Fourth of July, 2014

Yes, I know that it is not the fourth, yet.  However, after looking at the pictures which I want to share with our readers today, they seem to have a bit of that theme going.  There is also the fact that I don't have anything particular to write about regarding our travels in the past week.  We have visited family in the Dayton and Toledo area, which has taken up some of our time.  While in the latter town we attended the Crosby Festival of the Arts at the Toledo Botanical Garden.  We certainly saw a diverse variety of art there, as the yard art pictured below.  That kind of art certainly had an appealing look in the setting of the gardens.

After walking amid all the various booths of the festival, and purchasing some of the art offered, we spent some time walking through the gardens.  Maybe it is because of the Fourth of July coming in the next week that one particular plant caught my eye.  I believe it is called a sparkler plant, and can be seen in the lower right hand corner of the picture.

 Monday we drove to Blissfield, Michigan for a day trip.  The town has some historical older homes and buildings, so we took a walking tour of the town to find them.  There are not as many historical buildings as we had found in Lebanon, Ohio and it was easy to cover Blissfield in a short amount of time.  Informational markers posted outside the buildings also made them easy to spot.

 

Pictured above is the Hiram Ellis House, built in 1883.  Mr. Ellis operated a grocery, hardware store in Blissfield.  The flag posted on the porch prompted me to reflect on other historical homes which we have seen in the past week and what an important part they are of our nation's history.  Lives lived in those home were impacted by events pertaining to the settlement and development of our country which at times did not go always so smoothly.  By that I am referring to slavery, the need for the establishment of the Underground Railroad and the Civil War.  However, there is still a lot of good which I can find in our United States of America and which makes the event of the founding of our country an important time of celebration for me.