I took a turn on a rural road and I thought I had driven right into the past. Before me was an old schoolhouse and beside it was the playground that I remembered from my elementary school days. I dearly loved this playground equipment, have thought of it fondly over the years, and never expected to see it again. Why not? Because I'm sure parents today would be appalled at the lack of safety it afforded. But oh, the fun!
In the background is the merry-go-round. You had to rush out the door at recess to get a place on it because everyone wanted to ride. The "big kids" stood and hung on to a pole while the "little kids" hung on for dear life seated on the boards with feet dangling. The big kids on the poles rocked the whole thing side to side with their feet and more big kids took turns pushing. Soon the world would be going by so fast you just could not believe the thrill.
In the foreground is the trapeze bar from which you could hang by your knees and do daring tricks like flipping off to land on your feet, then go to the back of the line for another turn. I was very good at this.
This is the view from the merry-go-round if you hung onto the handrail and leaned back as far as you could from the board seat. Yes, it made you dizzy and queasy, but still oh so fun.
This is the view from the top of what we called the teeter totter. You did your best to get a friend of equal weight on the other end because if the opposite person were too heavy, you could never get him up in the air. If he were too light, you would get quite a bone- and teeth-jarring thump when you hit bottom.
Local 4-H club members and their horses were practicing barrel racing in a field and someone had opened the schoolhouse doors. No one was close by to ask, so I went in.
Just like my school, inside the door and up a few steps was the cloakroom with hooks to hold the wool coats and snow pants we wore in the winter and a place underneath to store the rubber snow boots that went on over our shoes and zipped up the front.
One last surprise awaited me when I stuck my head in the classroom -- the exact light fixtures that graced the ceiling of my school. My school was a rural school with eight grades. I don't know how many classrooms there were but most had more than one grade in each. When I was in fifth grade, a new school was built, and I moved up the hill with my class into this new building. I cannot tell you one thing about the new school and its playground, but I remember every little detail of the old Powers School! Wonder why that is?
Thanks for visiting my blog. I'd love to read a comment about your school days.
One engine . . . .
Passenger car with observation windows . . . .
A caboose from Canada . . . 
Add some accessories . . . 
I've read that Native Americans lined the babies' cradle boards with the fluff of the mature tail and it served as a kind of diaper. Way softer than Pampers!
The brown orbs on the goldenrod stems are galls, winter homes for goldenrod gall flies. The larva will stay in there for a year, eating the plant stem from the inside. How do they survive a Minnesota winter? They produce a chemical, their very own antifreeze.
It was a gorgeous day and a beautiful drive past some Amish farms to the area I wanted to explore. Many were out in the fields and yards doing the things that need to be done before the snow flies.
The stanchions are still intact in the milking parlor, but all the equipment is gone from the milk room. A cold wind was blowing through the broken windows, and I thought of the farmer and the cows who came together here at 4 o'clock every morning and afternoon, rain or shine, sickness or health. A way of life, forever gone.
And there they are, as curious about me as I am about them. These fine ladies with their pretty black faces are Suffolks. They are mainly raised for meat, but this farm was advertising their wool.
Time for lunch, along a bubbling stream, as clear as glass right down to the bottom. How lovely someone placed a picnic table right here! Lunch is almonds, cheese I stopped at a creamery to purchase, and a chocolate truffle I found at the bottom of my backpack, only slightly stale.
Another great activity for a sunny afternoon in the country.
I ended my walk at a business where I had parked my car. I'm not sure what to call it, because it is a combination store/gas station/bank/restaurant and as you can see here, it wears one more hat: game registration station. It was bow hunting season for deer and I saw hunters everywhere. I hadn't worn orange, so I tried to stay out of the woods and along roads so as to not be mistaken for a deer.
