Take a Number

 Morning clouds line up in a row reacting to the winds up above. We warmed up a bit but not as much as yesterday.

 I have early photos of our living room when we had nothing on these walls. As we live in a place we gradually add more and more things. The drawing by my wife is of our grand daughter when she was less than a year old. My wife also loves the rows of birds at the feeder while I always have a barn painting around somewhere. The shelf of had carved items from Israel fits in the horizontal. 

 Also on the wall is this paper cutting from an Israel artists. I am sure the original was a hand cut item but this probably was machine cut. Grapes, pomegranates, olives, figs, wheat and rye branches are all depicted. I can't read Hebrew so who knows what it is saying. 

 The hand carved donkey fits in with the palm plant as it has such a nice red blanket. Olive tree scrap wood is used for the carving.

 

 My planter is in need of a new plant. I know better that it is never going to fill back in again. I have sections of the long vine placed in my aquariums growing and cleaning the water for the fish. 

I spent too much time on the phone today. I spent a long time on the line with my new insurance supplement  having them read and ask questions about its being. I spent time on the line with my new diabetic equipment company in California assuring to them that my doctor will send them needed info. I worked with my nurse again with a problem with my doctor and another prescription. I spent time figuring out a mistake that my doctor created by prescribing my equipment at two different companies.  Need I mention that two of the women I spoke with did not have a handle on the English language. Other than that I had a great morning. 

Thanks for stopping by today. 

Monday's Mentions

 The morning sunrise doesn't show what the future temps will be. We will though get up to 65 degree F. today. I won't be enjoying that so much as I will be in a dentist chair at the time it is to hit our high. 

 The figurines get to be photographed in front of the milk glass. The penguin isn't so old as I gifted it to my wife. The dogs are antiques. The came from my grand mother's house that was being closed down back in 1957. Sadly the little dogs are the remains of a larger set that my mom originally owned. At first there were two larger dogs, male and female, with black collars on them. The smaller pups were four or five in number. The were made from porcelain. I have never seen anything like them ever again or I would try to buy them.  A knick knack that they were all placed on failed and the pieces landed on the hard floor. These two were the only survivors. 

 

 

Sharing the blooms of kalanchoe that is in my downstairs window. They like the location and the  heater does encourage them that runs along the wall there. 

 This cupboard is ours that we moved to the new house. I hung it in a safe location and you can see the dogs in it. The mirror in the back of it makes it sparkle. The mirror also gives you a view of me taking the shot. There are a lot of small items that just work well in this box. It sat on a counter at the old place but this wall was narrow and it fit there very well.

Thanks for stopping by today.  

A Nook

 One of our previous owners had the basement finished with a big main room, a bedroom and a full bath. The space between the main room and bath has a nook. I am not sure if it were planned or an afterthought but I really like it.  We put my refinished oak chest of drawers into the nook making the space special. I restored and refinished it back when I was a couple of years in high school. When we closed down my parents house I retrieved the chest. Being that it is old I have to display old things on and around it. 

 The glass lantern was taken from my grandmothers house when they were closing it down in 1957. My dad wanted it and kept it in the machine shed. When I refinished the chest I went to the shed and got it. It had to be cleaned up a lot and I had to buy a glove for it.  The bicycle is a hand crafted one from locals in South Africa. Some missionaries gave it to us for helping with a display room that they had at our church. My mom's quail salt and pepper shakers  are only a few that I saved from her dozens of sets. 

The print is from a very old furniture store of my son's great grandfather and grandfather. The original old store bought prints and a worker cut frames for them. They were then put on sale in the store. The whole thing, frame and print, are antique. 

 

Framed photos on the wall include our wedding photo, my wife's grandma Mason on the left and my grandma Brown. The old mirror on the one left wall is from my wife's friend and also on the right one of her prints of a famous Impressionist painting. The wedding photo is almost 43 years old. 

When we moved to the new house we had lots of old furniture, antiques ,and they didn't really fit on the main floor.  A couple pieces were used upstairs but most all of the old pieces are downstairs. It all works good that way. Our old 112 year old home that we lived in did seem to meld well with all the antique stuff. 

We reached a high of 43 degree  F. today. It looks like an early spring day out there. Tomorrow we may hit 60 degrees F.  We will take all the good weather that we can get.

