rural Archives – J. G. Coleman Photography

Yankee Farmlands № 59 (Old plows beside ornate round-roof barn, Colchester, Connecticut) — “Yankee Farmlands № 59”
Old plows beside ornate round-roof barn
Colchester, Connecticut
© 2016 J. G. Coleman

With spring having arrived just about a week ago, it’s about that time for my on-going Yankee Farmlands project to make the change, as well! Next week’s addition to the series will be the first springtime farmland imagery this year. In the meantime though, I’ve released two final pieces from the very tail-end of winter.

In “Yankee Farmlands № 59” (at top), antique plows rest silently beside an elaborate, round-roof barn in Eastern Connecticut. With winter drawing to a close, the snows have melted away and soft clouds soar through the blue skies overhead.

If you were to briefly glance at this barn and expansive farm while driving by, it might be difficult to tell that it’s no longer an ordinary commercial operation. Roughly 16 years ago, the last of the previous owners donated the 170-acre farm –barns, machinery and all– for use as a unique “farm museum” where visitors can observe a broad range of both historical and modern farming equipment in use.

Yankee Farmlands № 58 (Snowy farm and hay wagons, Bethlehem, Connecticut) — “Yankee Farmlands № 58”
Snowy farm and hay wagons
Bethlehem, Connecticut
© 2016 J. G. Coleman

“Yankee Farmlands № 58” (immediately above) captures one of winter’s final blows to the Connecticut landscape. Tractor tracks impressed in frozen mud guide us past wagons and wrapped hay bales into a snowy expanse of farmland in Western Connecticut.

For all of the advancements in mechanization that have revolutionized farming over the centuries, the typical hay wagon has actually changed very little. After all, they are basically just cargo trailers for hauling hay… there’s only so much room for innovation beyond improving materials. If you could drop farmers from the early-1800s into a modern farm, machines like tractors, disc plows and balers would be completely foreign to them. Hay wagons might be among the few pieces of heavy equipment that they’d recognize fairly easily.

Purchase a Fine Art Print or Inquire About Licensing

Visit my landing pages for “Yankee Farmlands № 58” and “Yankee Farmlands № 59” to buy a beautiful fine art prints or inquire about licensing either of these images.

Want to See More?

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.

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.

Purchase a Fine Art Print or Inquire About Licensing

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

Want to See More?

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.