This crumbling barn was once owned by a German baker of some note who once kept the building immaculate. In the days of 100-acre mixed family farms, hay, straw and grain could be adequately stored in the loft. Now the barns homesteads and small fields have given way to open spaces to handle the massive machinery and irrigation equipment of the 21st century, and hay storage had become oceans of plastics-enclosed bales, as below. Cash-cropping and specialty farming appear to be the new norms. You don't have to drive far to find yourself surrounded by cornfields as far as the eye can see – but it is increasingly being used in the production of ethanol. Photos by Wes Keller
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