Thanks for stopping by today 

 

Saturday

 

 The sun shone true this morning when I looked for the sunrise. It was not so warm but we did warmup by the end of the day.

 I was fourteen years old and had received the assignment to make a lamp. I grabbed a board of cedar and starting to cut it into pieces. I  stacked them and it just happened. The instructor was impressed and share ways in which I could connect them all together drilling the hole in each square first so the rod could be inserted down into it to give it electricity. The cedar sanded down nicely and the finish made it shine. I did the math and it was 62 years ago. 

 

The Christmas tree is down now. I found a few items that didn't get taken off. I took off the different branches and a couple just fell to the floor. I really like this windmill ornament so I left it out to enjoy for a few days. 

While walking around outside I did see the different things that the wind brings me down the street. I sure ate a lot of these when I was young. Some kid must have tossed it somewhere and the wind caught it. 

 

I brought my bucket boy inside after taking this shot. He is safe in the garage until spring. 

Thanks for stopping by today. 
 

Friday going into Saturday....

 The morning was hazy. We did warm up a little but it is still very cold. We have no snow and that does  help keeping the temps from being so low.

 

 I leave some of these dead plants for the winter as they look good in the snow. But this way they look like bad weeds. 

 

 Looking through the fence next to my neighbors one can see that there sedum looks the same as mine.

 

 Iris always amaze me as they stay strong through the winter. The new one had spr outed and it looks like it will be ready to take off when it gets warm again.

 Life does get busy and my late blogging may mean that I forgot to do it or I was doing something to keep me from blogging. I worked in the basement all morning. Thanks for stopping by today. 

 

Thursday's Things

 Among a boys treasures are agates from the beach and also pieces of Native American Indians. The pottery parts can be seen with the textures of decoration from some tool. The Chippewa Tribe lived in the Grand Rapids, Minnesota area. I found these pieces on the beach of Lake Pokegama near there. I wasn't looking for it for different summers and then suddenly I recognized that the Indians probably lived on that side of the lake where there is a natural beach and open forest. It actually a great place for them to set up camp.

 

Along the North Shore of Lake Superior is the Grand Portage Lodge. That is in Minnesota for those who are not familiar.  A restaurant there was one of our favorite spots to eat breakfast. Outside the windows of the place next to the lake was this tee pee. I had to paint it with the beautiful water and sky in the  background. I do know the Chippewa lived along the big lake and Grand Portage is the area where there is a Native American Indian reservation. One summer we attended a Pow Wow there.

 In our town of Woodward there was a couple who lived in the woods east of town. When the city celebrated its 100 years they rode ponies in the parade dressed as Indians. They didn't have saddles and were of course barefoot and the woman had braided hair. He wore his buckskin pants, shirtless, and she wore a buckskin dress. They were not of any tribe but liked to respect the tradition of the Indians, Meskwaki, that did live in our area. The Indians lived in the area before the town was established with the train coming into the central Iowa. Every time that couple would come to our frame shop in our home they would look at the painting and they would remark that the tee pee was wrong. They would not explain it as if it were a secret knowledge. So I just have to believe I painted the door on the wrong side. I just painted what I saw. 

 I wandered the back yard area today as it has warmed up a bit. I blind shot pictues of the Canada geese flying over. I just shoot and hope that I get a shot of the group. They are moving back and forth from water ponds, the big lake and different open farm fields looking for food. The sound is neat as the pass over and I have to think fast to get the camera ready. I am sure I look funny if people see me rushing into action.

 

One of my photos was this one of the top of the fence. I thought it funny that I didn't get it pointed high enough into the sky.

Thanks for stopping by today.  

Take Your Pills

 I started out with the idea of having a two story birdhouse with two openins. by the time it was being assembled I decided to have a birdhouse on a pedistal. I built this wiht scrap pieces of wood and trimmed some of them to get the perfect fit. It was during the covid shut down and I had lots of time on my hands.

 It is a design created to be viewed in all directions with consistent elements. Once it has been created it has become a garden like ornament/sculpture to blend in with my plant displays. 

I created 14 different ones during that long two year span. The house here shows that they don't weather well. I had this one sitting on the deck for decoration. 

 

 

I am sure that I have shared visuals of this one before now. I have it in the basement right now sitting on a massive sized post that my one neighbor gave me when he moved away. 

