Wisconsin Barns and Good Fences

Barn Near Sand Creek, WI

April 16, 2015

 Another Barn Near Sand Creek, WI

April 16, 2015

Hi everyone. I hope you had a great weekend.  We're starting out this week a bit cooler than last, and are expecting rainy, cool weather all week. BUT, last week we had perfect weather while two of the grandsons were with us, for which I am so grateful.

The photos in this post are from our little jaunt to Sand Creek, WI where we took the boys to lunch at their favorite cafe and then to the park so they could play in Sand Creek.

 Waiting for a cheeseburger and a grilled cheese

(This IS Wisconsin, ya know)

As you might remember from last week, this little guy always chose a huge walking stick, and I had to capture his attempt at trying to make the bend in the bridge while carrying such a long stick. He succeeded. I shouldn't have been surprised.

Railroad Bridge at Harper's Ferry, WV

Why am I including the two photos of the railroad bridge at Harper's Ferry, West Virginia?  Because one of the grandsons asked me why I had named my dog (no longer with us) 'Bridger,' (see sidebar) so I had to explain that I had named my dog after the bridge at Harper's Ferry.  He thought that was really stupid unusual. 'Gramma, people don't name their dog after a bridge!'  LOL

But that's my story and I'm stickin' to it!  Love that bridge.

 Barns and Sand Mine Near Sand Creek

This post is linked to:

The Barn Collective
Mosaic Monday

Good Fences with TexWisGirl

Skywatch Friday

Weekend Reflections

...if I remember to do it, that is.

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February Sunset in Wisconsin

These photos were taken February 26, just a few miles from our house. It's not exactly sunset, but close. What caught our attention was the great number of geese that were flying around above us. If you have really good eyesight, you might see those little black dots in the photo. It's not dirt on the windshield. Those dots are geese.

In the Bleak Midwinter

As you can see, we've had our fair share of snow. All of the photos above were taken through the windshield with my cellphone.

I'm so glad that March, our snowiest month, has finally arrived.  Don't you think we need more snow??

Me, during the last Ice Age.

This year is not the first time we've had such snow and cold!

I must have been freezing to death without a coat.

"But you know, we were happy in those days, though we were poor. 

Aye. BECAUSE we were poor. My old Dad used to say to me, 'Money doesn't buy you happiness.' 

'E was right. I was happier then and I had NOTHIN'. We used to live in this tiiiny old house, with greaaaaat big holes in the roof. 

House? You were lucky to have a HOUSE! We used to live in one room, all hundred and twenty-six of us, no furniture. Half the floor was missing; we were all huddled together in one corner for fear of FALLING! 

You were lucky to have a ROOM! *We* used to have to live in a corridor! 

Ohhhh we used to DREAM of livin' in a corridor! Woulda' been a palace to us. We used to live in an old water tank on a rubbish tip. We got woken up every morning by having a load of rotting fish dumped all over us! House!? Hmph. 

Well when I say 'house' it was only a hole in the ground covered by a piece of tarpolin, but it was a house to US. 

We were evicted from *our* hole in the ground; we had to go and live in a lake!

 

You were lucky to have a LAKE! There were a hundred and sixty of us living in a small shoebox in the middle of the road. 

 Cardboard box? 

 Aye. 

You were lucky. We lived for three months in a brown paper bag in a septic tank. We used to have to get up at six o'clock in the morning, clean the bag, eat a crust of stale bread, go to work down mill for fourteen hours a day week in-week out. When we got home, our Dad would thrash us to sleep with his belt! 

Luxury. We used to have to get out of the lake at three o'clock in the morning, clean the lake, eat a handful of hot gravel, go to work at the mill every day for tuppence a month, come home, and Dad would beat us around the head and neck with a broken bottle, if we were LUCKY! 

Well we had it tough. We used to have to get up out of the shoebox at twelve o'clock at night, and LICK the road clean with our tongues. We had half a handful of freezing cold gravel, worked twenty-four hours a day at the mill for fourpence every six years, and when we got home, our Dad would slice us in two with a bread knife. 

 

Right. I had to get up in the morning at ten o'clock at night, half an hour before I went to bed,  drink a cup of sulphuric acid, work twenty-nine hours a day down mill, and pay mill owner for permission to come to work, and when we got home, our Dad and our mother would kill us, and dance about on our graves singing 'Hallelujah.'

 

But you try and tell the young people today that... and they won't believe ya'. 

