Sharing on Sunday........

The aronia berryies are thick on the branches.  There should be a lot of them in which we could make jelly.  The flavor isn't wonderful so you have to mix another berry with it to make it work.

The wild rose is still blooming.  I don't have many of them but when you have one there will be many more in the years to come.  The spread by their roots.

I like it when there is the promise of more buds to give me more blooms.  It is the best year for my iris this year since a long time All the ones that did survive the iris borer did do well.  I did loose quite a few but that stuff happens all the time when you garden.  There are no guarantees. I had planted three or four new ones but only one of them bloomed this year.Next  year should be a better year.

The row of newly planted peonies from the farm are still not blooming.  I keep thinking they are red ones but I don't know.  I did find another reddish pink one along the alley that these could look like when they finally open.  Maybe tomorrow the revelation will happen. 

The multi flora rose is always popping up out the ground from our very cold winters and it puts out new stems every single year. They are neat little roses as they look like a larger rose when you take close up shots of them.

This is probably three times the actual size of the rose.  The water on the rose was not placed there by me but by a natural sprinkle.  Some photographers spray water on their flower to make it look like it has rained.

I am glad it is Sunday and I hope we warm up today.  It seems so strange to be this cold this late in spring.  A gardener on television said that a lot of people are putting their gardens in at the late time of June. He said it really didn't matter as planting in June sometimes gives the best gardens.  I have all the tomato plants in now that I plan to put in.  I planted zinnias in one area a couple of days ago and I may dig another place to grow them.  I have sunflowers to plant and my morning glories are already in the ground.  Now we just wait for more sunshine and less cold breezes from the north.  

I hope everyone has a great day today.  Thanks for stopping in today.

Continual Change........

As the globe allium fades away the peony takes over making a good showing with the rich red color. The allium had self seeded in this area of the garden popping up all around the peony.

While digging around the can goods yesterday I found an ear of corn that worked itself to the back of the shelf.  I must have set it on the shelf during the winter to be taken outside. In the rush of things I put cans of vegetables and soup around it until it migrated to the back of the pack.  In the winter the corn would not last one day but now with all the other things for squirrels to eat it has stood for a couple of days untouched.

My spiderwort was protected from the big dog this year with a wire barrier so I am going to have blooms.  This is an early one that is showing right now.  I find it to be a wimpy plant as it tends to sag to the ground where I have it planted.  I have seen neighbors who have it in the full hot sun that makes it into a big straight standing plant.

The mock orange bush is putting out great fragrance at this time of the year.  It is just begging to bloom on one side of the bush so I will have a lot more blooms this week. It does get so many blooms that you can smell it from afar.

The baby starlings appear to be larger than their mother but they still would like to be mom fed.  I guess the feathers will sleek down to become close fitting black feathers eventually.  We have two different sizes of baby starlings out there as the smaller ones than this are on the ground waiting for handouts.  These larger one will fly to the feeder and look for a seed by themselves if mom or dad won't feed them.  I was watching a mom pull seeds out of the suet yesterday and feeding them to the young birds like this one on the lawn chair.

It is Saturday and we are damp and cold. The furnace probably has been on but it won't have to be much longer.  We will not get to warm today but Sunday is suppose to be warmer.  I hope all have a great weekend.

Too Many Shots........

I become a garden blog for a few months as we break away from our winter and the rainy season too. The red peonies are just now blooming.  They have always bloomed a little later than the others.  This was one plant I inherited from my mom and grandmother.  Grandma Brooks had this peony at her house when she bought it in Murray, Iowa back in the 60's.  I remember my mom being sure that I had a planting of it when I bought my house in the late 70's.  I have three bushes of it and it does like to show off with all of its deep red color.

This old fashion peony was already on the property when I moved here in the late 70's.  I moved a lot of the ones that were established along the driveway and I now have a row of it along the alley way.  My last plantings came from the farm and in the next few days I will see them bloom for their first time since I planted them three years ago.

This light pink one is a very old fashioned variety of peony.  I mention every year that I don't have a pure white peony and I didn't do anything about it.  Across the street I will have a start this summer for sure.  The neighbors have a row of a dozen white ones blooming right now.

