The End of the Week........

I did many small jobs yesterday and one of them was to drain the fish pond.  No more reflective water shots will be posted but now maybe I can get some fish photos.  I dug up my son's old fish tank, small, and put the two fish into it.  They are sitting among the geraniums now in the bird room.

Draining the pond was easy as I put the garden hose on the pump and sent the water away from it.  It was too cold of a day to do this task but the future weather is predicted to be much colder.  We were at 30 degrees F this morning when we got up.  The bottom of the pond was full of sticks and leaves so I had to get a rake and clean out some of the debris.  I had to wait for these two to come up to the surface for me to catch them with the net.

I am having a lot of birds at the feeder today. I have no photos to prove it but as I have shown in my history, you will be seeing lots of bird shots.  I had grackles at the feeder today along with one chickadee. A woodpecker with a red head was at the feeder yesterday but I don't have suet out yet. I have to relearn all the names of the woodpeckers but I think it was a downy.

In the middle of the day while working on a frame job, I stopped and worked on a kitchen project.  I had found some shelf boards in the basement that looked great for the two cubicles in the kitchen.  I ended up getting the slats nailed in to hold the two shelves and then painted it all with white enamel.  Of course now I will be having to repaint all the kitchen cupboards which is a much needed thing.

Once the paint was dry I put the shelves in and my wife did the rest.  We really were needing the shelves in there so we could more easily access them.  We had to lift out piles of dishes to get to the larger ones at the bottom and that was inconvenient.  The palsgraf dishes are the new ones that we won on the internet via our friend on Cattails blog.  The palsgraf Heritage pattern has been our wedding dishes for 30 years now but we could never get to them easily in the cupboard. So we use both all the time now. The white ones have more smaller dessert plates and two sizes of bowls.  The bowls in the new set get used for serving dishes as well as great salad bowls.  It is so easy now to get to the dishes and use them.  The paper plates on the white side are what we use when we don't want to get a build up of a lot of dishes to wash or are used for Buttons cooked chicken meals.

The phlox are a tough plant as they keep getting mild freezes and they still stay green.  Our harder freeze last night may take them out.  I like leaving them up all winter as the dead stems look so good in the snow.  I finally got my dahlia plant dug and I have quite a few new tubers for next year to plant.  I planted my neighbor's donated seed geraniums into a smaller window planter and that is going to be placed in the dining room window.  With all the light I should have blooms all winter.  The geraniums had never been replanted from their original small nursery pots so they should be really glad to get their roots to stretch out a bit.

I will wait until it warms up this afternoon before I venture outside.  I have one last storm window to put back on after the paint job and I have lots of sticks to pick up.  I have found an area on the west side of the kitchen that should be scraped and repainted but I will have to wait for the sun to shine on that side of the house. That side is the original 110 year old siding and it holds paint well. It feels more like winter each day and the weekend will be a cold one.  It will be time to get the winter coat out or wear heavy sweaters with a light coat.  The cold air coming down from Canada will effect us a little but it looks like it may swing further east and we will just be on the edge of it.  Typhoons causing the vortex is an amazing thing. 

Thank you for checking in today. 

Harvest Moon.........

 

The harvest moon has done well at keeping us lighted up at night. Of course the clouds blowing in from the northern cold country keeps it partially cover most of the time.  While walking Barney last night I could see thin clouds in wonderful shapes darting across the sky letting the view of the moon show through periodically.   For the good photographers out there, I actually took this late afternoon the other day and the photoshop allowed me to tone it down a little so the craters would show up in the picture.

Our evenings are cold now and the photo shows how the sky is looking like a winter sky.  Most all of the leaves are fallen but I do see one silver maple that has held on to a lot to its leaves.  All the others are bare.

The juncos are back.  I don't know if all are back but I do have a good group of them at the feeders.  I am assuming that they are coming from the northern states and Canada.  I am not sure why they stay here as it would be warmer further south.

I had three bluejays on the feeder yesterday afternoon.  I was glad that I got a few shots of them as I had to go back out and work on the house after I took the pictures. They didn't come back while I was working.

It was a three layers of shirts kind of a day while painting on the house. I can't paint today as it is going to stay so cold all day.  I can sneak out and do short timed jobs but it would be hard to stay for long periods of time. 

I painted the kitchen windows, a set of side by side windows from the 60's. I had put off painting them as I wanted to replace them instead. Replacement didn't take place so I painted them white trim and all.  I can put the storm sheets back on them today without getting too cold. My neighbor puts the pressure on saying it all looks good and it will look great when I get it all done.  I doubt that I get done but I will hit it when I can.  The wind is not felt on the south side of the house so I can do some of that kind of things today.  We have a very sun shiny day today but it really is deceiving. I hope all are well out there and thanks for stopping by today. 

Home Again.......

My long term sub job is now over and I am going to stay home a few days to play catch up on the loss of 4 weeks not being home.  It is suppose to be our warmest day today and the rest of the week will be pitiful. I will clean up outside and throw some ancient siding away today.  I have painting to do when it gits warmer than 42 degrees F. 

The look of fall is upon us but the apple tree has still not lost its leaves.  We did have a hard enough freeze to take out some of the tomato plants and zinnias.  I will collect seed from various things and save them for next year.  I want to dig my dahlia today and will move some other plants to get them away from a porch project I plan to do.  When the porch gets widened I don't want to leave good plants under the floor to die.  I guess it is a peony that must be moved and I don't know what else I can move out of there.

The neighboring cornfield did get picked and now we know that the growing season is over.  It was an early planted field and it was ready to be picked weeks ago.  I am glad the corn hung on the stock and didn't fall to the ground.  The newer pickers are so good that there isn't loose corn left on the field anymore.  The corn is picked and shelled right inside the combine leaving halved corn cobs on the ground.

