Good Morning, Springboro! Crows in a Field of Wheat (Last Installment in This Series)

My original watercolor painting of crows in a field of wheat stubble is an unintended homage to Vincent van Gogh’s Wheatfield with Crows (1890). As I was standing alongside the road and admiring the rich orange of the mowed stalks of wheat, crows flew in to feast on fallen grain. Two landed and eyed me suspiciously while the others rose and fell like umbrellas in the sky. I was not consciously thinking about Vincent’s work, but, synchronistically, I completed my small composition on the 14th of July, only a few days after Vincent finished his. Naturally, he and I were drawn to paint crows and wheat because most wheat in Europe and the United States since the nineteenth century has been harvested beginning in early July.

Crows in a Field of Wheat

Original Watercolor Painting by Robert T. Rhode

I have written extensively about threshing wheat. In my book entitled The Harvest Story: Recollections of Old-Time Threshermen (Purdue University Press, 2001), I describe “shocks of bronze-colored wheat stretching across the golden fields of summer.” I explain that, by the late 1800s, wheat threshing had assumed a position of towering importance in many areas of the United States. Eventually, wheat was crowned king of cash crops throughout much of North America. Wheat made Kansas and neighboring states the world’s breadbasket. In the time of my grandfather and father in Indiana, farmers formed threshing rings to go from farm to farm helping one another with machines to separate the grains of wheat from the stalks on which the grains had grown. In those days, children thought of “thrashin’” as “Christmas in July”! Families collaborated in the labor of the harvest and sat down to noonday dinners of epic proportions. Most rural folks who experienced wheat threshing considered the event so positive as to be among their favorite memories.

When I exhibited my Case steam engine at the Will County show in Illinois for several years, I had the opportunity to help load bundles, or sheaves, of wheat in the late afternoons. Even though the work was hot and chaff stuck to my neck, I look back on the work as about the most fun I have ever had! The slanting rays of the evening sun made the entire field golden. It felt good to use my pitchfork to lift the bundles high up to where the bundle loader, standing atop the sheaves that we were piling on the wagon, could reach the bundles of those of us who were handing them up; he snagged them with his pitchfork and positioned them where he wanted them. The task of bringing in the sheaves had real meaning, and I thoroughly enjoyed working with my friends amid the wheat stubble.

Probably the crows were having just as much fun this July. They appeared to be happy as they dined on wheat that the present-day combine had missed.        

If you would like to purchase one of the paintings in this series, send me a message through my website at roberttrhode.org or via Facebook. Each work of art measures 5″ by 7″ and consists of Cotman Water Colours by Winsor & Newton on acid-free Montval watercolor paper.

Good Morning, Springboro! Clear Creek

Clear Creek is one of many picturesque small streams in the vicinity of Springboro, Ohio, which is named for the presence of numerous springs. Clear Creek meanders toward Franklin and the Great Miami River. Country roads crisscross it, offering scenic views from many a low bridge.

Clear Creek Near Springboro, Ohio

Original Watercolor Painting by Robert T. Rhode

The waters of Clear Creek flow near the giant sycamore that is the subject of another of my original watercolor paintings featured in this blog series. (See “Good Morning, Springboro! The Giant Sycamore.”) I love the ochre tones of the creek bed that echo the ochre patches in the bark and the ochre tints in the leaves and seed heads of the sycamores that line the banks. As the stream is shallow, peninsulas of white gravel protrude here and there amid the rippling water. In the summer sunshine, these pebbly bars have a barely discernible pink tint.

After a hard rain, Clear Creek deepens and fairly roars. It can even rise from its banks and spread across the road near the park. At those times, crews must put up barricades until the stream returns to its normal channel. On a typical July day, the sparkling water sings a merry song that soothes jangled nerves.

One of the townships of Warren County is named Clearcreek; it features the towns of Five Points, Pekin, Red Lion, Ridgeville, and Springboro. Five Points is hardly a town but more accurately a location where five roads meet (almost). It boasts the highest point of land in the county. Pekin, Red Lion, and Ridgeville truly are communities, each with fascinating stories to tell; for example, Red Lion was so named in the stage coach days for a public house and inn sporting a sign depicting a lion, and Ridgeville was the boyhood village of John McLean (1785–1861), who was a Supreme Court justice that wisely dissented in the shameful Dred Scott decision. (McLean also served in Congress and as U.S. Postmaster General.) Ridgeville is memorably described in William Henry Venable’s autobiographical book entitled Buckeye Boyhood. Venable was a noted educator, well versed in many fields and chairing departments of English at Hughes High School and at Walnut Hills High School in Cincinnati. His granddaughter Evelyn Venable was a Hollywood actress who portrayed Shirley Temple’s mother in The Little Colonel. The iconic Columbia Pictures woman with the gleaming torch was Evelyn, who has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. After her acting career, she taught classical Greek and Latin at UCLA and assisted with productions of plays from the same time period.

For far longer than the centuries stretching from the stage coach era until today, Clear Creek has shimmered and murmured, twinkled and babbled, glimmered and trickled. As you gaze upon it, you can easily imagine how, before the pioneers arrived, Miami and Shawnee people deeply appreciated the stream. I recall a resident of the area telling me that, when he was a boy, he found Native American artifacts that had been unearthed by the ever-flowing waters of Clear Creek.

If you would like to purchase one of my paintings from this blog series, send me a message through my website at roberttrhode.org or via Facebook.              

Good Morning, Springboro! A Barn on a Rainy Day

A short drive in nearly any direction from Springboro takes you into farmland. Fields of wheat, corn, and soybeans stretch between wooded borders and narrow streams. Turning from one road onto another, you glimpse the heartwarming scenery that only the country can supply. Beyond fence corners stand barns tucked amid lush greenery. Horses whinny and gallop playfully. Goldfinches, redwing blackbirds, and indigo buntings are only a few of the vibrant birds flitting among the brambles of the roadside.

A Barn on a Rainy Day Near Springboro, Ohio

Original Watercolor Painting by Robert T. Rhode

The region where Springboro stands was settled long ago—so far back in time that many of the oldest lanes have vanished, replaced by newer highways in slightly different locations. It is common to see a string of homes and outbuildings some distance from today’s road. A rural byway once served them that has since been rerouted or cut off. Now a rather long driveway leads back to them. This tradition of repurposing the landscape has produced the enchantment of discovering isolated barns nowhere near a highway. In the summer, you have to know where to look for them. Half covered in vines and surrounded by brush, they bear testimony to an earlier time when cattle roamed the meadows and a dusty path brought the occasional buggy and news from town.

My original watercolor painting this week features one such barn. It watches over a small field of new corn. The spring and summer have been wet, and the corn was planted late. The stand has been partly drowned out. Showers are soaking the landscape, and the sky is a study of blustery gray clouds. The vista opens from a gap in the trees and thick undergrowth close to where two roads form a T. Look in the right direction at the right instant, or you will miss the view, which roadside thickets and tangled creepers soon shut out.

Within two or three miles along the same road, I could have selected half a dozen scenes as subjects for paintings. For an artist, Springboro’s agricultural surroundings offer unlimited possibilities. Few places in my experience have such happy arrangements of artistic elements. Angles and arcs conspire to please the aesthetically inclined eye. It is as if the Master Painter had been in an especially blithe mood when creating the Springboro corner of the world. Even rainy days in July are hardly sad; rather, they hold forth the promise of harvests to come in only a few months.

If you would like to purchase one of my paintings from this blog series, send me a message through my website at roberttrhode.org or via Facebook.