54- "GHOST FARMS".....

That's what this avid researcher, native Virginia admirer and photographer calls them, but others may call them abandoned farmhouses. I've photographed hundreds of the old farms and farmhouses from the Eastern Shore, to the tobacco barns of the Southside, to the Piedmont around C-Ville, to the far western mountains before Grundy to my fave Shenandoah Valley.
My absolute fave one, out of the many captured on film, was in Rockbridge County, Va. in the middle of the Alleghanies and the Blue Ridges...sat on a slight rise of a hill with one huge spent tree trunk in what was once a vibrant front yard. A trace of a road that wound its way up to the front door porch was barely evident. A grazing herd of Angus moved slowly in a pattern across the field.
And, as I explored each one, my memory bank tries to imagine what the family was like when children ran around in the trimmed yard and chickens scratched around vibrant farmyards full of cows and piglets and a goat or three.
American country society will make no more of these homeplaces as each one closes up for good. If you've ever lived on a farm, spent a night on a farm or even visited an old-fashioned Virginia farm, savor your memories.....