OTHER PEOPLE'S MEMORIES (FILM)

avondale87 wrote in post #19342067
Can you elaborate on sorghum and biscuits please.
Sorghum as in syrup or butter??
Not heard that before

Sorgham and biscuits

Inspeqtor wrote in post #19342092
Sorgham and biscuits

Thanks Charles.
Never thought of producing syrup from sorghum.

Sorghum was kinda like sugar cane. It was squeezed through the geared device you see in the picture. Had a "catch" underneath which the liquid then processed into molasses.

Inspeqtor wrote in post #19342092

avondale87 wrote in post #19342067
Can you elaborate on sorghum and biscuits please.
Sorghum as in syrup or butter??
Not heard that before

Sorgham and biscuits

From Google:

What does Sorghum Butter taste like?

The flavor of sorghum syrup is a little hard to describe. It's somewhere between molasses, maple syrup, and honey. It's really delightful.

Pigpen101 wrote in post #19342099
Sorghum was kinda like sugar cane. It was squeezed through the geared device you see in the picture. Had a "catch" underneath which the liquid then processed into molasses.

What/where is this picture Pigpen?

They might have been there just for the photo op, but the aunt who gave us this photo said the women would often help in the field to some extent.

This is on a dairy farm owned by my family. It was approximately 120 acres & was in our family from around 1800 to 1992. I grew up in a house about 20 yards from where this picture was taken. It is in a small town in western PA mostly known for a fort, Fort Ligonier. Forbe's Road divided the property right down the middle. A small livery & tavern was operated on the property until about 1860??? Because of this, my brother has found some really cool things with a metal detector.

Pigpen101 wrote in post #19342099
Sorghum was kinda like sugar cane. It was squeezed through the geared device you see in the picture. Had a "catch" underneath which the liquid then processed into molasses.

Thanks and yes see what you're referring to
My recollection of sorghum was stuff used as bird seed, food

Inspeqtor wrote in post #19342104
From Google:

What does Sorghum Butter taste like?

The flavor of sorghum syrup is a little hard to describe. It's somewhere between molasses, maple syrup, and honey. It's really delightful.

Thanks Charles
I'll look about here and see if I can find some.
Real maple syrup is devine.
We have syrup, treacle and molasses in increasing order of strength and intensity of flavour.

Inspeqtor wrote in post #19342106
What/where is this picture Pigpen?

https://photography-on-the.net …showthread.php?​p=19339081

This is one of 2 aerial photos I have of the farm. The first is b&w from 1969 & from a slightly different angle but I don't have a digital copy right now to show. This one was taken 1985, the last year I lived on the farm. The freshly dug earth shows the area where we dug up the old septic system & installed a new one. I always have to show this picture as proof to people the size of the vegetable garden my grandmother kept every year, it was huge. Across the road from the barn, you see a tiny white roof in the trees. That is the house I grew up in.
There was a company in Ohio (I know more than one company did this) that was hired by companies for aerial photos of certain places or things, power lines for instance. These companies had the entrepreneurial spirit to go ahead and take photos of anything else that might be of interest in the area. A few months later a salesman would show up at your door (and your neighbors') and try to sale you a large print with upgrade options.

Pigpen101 wrote in post #19342124
This is one of 2 aerial photos I have of the farm. The first is b&w from 1969 & from a slightly different angle but I don't have a digital copy right now to show. This one was taken 1985, the last year I lived on the farm. The freshly dug earth shows the area where we dug up the old septic system & installed a new one. I always have to show this picture as proof to people the size of the vegetable garden my grandmother kept every year, it was huge. Across the road from the barn, you see a tiny white roof in the trees. That is the house I grew up in.
There was a company in Ohio (I know more than one company did this) that was hired by companies for aerial photos of certain places or things, power lines for instance. These companies had the entrepreneurial spirit to go ahead and take photos of anything else that might be of interest in the area. A few months later a salesman would show up at your door (and your neighbors') and try to sale you a large print with upgrade options.

Hosted photo: posted by Pigpen101 in
./showthread.php?p=193​42124&i=i2545484
forum: General Photography Talk

Interesting reading and photo.
Those oldies only knew your survival dependent on home produce.

There was a time here when aerial photos were taken and then the salesman would visit farms offering their services.
Not sure how many took them up though.
They'd be sure to include where possible Mt Roland as the backdrop.
We had the real deal so didn't need a huge photo to remind us

Our farm was in the middle of the Allegheny Mountains. If you look in the background you see many cleared areas. These are all neighboring farms. The majority of farms in our area, many adjacent to ours, had fallen on hard times and sold old to real estate developers. I have no idea where my grandparents got the idea, but the land was sold into the "soil conservancy". This means that any future owners are never permitted to develop the land & only permitted to build on plots that already have existing buildings. The downside is all the old building are gone and there is a new barn and carriage house on the property. We do enjoy the fact that it will still be farmland when we drive by instead of 20 or so half million-dollar homes.

Pigpen101 wrote in post #19342140
Our farm was in the middle of the Allegheny Mountains. If you look in the background you see many cleared areas. These are all neighboring farms. The majority of farms in our area, many adjacent to ours, had fallen on hard times and sold old to real estate developers. I have no idea where my grandparents got the idea, but the land was sold into the "soil conservancy". This means that any future owners are never permitted to develop the land & only permitted to build on plots that already have existing buildings. The downside is all the old building are gone and there is a new barn and carriage house on the property. We do enjoy the fact that it will still be farmland when we drive by instead of 20 or so half million-dollar homes.

I take my hat off to those early locals who saw the need to preserve land, buildings, history.

As a surveyor I've pondered over countless original surveys for granting land and looked at same land now.
Those early surveys had to describe the land as it was at time of survey before farming existed.
They reported on soil, vegetation, gold and minerals, water availability.
And this throughout Tasmania.
I've only surveyed one block (parts of an original 10000 acre block) where nature is intact and the landscape unchanged.
The changes in majority are huge and original descriptions meaningless.

The advice of the government of the day, even up into the 60's was to clear every vestige of bush even right to the riverbanks.

So yes, those early conservancy orders are to be prized IMO

avondale87 wrote in post #19342118

Inspeqtor wrote in post #19342106
What/where is this picture Pigpen?

https://photography-on-the.net …showthread.php?​p=19339081

Thank you Richard...

I agree. The small town I'm from has some serious money. I mean serious. I won't name names, but their names are on the fronts of banks (in places like Manhattan). The people backing the soil conservancy have selfish reasons behind it, they want to keep their town small & quaint. We still have a gazebo in the middle of town, if you own a building on main street it must have some type of retail shop in front. The sidewalks around the town square are heated so they don't need shoveled in the winter. It's a quaint town but it's gotten a little too full of itself. An ex-owner of the Pittsburgh Pirates sold the team and retired there. Bought a small piece of property next to our farm. About 10 years ago, the farmer & wife next to him became very old, mid 90s. They had about 50 acres. He was concerned of what or who might go onto that property. He was aware that the property on his other side (our farm) was in the conservancy. So, he decided to start his own private conservancy and bought it. Problem solved. I shouldn't complain about why they did it, should just be happy they did it.

not sure if appropriate but a couple of old cameras with apologies for the more recent one