Friday DeFreeze...

 The hardy geranium is living the good life inside. It wouldn't last five minutes outside this time of the year. 

At half price sale at Hobby Lobby I picked up a better way to keep my dad's casket flag safe.  It was in a good bag provided by the funeral home but this is great that I can display it. 

I switched out my display on the shelf but I did get a shot of it before I moved things into the cupboard. The olive wood carvings are gifts from the Bethlehem Olive Wood store. The photo is one of the Sea of Galilee in Israel. It is taken in Capernaum, Israel.

We warmed up to just above freezing and it feels a little bit like spring in comparison to the very cold temps. I am enjoying the longer days of daylight and it feels different than all those gray days. I know we can have a winter storm in just an instant. 

Thanks for checking in today.

Thursday's Things...

 Looking out this morning one can see the sky has lots of patterns. The streets and sidewalks are coated with ice. I had a recycle bin to put out and it was a challenge. I went by the grass to the side of the driveway but crossing one square of sidewalk was not easy.  No one is out walking their dogs this morning. 

I did succeed in putting out some deicer on sections of my front step and one side of the driveway. I did it just in case there is a delivery person needing to come to the front door. 

The day's activities needed to include a second cup of coffee. It is good to get the recycle out and the garage door closed again. It is cold and it will warm up to 32 degrees F. by noon. 

The catalogues are fun to look at this time of the year. I can only look at the iris one because I have too many iris. I dug through a neighbors pile of spent rhizomes and planted fourteen new ones along my side steps of the house. I have bought iris from this Oregon company a few years back and it took a couple of years to get to see blooms. The two reblooming iris that I bought from them are great.  I would like to get some different hosta varieties but most of them are so similar.  I should just toss the catalogues and move on with my life.

I will venture out for a small amount of groceries today. By this afternoon it will be38 degrees F. and safe for walking and driving. I do see traffic out there this morning but I sure can wait for the warm up. 

Thanks for stopping by today

Spring is coming......

Thanks for Stopping By.....

 It is a bad day for a diabetic but it is a good day because he can go in and buy donuts.  He can eat a half a doughnut once in a while. A lot of them will go into the freezer and they can be brought out one or two at a time.  The Asian lady that owns the Linda's Donuts was so sweet and glad to have me come in a buy some donuts. I had been to that strip mall to visit my Hearing Doctor's appointment. 

The job is done.  I put the boxes of the Christmas tree into storage this morning for good. I set the poinsettia out in the sun room during the day hoping it might revive it. Our tree is big and we have all of this space returned to us out there.

With the tree gone the air from the room heater can effect the molile now causing it to continually move. 

The paper folding deal is on hold right now but I do have something new to do eventually. I need a special wire for it. 

We have a coating of ice this afternoon. It isn't thick but any ice is a problem. I walked on the grass yard sides to go get one single letter at the mailbox. I came back through the garage to avoid our front door steps.  Thanks for stopping by today.

The Tuesday......

 It is a colder day again with the high being 27 degrees F. The sun did shine off and on but we are back to being clouded over now.

Things in the sun room have been moved around a bit as the Christmas tree is now down and gone. I still have to carry it downstairs and I will do that in stages. Five or six boxes of things are ready to go at the top of the stairs. 

The work and reworking of this piece continues. I changed a lot of things on the composition and hopefully it makes more sense. Pastels are a good painting material and yet they have to be blended  with layers to get a specific color.  I am admitting that that I am enjoying it and yet it would be easier to just start a new one. The location of this site is off the highway and down the hill from the Cascade Falls area on the North Shore next to the lake.. 

Thanks for stopping by today.

Random Thoughts.......

 In the reworking of an art work, one has to dig out the materials. I couldn't find my big box of pastels. The simple box of pastel pencils didn't work at all. I did have to move something very heavy to get to my soft pastel sticks. 

We dropped in temperatures this afternoon and the birds want some seeds.

I made a mobile out of long strings of paper cranes. It isn't as dramatic as one that Alexander Calder would make but it looks good hanging in front of the downstairs art gallery. I am not making any more mobiles for now. 

I have been dabbling with my ancestry account.  I have an unsolved problem with my great-great- grandfather Burgus. His name is Friedrich Burgus.  He does show up in some people's family trees as J. Friedrick.  He shows up as Friedrich J. and also Friedrich W.  At the present time I have him down as  Friedrich Wilhelm that another family member is going with on his family tree. He does have a daughter with a middle name of Wilhelmania He had two different wives.  His first wife was the mother of the oldest child, Charles, as seen above. He had five children with his first wife and after she passed he remarried and had five or six  more children. I have a first cousin in her 80's and she is considered the expert on trees and she doesn't have the answer. I have the photo of his gravestone in eastern Iowa and he is just Friedrich Burgus with no front or middle initial.  From my experience with Ancestry these things do get corrected but I am still amazed that nothing shows up giving me a firm answer.

Thanks for stopping by today.

Sunny Day....

 The mornings look better as our days get to be longer. The sun is needed this Sunday morning to burn off the fog.

I made it to Hobby Lobby and bought some mat board. I was out of it for a long time and needed to cut mats for a bunch of things. I was a little rusty at figuring out the process again but I did pull off a few mats. My wife and I ran a frame shop out of our house for 25 years and we cut mats for hundreds of things in that period of time.  This pastel painting that I did was done many years again and just never had a formal presentation done to it.It is a painting done on the shore of Lake Superior.

As I was getting ready to cut a mat for this I decided not to do it. It was back to the drawing board for it. It had smears from being in a folder for 15 years. It had some artistic tweaking that definitely needed to be done. I am in the middle of reworking it now.

House Finch Pair......

 It was a lone bird at the feeder and at first I thought it was just a sparrow. Once I zoomed in I could see it was a female house finch.

Rarely it is that house finch pairs are away from each other. I looked out in just another moment and there was the male house finch. 

They seem to just know that they are together. The female keeps a seed in its mouth for a while then she cracks it ans swallows. 

 

 

It is a good thing to have a place to eat. They are contented in this feeder even though the supply is getting low.

It seemed warmer by numbers but I still had to wear my heavy winter coat to go to the gr ocery store. We are headed back to the deep freeze Monday and Tuesday. Winter is consistent in what it puts out for us.

Thanks for stopping by today.