Breadalbane Church Model

While reviewing some of the photos stored on Mom's iPad, I found this image of a scale model of the Breadalbane Church . . . clearly shot inside Breadalbane Church. Church-ception! I wonder who built it, when Mom took the photo (or who sent it to her), and where the model is now. It's charming. 
 

More Colours Out of Time

 Here's a black and white photo of Mom (right) with her older sister, my Aunt Jean. It was taken sometime in the 1950s at the farm near Virden, Manitoba. 

Here's the same photo colourized by Jason Antic's image colourization software. Colourizing black and white imagery is nothing new, of course, but I'm pretty impressed by the results given how easy it is to use the software; just upload your photo and the algorithm spits out its best guess. 

I deliberately chose to shoot some of Michael and Naomi's wedding with black and white film. Here are Jeff and Susan at that wedding in glorious black and white.

And here they are in colour. 

Say what you will about the wisdom of colourization, but for all its flaws I find the process fascinating, and I imagine the colours will achieve greater fidelity and believability as the technology improves. 

Two Empty Lawn Chairs

There's something very relaxing about this image of the Etsell farm shot in 1973. Those lawn chairs look like they're just waiting for someone to sit with a book and a lemonade. And see how vibrant the flowerbed was...

Unrepaired

Here's a damaged photo of my Aunt Jean and the Etsell horse, Thopsy. The damage on this photo might be beyond my ability to repair. But it might have made the photo a little more interesting. In the real world, both Aunt Jean and Thopsy were reacting to something on their right, out of frame. In the photograph, it now appears they're alarmed by the blob of off-yellow gunk spreading out toward them. 

Thomas Earl Etsell and the Mystery Machine

Here's another photo of Granddad from 1918. I'm not sure what contraption he's operating, but  it's a farming tool of  some kind. 

Tractor and Pitchfork

Here's a photo from 1918! It's granddad on a tractor. Note the pitchfork leaning against the wheel. 

Thomas Earl Etsell Reads a Book

Here's a badly damaged print of my maternal grandfather reading a book.

Here's my attempt to repair the image - a little clumsy in some spots, but an improvement, I think.

I wish I could make out what Granddad is reading. It looks like the title might be The Prime Minster - 1961, but obviously I'm extrapolating that from the visible text "PRIME," "STER," and "1961" (or perhaps it's "1962"). A search failed to turn up a match. John Diefenbaker was Prime Minister in 1961, but the image on the back cover doesn't really look like him...of course, that could be an author photo. 

Etsell Horse

Here is a photo of one of the Etsell horses, shot sometime in the 1950s.

The Etsell horses were all gone by the time I arrived on the scene, so I had to wait until a junior high horse-riding field trip to learn that I'm allergic to horses, as I seem to be to all things with fur. 

Salt Lake Sunset

On August 11, Mom and Dad journeyed to Salt Lake (near Virden) for a community gathering and captured this sunset. It was 39 degrees C - a great day for a swim, and many locals took advantage.

 Here are Mom and Dad with my cousin David on the day. 

The Magpie and the Chicken

Mom retold an amusing family story for Mother's Day. 

Topsy, Blackie, and Earl

Here's my maternal grandfather, Thomas Earl Etsell, directing horses Topsy (left) and her son Blackie (right) to haul a load of manure from the barn for spreading into the fields. This photo was taken (presumably by my grandmother, Mom, or one of her sisters) in 1958.

According to Mom, "Blackie was black when he was born! But as he aged, he turned into a dappled grey, and then as he became older, he became whiter."

Aunt Jean sent the photo along. Thanks, Aunt Jean! 

Patience

The machine stops
Just short of the beckoning reeds
Inside a man watches the gentle waters
Polish the helpless stone to nothingness
It takes a mere 10,000 years
And then, curiosity satisfied,
He drives away, tires kicking up
The sun-blasted desert sands

Cousins

Front left: Darwin, Earl
Ladies: Diane, Barbara, Kathy
Gentlemen: Bruce, Evan, David

Lawn Chair Paradise

Manitoba winters suck, but Manitoba summers are lovely. This shot was taken on the Etsell farm sometime in the early 1970s. 

Huckleberry Hound Shirt

Back in the early 1970s, one of the things I enjoyed about travelling south to visit Grandma and Granddad was the fact that they had one extra television station (three compared to our two, if memory serves), and on that station they received Huckleberry Hound cartoons. I don't remember why I liked that show in particular; perhaps I simply liked cartoons indiscriminately at that age. Anyway, I had a Huckleberry Hound shirt at one point, and here I am wearing it just a couple of days after my little brother was born in April 1976. 

All There in Black and White

In 2009, I shot this photo of a bible in the Breadalbane church near Virden, Manitoba. 

2001 Manitoba Farm Family of the Year

I shot this in 2009 while on a trip through Manitoba with my younger brother, Sean. It's one of a couple of dozen photos I shot with Mom and Dad's old T70 with black and white film. Unfortunately I didn't follow the rule of thirds, so the composition is flawed. I still enjoy the textures of black and white, though.

The Hodson family mentioned in the sign were the neighbours who bought the Etsell farm where our Mom was raised. 

Etsell Farmhouse 1950

From Aunt Margaret's collection of photos, here is the Etsell farmhouse near Virden, Manitoba, in 1950. I wonder whose bicycle is leaning against the house...

Fading Wood

How many times did I visit the Etstell farm as a child in the 1970s and early 1980s? Perhaps not as many as I'd like to believe, for Virden was far away from northern Manitoba, and gasoline and vacation time were both dear.

Luckily, when you're a child time seems to flow more slowly, so the days (perhaps only a handful of them?) felt full indeed. My favourite place to play was the small building at right, which I believe was a chicken coop, though long abandoned by the beasts by the time I came along. It was mostly empty by my childhood save for some scattered tools and other odds and ends, but the sunlight coming through the windows made the tiny interior somehow magical.

There was also old farm equipment to play on, including an aging cutter with a bench from which you could pretend to drive horses. Three wooden granaries made excellent houses of mystery; they hadn't held grain for years, so I was in no danger of suffocating.

Today nothing remains but a lone steel granary, the trees, the fields, and a well with a pump. And, of course, the memories.

Alice Etsell

Mom just sent me this photo of her grandmother, my great-grandmother, Alice Etsell washing clothes on the Etsell farm near Virden. The shed in the background survived for many years; in fact, Sean and I saw it back in 2009, shortly before it was destroyed. Mom thinks this photo was taken in the late 1920s or early 1930s - almost a century ago.