Nope, nope.. "

(From MontyPython.net: The 4 Yorkshiremen )

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Although I usually forget to do it, there is an outside chance that this post may be linked to one or more of the following:  Mosaic Monday and The Marketplace  and Market Yourself Monday and Make it Pretty Monday and  Making the World Cuter Mondays and You're Gonna Love it Tuesday and Treasure Box Tuesday and Knick of Time Tuesday and  Creative Showcase and   Tweak it Tuesday and  Coastal Charm Tuesday and Adorned From Above and  We Did it Wednesday  and Rurality Blog Hop and  All Things With Purpose and Home & Garden Thursday and It's a Party at Creative Princess and Artsy Corner Thursday and Time Travel Thursday and Thrifty Things Friday  and  Friday Fences and Weekend Reflections and  Freedom Fridays and From the Farm and   Anything Blue Friday and Junkin' Joe and  Serenity Saturday and Vintage Inspiration Friday and Photo Friday and Share Your Creativity and A Favorite Thing Saturday and Weekly Top Shot and Sunny Simple Sunday and Sunlit Sunday 

Cloud Watcher

I'm not the only one who likes to watch the clouds.

December 17, 2013

Have a great Thursday!


I will be away from the computer today to spend time with my daughter who is visiting from Texas. Have a wonderful day!
 

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More Backyard Scenes, Pre-Winter

 Flowering Crab

Tuesday night:

I'm scheduling this post because I won't be here tomorrow. We're going to be picking up our Texas daughter from the airport to spend a few days with us. Although I wish the kids lived closer, at least we see them a few times a year. It could be worse. They have no more desire to move back to Wisconsin than we do to move to Texas, so I guess the remedy is to travel. It's definitely worth it.

I have no idea why I'm writing this post. I should be in bed instead. It's been one of those days when all the things I tried to get done sort of failed in the execution, but took a lot of effort and time doing so, and now I'm too tired to do anything else but sit here and go through my photos. I feel too tired to get up and go to bed, and one photo leads to another...

And while I'm on that topic (the photos), let me say that it's really worth spending the $60/year to get Carbonite online backup (no they didn't ask or pay me to write this, but it would be nice if they sent me a couple Ritter Sport Dark Chocolate with Hazelnut bars for giving them this plug!)  My old laptop did crash, and if it hadn't been for Carbonite, I'd have lost everything. It was EASY to retrieve all my files once I had my new laptop. EASY. So, anyway, since that experience, I am probably paranoid about losing my photos, so they're backed up by an external hard drive also. 

Cattle-less Barn

For what it's worth, here's how I organize them. (Not that anyone cares, but like I said, I'm too tired to go to bed.) When I take a group of photos, I immediately upload them to my computer and put them in a folder that is named for the month in which they are taken. That means I have a folder named October 2013, one named November 2013, one named December 2013, etc. So all the original photos are in the 'monthly' folders. When I edit a photo, I then save it with some particular name (trying to think of what I would call it if I were looking for it!!! - not always easy, believe me.)

 Frosted Spruce

I used to save edited photos by topic, so that I still have a  folder named, 'Barns,' one named 'Pets,' etc.etc. But it occurred to me one day that since I have a really good search tool in Windows 7, I can edit a photo, give it its particular name, and save it (along with the original) in the monthly folder. That way, when I download them to my external hard drive, I only need to download the newest monthly folder. All my originals for that month and the edited versions are in that folder. I do that late in the day on the last day of the month.

 For example, if I took a photo of Misty in December, the edited version might have a name like, 'Misty with blankie December 2013) I include the name of the month so that if I ever want to find the original, I can easily see that it's in the December 2013 folder. So now all the photos I take in December, including the edited versions, will go into the December 2013 folder. Then, at the end of each month, I drag out the external hard drive and download only that monthly folder (because it has both the originals and the edited versions) into it - and I'm current. That makes it a lot easier than having to download every 'topic' folder that might (or might not) have a newly edited photo in it.

 'Closed for the Season'

So now, when I want a photo of a barn, I can go to my main 'Pictures' file and search for the word 'barn.' Every photo - in any folder-  that's got the word 'barn' in the file name, will show up. Also, that file name will tell me in which month folder I can also find the original.

 Sunset Behind the Barn

The only problem is that with a photo like the one above, I might have it named 'sunset barn silo winter December 2013.' But at least I find it. On the other hand, because I didn't include the word 'birdfeeder,' I'll never find that again, unless by accident. And I don't need to include the word 'snow,' because I'd say that there's more than a 50/50 chance that the photo will include snow. After all, this is Wisconsin.

 Sunset Behind the Barn b

 Early Sunset Reflections

Early Sunset Reflections b

I think this photo perusing, editing and saving can quickly become a compulsive behavior!
What do you think? And do you have your photos backed up?

Have a great Wednesday!

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