Commercial, Advertising and Editorial Photography. Greensboro, North Carolina
(Photograph copyright 2010 by Dan Routh)
My son Devin is in school at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire, and he wasn’t able to get home for Mother’s Day. He’s a poet, so he was able to send a few belated verses to his Mom in the form of a limerick.
“So I have this very swell mama
who kept me from childhood trauma
and though she can nag
like a withered old hag
without her I’d drown in life’s drama.”
(Poetry copyright 2010 by Devin Routh, used with permission)
He made his Mom laugh.
(Photograph copyright 2010 by Dan Routh)
One of the things about living on a farm is that you are surrounded by the cycle of life, the annual growth of crops and with livestock the progression from birth to death. Sometimes it’s harder to experience than other times. About 2 weeks ago our beloved horse Rienzi left us. We have had the privilege of having her with us for 28 years. She was a “mustang”, a wild horse from the Skedaddle Mountains near Lake Tahoe on the border of California and Nevada. We adopted her when she was a yearling and she has shared our life and gained our respect for all those many years. The end of the cycle has been hard for us and we will miss her. My son Devin writes about her best.
The ivory streak along her face
reminds me of a comet’s tail,
and every morning she would race
much like a comet through the fields.
She came from empty desert hills,
a Mustang from Nevada.
Her kind was always being killed
for glue and wasted fodder.
So in our pastures she found home
alongside our small herd of cows.
She’d follow them where’er they roamed;
We’d laugh and watch her as we plowed.
At nights she’d come to her corral
and rest there ’til the break of day.
She’d nip at us, pretend to scowl
if we replaced sweet feed with hay.
And now she rests beneath two trees
that grow between our pond and barn.
Above her, cows chew cud at ease;
She’s with her herd and on our farm.
(Poetry copyright 2010 by Devin Routh)
(Photograph copyright 2010 by Dan Routh)
My Grandfather’s house is across the road from mine. Beside the old house are several intact outbuildings, including a smoke-house. In the corner of the smoke-house door is a cat hole, which allows felines to enter at their leisure and helps keep down the rodent population.
(Photograph copyright 2010 by Dan Routh)
Biscuits were an everyday staple on farm tables when I was growing up in Grays Chapel, North Carolina, but these days they are more of an occasional treat. My daughter-in-law, Christine, baked these on Sunday morning for a country breakfast. My son Tristan is a lucky man.
(Photograph copyright 2010 by Dan Routh)
Still-life photograph of the pocket watch my Grandfather carried, from the green table in my den. He (my Mother’s father) was the District Road Foreman in our area of Randolph County, North Carolina.
(Photograph copyright 2010 by Dan Routh)
A prized possession of mine is my Grandfather’s pocket knife. For a farmer, his knife is a tool he carries constantly and uses daily. It’s a history, a document of a life of work. Each spot of wear is a story in itself.
Spent the afternoon yesterday splitting wood with my son Tristan, his wife Christine and my other son Devin. I’ll put my wood crew up against any around. They made the chips fly and we rebuilt my mother-in-law’s supply for the winter.
(Photographs copyright 2009 by Dan Routh)
Last week our 16 year old cat Boots laid down on his favorite bench and went to sleep. My wife found him the next morning; he never woke up. We were devastated although thankful that he went that peacefully. Then the very next day, what appears on our back porch, but a little female kitten, full of energy and wanting to be rubbed and loved. She was obviously dumped by someone. We live out in a very rural area of Randolph County, North Carolina and we aren’t near enough to anywhere from which she could have wandered. And, she was probably raised around someone who petted her, she is entirely tame, very much so. A terrible thing for someone to do and usually tragic for the animal, because most dumped pets end up starving or hit by vehicles. This time, I guess the little girl is lucky. My wife calls her Precious.
UPDATE: A couple of days after Precious showed up, enter Spook.
And I don’t even want to talk about Dewey.
(photographs copyright 2009 by Dan Routh)
My wife’s wild horse Rienzi sprints from her corral to join the cows in the morning at our farm in Grays Chapel, North Carolina. Rienzi is a 28 year old wild Mustang mare my wife and I adopted from the BLM when she was a yearling. She came from near Lake Tahoe in California and is named for a famous horse ridden by Philip Sheridan during the Civil War (Sheridan had his Rienzi stuffed and placed on display at the Smithsonian Institute). Our Rienzi spends her days grazing with our cattle herd and her nights in her 100 year old stall originally built for mules (she comes in on her own every evening). She’s in excellent shape and very docile. She was trained to ride, but we don’t ride her anymore except for the occasional bareback jaunt by my son Devin. I think she really thinks she is a cow now; she is definitely a herd animal. Rienzi is lucky, but a lot of her cousins aren’t. Right now there are thousands of Mustangs in BLM holding pens, removed from government land. Some will be adopted, but it seems that many are to be sold for meat. Most of this removal is unnecessary and pushed by big western cattle interests. Several groups are pushing the government to stop these removals. Information on supporting wild horses and their preservation is available at http://www.wildhorsepreservation.com/. Go there. Wild horses need your help.
(photographs copyright 2009 by Dan Routh)
(photograph copyright 2009 by Dan Routh)
My Mom has been growing a pineapple on her back porch to see if she could produce an edible fruit. After three years of care she finally had a mature pineapple. We recently harvested and cut it, and I can honestly say it was the best pineapple I have ever tasted; sweet, moist and full of flavor. She’s got another one going,… maybe in three more years.
