Windy Wednesday.....

 A cloud formation that took place yesterday morning while I was blogging. The temperatures are really shifting and it cause a lot of interesting effects.

The grape hyacinth grows among the rocks. It wasn't planted there but it does get to stay there. It will die down in less than a month. 

The male house finch gets much redder whit it being mating season. They seem to be in the most part already paired up most of the time. I suppose a young male would have to attract a female to set up a new pair. 

They do come as pairs to the feeder. She doesn't have much red on her but eventually a little red will show on her side feathers. 

The hyacinths surprised me yesterday showing off with full open blooms.  Lots of time the weather takes them out and I never see them in this stage. The colors are great and they are surviving a beating in the cold wind this morning.

It was a chilly walk to the mailbox this morning. The 28 degrees F. is much colder with the winds blowing so hard. I didn't stick around to take many photos this morning. I hope to see it warming up soon but not really until the weekend is predicted.  

Thanks for stopping in today.

Tuesday's Things....

 While I was sitting down to blog I looked out to see these cloud formations. I know a weather person on television would know the name of them but I do not. Within the twenty minutes after the whole grouping has changed and consolitdated.

The sun tried to shine through it and helped to create good shadows and patterns in the clouds. All of the clouds were moving quickly to the left of the scene. I believe the direction would be northeast but not certain with my house doesn't sit square with the world. 

I felt obligated to move my fernleaf peony away from the neighbor's fence construction zone.  In doing so I was hoping the move wouldn't disturb the life of my peony.  I was very happy to see it popping through the ground this morning. I had a lot of more sprouts from it at the old spot but I feel fortunate to have these five.  Maybe more will come up but I doubt it. It is a tough plant and maybe this will be a better location.  I think I put a stray part of it somewhere else in my backyard gardens but I haven't spotted it yet.

My morning walk out in the back yard was a cold one so I snapped photos quickly. This is the area where the voles had taken over.  I reapplied vole poison in one of the holes and packed dirt in around it, as it looked like there was some activity going on again. The good thing that I see in this photo is the voles did not eat my daylily.  I can't see any hostas coming up so they may have taken them out. The yellow daylily was a special large one and I was hoping they didn't like eating on it. 

The red bud tree is going to do a good job of blooming this year unless we get a late hard freeze. It looks like there are buds ready to open on it all over the tree.  That will be a first for the young planting. I got notice today from Brecks that they don't have enough supply of a special rose that I ordered. It was strange how the told me to just forget it, order cancelled, and then they sent me an evaluation form on how they were doing as a company.  The two packets of seeds of zinnias was great but I really wanted that rose.

I took way too many photos to share today but they will be coming along the way eventually. I appreciate your checking in today.

Monday Moments.....

 It was hard to shoot. I had to keep going out to get a shot when the haze finally cleared. It is called the "worm moon".

The grape hyacinths are poking their heads through. Lots of tie I don't see them until they are in full color. The subtle purple is suggesting of what is to become of these blooms .I cleared away leaf debris from my favorite red daylily this morning.  I was taking the garbage bin to the curb and it seemed a good time to pull that stuff away from the green leaf sprouts. It was a cold wind so I hurried to get it done and put the stuff in the trash immediately. I cleared another bed Saturday so I have only one last area to clear. 

 

This is the before photo of the dead leaves that I cleared from the day lily. I can't work for long periods of time but it feels good to get some of the garden work off the list. 

 

Yesterday I was watching from my easy chair a bird trying to brings in things for a nest. This stick in the blue spruce hands there as the bird realized it wasn't as flexible as dead grass.  I could not see what kind of bird that it was but it sure tried hard for a while to get it into the tree. 

 

I really like fish and would like to put out an outside water feature. All in all I think it would unwise as I have to bring the fish in each fall of the year.  I did have a pond at my old place and I would have to net them out each fall and put them in a large aquarium. I gave that aquarium away before we moved.  The painting"print is by a Chinese artist who lives in Duluth, Minnesota. Cheng Kee Chee is his name and we wish to visit exhibits by him that were up over the summer at the University of Minnesota Duluth. The guy is so good at depicting fish in paintings. We have a large print by the same artist of the Duluth harbor.

Thanks for stopping by today. Have a good day.

Blooming Sunday...

 The sun is shinning and the row of spring blooms are looking great.  The hyacinths are still not quite open but they may never do so.  They just don't grow so well in Iowa. 

The dead looking plants in the foreground is actually creeping phlox. It will bloom weeks later but the foliage is not so great looking.

