A silly postcard indeed....
Remember The Three Stooges?
That postcard of the 4 guys in the "Mobile Duck Blind"
remind me of something the Three stooges would do.
Every Friday, Marie of Cpaphil Vintage Postcard hosts this delightful Postcard Friendship Friday. Head on over Marie's blog to check out who else is posting in Friendship Friday.
Thanks for stopping by
and
Have a most beautiful day.
Every Friday, Marie of Cpaphil Vintage Postcard hosts this delightful Postcard Friendship Friday.
Out West
Another of the silly postcards that I picked up last month on the trip out to Colorado
It reads on back....
Because wood was scarce on the prairies, buffalo "chips" were burned for cooking and heating. Pioneer Ada McColl is shown here in an 1893 photo taken near Lakin, in southwest Kansas.
Photo courtesy of Kansas State Historical Society. (KH-3)
So I went over the the Kansas Historical Society 's web site and this is what i found.....
Pioneer Photographer: The Story of the Cow Chip Lady
by Kansas Historical Society
"At the age of 21, when most young women were
considering more traditional roles, Ada wanted to
learn how to operate a camera. .
. . .“I asked my mother why she had her mouth open in
that picture of her and the wheelbarrow full of cow chips,”
Pryor recalled, “and she said she was telling her mother
how to take the picture.”
With her camera, Ada created family portraits and
documented the Kansas prairie. Her images depict life on nearby
Kearny County farms."
You can read more about Ada McColl in the Kansas Historical Society publication HERE.
It is in PDF format and the article about Ada is on page 10.
Thanks for stopping by....
Now head on over Cpaphil Vintage Postcard to check out who else is posting in Friendship Friday.
Have a most beautiful day.
This is the 2nd Annual Mad Tea Party; hosted by the lovely Vanessa Valencia over on A Fanciful Twist.
Please come in and stay a while.
Alice should be here shortly.
I spotted her out in the garden,
picking flowers for the table.
It is so warm and hazy out today that it is good to be indoors with the air conditioner.
I have made banana bread for our tea today. We also have shortbread and biscuits, and fresh berries too.
There is Bencheley Tea;
raspberry,
Irish
and orange spice.
I have set the table with a bit of fun distraction.
I've set out my eggs
and a few Limoges boxes.
Butterflies are a flutter
and there's fresh flowers from the garden.
Thank you Alice.
Miniature tea sets are here as well.
I love your outfit, and your hat is so you....
What do you think of mine?
Some have asked me
for my Summer Pudding recipe
Yes, it is a "Summer Pudding" but you can have it anytime of the year using whatever berries are available.
Dear me, where does the time go?
It's best you head on back to A Fanciful Twist to check and see who else is having tea today.
Oh, and before you go,
could you please take the White Rabbit with you?
Thank you for stopping by.
It has been lovely having you over for tea.
Have a most beautiful day.
The back of this postcard reads.....
"A child's delight, many animals can be petted and fed. Pheasants, Quail, Ducks, Turkeys, Bobcats, Badgers, Coons, Foxes, Coyotes, Rattlesnakes, Buffaloes, Deer, Russian Pigs, Big Horn Sheep, Ground Squirrels, Pigeons, 5-Legged Live Cow, 6-Legged Live Steer; you won't be sorry, here over 20 years."
Oh yeah......you bet....all that and much more.
As we drove down I70, on our way out to Colorado, we passed several signs that promised such things as live rattlesnakes, a 5-legged cow, Rosco the miniature donkey and "the largest prairie dog in the world". It was by mutual agreement that we pulled off the highway and into the dirt and gravel parking lot. There before us stood a rundown building with large glass windows and a glass door. And yet you couldn't see in for the windows and door were papered over from the inside. Oh it was open.....they just didn't want you to see what was inside.
