photography and musings from a Midwesterner
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Gone to Seed
November has been a very brown month in Wisconsin. Though it’s not unusual to get a good snow or two, it’s been a rather mild November and I’ve only seen a few snow flurries. After a disappointing October which seemed rather like November, it’s only fair to have a November that is rather like October. Indeed!
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Autumn is Yellow at Devils Lake State Park
I like spring, but it is too young. I like summer, but it is too proud. So I like best of all autumn, because its tone is mellower, its colours are richer, and it is tinged with a little sorrow. Its golden richness speaks not of the innocence of spring, nor the power of summer, but of the mellowness and kindly wisdom of approaching age. It knows the limitations of life and its content.~~ Lin Yutang
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Devils Lake State Park
Winter is an etching, spring a watercolor, summer an oil painting and autumn a mosaic of them all.
- Stanley Horowitz
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If winter is slumber and spring is birth, and summer is life, then autumn rounds out to be reflection. It’s a time of year when the leaves are down and the harvest is in and the perennials are gone… it’s time to reflect on what has come before. ~ Michael Burgess from Northern Exposure, Thanksgiving, 1992
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UW Arboretum Prairie
For man, autumn is a time of harvest, of gathering together. For nature, it is a time of sowing, of scattering abroad. ~~ Edwin Way Teale
Autumn’s light hangs low in the sky for only a few minutes as these days turn into night earlier and earlier. Most of the seed heads have had their seeds dispersed, but a few of the Prairie Thistle had most of their seed fluff still securely tucked in the plant. The plants all seem heavy with seeds this year. Will there be more flowers next spring?
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Pausing in Time
Hard to remember that only two weeks ago the trees were barely changing color, and now they are simply bare. Mid-October in southern Wisconsin saw only a few days when the sun peeked out, and this was one of those sparkly autumn days that I consider true gifts.
Another photograph from my favorite of the Wisconsin’s Historical Society sites, Old World Wisconsin, which documents the settlement of 19th- and early 20th-century Wisconsin. There is an 1870s crossroads village, where this wagon and buildings were photographed, and 10 ethnic farmsteads located on 576 acres of wooded hills in the Southern Unit of Kettle Moraine State Forest.
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third in the series of Bridges from Madison County
Another covered bridge from Madison County. Now that I have dug into my archives from last October, I am determined to get this series of bridges posted, and then I can cross this off my photo to-do list.
This bridge was built in 1884 by Benton Jones. (Benton appears to have done most of the bridge building in the county.) It runs 97 feet long across the North River.
The people who named the creeks and rivers in this central Iowa region had a utilitarian approach to their job. A few of the many water ways near Winterset are known as Middle River, South River, North River . . . you get the general idea.
Why name a bridge Hogback?
They were a little more inventive when it came to naming the actual bridges. Though most of the county’s covered bridges were named after the bridge’s closest neighbor (or neighbors if there was a bit of an disagreement), Hogback got its name from the limestone ridge which forms the west end of this valley.
Lovely Autumn Day for the Last Leg of a Long Drive
I took these photographs on the last day of a 16 day road trip from Wisconsin to New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado and back. By the time we hit Iowa we were getting close to home, but I couldn’t miss the opportunity to check out these bridges. They are all only a short drive from either Interstate 80 which cuts east-west through Iowa, or Interstate 35 which bisects the state with its north-south route.
A map provided by the Madison County Chamber of Commerce shows all the locations of the bridges and other locations from the movie The Bridges of Madison County, plus the birthplace home of John Wayne.
Ha! Bet you didn’t know John Wayne had to share Winterset’s limelight with all the covered bridges in the area. I didn’t take a photo of his home. I think the bridges had more appeal, and I was running out of time and energy.
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fourth in the series, wabi-sabi
Wabi-sabi is characterized by humility, restraint, simplicity, naturalism, profundity, imperfection, and asymmetry [emphasizing] simple, unadorned objects and architectural space, and [celebrating] the mellow beauty that time and care impart to materials. ~ Introduction: Chanoyu, The Art of Tea
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Variegated Maize or Indian Corn
…that you don’t already have everything you desire.
If you did, what would there be to look forward to?
Be thankful when you don’t know something.
This gives you an opportunity for learning.
Be thankful for the difficult times.
These are the times in which you grow.
Be thankful for your limitations.
They are opportunities for improvement.
Be thankful for new challenges.
They will build strength and character.
Be thankful for your mistakes.
They will teach you valuable lessons.
It is easy to be thankful for the good things,
but a life of rich fulfillment comes to those who are
also thankful for the setbacks.
Gratitude can turn a negative into a positive.
Find a way to be thankful for your troubles
and they can turn into your blessings.
~~ Author unknown
Thanksgiving Day, 2008
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