A Walk down a Country Road in Wisconsin - with little Allegra

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The temps dropped down a bit on Sunday afternoon, and it was a pleasant evening for a stroll down our rural country road. Although it was muggy, at least we were getting out of the house and into some fresh air.  We popped our little granddaughter Allegra in the stroller and off we went.  Of course I took along the camera!   Slathered up with some skeeter spray and off we went...

These bright eyes didn't miss a thing!

Our first stop was the boat landing.  We live on the Oconto River and we are just a short distance away from a small landing that is good for dropping off canoes, tubes, or small fishing boats.  The river gets rather shallow up a-ways and down a-ways, so this is not used too often for river access.   There was only one truck in the parking lot.   If you float down our river for 5 miles, you will be in the waters of the Green Bay that lead into Lake Michigan.

We stopped for a quick self-timer photo.... 

Here are two shots from the boat landing... 

one down the river towards our house 

and one shot from up the river 

This is where the DNR made little rock *islands*  for helping the fish to spawn with beds of gravel for their eggs. It's now grown over with lots of weeds, and the river is lower in water levels since they put the gravel beds in, so I don't know how much it is helping the fish for spawning? 

I noticed a lovely reflective section of the river, I had to try an "Bayfield Bunch Al Photo" !!  See, Al from the blog  http://thebayfieldbunch.com/   takes the most amazing photos and inspires me to try a few new things with my pics too. He has some wonderful reflection photos in his blog.  Although I can never reach the skills and talents he does in his pics, his blog encourages me to try....

We walked on down to the corner of our road... It took our tiny township about 4 years to be able to order this sign to replace the one that someone knocked down in 1997.  Try directing folks to your newly built home and having to tell them to turn by the yellow house with the swimming pool in their yard?  LOL 

(those are soybeans growing in the background)

Here is the beginning of our North River Road.  The county posted nice 45 MPH signs, but everyone ignores them.  The few cars that do go down our road, are racing along like its the Indy 500.  Geesh!  Maybe if the county were to trim back the trees a bit, motorists might see the whole sign?  

Notice how Allegra was sure enjoying her ride! 

Our little country road is lined with all kinds of wildflowers....   

so again, being inspired by Bayfield Bunch Al, I snapped a few close-ups.  

Did you know the very center of every Queen Anne's Lace has a tiny purple bud? 

The woods was cool and green and shady (like one of my favorite John Denver songs!)

We managed to make it past the neighbor's house with their two inquisitive huskies.  They are lovely dogs but were tending to roam, with the complaints of some neighbors, they are now on invisible fence sensors around their thick furred necks. The sensors only work if you shave the throat fur down to the skin.  Poor things!   But I am glad to see them contained in the yard so they don't get hit by a car on the road.  The way the cars raced past us, it's a wonder they were not hit during their roaming-puppy stage when they first came to live on our road.  I used to see them romp in the field before it was tilled and they were having a blast.  But we all need to keep our own dogs in our own yards.  Another neighbor also has a husky that will run down deer and drag parts of the carcasses home.  They don't keep him under an invisible fence or on a chain or in a kennel, so many times HIS roaming is erroneously blamed on the other two young huskies. 

Once we got past their houses, there is the corn field that stretches all the way down past our home.  There have a saying around Wisconsin:  "Knee High by the Fourth of July"  for cornfields.  Well, by the fourth, the stalks were over shoulder high, are now over my head and some are starting to tassle out!  This is very early for corn.  When I was a kid, we grew up around corn fields and they were great to play in--- chasing and tag among the rows, as long as you didn't knock over the stalks. 

This is what we get to see each time we look out our front windows instead of other houses.  

I love the way the farmer leaves the wildflowers growing along the edge.  

Much nicer than tilling right up to the road and getting in a few more rows of corn.  

Now our walk is done and it's time to turn into the yard. 

We only have one acre of land, and 2/3 of it is wooded behind the house, down to the river.  

Our motorhome has a nice little side area off the driveway for when we are not using it.  

It waits patiently for us to load it up and GO! 

Just a few shots from our side deck... isn't that an inviting place to sit down and rest a bit?  

Sometimes the larger back deck gets so hot in the southern sunshine, that this side one is a nice respite. 

Oh gee whiz, I don't think someone wanted our walk to end???

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