Nothing If Not Thorough

So when need arises, Google answers.

I thought well okay I've got to find a great set of old farm photos - to illustrate where I would hope to take Birdwell, because only old will do. Maybe I am an old soul, but I tend to channel specific eras when it comes to architecture, clothing, music, etc. Even my favorite movies reflect this odd preference (has anyone seen 'The Trip to Bountiful'?). So I began googling old farm photos and very quickly got lost down the rabbit hole of old farm photos. Who knew. So I had to reel myself in, surface, and take a deep breath before downloading any of them because I wasn't sure what I was really looking for. There really are that many old farm photos.

About old souls. Very soon I will introduce my ancestors into this conversation, because they are still relevant although long dead. Needless to say, there were farmers on both sides only two generations back, not unexpected given how America's rural past is not that long departed. Most people can tell you about great-greats who farmed and where. My farmer relatives aren't necessarily haunting me in this process as much as gently guiding from where ever they are. And I am fairly sure they would laugh, in a nice way, if I were to explain Birdwell to them. Because farming, to them, was all they knew, and it was a very hard and entirely unforgiving way of life - certainly not a choice for any of my great-grandmother's thirteen children - and to have a 21st century relative 'pretending' to farm an imaginary farm would be absolutely beyond them. But how 21st century it is to me - I am not and may never be in a position to work a farm (I want to explore those exact words in a later post - working a farm - because it implies so much) - but I can create a pretend farm wholesale online. And Google is there to illustrate and populate it at my will. Googling is nothing if not a thorough way to catalogue and gather and peruse the images that will help me construct Birdwell.

I look forward to posting the images I have brought out of the ether that will begin defining Birdwell.