For those who’ve never been on a farm or those who have fond farm memories, here’s a three-minute peek into fall harvest.  I hope you enjoy it.

Whether you’re a blogger or not, chances are you have some photos around your house.  They may be in a variety of formats–digital, prints, slides, negatives–and doing something with them may be an overwhelming task.

At the I_Blog conference, we heard about the importance of having some type of organizational system for your photos.  After all, if you can’t find a photo when you need it, it doesn’t do you much good.

There are a variety of ways of organizing photos, and you have to choose what works for you, but even some basic organization, like naming your photos something other than “P1420883″ and putting them into folders by month or by year, can be helpful.  If you want to get more in-depth than that in organizing your digital photos, there are programs that can help.

Creative Memories sponsored my trip to I_Blog, and at their Saturday-evening scrapbooking party, they demonstrated not only the StoryBook Creator software, but also the Memory Manager piece.  Memory Manager is a software program that works in tandem with StoryBook Creator, but is a separate software purchase.  Memory Manager is where you can organize, edit, and prepare your photos for use, and StoryBook Creator is where you make them into something beautiful.

I’ve used Memory Manager in the past, and it does make it pretty easy to find your photos.  When you import pictures into the program, it will automatically sort them by date.  (If they happen to be old photos that are not time-stamped, like snapshots or slides you scanned, you can adjust the dates.  If you’re not sure of a particular date, you can get close, i.e. “1970’s” or “1989.”) Memory Manager also lets you sort into folders or boxes based on subject, similar to tagging or using keywords in other programs.  I went a little crazy with this at one time and had tags for every person in the photo, what event it was, where it was, etc.  The downside is that it takes a lot of time to do this sorting.  The benefit is that I could easily pull up a photo that had just my girls in it, or any of my kids’ birthdays, or family Christmas pictures, and so on.

Memory Manager also has the capacity for editing, so for those who don’t have the interest in learning a powerful program like Photoshop, editing can be accomplished without a huge learning curve.  My edits usually are basic, cropping and light adjustment, but more advanced capabilities are included in the software.

Some in our group liked that photos can be imported directly from Memory Manager into StoryBook Creator, without having to find the photos in the computer’s file directory.  You can look at the photos (in a size where you can actually see them) in Memory Manager, and then choose the ones you want and send them right to StoryBook Creator for use in an album.  The two pieces work very well together.  (I am, however, waiting for the day when Memory Manager will somehow remember which photos I’ve already used in StoryBook Creator albums so that I don’t use the same photos over and over.)

Memory Manager includes a backup component, although it was pointed out at the conference that you should have multiple copies and backups of your photos that encompass different drives and various physical locations.  (Four backups next to your desk won’t help in case of a tornado or fire that destroys your home.)

Creative Memories’ Memory Manager software is an easy-to-use tool for sorting and editing your photos.  You’ll still have to invest some time to do it, but if you are successful, you’ll never have to search for just the right photo again.

How do you keep track of your photos?  Do you have any tips for storing, organizing, or backing up your memories?

Creative Memories sponsored my trip to I_Blog in exchange for some blog posts that included their products.  As a long-time (11+ years) Creative Memories user, these posts reflect not only things learned at I_Blog, but my personal experience with their products.

When driving in rural America, the farmsites usually don’t vary a lot.  Sure, the farmhouses may have been built in different eras, but as a whole, they are usually quite conservative in design.  And the barns will be red or white or faded to gray, with not a lot of variation.

Once in awhile, however, a farmsite that’s unique will appear on the horizon, entirely different from its neighbors.

This one caught my eye as I drove through Iowa, just past a Lutheran church that could very well have had the same architect as my home church had.  Lutheran churches tend to vary in architecture about as much as farmsites do, I suppose.

At first I saw a section of green and wondered if green steel siding was all that was available for a quick-and-necessary repair.

Then I got closer, and saw, along with the green, a section of purple.

