Tooooooosday Morning......

As much as he fluttered I was privileged to capture somewhat of an image.  He is a giant swallowtail. I had to look him up to know which kind of swallowtail that he would be. He looked like a bird flopping around out there when I first saw him.

I just took quick, blind shots as I couldn't wait to see if it was focused. It flitted in and out so quickly. I had dozens of painted lady butterflies on the zinnias during the warm part of the day. I watered the flowers last night knowing that it doesn't take much for flowers to shut down when there is no rain.

While watering plants last night I noticed that I could officially start harvesting tomatoes. The larger one is the first for me from that variety.  It was low near the ground and I almost missed picking it with all the foliage. The pear shaped ones are really a sweet tomato.  We do need to buy some bacon and lettuce.

I am going to get this plant into the ground this morning. I am tired of trying to keep it alive because it isn't planted in real soil. I need to find a protected area for it, and yet I see that someone has planted rows of the off the main street north of us along the vast open ditch area.  Maybe any place will do.

This small piece of land in next to the garage and the hosts really are struggling there. I am suspecting the heat of the cement is too much.  I may get a daylily in there and move the hosta out of there. The large rock is a giant agatized rock from our family farm in southern Iowa The glaciers must of drug in down there as that is not a naturally formed rock in our area.  My dad brought it to town when he moved away from the farm and I now have it.  I think it even has a slice sawed off of it with him trying to get agate jewelry stones form it.

I have time today to go work in the store room.  I still have a few things to unpack and a lot of things to get organizes. You can see with this still life that things are just being set randomly on shelves until some organization can be found.

I am staying away from the old place for a few days to let the shingle guy do his job.  He consented to finish up some of the damaged areas on the front north side of the house for me and I am just going to not do it anymore. Joel is very good at what he does consented to fix the roof an porch roof connection before he shingled.  I will have to return to get busy but for now I am going to let the guy do his magic.  The new sections that are done look for really good.

We are out of sync today as we took down the truck to downtown Des Moines today, early morning.  It needs to have a bearing repair on one axle and the place is down in the older part of Des Moines.  It sits near the Meredith Corporation where a lot of home and garden magazines are published.  You are familiar with Better Homes and Garden and probably have seen a lot of other magazines that they print out. It is a very old part of town and there were streets closed for new buildings being erected,  making our caravan trip an interesting one.  My wife said that she had never ever driven downtown before but she did very well following the Tundra truck to our destination. The front of the building is  modernizes some but the building is an old 1900's garage.

I am taking more pictures than I can manage to share.  I will just throw in zinnias visual whenever there is space.  Thank you for stopping by today.