A Muddled Up Monday..........

This is really a four seasons shot of my neighbors back alley drive.  The green grass from spring is still there along with the lilac shrub in the foreground.  The boat is the summer thrill for them and the specks of leaves show that fall is on its way.   The yellow snow blade will be used on the mower to push away the snow.  I also see a martin house in the backyard but I am not certain that they ever had martins move into the house.

The stray phlox that come up in strange places in the yard seem to be behind in the season.  These blooms are showing up around an old clothesline pole that is crowded with wild roses.  The have poked through and bloom in spite of its crowded
location.

A transplanted iris is doing well in its new location.  I don't have a clue what color it will be but it has really grown since I put it here.  Most all of my iris survived their moves.  A few of the smaller ones are struggling but they do look green and alive.  I have trouble planting them as I know they are not suppose to be buried in the ground but placed emerging from the surface of the soil.  The tiny rhizomes really needed to grow bigger to establish themselves in the soil correctly so they may have been planted too deeply.

I have an idea for a different location for morning glories.  The north side of the shed is working but I think morning sun would be more helpful to grow them.  I know of another vine that I would like to grow here and will be looking for seed this next spring to put in place of the glories.

There are still many buds on the vine next to the white and blue flowers but I wonder how long the vines will last in order for them to bloom.

I opted not to work today in order to replace my drain pipe in the kitchen.  I messed too many days to get the 50 plus year old set of pipes to properly work.  I can probably get a whole new set of plastic drain pipe in there in a couple of hours and remove the old pipe later.  The cast iron is too rusted out that I can't get all the kinky jointed drain parts to clean out for full, fast draining.  I am hoping that one trip to the Ace Hardware will get me on the way to getting the job done.  That means I might have one or two more trips after that but hopefully I can do it just one trip. 

Our weather is good today and it would be nice to get out and work on my siding project.  Maybe this afternoon.  The buying of siding and paint has been a nightmare or humorous joke.  It depends on how I look at it.  Each day that I try to buy paint something comes up.  On Saturday the paint store that carries our color records and kind of paint close at noon and a customer coming to pick up their framing on Saturday required us to stay home and hope we could still get to the paint store before noon,  We of course waited all morning and they still did not come for the pick up by noon.  They never came at all. 

I went to buy siding on Saturday instead and the store doesn't carry the width of siding that I can put into my car. The internet shows they carry 6 inch wide siding and I can slide 8 foot pieces 6 inch wide into the trunk through the flapped doors of the back seat and into the front gear shift area.  The flapped doors allow people with ski's to put them into the trunk and up into the back seat.  A twelve inch piece which I could cut into two 6 inch pieces when I would get it home won't fit between the front car seats. I can order 6 inch boards and wait a week and then pay them $40 for the different sized order.  So on my free day, Saturday, I did not buy paint and I did not buy siding.

As I whine about things the blogging helps me to figure out new solutions to the siding problem.  I won't share that now but I think I have it figured out. 

I am glad our weather is looking and feeling more normal and that the house does get warmed up enough to run the air.  I just got the furnace thermostat working and now it is too warm for it.  That is a great thing.   I will spend the morning in the crawl space now and will hope to be feeling good about finishing that job before I return tomorrow.  I hope all is well with my blogging friends and thanks for stopping by today.