A Sunday Short........

A pending storm is bringing the birds back to the feeders. I am hoping that they predicted it wrong but they seem to have perfected it down to the time the snow will start to fall.  Our snow will start to fall at 6:00 tonight.  We will be watching to see if it is true.  Right now we have bright sunshine but a lot of cold air blowing our way.

We bought a new container of coffee and cream so we are all ready for anything to come our way.  I hope all are staying safe in your own places in the world. Thank you for stopping by today.

Learning is Slow........

The Iphone 5 that our son gave us recently still isn't set up to be a phone. It is though a computer and camera.  The camera part we are both working with it learning all the little quirks that make it work.  I like how I can email photos to my mail account and then edit the photo on whatever program that I want on my main computer. We both are savvy enough on the computer but the phone had too many twists and turns to make it a snap to use.

Pressing on the dot to take one photo means not holding down your fingertip on the spot.  You can get 18 photos in one shot as the trigger is a tapping process and not a hold down on the button type of thing.

It was fun to try it out with the grandson. I did get 20 shots of AJ eating on one cupcake.  It looks like I took a movie the way each picture is just a little bit different. I still like a computer better than the little phone but I can see how we will incorporate into our everyday lives.  We do need to go ahead and get the phone set up on it as we have two burner phones that are discontinued and not functioning anymore. We are told that we can't live without a cell phone.

A project I can do while I am not watching the Super Bowl is to clean these up to see them shine. I discovered the swan in a junk box of my parents a few days ago and I thought the brass ducks could be displayed with it.

A winter project is to snap those little offspring on the cactus and start them in soil.  Maybe right next to the parent plant.  Winter is a perfect time to work on them when you don't want to be outside in the snow.

I just mentioned that we won't watch the football game.  The commercials would be the good part of the game but we usually skip it each year and it hasn't effected the quality of our life. I am glad there are so many who like to watch it, I just don't have any interest.

We did melt off some snow on Thursday but at the most part we still have a lot of snow.  It makes it feel cold even when the sun is shinning.  We went to the bookstore for a while this morning and stopped at Wally world for essentials.  Our light in the refrigerator had gone out and it is dark in there without the light working.  We had a few other food items to get and we came home for a rest.  I am moving slow today but will get a few things more done before the day is done.  Thank you for stopping by today.

Super Friday.........

The neighbor's trees always give us great snow settings throughout the winter.  You can see how the wind plastered snow on the west side of the trees.

From frozen rain to snow the scene has a solid foundation of white precipitation. We had another 6 inch or more of snow dumped onto this white winter scene.

I didn't get done with the porch roof extension but what I did get done is really doing its job. Normally the water and ice would have been next to the house.  I am really glad I went ahead and added it in early winter.  Some of the boards that I need to finish on the sides of the rof are still leaning against the wall inside, staying dry and warm.

The new lighting pole gives me an opportunity to take photos inside that I wasn't able to do before now. The top view of the village is lighted so all of the area is in focus.

The stuff piled on the table which is ready to be put into storage is lighted for a still life presentation. I have two of the lighting poles so I can put light on two sides of the objects.  I just had one of the poles out so I did get some shading on the left side of things.

The last ornament from the big tree is still in the living room.  It may end up in a drawer and now with other ornaments.  He is a funny looking santa on the roof top. 

I am in the 8th grade reading room today.  Lots of reading, sentence corrections and free reading going on in the room today.  I had only a two day week this time but I am still anxious for the weekend.  We will warm up just a little but flurries keep creeping into the forecast.  It is getting to be a long winter now and I am ready for another season.  Thanks for checking in today. 

Thursday's the Day.......

I am assuming the male cardinal is off at someone's luxurious sunflower seed feeder.  This female has rarely been around but was out during the last of the storm yesterday.  I had just dropped off a fresh batch of seed and she sat in the pile and ate seed.

I am thinking this is the pine siskin again.  I am glad to see it out there.  The coloring on sparrows just are not this fancy. As I looked them up on the net I see they can put out some yellow color on the edge of some of the bottom of wing feathers and chest.

The day before yesterday these pines were heavy with frozen rain. Then there was  the melting for a short period of time.  That allowed the branches to raise back up and then the snow collected. All of those pine trees planted close together look like a mini forest area. It has stayed cold enough for the snow to stay right on the trees.  We are to warm up to 29 today which might let some of the sun rays work on the evaporation of the snow.

A random shot of the street across the way shows the iced conditions on the road before it was dumped on with 8 inches of snow. We get our mail from a box up at the pos toffice while our neighbors get theirs by rural free delivery.

I will finish off the blog with a photo of buttons.  I know that doesn't make sense but I was digging through the button box again.  These are very old buttons. I remember them from when I was a kid 50 plus years ago. The green one with all the vegetables on fruit on it seems unusual.  The red flower ones look to be very old.

The ear ring, clip, is a 50's thing of back when my mom had a full set of colored caps. The variety of plastic caps was used  to make her ear rings to match the color of her dress.  I remember the pale green or blue  ones.  I also know there were pink ones too.  The white one is a loner in the box and I am not sure how it ever got into the button box.


The weather is the talk of the day as we are to get snow again tomorrow.  Kids have been out of school for two days in a row so it is wild behavior, excitement, as the standard norm from the students.  I am head high school special education teacher today, with this being my first day of work this week. It is hard to come back for me as a teacher too with all the days off but I am getting use to it. I will be in the junior high for my Friday assignment.

I hope all are feeling well and the weather does not have you down.  Thank you for stopping by today.

Snow Again..........

