Roadside Mysteries

Can you remember back in 2008 when I visited the Swetsville Zoo? The early reports were such as: Why We Have A Homeowners Association, More of Bills Backyard, and A Few More… .I’ve been there several times since, but today was special. Today we got to go onto the back of the farm– what’s left of it anyway, to view some items up for auction. No, the ‘Zoo Animals’ are not being sold, but it seems Bill Swets collected farm implements and other things are taking up valuable space. Yes, developers are looking to buy acreage east of I25 because people can’t get enough of Northern Colorado. Too bad it’s not in Fort Collins.

Antique Tractors in this lot

Well, this is the week of the great feast of the RAGBRAI and if I was in Iowa I would have seen plenty of antique tractors that the local farmers would drag out to show. Yep, looked just like the above. Oh, there’s more of the  Swets’ Junk to be seen. Stay tuned.

On a fairly deserted path I came upon this structure:

A Tiny House?

Damn small and weathered, but well constructed with a concrete base and shingled roof. What was really cool was that it was well hidden by trees and bushes.  It was somewhat difficult to get around all the brush and the small creek that ran near its east side in order to take these photographs. Why was this little house here? What was it for?

Inside the fun house

I expected to find the skeleton of a missing person or perhaps a bee hive. The door had been torn out some time ago, but the windows and screens were still intact. Odd that there were no bees or spider webs inside. You would expect some graffiti or broken windows, maybe some trash thrown about. Nothing. I didn’t hang around there– too weird. …and I was wearing sandals– not the best kind of footwear for this kind of trekking. Maybe I’ll come back on halloween.

At the Harmony Library:

Isabella Bird talks about her trip to Estes Park

In 1873 Isabella Bird took a trip to Estes Park and the Rocky Mountains. In her 800 mile journey she passed through the little town of Fort Collins and later wrote “By the time we reached Fort Collins I was sick and dizzy with the heat of the sun, and not disposed to be pleased with a most unpleasing place. It was a military post, but at present consists of a few frame houses put down recently on a bare and burning plain. The settlers have ‘great expectations’ but of what? The mountains look hardly nearer than from Greeley; one only realizes their vicinity by the force of their higher peaks”. Then of course 1873 was the year of the great locust plague, so who could blame her? But compare it unfavorably to Greeley? What a bitch!

That would be Michelle Obama visiting CSU today:

At the new improved south building structure of the Lory Student Center

We had the ticket, waited in the long line and actually got into the room where she was speaking.  A bunch of politicians talked first (boring!) but then the crowd went wild when Michelle entered the room. The first picture of the First Lady  was from the back where I was standing and the second picture was from the jumbotron screen, one of two in the large convention center room

There is this brick building on West Mulburry Street. It looks abandoned. It’s an historic building in Fort Collins:

The Grange Hall

Granges were originally estates belonging to English feudal lords but in the U.S. a grange was a meeting place for farmers and their families.

The “Empire” Grange

Like the Left Hand Grange we visited in Niwot, the early granges helped establish land grant colleges and promoted electric/telephone services into rural areas. Organized in 1904, the grange hall was completed in 1912 built from bricks left over from the construction of the local sugar factory. Lee Maxwell‘s  grandfather Robert Maxwell donated the land.

And in the basement of the Empire Grange:

Central Heating

Provided by this Detroit Stove Works Jewel Gravity Hot Air Furnace. The Detroit works made furnaces like this from 1880 to around 1920. It looks to have been converted to an oil burning furnace in the 1950’s. Behind the furnace is a (more) modern natural gas forced air furnace that heats the building today.

Also in the basement

Some dancers getting ready for a dance upstairs.

A light saber dance

Apparently on some evenings there is folk dancing at the Empire Grange. On this particular evening the female dancers wore Princess Leia Slave costumes.

NEW! First time a sitting president visits Fort Collins. It makes history. Also, the updated WordPress APP is used here for the first time in the history of my iPAD:

Here at the rally we found CAM the RAM

CAM was first found hiding in the doorway of Shepardson Hall. Not sure if this Ag Sci building was named after CSU Alumni Association Hall of Fame member Charles N. “Shep” Shepardson or not. Could be? Not sure what CAM was doing in the doorway either.

The Monfort Quadrangle

The Mo’ Quad is only one-fifth the size of the CSU Oval so it was crowded with CSU students, but we lucked out by visiting the campus later than most people. We were able to park on campus, we were met by President Obama from his motorcade before he was dropped off at the rally, and we didn’t have to wait in line to get into the rally.  As late as we were, we didn’t miss the introductions  and we didn’t die from heat exhaustion. Yes, we were lucky.

Saw this at the corporate R&D entry area of Kraft Foods:

The animal crackers and the Jello box came not from any business division directly but from a junk store I found maybe about 12 years ago. I still have some of the same boxes in my garage. I think they cost about a buck each.