Late Sun 'cross the Yard

          Been meaning to get this place on paper for some time. The 'ol boy who lives here came swinging by just to see what I was up to. Forgot to give him my card, but he seemed easily convinced that I was legit. I was stopped beside the road sitting on the bike in the middle of the ditch with my bag a few yards away by the fence. The sun was cutting across the lower corner of the new barn roof. Some of the grass and half the sycamore was highlighted- the rest was in shadow, including the stuff sitting just over the rise to the barn. This ride was in mid October and I still saw the swallow-tailed flycatcher above the same brush along the south side of the road. The drawing is condensed left to right quite a bit compared to the actual yard. Otherwise you could not get it all on paper, and besides the condensed version seems to put more “punch” in the drawing.  

Finally!

Well it has been “purtin near” 3 months since my last post. That is mainly because I messed up my account password or something just enough to keep me from being able to edit my very own blog. Well thanks to my nephew Ben for straightening it all out. They were here earlier this month for a short visit, and as they were leaving he volunteered to help get it straightened out. Over the next 24 hrs. or so Ben was able to fix my problem. I owe you a big thanks, Ben. And to Amanda for putting up with my “issues”! Sorry it has taken so long for me to take advantage of the fix. Well I seemed to have lost some of the drawing photo files that I was getting ready to post- hence the further delay. I know some of you out there have been waiting on pins and needles!

“1838”

Another drawing from our trip over Labor Day. Brown County State Park, in central Indiana. Beautiful place and lots of stuff like this to draw. Yes this was on the road, actually our destination, where we found the village by the name of Gnaw Bone. I had not “googled” the history of this bridge until I first wrote this paragraph on 10/29/13. I would suppose it has been partially rebuilt- at least for the skin- more than once in its 175 years. The style, the Burr arch truss, was apparently patented in 1817 according to Carole Rifkind in “A Field Guide to American Architecture”. You can see some of the arch in this drawing. (Well at least you could if I had a better photographer!)  This is similar to other bridges of the period. Here is a link to a technical drawing of another bridge using the same system:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Burr_Arch_Deer%27s_Mill_CB,_Sugar_Creek,_Montgomery_County,_IN_00002r.jpg

and another to a description of this bridge with more details, which answers some of the questions regarding its history. I had wondered at the time if it had been moved to this site, because I could not imagine a 2 lane bridge ever being needed at this site. Not sure yet where it came from. So here is the other link bridgehunter.com/in/brown/ramp-creek/ These links will help you get a feel for the history.