Country Views: Flower Power

Escape Route: The view across from Prairie Grove Park.

 What a week here in the world where "Guitar Ted Productions" is. Rain, rain, and more rain all week with skies so gloomy that I would have thought it was November but for the greenery. When the Sun finally popped out late Friday afternoon it was.....odd! Welcomed, for sure, but oddly bright and blinding. 

So, Saturday was originally going to be partly cloudy and pretty nice, but, you know.....we're talking about weather. How it really happens sometimes is not at all what we're told to expect. So, by Friday I learn that it is going to be cloudy and that there was a chance for rain. Okay......what about Sunday? Well, cloudy, but no rain, so I'm good with that. Saturday ended up becoming beautiful by mid-afternoon, (of course) and instead of a bicycle ride I mowed the lawn, because it rained all last week! 

So, Sunday rolls around and now it might rain by noon? Sheesh! I scramble and get out there for a relatively decent ride, short, but decent, by 9:00am. The bike was my Twin Six Standard Rando and the gear I wore was your typical Summertime kit, finally! No more nods to cold weather again for a while, I hope. This time the escape route was from Prairie Grove Park, and I was heading South since the wind was out of the Southwest. 

The roads were pretty smooth and fast since all the gravel was smoothed out during the week by rain.

The barns near the corner of Aker and Griffith Road are slowly decaying away with the years.

Heading South wasn't actually too bad since the wind was more Westerly than Southerly. I made good time on super-smooth roads which were smoothed out by traffic pushing the stones down into the base, which would have been pretty softened up by the rains last week. Now all that had dried and hardened into a smooth, almost 'soft-cement' kind of surface which is what we call 'hero-gravel' around here. 

Flowers near an old farmstead. I'm sure these were planted by former residents who once lived on this spot.

These wild little yellow blossoms on tall, bare stems were seen fluttering in the breeze Sunday.

If you've been around here long, you may remember that I love the wild flowers in the ditches and alongside trails here in Iowa. Well, the mighty, pesky dandelion is always the leader in the fields here, but they fade away soon enough and the real show begins soon after. I noted several patches of color on this ride, some of which I documented for the post today. 

One of my favorite 'rest stops' near the corner of Quarry Road and Aker Road.

These iris flowers probably were from a planting- not native.

It occurred to me that many of the flowers I am seeing now may actually mark the spots where old homesteads once were. It is no secret that farms were much more numerous in the early 20th Century in Iowa. I do know of one farm home that used to be occupied on Aker Road. It had a family with children and was fairly active. Then one day riding South I noted the house had been damaged by fire. It wasn't long before the place was abandoned, the house razed to the ground, and now nothing but a few out buildings mark the spot. Well, that and the flowers near the old drive way in the ditch. 

It made me wonder. Will there come a day when nothing will be out here but warehouses holding drones and robotic farm implements which are remotely controlled? Will the rural areas devolve into a faceless, empty agricultural landscape where people are rarely seen anymore? Will there be nothing to mark their passing but a few random flower patches and an old decaying barn or two? 

Will this culture, like that of the Native Americans before it, become a mere shadow of the past? Memories written down somewhere will document the decline and fading away. Digital files will exist somewhere that hardly anyone will bother to dig up. All will pass eventually....

A little flash of lavender in a field of green

A flash of soft pink amongst some decaying plant matter

Hmm....." ...do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.” Yeah. No need to answer those questions. Just getting through this time is hard enough without thinking about all of that 'future' stuff! So, I pedaled onward.......

The planting all done, these implements are at rest while the corn grows.

The skies got a little heavier as I approached the end of my ride.

 

So, eventually I reached the end of my ride after passing a random single woman pushing a child in a stroller right up the middle of Hoff Road. Weird. She was pleasant and returned my greeting, so that was nice. As I approached the more civilized edges of Waterloo, I felt rain drops. "Gee....I hope she and that kid don't get caught in the rain!"

But there was nothing to fear. That few drops of precipitation was all the "rain by noon" amounted to. Why do I listen to the weather reports again? Then as things wound up I saw an approaching cyclist. As the biker came closer I realized it was "Tomcat" who posts comments here from time to time. (Hello again, by the way!) 

So, a quick little ride. Nice that my right knee felt perfect. That's a first for 2021.