Vermontville

State Road, I think, between Thornapple Lake and Vermontville in southwestern Michigan.

After picking up my baseball tickets , I got out on my bicycle. This barn's at the far point of today's ride--the corner of Mt. Hope and Ionia. Probably a Sunfield address, but not really far from Vermontville.

Vermontville, Michigan, next to the local hardware store. This one's really quite a fine piece. One of these days I'll go back and take some better photographs. Don't know much about these statues except that they're there.

Vermontville, Michigan, next to the fire department. Of course. Don't know much about these statues except that they're there.

Vermontville, Michigan, next to Maple Manor, which is the heart of Vermontville's annual Maple Festival. I imagine the sign's true, though that apostrophe really ought to go. Don't know much about these statues except that they're there.

North of Vermontville.

My plan, a year ago, was to get that Amish picture I'd missed a few days earlier . Headed down Mulliken Road to Gresham Highway, turned the corner (and shot this picture right at the Gresham church), and headed into Amish territory. Found kids all over the place, heading for the Amish school. On foot, on bikes, in carriages, even a few on a cute little two-wheeled rig I don't know the words to describe. But they weren't at school yet, and shooting pix of moving Amish kids from my moving car really wasn't what I wanted to do. So I took other photographs. ========== For 366 Snaps I posted a photo of a couple failing barns further down Gresham, well on the way to Vermontville. (Much to my surprise, Flickr contact Aunt Owwee found them familiar .) That farm's within the Amish colony and may or may not be Amish; regardless, it's not the obviously Amish photo I had in mind. But I rather like it. ========== The day's 366 Snaps photos were, let us say, hurried--framed well, but poorly executed. While I'd remembered how to take pix with the FujiFilm F10, I'd not yet adapted to its pace. The Finepix F10's the best-designed compact camera I've owned, digital or film--but it's an old design. Old as in: A 6 megapixel sensor, a 3x zoom telephoto lens, and a slow focusing system. These didn't bother me when I used an F10 as an everyday camera, but returning to it after using more capable cameras was surprisingly painful. I rather expected this. You may have noticed I began practicing with the camera in mid-November. But still it took me longer to adjust than I planned, and the project suffered a bit for that. By the end of the month I was working comfortably with the little box, though, and used it as my pocket cam until it completely failed in February. ========== This photograph is an outtake from my 2012 photo-a-day project, 366 Snaps . Number of project photos taken: 36 Title of " roll :" We Have Amish Neighbors Other photos taken on 12/12/2012: I photographed birds all afternoon with the big Nikon. None were particularly good.

Vermontville, MIchigan.

Downtown Vermontville, Michigan.