Stopping by for a visit.....

Cali was our neighbor's feral cat that lived on our steps for two years. She went through two horrible winters.  She never really tamed up for us to bring her inside to the basement.  We witnessed her having two litters of kittens.  We haven't seen her for over a year but she stopped by over the summer.

Della had seen her early this spring and she now lives up three house from us and apparently has friendly people who let her sleep and eat at their place.  She sat on their front doorsteps and watched as she and Barney were walking by her.

She has had another litter of kittens as I could tell she was nursing kittens.  I didn't get to pet her and yet she didn't run away when she stopped for a visit.

I suspect she was at the stage of wanting to wean her kittens and she was getting away for a while  from her family.

It was good to know that Cali is doing well and I am glad she has a good home. Cats do have a tendency to take care of themselves and finding the best world possible to live in without any trouble at all.

Thanks for stopping by my post today.

Your Barn Door Is Open........

The Chicago kids found this at a garage sale the other day and bought it for my wife's collection.  Being a farm boy, I really like this one.  It has a lot of great detail put into its design.

This barn reminds me of my old metal barn that I had as a boy.  It had plastic animals with it and plastic bales of hay for the loft.

 I like how they drilled holes in the windows so the light from inside will shine through the panes.  I am not so sure that one could put green hay into the barn as that would mean trouble. I think all hay had to be dried out before it could be stored.  The green hay would heat up and turn to silage.

Those of you who were concerned about our border collie, he has turned the corner and is getting better fast.  He is a different dog than he was on Monday.  His energy level is back close to normal.  He can walk with some strength now and he is interested in barking at people as they walk by our house.  That is a relief to us to see him eating and drinking again and acting like our Barney dog.


Another very warm day today in the middle school classroom.  I thank you for stopping by my post.

In the middle of the week.......

As the phlox reseeds itself and spreads it must grow out genetically changed plants. This is my only light colored plant that is a few feet away from the original planting.

I am a Middle School teacher today.  I was a janitor for an eight hour shift yesterday.  The people I work around are having a hard time dealing with my change of jobs.  I think it is good that they see me in the different positons. I didn't realize there is such a class conflict between the two types of work and I bet the ones at the top of the food chain don't realize how they treat the others who clean their building.

I am busy and will stay up with my blogging when I can.  Barney was ill for a while with a bad flea infestation that came on so quickly and it really made  him ill.  Now two weeks later he has had a bad digestion problem that kept him vomiting for a whole day.  We are on our third trip to the vet today.  His back legs were effected by whatever his stomach problem was and  he is now walking better today.  He almost seemed like he was loosing control of his legs but today we walked a half a block and back with some effort.  He is better and the antibiotic has taken away his fever. He is perky today and he is back on a little food and water which is given out on an hourly schedule.  Della has really taken good care of him.

Early out from school today at one o'clock.  The middle school wing is not air conditioned and its design seems to hinder any air movement.  It is already hot this morning in the room and I have five hours to go. Tomorrow is to be two degrees hotter than today.

Thanks for stopping by my blog today and stay safe through the heat or hurricane.

Reviving........

The buds and blooms are now returning after our long heat spell.  The clusters are not as large as they were in spring but I am glad to see them returning.

It looks like it could turn into a flower ball.  We will have to wait and see.

The agapanthus was watered in its pot but a true rainfall does make it green up nicely.

The petunias are liking the cool weather also and blooming like never before this whole summer.

I am back into the classroom this year.   I didn't start the first week and remained a janitor person for the whole first week.  I now substituted for the special ed. teacher today.

Thanks for stopping by my post today.

Pontiac Revisited........

A visit to my neighbor's weathering car gave me a lot of photos. The Silver Streak is a Pontiac. I like the waterfall like design on the front hood of the car.  It was originally a blue car as you can  see in the last photo.

Thanks for stopping by my post.

Tom Tom........

My wife Della shot this photo through our dining room window last week. The neighbor cat really does live outside of our house now.  He can be seen laying around almost anywhere.

Tom Tom sleeps on my car each night and can be found sitting on our grill, sleeping on a cushioned patio chair and at the door for breakfast each morning. He loves to sit on top of the garbage bin and look down on the world.

