Here in central Pa, there are unfortunately many deserted, ruined farmsteads. Unfortunate in that so much of the beautiful farmland is being "developed". It seems so rampant that very soon this will all disappear. Only subdivisions and malls for miles in any direction. Your home and property are beautiful and that the barn "ruin" was left is truly amazing. You've obviously worked hard to achieve all that is presented in your pictures. It's beautiful! Many years ago the city of Philadelphia discovered the foundations of Ben Franklin's home - only the foundation. Because they couldn't possibly reconstruct the home, they erected an "outline" in steel of the home's dimensions. Along that line, I was wondering if placing some trellis panels between some of the post footings to provide a shelter and an impression of barn walls - perhaps to block winter prevailing winds. There are pictures of old barns and their interiors on the web. I searched and found pix of walls and doors of stalls that would make useful, complementary trellis panels - not the usual 6x6 squares or diamonds. Also some pictures show uprights that have "y"-shaped brackets at the top evidently to support a roof overhang. I'm certainly not suggesting that the whole outline be placed, just an appropriate area, perhaps to view the gardens in winter or on a sultry summer day. Since many barn ruins are seen falling down at the edges of meadows, I wondered if native plants would help the mood like Virginia creeper or native scarlet honeysuckle (Lonicera sempervirens) or clematis on the trellises, or clambering over the footings, Alleghany spurge for ground cover, etc. There are so many thoughtful responses here from experienced, creative people for your consideration. What an engaging way to spend a long cold winter. I hope you'll post updates on what you decided to do and the project's progress.

The building codes affecting the use of strawbale vary considerably from one state to another, and often even more so within a state. While I've seen/heard/read of much relaxing of prohibitions, and there is apparently a considerable "push" towards alternatives such as strawbale in the Northwest, in general, it seems to me that strawbale is still considered outrè in most areas -- there is an aura of NIMBY. When I consider some of the truly abominable examples of SB (in appearance and/or in construction), I can understand NIMBY. When I also consider that the very word "strawbale" can refer to two distinctly different methods of construction, I can understand the reluctance of officialdom to accept a generic definition. Strawbale houses ARE being built, but mostly they are accepted on a case by case basis ~~ and require an astounding amount of supportive paperwork to get that approval. In my local area, SB as a structural material pretty much remains unacceptable. I do know of a couple instances of SB-structural construction, but they are very much in remote areas which have almost no official oversight. (I guess this is a good place to say that at least one of these homes was built under the non-benevolent eye of a structural engineer, who ended up being quite impressed by the finished product.) SB as an insulative material may or may not be locally acceptable (depending on both county and the individual official), but there IS a certain amount of official acceptance which wasn't case even several years ago. In the past decade, there have been several "House Tours" of SB construction (and those were really gorgeous houses), but I don't personally know anyone who has managed to get official approval to build smaller SB-structural residences. As far as using SB in multi-family or in commercial structures.... no, there are none that I know of, but I'm not up to date.

This is a most riveting subject, and a most interesting thread. I think there is a little bit of truth in many of the posts so far and I've changed my mind on this one at least five times. The actual print inside the frame gave me the impression of a photograph because of the fine white line like old photos get when they are damaged. That being said, one can take a photo of a drawing and parts of this picture are without a doubt hand rendered including the background and that could very well be a studio backdrop. My impression at this point is that this is likely a studio portrait and that it is in essence a composite with the facial features being the true rendering off a negative and the rest a lot of touch up and very poorly executed outright embellishment. If you'd like to see an example of a turn of the century hand painted studio backdrop, I can show you a large portrait of my great-grandfather and his brother sitting in a real chair, but with a very fake staircase behind them. LOL It was not an unusual practise, clear on up to the forties and fifties for some photographers to take portraits in black and white and hand tint and retouch them in the dark room. It wasn't because of the cameras not being able to, but the studios having the equipment to develop them. So seeing 'sketch marks' doesn't prove anything but the skill of the craftsman who took and developed the portrait because you're just as likely to see the editing on a real photograph as not. I have a portrait of my g'grandmother I'm inserting here because judging by her age it would have been taken about 1918-20. It has been hand tinted, and if you look at her blouse, it has obviously been hand retouched for detail and the bottom darkened out to extend the photo as much as possible to the paper to fill it. I think this is what happened to the boy's dress......it was probably enhanced by hand and the chair by imagination and lack of artistic ability. Even poor people scrounged up the money for portraits in the old days, God knows my ancestors weren't rich people and we have them to pass along. But they certainly were special enough not to be done on a whim. One portrait my g'parents had taken in the twenties was of my little aunt who was expected to die at birth, but lived until two years. So, they coughed up the money, even with ten kids, to have a portrait taken of her. I'm no expert and I'm not pretending to be but before I'd blow this one off as a fake, I'd have it checked out. Regardless of how it pans out, and even if it turns out to be a Cracker Barrel nostalgia shot..........it's a Jim Dandy and worth hanging on a wall just to see the mug on that kid.

Remember some of these things, others may be a little ahead of me. Spent most of our time outdoors playing with friends - playing house, Barbies, teacher and secretary. And yes, all the freedom was great - all I had to worry about was being home before dark. We would ride our bike's to our local Stop n Go store for candy or icies. My favorite candies were 7 Up candy with the seven different flavors or the Rocky Road chocolate bar. We would also ride to various parks to play, most of the children's play area were styled after rockets or airplanes. Although we lived in So Cal most of our friends did not have a pool, so we either swam at the local high school pool. Two sessions every weekday afternoon. Usually a big group of kid's we knew, always a good time. One in a while we would go to the "plunge" next city over and sometimes we would go to a local "swim club" where our cousins were members. Either way we were in the pool almost every day in the summer. Loved going to the department store "tea rooms" for lunch or an occasional fashion show. Like others I have fabulous memories of visiting our department stores at Christmas time. It was always such a wonderland, loved shopping for my Christmas dress and patent shoes. My grandma usually bought me a new winter coat too. Thank you all for reminding me of all the great times.