Sunday Stuff..........

The hostas have struggled the whole summer especially the young new ones.  The fall weather has given them a chance to perk up and enjoy the cool air.

The morning glories hang in there as they have escaped frost and freezing.  I was surprised to see one blooming out on the shed trellis in late afternoon.  It still is very dry and they are putting forth a few last blooms.

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by my post.

Late and Short Posting........

I never thought I was a fan of white flowers but I have a lot of fun with the macro shots of them.  The subtle value changes of the so many colors of white are great to see.

It was a busy Saturday and am glad the day is almost done.  A friend and his two boys came over to help me grub out a bunch of stray, volunteer malberry bushes along my alley way.  I want to be able to mow the whole are as it had gotten out of control the past five years.  I can now run a mower over the whole side of the lot and turn it back into a grassed area.  I will be sowing grass seed in the spot in the next few weeks.

 The two boys were 7 and 3 years in age and they were fun to have around while I was working with their dad.  They ate apples from the ones fallen on the ground and they collected things to take home with them.  I got a paring knife and helped them slice and eat the apples.  The little birds nest fascinated the youngest and he put it into his pile of things to take home. He also took home a baby garter snake in a paper cup along with a new tennis ball that I gave to the two boys.

Thanks for stopping by my post today.

Friday's Findings..............

It is a one spot in the middle photo.  The mum is small and most of them have not opened.  I did want to pick up the color of it to share even though it appears to be quite lonely.

It is taking a long time for this sedum to open up fully into bloom.  It turns a darker red once it does mature. A much needed rain would help out but nothing is forecasted.

The birch is now changing its color.   It is doing one stray branch at a time right now.  It is a great yellow when seen in the sun with all of the leaves have turned.

It is finally Friday.  It has only been a four day week for me but it still has seemed to be a long one.  I am curious if I will continue subbing for the injured teacher.  He will have the weekend to figure out if he can walk back into the classroom.  I suspect he will need a few more days to function even while he is in pain.  My own experience with broken ribs is that he will be gone most of next week.

We are looking at warmer weather for this next week and it will be welcomed.  With the severe heat of the summer, 80 degree days seems to be comfortable.  I don't have plans for the weekend but I have plenty of things to do.

Thanks for stopping by the post today.

Checking in today.........

My flower boxes on the side porch are showing some wear but they seem to be doing ok.  One of the planters has flattened flowers as I had placed a towel over them one night to protect them from frost. I found Tom Tom sleeping on  one of them the next morning leaving his body imprint among the flowers. He was really comfortable for the whole night.

It is time to collect seeds.  I normally store them in glass jars so I will have to find one and start filling it with seed.  I may buy a package of seed of one color for next year to see a purer variety of my choice. There are some fancy zinnia flowers that have been created.

The barberry bush is looking good right now with its red seeds and multi-colored leaves. I like this shrub but it doesn't seem to be such a vigorous grower for me.  I have a couple of them and one is much larger than the other.

The staff person who had a four wheeler accident will be released from the hospital today.  I will be interested in how soon he will be able to return to work. I don't think this is a very quick recovery type of injury.  I will sub for him the rest of the week and I will know by Monday how much longer I will be his sub.

The week is suppose to finish warm and also next week will bounce back to normal mild temperatures.  Thanks for stopping by my post.   Friday is coming.

Hey, it is Wednesday!

My birch is probably 25 years or more old now.  It is big and puts out a great show with its leaves and of course with its bark. The leaves usually turn yellow before they drop and that hasn't happened yet.  Fall has been early for some things but this tree knows its calendar and is going to play by the rules.

We didn't get a frost or freeze so the morning glories are stil putting out it's trumpet shaped blooms.

Being unemployed two days in a row gave me a four day weekend.  It was nice as I rested a lot and I also moved some of my iris.   I had iris that needed sunshine and I had iris that were just given to me from an associate at school.  The bag full of rhizomes was marked with suggested colors that they all may be.  They were from a bed that had all lavenders and light blues.  It may take a couple of years to see those new ones bloom but the work does payoff in the end.

Iris Last Spring

I am subbing today for a staff person who rolled his four wheeler.  It may be a while before all his ribs and collar bone are healed.  I don't know if I will be placed in his postion to sub for him long term but I am him today.

It will be another warmer day today.  I am appreciating the weather.  Once I lighted the pilot light on my furnace, it warmed up.  Thanks for stopping by today.

Tuesday's Things.........

The aronia berry bush keeps giving me great fall leaf color.  The bush was a short sprout when I first planted it and now it is about six feet tall.  Hopefully it will spread out  more and put out a lot of fruit.

I think it is in to stay.  I brought the hardy geranium in as there was a promised freeze warning.  It didn't freeze but I think I don't want to keep carrying it back and forth to the patio.  The sun was shinning just right when I took this shot.

I don't want to share the total story about my African violets but our city did some major changes to our water quality.  I lost almost half of my violets before I could figure out that a chemical was killing them.  I would think that same chemical would not be good for humans.  This violet survived and it is the first bloom I have had in a long time.

