BARNS

Yesterday, for the first time -- believe it or not -- I visited the mucklands. I was back out there today (yes, there's a related story coming). The mucklands are an impressive sight, to say the least, and entirely fascinating, as I have learned over the past 48 hours or so. There are several of these type of old, low-slung barns out there.

After the Genesee County Economic Development Center meeting yesterday evening, I had two choices: Go home and write some stories that I gathered information on during the day, or take advantage of a great spring day and drive around and take some pictures.

I chose pictures taking. I would have time, I reasoned, to write later in the evening.

Near the end of my loop through Le Roy, Pavilion, Bethany and Batavia, I stopped by a friend's house for a chat. Near the end of my visit, Billie called and told me about the teen in the gorge at Indian Falls.

So rather, than writing my stories last night and posting these pictures last night, I spent four hours on the Indian Falls story. 

Here's the photos from yesterday evening and those stories I need to write are coming.

The barn above is on Main Road in Stafford. Two more shots of it below.

Route 19, Town of Le Roy.

Cook Road and Route 20, Pavilion.

Transit Road and Ellicott Street Road, Bethany.

Barn on Pearl Street Road, Batavia.

A barn on the Batavia side of Batavia Elba Townline Road, near Route 98. 

It's a beautiful day.

While out taking pictures of railroad crossings this morning, I passed this barn on Brown Road.

I've driven past this old, worn-down barn and farmhouse on Route 63 in Pavilion dozens and dozens of times and thought -- some day, I need to take a picture. On the way to the feed bunk fire today, I finally figured out how -- I think -- to make the shot. So after the fire, I went back and made this picture.

Heading back to Batavia from the fire in Darien yesterday, I passed this barn I've passed many times, but this time it seemed like a good time for a picture. This seems like a very well-preserved barn. The location is just east of Smithley Road on Route 20.

I figured this would be the last decent morning for fall photography (considering the weather predicted for next week), so I struck out early this morning and headed up to Elba to see what I could find.

I found myself on Arnold Road, which, I was surprised to discover, I had never been down before. The barn above is on Watson but shot from Arnold.

I then headed down Watson and met John, a former horse trainer, who let me take a picture of his barn and picnic table.

I started out at at Pine Hill Cemetery.

Many times I've driven down Ellicott Street Road, Batava, and spotted this old barn and saw the picture potential. There is no good way, though, to get a picture of the barn from the public road. Yesterday, I contacted the proper owner and got permission to walk onto their property and take some pictures, which I did this morning.

I've always liked the yellow barn on Transit Road off Route 63 in East Bethany, but I don't think I've ever made a good picture of it. Perhaps this is it.

Really, without a plan, I found myself in Elba late this afternoon, and then my drive back to Batavia took a few twists and turns. Here are some pictures from the drive.

Above, a red barn on Ford Road.

My intention was to take a picture of the tree to the left. The cows either thought I had food or are eager to get on camera and they came running over toward Route 262.

The McCoys on Norton Road gave me permission to walk into their back yard and take a picture of this old barn, which turns out to be just over the property line and actually on Torrey Farms' property.

There's a couple of old shacks on Norton Road that always draw my attention. The flowers in this case provided some added visual interest.

Anybody care to identify this plant? This was actually taken off Bank Street Road, Batavia, but I saw the plant two or three times while driving through Elba.

On the way out of Bergen this morning I spotted this horse eating dandelions in front of one our area's more attractive barns, so stopped and made this picture.

I made a picture of this barn two springs ago and a lot of people said they liked it at the time, but as I learned more about photography, I was unhappy with the picture -- it lacked some pop with the overcast sky. Last spring, as soon as the dandelions bloomed, I went back to try a retake, but I drove out to Judge Road in the late afternoon, so the shadows on the west side of the barn were too dark.  This morning, with the dandelions in bloom, I tried again.

I took a drive out to Bethany and back this morning -- came away with two photos: Above, a barn on Cook Road (taken from Creek Road) and below, the Little Tonawanda as it winds along the side of Mill Road.

Coming back from the Notre Dame game yesterday, of course I took some time to take a few photos.

Above, another barn on Griswold Road, Stafford.

Same white barn from a photo published yesterday, on Griswold Road, Stafford, but a different view.

Further south on Griswold Road, a barn and a pond and some horses.

A horse on the same property.

Saturday afternoon, I drove to SUNY Brockport to speak to a group of college students about online journalism. The drive there was overcast and snowy (windblown snow). The drive back was bright and sunny.

Here's three barn pictures from the drive home -- above, the Welch barn on North Lake Road, Bergen.

This barn is on Peachy Road, Bergen. The shot is from North Lake Road. 

White barn on Griswold Road.

A beautiful clear morning -- hard to believe it was 21 degrees at 9 a.m. when I headed out for a bit of a drive to see what sort of pictures I might be able to take.

Above, a barn on Indian Falls Road just west of North Pembroke Road.

Barn at the intersection of Indian Falls Road and Little Indian Falls Road.

A tree in a field off Phelps Road.

A barn on Gorton Road, taken from Phelps Road.

I need somebody to ID this plant for me, please.

Telephone pole on Pratt Road.

This afternoon, Billie and I went for a drive -- she drove, stopped the car occasionally, and I took pictures. Here are seven of the photos from today.

Above, a barn and tree on Warboys Road, Bergen.

A falcon on Sackett Road, Bergen.

White horse on Swamp Road, Byron.

Dock on Mill Pond, Mill Pond Road, Byron.

Barn, Batavia Elba Townline Road, Elba.

Steer, Batavia Elba Townline Road, Elba.

Daws Cemetery, Batavia Elba Townline Road, Batavia.

A photo of a barn on Caswell Road in Byron taken about 3 p.m., Tuesday.

I was out on Bater Road in Le Roy this morning and passed by this old barn with some old farm equipment parked out front.