Thursday's Report....

 

The hardy geraniums are liking the warmth inside the house. One of the reasons I bring them in as I like red. Another reason is the sculptural forms of the flower make interesting photographs. 

It was very cold outside as I took my recycle bin to the curb this morning. I saw the one orange leaf and I thought I should just collect some of them. 

The locust tree leaves are a different design than most trees. All the little parts are seen here blown up against the driveway curb. I have these yellow leaves on my deck as the wind has blown them up and over the house causing them to collect on the deck.  I am sure the neighbors are wondering what they are all about as our strong wind the last few days are sending everybody's leaves up and down the street. 

We have strong winds again today. Its fifty degrees F. and it is cold. The leaves are being loosened from the trees and the leaves are flying everywhere. I brought in my last stem of iris blooms as it seems like it will hurt delecate plants. I will have to start mulching leaves soon.

Thanks for stopping by today.

Middle of the Week's Stuff....

 I am sharing a different shot from yesterday's morning shot. The novelty of this shot is the view of the moon up beside the clouds in the opening. I would probably have never known it was up there but accidentally I picked it up in the photo.

We had strong winds yesterday. The wind always brings in strange items into the yard including cardboard boxes or a child's worksheet from school The mixture of the leaves are diverse from all of the neighbor's trees. Sometimes I get bark from the tree across the way as it sheds bark in the fall. 

 

 

Inside the reblooming iris is blooming. The two hear are stunning. I have two stalks in this glass vase and one more stalk is developing outside right now. The rain that we are getting will help it but the flash of cold may be hard on it. I may have to go rescue it too.

This stalk has five buds on it so I should have a lot of blooms for quite some time. 

TIhe redbud tree is natually dropping its leaves but the wind yesterday helped clear things more. Now the ten or twlve hours of rain is going to help it to lose more. It has been too long since we have had rain. We are not use to hearing the sound of thunder or rain on our roof. It is suppose to be slow and steady which makes it a great rain. We need to fill up our lakes and rivers again and the soil needs to be better befor we freeze.  Daylight savings ends soon and that is good. I am preparing in my mind for the things are yet to come. 

Thanks for stopping in today.

The Winds Does Blow....

 The morning view was a surprise to see. I don't know what the vertical clouds are all about as they are too big to be jet vapor trails. The day is an extremely windy day and I suspect is setting up for the day.

My front flowering trees are turning into a good red this year. The wind is blowing the red leaves down the street.  The neighbor's clump birch is showing yellow through at the bottom of the shot. 

The rose hips this year are all shriveled up from our dry weather. There are  not as many of them this year. 

I have another shot of my bird nests. The nest always makes me think of my friend Norm who visited me one time with his two Phillipine boys when the one boy found a nest. He was taking it home with him for sure.He thought he had found a gold mine.   That boy is now a senior in high school and lives in Tennessee. 

Leaves are blowing everywhere and the temps are in the 80s. I did get rid of my 14 bags of yard waste this  morning. It was a good day for it.  I did look around in my garage afterwards and I missed putting in my last bag. It wasn't full so I can wait until I fill it and maybe even a couple more of them and I can take another trip. 

Thanks for stopping by today.

Monday is Now....

 I house cleaned the support beam of my deck today removing the robin's nest. To my surprise the nest had never been used.

The robin lines the base of its nest with a mud to make it smooth and this one has had no such treatment. I suppose the robin got distracted and build another nest somewhere else. I wasn't around to watch the activity of the birds but I assumed I had missed seeing the hatching. 

Two out of three of the stalks on my reblooming iris have been cut and brought inside. I got my first bloom out of the seven buds that are there. 

My new burning bush is not doing very good at this location but I am sure when we return to normal rainfall that it might take off next season. I have three different posts in the ground holding things and this morning I leveled them and filled in new dirt around them to make them stand up straight.  We have warmed up again and it is nice. 

Thanks for stopping by today.

Sunday Afternoon....