It started snowing right after the rain last night.  It rained for a long time.  Looked out at 10:00 pm and it was dropping snow out of the sky abundantly.  We may have had 6 inches or more it is hard to say.  The very strong winds in the night moved things around a lot. I was out shoveling this morning and the windchill is about 10 degrees F.  It is very cold.  I thought they really shouldn't make school kids walk and wait in this weather.  When I came inside my wife said school has been cancelled.  I was suppose to work today for a sick science teacher. 

I really am sorry to show you more snow photos.  I am getting discouraged with it.  I do know that February can be our worse month in the winter time here in Iowa.  I am glad I don't have to go to school today and can avoid going out into it.

The white of the snow can be a good clean looking color but the dark branches against the snow makes a great photo to see.  This shrub did not bloom last year so here is hoping it will this spring.

I am going to identify this bird with stripes as a pine siskin.  I am not certain but I find it funny that I just said to a fellow blogger that we never have them in our area.  The photo is not good but it is best of the siskin but not the junco.  Today that feeder is covered with snow and I had to take my shovel and clear it.  I was thinking the pine siskin was a smaller bird but I really have not been familiar with them.  I sure know that it is not a sparrow.

The living room is all put back together now with it being totally Christmas decoration free.  There is one lone ornament sitting on the coffee table that I found on the floor while we dismantled the tree.

We box up the figurines into the same boxes as the angels and manger scene are stored into, so we do switching from year round display to the Christmas display.  The figurines are not really arranged as I just quickly pulled them from the box and set them in a row.

The print is of a painting by Nita Engle.  She is a Minnesota artists who we have admired for years.  The painting reminds us so much of an area we use to visit north of Grand Marais, Minnesota along the north shore.  There is a swamp lake next to the shore of Lake Superior and off in the distance is a remnant of an old log cabin.

Our oldest son bought me a Christmas present of lighting equipment to use when I take still life photos.  I don't have the thing all set up but I did try out just one light.  It is suppose to shine through a cloth causing a light that is  diffused.   I have lots of good examples that show it really helps but I will spare all the photos for now.

The shot of the African violet is so much improved over my back lighted ones that I have been taking.

Another day off will be good.  I do go back to work tomorrow so it will be a fun day for me today.  I have lots of chores but I have been getting things done already.   The day looks bright outside but the cold snow on the ground and the wind chills do help define a "worse than it looks" kind of day.

I know a lot of my blog friends are experiencing different weather than normal.  I hope all can stay safe and warm.  Thank you for stopping by today.

Windy Weather......Very Windy.

I removed this from the Christmas tree yesterday and thought it would be appropriate to share for today. The blizzard has started and we will be in for a couple of days.

Looking out the dining room window I can see the snow is accumulating.  Everything is coated with snow from the strong winds.  The window in the bird and fish room is totally plastered over with snow.

It was looking like this yesterday with the squirrel being a little bothered by me taking his photo.

He suddenly starts to scamper to the very top of the trees where he found seeds to eat off of the branches. He travels from tree to tree in the backyard on the top smaller branches never having to land on the ground.

The ornament that I shared in the top photo is actually a sled.  I will show that in case anyone would like to make sled ornaments for their tree. In the top photo you can see various mittens hanging from the snowman by wire connections.  I think I bought this at an after Christmas sale many years ago.

Yes, the big tree was still up as of yesterday but today it will be gone. My wife and I took ornaments off and I removed the lights on the first day of February.  Today I will take the tree apart and carry it back downstairs for storage. The tree is too big to be left standing anywhere in our house. I don't think we have taken the tree down in such an orderly fashion as we have this year.



 The wind continues to blow and parts of the trees are being thrown at the house as the storm continues.  The weaker sticks break off of the tree and they will cover the ground this spring.  This is not a severely cold storm and we are not in the worst of it.  Northern parts of the states are really having a lot of snow and will be much colder.  I may be raining in the southern part of the state this afternoon.  

It is another good day to accomplish things but not over work my body.  My viral friend says I am still somewhat tired a lot of the day.  I consider it a building process to get back to normal strength so I will work at it getting my muscles use to heavy duty chores as time progresses.  Taking a break between breaks is a good idea.   Thank you for coming by today.

Monday......

The two large fish were scared of the castle once I had placed it in the tank.  Now they are quite comfortable with a little structure in their lives.

The sun shines through the window into the back of the back tank window and reflects off of the front glass.  It makes a special effect on things and I am surprised to get a photo of any quality at all.  The algae eater has been living in the sunken pirate ship that is in there but I am sure now the algae eater will move on to the castle.  They tend to hang on the outside edge of an opening when they are not cleaning.  The sun is helping to create new algae for the eater.

Looking east shows that some of the snow has melted.  When driving out of town I noticed most of the snow is gone south of us.  We just have stayed colder here.

You can see that there is a lot of snow on the west side of the house.  I can stand out on the porch and get a shot like this without putting on a coat and cap.

Looking south at the corner of the unfinished deck area you can see that I did shovel snow earlier as the path is all melted away. The sun makes the gate glow. I still have roof edging material and a trellis left to reinstall on the porch.  I worked at it when it was winter and warm but our winter isn't warm anymore.

It is really nice to have this extra space on the deck.  When we step out the door we don't have a ledge next to us anymore and it just feels safer. I had the trellis installed to the old edge and maybe I will install it to the new edge.  I may put it on the front edge instead of the side. It always depends on what mood I am in at the time. I guess I could make another trellis and have it help wrap the corner.

I didn't get work today but I have plenty of work to do at home.  I am still carrying some of the last of the viral thing I caught last week.  Snowstorms tend to close schools and if it is bad there will be no school.  If they are wrong about it with how much snow that we will receive then there will be school on a very blustery day.

Thanks for stopping by today.