2010 thanksgiving

newest family member 1 month old, little miss d not so sure she wants mom to be holding another baby kids coloring christmas tree ornaments

quinton and declan, cousins

giving thanks

happy birds

i've been watering the grass because grass seed has been sowed. we haven't had any rain since the first week of October, everything is bone dry. my yard was a popular place for the robins. several took a bath in one of the puddles

wine gardens

view from the patio of the wine country gardens restaurant just down the road from boonefield village. i will go back next summer to get shots of the vineyards what is left of the grape vines

view from the road below

this barn is on the way and i didn't see it fast enough to stop on the way, but got in on the way back from lunch

scones and kitchen

one of the projects on my "honey do " list, this is laney's Christmas present. a kitchen any little girl would love, there is even a phone! i have been cooking for my aunt who has started dialysis recently. she's not sure what she can eat as she has to be on a special diet. the wonderous thing about this is i do do do not like to cook or bake. the one time i tried baking raisin bread you could have hammered nails with it. the only reaon i have a kitchen in my house is because the house came with it. i've gotten recipes off the kidney center website and have been cooking again. three or four recipes this day, kind of lost track. this is my first attempt making scones, these are cranberry and are actually pretty good. i have a muffin recipe that is also wonderful but i didn't take photos of them, i'll get them the next time

daniel boone home and boonefield village

daniel boone's home four story georgian style completed in 1810 and where boone died in 1820. the village is located in the Femme Osage Valley

again the weather has been wonderful, temperatures like summer, much to pretty to stay inside, so off i went with my friend c to the home of daniel boone. boonefield village is a collection of home from the era that have been gathered up and moved here from other parts of st louis and st charles. the homes are from the 19th century and represent life in the 1800's. the building above is the school house typical dog trot home, area in the center used as a breezeway to keep the home cool in the summer, one side typically used for cooking etc, the other was the living area

general mercantile store circa 1840.

the rear of daniel's home

the sappington-dressel home circa 1870, the home was taken apart and reassembled in boonefield village by 2 full time employees and 2 volunteers

on the top of the steeple of old peace chapel

old peace chapel circa 1840, seats about 100 people and is used for weddings, baptisms, renewal of vows.

looking back to the boone home the site is owned by Lindenwood University and is part of the university campus. schools use the area for field trips and re enactors make history come alive. there are special events throughout the year coming up is the Christmas candle light tour. i'm so glad i found this treasure about 20 minutes from my home

weekend travel 2

bird's eye view of the weldon spring site (taken from the internet)

the weldon spring site as seen from the road leading up to it. it is a huge limestone covered disposal cell. contained inside is uranium feed materials and their manufacturing wastes. i wonder if it glows in the dark????. the cell covers about 45 acres and provides long term isolation for 1.48 million cubic yards of chemical and low-level radioactive waste. from 1941 to 1945 as part of the ww2 defense effort the u.s. army produced explosives at the weldon spring ordnance works a 17,232 acre facility in st charles, missouri and should remain stable for 1,000 years. the busch conservations area is part of the acreage. this is either the greatest or worst government use of funds ever

stair way to heaven or hell. hell for some of the many workers who handled uranium ore without knowing how dangerous it was, hell for the residents of the cities of Howell, Hamburg, and Toonerville who were forced off their land in 1941 without compensation for the war effort so the munions plant could be built

view from the top is the highest accessible point in st charles county, the cell is 75 feet above the surrounding terrain. there has been some controversy about this site. people believe that the radioactivity has already migrated into the ground water before this site was cleaned up. the ground water that 70,000 citizens of st charles drink

observation deck

another view to east. the land around the cell has been turned into hiking and biking trails and a wildflower and grass prairie. i'll have to return in the spring to capture the prairie flowers

a group almost to the top

the layers of material that contains the waste. from 1957 to 1966 this area was used to process uranium ore concentrates and a small amount of thorium. in 1986 the department of energy designated the clean up effort here and it was finished in 2001

old wooden water line

weekend travel

today the temperture was 72 degrees with beautifuly sunny blue skies so i decided to take my self to the busch memorial conservation area. the last time i was here was 50 years ago with my dad and family to go fishing; we lived about 40 miles away and felt like we drove forever. the site contains 6987 acres, 3,000 of those acres are forest, grassland, cropland, prairie and wetlands, this site is about 10 minutes from my house, unbelievable!

bunker used in the 1940's by the u.s. army as storage for tnt munitions plants to support ww2 effort. the bunkers were also used to process uranium ore; and was part of a federal enviromental clean upanother bunker, some of these bunkers were very well hidden. i drove past several and didn't see them the first time past since they are earth covered it would have been hard to see them from any enemy planes that might make it to the midwest during ww2

there are 100 of these bunkers on the site

as well as an old cemetery

one of the more unusal grave markers. bonnie lee thiel was a poet according to her tombstone

benjamin howell was born in 1794 and his grave as a war veteran marker on it

one of the 32 lakes

another bunker. the bunkers are the only thing i remember about the area from my first visit

gaggle of geese

the leader just started swimming away and the rest of them all fell in line

the blind where i shot the geese ( with a camera of course) Busch's area is used for hunting, fishing, dog field trials, trapping, hiking and just enjoying being outdoors. it has been so dry this fall there was a high fire danger here as well as several places in Missouri.

good by to a landmark

all photos taken from the internet

a st louis landmark, the Admiral is being auctioned off on craigslist. The history of the Admiral spans 100 plus years. the latest use was a casino. for years it was an excursion boat that plied the Mississippi river as the largest inland entertain boat in the world. the style was art deco, on a hot summer day, the rays of the sun on the aluminum exterior shined like a diamond. build in 1907 the admiral was used as a ferry across the Mississippi, in the 1930's it was air conditioned which made the July summer days a bit more enjoyable

it is 365 feet long, 95 feet wide and held 4500 people. the ballroom was huge and the scene of years of dances, from swing to rock and roll. the restrooms were art deco in design and all of them were different and as kids was the first place we would rush to after boarding. we had proms, school picnics, first dates and just a great time on the S.S. Admiral

kids haunted house 2010

son's costume before the mask was added. he was the chain saw guy

my daughter and son in law and some of their neighbors have a haunted house in there cul de sac. view down the first passageway. outside of the haunted house. i will not go into it while the "actors" are in there too darn scary for me, meanwhile parents are taking little kids in with them, i'm sure there were many a little one in bed with their parents saturday and sunday

three little triplet pigs

the scary family, son in law, daughter, granddaughter

people waiting to go in the house.

coming out into the corn field. the kids do all of this for free, this year they did ask for donations for the potta potty for the crowd.