Winter Barn and out buildings

A fairly well-kept barn in winter with snow on the ground and the roofs with a moody, slightly cloudy sky.

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LL Bean Outdoor Discovery at Historic Corron Farm

LL Bean Outdoor Dsicovery Schools sign at Historic Corron Farm with snowshoes for all ages

LL Bean conducts these classes to teach children (and by extension their interested parents), about the great outdoors. At the Winter Wonders event at Historic Corron Farm *to raise money for the Dairy Barn*, LL Bean furnished snowshoes, but it didn't end there. They also had a contraption that makes perfect snowballs (provided you have packing snow for it).  Kind of like a melon baller, only for snowballs.

Use it like a melon baller

It makes the perfect snowballs!

Perfect snowballs

They also had binoculars and a birding book, in the event someone was interested in birds. Since I've been a birder since I was a child, I appreciated their offering kids the opportunity to do that.

This is a bag that was originally made to carry ice in. It can hold up to 150 pounds of ice! It's made of the same thick stiff canvas, and can be used as a shopping bag, or a book bag, or whatever else your imagination can come up with. Still useful, just not for its original purpose because we don't have to wait for the iceman to come anymore, or go somewhere and buy ice for the icebox.

They also had hoola hoops

When I took the wagon tour, led by a botanist member of the Historic Corron Farm Preservation Society, I saw the children coming back on their snowshoes

Coming back from using those snowshoes!

Looking back at my pictures from the day, it looks like I have a lot more to talk about.

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Snow Princess

Such a lovely girl to read stories to the children at Historic Corron Farm.

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Historic Corron Farm, a wonderful place, important to preserve

The Historic Corron Farm sign from Corron Road

I stumbled across this wonderful place, and once I found out a bit of its history, I needed to share it. This is one of the many hidden jewels that you may not run across unless you know about it, or happen to drive by it. 

Corron Farm became the first of Campton Hills Township's Open Space projects. Campton Hills Township purchased the farm's 220 acres in 2002.

Here is the beautiful Dairy Barn, which is in need of repair. The beautiful blue color on top of the barn is, in fact, a tarp, protecting the leaky roof and the building from more water damage. The foundation also is in need of repair.

This storyboard shows the history of the barn, and how over time it fell into disrepair.

Today was a wonderful event; Winter Wonders at Historic Carron Farm. (See also Winter Wonders event for all ages at Corron Farm.) There was so much that I learned about the farm during this 3-hour visit, that I will break what I learned into several posts and share my photos with you.

Historic Corron Farm is in Campton Hills, and is now owned and managed by Campton Township. Farmland has been restored to open prairie and wetlands, and it is public land, although the house and buildings are not open to the public, they do have events like the Winter Wonders event throughout the year. Here is a link to the Daily Herald's article about Campton Prairie Fest from September, 2013. An article about a pig roast from June 2013. Here, LL Bean Meetup group talks about the Winter Wonders from today, January 24, 2015.

Briefly, in 1835, young 19-year-old Robert Corron came from Virginia and was one of the first settlers in Kane County, Illinois. It was a fully operational farm, which eventually raised hogs, dairy cows, chickens, and horses. At first they used horses to pull plows, and evolved from there. It was managed by his descendants for more than 160 years.

Goats and hog house (to the right) in front of the horse barn, showing 1930's and to the left of that, the 1860's corn crib. January, 2015.

Hired man's house, January, 2015.

Links:

Corron Farm Preservation Society

Campton Township Parks and Open Space

Corron Farm Preservation Society on Facebook

Save The Dairy Barn Go Fund Me by Tom Corron

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Winter field

Some farm fields are simply gorgeous after snow falls

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Only partially frozen

The river last year was completely frozen. This year only bits of ice.

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Beautiful December without snow

Lovely reflections in the nearly frozen water

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A red donut

This is how he falls asleep.

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Beautiful reflections

Although this year there is no snow on the ground, there is still a lot of beauty in the lacy bare trees along the shoreline of the Fox River.

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Moon and stars over water

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Portraits

 Have been watching instruction by Sue Bryce at Creative Live and taking flattering portraits of women. Here is some of the work I've been involved in lately.

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Picture From A Helicopter, Las Vegas, Nevada

This picture is among Macphun's photo pics of the week (11/21/2014), it was edited with Intensify Pro by Macphun.

The original is not as brilliant, as you can see below.

I've been told that in order to photograph crisp images from a helicopter, they need to take the doors off. Obviously, that was not happening on this flight.

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Beautiful Model

This is one of the models From the Fall Fashion Shoot that was held last Saturday, I took some really nice pictures during that shoot.

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Sister Bay Marina

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The Saint Louis Gateway Arch

The Saint Louis arch is spectacular in person, particularly when you have the time to check it out and drive around it. When the sunlight hits it, it sparkles and glitters with an ethereal strength and an out-of-this-world look.

When approaching St. Louis you can see it from a great distance. It sits at the foundation of St. Louis on the west bank of the Mississippi River.

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Guess who loves to retrieve and swim?

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Composition for the Amateur

Perspective, the rule of 2/3, color and of course not cutting peoples' heads off in a shot are probably some good basics to bear in mind when putting together decent photos.

I've seen where some online photography instruction suggests that photographers not forget to take occasional portrait shots instead of always taking shots in landscape orientation, but it seems to me that landscape shots are more popular. But if you're putting together a photo book, some of those portrait-style shots will add interest to the layout.

When the shots are all taken and you're in the review process, sometimes a slight cropping can enhance the composition in a shot.

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My kindle book on Backyard Birding is live on Amazon!

My latest ebook, "The Beginner's Guide to Backyard Birding" is a kindle book and is now available on Amazon.

It includes a few of my original photographs, some of which you may not have seen.

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Pulled off some shots even though it was raining

Couldn't help but try to take some pictures, even though it was raining.

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Birds of Prey

It was Mother's Day with Birds of Prey...and the handlers were on the grounds at the Stillman Nature Center, sometimes with the birds in the trees.

This little screech owl was perfect in the hollow of a tree, so well-camouflaged it would have been difficult to see him there if you didn't know.

A handler shows off the Great Horned Owl and answers questions from the onlookers.

I tagged this one incorrectly - it's the Eastern Screech Owl.

A few of the birds, like this Peregrine were noticeably injured. It gave me an appreciation of what the Stillman Nature Center does for the public with these wonderful birds; educates schoolchildren and other groups about birds of prey by allowing people to see them up close, and occasionally outside of their enclosures.

The Barred Owl was a little bit excited and kept flapping its wings.

The Barn Owl--this shot was taken on the side that is not injured. The other wing was noticeably handicapped.

The Broad Winged Hawk is smaller than the Red Tailed Hawk, but similarly in coloration to a juvenile Red Tailed Hawk.

In all, this year Mother's Day with Birds of Prey was quite interesting, and was held on a gorgeous sunny day that I will not soon forget.

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