Clouds and Sunshine......

If I stand at a certain place in my yard I can dream that I live in Colorado.  I know it is a stretch as the neighbor's house is in the photo and the trees block the view of all the rows of houses behind them.

We did see the sun in the afternoon on Sunday.  It had rained off and on for most of the day. We are getting record breaking rainfall. The sky was beautiful yesterday afternoon with each cloud glowing from the sunshine.

The copula is almost covered with the zinnias now. While taking shots yesterday I   could see that the flowers are almost all spent now.  I could start removing the greens by next week for sure.

I remember that I cut a final bouquet of the good blooms and then took it all down. I have a row of onions planted underneath one side of the zinnias and I can then harvest them too.

A tradition for us now is to see the family a block away put up their Halloween decorations. Its fun to see four or five of them to head out and get it all set up.  They didn't turn on their lights yet but I bet they do on the first of October.

The real reason I first took this shot was the one tree that is now having leaves changing to orange. It will be the first to be filled with fall leaves and the first to drop all of its leaves on the ground.



Starting a new week with sun shining is a positive.  I wish you all well.  Thanks for stopping by today.

Sunday's Share......

I am looking out at the tall grass.  It is raining all day so it will just have to be tall and unruly. The two roses and morning glories bloom in the rain and seem happy about it all.

There is more of a haze out there even though the camera did not pick it up. Wet all day and just a scant view of sunshine looking north on the horizon.

I have been heating the house with the fireplace each morning as it isn't extremely cold and the chill can be gone in fifteen minutes. I know that it won't be long that I will have to turn on the furnace.

The birds were not too excited when I put out seed. I guess there is plenty to feed from out there in the wild woods. I did have this one lonely guy who stayed for a long time.

Adjustments will be done but as a whole I have the ten concrete pavers down.  I will work on tomorrow if the weather doesn't get to be too cold.  Thanks for stopping by today.

Saturday Afernoon. .....

It is looking a little ruggid but still has great color. One really cold night and they will be all gone. I don't see any reason to take them down until they are dead or close to being dead.

A mural of famous authors was placed above the coffee shop area of the bookstore. It does help create a good atmosphere for drinking coffee and eating a cookie too.

Bookstores as a whole are less frequented as people buy things online now.  This one has turned a the store into toys, puzzles, and lego buildings. The reduced the number of books and sell special items as beginning of school.  Harry Potter things were available for a lot of months and different themed items are there to help with the lesser book sales.  We do drink the coffee or hot chocolate as well as cookies and bars. We usually walk out with a book of two or magazines that have articles we like to keep for artistic resource.

The thing that is wrong with this photo is the neighbor who is mowing his yard again.  I have lots of things to do and I will not double mow my yard in one week. Our grass is growing fast but not that fast.  I noticed at the old place that the grass is a lot thinner now with the cooler temperatures. I have some  more pavers to put down today, later in the afternoon.

I hope all is well with everyone.  Thanks for stopping by today.

Finding Something.....

I didn't trim it back as far as I should have but I don't regret seeing it look like this.  I will cut it shorter before the snow flies.

I have one last set of blooms on my vine honeysuckle. I really like this shrub even though I didn't plant it.

I have three smaller roses like this that are going to need to be moved.  The deck they were next to is now a sunroom and they are in too much shade.  I am not sure where I will move them but I do work spontaneously and will shift them somewhere.

One of the other small roses looks like this.  If I find a better place for them they may actually become larger rose bushes. They seem to be invaded by a couple of vines that makes them hard to see when they are blooming.

Another view of the "knock our" roses at the front of the house.

I mowed grass at the old place today and while finishing it was starting to rain. It has rained back at the home place and we are dark and dreary now.  Thanks for stopping by today.

Thursday's Here.......

I found one last cone flower blooming in the backyard. I have some spent ones with faded colors but this one looks like a new bloom.

Here is another shot of the new clematis bloom.  It looks better without the button weed plant intertwined with the vine. I planted this in late spring and it did take off and grow a long vine. I like the color of it.  My white clematis is not doing so good but it seemed that it didn't like our heat during the late summer.

I planted the dahlia early summer with blooms already on it.  I deadheaded it but just now in late September I am getting more buds and this one bloom. I will dig this in late fall and try to get it growing again in the spring.

The tomatoes are trying to take over the show but what I wanted to show was the yellow onions that I grew.  I didn't get them in the ground soon enough but they are still good at this size.  The can be somewhat hot but when sliced thinly they taste great on hamburgers. When I get inspired I will pull them and tie them together for later use.

This is an older shot to illustrate what I was doing this morning. I have placed eight of these pavers onto the ground.  Actually I had to raise the ground level with dirt and then use paver mix.  The whole thing will be level with the existing concrete slab. It is above ground and the pavers have to be brought up to the same level so we can walk across the area easily. I am not half way done but it is a third.  I think there are twenty four that will be put down when I am done.  One is left out because of at support post.  I could plant flowers around the post. I did the math and there are eleven to go. I may get this done before winter.

I have a couple of late blooming phlox.  They have held on for a long time but some of the blooms are starting to fall, one at a time actually.

It is Thursday already. Where is the time going? I seem to be watching everything fly by me.  Thanks for stopping by today.

I bought some car siding for the old place.  I will share later what the project is gong to be.

Middle of the Week....

A painting of the Duluth, Minnesota harbor hangs in our entryway reminding us of our fun times this summer while visiting there. We did a lot this summer and we are glad that we could.  The fall weather reminds us that the summer is almost over.  Thanks for stopping by today.

A New Day Dawning...

