Today is an anniversary for us. Five years ago today we bought the Hideaway, our own house, our first house that belonged to us (and the bank). I lived in a parsonage from 1975 until I retired in 2012. Before that Judy and I lived in rental homes or apartments. My parents never owned a home while I was growing up. So it was a big deal five years ago to go through the search for a retirement home and complete all of the paperwork for a mortgage to get to this point where we were handed the keys to our new home. We drove from the realtor's office, invited Mike and Amy and Maddy over and jumped in the pool. It was chilly that day.

From September through June I drove the 400 miles between Springfield, Illinois and our new home. I got to know the road pretty well, especially dodging all of the road construction in Illinois at the time. We probably bought too big of a house for just the two of us. (Duh, ya think!) But we wanted space for our family and friends to stay when they came to visit us. And Nashville is a great place to visit!

We have come to love this house, and living in Nashville. And Friday night was the Harvest Full Moon, hiding for a moment behind the clouds. And today members of our Sunday School class will celebrate with us, another one of the 50 events that we are using to remember fifty years of marriage. Burgers and brats, and s'mores of course. Life is good. By the way, since we came home from Seattle after visiting our cherished friend, Linda Summers, I've been in that pool 115 out of the last 123 days. Yeah, this is great!

We have been to LeClaire, Iowa, just across the Mississippi River from Moline, Illinois. There are several good places to eat there. And it's also home to Mike Wolfe and Frank of the "American Pickers" television show. Each week's episode finds them exploring a different part of the USA in search of treasures hidden away in barns, or basements or abandoned stores. The people they meet are often worth the episode all by themselves. Mike and Frank bargain with the owners to buy some things that look valuable and old and other things that look like junk. Mike seems fascinated with old clothes. Whoops, I just realized I have a fifty-one year old pair of pants. (see earlier blog post "Trend Setter". Maybe Mike would want to buy them, they are valuable!) Mike and Frank have also opened a store in Nashville at the historic Marathon Motor Works, just south of downtown. It's a must stop for the millions of tourists who come to Nashville yearly (generating $100 million in tax revenues!). And among the items was this oft-mended denim jacket. Seriously. Now who would buy this? And why? I think they'd rather have a pair of 51 year old corduroy pants. I could make them a deal.

Old barns have stories. Like this door that was half painted. Or maybe it is more correct to say that half the door is half painted. The painter was going to save the lower half for another day, but nature is quicker at finishing the job and claiming the boards, unpainted or not. And when was the painter going to paint the right side? And why is the job half-finished? Was there an interruption, an emergency, another task? Or did the painter just run out of paint?

I went with a friend last week to photograph along "Slow Roads" in Tennessee. Our first stop was behind an abandoned building that may have been a motel. I admit if I had been driving, I probably wouldn't have stopped. But I am intrigued by my friend's style of photography so I looked to see what caused him to stop. His first comment as we passed the front of the building was about the direction of the light, that likely would be lighting the rear of the building. The building had several layers of paint including an odd baby blue. I picked up my camera and began to try to see it, to imagine how my friend might be seeing it. I noticed this south side of the building and shot a few frames. I don't know yet what my friend saw, but I found a photo different from what I usually create. I ponder this scene. Processed in Lightroom and On1.

Except that it was a trend that didn't last. When I was in high school in Indiana, senior boys wore painted yellow corduroy pants and girls wore similar skirts as a visible sign of school spirit. When I moved to Effingham, I didn't want to be left out and thought we could start a new tradition. So about 8 or 9 of us purchased the yellow cords in Indiana and decorated them for the Effingham Flaming Hearts. I may be the only one who still has my pair. And although the perspective of the photo doesn't show it, I am not small enough to wear mine. Don Stuckey hoped I would bring them to the reunion and surprise the class members who remembered what a silly guy I was (am).

Our "50 for FIFTY" celebration began last Friday night at the first night of my high school class reunion. There had been a thunderstorm earlier, and as I visited with friends, I couldn't help noticing the sky through the window. I had to step out and take a couple of photos.

Behind the pool pump is another world. But it is obvious that it is late summer, with a large garden spider that has caught a cicada in her web. The spider is a female black and yellow argiope. The female is nearly twice the size of the male and is distinctly patterned with the bright yellow and black design on its abdomen. While the image of this spider can be surprising to us humans, it is harmless and quite beneficial. I love that it eats mosquitoes.

I'm still looking for images to add to my presentation on closeup photography. And yesterday morning Judy noticed that one of our old cottonwood stumps was sprouting a new fungus. So of course I had to not only see it but to photograph it as well. We noticed on our walk ion our road this morning that there were giant toadstools in several of our neighbors' yards. The moisture and heat evidently is helping to produce a bumper crop. I had been out in our yard earlier to photograph new blossoms on the magnolia tree. But I had missed seeing this new display.