old iron girders frame the marvelously symmetrical trusses of the Old Drake Hill Bridge. The imposing metal structure stands in stark contrast to the airy clouds above and enjoys a palette of colorful blooms growing from planters and hanging flower pots.

Wooden covered bridges dominated the Connecticut landscape throughout most of the 1800s. But as the turn of the century grew closer, the reign of the wooden bridge was literally crumbling away as floods, fires and the rigors of the elements laid waste to Connecticut’s aging crossings. State-of-the-art iron bridges arose wherever old covered bridges required replacement, oftentimes sitting upon the very same abutments.

Such was the case with the iron Drake Hill Bridge in Simsbury, which was built over the Farmington River in 1892 as a direct replacement for an earlier covered bridge. Owing to its durable metal components, the Drake Hill Bridge remarkably carried traffic for 100 years, its term of service beginning with horse-drawn carriages and spanning all the way to Chevy pickups and Honda Civics. By 1992, it was finally decommissioned after a new concrete bridge was built nearby. In its retirement, the beloved Drake Hill Bridge now takes it easy, carrying only pedestrians and being adorned every year with a gorgeous array of flowers.

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All Things Connecticut New Print Releases The American Northeast

Dawn on the Farmlands of Durham

Yankee Farmlands
Yankee Farmlands № 37 (Old barns at dawn, Durham, Connecticut)
“Yankee Farmlands № 37”
Old barns at dawn, Durham, Connecticut
© 2015 J. G. Coleman

Faint clouds cling to hills and pastures of the Coginchaug River Valley in Central Connecticut. Warm, morning sunlight struggles to permeate the heavy air over a complex of old barns and sheds clad with weathered planks and crowned by sheet metal and shingles. Nestled into the buildings is a cozy barnyard, bound by split-rails and cloaked in shadow beneath a shade tree.

Throughout most of Southern New England’s agricultural past, barn roofs were dressed with wooden shingles. Self-reliant farmers of that era could hand-split these shingles, or “shakes”, off logs harvested from their woodlot, thus eliminating the need to buy anything besides the necessary fasteners. With only a few exceptions, wooden shingles were the perfect solution in those early days, providing a durable, homemade roof which could potentially last two or three decades.

Perhaps the only glaring difficulty presented by wooden shingles was the simple fact that they were highly flammable. Fire could quickly lay waste to timber-framed barns and roofs clad in wood only hastened the destruction. For that matter, farm houses were oftentimes roofed with the same wooden shingles as their companion barns, so if either structure caught fire, all it may have taken was a few stray embers to set the other building ablaze.

Alternatives to the wooden shingle such as metal barn roofing, often in the form of corrugate sheets, didn’t arise until the late 1800s and grew in popularity after the turn of the century. Northern New Englanders, possibly owing to their harsher winters, adopted metal roofing a bit more readily more than their neighbors in Southern New England who instead tended to favor slightly less resilient asphalt shingles.

In “Yankee Farmlands № 37” (above), we see a range of roofing materials that have likely been applied as needed throughout the decades. The largest barn is capped with old, wavy tin sheeting, while a small shed on the perimeter of the barnyard sports a more modern steel roof with patterned ribs. Asphalt shingles have also managed their way into the mix, covering the addition beside the large barn and even capping the old silo.

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All Things Connecticut New Print Releases The American Northeast

Talcott Cloudscape

Talcott Cloudscape (Hublein Tower & Talcott Mountain, Simsbury, Connecticut)
“Talcott Cloudscape”
Hublein Tower & Talcott Mountain, Simsbury, Connecticut
© 2015 J. G. Coleman

Towering cumulus clouds, their exquisite contours etched into a deep blue sky, soar over the crest of Talcott Mountain in Northern Connecticut. Broad shadows cast upon the ridge top engulf the distant, century-old Hublein Tower, a monolithic structure rising high above the forest canopy.

At roughly 700 feet tall, Talcott Mountain (seen in my newly-released piece above, “Talcott Cloudscape”) climbs prominently from the forests and farmlands of the Farmington River Valley. But perhaps it is Hublein Tower, at a height of 165 feet, which lends a better sense of scale to the vast, airy spectacle of clouds overhead.

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All Things Connecticut New Print Releases The American Northeast

Summertime Orchards of New Hartford

Yankee Farmlands № 36 (Pear Tree beside an old fieldstone wall in an orchard, New Hartford, Connecticut)
“Yankee Farmlands № 36”
Orchard beside an old fieldstone wall, New Hartford, Connecticut
© 2015 J. G. Coleman

A thriving pear tree, its branches bowing with the weight of ripe fruit, arches over a fieldstone wall at the edge of an orchard in Northern Connecticut. Distant apple trees promise an equally generous harvest as gentle clouds soar overhead.

An 1838 book, The New American Orchardist, commented that “next to the apple, the fruit tree most generally cultivated in New England is the pear.” The author went on to explain that, despite looking very similar, pear trees are actually quite different from apple trees. “The pear tree”, we are reminded,” also differs essentially from the apple in its superior longevity.”

Indeed, the oldest cultivated fruit tree still alive in the United States is the famed Endicott Pear Tree in Essex County, Massachusetts. So named because it was raised by John Endicott, the first governor of Massachusetts, the tree is believed to have been planted roughly a decade after the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock. To this day, at an age of about 385, it still produces fruit.

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All Things Connecticut New Print Releases The American Northeast

A Silent Barn in New Milford

Yankee Farmlands № 35 (Hay Barn, New Milford, Connecticut)
“Yankee Farmlands № 35”
Hay barn and bale elevator at dawn, New Milford, Connecticut
© 2015 J. G. Coleman

Dawn breaks over farmland in Western Connecticut on a humid summer morning. A bale elevator is perched silently at the open door of a barn overlooking woodlands in the valley below which glow with a luminous mist as sharply-angled sunlight pierces the canopy.

Photographing agricultural landscapes can occasionally be tricky, for unlike the wildlands that I shoot, farms are essentially private, man-made landscapes where the presence of a photographer wandering around in the wee hours of the morning is not always welcome. But from time to time I’ve had the pleasure of meeting and speaking with farmers that seem to understand intimately what draws photographers such as myself to their fields, rolling pastures and rustic barns.

Much like landscape photography, farming in New England generally isn’t easy or particularly lucrative work: farmers do it because they love it. They appreciate being on the land and being attuned with seasonal rhythms. A Connecticut tobacco farmer once explained that farming “isn’t a job, it’s a life.” That brand of passion, commitment and sincerity could just as easily explain the fervor with which the most dedicated landscape photographers approach their art.

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