A surprise bloom that I saw while taking shots of a monarch butterfly. I planted it new this spring and this is the first time for me to see it. I am questioning now if the bud shapes or spent blooms.  I am hoping that they are buds. I can't find anything on the  net that shows this kind of pod.

My volunteer bird seed sunflower is disappointing.  I can't take photos of something that is so wimpy and small.  I can see how they can combine these and get seed from them easily.

I can see the humming birds swarming and chasing one another as they try to get to the feeder.  While taking photos of the butterflies down there they would fly by me but not stay when I raised my camera  This is a zoomed photo from the deck.

The zoomed in shot shows the bird feeding in that narrow slot.  They must smell the sweet as there are not any small yellow flowers on this feeder to help find the opening.

I don't know what this butterfly is but I had plenty of them on my zinnias. Their wings fold up differently than any butterfly that I have ever seen. They look like a Star Wars space ship as the fold and bend them into the resting position. I saw these firs on Facebook as others were confused about its identity.

I can hear my one neighbor mowing his yard again.  I guess he thinks we need to mow every four days.  I was two days behind him as of yesterday but now he is one day behind me.

Thanks for stopping by today. 

The Start of the Week.....

It is a little bruised from its travels but it sure is enjoying feeding from the zinnias. I wish to see a migration here but I don't think I will have one.  Too much city and not enough prairie .

The outsides of the wings are not damaaged.

I picked a few zinnias this morning. I see that my one set of three tomatoes are done.  I will just cut them out and let the insects and critters finish eating them until they are gone. It is now fall and things will have to be cleared out of the gardens.

I needed to mow the yard this morning and it was just too wet. We had another rain in the night and the deck was showing standing water when we got up. It was not warm enough to dry off but now with it at 75 it may seem to be to warm. I will do it no matter what some time this afternoon.

I hope everyone is doing well today. Thanks for stopping in at my post.

Sunday Morn......

The rains are spaced apart but they do just keep coming. It was raining in the night with lightening and thunder.

Our temps have been very warm with all the humidity.  This morning we had a cool down.

 

I wish everyone to have a good day, Thanks for stopping by today.

Sat’s Stuff.......

I did see an admiral butterfly yesterday but didn’t get a shot of it.  I have dozens of painted ladies like this one.  They do seem friendly and don’t mind having a guy taking photos.

My two colored zinnia is still hanging around. The whole lot of the zinnias are really starting to dry up. We are getting plenty of rain so they are just finishing off on their blooming season.

While crossing the bridge yesterday I did see the pelicans are still around. They were too far north on the lake that they just looked like a field of snow.   I maybe shared this shot before but can you see the dragonfly in the photo. The lake is being taken down lower just to be sure there will not be flooding in the future.  The Missouri River is back up to flood stage right now, closing down I-29 along the western border of Iowa.  The rains up in Dakotas and Minnesota  are flowing down and spreading throughout the bluffs valley.

I trimmed back all of my mums in July except for this one batch.  So the batch here is now in full bloom.

My wife has just informed me that my spellcheck and my brain isn’t working very well.  My last two posts have been badly written with exchanged words that screw up the meanings of my sentences. I don’t think that I have had any health condition to  cause it but I do think that I was really putting out lots of mistakes. I won’t give excuses  but I guess I need to write less and do it with my own self proofreading before I post.

It is Saturday and we will be off to the bookstore.  It looks rainy but I think it is more like heavy humidity and lots to clouds. I don’t think we are to get any rain. Thanks for stopping by today.

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Friday’s Finds......

I just now went out to take photos for this blog. It was so hot and super humid that I didn’t get many photos that were in focus.  I had to keep drying off the moisture on the lens. It just kept fogging back to cause the focus to be bad. The painted ladies are everywhere as they have been all summer. I was at the old place this morning and a migration of monarchs was flying through.  I didn’t have my camera and they were a scattered migration.  You could see dozens of them in places and they were busy feeding and resting.  We use to have larger numbers of them fly through.

I had two plants of this volunteer sunflower. The largest one is now laying down in the zinnias.  Its steam apparently can’t handle any wind. From past experience there is not a way to save it if I straightened it back and put a post next to it.  It will now die.  This shorter one is all I have for show now.

I had some comments about these yesterday.  This kind is a pear shaped, small tomato. They turn a yellow and they are sweeter than a red cherry tomato.  I have two other cherry tomatoes and one of them is yellow and the other is red. I can tell that I should be able to get these to ripen and eat them.  The plant did come up from last years fruit on the ground.

I brought this in and the vase is not narrow enough for it to look good. I thought I would take another inside shot, not know that my outside shot was the best. This is in the sunroom. My wife is now using it as a studio and I am glad.  She though she was taking it over but it fits to have an artist out there working in the north light. We have the other have with seating so it all works great.

Della has finished this painting it turned out great.  This was the image before things got darker and more dramatic.  I will share that later. We do have to air condition out there but it doesn’t take the unit only a few minutes to take the temperatures down.  I mentioned earlier that it is so humid to day and the temps are going to be high again.

A project that has not been worked on.  I still have not moved this sansivera into a bigger pot and I have not started placing the pavers you see  in the background.  I mowed all morning at the old place.

Thanks for checking in on me today.  I hope you all are doing well.  Until tomorrow......







I keep forgetting to mention that our granddaughter called us a day ago and we got to see her on FaceTime. Ella is four months old and she doesn’t like seeing the screen.  It ended up being us seeing our sweet granddaughter being sung to by her father.  She loves to hear him sing the songs and she ignored her fear of   people on the screen. Our son was a great jazz band trumpet player and his singing is just as good.