Even at the Doctor's...

...there's still something to photograph. First the quick report -- the reason I've had to cozy up to the O2 machine almost continually the past couple of weeks is that I seem to have a touch of pneumonia. So I'm on a short course of antibiotics. We'll see how it goes. However, I was able to take advantage of the visit to photograph a few of the water colors painted by the doctor's mother.

What I like about this lady's work is how she evokes a rural western past that has long since disappeared. My grandparents were a part of that world -- yet even they were gradually separating themselves from it. Town mice, not country mice (even though my California grandfather still kept a cow.) My mother and father were of the generation that made the break with the rural past complete.

Not many would put a milkweed pod front and center of a landscape!

A more recent addition to the waiting room walls is this series of old tractors. None, I note, with caterpillar treads, like my Phoenix grandfather drove along the side of Baseline road so that he wouldn't hurt the blacktop.

And, finally, an old auto, abandoned along with a way of life. Reminds me of reading William Least Heat Moon.

Food and Old Farm Equipment Go Together

Actually, the Iron Horse Restaurant in Chino Valley preceded the current, huge wave of family farm nostalgia. I'm told that it served more than a generation of CV movers and shakers -- not to mention just plain Good Old Boys. The Iron Horse is definitely a place for classic biscuits & gravy -- and lots of it.

Incidentally, that tractor looks a lot older than the ones I recall from my grandfather's orange "ranch" down on Baseline Road in Phoenix in the ought-30s.


OK, I'm ignorant, farm-wise. Don't have any idea of just what this machine did. What it does today is sit by the roadside to advertise fresh produce, come right in and pick it out.


That more streamlined piece of equipment at the left looks like it might have been used to sort oranges or grapefruit or melons by size. It's also alongside the same roadway down in Camp Verde, where the big draw this weekend was....


...fresh corn. And it was good! I discovered how to microwave corn in the husk last night.


Before heading on to Prescott to deliver me home, daughter and SIL eye yet another piece of machinery. He's an aggie -- so understands what all this equipment was used for in its day.


I have to admit that we're living in a strange world when farms near big cities find it necessary to become bucolic disneylands serving city folk to survive. And, yes, I am one of those slickers who got a kick out of the festivals at Young's Farm -- I will miss it.

Footnote: I received an email from a reader explaining the farm equipment.
He said, "If I am looking at the right ones, one is a road grader, and the other ia a corn picker. I believe both are horse drawn. I come from mid- western farm stock in Minnesota. I claim to know a lot about a little, and a little about a lot."

Thanks for the info, Greg!