Independence Day Holiday

 We started out the holiday festivities by eating  Kelainey's ice cream cones sitting on its screened-in porch on Friday afternoon. I was amazed how many people were walking around visiting the Village of Winona on a weekday.

Saturday morning I picked a few hydrangeas from my generous neighbor's bushes.

Since I took the blue vase off of the entry table, I put Covi there for awhile. I snapped this when the sun coming through our skylight shone right on the wood carving.

Saturday night we were able to see from our porch the higher fireworks from the Winona Lake show. I also enjoyed the numerous fireflies twinkling in our neighborhood.

Today we went to the boat-in worship service on Lake Wawasee which goes from 8:30 a.m. to 9. We sat in our folding chairs on the grounds of Oakwood Resort. There didn't seem to be as many boats around the Lilly Pad boat where the preacher and musicians are located. Maybe folks were busy with family. There was a big turnout on the land though. Our nice low-humidity days were to end today, but early morning was still delightful. It didn't really get muggy until around 10 a.m. We ate Sunday mid-day meal at The Boathouse restaurant along the shores of Winona Lake. 

Saturday I was just getting ready to take my shower when my husband returned from his woodworking efforts. He wanted to take a picnic lunch to the Stockdale Mill near Roann. We saw this mill when driving home from the apple store in Denver last fall. The mill was not open then.

We toured the open mill yesterday. Its power source is the Eel River.

There is a sub basement and 4 floors of pulleys, chutes, grinders, sifters which originally produced grain for animal feed and cornmeal and flour.

There was a rusty turbine in  the yard since the active one was in the sub-basement and thus unviewable.

This gizmo made a "patch" to splice together pieces of pulley.

Of course there were hazards working in a mill.

This historical still used for boot legging was an oddity taking up floor space.

I noticed that the brochure said the mill was handicap accessible. The ground floor had no stairs; there was an outside ramp to the second floor. The top two floors required climbing steep steps. Definitely not doable for the mobility challenged. 

There was a lot of ducking around equipment as well. It was interesting to tour.