A Preview of my Surprise.........

I was going to replant this into a larger container and did not get it done.  I guess it likes to be crowded in a pot. Future shots will be revealed on my Photo a Day as well as on this blog.

I am home today and have a lot of things to get done. I don't know where to start but I will stay inside while it warms up outside.  I wasn't expecting today off and yet I may be off all week by the way things look with the school schedule for the next couple of days.  No school Friday so I my end up with a five day weekend.  Thanks for stopping by today.

Granite........

This is a large rock in my garden.  I should do plantings around it but I never have.  It is so large and the color is so great that I don't want the plants to cover it with foliage.  The curiosity of this rock is that it is granite.  We don't have granite in Iowa.  We have granite tombstones everywhere but that is shipped in. I don't believe the glacier brought it to Iowa as it seems to be too large for the glaciers' movement to carry.

Anyway, my memories  of this rock are gone.  I don't know where it came from in respect to the 36 years that I have lived here.  I didn't put it into a trunk of a car to bring it home but maybe I did.  I am thinking that I got it from my dad when he was living in town in southern Iowa .  Where would he have found it?

I guess I will never know the history of the rock. Thanks for stopping by my post today.

Safe Inside......

I brought my planter inside for the winter.  I know that the inside weather won't keep them looking fresh but for now they are going to be enjoyed.  When they start to get sad looking from the heating system I will move them upstairs into a cooler spare room.

I  had to repot this set of plants as they had out grown their six inch container.  I am thinking sansevieria is the correct name of the plant.

I am a tech guy today to help get some work caught up for the Tech Coordinator.  It is a busy day as I travel to different locations to check, correct, install and reinstall things that have problems.  I have some computers that take a couple of hours to up grade their systems.  I try to do other work while I sit with them doing their thing.  Thanks for stopping by this Monday.

Wood and rocks.........and other things.

I think the birch tree is one of my favorite trees.  This one is probably 30 years old now.  I planted it as a small twig and look at it now.  I like the bark especially of this tree but I like also the way the branches twist and turn and  sag down.

I blogged recently about my old kitchen.  I mentioned that it had a flagstone foundation. It is the only part of the house that has flagstone.  Someone who owned the house before me patched the cracks to help reduce the air flow into the crawl space.  From the inside of the foundation it is rustic and no spaces are filled with concrete.  It looks really crude and rustic.

My house was lifted in the 40's and a basement was put under it.  The basement thus is younger than the house.  It is made up of red ceramic block.  I really don't have to go to Living History Farms to see old buildings as we live in an old building with a lot of history.

I got rid of my three piles of garden waste and limbs and weeds.  We are allowed to burn them for the month of October and into November.   It took me about two hours of burning in my fire ring.  I save fallen limbs and sucker trees that I trim all summer in piles.  It gets kind of ugly but once I have cleared it things look better.

We also babysat our neighbor's Terrier yesterday.  We just had to go over and check on her but she was so glad to have company.  We went over about four different times.

It is cold enough for a winter jacket now.  I am not ready for it but I can't do much about it.  I wore a parka to work in while outside as I don't like heavy jackets when I am working.  The orchard is all cleared and I could mow it but it wouldn't be bad if I don't get to it.  I hope you have a great Sunday.  Thanks for stopping by my post today.

Seeing red........

Burning Bush

The last few leaves hanging onto the lower branch.  All the rest are gone. I have enjoyed the color it has put out this year.

The last few leaves on this volunteer vine that is climbing up the side of my house.  The vine is now gone so that it won't take over the whole backside of my kitchen.  Can you see the age of the 108 year old siding.  They will be eventually replaced but not this fall.

One lone leaf sat among the mums.  It looks like I placed it there but I did not.  Have a good weekend. Thanks for stopping by today.

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

The neighbor's cat came for a visit.  She is a young kitten and when I first saw her all I could see was her tail flipping back and forth in the foliage.  I almost thought it was our Yellow Kitty but I knew she was gone.

The spirea bush puts out a nice pattern of color.  I don't think I have ever noticed its leaves changing color until this year. I really need to trim this particular shrub back as it has died out a lot from the drought.  I would like to start it over with a more uniform shape.

The hostas continue top put out patterns of design even in their declining life time. By next week they should be gone.

The short rains of last weekend gave me more even sets of blooms on the mums. The actual show of these flowers were minimal this year but they will be back next year.