While outside last evening the harvest moon was out in sight.  It was hard to take pictures of the cornfield and the moon at the same time as the moon was already pretty high in the sky.  I could see the craters of the moonscape but this photo does not show them. 

We are windy today from the south and the temps are getting to be cool everyday.  It was cool last evening when I was out there while wearing my son's old lettermen's jacket to keep warm. 

The maple tree is pretty much bare but the base of it has a few stray leaves hanging on to it.  I am not leaf free out there but I think that I am done with the yard.  I chop up the leaves and the parts settle into the grass.  The few remaining will shrivel up in the snow and be gone by spring.  The squirrels are busy this time of the year jumping from tree on the bare branches.  They don't have any cover now so they don't stay out in the open for very long as the travel to the apple tree or the walnut trees across the alley.

I left a good apple on the arm of the bench on Sunday and I didn't get it taken into the house.  As you can see a squirrel sampled my wares. I don't know if they store apples in their holes but I do see them carrying the small apples across branches and fence to take them back to their tree.  I suppose a dried apple would taste good when there isn't any other food to eat.

A busy day of work today in store for me and I am staying away from the list today as I know I will never get it all done.  I will just be glad that I am moving forward and not standing still. 

Thank you for stopping by today.  Have a great Wednesday!!!!

Tuesday's a Go.......

The rescued bud rewarded me for giving it warmth and water.  It is a little blurry but the photo still gives one a good idea of its perfection in white.

I am trying to be a better gardener on the inside of the house.  I now know that over watering is far more threatening to a violet than the under watering process. This probably came from a greenhouse with perfect growing conditions.  I will do my best to keep it alive and blooming with neglect. 

I shared a similar photo of this squirrel eating on a piece of apple.  I have seen where they eat at some of the apples on the ground when I see bites in the fallen apples but I have never seen any one of my squirrels eagerly chomping away at the fruit. 

It is a busy week for me and I have been off schedule with my blogging.  Life can get to be so hectic.  I am finishing off my job with the science classroom today and I am glad that it is done.  The guy and his new knee seems to be doing good.  I will will walk out at the end of the day today with a smile on my face.

Thanks for stopping in today.

Shrinking Violet..........

I haven't the apple tree area today but I suspect that all those late blooms of wild violets are probably gone.  It is a late posting today for my Monday blog so I will leave it as one photo today.  Thanks for stopping by today.

Sunday and Rest...........

Rose buds were rescued on Friday evening knowing that they would be frosted or frozen.  The responded to the vase of water and the warmer climate inside. The pink one is the rose that I rescued from my parents home in Osceola.  It has been through a few tough winters but I will mulch it heavily again this fall.  I was surprised that it had a bud on it and I worked next to it while working on the siding of the south side of the house.

We had less kids at our door on Friday than what we usually have.  We had a lot of invaders from other towns this year which seemed strange, maybe even greedy.  Our last batch of tricksters were very crude and were not from our town.  I was glad to just turn off the lights and shut the door and call it the end of that season for the year.

Yes it is an untreatable addiction.  I found two new violets that wanted to follow me home. I did get all my hardy geraniums in position for the winter. I keep them in a large window and I take the birds out of the window to keep them from getting chilled being near a window.  All seem happy now.  Both the plants and the birds seem to get along pretty well.

Thanks for stopping by today.  I wish you all well on this Sunday and hope it is a good day for you.

Saturday Stuff........

Cleaning out the birdbath is on my mental list of things to do.  I placed a faded, spent dahlia into the water to make it look more tropical.  The temperatures say otherwise as we are in our low 20's F. this morning. I will dig the dahlia when I see the green on top has been frozen.  My neighbor asked about when to save seed from the zinnias.  I am glad she asked as that was not on my mental list.

I did bring in the zinnia and dahlia blooms a couple of days ago.  I am glad that we could enjoy them in the house. A few of the blooms didn't seem to like being picked and placed in a vase as they faded instantly while the others look good still today. 

My neighbor places geranium seedlings in an old fashion spreading planter.  They sort of bloom but are kept in small buckets so they never really grow.  So again this fall she gave me the 5 or 6 of them to save over winter.  Those who follow me know that I don't need any more geraniums in the house.  I will try to find a larger pot that I can place them in, all of them at once, so I can keep them alive until spring.  Putting them in a large container might allow them spread out their toots and grow much more foliage than where they were all summer. 

This is the after shot of my siding repair that I have been working on,  I still need to go back and caulk seems and holes in the ancient cedar boards.  It looks a whole lot better than what it was like before.  I know it is a temporary solution but it has the viewers of the town believing that it looks good.



Here is a showing of where it had been in comparison condition wise to where it is now.  I will sneak in time to paint trim boards and trim around the windows before it gets to be too bad out there.  If we get back up in the 60's I can paint for a few more days.  I have a few other areas on the house that need attention but they won't be major jobs as touch ups of worn siding.

This is the leaf of the red maple that turned red on the east side and then turned this color on the rest of the tree.  The tree had been chopped at by the town's foresters to keep limbs off the walking side of the tree.  I don't know if that effected the tree or not but I do suspect the flow of sap was interrupted by the butcher job. 

I see work that has to get done outside and inside the house. It is too much for me for one day.  I will just take steps toward some of it and hope I can catch up on all of it.  We did get the two artworks sent out in the mail this morning and I have another artwork to get framed.  The jobs to get done are too many so I will just grab something and start in on it.  Freezing cold two nights in a row will stop growth on things outside.  I will cover roses with leaves and start to take down the tomato plants.  The leaves do await my arrival and I will take tomorrow off.  It is a busy time of the year.  Thanks for stopping by today.  Everyone take care of yourselves and I will see you again tomorrow.