Back in September I spent a week at my Grandparents place keeping an eye on my grandfather. He had fallen the week before and while not injured, the family was concerned that he might fall again and no one would be around to help. My grandmother was going to be out of town for another week so I agreed to stay with him. When I was young my grandparents place was a bit of a fantasy land for me. Unlike at home, there was always interesting stuff to do and plenty of room to do it in. Since I had time on my hands I thought I would go look to see if any of that magic was left. Farm implements. My grandfather always wanted to be a farmer but he ended up working in the woods his entire life. He started collecting old farm implements and machines, and after he retired began working on antique tractors. These old machines were many things in my mind. I always enjoyed working the levers and gears on them. This was some sort of a hay rake, but I discovered that by walking on the rake bars I could make the gears go around. For some reason that didn't make the whole thing move, but it was still fascinating to see all the moving parts. As the story goes, sometime before I was born he bought this old boom truck intending to use as a highlead for logging. For whatever reason that never happened and it spent most of it's time being my jungle gym. Most of the damage you see was from me. I was a destructive little sh!t as a child! This is what remains of the pile of rocks my great-grandmother and I stacked up probably 25 years ago now. Time, weather, and being kicked by horses has started to return it to it's more natural state. The gate to the back pasture Most of my life there have been horses at my grandparent's place, though never theirs. They had 4 daughters and a son, and all the girls had horses at some point or another. Well into adulthood all my aunt's horses seemed to end up back at home. They would keep the back pasture closed off in the summer so the horses could graze there in winter and so it was always important to keep the gate closed. Not so much now. A sprinkler on a post. These were my machine guns and laser cannon as a kid, and sometimes spears. A number of objects around the place have square holes in them from me throwing one of these at them. The old wheelbarrow I hauled everything from rocks to horse dung to building materials to water in this thing. I'm honestly surprised it hasn't rusted out of existence yet. Bucket of beer bottles When Grandpa Leon was still driving log truck it was my job when he came home each day to being him a cold beer. Sometimes he would take me to the scale yard to put the trailer up on the truck for the night. The tool bench. No matter what random imaginary project I was working on, I could always find the tool I thought I needed. Sooner or later anyway. Some of them are probably still out there somewhere. This tree has been slowly re-routing the path all my life. The walkway with the railing behind is a recent addition, a recognition that they are indeed getting older.
Hmmm...Dunno how long it's been since I took a stroll through here. But I'm kind of glad I did. Cthippo, it's stuff like this that makes me remember why I love photography in the first place. This is a beautiful photo essay and I hope you continue to do quite a bit more of these. Even if I have a few quibbles on the technical shots, some B/W or sepia toning (and high-contrast, maybe even a "duplex" style finishing) across all of them would clean this up beautifully and you'd have quite a piece on your hands. Mad props for both doing this and sharing it, and please keep it up. I feel like I actually am connected to your childhood now from the images/captions, and poignant adult reflections. Manhug!
Hey Cthippo, nice photo essay! Lovely thing to do, keeping an eye on your grandpa. I think a portrait of your grandfather would be a nice addition to this set! I have the same kind of memories from spending time with my grandparents!
