Camera Critters

A pair of goldfinches in the garden, for more critters or to participate visit here.

My World Tuesday

This week I thought I would take you on a short tour of Golden City Missouri, a small town we always stop in when traveling to one of our favorite lakes. As you can tell from the photo its a small town, the intersection above (the one red light we found in town) brings you to a gem of a little cafe. "Cookys Cafe" is one of those places that each weekend people will arrive in small groups in cars, on bikes, motorcycles or just for some of the best pie west of the Mississippi. The owners will tell you they sell two kinds of pie; with ice cream or without. The truth is its something like 30 and they are all good.

The morning we were there we found a group of young people biking across the Midwest,
as well as the folks driving these motorcycles.
There is a saloon in town, the Side Door, it was closed.
A few antique stores.
There is an assortment of older brick buildings from Golden Citys past, still open is a one chair barber shop, small post office and mixture of newer places like a gas station and quick stop over on the other side of town where the highway skirts the city from the north.
Always a pleasure to stop.

For more places visit or to show a place in your world visit here.

Camera Critters #70

Some interesting critters visiting our garden recently; Bees, Ive seen more "bumble bees" this year but fewer honey bees, thats not good.
A white spider who most likely spends more time on the paler cone flower.
According to my cheapo butterfly and moth guide this is a Great Spangled Fritillary, I love any name that begins with Great Spangled.
For more Camera Critters or to participate visit Camera Critters.

Skywatch Friday

The other night I went out to a favorite fishing spot of mine. The skies were incredible, the fishing slow.

No breeze

Reflections

Crawford County Kansas
Late July

For more sky watchers or if you would like to join in visit here.

Bones

While wandering around a flea market the other day I came across a few piles of skulls.
Most were cattle but I think one or two were actually buffalo.
I thought I would play around in the software for a change on my computer and sepia tone the images, I usually don't do this, at most I might crop a photo now and then but I thought they looked kind of interesting this way.

Skywatch Friday

The other morning I took a walk up to the back pasture to watch the sun rise. This past week the mornings have been cooler than usual for July.
As I hiked through the wet grass the wind picked up as the air began to heat up a bit to the east. The birds had already been singing for a while, the sun rose and I watched and listened.
The hike back provided some stops for a few photos in the early light.





For more skywatchers or to participate visit here.

My World Tuesday; Farm Show

This weekend we wandered around the four state farm show in Cherokee County Kansas. Every summer about 20,000 people descend on this festival to check out the newest in combines, tractors, sprayers, balers, and just about every piece of equipment you can use to farm these days. You could watch a haying demonstration, test drive a new mower, sign up for a new generator and collect a few grain and feed pens for free. We took advantage of going early on Friday before the crowds, the weather was beautiful here in Kansas an unusually cool sunny day for July.
Some of the equipment like this sprayer was so tall you could literally walk under it, bit of an overkill for my 3 1/2 acres I'd say. Besides being an organic mini-ranchodeluxe I really don't need this.
There were lots of places to stop and swap stories, "I remember in my day"..
Lots of little kids climbing the one story ladders to sit behind the wheel of a house sized combine, under moms supervision of course, I hope the keys weren't in it.
Clean up crews of frowning teenage boys roamed the several hundred acres of tents emptying trash cans.
Furniture, crafts, even chicken tractors (coops on wheels), small poultry cages, rabbit cages and other useful items could be found.
More Green ideas every year here was a way to heat you home with giant hay bales!

Old Tractors,

and fleets of new ones.

More stories.

Lunch.

Several variations on storm shelters popped up along the isles. This one was made of cast iron, it came complete with a reading light.

We also found hay rakes,

tools, tools and more tools,

flags,

and Lemonade.

For more places visited around the world visit or better yet participate in My World here.