I caught a glimpse of this old machine in a field northeast of town while poking around the back roads on my dual-sport Kawasaki this weekend.  What’s nice is not only the fact that it enjoys a spot in the middle of a mowed field, but also that I had a great sky behind it and the land wasn’t fenced or posted.  I was free to scope out the angle I wanted, so of course I chose more than one.

I think I got it all in this shot: the machine, a hay bale or two for good measure, and the two trees for a little bit of symmetry. I marked this location in my GPS because there are some other good photo finds nearby, then put my helmet on and continued my adventure.  I found a few things over the course of my 58-mile ride along the back roads, and as I process them I’ll be posting them here.

That’s one thing that makes these “Fallen Farms” so appealing to my eye that they merit their own category on this blog. The fact that these structures were new at one time, were home at one time, and were abandoned at one time is fascinating to ponder. Their presence dotting the landscape of rural North Dakota is both sad and charming at the same time.

It’s sad to chart the progress of dilapidation in many of my more prized photo spots. I’ve always had a fondness for the “Fallen Farms” series of photos (see the Categories list on the right), and many of my favorite subjects are in various stages of leaning and even collapse.

That’s one of many reasons why it’s important to document these structures: not just for artistic value, but because they may not remain for long. It’s noteworthy to observe what happens to a house, even a relatively recent construction, when it becomes uninhabited. It’s as if the former residents took something intangible with them, something that kept the structure intact by their indwelling. As many of these structures collapse and disappear, they take something intangible away from the North Dakota landscape as well.