The yucca plants keep a rabbit alive during the winter. The middle of each of the plants have been chewed back.  I am curious as to how the plants will recover from this. It won't be dead but it might have some funny looking leaves.

 

The sugar free cake is such a great thing to have when I am not able to eat cake with real sugar. The flour in it still makes it high carb but then I just eat a smaller amount of it. With a lot of sugar free things the after taste is a bad thing.  It is the same thing with the cake so I have eat a couple of small carrots after I eat a piece. It did make my birthday complete and almost normal. Thanks for stopping by today.

It's Saturday.....

 The poinsettia is starting to revert back to the form it would have without a greenhouse.  It requires me to watch the soil moisture diligently or the plant gets dry and dies.  It also gets too wet it dies.

 

The second set of blooms are looking great on the Thanksgiving cactus. If it ever stops blooming I will put it in a larger clay pot to encourage more growth. I think it gets to go outside this year somewhere in the shade of the sun room. 

The blooms are so magical as the sprout out two sections and a special center growth at the end. It looks good on my display rack.

 

I had a birthday cake that seemed unusual but best for a diabetic. The cake mix itself was called a sugar free cake. The flour in it still makes it high in carbs so one doesn't get to eat a very big piece. My wife baked it in two round pans and when it cooled we put sugar free vanilla pudding in between them like a Boston creme pie. The top is sprinkled with Russell Stover's sugar free candy. The candy didn't stick well but it was good.  The negative of it is the after taste once it was eaten made one want to find something to eat to clear out the taste.  I guess if I have it with coffee today that the coffee would cut that taste.  It tasted like normal cake as you ate it. It was very good. 

 

Looking to the east last evening the clouds were in a nice pattern. I missed this kind of view for most of the winter so it is nice that it is warming up outside. 

We had some carry out Italian food for my birthday supper and it was delicious. Along with the cake it was a good dinner. My blood numbers should have been high this morning but they were too bad.  I do have a buzz that tells me I didn't stay on the diet that I should have.  I can eat better all day today and it should make me feel better.  Thanks for stopping by today.

Birthday Day....

 The earth continues to tilt back as I can now see the sun in to the far left of the silver maple tree It was just a few weeks ago that the sun was viewed on the far right of this horizon. 

 

It is my birthday today and my wife bought me a gift.  I had to have help from her as we assembled this thing. All the parts were there and all the bolts plus and extra just in case. 

 

It had good visual instructions along with adequate written descriptions of the parts. The made sure the two main vertical poles where labeled with a sticker so one would not start out on the wrong foot. My wife had ordered it on the internet and because we share the same server it was popping up as an ad on my computer. I noticed it mostly as to what plants were being placed on it during the little movie but I didn't really notice the rack itself. I have been getting a lot of ads for plants because I had ordered iris so I didn't clue in that she bought me this. She was certain that I had figured it out but I am 71 years old. 

 

The gift made it necessary to move the plants all away from the window and regrouping took place. I moved my violet shelf over the the other window on the other side of the fireplace. I need to cut back on the vine and I can move things around in the spaces until I get everything in its perfect place.

 

 

We are going to order food from Olive Garden this evening for my birthday meal.  My wife is going to bake me a  sugar free yellow cake today and we will sprinkle bits of chocolate sugar free candy bar on top of it to make frosting. I ran across the cake mix last month and it will work for a diabetic.  It isn't flour free but I can limit the size of the piece that I take. There is a replacement for white flour but then you have to make the whole cake from scratch.  Alcohol sugar is wonderful as it is a great replacement for sugar but we have not seen it on sale so far. Anyway, I am glad to make it to another birthday and I am grateful for the mini celebration we will have today for supper. 

Thanks for stopping by today.

Thursday's Things.....

 They don't bloom outside in Iowa weather very well but it is great color. I am sure if they were grown in a greenhouse that there would be more stem and more blooms

I went out to mail a letter and noticed that my neighbors all had their recycle bins at the curb. I went back into the house and opened the garage door to take out my bin also. I even found an empty box to collapse and took it out too. When I returned I looked down at all the dead mums from last season.  I looked in the truck and found my hedge clippers.   I made fast work of getting them all cut off and bagged. It is raining of course lightly while I did the work.  While I was at it I used the hedge clippers to give my roses a grass quality haircut.  That kind of rose grows back no matter how one treats it.  It is nice to get it all done.

The miniature daffodils are liking the cold, wet weather. I think they are all in full bloom now. You can see I have some white crocus coming up among them. It was nice to get all the dead stuff out and away from the flowers so they can be more presentable. 

