You've got tumbleweed

I took this photo with my cell phone while I was out for a run on Sunday.

I thought it was funny not only that a tumbleweed had gotten caught in a row of chest-tall mailboxes, but that no one bothered to remove it. I didn't either.

When I looked at the photo, I really liked the contrasting colors of the mailboxes, the tumbleweed and dry grass, and the deep blue winter sky. I am a bit annoyed at the telephone pole sticking up in the background.

Entertaining advertisements

Here are a collection of advertisements I saw in the passing pages of The Athena Press.

Thinking of 1909 as the 'new year' is a bit astounding. It's also interesting it held as much importance as it does now.

Suits for $1.50!

The elixirs and cold remedies are always entertaining.

I just thought this last one had a neat design.

Bright and shiny

Here are the pages of The Athena Press as they come out of the laminating machine, looking a lot like when they leave a printer. Even moments after the process, the print already looks a bit bolder encased in plastic.

The ladies rolled the pages up to transport them back to the Athena Public Library. There they cut them apart and straighten the pages out, sometimes weighing them down with heavy books. If the pages were laid flat to begin with, they told me, the drying plastic would warp and make the pages wavy. The best way to let them cool is to roll them, the ladies said.

Toe the line

While laminating the pages of The Athena Press, the ladies had to be precise and line things up exactly right. This meant not only watching to prevent wrinkles and folds, but also making sure there was enough distance between the pages for a border of plastic, but not too much to be wasteful.

The Athena Press

Monday I visited with volunteers laminating 100-year-old pages of The Athena Press.

Kayla Durfee and Deborah Johns put in several hours' work at the machine. The pair operated much like a machine themselves, sorting, aligning and feeding pages into the laminator, and rolling pages as they come out.

Melting

I took these photos Saturday when everything started melting. I did this from the safety of my dry porch. It wasn't until late afternoon that I was able to safely leave the house without shoe chains or ski poles.

A lot of ice collected on the rose bushes in our front yard.

Frozen

Yes! I am back!

The recent ice storm has inspired me to take photos, and post on my blog again.

The last few months have been busy, and it's hard to make time for the little things.

Speaking of little things, I took this photo on one of my haphazard walks to work last week. One of my neighbors has a cute little sapling, that had one cute little red berry left . The ice perfectly encased it, as if coated in glass. The dim light made it hard to catch, and this is my best effort.