from a country drive

We went for a drive yesterday--I wanted to go because I knew today was supposed to be raining. And it has rained most of the day--a light rain. No big downpours at any time. And the sky...it is overcast but not that real dark, dreary look that we have most of the time when it is raining. But I am still glad we took off for the drive yesterday. We went north, first to see Coffing Brothers Orchard, but we had missed the blooming. Again. I have tried to several years to make it up there when the majority of the trees are in bloom, but have yet to be successful.
Anyway, we did manage to come across two or three barns I have never seen before, as well as this house. I really need to get a GPS, till maybe I can figure out where things are. I would love to know how far this place is from a town or grocery store. My husband doesn't think anyone lives here; me I am not so sure.

It really is sort of run down, but I sort of had the feeling someone might be trying to start to work on it in their spare time. It also had a satellite dish...which I will probably show in a later post. But for right now I thought I would show you this house. Isn't that porch wonderful? I would have loved one when I was a child. I can just imagine Lorelei on it.
This farm seemed to be out in the middle of nowhere...and I wondered about it. I wondered how far they had to go to get the things to build it with. Was it built at a time when they used a horse and wagon to go get supplies? I kind of wondered if they had got the brick for building from the kilns shown here....they are up north of here also.

Look how square everything still is...someone built it that knew what they were doing. Someone that can build something this beautiful is indeed an artist in my book. A master craftsman.
And this road right beside the house led to their barn which I will also show in the next few days. It was built square and true, too. I really was impressed with the place...or maybe I should say with the workmanship of the place, and hope you are, too.

Strip pit sunset

Please enlarge these for better viewing!

I have a ga-zillion sunset pictures from the strip pit area but I think these are my favorites. And they are exactly how it looked. Usually my pictures are not quite the way it looked...but they usually are different in a way that is almost better than the how it really was. Can you make sense out of that last sentence?
Anyway, these are not altered in any way....except to add my copyright/name. They are exactly as they came out of the camera.

New sighting....

These pictures leave a lot to be desired...again. Yet I was so glad to get even these. The top photo is not enhanced. It was actually as dark as the picture seems....very hard to distinguish the features.
It is a barred owl that Roger spotted on my side of the road on the way home from the strip pit area. I used fill flash to lighten the photos till we can see the the features a little bit better.
I checked the pictures on the desktop computer and they were so dark I couldn't distinguish anything so I am trying to lighten them more. Hope it helps.

We didn't see much on our run through tonight...we heard a few pheasant but not near as many as normal. We did not see a single one. No Northern Harriers. No Short-eared owls. The owl above was after we left what we call the strip pit are.

We did see a beautiful sunset....I will post a couple pictures of that in a day or two.
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I have to tell about babysitting Lorelei yesterday. She was asleep when we got there...didn't wake up till a while after Sarah and Jeremy left. She was her usual cheerful self for a short while. Then she started getting fussy. Before I could get her bottle warm, she was crying so hard. And did not want anything to do with that bottle...I tell you, she just broke our heart. You could tell she wanted her mommy.

I finally got her settled down and thought maybe she would then take the bottle. Wrong! She set in with the crying again. Big old tears. I get teary eyed just thinking about her little face.

Well, we had noticed that Sarah had had one of her own shirts spread out under Lorelei in the crib, so Roger got it and says 'let's try something.' He brought it over to drape over my shoulder like a burp cloth and she stopped almost the minute she seen it. She snuggled in and took most of her bottle.

She needed a diaper change...I took Sarah's shirt off my shoulder. And when we got done I took her in the living room and was going to see if she wanted the rest of the bottle. She started crying again. Roger went and got Sarah's shirt, and again she quieted down and took the rest of the bottle.

About the time she was starting to entertain us, her mommy and daddy got home. So that was the end of that little adventure.