I am glad it is Friday. The cold weather is here.  Thanks for stopping by my post.  By the way, I have forgot to mention the news in our family.  I did announce it on Facebook but didn't mention it on my blogs. I am going to be a Grandpa for the first time in March.  The kids in Chicago are expecting a baby in the early part of March. They surprised us with the news a few weeks back.

Thanks for stopping by my blog today.

Thursday's Things.......

I was able to get things potted up to bring into the house.  I also placed some indoor plants into larger containers. The three on the left all needed to be moved up to a bigger size flowerpot.  I am saving some of the geraniums and they are individually potted.

I placed this mother-in-law tongue plant into this ceramic pot.  We had received to pot with Easter lilies in it a few years back.  I thought the container looked good with this old fashion plant.

I didn't work yesterday so I did get a lot of work done outside.  I still need to address some leaves and also a couple of piles of brush to be burned.  It can freeze Thursday night and I have every living plant in the house that I wanted to save.  I even have most everything in the basement now ready for winter weather.

We were warm Wednesday. It seemed like a summer day with 81 degrees F. and the gentle breeze kept the heat moving. We will move into cold weather for the next few days with freezing temperatures at night.  That will help to dry up the leaves and make it easier for me to mow them.

I will be in the Special Education room for the next two days serving as the lead teacher.  The aids in the room are so great to work with and they help to keep me on schedule with the busy movements of the students coming and going to classes.  Thanks for stopping by my post today.

One.........

Thanks..........for stopping by.

Two for Tuesday........

I purchased the ivy plant for my Dad back in the 70's. He had built a small shed on the lot of his new house in town and placed a trellis porch roof over the front of it.  The ivy grew all over the ground and up the tree nearby. It also grew up the side of the shed but never on the trellis.  Before I sold the property, I dug up some of it and brought it home to my garden shed.  It is doing well but has not climbed my trellis after two years.  Maybe next year I will do some forcing of it by place ties on some loose ends of the vine on the verticals of my tellis.

The fallen apple has a lot of worm holes in it so I have left it there for the squirrels to eat.  As you can see the creeping Charlie is doing well.

The drought has caused my burning bush to be more brown than red.  It still looks good but I remember how red it is suppose to be during normal times.

It is Tuesday and I am a tech guy today.  Computers to install and programs to install in computer labs are two of the things I will be doing.  Thanks for stopping by today.

In Case You Had Been Looking For Me.......

I am back!

Someone had figured out a way to get into my favorites list and add there blogs into my list.  I could not delete them because I had never selected them. They were not in my main menu of my account.  Anyway, right after I had done my blogs this morning, blogspot shut me down. They had recognize that an outsider was working in my account unauthorized.

I had to give them a cell number that would call my voice mail and they gave me a verification number to reset my blogs.  They promised that they would not give out the number but I am not ever going to be sure about that. It was disheartening to read that I had been deleted but fortunately they have a great memory storage area as all is back as it was.

I am glad to be back!

Mondays Are Always A Shock To The System......

One of my jobs yet to do is to pot up some of these begonias and some impatiens plants to keep over the winter.  Maybe today it will be done.  I also have to repot a large number of African violtet starts and repot a mother-in-law's tongue plant.  It will be done but not all of it today.

It is a little blurry but I was surprised to find the one small zinnia trying to catch up with the season.  I was going to  mow them down but I will wait for a while as there are two plants putting out blooms. I thought the contrast between the live and the dead was great on this shot.

I posted on my "Photo a Day" blog a similar picture of this cat.  My neighbor's feral cat was sleeping in the bushes.  She is semi tame, as she probably was born in their house, but she is an outside cat most of the time now. They find shelter in the garage as well as are fed in there too.

I am teaching in the high school math room today.  One can not make math entertaining.  I will have to work hard just to get them to do their work.  The one good thing is that the students want to hurry to get their assignments done so they can pull out their computers and check their mail.

Have a good Monday and thanks for stopping by today.

Yellow, Yellow and Red......

We are going to have a warm fall day.  It will be nice to return to that and see the sun shining.  Thanks for stopping by my post today.

The Backyard In Decline.........

The viburnum in spring by the blue door.  

Next to the patio, near the blue door the drought didn't keep these plants from growing and some of them blooming.

July 

It is the middle of October and the the reality of fall is evident.  The ditch lilies area about gone and the hostas are seeing their last days. I want the leaves to stay on the ground on the garden areas but I do need to cut back the phlox stems. I am hoping to get my things on the patio put away this weekend.  That will happen if it quits misting,  the ground dries up some and if the temperatures get warmer.

