Green and Gold

I can't stop taking pictures of the wheat...in the early morning or the evening.

Everywhere there's gold, and everything's "geared up for harvest". Farm machinery has all been oiled, cleaned, and tested. The combines stand on freshly mowed grass beside the barns and hay bales, like a row of horses faunching at their bits.

Right now, for a few breathless days, the grain elevators stand tall and empty. The railroads only used in June are cleared and waiting for their annual carloads of grain.

Farming families are all taking this Memorial holiday very seriously. They are resting frantically before the busiest time of their year, rushing to the lake, to Branson, or to shop in the city. While they are gone, I gaze along beside the road, and stop in lonely places to take pictures of their wheat. If you look closely into the golden fields here, you can see a few bands and skimming hues of green. That too must fade to white under the high hot summer sky. Then will come the sound of trucks and combines...the sprinkle of spilled over grain along the highway...train whistles...dust in the air...shouts and sweat...harvest!

Why Americans are Fat!

We stopped at a restaurant in the Ozarks: Lamberts, home of the "throwed rolls".

I ordered smoked porkchops, mashed potatoes and gravy, green beans, and water. they brought the meal to me in a huge skillet and kept bringing free extras--fried okra, black-eyed peas, and grits--to the table. In addition, a boy with a basket of freshly-baked rolls kept throwing them to the customers as fast as they could consume them. He was a pretty good shot, and a good judge of catching abilities-- pitching lightly to the old ladies and spinning straight shots clear across the room toward the mitt-sized hands of young men whose smiles demanded a challenge. Nobody dropped a roll--while I was watching anyway--and, as if the rolls weren't scrumptious in themselves, or the butter on the tables not enough to take them to the next day's calorie intake limit, another young man promptly supplemented it with scoops of sorghum/molasses, which he loudly proclaimed as he carried the bucket from table to table.





Connie ordered a chef salad, because she wanted a light meal. Look at this thing!
It's enough to feed a family! Needless to say, she didn't finish it. Instead, we got a carry out bag and took it to the lodge, where she ate more for supper, and for breakfast and lunch the next day. Finally, it froze and at that point it became tossed salad.

My point is: Arrrgh!

Senior Trip Scenery

We stayed in beautiful scenery for our senior trip--Southern Missouri. The lodge where we lived for a week was fully furnished--all the dishes and basic groceries in the kitchen, pool table, family movies,even a Wii in the den. It was less expensive than renting hotel rooms and much better suited to our schedule.Six bedrooms, six bathrooms, fireplace, screened-in eating porch, washer/dryer--it was a dream house. On top of that, our seniors were amenable and pleasant to be with.
I thoroughly enjoyed myself. That's not to say I would do it again next week: I'm home for the summer and glad to be here.

Here are some of my favorite shots of the scenery. I took them while walking.

On the road, I was either riding along--carsick and closing my eyes, or driving cautiously with both hands on the wheel while the impatient natives formed an angry line behind me. Let's just say I'm a true child of the plains:

I think that curves--while beautiful--are disconcerting and may be treacherous. Hmmm.

Can You Tell My Grandchild Took This Picture?

Senior Trip

There were actually more parents and sponsors than students on the senior trip, or should I say there were two kinds of seniors--a serious group and a silly group.

Here are a couple of the silly seniors posing at Lamberts--home of the "throwed rolls"