2002 “Barns & Tractors” Calendar Description & Dedication

Six of one & half-a-dozen of the other.

When we travel the same roads often enough, we build an ongoing relationship with the buildings that mark our paths. Distance is measured by familiar farms passed instead of by miles on the odometer. Five of the barns drawn for this calendar are along Route 79 in upstate New York, a route I’ve been travelling parts of for over forty years.

Some of my earliest memories of noticing particular barns stem from the mid-sixties, when I rode in the back seat of my parents’ green Rambler on trips to Ithaca to visit my brother, Jim, in college. Dad always sang, “Itiska, Itaska, a red and yella baska” when we motored past the barns marking a stretch of Route 79 called Itaska, NY. I eagerly pointed out the checkerboard silo that had weathered in giant alternating squeares of rust reds and crisp whites.

In the 1970s, the same Itaska farms marked the beginning of my 3½ hour drive to Rochester, NY, where I went to art school. By them, some of the dairy farms had converted to sheep or vegetable farms.

Since 1980, my husband, Dan, and I have travelled that same portion of 79 (from Harpursville to Whitney Point) well over two hundred times to touch base with our families in Syracuse. Nearly every barn, house, or shed we pass is like seeing a familiar face in the local diner. We note improvements, additions, or gradual decline. The checkered silo I delighting in seeing when I was 7 is now completely rusted, listing to the left, and nearly hidden udner a tangle of grapevines.

As we’ve passed our favorite barns along the route, I’ve often wished aloud, “I should take a picture of that barn someday.” “Someday” happened earlier this winter when my two-year-old son, Joe, and I took a nap-inducing ride (for Joe, not me) along a familiar stretch of Rt. 79, starting, stopping, and snapping a series of barn photos, quick portraits of long-time acquaintances. Even though we don’t know the histories of these places, over the years we’ve developed our own rapport with them, and I wanted to document this attachment.

As I sorted through my barn snapshots, and used them as reference photos to draw these calendar drawings, I thought often of my dear friends, Esther Brooks and Ruth Zerbst, to whome I dedicate this calendar. They have shared their creative energies through sculpture, music, gardens, paintings, great food, shared wit and easy conversation with people of all ages. I’ve basked in the ripple effect of their goodness which continues to touch many others. Esther photographed and painted many of these same barns; now I’ve caught her “barn fever” and hope to pass it along.

No farm is complete wihout a tractor or two, or three, or more. A tractor is the workhorse that enables a farm to survive. It provides the power to haul, plow, harrow, spread, cultivate, and harvest, etc. Each tractor owner swears by his or her particular favorite, whether it is John Deere, Massey Ferguson, Allis Chalmers, or something else. In 1973, when most of my senior classmates skipped school to meet at Chenango Valley State Park, my best friend and I spent the day disking a field with a Massey Ferguson 1080. (Raurie drove; I perched on the fender.)

Thanks to all the people who loaned me photos to help complete this calendar — to Aunt Sherry and Uncle Pee Wee Cook (that’s Pee Wee on his ‘46 Massey Harris), to my brother-in-law, John, who found and shared his old John Deere photo from one of his country rides near Syracuse, to Chuck Male, who loaned me the photo of his brother-in-law, Ed Olver, on the Gleaner, and to the Huggins family for letting my son, Jim, drive their Massey Ferguson 50. I also gleaned the Minneapolis-Moline image from the Internet. I first spotted it in a huge photo gallery of antique tractors at www.ytmag.com and recieved permission from the owners (J. Strand and K. Jeppesen) to use it for my calendar. (Check out their tractor site at http://home.att.net/~strand.jeppesen/page1.htm.) I also enjoyed the 1999 tractor pull at the Afton Fair, where I took dozens of photos, one of which the ‘weigh-in’ drawing is based on.

The barn reflected on the Susquehana belonged to my distant cousins, Dale and Jenny Grover, and was directly accross the river from us. In the spring of 2000, I took pictures of it from our riverfront. That summer, it burned to the ground, but was replaced by another farm structure in the spring of 2001. Sometimes change is imperceptible; at other times, it’s swift.

I’ve enjoyed the opportunity to document a moment in the timeline of these barns’ (and tractors’) histories in this calendar. It’s my way of sharing my passions with you.