 The morning is almost at the freezing point and clear sky helps it to be cold.  The sun has not really shown yet but the glow is good.

Because of the cold I have brought in the reblooming iris to save it from froat. It is slow to bloom and yet it will surprise me one morning.  I have one more stalk to bring in that has three or four buds on it. That will happen before dark tonight. 

This is a shot of the stem that I brought inside a couple of days ago. The flower is shriveled up and gone now. 

 

 A few of my hosta have already succumbed to the cold. This one doesn't seem to be bothered yet.  I read articles that one should trim them back but in our climate the cold takes them back before I can cut them back.

I don't have enough leaves on the ground yet to mow/mulch them so I guess it will be later for that job.  I still have some outside work to do with four rose bushes. I am goint to ditch my bags of recycle in the next couple of days.  Monday is a coming.

Thanks for checking in today.

Sat Stuff....

 I tend to notice when the back ends of cars are designed with funny faces looking back at  you. Certain companies do that and I wonder if anyone working there sees the happy face with eyes. I washed the truck today after spending time adding air to all four tires. I think my truck looks a little mean with some of its front design feachers. 

I clipped back on roses that I was running into as I took my stairs. I really don't have a bud vase but the antique 7-up pop bottle works great. 

 

 

I worked outside for a while this morning even though it was cold. I also washed up the truck and got it ready to take a trip to the recycle bins north of town. I will go on a week day rather than go on a weekend to stay away from the crowd. A city our size, 65,000 or more, and only one recycle area means the weekends are crowded.  M y leaves are not really falling yet and I will try to mulch them with my mower when they do fall. My bags are full of garden waste and sticks that I have collected through the year.

Thanks for stopping by today.

Friday is a Go....

 Knock out roses are good at putting out blooms late in the season.  There are not so many blooms but the red is a strong color and the bushes still look good. 

My mums are looking good. I have four new lights for the front garden area. They are not very bright but they are a little bit of bling. They are solar powered and I would really wish that they were strong power and lighted things up better. 

Next door, across the street, is my favorite dragon. The neighbor has brought out all of favorite decorations for the season. He also brings out quite a display for Christmas. 

The line up is over there and orange lights make a fence in front of the crew. There will be lots of kids over there for Trick or Treating.

I don't like to kill live plants. This little geranium did so poorly in our drought filled season so I saved it.  I am getting rewarded with some token blooms now as it enjoys the water and warmth inside. 

Thanks for stopping by today.

Thursday a Done Deal....

 

 

 

 

There was blue jay at the top of the tree. I didn't get a zoomed in shot. I spent two and a half hours at the dental facility. I had the right half of my teeth cleaned  first. I was then taken to the opposite side of the facility to visit my dentist. She ground down a tooth and I was fitted for a temporary cap and a new real cap has been ordered.  I noticed that the first set of shots were extra heavy so the jaw did stay numb for that long period of time.  I am now resting and sipping liquids. In two weeks I will be getting the final cap.  I will be eating lasagna for supper.  Thanks for stopping by today.

Middle of the week....

 I have to walk to the very edge of the deck to get the sun in the photo. As the earth keeps tilting it will show up behind the house and I will have to wait for it to raise above it. I won't be able to photograph the sunrise with a sun for the entire winter

Looking in the opposite direction the clouds are picking up the light of the sun. Its a cold morning and we won't warm up much today. 

When I crop out all the surroundings you can see our leaves turning. There is a great variety of trees out there giving us lots of different colors. The old silver ma ple has already dropped a lot of its leaves.

I captured a glimpse of our old house in Woodward, Iowa while viewing an old neighbor's Facebook picture. She was sharing the photo of her new tree in her front yard that was changing colors.  I cropped out of the photo the house that has so many memories. We built the art gallery-studio on the right side of the house in 1986.It was a nice large room for display and frame shop. At the end was our studio space. The flippers turned it into a beautiful kitchen and dining room.  I later added the front porch gable with columns changing the look of an old farm house 1912, to a more modern variety of shapes and forms.  The flippers in town love gray paint and the house is in light gray. They have flipped two more houses now and they both are painted in a sad looking dark gray. I planted that birch tree in 1977, which makes it a 47 year old tree. It took a beating during a derecho four years ago and lost a section from it. 

