For the Mad Minute Word, "dree" -- to suffer through, endure one's fate. This is a picture of the old pump out at the house that Frank grew up in. I had asked Frank if there was some artifact around there that dated back to earlier times. Even though we own the farm and the house itself, most of what is currently in and around the house belongs to the couple who do the farming for us. They no longer live in the house but still use it as a base of operations and are letting us stay out there and use all their household things whenever we need to during the construction on our house in town.
The well caved in some years back, so the pump doesn't work now, and the house is hooked up to the rural water district. But to me, this water pump speaks to the struggles that Frank's Kansas farmer grandfather went through on that farm during the dust bowl years of drought -- a string of bad crop years with more (rain)water so desperately needed. Not unlike the recent consecutive years of drought that many farmers in the Midwest have experienced -- especially out in western Kansas.
Frank's mother grew up in that house and when his widowed grandmother moved to town, his mom and dad moved there, farmed that land, and raised him in the same house.
I took this picture with the iPod using a new little app someone here mentioned -- ToonCamera. It renders photos you take with it, or ones from your album, in various styles of drawing, sketching. I know I could play around in PS Elements and get some of the same results, but for 99 cents, this is pretty easy and sort of fun. I liked the way the pump looked through the screen from the back entry way better than the photos I had taken with the regular camera from outside. (And I was being eaten alive by mosquitoes as I took those outside pictures!) Somehow, this captured what I was looking for better.
Great illustration of the MMW - both Frank's parents and Grandparents endured much - but the pump itself has endured long service - love the texture of the screens with this app too.
@steampowered Thanks, Paul. We do have a good relationship with them. Due, not in small part, to the good relationship they had with my mother-in-law, which continues. They are great folks and Mark is a really, really good farmer.
@sbolden@kittikat@eileenw@denidouble Thanks. I, too, wish I could hear all the stories this pump would have to tell. If only I could time travel. I would so love to be a "fly on the wall" observing past generations, and familiar places the way they were way back then. I was happy with the way the processing (courtesy of iPod app) looked on this.
@mcsiegle we have been paired this week for get-pushed-57 challenge. I like your photos around your home! My challenge for you this week is "inside out," to take a photo of something that belongs inside in an outside setting. I'm looking forward to hearing yours!
August 18th, 2013
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