couple pics from a day trip and our bird....

15 years ago

A couple weeks ago Denny and I took a little trip about 30 miles north, in the Loess Hills (we live in the Loess Hills). In this part of the hills a little north are known Indian burial mounds. This is a picture of where one is. As you drive by this area there are several there. None have grasses growing on them and are well rounded. So they are easy to spot. When Denny was a boy they would go up there and find many arrow heads.

this pic is a bridge on that country road we were on, looking at the burial mounds.

and this pic is a little bird that has taken up residence under our porch eves...he comes there every night. It doesn't bother him that we come and go..I go out there every night (while feeding the cat...lol) and talk to him.

I can't imagine why he would come sleep where a cat lives and eats...

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Comments (12)

lydia1959
15 years ago
The burial mounds are very interesting. They have some in IL also that I'd like to drive out and see one day.

How long has the bird been there?
vala55
15 years ago
Birds like warm places and that may be out of wind. I have doves that perch on the window well boards, probably for the heat in the window well. They also like the floor of my deck up close to the patio door by the heat register on the inside of the house.
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pattico_gw
Original Author
15 years ago
Just that one bird comes and it has been coming over a month now. Don't know why it doesn't have any friend to snuggle up with...I feel sorry for it. I have a bird house I've thought about putting up there but I don't know if it would get in it.

patti
carol_in_california
15 years ago
Love your travelogue and your little bird is a cutie.
Thanks for sharing both.
Indian mounds have always fascinated me......would love to see them in person.
lynn_d
15 years ago
Those mounds are fascinating and I love the composition of the bridge and utility poles shot. Poor little birdy!! Hope he finds a buddy.
glenda_al
15 years ago
enjoyed your pictures
jemdandy
15 years ago
The photo of the bridge is interesting. There are not many of this style remaining. Some of these were built before 1900. There are no "I" or "H" beams in the bridge. All the main box section main beams are made of channel iron and plates hot riveted together.

Notice on the right that one of the tension rods has a turn-buckle. This is an adjustment used to account for slight misfits. The man who adjusted these turn-buckles was known as a "bridge tuner". An experienced tuner could tell by the frequency of the rod when it had the correct tension. All the rods of same length would all "ring" to the same frequency when each were adjusted to the same tension.

Likely, underneath the bridge truss is held together with tension members called I-bars. About 20 years ago, the state of Ohio began a program to take all I-bar bridges out of service because the design was prone to catastrophic failure. When one I-bar failed, the remsinder of the trusses would also fail and drop the span. It is the goal of bridge designers for a bridge to give warning before ultimate failure, for example, a span should get bent before ultimately breaking.
jel48
15 years ago
Pattico, what a neat surprise to find you live in the Loess Hills! My oldest sister lives in the hills near Turin, IA. She is 13 years older then I am and my two younger sisters and I spent a week or two ever summer staying with her and my brother in law. We roamed all over the hills by foot. Now, my sister says there have been couger sitings and she doesn't dare let her grandsons roam out there on their own, but she still takes them on walks in the hills. One thing I've noticed is that, in her area, there weren't a lot of trees when I was a kid (40-50 years ago) but now they are covered with red cedar. We called them the 'little mountains'. I still love to visit my sister in the hills.
nola_anne
15 years ago
I love 'day trips'!

This looks like an interesting one!

Thanks for sharing...cool photo of the bridge, very abstract and lonely looking!

nola anne
susanjf_gw
15 years ago
that bridge reminds me of one we had to take in utah! we'd gone to one of the parks and "found" on the map a road so we wouldn't have to double back to the freeway...the further we went the smaller it got, until it hit the bridge...it was scary, but what fun to do something so unexpected...
pattico_gw
Original Author
15 years ago
Jel...Turin is about 8 miles east of Onawa. My uncle lived there...and his youngest son still lives there.
That is almost an hour north of us.

We are in Council Bluffs.

I don't feel like we are "up" because we are at the bottom of one of the hills...but when we get "down" to the highway we can see down over a lot of country.
We really love living out here.

patti
ravencajun Zone 8b TX
15 years ago
Neat pics! Back in my undergrad days one of my Majors was Archeology and I did summer digs at the Pinson Mounds in Pinson, TN. Was an amazing time and quite an adventure, hot, hard work but we had such fun. We set up a tent village to live in, a water hose shower, thankfully we had port o potties LOL. Unearthed some neat pottery and tools and arrows heads etc.Love to see the Indian Mounds.
Pinson Mounds

couple pics from a day trip and our bird....

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lydia1959

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ravencajun Zone 8b TX

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couple pics from a day trip and our bird....

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