I was planting dahlias yesterday afternoon in my newer garden area where I had removed the very large spreading juniper.  I had dug a few holes and planted some of the ones that I had purchase when I heard a soft crashing sound to my right.  To my surprise a new baby squirrel dropped from the sky landing in a barberry. It apparently had lost its footing on the pine tree above me and the bush was a prefect cushion for it to land.  It scampered very quickly to the pine tree  and up it ran.

I blogged earlier about our 5 new baby squirrels and they are just very busy exploring the whole neighborhood.  I can see them across the street just running and jumping into all the different trees. I can see they are testing gravity in real life also as it had fallen not six feet away from me.  I have seen adult squirrels drop out of trees on purpose but they land on their feet.  This little one will probably get that figured out too.

One last flower photo for the day.  I am so glad that I didn't loose this one to the iris borers.  It was later blooming than the others so I wasn't sure, or didn't remember what it was.  The real life iris is a little deeper and richer in color than what the camera picks up.  I like the added subtle ruffles on the edges of the bottom petals.

It is a cloudy day here right now but it will have to be sunny to warm up to 82 degrees this afternoon.  I need to get zinnia's into the ground and also I need to plant some old flower seed that I found just yesterday.  Small bags of different kinds of flower seeds  were given to me by my cactus lady friend. I don't remember how long that I have had them but I am betting they are still viable. I think there is a black hollyhock set of seeds also.  It is a little cool out there but I will venture out anyway.  I didn't have any tilling done this year so it will be digging with the spade in the spots that I want to plant.   Thanks for stopping in today and have a great Friday, or the best that you can anyway.

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

Mother squirrel is out checking things out as her five new young ones are chasing each other all over the area. We were doing dishes after supper and my wife looked out seeing 5 little squirrels chasing each other  up  and down and around a tree.  They stayed in single file as that is what squirrels do.

The home for them is in this very old silver maple tree. The five had scampered up the street and sidewalks and then came back to be where they belonged.  I don't know if it was the first time they were ever out but it was the first time we had seen them.

I don't think I caught any totally focused shots while I was out there trying to take photos. They were jumping and running and were so happy to be out.  If there had been any danger I wonder if the mother would call them back into the holes of the tree.

I had received starts of this flag iris from a neighbor.  It rarely bloomed so I moved then during the summer last year.  I planted them in two places and they bloomed at each location.

I was forced to use the alley a few days back because of culverts being replaced and I saw a dark blue flag iris of my neighbors.  It was so overgrown with plants and their were hundreds of flowers on them. They were the same color of the ones that I have that don't bloom.  I will be moving my dark blue ones in a week or so to a new location.  I have two batches of it that will find more sunlight.  I guess I should plant them next to the light blue ones.

Potentilla were the rage in landscaping when I first bought this house.  They were being planted in all the new landscapes of new homes.  They are not doing that anymore as Iowa really is a little too warm for them.  Also they need lots of water.  This one of mine looks great as the rains have really encouraged it.  When we move into the hot days of summer it won't looks so great. Our weather is just too hard on privets as they keep being frozen down and come up from the roots each spring.  That is not a good looking shrub.







More chores to do today.  I can finish mowing my yard today as we won't have rain until late today.  Unfortunately I have some yard that is about ready to be mowed again.  When I am not working at school I can start mowing it in one or two days in a row instead of doing it in three rounds. We are moving into our hotter days now with the 80's F. predicted in a few days in a row.  I am moving plants outside now making way for the cockatiels to get moved back into the east window.  They really like watching all that is going on out there. They watch the sunrise and see the dogs and people walking by them. When it starts to go dark they do their evening sounds to close out the day.

  I hope all my blog friends are safe from flooding and are doing well.  Thanks for stopping in today.

Middle of the Week........

Compliments of Picasa I share a photo of the three in a row iris.  The one on the right is a little weathered and the photographer has to pull some of the petals up to put it back into shape.  Picasa puts the blur on things as the original is all in focus. These blooms survived a the rains.

The bloom watch is on as the majority of my peonies have not bloomed but they look like they could pop open at any time.

This is the last of my cemetery iris to bloom.  It is small and has some details that remind me of the yellow and brown ones. The pattern on the bottom petals  isn't that much different than the others. I can't remember where I got this and my wife said probably from a cemetery.  It took it a lot of years to bloom as I don't remember even collecting it. I think it was planted under a tree and I just moved it out into the open a couple of years ago.