Thanks for stopping by my blog today.

Checking in........late.

The birch bark reflects the sun in the west.  The leaves are now all gone as the rain and strong winds sent the remaining leaves to the ground.  It is too wet now to rake so I will wait for dry weather to deal with that job.  I will probably mow and mulch them.

This a different view of our house that I have never posted before now.  I shot this photo west of the house looking towards the kitchen of our house.  You can see the neighbor's brown roof in the background.

The kitchen of the house was built as an addition to the main house so the stove heat could stay out of the main part of the house. The doorway from the dining room to the kitchen is 9 inches or more thick so the original kitchen must have been in one of the other rooms of the house. They were called summer kitchens. The kitchen itself still sits on a flagstone foundation.  The original stove in the house was a woodburner.  One can see the outline of the brick chimney that was built on the outside of the structure to vent  the smoke.  The outline shows clearly on the siding as that is the original cedar siding.  I have not replaced it.   I have an old photo of the kitchen when the chimney was still standing.

When I remodeled the house and added an art gallery to the left of the kitchen I opened up a 10 foot doorway on that wall.  There had been a door that had been covered up.  The door was the exact size as the one on the oposite wall that we still use today. So when the kitchen got too warm they opened both doors, north and south, to cool the kitchen.  I am sure that canning time was a hot time of the year and they needed to open the two doors and expose the screen doors to cool the room and keep the flies outside.

Memories of the knockout rose that was the last bloom is shown out on the deck.  Fall can be a time of loss for blooms but spring will be coming.  I hope it isn't a long winter.

Thanks for stopping by today.

Rain Can Be A Good Thing........

Because of the small showers a week ago we can now enjoy these blooms.  Today it is raining again and any moisture we can receive would be great.  We have no submoisture in the ground.  This would be a good time to pick up new cheap mums from the stores.  I would like some different colors in my garden.

These fast growing trees are a taking over  an area in my orchard.  I like that I have shade but I think that they will eventually die early in their lives.  They are a soft wood but have not been effected by the storms in our area.  They are like popular trees but they are the cheaper version.

My volunteer vine is turning nicely for fall.  You can see the old siding on this house needs a fresh coat of paint.  I will have to trim the vine down soon so it doesn't come back and grow over my head.

In my efforts to keep the geraniums alive I have also kept these petunias alive.  I brought the planter inside to keep them from freezing and the petunias think it is second spring now that they are back outside.

I am back at school today being a sub for the high school history teacher.  They have  lot of busy work and research to do today so I don't have to actually teach all day.  Somedays I do have to really work the floor and feed information into students' minds but not today.

Thanks for stopping by my post today.

The Colors of Fall..........

Hostas that are in protected areas are staying strong through the cooler weather. They are putting out great color just like the trees.

The cold nights have damaged a lot of things. We were warm yesterday but cold winds and rain is predicted for today and tomorrow.  We really need the rain.

The natural colors of the hydrangea are showing now before they dry up for winter.

Our one inch rain last week has helped these mums to bloom.  I didn't think I was ever going to see a good bloom from them.

I am tired today and do not have to go to work today.  That is good timing on my part.  I have some odd jobs to do and also molding to put up my the neighbor's kitchen.  It is a tiny kitchen so don't think that it is a big job.  I have figured that I only have to cut two sets of mitered corners for the room as the rest requires straight cuts.  That job is almost done.

Thanks for stopping by my post today.

Front and Back View......

The back side of these red maple leaves looks like a grey whitish color. The grass is very green right now as the rains have helped to revive the yard.

Another one of my sunset photos taken almost a week ago.  We are noticing the shorter days as our evenings start so early and the sunrise doesn't happen until 7:37 in the morning.  
I am back at school today being a music teacher.  Actually I could sing with them but I don't really sing that well.  They will all have a study hall with me as the music teacher.

Thanks for stopping by my blog today.

Aww Shucks or All Shucks........

The corn is gone leaving the shucks and the corn cobs laying on the ground.  The farmer will soon come along and work the leftover material back into the ground.

 The neighboring landowner also has their corn picked.  You can see corn stalks all the way to the horizon.

It is Monday and it seems to be a good day for me.  I appreciate you stopping in to see my sights and read my ramblings.  Have a good day.