Grandma and Grandpa's house

We spent the first 2 days of our trip last month at my Grandparents farm, and I spent those days remembering all of the things that I love about visiting them.  I took pictures like crazy and thought that I'd do a post or 2 dedicated to our grandparents. Do you have memories and things that you love about your Grandparents and their house?  I do.  I rarely get to visit them anymore, and so this time I just wanted to take pictures and capture everything that I love about my Grandma and Grandpa and their farm.

  My grandparents live on a farm that was purchased and built by my grandma's grandpa.  He built the house which is now historical.  It was built by cement in 1913: 4 inch walls on each side of a 4 inch dead air space for insulation.  My Great-Great Grandpa Rusho mixed a railroad car of cement (not all at once) and poured it all himself.  After pouring the bottom 4 feet of house, he built a pulley/elevator system to pour it for the rest of the house.  It is 3 stories high with a basement/cellar.  Huge for the time that it was built in.  And still big.  He also placed a dam and water wheel in the creek behind his property to operate a water pump for the new house.  He installed a table saw, grindstone and other equipment that were operated by waterpower.  I love their house.  It has so many memories that come with it.  The pictures above are of the house.  The funny thing is that I took pictures of it from all angles, except the front of it. Woops.

This is the little shop that goes over the creek that houses the waterwheel and blacksmith thing.

The waterwheel, obviously.  I know that my Grandpa did some work on it to get it running again so they could use it to power the house if they needed to.  I don't know if they've used it since then.

The milk barn.  My Grandma and Grandpa had a dairy and they used to milk every morning and evening at 5.  I would always wake up early and go out to watch them and drink warm milk when I was little.  They don't run the dairy anymore.  Instead my Grandma uses this barn for her woodshop, and she is quite good.

The tack barn.  I love the silhouette that Grandma made for it.

Some of their many horses.  My grandma trains and rides horses like crazy-when it's not hay season.  The barn in the background has been a subject for many photographers pictures.  It is historical, and it is being taken apart and moved to southern Idaho.  My grandparents used it forever, but I guess the lady that is having it moved is the Grand-daughter of the person who built it.  Isn't the scenery gorgeous?

And again-the scenery.  You can see Randy and my Grandma changing pipe.  While we visited Randy got to go back to his roots and change pipe morning and night.  He did enjoy it.

Here are some things we did.  The girls played on the many toys.  This motorcycle my Grandma built.

Grandma pulled the girls around in this old VW.  They loved practicing how to "drive".

There was lots of time for talking.  I caught Randy and Grandpa deep in conversation here, and had to enjoy a picture of it.

This is Grandpa consoling Kenadi after I traumatized her by trying to get her to go for a ride on the lawnmower.  As soon as I started the thing up she went screaming and crying until Grandpa held her.

Emma and Kenadi enjoyed throwing rocks into the creek.

There are so many neat antiques around the farm.  The neat thing is that they were all used by ancestors or family members.  This is my Aunt Carmen's tricycle.  Isn't it neat?  I think all of us grandkids have used it too.

One of my Grandma's favorite horses.  I had to take a picture of this beauty because her name is- Tara.  Well, it's Wind-Tara's Delight.  Tara for short.  

And I love this old phone.  Ok, I know there are some random things here, and the next post has more to come.  I just love visiting here so much that I was hoping to share my enthusiasm about ALL of it.

I'm sure we all feel that way about our Grandparent's and their houses, just because of the memories they hold.