Fred was out early this morning to take pictures. The foliage seemed to have popped over night - the colors are brighter when everything is wet. That's good news for the tourists who may be visiting this week. Perhaps not as pleasant tramping around in rain showers, but generally won't detract from the colors unless there's a downpour.
The top picture is the valley and hills in front of our house, towards Walden. The fog is typical this time of year. In the lower photo, that's a walk-behind plow that was used for many years, and probably at least three generations on the Bolton farm. I remember seeing my father or my grandfather using that plow with a team of horses. It took both hands to keep the plow upright without bouncing out of the ground to turn over just the right depth of sod, so they would tie the reins around their waist to have full control of the plow. The horses were usually well enough trained so most of the time all that was needed were verbal directions. When the plow hit a large stone, which happened often, the horses would stop to allow the plowman to redirect the plow in the furrow. When they got to the end of the field, the horses would turn without prompting, hesitating long enough for the plow to be lifted manually and the share reversed. It took a lot of strength for both the team and man, and a farmer was tired at the end of a day of plowing. And they plowed very large fields - for corn or potatoes, mostly, and a smaller piece for a vegetable garden. I'm guessing the crop fields would be 20 or 30 acres for corn and less for potatoes. I think it was the 1940's before my grandfather was convinced to buy a tractor, a second hand Farmall H that I learned to drive as soon as I was big enough to reach the pedals. I already knew how to drive the old Ford truck. One of the men (my father or one of my uncles) would get it started, put it in low gear and I'd steer, following the windrows with the hay loader hitched behind the truck. If they yelled for me to stop, I had to slide off the seat and push in both pedals at once, putting on the brake and at the same time releasing the clutch until I could shift it into neutral. I only drove on the flat fields, but I really liked riding in the cab, usually with my Uncle Bob. It was hot and the chaff stuck to our skin and itched, but there were no doors and no windshield on the old truck, so air could circulate freely. The photo above was taken later, when I was in high school. The woman in white was a friend visiting us from NYC. The old ford had seen better days, but it was still performing just fine. I don't remember when they finally decided to retire it, but probably about the time they began using a hay baler on the farm instead of storing the hay loose in the mows.