On Saturday I posted a ‘creepy’ sunflower, but today’s sunflower looks worn out and tired, as I suspect there might be a few individual looking the same after enjoying a long, holiday weekend of fun and who are not ready to head back to work today.
Tired Sunflower
The most numerous bird in North America, and perhaps the world, covered the skies for days in the 1850s when an estimated five billion passenger pigeons migrated. Loss of habitat and acorns as a food source from deforestation as well as aggressive and massive hunting of the pigeons for a cheap food source for people and hogs in the 19th century wiped out the existence of any wild passenger pigeons by 1900.
A few captive passenger pigeon were kept in zoos but the captive birds failed to reproduce, and soon only one female remained, even though a $1,000 reward was offered to find a mate for Martha (named in honor of Martha Washington) who lived in the Cincinnati Zoo. Martha had had an apoplectic stroke several years before her death, which left her weak and frail and as she grew older, her keepers had to continuously lower her perch so she could climb up onto it, rather than fly up to the perch.
Martha lived to the age of 29, ancient by pigeon standards, but when she died on September 1, 1914, the passenger pigeon, vanished from the planet. It has been a hundred years since of blue, long-tailed, fast and graceful passenger pigeon, larger than a mourning dove, inhabited the country where it was once so abundant.
Disappearing Pigeon
Earlier this month I stopped on a Tuesday evening to take some pictures of the old Peace Lutheran church and by Friday that week, the old red brick church was torn down so it is no longer standing under the Milky Way. But memories of the church will still twinkle, like the stars, in the minds of former parishioners and area residents who drove by the church.
No Longer Under the Milky Way
When the word sunflower is mentioned, I picture a field of sunny, smiling yellow sunflower heads lined up in row after row. But before those yellow heads appear, a creepier looking object emerges first, like a man eating plant from those early sci-fi movies which still often re-run on late Saturday nights.
Creepy Sunflower
There will be many people heading to the lakes and campgrounds for the last big end of summer vacation for the Labor Day holiday. And since the lakes will be crowded, I guess I will have to have my campfire by my little pond instead.
Heading to the Lake
People in California felt the earth shake from the recent quake and I wonder how the earth would have rumbled when the prairie was filled with the great herds of buffalo which stretched for miles. It must have been a sight to see (from a far distance that is, as I wouldn’t want to be stepped on), although it might have been a little smelly with all those buffalo chips!
When the Buffalo Did Roam
The Black-eyed Susans are enjoying a sunny, late summer day.
Sunny Susans
These young swallows where hanging on tight to the branch while yesterday’s winds were tossing them like a carnival ride. The field yesterday was filled with swallows so they might be gathering to head south before winter but before they go, they better eat a lot more of my mosquitoes!
Juvenile Swallows on a Ride
Old metal retired from working still provides value as decoration. It took me a while to figure out the writing near the star since with a picture you can’t do an etching to raise the lettering but by playing with contrast and other setting, I finally was able to read the word STAR on top and then Wilcox Mfg Co, Aurora, ILL, Pat.d June 1886.
The Wilcox Manufacturing Company started in 1880 and was purchased in 1910 by the Richards Company (which started in 1870) and formed the Richards-Wilcox Company which is still manufactures specialty door hardware and overhead conveyor systems. An ad in the Farm implement news buyer’s guide dated 1906 for the Wilcox Mfg Co lists these items; barn door hangers, house door hangers, hardware specialties, wagon jacks, emery grinders, wire stretchers, loose and mounted grindstones.
Old Star
Close up of the old metal logo.
The steeple doesn’t stand high on a ridge in southwestern Wisconsin, but Salem Evangelical Church steeple had proudly displayed since 1875 in a farming valley called Metzgar’s Valley near Norwalk, with a pasture full of cattle off to the left and surrounded by fields. Salem, meaning peace, has seen eight generations through its doors, arriving first by horses and later by automobiles, and at the end of their life, they may be laid to rest in the cemetery called Wanderers’ Rest. In 1968 the Evangelical United Brethren Church joined with the Methodist Church to form the United Methodist Church.
Peace In The Valley
