Spending two to three hours on a bicycle criss-crossing the southern Wisconsin countryside four to five days a week has lead me to ponder how the families who farmed this area lived and continue to live.

There is no lack of dilapidated, unoccupied farm houses.

However, what really struck me were the farmhouses, in some cases just a few miles up the road, that seemed lavish. (There is nothing wrong with a farmer being able to afford such accommodations by the way; they likely worked very hard for it.)

This juxtaposition has spawned an artistic endeavor: The Green County Farmhouse Project.

The Project will be simple, accumulate dozens of photographs of Green County farmhouses and display them anonymously online.

However, the Project wont work without you.

I need readers to send photos of area farmhouses in e-mail format only.

The photos must be shot in a specific way.

Please take a picture of the home from the front, straight on, and be sure to get the entire house in the frame. Also, only send the name of the town the farmhouse is in and the approximate year the home was built, if known.

I will not reveal who lives in the homes.

Send photos to newseditor@themonroetimes.com, and type Green County Farmhouse Project in the subject field.

The purpose of the Project is to show how farm life has changed over the centuries in Green County.

The homes can be abandoned and run down, brand new, well lived-in, or in any other condition.

As the photos come in, they will be posted on this blog in black and white, with only the name of the community and the homes age in the photo caption.

Thank you for participating, and I look forward to seeing what everyone sends in.