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
Just like little kids, kittens don’t need fancy toys to have fun. A empty cardboard box provides hours of fun for kids and kittens and even a curly garden hose provides fort walls for the kitten to hide until he pounces on his next victim. But the kitten might become a victim of the water hose when the curious kitten syndrome strikes and he crawls into the tunnel and the ‘snake’ swallows him.
Curious Kitten
Old silos sometimes take on a green look when vines inch their way up and cover them but in this case the vines are climbing on both ends of the barn with wild cucumber vines climbing by the round hay bales.
Surrounded by Green