This is so great of a year for hostas.  All of my newer transplants are getting big and the parent plants are huge.  I keep putting new  starts of this one all over the property as I have so many plain green ones.

It is Wednesday and the projects are lined up for me to do.  I will finish mowing the last half of the yard this morning as it has finally stopped raining.  It will pick up raining again tomorrow.  We have a couple of errands to run today and I am free from school now.  It is a great feeling to know that they won't be calling.  With our weather straightening out a little I can maybe get our yard cleaned up.  Weeds love the rains and tree branches love to stretch out in this kind of weather.  I hope all are well and safe today.  Thanks for stopping by my blog.

Looking up the Street.....

This is our view as we look west up the street.  Main street is up the way west. Believe it or not it isn't raining at that rare moment that I took the shot. It just does not want to stop raining.

The peonies of old are blooming right now.  These peony bushes have their buds laying on the ground because of all of the rain. It is suppose to stop raining Wednesday.  I still have red peonies yet to bloom.

I also shared this iris on my Photo a Day blog.  It is named Superstition and sold as a black iris.  As you can see with a lot of light it doesn't seem to be very black.  I bought this iris for my parents and gave them two rhizomes of it and I kept the other.  When I closed down the house I brought some more of it back with me to our property. If we ever move I will have to pot up a lot of special plants and take them with us.

The "William Baffin" rose is a survivor as it is in bloom already this spring.  I don't like the looks of things on the leaves as too much rain can cause that.  I was surprised to see this in bloom as I had not been in the area of the rose for quite some time.  I have a pile of tires covered with a tarp that I need to recycle for my brother in law.  It will take some work as they all have rims on them and I will have to get the rubber off the rim.

The young female cardinal is busy breaking up the sunflower seeds.  She stayed and ate her meal on the feeder unlike the adults who grab a seed and go elsewhere to open it. I guess she was feeling quite safe.

School is out today and I won't be working.  I will be facing the summer without work at this time as I don't think there is a job out there that i want to do.  It will be nice to have the summer off and it would be nice if I don't have to return in the fall.  We have errands to run this morning and will be back in the afternoon.  I am so tired of our weather but it is so great that we are not out of water.  I hope all are safe out there in all those flooding states.  Thank you for stopping by today. 

Memorial Day..........

Pictures many times do not have a story but this one just happens to have one. It really isn't a story as each item identifies an activity.  All of the arrangement was unplanned. The trowel just happens to be right where I left it.  I need to put it away but it is ready will I do the next thing in the garden. The metal staples are left out from being used to hold down the Christmas decorations of the wire deer sculptures.  Yes, I need to put them away. The nails are ones that I picked up from the ground and sidewalk.  They are square nails from  the siding job I did last summer.  The old cedar siding that I removed from the house, 100 plus years old, were dropped to the ground when they were being removed.  I pick them up when I see them. The shelf itself is a rusted one, old, and it needs a new coat of rustoleum paint.

The flowers are the ones I found on the ground as the wind and continuous rain has helped to break off the stalks of the iris.  It is a bad thing that they break off but a good thing to take them into a house and make an arrangement of them in a vase.

The good thing also about the flowers being brought into the house is the photographic opportunity I have in a controlled situation.  The majority of the peonies have not bloomed yet and I am glad.  We have had so much rain that they would all be on the ground and would be destroyed if they were opened.

I keep working with my new camera to get the macro to work for me.  I found these yellow blooms sticking up out the hostas.  It  don't know the plant but I bet it is one of the seeds from the birdseed that fell from the feeder. The leaf shape reminds me of a thistle plant and yet I don't think it acts like a thistle.

This is one of my favorites of the older iris variety.  I think I need to move it as it just doesn't put out many stalks of flowers where it is presently growing.  I have found the iris are doing well next to the south side of the house so I will put a rhizome of it there after this stops blooming.  The pattern on the leaves of white on blue reminds me a lot of the brown and yellow iris. 

This one does not have the white lining on its lower petals like the one above has.  I didn't loose any of the old fashioned iris plants from iris borers but I will treat the area again this spring anyway. 

