photography

One year later

/ Roadtirementvintage / 25 Comments

Taken on June 20, 2020

Taken on June 25, 2021

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This Black Cherry was one we got free from the Conservation Service and Indiana DNR. The first picture was taken on June 20, 2020 shortly after being planted. The sapling was then in a cage for protection, and the top visible rung on the cage is less than 2 feet high.  The second picture was taken on June 25, 2021. The tree is now a little over 6 feet tall. Black Cherry trees normally take 8 to 10 years of growth before they produce cherries. We’ll report back in June, 2030.

Pecans coming when?

/ Roadtirementvintage / 10 Comments

We picked up some free tress recently from the local Conservation Service and state DNR. This pecan sapling took a couple of weeks to get going, but it now has some strong leaf growth. According to the experts, you need two pecan trees to produce pecans. Don’t know if we’ll get another one growing or not.

BJ’s Restaurant and Brewhouse

/ Roadtirementvintage / 17 Comments

Philly steak

It has been over a year since we were able to see Maj’s sister. That changed when we met for lunch at BJ’s Restaurant and Brewhouse in Noblesville, Indiana. Noblesville is northeast of Indianapolis but is really part of the Indy Metro area. BJ’s is part of a national chain.

We had a wonderful time “catching up” on the news from my sister’s family and we shared our family news too. It’s amazing how much has occurred in the past year and a half in our families.

 

 

 

 

The restaurant is spacious, and when seated we noticed extra partitions between booths. The food and service was excellent. The menu featured tons of options, and many different beers. We ordered something we had never seen before: a flight of margaritas! Served like a flight of beers, it had four different margarita samples.  We agreed the strawberry sample was our favorite.

The flight of margaritas

The food and service were both excellent. The portions were very generous, and all three of us enjoyed our meals. The most enjoyment of this luncheon came from our being together again. Now that things are at least somewhat back to near normal, we hope to get together each month.

 

Easley Winery in downtown Indy

/ Roadtirementvintage / 13 Comments

Sher and I had the opportunity to visit another central Indiana winery today. The Easley Winery is literally in downtown Indianapolis, a couple of blocks north of Washington Street, the main east/west artery in the city.

The main entrance

Inside at the counter for picking wines to sample

 

Basket full of sample glasses

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Easley has been around since 1974, and currently has over 100 acres of vineyards in southern Indiana. They offer very nice tastings, either inside or out on the patio at umbrella covered tables.  For $5.00 you  can sample seven different wines. Easley has a great variety of wines to choose from.

We found that of the seven wines we tasted Sher and I both liked the Sweet Barrel Red and the Reggae Margarita wines the best. We purchased a bottle of each before we left. Family owned Easley Winery is a great place to have a nice break from a busy day of sightseeing in Indy or for an enjoyable single destination.

Yet another new visitor to the backyard

/ Roadtirementvintage / 16 Comments

Sher and I were enjoying sitting on the swing enjoying the multitude of birds feeding at our feeders. We were seeing Cardinals, robins, sparrows, wrens, Grackles, Blue Jays, starlings,  doves. and nuthatches. Turkey vultures were soaring on thermals overhead, and we even saw a couple of chimney swifts, the cigar with wings insect catchers. Squirrels were chasing each other up and down and around trees.

There he is, in the center of the shot.

Look closely, you can see chipmunk looking out of the wishing well at us/you

Then out of the corner of her eye, Sher spotted movement. She poked me and pointed. There running across the yard and not 6 feet away was a cute little chipmunk. We have never seen one in our yard since we moved here. The cute little guy romped around for awhile checking out the tree, wishing well and the whole area. He acted like this was his first time in our yard.

Quite a bit of rain from the storm

/ Roadtirementvintage / 38 Comments

Yesterday and last night Indiana suffered through some damaging severe thunderstorms. We were fortunate in that we suffered no damage, yet there was a very large tree down the block that blew over, fortunately missing any structure.

Our wheelbarrow was empty yesterday before the storms came through. This is what I found at 8 AM this morning.

Baseball size hail was reported (and photographed) near Indianapolis, and as of this morning there were still thousands of customers without power, and a few tornados reported as well. The good thing is that rain was needed. We officially recorded 3 inches, while some Southern Indiana counties recorded 7 + inches.