Long gone now in this photo is the old victorian house, which held Herman and Annie's wing, and the August Seil's wing. Long gone too is the name as Sunnyslope Farm.
What we see here is the modern view of the current house, which was built about 1945-6 on the same spot that held the old house on the Sunnyslope Farm.
The View: Looking from East to the West at Sunnyslope was taken about 1979 or so. The chicken house seen in so many earlier photographs had by this time burned down to the cement. From our left to right we find the Hog building, which might be gone by now. We can see the newer buildings, the Cement Barn,and a Corn Crib.
On the front left next to the gravel road you see freshly plowed large dirt patches. The first one closest to the road was the family vegetable garden with a large strawberry Patch. The one above that was a fenced in area that was for calves and sheep in 1960's. Later it became another vegetable garden area. I was told that in the victorian years it had been a garden area for William and Annie Seil. But it seemed sandier and was less fertile than the other rich earth of the most eastern garden plot.
On the right side near the road, the plowed area had been cultivated and planted by Dwight, maybe the ten years or so before this photograph. For years in the 1950's and 1960's it was sheep pasture. They ran in and out of the woods until sheep farming was finished. In later years Dwight had decided to farm as much land as he could. Here too was the view that the neighbors the Mosels/Reeds saw from their windows.
Everything behind the large grove of trees was farming land. Except for the grassy pasture area on the left, beside the barn. This was grazing land for the dairy cows who waded and drank from a narrow shallow creek which ran below the sunnyslope of north and west slanted hills.
This farm acreage was one fourth of the square mile. Directly west behind the Meyer farm was The Slew. It was owned by the Game farm. They raised and released their pheasants in that area. On the right [north] side of the slew was the cultivated and planted farm land of Ben and Emma Johnson. And a bit north was the farm land of his son Fred Johnson with his wife Mabel.
On the east side of The Meyer farm was land at one time owned by Mary and Albert Kaizer. His farm was taken over later by Jerry Sill. His family lived on the east side of the gravel road. Eventually the gravel road reached the end of the square mile. If one reached this end, one could then turn onto Highway 60 [located north of the Sunnyslope Farm] .
If you came west on highway from Madelia, the family farm was about 6 - 7 traveling miles. If you went to St. James on this highway it was maybe about ten miles. Then coming from the south from Lewisville village on highway 15 or the blacktop road and then to gravel roads, it probably was about three or four miles.
I think I shall have to produce a small map soon of the local neighborhood.
Perhaps too, a small discussion on the neighbors, is in order.
