A persistent morning glory vine slowly encircles the rose. Our vine blooms are all white.
Here’s another bud with a rose on the way. The rose bush is still producing flowers.
nature photography
A lovely four-span stone arch bridge
Ripley County Indiana is a scenic land of rolling hills, wooded tracts interspersed with farming enterprises. Amongst the unique sites include a wonderful stone arch bridge just outside the tiny village of Friendship. This bridge was constructed in 1909 on the Olean Road where the road crosses Raccoon Creek.
From a distance
The approach to the bridge
Nearly perfect stonework
Side view of the stone work arches
The stonework on the four arches is really a stone mason’s dream. This bridge has spans over 20 feet. The deck is nearly 15 feet wide over the 103 foot length. Stone arch bridges were a very common design for many rural stream and river and there are eleven still standing in Ripley County alone, according to records.
Raccoon Creek is typical of southern Indiana hill country drainage streams. Usually running, it can go dry in droughts. The bubbling sound of the passing of the water adds to the serenity of this environment.
Views around the yard
Rose in full bloom
Still putting on tomatoes
Pollen covered bee in a white morning glory
Healthy sage plant
Flowering mint
Fossils imbedded in limestone rock
Sharing with you some of the plants and items in our yard.
A rose two days later
Saturday morning against a gray sky
The same rose Monday morning
Watching the progression of blooms is always a wonder to behold.
Cicada emerges
Last year was supposed to be the great 17 year mass cicada emergence across the Midwest and East coast. In our part of Indiana we only saw one cicada shell and heard none of the loud insects. Within the last two weeks we have heard a lot of cicadas at night. We have found four of them on the tires of our vehicle. One is in the photo, above. They missed the big show by a year…
Some things we saw on a day trip
Ice Cream Shop patio, Nashville, Indiana
A bear with flowers
Big chair at a mattress store, Maj provides scale
Next to a Brown County road
In Brown County State Park
Barn in B&W
Tomatoes going red and some mushrooms
These home grown beauties ripen fast once they start to turn
There were several more that almost made a Fairy Ring…
Our two tomato plants have done quite nicely the past month, giving us, as you can see, some nice fruits. The backyard also was fertile ground, it seems, for quite a few mushrooms that showed up overnight.
Oh deer
Driving through Brown County Indiana’s countryside on a recent day trip we saw quite a bit of wildlife. Off to the left our son spotted a fawn just standing there about 30 yards from the road. Fawns typically lose their white spots 90 to 120 days after birth. It just stayed perfectly still and we drove on after a few minutes.
Mother would be watching as the fawn just stared at us
Then Maj saw a doe to the left about 75 yards off the road. We stopped the car and backed up the 50 or so feet until we could see that there was also a fawn with this doe.
They were right on the tree line
They’re still just looking at us, no movement
Mom says it is time to go
It is always a thrill to see wildlife. Seeing deer seems especially neat, perhaps because they are so large compared to squirrels or raccoons. Oh, and do you see why these are named whitetail deer?
Day trip big birds
While on our recent day trip we ended up on a well graded gravel road in Brown County, Indiana. We were on our way to another historic bridge and looking for any other neat things to see.
Up ahead we spotted a large black shape next to a yellow striped warning sign. Yep, that’s a turkey vulture, actually two of them. The second one is behind the yellow sign.
Why did the turkey cross the road?
To frustrate that human with the camera!
As soon as we started moving again we were surrounded by what seemed like a large rafter of wild turkeys running across the road. Dang they were fast! Out of the eight or so individuals we only got a couple of photos, neither of which that good. It’s always fun seeing wildlife during a drive in the country.
An Eastern tiger swallowtail
Roadtirement 