 He actually would rather be petted than being fed, he is good natured and that tame.

Thanks for stopping by my post today.

A rock on your roof......

My dad's old windmill has a loose shingle and I guess the rock just works as well as a new set of nails. The phlox actually now has a sweet smell.  It has cooled down some and the flowers are putting out a scent.

Thanks for stopping by today.

Glass Dish.......

Flip flop day today.  I discovered this glass dish in the basement on Saturday.  It was in with a set of old stuff that I hadn't seen for a while.  It reminds me of an ashtray but maybe it can be called something else.  I also found a milk glass piece and an old bottle that held medicines, or snake oil, from the past. It is one of those things that I found at a garage sale, paid a quarter and really never do anything with it.  Just stored it with other old things. 

Thanks for stopping by my post today.

It is Wednesday and I am posting late.......

Water that fell from the sky a few days ago.  I don't ever see birds drinking from this birdbath but I bet they do.

Sedum buds are a pleasing pattern to see.  I am sure that they will bloom without problem as they like dry weather.

Have a great day.  Thanks for stopping by my post.

The story about Iowa's corn........

When I cross my street to the east and walk through my neighbors yard I see the corn field.  It looks like it is doing well.  It really isn't.  It was planted early and did very well until it stopped raining and we reached over 100 degree temperatures for ten or eleven straight days.

The corn is short and yet we have received enough small rains that it isn't dead.  It looks like it is good condition.  It isn't.

There should be two big ears on the stalk.  The one actually is big but not the normal size.  The other one is so small. If there are kernels on it, the size is one fourth the normal ear size.

If every stalk has one small ear and another medium size ear I figure that the crop will be at least forty percent less or even fifty percent.

This is the visual clincher for the bad news. The corn is not filled out all the way to the top with kernels  and there are spaces in the rows.  The drought that we had was compared to the 1936 drought and it may seem bad but he difference that makes it not 1936 is the small rains that we have received.  It is keeping the foliage somewhat green even though the ears are so underdeveloped. Crop wise they will know by the harvest if it is just as bad or not.

Of course the corn was planted early so the harvest is going to be earlier.  I am seeing corn that is firing in some fields, which means it is stopping its growth and getting ready to shrivel up leaving dried leaves and the corn ear hanging down ready for harvest.

It is my last day of work as a janitor today.  It has been an interesting experience and an exhausting one.  We spent the past two days finishing up the hallway floors and getting things looking great for the start of the school year.  I am not sure when I will return as a substitute teacher.  At this time I know that I will have Wednesday off from any work.

Thanks for stopping by my post today.

Monday's Moments..........

The rains renewed the life of the dandelion. You can see how dry it is with the grass being dormant and just like in spring the dandelion is the first thing up and blooming.

The burning bush as a lot of leaves dried up and falling to the ground.  On the other side, one leaf things it is fall and has turned red already.

I took shots of the cornfield nest door and I was pleased to find the wild morning glories were blooming.  It was Saturday afternoon and they were still in bloom.  I have not caught pictures of the ones that I planted near my garden shed.

Thanks for stopping by today.

A School Going Back to School.......

I will be netting these fish in the next few days and will be returning them to their tank in the high school science room.  On a very hot day three weeks ago my water got so warm that it strained the fish and of course I lost the largest koi.  Too little of oxygen in the water.  I immediately put two aquarium bubblers into action and the rest of the fish survived.

Great Memories.........

Yellow Kitty

What a great girl she was to have as a pet.  We have had her for almost 18 years. She liked crawling up a ladder to get onto a roof. She would then peer down on the world with great joy.  She would attack Christmas decorations when she was younger and she made sure we kept her fed well. She was Button's favorite cat.  They were such best friends. She loved to lay on a lap and sleep.

We knew we were going to loose her the past few years as she was aging and failing a lot. She lost her hearing at the last and was needing a lot of care to keep her from wandering away from the yard. She did always make it back to the front door eventually when she would disappear at night.  She was ready to be fed and let us know about it.  She spent a lot of time in the basement in her basket or the dirty clothes basket as Barney was not a fan of cats.  She scratched his nose early when we brought Barney home and he stills has a mark on his nose from it today. 

Thanks Yellow Kitty for sharing your life with us.

