Dawn on the Marty farm, ca. 1957 or 1958. Kodachrome. Photo by Gordon Marty.
This is the driveway I walked out in the mornings as a girl to look for agates along the road. It's a spring photo because the elm tree hasn't budded yet. The grass has been raked—our family raked the yard and burned leaves in the spring rather than the fall. You can see the neighbor's marsh across the road, where the red-winged blackbirds nested. In the distance, the fountain shape of an old elm stands alone in a pasture, visible just to the left of the young elm's trunk.
Dad took color slides from the time he and Mom got engaged in 1956 until 1980. This photograph had to be taken very early because the elm by the driveway is so young. It had grown huge by the time I remember walking beneath it, coming and going.
Looking at this photograph, I can smell the damp morning earth and hear the redwings yodeling. I imagine my dad standing next to one of the oak trees in the center of the yard (you can see its branches in the upper left of the photo) to capture this pink sunrise. I wonder if he took it during the spring before his wedding, before they moved into the little house just to the left of the photo. Maybe he took it the next year, when I was a baby.
Equinox occurs in Minnesota today at 12:32 CDT.
This sunrise photo of the family farm is so striking. It just makes me want to go digging through old family photo albums to find reminders of my childhood. I like how your book focuses on the seasons. Thanks for sharing this special photo. Eager for the book launch to hear more about some of your photos and the memories you have about them.
Posted by: Corrine Casanova | March 21, 2010 at 01:36 PM