By then I was intrigued.  I pulled to the side of the road when I saw the house, waiting until a turning feed truck passed before snapping a shot.

That’s not your typical Iowa farmhouse, is it?

It makes me wonder who lives there.  What’s the story?  Is it someone who fled a big city and purchased a farm site in Iowa, but missed the uniqueness of the urban area?  Is it a farm family, native to the area, who just liked to shake things up a little?  Was it a construction project that started out by accident, and then became artful?

I may never know the story behind this farm, and that’s probably better, for it leaves to my imagination all the possibilities of someone who would have a barn that’s part purple and part green in a land of red and white.

I wonder.

Located at Three Rivers Trail park near Bradgate, Iowa.  Click through to photo; it is mapped in flickr.

Here’s a close-up of the text so that you can read the significance of this place.

We live an hour away from Mankato, Minnesota, but as the nearest “big” city, it’s where we do a lot of shopping, have special medical appointments, and conduct business.  The one thing in the past that we haven’t found in Mankato is a lot of family fun.  Beyond bowling or a movie, there isn’t a lot to do in Mankato, especially in the winter.

That’s all about to change.  The Children’s Museum of Southern Minnesota is opening its first exhibit tomorrow, November 19.  “The Amazing Castle” is a traveling exhibit and will be open to the public in the Madison East Center.  (It’s in the former Walgreens storefront, if you’re familiar with Madison East.)  From 4-7 p.m., the exhibit will be free for families to visit, and entertainment and activities, as well as food for purchase, will be available in the mall areas during that time.  For families looking for a fun evening, this will be a fun way to get a taste of what’s to come with the Children’s Museum of Southern Minnesota.

For those interesting in supporting the museum, a fundraiser will be held at 6 p.m.  At $25 per person, with kids 10 & under $5, this special event will include entertainment, hors d’oeuvres, and a cash bar, as well as a few surprises and news of future plans for the museum.  It’s not too late to RSVP for the party by calling 507-388-1836 or by e-mail at imaginetheamazing@yahoo.com.

The Children’s Museum of Southern Minnesota has been in the works for several years, and this exhibit is just the first part to be open to the public.  The Amazing Castle exhibit will be at Madison East through May 2010.  Admission will be $3 per person, with family memberships for $35 that include unlimited visits.  Executive Director Peter Olson emphasized that no family will be turned away because of the cost, so families that have financial difficulty should inquire about free or reduced rates.

This museum is being designed for the enjoyment and growth of children, and the people at the heart of it are early childhood educators and others who have the interests of children at the forefront.  The plans for the exhibits at the museum’s future permanent home look to be a lot of fun for kids while focusing on themes that are central to southern Minnesota.

Our family has visited a wide variety of children’s museums, and I can’t tell you how excited I am to have one in our backyard.  My son was with me when we got a sneak peek today, and he’s excited to go back with his siblings.

If you’re a family in southern Minnesota, please attend the free grand opening and purchase a membership to show your interest in having this resource available in our backyard.  And if you’d like to support the mission of this museum, consider attending the fundraising event or making a donation to help this valuable community resource move forward.

For another take on the exhibit, please read the coverage from the Mankato Free Press.  To stay abreast of news from the Children’s Museum of Southern Minnesota, follow their Facebook page or join their e-mail list.

Found on the west side of a gravel road; there is no sign indicating the marker from the road.  For location, click through to the photo.  I have attempted to map the location in flickr.

Notice that local historians recognized the need to remember this location and placed the plaque in 1947.

I want a barn quilt.

My husband thinks I’m crazy, but he hasn’t seen what I’ve seen.

Driving through Iowa, I found a lot of surprises along the way.

Barn quilts were one of them.

You see, I’d read about the barn quilts awhile ago, but I’d never actually seen one.

Until Sunday.

And now I want one.

If you think I’ve lost my marbles and am planning to buy an awful lot of fabric in an effort to keep the barn warm, don’t worry.  It’s not that kind of quilt.

It’s this kind of quilt.

