Summer storms, especially tornadoes, are not a welcome event when it causes a lot of damage, but with this large tree blown down, I was able to spot this shed from the road which was hidden before.
Grey Shed
Picture of the Day for August 30, 2015
As meteorological summer winds down, soon the corn fields will turn from green to brown until harvest as fall marches towards winter.
End of August Sunset
Picture of the Day for August 29, 2015
One of the later summer flowers adding a splash of color in prairies and open areas is the purple coneflower and is a favorite of butterflies and bees (and apparently other beetles too). It was widely used medicinal plant of the Plains Indians.
Purple Coneflower
Picture of the Day for August 28, 2015
It always amazes me how trees and other vegetation like ferns can grow on rocky cliffs.
Hanging On
Picture of the Day for August 27, 2015
The male black and white bird with the brilliant red chevron extending from the black throat down the middle of the breast is a Rose-breasted Grosbeak. Females, like many species, are more plain in their brown streaked body. Their large triangular bills make it easy for them to crack sunflower seeds (as you can see in the video), but at least they drop the shells outside the feeder tray. They also eat insects and fruit, especially during their migration to Central and South American, which they would be doing now as I haven’t seen any grosbeaks for several days. Apparently they heard that meteorological summer ends on Monday and they left in a hurry.
Rose-breasted Grosbeak
Picture of the Day for August 26, 2015
One local school district started classes yesterday, but the children attended a much bigger school than this old one-room schoolhouse found in Mercer, Wisconsin. It probably was not a wise thing to get on the bad side of the teacher since you would have the same teacher normally for most of your school years in that one room school.
I don’t know why the restored schoolhouse was named the Shirley Sleight School, but there was a Shirley Sleight who lived in Mercer. She was born in 1917, married and had two children (by the 1940 census) and seemed active in the community as a performer in “Moonlight Serenade” in 1957 for a fund raiser a park and in 1998 was still active in the The Depot Historical Society and the depot museum, which is where the school is located, so I assumed it was named in honor of her service and volunteer work. She died in 2004.
Shirley Sleight School
And a peek inside.
Picture of the Day for August 25, 2015
A bit pink of color yet before the summer winds down. The small patch of phlox shines in the sunshine. The 67 different species of phlox are found mostly in North America in diverse habitats from alpine tundra to open woodland and prairie, in various colors and blooming seasons.
Pink Patch of Phlox
Picture of the Day for August 24, 2015
It was very hard to get a picture of the birthday kids this morning since either I could get only one in the picture or have a blurry mass when the two were together as they wrestled with each other. Only when I sneaked out when they were napping that I was able to get a picture of Trouble and Stripe together, but it had to be a quick shot or the moment was over.
Happy First Birthday Cats
Picture of the Day for August 23, 2015
On a ridge in southwestern Wisconsin, sit a 45 by 65 foot church built out of 150,000 bricks which was dedicated on January 20, 1901, to become the third church for the German Lutherans in the Ridgeville area which was organized in 1862. Above the entrance are the words “EV LUTH ST JOHANNES KIRCHE”, as a 110 foot tower bell climbed above and could be heard throughout the countryside, until the steeple was damaged in a storm and replaced with a cap in 1948, only a few years after when the last German service was discontinued in the early 1940s to all English services. It would have nice to see St. John’s with the tall steeple but it is still an impressive brick church.
St. John’s Evangelical Lutheran Church
Picture of the Day for August 22, 2015
The Tyler Fork plunges 30 feet into the Bad River gorge. The Brownstone Falls gets its name from the reddish-brown rocks around it which was formed from red lava flows in the canyon.
Brownstone Falls
