Prosperity
This family is doing well. A large sod home, a fine windmill and a lot of machinery. The new or nearly new wood framed threshing machine was an expensive investment but a necessary part of farming. Often only one farmer in a neighborhood would invest in a threshing machine and help pay for it by threshing grain for his neighbors. The disc on the left has wood boxes that could be filled with dirt to add weight so it would work better in hard dry ground. We assume the man and lady in the front are the owners, if only due to their prominence in the photo. The man is sitting on his two row corn planter and their son sits on a plow. An older son may be sitting atop the thresher in the background. In photos of the time older boys often liked to put themselves in prominent noteworthy positions. The team to the right is hitched to what looks like a new binder. The buggy and team of horses behind the corn pile probably belonged to the photographer. The man and lady with the small child and baby in the buggy may be an older son or daughter and their family. The windmill is open to catch the wind and pump water. When it wasn’t needed it would be shut off by closing the vanes in together. An older sod building just behind the house may have been their earlier home. The fine windbreak required thousands of buckets of water getting the trees established. It’s obvious this is an industrious family who made the American dream a reality.