Humid Haze
Pink Acres
Country Mile
Frosty Morn.
Country Clutter.
Luck was with us once again on our travels to and from Augusta, WI last Sunday. It was a double good find once again. Two abandoned farmsteads. These two had some character and wonderful light.
We barely covered the whole county and I am sure there are even more in the area. There were several coop farms along our route. Lots of coop farms usually means there is a very good chance that there will be other abandoned farmsteads in the vicinity. That’s been my experience anyway.
We actually ran into a third but the day was getting on, the sun was going down and we were tired. There is always next time.
Round Bail Transit. A local farmer transporting a round bail for consumption.
Cyndie and I had time last weekend to do some abandoned hunting. We drove through West Central MN (212), NE South Dakota and SE North Dakota. We were amazed at the number of abandoned farms and homes still standing. The first two images are two of many that “got away.” The snow was somewhat of a hindrance. Minimum Maintenance roads are nothing to mess around with this time of year. The roads to several properties where minimum maintenance or simply were just not plowed. GPS coordinates will come in handy for a return trip 🙂
The next few images are of an almost abandoned town in SD called Hammer. There was one home there still occupied – not quite a complete ghost town yet.
Further along you will see that we did find a couple of abandoned homes that we could actually explore (Montevideo and Big Stone City).
We both would have liked to get inside the 1911 brick schoolhouse in Louisburg, MN, but that just wasn’t possible.
A few more abandoned places we encountered.
After we explored the Forbes area we headed North towards Merricourt. This was another location that we found through the GhostsOfNorthDakota.com website. Merricourt was completely uninhabited. The only sign of life was the local farmer harvesting corn on the North side of town. There were several buildings and homes in town – all of which we would have loved to shoot inside and out, if not for the NO TRESPASSING signs everywhere :-/ I can’t blame the owners though, I wouldn’t want my property vandalized. Seeing very little opportunity here, we moved on.
It wasn’t long until we found another abandoned farmstead West of town. This farmstead had some really amazing texture in the flaky, pealing paint of the two-story house. The crown moldings and trim where in surprisingly great condition. This little gem is in its prime. A finite moment; a balance between what was and the inevitable decay to come.
This abandoned farmstead was located just North of Forbes. This property has several out building along with a house that was partially hidden by trees. I did see this on the way to Forbes. Cyndie was too busy surveying the gazetteer to notice this nugget of abandonment. I wanted to stop, but figured we would on the way back through – our first goal was to get to the school.
It was already 1:00 p.m. when we got to the abandoned school in Forbes. I wanted to burn some of the harsh mid-day light there and hope for a tamer glow later on at the farm and hopefully other sites. We spent some time in Forbes shooting the sites. There were several other locations of interest. It was 3:45 p.m. by the time we returned to the farmstead and there was still plenty of bright light. It was a gorgeous day; sadly we spent a fair chuck of the day in the car getting here. It was all good though as we were in the middle of an abandoned haven of sorts.
