Loved Once, but No More

What is it about old barns that is fascinating? I can't pinpoint whether I like the aesthetic or not, as much as I like the history. This is probably a hundred years old, settling down into the earth on a plot next to a rather modern looking home. Until fairly recently the owner kept his Cadillac in this barn until strategic pieces of beam started to fall downward, endangering the beloved car.

This old silo is cool too. It's just down the road from the barn pictured above, but it's on a busier street next to a house that hasn't weathered well at all. See next image...

I've no idea how old this structure is. It sits on highway 177 outside of Stillwater, Oklahoma. The flowers come back year after year, but the property is locked up tighter than a drum, so the blooms have no audience except the one in cars driving by at 70mph, inattentive to any sort of decoration, only worried about getting wherever they're going.

But this tree is happy. Notice the smiling face near the bottom of the trunk. It is a happy face for passers-by who slow up a bit and enjoy the scenery.

And, as an added bonus to my wanderings through the rural landscape, I perfected the one-finger wave that so many country livers adopt at some point during their lifetime. It's an unconscious nod at whomever you are passing, that you do indeed see them and wish them a safe journey. Or maybe some of them know the other, but it seems more likely that we are all just strangers passing on a lonely road to somewhere else, though we don't know yet where that is.