Rankinen Farm at Old World Wisconsin

Old World Wisconsin

Old World Wisconsin

We traveled to Eagle Wisconsin to attend The Spirit of Christmas Past at Old World Wisconsin, a Wisconsin State Historical Society site. Old World Wisconsin is a settlement depicting 19th- and early 20th-century rural Wisconsin located on almost 600 acres of wooded hills in the Kettle Moraine State Forest. The Crossroads Village and the Finnish Settlement were open the past two weekends, and provided a rare opportunity to photograph the outdoor rural museum dressed in a winter cloak.

I liked the way the Rankinen Farmstead was tucked into the landscape. Though I was wishing for blue skies dotted with lots of fluffy clouds, the gray skies seemed to enhance the reflection effect in this photograph. No complaints about the weather – the afternoon was pleasant with mild temperatures in the low 30s and no wind. I used the Olympus Pen’s pinhole art filter to balance all that winter white.

The Rankinen Farm was moved to the museum site from Bayfield County in northern Wisconsin and is depicted as it was in 1897.