Middle of the Week.....

I have called them a Brandford pear.  That was popular for many businesses and housing developments.  I looked this up and it is really a “callery” pear tree.  In the fall there are small round fruits on the tree.  The birds like them.  My bradtford pear at the old place never quite grew like this one. There was not any fruit on that tree.

The locust tree is losing its form of leaves quickly now. One can see through the locust to see my two trees.

I will be raking leaves by next week. I remember that all these leaves fit in my truck and I can take them to the landfill. I really like the colors of the leaves and they seem to be more richer than a maple leaf.

We had a busy night at our door, as the masked bandits came to our door. We had one dinosaur and many princesses. The costumes were fun and most of the kids were very nice.  A few older kids had attitude but I have been around kids for decades and they don’t fool me.  The older ones seemed to be a little bothered that they were doing it but I can make them feel better about it. The one older girl was wearing cut off jeans, fishnet like hose, and funny shoes.  She had lots of make up to look like a hooker but she was wearing a University of Iowa sweatshirt.  I said go Iowa and that broke her attitude spell.  I do think the kids are a littleoff by having an old man at the door, as most of the neighborhood are not grandparent ages.  The three old people houses in our area had their houses all blacked out so no one could go to their doors. It is a time commitment of two hours and I am glad it is only once a year.  We taped the show we wanted to watch and viewed it at eight o’clock.

One last outdoor shot of these as they are headed to the basement today.  I don’t want to  wait and have one or both get frozen over.  The rose would survive but the begonia would be destroyed in a freeze.

I am resting up today from my job of unloading ten sheets of drywall yesterday.  I won’t return until Friday so I can get back onto that project.

I hope everyone is doing well today. Thanks for stopping by today.

Words are Few.....

Morning is starting a little gray and glooming.  The sun is hiding down there on the suburbia horizon.

The birds do like a little water once in a while.  The closest watering holes are a couple of ponds on the edge of town, two miles from here.

The columbine plant is doing well here.  I don’t remember planting it but I am sure glad that I did.

Waning away to a sliver, I couldn’t find it last night but something must have been in front of it. 

If you want spring, you just have to buy it at the store.  

Thanks for stopping by today.

Monday Afternoon......

The day is bright and the areas of pure sunlight on the mums causes the mums to be lighter in cold.  The six or seven plantings of these seem to be now all in full bloom.

The sedum is getting darker in color as it reacts to the frosty mornings.  I am waiting to clear this bed of flowers and will decide what will not be cleared.  Leaving some forms of the plants should look great in the snow.

This does look like a cool morning sky.  The clouds are pierced with a jet vapor trail. The leaves are really thinning out now as the days get shorter and colder.

As long as I can get a clear shot of the moon either in the morning or late evening I will keep shooting. At some point of time, I want to group my moon shots and see the various differences of the terrain on the moon.

While the moon was out this morning, I was out scrubbing the siding on my house.  On the northwestern end of the house I had mold build up.  The side is shaded all summer and I noticed that I needed to remove. it  I never thought that I would have to take a stiff brush and scrub with a cleaner to removed the buildup  of mold. I also had it on the back side of the house extending about ten to fifteen feet up on the side of the house.  The south side where my neighbor’s house shades it also had to be cleaned. I think the dust that settles under the ridges of the vinyl siding has a bacteria in that dust.  By the end of the summer is just develops into a green problem.  I had to get a ladder to scrub down the bottom half of the fireplace chimney which at the second story level of the house when you stand in the backyard.  Scrub and rinse seemed to be the rhythm of the beat for today.

Our neighbors in the back of the house in most cases just leave their windows open to view.  We can see two different cats wanting to go outside and the little boy looking to go out.  The little boy is just walking now.  This room of the house directly behind us apparently is a small den. The young man and his wife show sports shows a lot and the cartoons are on to help to pacify the little boy.  I think the guy is the only one watching sports as the mother probably is with the son in another room. I rarely shoot photos of other peoples houses but this seemed to be an artistic kind of shot showing the game being played. We tend to lower our shades before dark as people can see us up on the second story, or our main floor while we eat in the dining room or watch tv in the living room.

Well the blog is coming to an end for today.  I really need to find some new things to shoot.  I have a lot of leaf shots that I could shoot and a giant Green Bay Packers blow up doll up the street a few houses.  I do think it is time to go somewhere along the lake and take some shots.  We just can’t park along it as it is being used for flood control and most side roads along it are flood in.  Thanks for stopping by today.

Sunday Sunshine and the Moon.....

The day moon is really starting to wane already. It will soon be a crescent shape with its opening being on the right side.

The wind is blowing hard.  It is hard for me to see any maple trees up the block.   There must be one up there somewhere beyond where I can’t see as I have a few of them in the yard.

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It is a bright sunny day and the camera caught the right color of red and also is in focus. There are not many kocok out  roses to see now.