I still have all my new starts, sprouted leaves,  ready to plant.  I bought some special planting soil for them and some of these days when I get stuck inside because of bad weather or cold weather I will start to plant them into pots.  I have about seven or eight new starts and also have a few plants that need to be divided.  I  had a dozen violets and I bet when I regroup than I will have that many or more again.  I just am licking my wounds over the loss of so many violets and I will just get back at it.

I was unemployed for a couple of days but I am back now covering for a sick teacher. It sounds like it is a bad cold that is hitting a lot of the staff.

Thanks for stopping by today.

Feeding Time at the Feeder........

The cardinal couple succeeded in hatching one more youngster.  They had raised three earlier in the season and here is a female feeding the one new little one at the top.  It was getting late in the day so it was hard to get a good photo.  The female would eat a few seeds and then she would pick one up and feed it to the the young one. Eventually the mother flew off and the baby bird just sat there.  Once in a while it decided it could pick up its own seed.   I could tell it would prefer to be beak fed.

Thanks for stopping by this Monday.

Autumn......

The chokecherry tree starts off with green leaves in spring that turn to purple by late summer.  Then the red is the final color that it shows before they fall to the ground.

New buds and blooms are showing up on the carefree rose.  The blooms are a little wimpy because of the dry weather but the buds look great.

The predicted a freeze last night but it didn't happen.  I think 36 was our low temperature for the night. I still don't have the pilot lighted on the furnace and we are a little chilly.  I will go down the next couple of days and get it lighted.  I have an older furnace and sometimes the pilot goes out when the furnace isn't in use.  We have a couple of space heaters, electric that keeps the house somewhat warm.  It isn't warm enough but we will have a long heating season coming up soon.

I didn't get much of my outside work done yesterday but I will work on it the next few days.  We are to warm up outside so I can keep transplanting things.  I may wait to mow the yard until the leaves start to fall on the ground. I can mow some of them up rather than rake them.

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by my post today.

It is what it is.........

storage against the shed.

Friday...with few words.

I don't have a lot to say today.  I didn't get called into work today so I am doing projects inside at home until it warms up a little.  I have outside work that I want to do but I am not going to bundle up to work out there.  I think it will be warmer in the middle afternoon.

Thanks for stopping by today.

Thursday's Things........

I found these stella lilies trying to bloom again one more time.  The bug is wonderful as before I snapped the photo and didn't know the bug was in the picture.

The photo tells its own story.  I am thinking about putting a row of iris into this flower bed.  Iris like to be in the hot sun and this area is out in the open most of the day.

Some things just grow where they want even if you think you can keep it from happening.  The maple tree seed survived half of the summer growing through the wires of my  fencing material.  As you can see I tried to stop its growth and one leaf shot out anyway and now has fall color.

It is getting to be a long week but Friday is coming.  I am an associate again today with a different student than yesterday.  We have finished our homework and attended Algebra class already.  More things to come through the day.  I am looking forward to art class later this afternoon.  I think we will be grilling tonight as the weather is staying in the low 70's in the afternoon.  It is fall already even though the calendar says it will be a few more days.

Thanks for stopping by my post today.

Creative Level is Low Today........

A shot of an old birdhouse.  The hole is too small for any bird so I guess it is just a decorative item.  A student in shop had tossed it into the landfill bin and I rescued it.  I do think I had to do some altering of it to get to be more square and to be a stronger structure.

I am an associate today and a during one period a pe instructor.  We are playing volleyball. I will be a shadow to a student today who doesn't want me to follow him.  I will be a nice shadow but I will be watching.

Thanks for stopping by my post today.

Tuesday's Things......

When it gets cold the colors start to change on the leaves but there are a few things out there that put out their fall color in a different way. The redtwig dogwood puts out such a great red color on its branches.  The sedum finally put out it's full blooms of color and leaves turn bright yellow as they start to die.

 We had frost in the far northwest corner of the state and we are now cooling down more as the earth keeps tipping. I like the fresh air but I don't like the thought of a furnace running continually night and day for three months.  I have not lighted my pilot light for the furnace yet but will probably do so in the next couple of weeks.

I will be in the special education room again today at the high school level.  It is a different kind of job as kids and associates come and go with students all day.  Test giving ends up in my room for assistance in reading. Individualize teaching in Math or Reading takes place also.The room is like a second home for them which is a safety device to help students to be successful.

Thanks for stopping by my post today.

No, not a tombstone.......

In 1997 we had a huge windstorm and lost some large silver maple trees.  A walnut tree next door was lifted by it's roots and it lay on our lot.  My one old large silver maple lay on top of it from the opposite direction. I had two cars destroyed from that simple down draft as they wanted to call it.  It was a great mess and we spent days cutting and stacking wood thinking the town would come in to rescue us, taking it away.  Our neighboring town of Granger did that and helped the residence clean up in two days, hauling all of the limbs and debris away from the town and burning it.

Our town did not do that and we were left on our own to find various people to help with the removal.  Sometimes we were asked high prices to take away hayrack loads of limbs.  My neighbor Roy along with myself thought the town would rescue us so he brought this concrete base from his girls swingset over to the edge of my lot thinking the town was going to pick up the mess.
It is still sitting on my far northwest corner of my lot.