Wednesday's Set of Colors........

Not a pretty sight.......

It is going to be a long week. Tuesday is in the middle of Monday and Wednesday but that is not close enough to Friday.  Thanks for stopping by today.

I mowed some grass.......

On Saturday I pulled out my new $25 mower and cut off some of the tall grass in my yard.  We still have patches like this in our yard but the areas along our streets where the spotty rains have drained its water to the side into my yard caused the grass to be four or five inches tall.

This is the sparse zinnia patch that I have watered every day to keep it alive.  I feel like I am begging them to stay alive in spite of the weather.

I do have some life on the flowers as you can see the perfect hole in the one petal eaten by an insect.

It is Monday and it is back to work today.  We are in a panic mode of getting all the floors finished, stage curtains hung, and the final detailing of certain rooms in their painting and cleaning.  We were polished up and cleaned up a little for registration day and it looked pretty good but we weren't done with things, we just had put all the machines and tools in closets so the parents would think it looked good.

All the equipment is all back out and in the halls being left there until all the jobs are done.  The discussion among the crew seemed to think that maybe the boss had an unrealistic list of things to get done so we are in priority mode of finishing up the absolute necessities. A lot of work was done this year and some things will have to be finished by the daily crew during the school year.  Two newly remodeled bathrooms, two shower room bathrooms, two water fountains, and a major cleaning of the stage are really noticeable projects.  The rest is the refined cleaning of floors and painting of walls that most people take for granted. My boss is a perfectionist with floors so I have learned about getting a military clean floor finish.  Do it again until it is down to the original surface and then wax it.

Needless to say, but I will say it........ I will be glad when I have finished my service next week.  It has been a good thing and a bad thing. I call it my memorable summer vacation of 2012.

Thanks for stopping by today.

Begonia Shine.......

Hunting for shots........

When there is a drought one has to find what is available.  It happens that the moss rose is doing well so here you have another orange number.  Things are pretty pathetic in the overall view so the macros cover up the problems in the garden.  Our little one fourth inch rain added some more moisture but there will be no rescuing anything that has already died back.

Another orange shot are these two tomatoes hiding behind the yellowing leaves.  I received a bag of tomatoes from a friend that lives a few blocks away from me.  The spent a lot of money on water and planted very early in the season so they had decent sized tomatoes.

My final finish for the day is my front porch planter.  These petunias have done well on the north side of the house in the shade.


We are headed to Osceola today to meet with my older brother Ron and his wife Julie.  She wanted to come back from Arizona and see her father who is in poor health.  It will be good to see them and we are eating out at the Lakeside Casino.  That means eating huge amounts of many kinds of foods as there is a great variety in which to choose.
We always have a good time with Ron and Julie and we spend a lot of time talking and laughing.  My brother is a whoot and likes to tease.  He also likes to make fun of himself and laugh at old age.

Thanks for stopping by my post today.

Friday's Surprise Lily......

The weekend is almost here.  Just get through the day of work and it is here.  Nothing planned but resting would be a good thing. Thanks for stopping by my post.

Thursday's Tidbits........

I watched a garden show over the winter that was sharing about saving seed from clematis.  I am watching this particular growth development and hope to get some seed from it later on in the season.  The warning from the gardener was that when you plant clematis seed that you won't get a reproduction of the parent plant but will get many different colors.

This is stamped on the side of my crockery.  Actually it is glaze and I really never looked at it before I photographed it.   It looks like the name is Ruckel's Stoneware.  I can't figure out what the one middle word was suppose to be.  It looks like it got smeared while the glaze was wet and then it was fired as is. I really don't know where I attained this particular piece but I had plants in it and now it is just sitting on my step with dirt in it.

One lone Blackeyed Susan is surviving our weather.  We missed a severe storm Wednesday evening and received very little moisture from the semi small storm that we had.  Light sprinkles is about the only thing I can see we had from all the warnings about storms.

Thursday and I am busy stripping wax from floors at school.  We are headed to the deadline and I wonder if we will make it.  I spend my days running a scrubber and wet vacing the wax up from the floors.  A floor scrubber is then run over it to get the terrazzo ready for polishing.

Thanks for stopping by my post today.