Thursday's Things.....

As I was being delayed along the highway at the Mile Long Bridge, I took a few photos of Lake Saylorville.  It is a man made lake and can't compare to any Minnesota lake. The bridge was having a square of concrete removed and replaced causing flag men to keep us waiting for one another to cross the bridge.

Last summer the engineers held back a lot of water and the area we see here was completely under water. It was at a high stage for a   very long time causing a lot of erosion along the original sides of the lake.

The small water pockets were left filled with water helping wild life and birds to have use of them. The road that I can take to the under neath side of the bridge is down the hill right there and it runs all along the small water pockets.

The mile long bridges lets us see the lake from side to side in this area. Today the water was a muddy brown when looking down at it. There aren't any birds migrating through this area right now. They seem to fallow the rivers to go north in spring.

The bridge photos are file photos from the last two years.  I didn't have time to go down to take pictures today.  I was up mowing the property's yard this morning and I was very worn out from that effort. Having to be held up on the bridge was not great as I was needing to get home for lunch.

The virus situation keeps me from working on the house as I have too many neighbors up there that move back and forth in packing plant territory.  The one works at the grocery store of that town. I really need to be able to freely go to the hardware to get parts for my work, so I just won't work on the house.  The yard work is being monitored by certain people to be sure it is done.

I found a water bottle and a discarded coffee cup from McDonalds that blew into my yard so I could cut tulips The forsythia is actually blooming this year.  It doesn't always do so.  The gardens at the old place are not so good any more as I can't maintain them when I am not living there.  I am glad I moved as many plants that I could the last couple of years so I can see them at the new place.

Thanks for stopping by today. My truck looked like a florist truck after I got the things into the car.

Middle of the Week......

Fall or spring?????

One of my favorite hosts that is coming up next to the patio.  It is fun to have the things you plant the keep coming back and have grown larger.  The wind is blowing hard and I guess I was in a hurry to get the shot. I could have removed the stick that got blown into the picture. 

The lily of the valley did survive last spring's construction worker. Holes had to be dug and a sun room had to be assembled. It looks like it didn't bother them a bit. 

The have spread among the bricks from years back I guess. I am on a lookout for the Jack in the Pulpit. I hope that it did survive and not get destroyed. This whole area was under a stairs and now ti is out in the open  a little bit more with those stairs being moved to the opposite end of the patio.  I have a couple of hosta coming up that were planted  by previous owners.  They aren't so exciting but they have green leaves and that is good. 

I have started a project that is new. I wanted to make a potting bench and shelves at one end of the patio. I have recycle wood from the old place that would work well but the  post that I want to  place it on are screwed  a bit to the world.  I have to invent a system to make something to hold the big shelf on and some other little shelves.  Of all the posts under the deck and sun room, those two are the only two that were not square with the world. I may have to add my own new posts that are straight and just build my shelves around the crooked ones. 

It is very windy today so that the windchill is cold. I had to wear a coat and stocking cap to go out to visit the gardens today. We are safe. We are not out of the woods yet for our state.  We must keep our meat packing plants open to keep the grocery stores stocked with meat.  It will be interesting to see how that will work out.  Every one just be careful.  

Tuesday, yep it is.

A rare sunset photo from out house.  It is up the street, looking up our northwestern street. I think that I have taken this a year ago but in most cases we never see the sun set.  The houses on the hill could be thought of as mountains.

I finally broke off the stems of the dead sedum in the front flower garden.  I was trying to take a photo of the blue bells and they didn't need these dead seed heads in the photo.

The  New England bluebells are looking filled up with fuller blooms. I had a woman wanting a start of them.  They aren't easy to share as they are a root or tuber and not a normal kind of flower.  They do grow wild in the timbers in our state.

He is just sitting there.  I like how they just sit and stare.  I am wondering if there is a mate and he is just waiting for baby birds to feed.  It seems early as the like worms and bugs for feeding.

I keep taking as many photos as I can because they flowers just start dropping and they are gone. I saw yesterday that the strong winds was pushing them along the side of the driveway.

We took our friend to the hospital for here second chemo treatment.  All went well and I was able to go buy her groceries during her treatment time. It is stressful as we don't know how well the treatments will work.  Having the covid 19 around and her living in a retirement apartments adds to the concern.

