I spotted this old farmhouse while out roaming a couple years ago, and was curious about it (naturally)…but, since there were cattle on the land, I wasn’t about to try getting any closer (including by air). I always planned on swinging by again to try getting a better look, but I had no idea when that might be.

Fast forward to Spring 2019 (Did we have a spring? I may have missed it.) – I was poking around south of Bismarck-Mandan, and figured I’d try my luck despite the wind. Thankfully, I was able to fly around a little bit during a lull in the stiff breeze.

This house sits on a hill, providing a nice angle from above. It looks like at least one addition was built at some point.

The funny thing is, due to the wide angle of the drone camera, I kinda like my original photo, shot from the road with a telephoto lens. It gets the water in there better, as well as those lovely Morton County hills.

I’m told that this house may not remain much longer, so I’m glad I was able to investigate a bit – at least enough to satisfy my curiosity. There’s a growing list of sites for which I was too late, and a comparable number of sites which have disappeared since I photographed them.

I don’t go in old buildings when I find them. That’s a personal rule. I’ve only ever made one exception to that, and I’m not doing it again. I do it for a couple of reasons: safety and respect. So when it comes to this photo, I can assure you that I poked my camera through a window while standing outside, and did not venture into the house itself.

This set comes from an era of small, rounded screens; tubes and dials; and only a few analog channels. It also comes from an era of plaster walls, solid wood doors, and hardwood floors. Progress comes with good and bad, I suppose.

I’d seen a photo of this home posted online and knew I had to find it.  A lot of Google hunting based on a description with the posted photo gave me what I needed to load up the truck and venture off to the northeast.  I marked six or seven spots that looked promising from space, then proceeded to hunt them all down.  This was the last spot on my list, and it didn’t disappoint.

I’m sure you spotted the same feature about this house that I did: the overhang of the upper floor, no longer supported by columns to the deck below.  I’m sure it’s just a matter of time before this collapses, but for now it has a great visage.

Before long, the sun departed behind me and I had to head home and pressure wash a LOT of sticky mud from my truck.  But this home holds a lot of promise, so you can be sure I plan to check in on it from time to time.

Okay, I don’t know if the owner’s name is Joe…but I struggled to come up with a title for this post.

The big question is…what are they trying to prevent from escaping?  All the doors are barricaded from the outside. >gasp<

I managed to sneak out for an hour or so with my cameras this weekend, and decided to head out to a spot which I’ve been eyeing for a long time.  I’ve actually roamed within a couple of miles of this place on multiple other occasions, so it’s been a little frustrating that I’ve never made it to this location.  But that frustration has ended now.

I originally thought this was a barn, having viewed it from a distance…but that was based on the roof line.  Obviously that isn’t the case.  It sure is a unique little house!

I found some other cool stuff in the area, which I’ll post later.  I’m still cleaning mud off my truck.  Something about section lines after two or three days of rain and slushy snow that tends to introduce a lot of sticky mud into one’s life.

I jetted out west early in the morning to take a photo of this little building near a friend’s farm.  It wasn’t until I looked at the photos that I saw the bottom of the building.  Looks like the foundation is a little lacking.  That would explain its sagging.  Unfortunately, once a building starts to bow like this I think the clock starts ticking.  The big barn nearby has already succumbed to the ravages of time.

A church, and old house taking a faceplant, and a tub.  I guess that completes my checklist.

If that was a toilet, it’d be gross…but since it’s a tub, I guess it’s amusing!  If it was a kitchen sink, that’d leave room for one more cliche’.

Adjacent to that first photo, but deserving of its own color treatment, is this old house…complete with its on backyard tub.

One of the things I love about old homesteads and farmsteads is the way they evoke images of what they must have looked like when brand new, or when home to a family, or on the day they were left behind.  Sometimes they also make one wonder…why and by whom were these bathtubs so strategically placed?