If the goldfinch stays for the winter, he will look like this.  The deep golden color dose leave their feathers with a tan color on them. There tail and wing feathers still have their vivid black and white pattern.

As the earth tilts we have different shadows coming from the buildings and trees.  I also like seeing the values intensified when the sun is in’t its location. That tree has lost most of its pine cones now but more will come this spring.

We are having a pleasant looking day but the wind is cold coming  from the north. When taking Barney outside I put on a coat or take one to put on if I need it.  Thanks for stopping by today.

Saturday’s Stuff to Share....

An Air Force jet slices up the sky leaving a vapor trail behind. Many of these were in the sky so there were practicing or training new recruits.

We have a lot of traffic from the Sac Air Force Base in early morning.  The must be flying at different altitude as the Des Moines Airport has lots of traffic up there too. A are thing that I have noticed at night is the jets leave the airport going east and then come north towards us. At a certain point they either head east or west.  It is busy up there even at ten o’clock at night.

I have raked the first batch of leaves from the maple tree and hauled off the one bag. I look outside after I am done and I have left the rake laying on the ground. If I would leave it there the rake would be covered with leaves making it hard to find.  I did go back and get it later in the day.

One of my blogger friends told me what kind of maple that this it.  It has very dark red leaves all summer and now they are turning yellow before they drop to the ground. I didn’t rake it last year but used the for mulch as well and mowed them to powder.

With this being only the second fall for me here at this property I didn’t remember for sure what the tree was going to do.  I don’t like the top of the tree but I won’t take it down.  The top of it must have been broken out as it has two stray sticks projecting up out of it at the top.

I am glad to see the William Baffin rose is doing well on the southeast side of the house. I will have to create a trellis to handle the canes as it is a climber. It is planted in that old clay soil next to the house but I did dig a big hole to add dirt around its roots.

It is a sunny day today with the temps less cold.  It sounds like rain is heading our way by tomorrow and wind is suppose to pick up for a few days.  Thanks for stopping by at my post.

A Friday Special...Not!

Fall weather is ever-changing with hot and cold temps.  I don’t know what it going up there in the sky but the jet vapors are making interesting patterns as they disperse. The geese seem to be traveling from one body of water in the area to another.  A dozen at a time go over and there have been for of five batches flying over so far.

The black birds are migrating through as large flocks of them stopped to rest in various trees in the neighborhood.  They are so noisy as the fly through with all the wild chirping.

We had an early morning sprinkle that collected on these lily leaves.  I am not sure of the variety of this plant is but it seems pretty robust at this time of the year.

The most colorful shot for the day are these blooms.  I am glad they got some water today as we were getting dry.  It will perk them up.  I am taking a day off today to regroup my brain and muscles.  I am suppose to be retired and sometimes it doesn’t seem to be that way.  I hope all are doing well today. Thanks for stopping by today.

Fall Chores.....

When looking around the place I can see a lot of ugly.  Fall to me means saying good bye to a lot of good flowers and foliage. Among this mess I do have planted 15 new tulips. The stems from the sunflowers are in the tree landfill now and so it is just bare ground. My peonies are all trimmed back now and there are about 35 new tulips planted in the same flower bed in the front yard.  I think the tulips will come up before the peonies but if not, it will be ok.

The tomatoes are all gone now with just scraps of old tomatoes laying out on the ground. The marigolds were also dropped off this morning at the landfill.. All that is left growing here now is the chive and a lavender plant. Fall can be ugly here too.

The color of these mums can make a great impression. I think most of them are now in full bloom.

The front of the house looks great at this time with all the mums blooming. The roses are not so full anymore but some of them still have some good blooms on them.

The plaster, dry wall ceiling, was removed today.  I dreaded the job but it did get done faster than I thought.  The first third of all the plaster panesl scraps filled up my garbage bin, which will go out tomorrow. I went back and removed the rest of the ceiling and the scraps are all sitting in piles ready for next weeks dumpster. I won’t show you the ceiling even though I have photos. When I get the new ceiling put in then I will show a before photo of it. It looks too awful.

The roof over this area was so bad that my wife and I had to build a new, steeper pitched roof over the old one 20 years ago, to get it to stop leaking.  The guy who flipped this house sold it to me with a saggy baggy porch like roof on it. Needless to say, but I am glad that I removed that bad ceiling. I am not sure what I will do with it to replace it.

I have about five of these sunflower heads to keep for winter.  One of my blogger friends strips the seeds off of there but I don’t think I will for now.  I need to get them in the basement soon.

It is Thursday and the week has flown by.  We spent the noon meal with two of my old high school classmates and their wives at a restaurant yesterday. I started kindergarten with them and have known them for over 63 years.It was like a mini 50th class reunion.   Jim is actually a cousin of mine as my dad and his mom were first cousins. Jin is in Arizona and Bernie has always lived in Iowa  but not very close. Adding all the changes to their bodies with new eye lens of the one and new knees to the other, I guess I need to get busy with getting my parts worked on. We have too many memories these days and it best not to remember them.

