Thursday, February 12, 2015

Old Barns and Cupolas

 
On a recent road trip through the south central part of our county I endeavored to find and photograph the last of the old barns and fancy cupolas. In almost every case the house is empty and the farm abandoned, while the barn is in a sad state of disrepair.
 
 
Perched high above the farm yard sits the barn cupola.  They came in a variety of shapes and sizes. In the beginning they were all made of wood and hauled to the roof peak during the final stage of construction. Carpenter took some pride in finishing the barn with a unique cupola which included an arrow weather vane which always started out pointed north. Strong winds and winter storms made it a challenge to keep the arrow pointed north. The fanciest ones also indicated the four main directons of the compass with the letters N, E, W, S.
 
 
Sometime during the 1940's and 50's they began to appear in all metal construction and were factory made. This limited the variety of the designs but they did get a little more fancy, while the metal increased their life considerably.
 
During the active life of the barn the top of the weather vane was decorated by a typical rooster, farm animal or a special design such as a sailboat.
 
 
As the farms were abandoned these decorations were either shot down by vandals or removed for safe keeping.  It is unusual to see one still in place today.
 
 
Note this unusual pair, each with four letters of the compass.
 
 
If you have any knowledge of any existing barn cupolas, particularly ones with a weather vane, contact me and I will try to take some photos.

 

Friday, February 6, 2015

Life expectancy in 2015

I took a few self portraits today. I plan to change my profile portraits on-line and keep up with the ravages of  time. It is too late to make any drastic changes.  I must just accept what I look like and concentrate with staying healthy and active.

When I was born back in July 1935 in Canada I believe my life expectancy was under 70 years. In less than five months I will be 80 years old and have a life expectancy of 87, up one year from my my previous calculation.  One of the good things about becoming a very senior member of society is that your life expectancy stays apace. So that's not a bad eightieth birthday present.

My present goal is to press on to at least 90 years of age.  I will endeavor to maintain my blog on a regular basis and try to increase my followers. They increased by one this January so I now have a total of four. I do not endeavor to reach a large number of people just for the sake of the numbers. However a steady increase would indicate my blog content is on the right track.

Perhaps I might even receive a few comments from readers to just prove they exist.