We are getting so much more air traffic overhead right now. While I blog the military helicopters are going back and forth.  The are coming from a base in the neighboring city, Johnston. I spent the morning on the phone canceling our furnace service and yard treatment service. The furnace people tried to tell me my warranty would not be good on my furnace anymore but they were mistaken that I had not purchased it from them.  It came the house.  I am going to hire people to mow my yard this one  year so I thought I didn't need to also pay for lawn chemicals for one year.

We are home again today and staying inside.  I think we are good for groceries for quite a while and it is too wet to go anywhere.  Thanks or stopping in today.

Wednesday's Wims.....

 It really isn't that pretty but it is interesting how it turned partially red for the second year.  The greenhouse treatment makes the first year plants do just the right thing to get vivid red leaves.

While digging throught the chest of drawers in the nook downstairs I noticed I had a glass collection ready for display. The candle holder is a new one in years comparted to the other three. The lidded piece came from a box at a Jesse Horton auction. It was a box full of nothing but a couple of old things were in the box. I was still in college when I bought it from the auction in far southern Iowa. 

The nook in the basement off of the bathroom is a great place to display old things. The oil glass lamp is from my Grandmother's place in Murray.  My dad retrieved it from the basement back in 1957.  I claimed it later in my high school years as it laid out in a wooden barrel in the machine shed. 

The print of the Chinese woman is one from an old furniture store.  In older days than when I was alive the store would buy prints and frame them, cutting up their own frames from moldings. This one didn't ever sell as I retrieved it from the furniture store back in the late 1970's. The oval picture is aso from that same furniture store. 

The mirror was given to us by our late friend Shary.  She knew things were not going well with her cancer and she started giving away things to us each time we picked her up to take her for chemo treatments. Things range from the mirror to baskets, books and magazines also. One time she gave us some honey and biscuits with a special spoon

The tin container is one from an far time ago when they sold coconut in metal cans. In fact a lot of different things sold in those kind of containers. I just remembered that the bras bowl came from an garage sale 45  years ago when brass from India was popular. 

I worked briefly this morning in one of the garden areas. I cut back old sedum stems and asparagus stems from last years plants. I also tried to deal with the old leaves from the flag iris.  I don't remember that they were so hard to remove but my clippers were dull.  I had a hard time with that so I will return another day for that job.  I had cut back a climbing rose on Monday and all the debris is now piled in one place for me to bag up and toss. 

I have been bothered that the top pictures are not all at the same level.  With my compulsive behavior I used a tape measure and moved the nail to get them to hang level, and not downhill. We have had a gallery in our old house and I was always moving pictures around as my wife would sell something. The multiple nail holes left from the moving caused me to repaint the walls about every five years and fill the holes. Right now one can't see the holes as the paintings cover them up. 

I have done more than I should today so I will rest for the rest of my time. Thanks for checking in today.

Random Craziness.....

 The goose was looking dead, as the wind had blown it over and its head had fallen off of the body. I lay there for a few days looking like my neighbor had shot it with his rifle.  Today, I walked out in the rain and righted him.  I gave his neck a little bit of twist to give him some attitude. 

 While I was in the storeroom looking for things to photograph I found this stage coach.  My long time followers have seen this before. I assembled it in my youth. I believe it was a Christmas gift but I am not sure who gave ti to me.  I had to carve the horses and can see I didn't put much work to them. I watch a mystery on cable from Canada and they have a stage coach similar to this in one of the policeman's office shelf. 

While walking in the rain I took a badly arranged shot of the rose bush and the iris.  This was a newly replanted garden area after the voles ate everything in that patch. Nothing was left uneaten. I just remembered that I lost a tiger lily by their chopping away on things. 

I finished the last coat of paste wax on my last table this morning. The walnut grain is one of my favorite kinds of wood. I am not sure where this table will go as it was in such disrepair that it never was upstairs before now.  Maybe it be a plant stand.

The newly designed feet for the table makes them look a whole lot complete. It was going to be a simple addition of pieces of squares to the bottom and it evolded into some thing else altogether. 

 

Hand built, native American replica, piece contrasts to a wheel thrown pottery piece,  The story that goes with the handmade one is that I made it in a summer for a class. There was a break in the class so I actually worked on them at my cabin in Minnesota.  We also took a trip up into Canada for a visit of a History Center, then I brought it back to Iowa to have a final day of class. It was fired in a bonfire and it rolled around in the back of the van before I took it in for a grade. It has a great story to tell. Yes it is supposed to look rustic and historic.

Thanks for stopping by today at my posting.

Monday Moments....

 

 

 A gray Monday for us with sprinkles in the sky but not real rain. Thanks for stopping by today.