A place for all seasons....

I was looking back through the archives, looking for something to convert to sepia tones for Sepia Scenes.
I noticed these pictures from the strip pit area...every time I see them I wish I was sitting out there drinking in the view.
I don't care what time of year I am out there, I am wishing that the land belonged to the Dept. of Natural Resoures for all future generations to enjoy.
If I were to turn and look back the other way, there would be a house or two in view. I do understand why people post the land...but I long to walk through the tall grass, and see what is over the next hill.
Or to sit by the edge of the strip pit and just see what comes along. At some of the strip pits there are beaver houses...and at strip pits we used to have access to, we seen beaver quite often. Now the roads that run past that particular strip pit has gates across the road and everyone is locked out. I can only see it from a distance.

If we were to ever move from Indiana, my heart would miss this area shown here more than any other.

Ruby Tuesday

This is the first time for me to do a Ruby Tuesday post...it is hosted by Mary at her Work of the Poet blog. I just couldn't resist joining, even though this has nothing to do with an office.
This was a capture from a couple days ago...the best so far for me of a cardinal.

When I was a teen-ager...maybe even before that, we would take an empty plastic milk container--the gallon size--and cut out holes in the sides about twice the size of a playing card, but leaving 'corner posts.' We left the bottom about two inches deep. We would use a rag strip or piece of baling twine, or whatever was handy to tie the milk just to some of mom's lattice at the end of the front porch and then would fill the bottom with a mixture of cornbread crumbled up and maybe some corn. I really can't remember using anything else. But the birds would just flock to it.

I can't remember what we used--I think it was a piece of tin on a board and nail it to the top of a fence post out in the back yard. We would put the same stuff on it as in the milk jug...I can remember counting as high as 9 male cardinals at the same time. Carletta had a post the other day that reminded me of that. Here I am lucky to see the male and female at the same time...I think in all the years I have lived here, I have seen a couple male cardinals at the same time a very few times.

I think they like more cover than is available here...if it is not that I don't know what the reason is.