It was about this time that I started to have second thoughts. My mind started to tease me with flashback images of movies like Psycho, Hostel, Vacancy, The Hills Have Eyes and Wrong Turn. I know.....I shouldn't watch those movies. Then, just as I'm ready to say let's forget it; it looks like they are closed, my daughter pulls open the door and walks in. And I'm still standing beside the car, out there in the parking lot....."guess I'm going in too"......gulp
Once inside, it wasn't bad. Well, not as bad as I thought it would be. It had a stale musty order of mothballs and cattle. It was set up so that when you enter you are in a narrow hallway of sorts. With a wall to our left, a (closed off) souvenir shop to our right and the door behind us, we walked a few yards to a counter where a woman was waiting. She asked if we had come to see the animals, took our money and then raised the heavy metal pipe that separated us from what was behind the wall. In we went to find a large red painted box with chicken wire on top. Inside the box were the rattlesnakes. Stuffed pheasants, quails, squirrels, rabbits and the like, lined the walls of this area. There was also a two headed calf mounted on the wall. Once we had seen all there was in this tight little area, the woman opened a door that led outside, out to the back of the building. She told us we would find the 5-legged cow and Rosco out back.
As I walked through the door, I turned to grab the outside doorknob so as to keep the door from slamming. It didn't turn.....the outside doorknob didn't turn. It was locked. I knew if I shut the door, we would be locked out....out in that back yard with all the critters. [Isn't this where the kids get pulled off one by one, shackled and tied down, waiting their turn to be sawed into pieces?] I tried to say something to my daughter, but she was gone. She was off making friends with the prairie dogs. Then I spotted a family and then another mom with her children. "See, I told myself, you are being silly. There is nothing to be afraid of." I let the door go. Closing the door behind me, locking us out there, I stepped into the grassless yard of prairie dog mounds.
They were everywhere. Prairie dogs were running all around, popping in and out of their underground world. They were checking us out....I think looking for food....they sold zip-lock baggies of dry corn and dog biscuits to feed the animals. We didn't buy any. So they would run up, stop, check us out, see we didn't have anything and dart off again......sometimes down a hole. Besides the prairie dogs, they had all that the postcard promised including the 5-legged cow and the 6-legged steer. They even had the largest prairie dog; a 15 ft., 8000 lb. rough cut statue of a prairie dog.
Once we had our fill of the petting zoo, we searched for a way out. It just so happened that there was another door, unlocked, that led into the souvenir shop. That in itself was an adventure.
If you ever find yourself traveling down I70, just outside of Oakley, Kansas, pull off the road, stretch those legs and check out the Prairie Dog Town. As the postcard reads; you won't be sorry.
Every Friday, Marie of Cpaphil Vintage Postcard hosts Postcard Friendship Friday. If you think that you might like to join in, head on over to her blog and sign up.
Thank you for stopping by.
Have a beautiful day.
So the past week and a half I traveled out west to Colorado with my 23 yr old (youngest) daughter. She landed a job out there and I was helping her make the move. We had a great time and even managed to work in a few quick stops to visit some family along the way. Now, I love car trips….always have. There is so much to see and car seat, as apposed to plane seat, is so much more comfortable. I don’t mind flying, but given the choice, I’d rather drive. All was going as planned (and better) till we hit Kansas. Well, really it wasn’t bad till we got to the other side of Topeka. There we hooked up with bad weather and the tedious open plains of farm after farm, ranch after ranch. But that wasn’t the scary part.
Oh sure, the sky (at times) was dark and threatening with big bolts of lightning striking hard and fast,
and there were tornado watches set for our region too. Was this scary? No…..the weather always seamed to be way ahead of us and just to the north…..no problem there. Was it that we passed and (once) had to swerve into the left lane shoulder to just miss one of the four different deer laying dead (just miles apart) in four different locations on the highway? No….we had seen dead deer before. Oh sure, it was sad and one was quite gruesome, but this wasn’t scary. Did we fear some of the strange characters we ran into along the way? Heck no….we are from Rhode Island, lived in California, and I was born and raised in Missouri.. What about the filthy oh so stinky rest stop bathrooms, with the gosh what is that growing in the corner? Nope....not scary. (Okay maybe just a little.)
sorry about my pictures it was a dark cloudy day we were traveling I70 at 70mph and I just take lousy pictures (always) Now I know they are for the best…..a good solid Green investment producing cleaner electricity…..but this was scary to look at. It was down right creepy. Beyond their gigantic enormous immensity, there was the whooshing sound that filled the air. There were so many of them cutting a sharp steel gash across the pristine hills and every now and then a tiny farmstead or ranch stood amongst their shadows. I couldn’t help wonder how the farmers, ranchers and their livestock felt about these cold steel monsters. Thanks for stopping by & Have a beautiful day