One quilt square on one barn.  Another quilt square on another barn.  And so on and so forth until the entire area is a patchwork of barn quilts.

I thought the idea of barn quilts had originated in Iowa several years ago, but the Fairmont, MN, Sentinel, reports that barn quilts have been around for hundreds of years.  It’s just that Iowa has recently done a good job of promoting this project as a part of their state’s agricultural heritage.

While driving in northern Iowa, I saw several barn quilts.  And then, crossing the state line, I found some in Minnesota.  If I get a barn quilt, it would probably be the first one in my county, but then, I’ve done unusual things before, like writing a travel blog when I live in the middle of nowhere and opening a twitter account when few around me know what twitter is.

So I think a barn quilt would do quite nicely for me.  After all, I already have a barn.

I just need a quilt for it.

Comfortable in my bed at the Hotel Pattee, I had planned to sleep late the first morning of the I_Blog Conference.  Instead, I awoke at 6 a.m. as usual, showered and dressed, and thought about what to do until the conference began at 10:00.

I decided to do what I enjoy doing most:  getting in the car and driving.  At first my destination was Winterset, where I figured I’d have time to see three or four of the covered bridges of Madison County.  I headed south out of Perry a little before sunrise.

As the sky lightened, I began to see that there would be no sun that morning, and I didn’t think covered bridges on a cloudy gray backdrop would be very photogenic.

Instead, I turned when a sign pointed to the town of Adel, not sure of my plan any more.  I came into Adel from the west and, lacking any other signage, followed the truck route into town, not sure of what I’d find.

What I found was the beautiful Dallas County courthouse in a town square.  Iowa seems to have several towns with these traditional town squares, and to me, they create a perfect small-town air.

Across the street from the courthouse I spotted “Cool Beans” with its neon OPEN sign lit.  I stepped inside for a cup of something warm and caffeinated, and as I waited for my hot drink to be prepared, I noticed a black-and-white panoramic photo on the wall.

Such a unique photo, I eyed it to find the perspective, and then, looking more closely, I saw that it was from the Library of Congress photograph collection, taken in 1907.

I stopped at the car and traded my beverage for my camera, then headed out into the nearly-deserted downtown district.  I saw that Adel, like Perry and many other small Iowa towns, still has a lot of its original brick downtown buildings.  The storefronts and signs have changed, of course, but overall the streets look much the same as they did 100 years ago.

The streets in the old photo were dirt, but now the roads surrounding the courthouse square are of a beautiful red brick.

I did not manage to capture the same angles as the panoramic photo of the old days of Adel, but I hope you’ll enjoy seeing that Adel’s downtown area still looks much the same as it did in 1907.

Even on a cloudy, gray day, I found something interesting in Adel, Iowa.

Returning from the I_Blog Conference in Perry, Iowa, I attempted to find the most direct route home.  For me, as long as it’s paved, it’s a possible route, and I’ll even take a few miles of gravel if it saves some backtracking.  I looked at my map, ignored the pleading of my GPS to stay on the more primary routes, and headed north out of Perry.

I was on a north-south road, Iowa Route 144, in the not-so-grand town of Grand Junction when, to my great surprise and delight, I saw this:

Do you see what I see?  Yes, there, next to the arrow and the 144 marker.  It’s a Lincoln Highway sign.

What I didn’t notice as I was mapping my route was where I would cross U.S. 30, which now has replaced and/or parallels the mostly east-west Lincoln Highway across the central United States.  In Grand Junction, the new U.S. 30 is a busy road that passes just north of town.  Route 144, however, for about three blocks, shares the road with the original Lincoln Highway that runs through the midst of Grand Junction.

I circled the block and stopped to snap a photo of the sign, since when we traveled parts of the Lincoln Highway in Pennsylvania, it was hard to stop for a picture along the busy road.  As I got closer, to my delight, I saw something even better than the modern Lincoln Highway replica sign.

