Good Morning Sunshine......

In the summer when it isn't cold,  I can walk across the street onto the neighbor's property and take a few snaps.  It won't have the suburbia (small town houses) foreground in it if I would do that.

A bed of field lilies under the apple tree seems like a good thing but they rarely bloom.  The shade of the tree prevents it but the foliage around the base does look good.  Apple trees are not yet budded so we still are not far into spring yet.

Healthy iris makes me happy when I see it. I moved a lot of iris last summer and I think that everything survived. I will be interested is seeing what will bloom. My old fashion iris are coming on strong.  I just remembered that I had moved a lot of hybrid white iris when the city started on the street project last spring.  I don't remember where I planted the three sections of it but I will share photos of white iris when they bloom.

I had questions from those who live in the far north of this world, if these really were blooming outside right now.  Yes they are.  The brick inside corner of the school building in in direct sunlight most of the day and the greenhouse effect makes them bloom very early.  My daffodils at my home are about 5 inches tall in leaves and I won't have buds for another couple of weeks.  There is a neighbor near us that has their bulbs planted directly under the clothes dry vent.  It warms the soil and the daffodils are in full bloom. The flowering trees are maybe budded now but it won't be tree blossom time for a few weeks either.  My parents home was in southern Iowa and I bet their daffodils are already bloomed and spent by now.  The difference in temps, the zones, really do vary up and down the whole state of Iowa.  Northern Iowa had a snow storm the past few days and we did not have it.

I received a new mug for my birthday today.  I enjoy them and pick different ones each day in which to drink coffee. The red on this mug is one of my favorite glaze colors.

We have not seen the movie but I am pleased to see Snoopy has a girlfriend to share company with him. The meaning of the mug from my wife is describing what is going to happen after this school year.  I am going to stop working at school after this school year. I will return for a 6 week period for a woman's pregnancy leave and then I am done.  Being closer to 70 now than to 60 I know it is time to follow new paths in my life.  We both are ready to fall into a more sane kind of retirement. We both know that "life happens when you start making plans" but removing the school work element out of the picture will helps us to see things in a different light.

I found an agapanthus bloom at the botanical center and it was one single stem of the plant in a red clay pot.  I have two large containers of leaves of this plant which means I could individually plant 30 or 40 of these in clay pots. I have seen mine bloom only once but they do survive the winter in my basement quite well.  It is a plant you see in California a lot of times.  I have seen them in landscapes during NCIS: L.A. many times. I am going to replant some of them and thin out the pot of them soon.


Thank you stopping by today.  We are headed to Olive Garden for afternoon lunch and I will be eating cake tonight for my birthday.  I wish every one to have a great day.

Now that I am a year older I may have more typing errors.  I have had to return to this one blog three time to get the word "tonight" spelled correctly.  I am a little blurry eyed this morning so I will return later in the day to see if there are any other corrections to be made.