"The Animals Among Us"

It is late spring and the grass is tall. The cattle are fat and happy, horses are foaling, and everywhere I look around me I see an abundance of wild birds and wild animals galore. I have taken time to photograph some of the domestic versions of this scenery from my journeys along the Kansas backroads this week.
Let's get started with this miniature horse or pony with her newborn foal....

And watching from a window in this same barn was a Jackass donkey. I called him "Jack in the Box"

I just love to see healthy herds of cattle enjoying their life on the tender grasslands of Kansas...

And let's don't forget dairy cattle too as I stopped to photograph these old time style Jersey cows once again cause they are so pretty....

And I was very fortunate to see these Appaloosa horses near the road and they were kind enough to pose for me. Very gentle and willing to let me get close to the newborn foals....

And as so often happens, I was taking photos of one thing and discovered yet another item of interest which in this case is the blooming flowers of the prickly pear cactus.......like yellow roses....

And last but not least was this photo taken at dusk near my hometown of Gypsum in a pasture of bluestem grass which shows a longhorn cow and calf...I call it "the horn section"

We also have been blessed with bluebirds, hummingbirds, quail, turkeys, pheasants, and wrens this year but they don't often pose for my camera so you will have to take my word on it....
Thanks for looking and see  you next time as we explore all things bright and beautiful.

"A Store For Sarah"

We have a niece named Sarah. She's smart, pretty, educated and talented. She's a farm wife, she's a Mom, she's an artist, and now she's a shopkeeper in the Kansas tourist town of Lindsborg which has a strong and proud Swedish heritage.

After doing well selling her handmade artisan jewelry on the internet on the Etsy site, she soon found herself running out of room at the nice farm home that she shares with husband Tyler and daughter Audrey. And while looking at a vacant store building in town that was for rent she thought, "why not?"
Now with a shipping room on the back, a work studio, and a retail space up front....I think she has the right combination to make it even in tough economic times like these.
I stopped to see her shortly after she opened a week or two ago
and she was playing with fire !!!

And today while passing thru her town on business, I took time to revisit her and see how things were going.

The little town looked busy and was well decorated with Dala horses all over the downtown district. This one sits out front of her store.

Sarah was in a happy mood and showed me some of her new merchandise...

There were nice things everywhere and I am impressed that she has done such a nice job decorating a new place in a short period of time with no previous retail experience. 

Since today was a Saturday, Audrey was there too and is learning the business and helping out and posed for this cute photo...

She told me it was a busy day for her as well as she had both a piano recital and dance recital later on this very day...

I took a few more photos before leaving--

And as I left the pretty town with the pretty new store I made plans to come back soon. Mrs. PF and I can bring our old cruiser bikes over and ride the new paths and trails and maybe eat some pizza and have a cold drink and admire the old mill at the river and enjoy the simple life some more.

Thanks for riding along on yet another adventure on the back roads of Kansas...

A Mother's Dessert Extravaganza---

It has been the most perfect weather ever here today with temps about 72 degrees with no wind, nice flowers, and singing birds...
And tonight instead of eating supper we decided to have several desserts and also ice cream. So Mrs. PF's three kids came over and brought food to share and we had a peach pie of our own and I would have to say the event was a success.
The star of the show was a rhubarb kuchen which none of us had ever tried but was suggested to us recently by a facebook friend.
Decadent is the word...YUM

And red velvet cake too along with chocolate cake...

The peach pie really hit the spot with some vanilla ice cream....
hard to beat---

Mrs. PF fixed herself a small plate to sample each kind so she could "keep her strength up."

It was nice to have a kitchen full of happy faces and some hot coffee and cold iced tea to wash it all down too...

And there you have it....Mother's Day Poverty Flats style 2012 in a small Kansas town where the plain folks from the Plains make the best of life's simple pleasures....
Thanks for joing us and let's do it again next year. :-)

The Road to Happiness

I have been enjoying the sights and sounds of back road driving in the last few days. It has been one good rural scene after another. And after the mild winter here, I have been seeing lots of quail, pheasants, turkeys, and any other kind of wild animal. 
I even stopped along the road to take a photo of a small herd of Texas Longhorn cows who mostly ignored me and seemed to be basking in the morning sunshine...

And since I enjoy looking at almost anything I see, I try to keep an open mind and see the beauty in a variety of things. However, I often look back into the past as I capture the images of decaying history such as this old windmill fan that serves as unintended barnyard art after a hard life of turning in the Kansas wind...

Sometimes I wonder why I take photos like these but is it is the simple primitive reminders of our not too distant past that help keep us grounded in our busy lives of the present...

 And as I pulled into a tiny town quickly on it's way to becoming a ghost town I noticed the beauty of this obsolete wooden grain elevator covered in tin siding next to it's old concrete holding tanks where the wheat harvests of many years past were once held...the structure had style formed by function and I liked it...

As so often happens, while I was parked to photograph one thing---I noticed yet another place of interest hiding in plain sight. And boy do I love old gas stations, especially the really old ones built on the "highways" that were never paved. Can you just picture in your mind's eye the early cars of motoring history  stopping here to fill up the tank was gasoline and oil?

 I felt lucky to find a place I wasn't even looking for.
Much the same as the way I felt when invited to a meal a couple of days ago when afterwards this lovely strawberry rhubarb pie was presented to us for dessert.....it was almost too pretty to eat....but eat it we did and there was ice cream too...

But getting back on the road and seeing the scenes brought me even more pleasant surprises like this old 46 Chevy pickup truck with the colors of summer decorating it just for me...

And the old iron bridge I crossed that had been repurposed if you will......new concrete platform had replaced the old wooden boards to allow it to stay in use rather than be torn down......and I liked that---

And last but not least are these two old relics of the road that have become land yachts in a sea of grass. I thought the Packard was appropriately named the "Clipper" since it appeared to be sailing like a ship on the calm water of green.........

And that is all for now folks. Thanks for riding along with old PF as we tour the roads less traveled and hunt for reminders of things that linger in our memories..........