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

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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.





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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.

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Skywatch

The other morning I was outside doing chores the sun rose and turned everything a warm gold for a while. I turned and and spotted this rainbow in the west. Usually I see them in the east later in the day. I ran into the house and got my camera. It had started to fade when I returned , as the sun began to slip up behind the low clouds.
For a while it was an entire arch, a little faded in this photo.
Mostly gray skies this week, today looks to be a break from that, cooler temperatures and maybe a break from the humidity.
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Random photographic thoughts

Random images taken while wandering around Chanute the other day.
The older buildings have such a character that seems different from the lack of character that we see in many modern structures.

I love taking photos of old brick buildings, they have an abstract quality that appeals to me. While in Taos we saw an exhibit of work by the actor Dennis Hopper which included some really beautiful images of walls from various cities, a million time better than mine but I had fun taking these just the same.

Elevators

Grain Elevator near Erie Kansas

These structure are landmarks on the great plains. They rise above the horizon on a sea of grass the same way tall sailing vessels did on the oceans a long time ago.