Butterflies at Mouteau Park....

We stopped by Mouteau Park hoping to find some butterflies and did find a few of the late summer, fall ones hanging around these white flowers along the lake.

 A Checkered White.....not a butterfly that I see very often.

 I liked the moody look of this shot.  The plants were blowing in the wind so hard, I had trouble locking in on the butterfly!  Taking distant shots helped at times. 

 This butterfly blends so well with his chosen flower.

 Sitting high

This Little Yellow Sulphur was being shy.  I like his little eye peeking out from behind the leaf.  This butterfly is only about an inch and a half in size.

 The Clouded Sulphur is about twice the size and not as intense yellow.  Both hate to sit still for the photographer and I never manage to get them open.

 There was one thistle plant and it was very popular but when it sways in the wind, I can't keep up with the butterfly to focus.  A skipper was hiding on the left side.

A Skipper and a little bug on the Thistle.

 The white flowers were attracting lots of Pearl Crescents and Buckeyes.

 The color combo of the white flowers, orange/brown butterflies and the lovely green leaves was really pretty.

 Pearl Crescent and Buckeye.

Pearl Crescent alone

Two of the Crescents and a Buckeye trying to get out of the photo.

This week at the wetlands....

I took my weekly walk through the wetlands today.  It was a beautiful day, but really humid.

 I was pleased to see a few butterflies!  Several Buckeyes were around the meadow area.

Another one

Going back to the beginning of my walk, I thought I would show some of the scenery as I see it.  My first stop is always to cross the biggest shallow lake area on the boardwalk.  Today the water was covered in those yellow flowers that grow there every year.  No herons fishing today :-(

 As you come off the boardwalk, you walk right through the middle of the large meadow area.  There are paths that go around both ends of the meadow and I usually look for butterflies around one end or the other.

The meadow is full of flowers right now!  Lots of yellow and purples.

 Along the path I found a couple of female Common Whitetail dragonflies.  The male hangs around the water, but the female is usually here in the meadow.

 Lots of tiny butterflies today!  The little Eastern-tailed Blues were pretty cooperative.

 This one was on a nice leaf and even opened up for me!

 A Pearl Crescent.

One of the Skippers

Coming out of the meadow path you reach the creek and the bridge across it.

 There were some Goldfinches eating the fresh stuff that the rains had washed up on the stumps in the water.

 And of course this bridge is where I do my turtle watching :-)

 All sizes today and all covered in layers of green stuff.

This is a shot looking at the whole creek as it winds towards the woods and a distant shot of the biggest turtle log that was above water.  We have had a lot of rain and some of the logs were underwater today.

Up high the Tree Swallows wait between swooping the creek for bugs.

 In the other direction the creek is split by a small island, and this is the smallest branch of the water.

Ironweed along the bridge.

 A Slaty Skimmer along the way.

From the creek, the path begins winding through the woods.  It's a nice relaxing place to walk.

The creek is along the edge of this wooded area and can be seen in spots.

You end up back at the other bridge where more turtles can be seen.  From there the trail goes through more woods, but I seldom keep going that way very far.  Depends on if there is anything to see and if my knee hurts by then.

 These turtles were up front, but I wanted to post a few more turtles :-)

 "Give me 10 more push-ups!"

"I can't do any more, Sarge!"

The End :-)

Vicksburg, Michigan....barns and cranes

Before we left on our trip, I had discovered on-line that there was a Quilt Barn Trail in the area of Vicksburg, Michigan.  That was more-or-less on the way home, so we drove to Vicksburg to see if they had a visitor's center where we could get a map of the barns.  (NOTE: I have been given information about each building and square by the creators of this barn trail.  I will add it below each photo in italics.)

1.  WATERWHEEL
200 South Main St.
The Rawlinson's Appliances building began life in the 1880's as a grocery.  By 1925 it housed village offices and the police department & jail.  Owner, Julie merrill, invites you to sit in the old jails complete with bunks and toilets!  WATERWHEEL highlights Vickers Mill which began in the 1830's just west of here in Clark Park.  Vickers Mill is how Vicksburg got it's name.

 As we drove into town we spotted this square on the side of Rawlinson's Appliances, so that seemed like a good place to ask questions.  A very nice lady running the store knew about the barns and called another lady for me to talk to.  Their trail is so new that their maps were still being printed, but she gave me the addresses for two barns that were close together and also said there were 2 more squares in the town.

2.  WREATH OF LILIES
101 East Prairie St.
This 1830's building was Vicksburg's first frame structure.  It was rebuilt with brick in the 1880's and has been a grocery with The Wee Diner attached to the west side, as well as a clothing store.  Leonard & Christina Klok now own Unique Furnishings & Other Stuff and placed their quilt block "on point" to be unique.  The WREATH OF LILIES refers to the unusual American Lotus water lilies that grew on Sunset Lake and were quite a tourist attraction when blooming in August.  The flowers were huge, the leaves were very tall and the pods were sold to florists.  In 1923 they began to diminish and by 1929 the American Lotus water lilies were all gone.

 Vicksburg is a very nice little scenic town, and they chose lovely old brick buildings for putting their squares.

This one is in front of the town library which dates back to 1902.

3.  FANNY'S FAN
215 South Michigan Ave. (the Maple St./south side)
In 1902 Mrs. Fanny Bair built a brick Romanesque style library that is now a Historic Site.  It featured such "modern" conveniences as electric lights and running water.  In 1986 the new addition to the Vicksburg District Library was built.  FANNY'S FAN was painted from 1902 color chips and placed near the original entrance.  Fanny Bair would be pleased!

Out in the countryside, the two barns we went to were really pretty ones.  I will look forward to going back to this area some day and seeing more!

4.  NORTH STAR
5853 East UV Ave. (on east side of barn)
Ken & Lee Evensen hung this barn quilt in 2008 and it became the inspiration for the entire VQT.  It is painted on galvanized metal.  Lee, an avid quilter, chose the popular NORTH STAR pattern because they love to go Up North.  Incidentally, this pattern was used in Signal Quilts for runaway slaves going north on the Underground Railroad.  This 1880's barn of post & beam construction used oak and tamarack woods.  The Evensens earned a preservation award in the 1990's when they replaced the center floor with tongue & groove, among other improvements.
 

A close-up of the square.

 This one was very nice and look at the lovely little stone building to the right of the barn.

5.  LOVE THE LAND (self designed)
5842 East TU Ave.
Ricihard & Freddi Coppes love America!  Richard is a WWII veteran and Freddi loves her Dutch ancestors who were woodcutters.  The barn was built in 1911, the date is stamped into the concrete threshold.  The Coppes' moved here in 1966 and raised cows then pigs.  The stone milk house in front had cold well water chilling the milk cans.

A very pretty square designed by the owners.

I'm trying to link this to Barn Charm.....hope this link works! Check out all the other lovely old barns found there!

 On the way to Vicksburg, Mike suddenly turned the car around and said he saw "some strange birds" sticking up out of the weeds.  Sure enough....two heads barely above the weeds and flowers!

 They turned out to be Sandhill Cranes and they sure picked a great place to hide!

 These were the best shots I could get of one of them.  The other one disappeared pretty quickly.

 This was the "weedy" area they were walking through.....

.....headed to this little creek running through the grasses.  Very pretty, but really hard to take photos of the birds.

Along the highway home.....one of the round barns in northern Indiana.  I think we saw three, but this was the only one we could easily stop and take a photo. 

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I have a few more odds and ends of misc. house photos and photos from Muskegon.  I will probably post

them in my This, That, and The Other Thing blog where I have already posted a couple of wonderful houses we saw in Muskegon that once belonged to two lumber barons.