We are having a rain day today along with the threat  of tornadoes.  It is spring so none of this is a surprise. Our state is partially lifting the lock down in 77 of 99 counties. It is minimal but maybe things will work well enough that by Friday more will be open. We are still in a lock down state along with our neighboring east and west counties but all the ones north and south are being lightened. We keep having larger numbers each day as the finally test packing places and nursing homes to see how bad things are.  The messages about the lock down are so diverse now so it will be interesting to see this all evolves. I have a lot of things on my list that I do want to buy so I will help out the economy if they just will let me buy stuff.

We are safe and well.  Thanks for stopping by today.

Green Grass.......

There seems to be plenty of grass to mow. This is an earlier photo when there was a skiff of snow. I have done the second mowing now for the spring.

The raised bed is a pain to mow around but its good to keep the grass from growing into the garden bed.  It slows things down to mow around things but I like having all the different beds that are in the back yard.

Thanks for stopping by today.  We had a warm day and it helped me get everything mowed. I will get out the weed eater on another day.

Super Sun Shining.....

I welcome the sun to brighten the day. We had a small rain in the night and it just caused everything to look greener. The weathered tulips are striking in contrast to all the green. The shade on the grass will go away as the sun rises up over the roof of the house.

We are safe. We are weary.  We will survive.  Our county is now the leader of the numbers of people infected and the numbers that have died.  As more testing is done more are being identified.  We will continue to do what we have to do and do everything as safely as possible.  Thanks for checking in today.

Saturday's Sighting of Life......

I did successfully got this to grow in the rock field at the corner of the house.  I removed rocks and dumped in some dirt.  I could see the hosta sending out roots into the rock to get moisture. This is its second year so it should grow into a good size.

The trees are in full blossom now.  It is nice to have them in the spring. As you can see now hows down the street has them in their front yard but one neighbor opted to plant one up into his yard.  The street at the bottom of the hill going east and west has a lot of trees still growing along the street.

I need to go mow my grass.  The mower is fixed and I can get the front yard done today. The tulips in this bed are slower to bloom that all my other ones on the place.

We just got off of the net watching our second grandson open his birthday presents.  Amazon was slow so they were only four days left. It was nice to see him open them and we could tell that he really liked them. He turned four years old on Monday.  Our little grand daughter turns one on May 1st.

 This was growing here when I bought the place. I think it is like a vinca but I never really looked it up on the net. We are cold today so I will wait to mow this afternoon.  It is still a little wet in the grass and I would like to get a better mowing job done on the lawn.

We are all staying strong and will take it on e day at a time.  We had the highest numbers on identified virus people yesterday since this has all started.  Our whole life seems to be put on a freeze down right now.  I hope everyone out there is good. Thanks for checking in today.

Friday's Finaliies....

Last evening the sun was shining over things reflecting on clouds in the east. We never did get a strong rain from that system in the west.

I like having the recycle bin sneaking into the picture. It is nice that it is amlost in full bloom. 

The blue bells are still not out in full bloom.  It is cool today so it won't help them open up that much. That whole area is not looking good yet but there is still tome for some good things to come up. 

I went to the bank this morning, waited in line for 20 minutes, finding out they didn't open until 9:30.  I asked the teller, did the dozen or cars know that or were they assuming there was technical difficulties just like me?  The teller just said they had shorten hours.  I had to have a Krispy Kreme doughnuts after that and then went to buy groceries. I had a harried experenice there but it was normal.  I did have a hard time finding dryer sheets and one of the workers did find one last of a few boxes.  She said people were buying them to use in face masks.  I had a really nice Asian guy check out guy, who helped make up for all that you have to do to get groceries into the cart.  Hey, thanks everyone for tolerating me.

Thursday's Many Things...

The clouds of evening were looming and it was an expression of my very bad, not good day, yesterday. I don't mind some resistance of things going bad but they don't need to pile up and stay there for an entire day. I hate it when there is no resolution to mix ups and and bad outcoms.

This phlox is actually more lavender in color but the light was so bright that it washes out the color.  With all the rain it still looks like we could use some more. The roses in front seem to be slow to green.

