Only a very faint hint of red paint is showing on this old barn that has been weathered for many years. The lightning rod is even bending to the years of weathering and use.
Very Faded Red
Picture of the Day for July 30, 2013
This faded red barn must have had its doors open most of the time as the less weathered boards are where the open doors would have protected them. And I wonder what sign would have grace the barn above the doors; was it a family farm sign with the names of parents and children and the type of livestock raised or was an advertising implement sign?
Faded Red
Picture of the Day for July 29, 2013
Yesterday I posted a barn door, so I thought today I should post the full barn with all of its doors where the farmer has gone in and out for years. And I wonder how many critters have escaped through unlatched doors.
Barn Doors
Barn DoorsPicture of the Day for July 28, 2013
Old Barn Door
Farmer passes through old barn doors
On his way to start morning chores.
Herd of cows are munching their hay
And from the corner comes a neigh.
A birthing might cause a delay
And a lost calf brings much dismay.
From the straw a kitten starts to explore
As litters had done for years before.
The barn has gone from white to dark grey
Weathering years makes it tough to stay.
Through the cracks comes a bright sunny ray
To announce the start of a new day.
The laboring work and stress he ignores
Farmer is living the life he adores.
Sheri Erickson 7-28-13
Old Barn Door
Picture of the Day for July 27, 2013
This donkey sure reminds me of Eeyore with his head down and the ‘woe is me’ look. The Winnie-the-Pooh books has Eeyore portrayed as a pessimistic, gloomy, depressed, old grey stuffed donkey and usually expects misfortune to happen to him, accepts it when it does and rarely even tries to prevent it. His catchphrases are “Thanks for noticin’ me” and “Ohhh-kayyy”.
I wonder if this donkey said “Thanks for noticin’ me” when I stopped to take its picture. Probably said leave me alone!
Depressed Donkey
Picture of the Day for July 26, 2013
It is always a nice treat to see a rainbow and a double rainbow is an added bonus. A rainbow is an optical and meteorological phenomenon that is caused by reflection of light in water droplets in the Earth’s atmosphere, resulting in a spectrum of light appearing in the sky.
In a “primary rainbow”, the arc shows red on the outer part and violet on the inner side. This rainbow is caused by light being refracted while entering a droplet of water, then reflected inside on the back of the droplet and refracted again when leaving it.
In a double rainbow, a second arc is seen outside the primary arc, and has the order of its colours reversed, red facing toward the other one, in both rainbows. This second rainbow is caused by light reflecting twice inside water droplets.
Double Rainbow
Picture of the Day for July 25, 2013
The road ditches are presenting a ray of colors from orange, purple, white, and yellow. And here the yellow and black of the native Black-eyed Susans are sharing the ditch with the purple Bee Balm. The Black-eyed Susans were attracting green inch worms and the Bee Balm was enticing bees and butterflies.
Colorful Ditch
Picture of the Day for July 24, 2013
Kittens act all tough and brave, at least until a dog walks by and then they are a scaredy cat!
Scaredy Cat
Picture of the Day for July 23, 2013
Old Crooked Tree
Old dead tree stands all gnarled and worn,
Its brittle limbs all battered and torn.
The passing centuries it has seen
When it was still mighty strong and green.
The marvelous stories it could tell
When critters would stop to rest a spell.
The youthful days when life was prime
Has withered since near the end of time.
Wind and storms try to force it to fall,
Old crooked tree barely standing tall.
Sheri Erickson, 7/23/13
Old Crooked Tree
Picture of the Day for July 22, 2013
“O beautiful for halcyon skies, For amber waves of grain,” was a start of a poem written by Katharine Lee Bates, an English professor, who took a trip in 1893 to teach summer school in Colorado Springs.
Several of the sights on her trip inspired her, and they found their way into her poem, including the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago, the “White City” with its promise of the future contained within its alabaster buildings; the wheat fields of America’s heartland Kansas, through which her train was riding on July 16; and the majestic view of the Great Plains from high atop Zebulon’s Pikes Peak.
On the pinnacle of that mountain, the words of the poem started to come to her, and she wrote them down upon returning to her hotel room at the original Antlers Hotel. The poem, Pikes Peak, was initially published two years later in The Congregationalist, to commemorate the Fourth of July in which the poem was titled America.
Amended versions were published in 1904 and 1913, in which the “O beautiful for halcyon skies” was changed to “O beautiful for spacious skies” and the music we have associated with the poem was composed by a church organist and choirmaster, Samuel A. Ward.
Just as Bates had been inspired to write her poem, Ward too was inspired to compose his tune. The tune came to him while he was on a ferryboat trip from Coney Island back to his home in New York City, after a leisurely summer day in 1882, and he immediately wrote it down. He was so anxious to capture the tune in his head, he asked fellow passenger friend Harry Martin for his shirt cuff to write the tune on. He composed the tune for the old hymn “O Mother Dear, Jerusalem”, retitling the work “Materna”. Ward’s music combined with Bates’ poem were first published together in 1910 and titled, America the Beautiful.
Ward never met Bates as he died in 1903, and he never realized the national stature his music would attain. Bates was more fortunate, as the song’s popularity was well established by the time of her death in 1929.
Amber Waves of Grain
ain, Barn