Today was a beautiful day here in the Midwest...rain is supposed to be heading back our way but I am hoping it will hold off till tomorrow afternoon.

The day started out wonderful...the first thing I got a fabulous shot for Skywatch Friday...I can't wait to show it. I wonder if anyone else will love it the way I do. Be sure and check back Friday. Then I got to visit with Mama Squirrel as my earlier pictures show. I am sure in hopes that it doesn't disturb her too bad when we get these trees cut down. This is her third season with us.

I went for a drive and though I didn't end up with any outstanding shots, I got some fairly nice ones. More barns are among them. I actually have thought about starting a blog with nothing but pictures of barns...but then what would I post here? It was just so nice to be out and about in good weather. Though I was on the lookout for vultures, I missed the one and only chance of a picture of one today... I could kick myself. It would have been an excellent one...like the big fish that got away.

I also got a couple pictures of llamas...one of which I am showing here. There are a few places around here that have them, but I don't know their reasons for raising them. A friend my husband had down home in Tennessee had one or two to help guard his sheep. But the ones here are not near sheep. I read they they make excellent pets and are good pack animals, but that don't seem to fit with the ones I see. So maybe people are using their wool. Whatever their purpose, I think they are beautiful...be sure and click the picture to enlarge and look at the eyes. Just beautiful.

Then my other picture I am showing is one that I just can't get right...it just does not do the real life scene justice. It is of the power lines and I when I see them one right after another as far as the eyes can see as in this picture, I think of them as Silent Sentinels. I wish I had a bucket truck that I could get up in and get a view from higher in the air...just to see if it would give the feeling that I get when I look at them. It is almost an other world feeling...again be sure and click to enlarge to get the real feeling of the photo.

I can't help but wonder what of our modern conveniences will be left two or three hundred years from now and what will future people think of them. Will they know what they were and their uses?

Isn't she lovely? Isn't she wonderful?
I had wondered if she would be afraid if I had my camera with me to take pictures but she wasn't at all. She had ran out of nuts when I first went out there and she had to examine the camera to make sure it wasn't holding out on her. So I ran back in to get more because she would not be still for a second otherwise.

How about a couple barn pictures? It is about all I am able to come up with right now.
The first one is a barn in Tennessee. It is huge but it is on this real curvy road and this is the only view I could get. But it was a really loooonnnnnngggg barn. Probably at least 2 1/2 times as long as it is wide, if not longer.

And the one below is a barn from Parke County, probably 15 minutes away from me. I have never been in it....but we do know the brothers who own it. We were told that their mother was a mail order bride but I do not know if it is true or not.

The past week or so I have been sort of distracted by various things. Some of it not too great, other not really bad, just frustrating. Such as we have two maple trees on the south side of this house. One is older and really needs to be taken down and even the other one is continually having a limb break out of it. Here a month or two ago, a limb about 5 or 6 inches through broke out during a storm and just missed our daughter's car, and only missed our house by less than 10 feet.

So we have been trying to find someone to take them both out. And both my husband and I would rather have someone that was recommended to us. So, we got the name of a couple different people, and I started calling. No luck. I left messages....no luck. I thought maybe since some students are on spring break that maybe they had taken off with their kids.

So, I started again this week...and I had seen an ad in our local paper and called it. He wanted more than what I had expected for either tree. The old tree we really preferred it to be taken totally down, but the other I would have been fine with topping it. Anyway, to totally take out the huge old tree that is really beginning to scare me, he wanted $1200, or to top it $800. And to top the other tree he wanted $650. So I told him I was checking with a couple other places.

Well, the one never did call me, but the other one I managed to get in touch with and he stopped by tonight and talked to us. He will take down both trees for less than the other guy wanted to take down just the one old tree. And I felt confident in his abilities and that he would do it when he said he would. So that is one huge thing off my mind...maybe in the next day or two I will have something that is new to both me and you to show.