I mowed my yard on Tuesday and I really screwed it up because I left off the spreader on the side of the mower.  I was mulching thick grass and it looks horrible.  I did figure it out later and did the whole back yard with the spreader and it looks ok. I am refusing to mow the front yard again just because it looks butcher.  My neighbor to the southish bagged all of his grass leftovers so he does look really good. Maybe next time I could do that and use it in a mulch pile.

I planted these roses with multi-petals a couple of years back. They are earlier than other tulips that are planted there. When I loaded my mower to take to Woodward the next morning everything seemed to be going normal.  My new mower, which I have never packed up before in the truck was messed up when I took it out of the truck to mow.  The power to the front wheels and back wheels was not working.  I had to push the big thing through the grass for most of the yard.  That is what I use to do but not with such a big mower.

This is an interesting leaf  on this shrub.  I don't know for sure what it is but the early leaves are orange It reminds me of a spirea once the greener leaves show up. I didn't plant it and I don't have it identified yet.

My neighbors to the northiish have started planing their garden. I think they put in radishes and onions.  I succeeded to get my tomato bed spaded up so it will be in a better condition for planting.  I have never have had a problem with chive spreading but I have three new starts of it from that corner plant. I finally was able to buy some peat pots to transplant my tomato starts to more growing space. I apparently started my tomatoes too late but I will be patient and they will mature quickly.

While I was at the old house I went in to inspect the problem of one of my pipes that had frozen during our extreme cold spell. I had the water turned off but later when I turned it on to see if things were.  It will be a mess to fix. If I can figure things out I can just reconnect the cold water and everything will be good. On the opposite side of this story is that I am figuring I am going to have to get a sledge and break up the fiber glass shower and remove it.  I am not happy about that developlent.

Any way, I called Ace Hardware this morning.  I took my mower to the back door and two guys took a look at the mower.  They discovered that my folding the handles back into position loosened up the cables for the power transmissions. It took them a while but they did get all the cables readjusted and the power mower works again. I had read on the internet that a cable might have to be bought and replaced.  I am glad that was not the case.  I am thinking the persons who assembled the mower did not get the positions just right and it took it out of alignment.  I hope it is now fixed for good.

In all of this mess the last two days I had to make a trip in public this morning that solved all my problems. The hardware was very busy with four clerks at the registers, computer.  It is an essential business and everyone was there.  I finally bought some glue and peat pots.  I picked up some parts for my fix of the plumbing of the shower, and I didn't get charged for fixing the mower.

Our virus charts keep climbing.  There are more and more people identified with the virus and the deaths keep happening.  The work practices of the packing plants have been exposed but nothing will be done about it.  Whole shifts were filled with large percentages of them being sick and at work.

This chipper got caught in air by my camera. I don't know if he has a partner now or not but he keeps collecting seed.   Thanks for stopping by today.   I don't know if I have many mistakes but I will post with it unedited.  It might be funny reading but I need to get it posted

Muddled but the middle....

I will be back tomorrow. Thanks for checking in today.

Tuesdays Tales.......

We have been having wonderful sunsets. This is almost west but more northwest.  The clouds put out quite a show as the reflect the sun on their under sides.

In the opposite direction the sun glows on the tops of these clouds. It was a nice evening as people were talking in the streets, kids playing on their trampolines and many kids riding their scooter up and down on the sidewalks.

I mowed my yard in front on Saturday and I finished mowing the back today. The daffodils seem to be blooming longer with the cool weather. The grass was getting to be too long but I did get it done.  I was planing to go to the old place today to mow but I got a note from my lawn care people that they were coming this afternoon. So I finished mowing to be ready for them.

My front yard terraces are put out new blooms.  I think it is creeping phlox but I haven't verified ti with the net. I also have multi petaled tulips blooming now.

It is one that I planted a few years ago.  It reminds me of a rose in some ways. I will bet better photos of them as the open up more.

The flowering trees in front are blooming in a better way. The next two warm days should make them look fuller with multiple blooms.

Thanks for stopping by today.  We have more reasons to stay inside each new day as our numbers increase. Everyone take care.