 We are removing the ornaments from the tree a few at a time. I seem to collect houses as this ornament seemed to be hiding on the tree. I discovered it as we were removing all the large globe shaped ones. 

It was cold out there again today. Went for meds for both of us. I had to do battle to get one of my meds that was being held up by incompetent medical staff and technology.  I finally wrote them a note on my chart and said I would drive down to the office and we will get things straighten out, if they didn't forward my renewal of a prescription. It was two days late but I did get it today. It was a touchy med that one isn't suppose to go cold turkey on and stop taking it. I did get to do that.

Thanks for stopping by today. 

Monday's Mentions

 Juncos are eating at my feeder today. I don['t see them that often but yesterday they were out there, 

 I was glad that I had fed them the night before as we were able to see them all day. The sparrows were there but no cardinals.

 The markings on sparrows really are striking. They are determined to get every speck of seed when things get slim in the tray. 

 The sun shone for a short time period which gave a good glow on the ornaments. There are four trays full of ornaments that have been removed today. It will take a few more days before the tree goes back into its boxes. 

The tree of life glows with all of its colors as the sun shone on it too. Later it just turned into another gray day. We made it up to freezing today and some snow did go away. 

Thanks for checking in today. 

Sunday's Shots

 

 

 

Caboose

 

 

As a kid one would say to the kids in line that so and so would be the caboose, last in line. The person in the  real caboose had a job to signal with certain colored flags to tell the engineer that all was clear behind them or all was going well with all of the cars.

 The oldest caboose I have in my collection is this tin one made in the 1950s. I was three or four years old when I received it at Christmas time. The train had a circle track that allowed the train and four cars to travel around and around. It was a wind up engine so it didn't go for very long until one had to wind it up again. 

 My brother and I were gifted a shared train from Santa. He wrote it on the box for us to be sure who it belong to and there wouldn't be doubt. That was probably in 1958. 

 My one brother in his adult years decided to send my 60 year old father two different small trains. They were only played with by his grandsons but I guess it was fun for him to look at each of the cars as  he took them out of the individual boxes.

 My brother went to the toy store and just picked out two different engines and many different cars to go with them. The train cars were really too small of scale and my sons still talk about how difficult it was to keep them on flimsy tracks. I display them like models and never try to run them.

 We warmed up to 23 degrees F. today. It helped a little to get the furnace to catch up. The 3 degrees F. is cold and the house may be newer it still gets cold inside. The day has been sunny all day though and it made it look good out there. I guess we have better temps with the chance of snow tomorrow. 

Thanks for stopping by today.  

 

Freezing Friday

 Having multiple days of cold is hard on the mind and body. I did get out Thursday to have my hearing aids checked and did get groceries but I still feel locked in. I did get chilled for the rest of the day after that adventure. I want to wander in my back yard. Instead I wander in the house working on storage shelves and watering plants. I am busy fish keeping as I need to maintain the water quality on a regular basis. One tank of guppies is not putting out babies and I learned yesterday that I need to keep exchanging water on them to get out any nitrates. 

 As I wander I notice this small Canada Goose never makes it on the Christmas tree. I had it on a shelf and it is so small compared to my duck collection. 

 Hanging cranes move around as the heater in the sun room blows out warm air. I did get a thousand cranes folded and if I were to count all the ones on the five mobiles that I have made, I am sure I have a hundred more of them than that. I do include folded cranes in cards just because. I still fold a few in the evening after supper, off and on, but not every night anymore. 

 My first four years of art teaching was in Sidney, Iowa. I was young and really don't know if I was doing a good job. Yet , kids would bring me conch shells from a winter trip and the one boy walked up and gave me one of his cast quails. He just handed it to me and walked away. His name was Steve Penn. He was a sweet guy who probably is a grandpa now. Fifty plus years later I see things that those kids, from a Rodeo Town, had gifted me, or drawn pictures for me, and I have good memories.  One boy drew faces of his boy buddies in my class and turned them into clown faces. He labeled who they each were just in case I didn't know. I still have that drawing. He said he wanted me to remember the class.

 It still runs and made a noise when I was moving the box around. The storage area of my basement looks like I am back into control. I had to move everything around when we had the furnace put in and I really never got things put back. With all the Christmas things taken off the shelves I had to start organizing it again. 

Thanks for stopping by today.