Mother and I took a cruise around the area on some roads neither she nor I had ever gone down. There aren’t many of those, so it’s always fun to take off down some lane without having a clue where the road is going to take us.
This old house is one of only a couple of structures left standing in the old German community of Wittenberg, MO. When I photographed the town in the 60s, there was still a store and a number of families there.
Four decades of Mississippi River floods have pretty much erased all traces of the town.
Great persimmons
Mother always likes to go down to the Tower Rock Nature Area where there are three persimmon trees that produce prodigious amounts of fruit. We thought it would be too early to eat any since there hasn’t been a frost, but the ground was littered with seeds and squashed persimmons.
Mother fought off the bugs and the bees to eat her fill
Anybody who has eaten a not-quite-ripe persimmon will never forget the way they’ll flat turn your mouth inside out. She’s had enough practice to be able to pick out the good ones.
Not sure if the mantis is praying or preying
This praying mantis didn’t appear to be stalking anything, but they have a deserved reputation as an ambush predator. Larger versions will go after animals as big as rodents. Fortunately, this guy was of a milder flavor.
Busy as a bee or butterfly
The bees and butterflies must sense that warm weather is just about over.
Almost every flowering plant alongside the road was being visited by bees and butterflies.
I overheard talk in a store that we might see frost any night now, but the official weather forecast is still calling for the low 40s.
I’m kinda easing into this cold weather thing before hopping on the bike. That sounds crazy, but you have to remember that the heat index was 100 when we left Florida a few days ago.
I learned at a very early age NOT to jump into the swimming pool before about July. You don’t want to take a chance on having your heart stop.
I can only assume that the water in the Mississippi River too high for you to walk over to the actual Tower Rock or there would be photos.
The river was cranking along with lots of foam and debris in it.
After we got back home, I went through a box of old Cape era prints I brought along and found several pictures of Wittenberg shot in the 60s.
The place had a huge general store (and probably boarding house/hotel) and a lot more houses than I remembered.
I’m going back to shoot some pix from the same angles.
The house in the picture at the top shows up in the corner of one of the pix.
There’s one house left that hugs the hillside that I may have shot back then because they had a wine cellar built into a cave. When I go back, I’ll knock on the door and see if they are old-timers or can fill in some holes in my history.
Unfortunately, I won’t be able to post that stuff until I get back to WPB because I want to do my photos off original negs. (And I didn’t bring my scanner with me.)