You may have seen this little hut along I-94, where it would seem to have been deposited after having been plucked from Middle Earth. I didn’t want to show the signs on either side of the roof in this photo, but I’ll tell you the web address they contained: rusticway.com.
That’s the website of a guy who makes interesting creations made from reclaimed wood rescued from dilapidated farmsteads. As an aficionado of such sites I couldn’t help but be instantly enamored with the idea. From the site’s About page, talking about artisan Dan Pauly:
“As I uncover an old barn or shed,” Dan says, “I realize that it could be the same lumber that my great-grandfather used more than 100 years ago. I think that respect for the craftsmen and craftswomen of the past, and for the wood they used, make a difference in each new piece I create. Until you have dismantled an old barn, you can’t imagine the painstaking effort it took from Old-World craftsmen to erect it. They were each a work of art.”
Pretty cool, huh? Click on the link and go take a look.
I wanted to try to get one of those ubiquitous “sunset lens flare over the top of a sunflower field” shots recently, but I noticed two interesting things. One is that many fields I used to see full of sunflowers are now stocked with corn. The government’s tampering in the market by subsidizing ethanol is probably a factor in that. The other is that I’m a little late; all the fields I saw had sunflowers sporting tattered petals. There are still a bunch of these little yellow flowers left for some one-on-one time, but it looks like my plans for a stepladder and a field of beautiful golden sunflowers will have to wait until next season.
You be the judge. This old stump is pretty wild looking, as if it came right out of some sort of sci-fi movie.
While blazing the back roads of Morton County I came across this corn field while admiring the tall, wispy clouds. I kept saying over and over that these reminded me of the clouds when I grew up in the Montana Rockies. I was starting to really miss the mountains when I came upon this field. I dashed over to nab the top of the stalks with the clouds behind, then darted back to the truck. My little boy had just called me to say that he had finished his schoolwork for the day and wanted some Daddy time, and asked me to come home as soon as possible! Zoom.