The girls have grown up now with Kathy who still lives next door having three girls of her own.  The youngest girls, twins, are in the third grade. Bernadine is the top girl's name and as you can see she ran out of room for her name. Bernadine was the older sister and she lives with her grandmother on the other end of town.  Roy who deposited the gravestone piece is now gone from Parkinson's disease.

I  have never addressed this concrete marvel and I don't think I want to try breaking it up into pieces. I should have done that when I was younger 10 years ago.

I seem to be growing my own birdseed.  It started to grow and I left it to see what kind of plant that it was.  I believe it will be millet.  The plant itself reminded me of a small corn plant.  I have a couple of these and I have left them to mature.

I give you a final finish with the last of the zinnias.  I will collect seed soon as the blooms are all becoming spent.

Thanks for stopping by my post today.

Sunday's Post

Tom Tom is waiting for his next free meal.  In the most part, he isn't hungry.  He wants to be petted and rubs against your leg to encourage you to do so.  He is tame but one does not pick him up nor do you try to put a flea collar on him.  Maybe when cold weather gets here he can be flea free.

We finished up the last of the fallen apples from our tree by making pie.  The apples are pretty bruised up or bug bitten but I peeled around many a flaw to get good apple slices for pie.  Della made two regular sized pies and one smaller one in an antique glass pie plate.  She froze one of them and baked the other two for our enjoyment.

I am the expert crispy maker.  I am still five years old and I get to roll out the leftover dough for the cinnamon and sugar. It is a great way to get to taste my wife's crust before the pie has cooled.

We have a second spring going on with the dandelions and my creeping bluebells. The main planting of these are being mowed down as they are all dead.  But over to the side these blooms are showing.

Thanks for stopping by my post today.

Cactus Shots.........

I have a new cactus in my collection of potted plants.  My neighbor was cutting her four foot high chandelier into pieces and wanted not to take the tall cactus back into her house for winter.

I shoved it into soil that was already in my Ruckel's stoneware.  It doesn't get drainage being planted in this but I will probably not water it very much to compensate for that.

Another view of the cactus.  It has sharp spines on the very edges so I will have to be careful with it. I like to bring them into the house and sit them in the spare room and ignore them.  It is too easy to overwater them.

Thanks for stopping by today.

Friday's Findings.......

I am posting an archived photo of the redtwig dogwood bush that sits on the corner of my property.  I am going to do it this year, trim it down to the ground.  Garden magazines show gardeners pruning them back annually.  Mine has taken over a garden area and I think maybe the cutting it back will make it less aggressive towards my iris and peony bushes.  I did dig up some of it in the spring and moved it but I need to slow it down or move everything around it.

It is the month to move iris and I sure hope I can get some of it done.  I have white iris that are in the shade that never bloom.  I have a nursery ring of dozens of iris given to me that didn't bloom this year because they are not in the sun enough time during the day.  I also have crowding going on in some beds along with rescue operations of iris in the advancing raspberry patch.  If I get a good couple of hours I can get a lot accomplished with these plants.

I had one oxalis that I planted outside and the heat totally cooked it alive.  I thought they were tough but I guess the lack of water is hard on them.  I have another planting of them crowded in a planter in the house.  Fortunately for me I can just move it to a larger pot and I saved it by not planting it outside.

My bird feeder needs some work as I didn't assemble it with long enough nails.  I do that at times by starting to build things and grab whatever size of nail that happens to be around for use.  As you can see the sparrows are getting a free meal.

The majority of phlox is dead in my garden but there are a couple of tough ones that seem to keep putting out their blooms.

I am back at school today working with special needs students and maybe doing a little tech work on the side in the afternoon.  I will be peeling apples again for another apple pie when I get home from school.  That is a good thing, to quote Martha Stewart, as my wife makes wonderful pie.

Our neighbor made a green tomato pie a few days ago and I got to sample that.  It was good but not one on them the top of my list. It treated the tomatoes as if they were apples and the green taste reminded me of gooseberry green.  We shared chicken and noodles with her last night and we supplied the mashed potatoes. It makes for a good meal except she eats very early in the afternoon rather than normal supper times.

Thanks for stopping by my post today.

Experimenting with Composition......

I had mentioned earlier that I was messing with the camera and relaxing out on the patio last Saturday.  I like to see how many different views of an object that I can take.  I like to try to get a composition that doesn't require me to crop the photo.  I am amazed how I can do that if I lean on my design  instinct.

I need to move on now to taking photos of my sedum which is in partial bloom.  I learn by doing as I snap pictures and I never ever thought that I would have such a great moss rose gardent this year sitting on my patio table.


Homecoming week at school and it is chaotic.  It is fun for the kids and a little unnerving for the staff.  We spent some creative hours yesterday making floats and posters.  They painted storefront windows uptown and the middle school got involved with decoration class room doors.

Friday is coming.  I have only a half day scheduled for tomorrow of work but that can change in a single phone call on Friday morning.  We had a soaking slight shower all night last night and now it has stopped.  Homecoming parade will be in dry weather and the game tomorrow night will be in cold temperatures.  Thanks for stopping by my blog today.