Contrasts

These are both from our drive north the other day. Both are drive-by shots.
Isn't there a world of difference between the two? The top was taken very late in the evening...it was verging on getting dark and the ISO was set at 800...
This was taken on the way so was in daylight...ISO set at 400. Both are a tad out of focus...it is harder to succeed with drive by shots if looking out the side window. It tends to show the motion more.

If you look close, in that top one there is a line through it...I have no idea what it is caused by. No idea at all. Still, it is another where you can only imagine what kind of life has happened within its walls. I have a harder time looking at barns and knowing what went on...

When I look at old houses, I can hear children's laughter ring out and sometimes I imagine I can hear wives and/or mothers crying at the loss of a child or husband. But with a barn it is different. I think because I don't know if it was used just for storage, or for working in, or if animals lived within its walls at any time.

I always wish I could enter the barns though, just as much as I do a house. Maybe because I had so much fun in our barn....I guess this is something I should have told a while back when telling random things about myself.

When I was young, say along 7, maybe eight years old...I used to go to the barn and play by myself. I would get up in the loft and just sing and sing....songs like Henry the 8th for one...that is the only one I remember for sure. And I would pretend I was singing to an audience. So there, I don't know if I have ever shared that with a soul....

Or I would pretend to be a trapeze artist...on the tier poles we had a sort of swing. It was short but wide with a 'pole' of sort to sit on. It wasn't a board...and I have no idea where it came from. It was probably 2 to 3 inches through and worn very smooth...no bark on it. I would hand upside down from it, climb across the tier poles, and what all else I can't remember. But I had fun.

Some of it, I couldn't even watch my kids do now; have no idea how mom lived with us. Some of it she probably didn't know. We didn't always gather the fodder in from the corn but a few years we did, and it stood on the side with no loft above it...well, I know me and my one brother would go up in the loft and jump over and out and land in it. Not Neal, though maybe he did it too. I just can't remember. But I know one thing...it would have been my brother that had the nerve to try it the first time.

Now one thing Neal did do was this thing--don't think we had a name for it. But I was little then...5 or 6 years old. He would lay in the hay on his back and raise his feet up and I would lay across his feet on my belly and hold to his hands and then he would launch me on to the other hay. I can remember wanting him to do it more and more. That is another thing I don't know if our mom knew about or not.

So that is another thing I think about when I look at barns...I wonder if any kid played in them.

Three Tenors and friends

These sandhill cranes are my entry for the Camera Critters Meme...click on the link above to join the participants or to just visit a few more. Now to the pictures, I am sorry there are so many of them but I had a heck of a time narrowing them down to this many. I really hope you will click on them for the full benefit.

This one above is the one I call The Three Tenors...

Wednesday was one of the nicer days this week and we decided to go north to the Willow Slough Fish and Wildlife area...we were hoping to fish a little bit but all except one small part of the lake was still frozen. So, we decided to go to the Jasper-Pulaski Fish and Wildlife area....I was hoping to see the Sandhill Cranes. In talking to another visitor there at Willow Slough, he said his friend had called him and said the cranes had started returning.
So even though it was later in the afternoon, we headed over there. It was only about a 30-45 minute drive. I must say it was so worth the time and effort.
I know what we saw was only a drop in the bucket to what it will be like later. I cannot image what the sound will be like cause it was so noisy with the ones that were there...I would think there was a hundred or two of them and these are just a few photos of them.
Don't you just love their landing still...it made me want to laugh out loud to watch them. They remind me of someone in a parachute...do they you? Time after time we seen them land like these.
They have a wingspan of almost 7 feet...and are around 3 1/2 feet tall.
The ones here were closet to the viewing stand...
We were there about and hour--till closing which is at 4:00 p.m. All that time they were coming and going, but for the most part coming.

We were walking down the ramp and heard all this noise. We turned around and almost every single one of them had taken flight and was leaving. There were deer there also and they took off running, only to pause and look.
I can only say I want to go back!
and remember to click on these photos to enlarge.

Sky Watch Sunset

It is time to join that wonder meme, Sky Watch Friday. It is loads of fun, either to join or just to visit the ones that have joined. So check it out. I always find a few new blogs that I want to return to on a regular basis when I get to participate. Lately, that is less often than I like.
Roger and I went on a little one-day road trip yesterday to check out a couple wildlife areas. More from one of them later....right now I wanted to show sunset photos from the trip.
I chose these three for today and have more I will share later.

BTW, all of these enlarge even more. I think they are worth taking the time to enlarge...just something about sunsets and sunrises that I love.