It is Memorial Day today.  I wrote a diddy on my Photo a Day blog about the holiday so I won't rewrite it here today.  We have had rains all night but this day looks like we will have some sun.  The clouds are sticking around but there are burst of sun coming through once in a while. I have mowing to do but it can wait until tomorrow.  I just didn't finish the job on Saturday as I was tired.  I remember now that last year I broke it up into two days of mowing, but usually I want to do it in a two day period, one right after the other.  Have a good day this day and thanks for stopping by.

Sunday Rains.....

The youngster bird is growing.  He isn't quite adult size but he is getting pretty close to it. His sister ia at the bottom of this blog and she too is almost full grown too.

The patterns of color compete with the most beautiful part of iris with the shapes of the form of the flower.  All flowers are my favorites but iris are a fascinating flower.

I worked out in the orchard area yesterday carrying a years worth of dead limbs and sticks to the burn pile.  I had to walk way around these blooms to keep from damaging them.  I did loose one once as I took over an old lilac branch.  It tore up all of the parts of the flower. It was nice to get my wood pile removed so I can mow the entire orchard area now.

While checking out a new garden area, I look down and see I did plant a hosta in the garden here.  I don't remember putting it there but is looks small but very healthy.  It has all summer to get bigger.  Our rains for the day will make it grow. I am glad I move things around as I do keep increasing the plants in the gardens.

The sister to the male cardinal at the top of the blog is enjoying the new batch of seed on the tray.  She is young and doesn't have the fear that a full grown bird has.  She stayed five minutes or more at the feeder picking at the seed pile.

It is a rainy day and promises to give a good dose of water.  We are grateful to not be in a drought anymore. I don't like the dark days but it gives me time to rest up before I go out and finish my mowing. I have so much weeding and mowing to get at that I will be busy for a couple of weeks straight. My tomato plants have all lived that I planted outside and yesterday I put out some cherry tomato plants into a pot for growing on the patio.  Warm sunshine will be welcomed by all of the plants and summer is coming along soon. It will be a typical Sunday around here and this afternoon we will be home.  Thanks for stopping by today. 

Saturday's Show......

The drought took out most all of my wild roses.  I spent a lot of time cutting back dead stems and taking them to be burned. This is the first that I have of any blooms for two years.  I know from experience that the two or three stalks of wild rose will again rear their heads and spread all over the garden. It is early in the season for them so I am hoping for a better photo of the blooms.

This new iris is not of the larger variety of iris.  In real life the pink is almost a brown pink or the color looks dirty.  I like the blues and oranges on the petals but as far as the color goes, I have to coax it to look better by editing it with photoshop. I have the card that came with this rhizome  and will have to look at its pedigree discription. 

Another one of my cemetery iris is open.  I think that I only have one stalk of buds so I will be getting as many shots as I can before they go bad from rain or wind. I posted the brown and yellow iris on my Photo a Day today.  Check it out if you want by clicking the link.

I am excited to see the height of the bleeding heart plant.  I thought maybe I had a dwarfed variety of it but it is getting taller like the one I remembered back when I lived on the farm. I am revealing with this photo all my grass and stuff that needs to be weeded in the  background.  I am home for good from school so I can start hitting the gardens everyday.  I physically can not go out and work for long days any more but an hour or so in the yard each day will gradually change the looks out there.   I mowed this morning and didn't finish.  Maybe Monday I can hit the rest of it. My neighbor has a new push mower and he graciously mowed some of my fence row next to his yard which helped me out a lot. It is so nice to have lots of rain to make things become to green and big. I mowed the back yard for Button this morning so he can get around back there.  I don't think he actually knows what I did but the jungle is gone and he does like that.

A three day weekend is upon us.  I know that we have no plans at this point but maybe we will be spontaneous.  I need down time from school and that should last all summer for sure.   Thanks to all of you who stop by my posting.

Lush and Green......

It really doesn't look like it as Picasa has made a black and white of my green photo.  I was surprised they picked that particular one to turn to black and white.

It really is lush and green out there.  My problem is that I haven't had time to mow or weed anywhere on the property.  I am sure it is giving a couple of my neighbors nightmares. I guess when school gets done I can start and chip away at it all. 

I also really haven't had much time to write a blog today.  i will leave things as is with pictures and with few words. It is the last day of school and I will be glad of it to be done.  Thank you for stopping by today.