Author: danrouth

Greensboro, NC based commercial and editorial photographer.

Goat Lady CSA

Agriculture, Farm, Garden
Goat Lady Dairy in Grays Chapel, North Carolina started a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) garden in 2010 and it was a great success. They are beginning to get ready for the 2011 season, but in the meantime Daniel Woodham (farm manager) has been harvesting winter carry over vegetables which the dairy sells at the local farmer’s market. He is assisted regularly by Chram Rode and his wife Broih Fnu, a Montagnard couple originally from Viet Nam who are training to help run the day to day gardening operations.

(Photographs copyright 2011 by Dan Routh)

You’re Kidding

Animals, Farm, Goat
For my friends at Goat Lady Dairy here in Grays Chapel, North Carolina, March is a very busy month. The goat moms are starting to have their kids, and because they were all bred at about the same time, they are all delivering at about the same time. Lee Tate of Goat Lady handles most of the kidding supervision, so that means she is going to have to watch about 27 does deliver around 50 or more kids in the next month at any time day or night, and then take over the young goats’ feeding. Fortunately she does have some volunteer help such as Alice Jenkins, who was at the dairy today helping with the feeding chores.
Alice feeds the new kids born today.
(Photographs copyright 2011 by Dan Routh)

Sawing Cedar

Sawmill
I walked out my back door on Saturday morning and with the wind coming from the southeast, I heard my neighbor Gary McMasters’ sawmill running in the distance. I went by and found Gary, Charlie and Cecil sawing cedar logs for another neighbor Ronnie Horrell. It fascinates me every time I go by the mill. My Grandfather was a saw miller and I have great respect for Gary’s ability as a sawyer. It is an art and takes a tremendous amount of skill and coordination to saw consistently straight and uniform lumber on a mechanical mill like Gary operates and to do it quickly. It’s hard, it’s dangerous and yet he operates the sawmill fluidly and effortlessly. On Saturday, Gary rolled the logs and operated the carriage while Charlie and Cecil stacked the lumber and slabs.
Below is Ronnie Horrell, for whom Gary was sawing. Ronnie is a thirteen year cancer survivor.
(Photographs copyright 2011 by Dan Routh)

Old Store

Uncategorized
(image copyright 2011 by Dan Routh)
Sometimes you stumble across an image when you least expect it. We were driving along the old Lincoln Highway in Belle Glade, Iowa working on an agricultural shoot a while back when I saw this old store literally covered in antique service station signs. Turned out to be a veritable museum of odd memorabilia run by an elderly gentleman named George Preston. He was an interesting character who regaled us with his stories about being on the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson. He even had an old x-ray machine for viewing your feet when fitting shoes.

Franklinville Mud Bog

Automobile
Four wheel drive vehicles enable folks to go many places off-road that regular cars and trucks can’t go, including through mud, over rocks, etc. Pretty handy if you need to go places like that. When it comes to anything with wheels, human nature, at least here in North Carolina takes over and it doesn’t take long for someone to figure a way to take the capabilities of these trucks and make them do it really fast and very loud. A big ditch full of water and red mud and have at it full bore.
(Photographs copyright 2011 by Dan Routh)

Livestock

Animals, Farm

Most of the farms on Grays Chapel, North Carolina raise what you would consider traditional livestock, but some of my neighbors keep some more exotic animals. For those of you who followed my buffalo post last fall, below is the fellow we wrangled, content in his home pasture.

(Photographs copyright 2011 by Dan Routh)