I took so many pictures of it when we lived there for so many years. It was a 4 foot stick of a tree taken from our ditch in Minnesota on our property there in 1977.  I think it is the only birch tree in the entire town.

Thanks for stopping by today.

Tuesday's Posting.....

 

The patterns and colors in the clouds are all so wonderful.  The view is looking up the backyard towards the neighbor’s trees. I remember when the young family man planted that tree on the left and was so glad that he did. It is going to be a big beautiful maple for a long time. Ironically the two neighbors next to these trees are two owners that don't have a tree in their front or back yards. 

We had a small rain in the early morning.  I was up early and looked out to see wet sidewalks.  We needed more than a tenth of an inch but it was some moisture and that was the first after a month and a half of no rain. 

I have one last cone flower that is faded and sad looking. It is in the shade of the house all of the time so it has hung on longer than all of my others which are dead. 

The drought has been hard on my burning bush. It is at least alive while a dogwood bush next to it didn't survive the summer.  I wasn't around to water them so they did suffer.

I worked at a number of chores today. I cleaned up and bagged the spent phlox stems. I dead headed two rose bushes and cut some stray volunteer trees. I also dug up an row of hosta plants, young ones, that didn't survive being taken over by healthy grass. I watered down the strip of soil so I could dig everything up and start over with the planting. 

I got my work jeans muddy but it was  worth it. With it all cleared out I planted some new hosta from another part of the garden and put them in as larger more mature plants. I plan on putting down mulch to keep back the grass and get that row of hosta growing next to the stairs.  Tomorrow I have two bags of mulch to spread and then next day I visit the dental office again. I doubt I get any yard work done all day Thursday. Thanks for stopping in today.

Monday's Mentions.....

 The sun has yet to be up but the special effects are there. I like the foreground of trees lined up in contrast. 

The day was filled with strange cloud formations today. This formation seemed to be reacting to the warm air from the south. 

In the front yard the locust tree is changing colors. I took the shot for the tree but the clouds seem to repeat the shapes and textures of the tree.

One of my reblooming iris surptised me this morning. I sot of remember seeing a bud on it a few days but I didn't check on it. I accidentally walked by to fill up a watering can and saw it there.

I planted over a dozen iris today that were gifted me by the next door neighbor. I will share that story another day. Thanks for stopping by today.

Sunday....

 My choice of coffee mug was a whimsical one. I felt like seeing a bright red mug and few of my old friends on the side made me smile. 

The orchid that surprised me with blooms keeps on showing me more blooms. I didn't give it any special care and really did ignore it. 

The roses that I cut last week have stayed strong in their vase. I could go cut a new batch once these are done.  I have some roses that need to be cut back for the winter. We are going to have warm days ahead so I can get some of the jobs done.

I did buy an auger bit for my portable drill and it worked well. I was able to drill the holes into the hard soil far enough down that the tulip bulb would sit right below the soil level. I then piled on new soil to give the tulips the height of soil that they like. The lay of the land along there is so uneven as the builder left a very uneven mess. The former owner had to put stairs in there with railroad ties as he couldn't walk down the hill. The story was that our house was built as an afterthought, squeezed in between two other houses that they had built.  When they got the house done they really didn't do much thought with the moving of the soil on either sides of tour house.  My neighbor to the north was hanging around so he demanded his side of the yard to be leveled with a gradual slope.  I have been bringing in soil and trying to make my side of the area into a better looking slope so putting in soil for tulips was a good thing. 

We are having warm weather today and the air had to be turned on by noon. People are out and about outside today as it is nice to get good weather. We are hearing forecasts that suggests rain.  That would be wonderful. 

Thanks for stopping by today.