There on the pole, can you see the old paint?  The red and blue stripes, the blue “L”, and the white arrow indicating where the Lincoln Highway route goes?

You might think me crazy, but I was excited as can be.  I continued down the main street of Grand Junction, ignoring where my intended road once again turned north, and found several other indications of the Lincoln Highway in this small town.

It was all I could do not to follow the road east out of town.  For the rest of my trip, I dreamed of the day when I can travel the Lincoln Highway from coast to coast.  There’s just something about the road–the narrow, winding lanes, the small towns it passes through, the history that it’s seen–that intrigues me.

I’ll save that longer journey for another time, but for now I have memories of a pleasant surprise that I found in Grand Junction, Iowa.

For more information about the Lincoln Highway, I recommend Brian Butko’s Lincoln Highway News site, which includes links on books he’s written about the Lincoln Highway as well as current happenings along the historic route.

This past weekend, I attended the first I_Blog Conference, a conference for midwest bloggers that was held in Perry, Iowa.  The conference was planned and put on by Jody Halsted of Iowa Geek and Have Kid Will Travel.

These are my thoughts on the conference.

Size: This was a small conference; everything was held in one room.  Because there were not a lot of attendees (perhaps 30?), we each had the opportunity to meet each of the others, as well as to interact with the speakers and have all of our questions answered.  The meeting room was just the right size for the conference needs, with room to move between tables, but not so large that it was difficult to see or hear presentations.  Working wifi and power strips on each table made it easy to use our computers during the conference.

Location:  I_Blog was held at the historic Hotel Pattee in Perry, IA, the conference was about 30 miles from Des Moines.  The hotel was lovely and well-suited to the conference needs.  Food was provided by the hotel and was timely, well-presented, and delicious.

Schedule:  The schedule was well-planned, with appropriate breaks and downtime, and speakers kept on schedule quite well.  If necessary, there was some flexibility, which was possible because all of the attendees were hearing the same speakers, rather than shuffling from room to room as at a larger conference.

Speakers and Topics:  This was definitely the best part of the conference.  Topics were relevant to blogging issues, both for beginning bloggers and for those who are already established.  Presentations were given on blogging basics, tax implications of blogging, using and improving photography in blogs, the FTC rulings and their effect on bloggers, using time well, and building community.  The keynote speaker, Jennic Law of Kangaroo Boo, had a heartwarming and motivational story to tell.  Professional headshots were taken of each attendee.  (I wrote a previous post on taxes and bloggers.)

Social Activities:  Time to bowl in the hotel’s bowling alley and a scrapbooking party sponsored by Creative Memories allowed time to mingle with other attendees or participate in the activities.

Attendees:  Attendees were primarily from Iowa, but some came from neighboring states.  Some were still considering starting a blog, some were new bloggers, and some were quite established.  One of the things that struck me the most was the professional feel to the conference.  There were no “blogging celebrities” in attendance, and the gift bags, while nice, were not the highlight of the conference.  While some bloggers’ families were at the hotel, there were no young children in the sessions as at other blog conferences.  Perhaps most notably, this was not billed or implied to be a “mommy-blogger” conference.  This was a conference for Midwestern bloggers, and both men and women, of a wide age range, were in attendance.

Sponsors: Conference sponsors, such as Creative Memories, Dexter PC, Land O’ Lakes, and Franklin County Tourism were mentioned at several points during the conference, and representatives from each were in attendance.

Suggestions for Improvement:  Quite honestly, I’m having a hard time thinking of anything that should have been done differently.  I think this inaugural conference is going to be a hard act to follow.

Future Plans:  The second I_Blog conference is planned for the first weekend in November 2010.  It will be in Iowa, but in a different location, likely another area of the state.  It is hoped to be somewhat larger than this year’s I_Blog, but still be focused on the needs of Midwest bloggers rather than becoming a mega-conference.  If you missed this year’s I_Blog, please mark your calendars for next year, and follow @i_blogconf on twitter or watch the I_Blog website for more details.