Well, Friday is coming and I hope all is well with you all.  I appreciate your checking in today. Take care.

Fall has Arrived.....

The river birch across the street is turning into many nice fall  colors. I like my birch at our old place but this is a good tradeoff.  The Minnesota birch doesn’t have leaves on it now as theydroppes last week.  The river birch are loosing their lives at a slow pace but that makes them start around longer.

We don’t have a lot of bikers on the sidewalks but you can see a couple of people coasting down the hill. The curve of the road and sidewalk does make for a pleasant view. You can see there are a couple more trees with good fall leafed trees.

The mums next to the garage door are finally all in bloom. I didn’t water them and now I look back thinking I should have done so for a while to get them to bloom faster.

The three other mum plants are a little slower at blooming but by Friday they should all be out completely.  I think some rain will help the later this week. My knock out roses have a few buds to open agin before it snows.

The knock outs seem to be more care than I like but they do show well if I just keep them trimmed back after each session of blooms.

It has been a nice day today with good sunshine and no wind.  I need to load my truck up with garden scraps today to take to the dump tomorrow.  I hope it isn’t raining so much that I can get it unloaded. Thanks for stopping by today.  Take care everyone.

Tuesday’s Agenda...

The river birch is doing well without me.  It grows at the old place.  The neighbors have illegal chickens now for some reason and while out there you can hear the rooster crow.  We have been calling the old place the farm so now it really is closer to being the farm. It is a place with a farmhouse originally and also had a barn with horses or a cow.  The land around the house was sold out to make houses in the area.

I was surprised to see a stalk of phlox was blooming at the old place.  I have seen things like this with plants but why this phlox decided to flower now is hard to understand.  Nothing else in the gardens is blooming now.

I shared this photo on my Photo a Day blog sharing how the Sunday night frost did take out the marigolds. I like the patterns of light on the yard from the neighbor’s fence.

Nest to the curved of our sidewalk I had dead grass issues.  I planted hardy geraniums and mulch to kind of clean up the area.  Not the frost has taken out the plants.  I am leaning on the idea o planting tulips here now and then replant geraniums or whatever.

I have decided to take the sunflowers down today.  I hate that summer is over but if the weather is good then I should take them down today.  We should have a lot more fall though as my front yard trees have not dropped leaves yet. Weather though is not consistent and really is not predictable.  I hope I can clear things so that I can ship the waste in my truck up to the small town dumpsite where they burn it for me.

We do have sunshine today and it should be a good day.  I hope all are well out there. Thanks for stopping by today.

Monday’s Moments....

As a kid living in southern Iowa the migration of birds was so mysterious and magical.  We saw lots of birds flying over and most of them were geese.  The snow geese too were pretty to  see.  Back then the waterfowl had a distinct purpose to go north or to go south.  There was no stopping over anywhere and stay for the full year. In the early 60s Canada geese would fly over but I had no idea what the looked like.  In high school we visited Duluth, Minnesota and I am thinking that was the first time I had seen them up close.  Today, they live year round and the young ones are escorted  through grocery store parking lots and also across four lane highways.  Everyone stops and lets them go through to whatever side they want to be.

The honk as they fly and it is fun to hear them going over morning and evening. Right now the local geese are flying to fame fields that have been harvested. Soybeans and corn that is spilled during the picking is easy picking for the geese.

We have a few estates at the edge or our development. Estates mean they have some ponds built to have for decoration.  The Canada Geese do hang around there during the day to feed on all the moss and water weeds.

Our morning show in the sky was short lived and I did just catch this color before it all went away. It was cool out there on the deck but the view was great. It is to be a warmer day today with very low winds. I went to work at the old place today and I kept removing layers of coats and long-sleeved shirts as the day progress.

I made jello the other day in my grandmother’s glass bowl.  I can remember her making jello in it too but she always had bananas sliced into it. We would go to hee rugged, old farmhouse and she would have all the family in for dinner.  The walnut table, which I now have, would have four or five leaves put in it to make it as large as possible for all the potluck food. Her dining room was actually a back room with a very low ceiling.  There was lots of different kinds of food and the jello  was the last thing to be carried in and place on the table. It had to be kept cold. That house is long gone and the area was turned into a cornfield. She left that farm in 1966. It is fun to use the old things with all the memories. I have the small bowls that match that bowl.

At the old place the floor is done.  It was an old porch, enlarged to become a bedroom and then always had a floor two inches below the rest of the house. All of the floor is finished and level with the dinning room. It is not absolutely perfectly level but it is so much better than it was.

The lumber yard never restocked the plywood that I was using so I had to find a substitute.  Since it will be a bedroom, I am going to put a rug in there which will make it warmer. The person who flipped this house would be surprised as to how the floor turned out.  He had put a shag rug on it to cover up the flaws.

The three burning bush shrubs are turning now and they have such a great red.  It is a good day here for fall weather and we are promised to have good weather.  I thank you for stopping by today. Take care everyone.