That’s Illinois, with the “s” silent.
Twenty years ago I could drive west about 15 minutes from the suburbs where I lived finding Illinois farmlands. Corn fields as far as the horizon. Now the suburbs extend many miles further west.
Driving west on Interstate 80 I finally found some farms and barns approaching Ottawa.
Ottawa hadn’t changed too much from the memories of my younger years. Tall stately buildings of local quarried sandstone still stand along the main street like the La Salle County Courthouse named for Robert de LaSalle, the French explorer who effected the first white settlements in Illinois and explored the Mississippi to the Gulf.
I liked the addition of the historic murals. This mural by Roger Cooke represents the original inhabitants known as the Ottawas, or “adawe” meaning to trade who hunted the Bison that used to roam the prairies near the confluence of the Fox and Illinois Rivers.
Living in Arizona I don’t see this type of farm machinery coming down the road.
Or grain silos either. And it’s not like I want to move back to Illinois.
Yet I wonder if these farms are still family owned or operated by some big corporation. And if houses continue to spread across the land where will our food be produced, in a test tube?
I won’t be surprised genetically modified food comes into normal practice soon. Currently there are 7 bln people on the planet, and fewer and fewer resources.
Sadly, it’s already here.
Beautiful post…
Ottawa is one of my favorite towns. I spent many weekends around Ottawa and along the rivers. My hope is that we get back to family farms – but it will be difficult to overpower the big corporations.
I always enjoyed Ottawa. This trip I fell in love with Utica. Time to get container gardening going for us mobilites.
Good questions. The best farmland around Tulsa is getting swallowed rapidly by housing additions.
Time for home gardening or at least community gardens. Not easy when on the road or in NP during summer. Hmmmm, greenhouse in Yarnell?
FABULOUS photography as always. Maybe I should look into that camera you have although I’m pretty sure it’s you and I can’t buy one of those. 🙂
Sadly the only way the family farm can continue to compete and pay off the loans on that huge machinery is to align itself with the subsidies given to corporate agriculture. We have to be very careful to find out where our food comes from these days. That’s the one thing I really miss being on the road, growing all my own food and eating most of it on my way from the plant to the house. :-))
It amazes me how countryside changes. When I first went to S.Africa, between Pretoria and Johannesburg it was all farmland, now you have no idea where the two begin and end with Mid-Rand in the middle!! I just love that mural it is stunning. Take care Diane
I couldn’t tell the difference between Pretoria and Johannesburg either. Didn’t see farmland until we headed east a ways. Wish I’d had time to explore more of the murals but I was on a mission to a State Park that I will post about soon.
Wow! That is not the image I have in my mind of Illinois. I’ve never really thought about it, but I guess that would be the Chicago skyline. Very pretty!
I didn’t even see the Chicago skyline. Just flew in and out, headed for the suburbs.
I used to work for a veterinary journal and the issue of food security came up for debate a lot. They’re making farms bigger and more intensive these days, but there are issues with animal welfare as well as methane production. I guess we should all try being veggie for a bit but I just love my bacon far too much!
I love vegies, but bacon also.
Deep line of thinking and reasoning here. I wonder myself the same things sometimes. We have a lot of old infrastructures that need fixing or replacing….why spread suburbs out when we can be keeping the land clear so that Bison, if they chose, could come back and hang out once again as they used to?
So true. I don’t want to live in a city, or even the suburbs. Sure glad some do as it would get really crowded here in the country. Why not just build up and leave the land alone.