A Blue Mug Day.....

 My wife is having coffee in the one wing backed chair. The mug gets to set nearby and the red truck is always there. We call it "blue mug" day as there is only one of them. The others are red or orange. As the blue mug goes through the dishwasher cycle the blue mug pops up and I always give it to my wife. My new red truck seems to look good with the mug sitting there.

It is a typical morning view with the sun not quite bing up in this shot. We are having cool mornings and by noon it is hot.  I saw my first humming bird two days ago and this morning I got two good shots. 

This is a good shot but I did get a better shot of it in flight. I am going to save it for tomorrow's blogs. Hopefully I can get some more shots this afternoon. I am glad to see that they are back. I put my feeder out about three days ago. 

My wife thinks I should take breaks so I took a shot of me resting in a chair. I try to show that I have worked and then I send it to her by email. After the shot I went and took more photos for my blogs and transplanted some hostas back along my new gate area connected to the fence.

Very hot weather is predicted for a couple of more days. I got my back yard mowed today and I will mow the front yard and neighbor's front yard tomorrow morning. We both have had a viral thing and I am feeling some better. It was good to get to work outside this morning and I just didn't go at too fast of a pace. My lungs seem to have cleared up a lot so I felt I could be out there. Time will be the healer with both of us and I am glad we both have improved.  Thanks for stopping by today.

Orange Flash....

 I first saw it at the hummingbird feeder trying to get some sweet sugar water. It left so I put out a small bowl with grape jelly in it and it came back. They migrate through so I know it won't be hanging around and making any nest here in Iowa. After it snacked on the jelly it left and has not been back. Baltimore Orioles are so colorful.

I am not sure if it is attracted to the color of the feeder or if it can sense the sugar water of the hummingbird feeder.  I did see a hummingbird yesterday afternoon. This was quite a surprise to see today.

The fern leafed peonies are blooming right now. It looks so great and is striking to see at even far distances.

 The shape of the blooms are so different than the traditional peony bloom.

I messed with one of my red twig bushes this morning and I ended up with this pile. The part I dread is I have to cut it all up into small pieces and drop it into a recycle bag. The big branches I have yet to cut up with a power saw. Tomorrow will be a good day for that. 

Another task for tomorrow is to pull the blooms off of the rhubarb plant. I can't eat it  as it requires lots of sugar, but I can still maintain it for the summer as a foliage. I needed to mow the yards front and back today but I am a little bit under the weather. I will try to mow the longest one tomorrow and get the front one on Saturday. Our weather today was just perfect as it warmed up by noon. We had a tenth of an inch of rain the night before. We take whatever we can get. Thanks for stopping by today.

Middle of the Week....

 It is a partly sunny day today. It might be called a mostly cloudy day but we did warm up a lot. The sun was not seen at this morning sunrise. 

After we had breakfast out with the boys we stopped in for garden supplies. My wife picked out a new rose and my younger son and I planted it in a spot where a rose was mostly dead. I trimmed back the dead looking rose and we planted it somewhere else just in case it revives. The boys helped me move soil into the new fence area to level out a ravine that followed one section of the fence. I had bought six bags of dirt earlier and they carried and spread it out for me. 

I had them help me dig out dirt and place in concrete tiles at the opening of the new gate. I reworked it a little bit this morning and now am glad we got it done. 

I planted this new hosta last fall and it looks really strong for the summer. It was covered up a little with tulip leaves and they will be gone soon. It was great to find a hosta that I didn't have in my collection. All of my hosta are doing great and are all up. Some of the small ones I planted last year are pushing up strong this year. 

The son who lives in Maine had a long day yesterday. Being at the airport early is the beginning of a long set of flights. Once he arrived in Portland he had to return home by car driving up the length of the state on interstate which was a couple of hours long.  His wife and pets were all glad to see him and he was back to work this morning. 

I planted some new plants yesterday in the front yard circle. I hope they do well there as I plan to water them often. I am hoping to see more rainfall soon. We don't get heavy rains but a little ones are better than none. Our Des Moines River is actually full right now which is better than our two years of drought. 

Thanks for checking in today.

The Blogger Returns.....

 Our two sons, Andrew and Aaron, came for a short visit. We ended up at the spillway one of the days at our Lake Saylorville. It was a low amount of water being released into the Des Moines River as the lake is low.

Some years the lake is so high that they release water that fills the entire tube and the roar of the water is amazing.This water is eventually our water from the Des Moines Waterworks.

There were not many birds there when we visited. Lots of times there are geese, ducks and sea gulls flying around and fishing.There were three herons that flew in and you can see two of them in this shot above if you strain your eyes.

We had a great visit with our two guys. The one left for Chicago on Monday and the other flew out for Maine this morning.  The two wanted to do work projects so I found some for them to do. It wore me out keeping up with them but they got a lot of things done which would have taken weeks for me to do.  I am back blogging again.

Mowed my Yard....

 

 

 

 

 

We are headed to the airport to pick up our youngest son. His older brother will be arriving by car from Chicago later in the evening. We are looking forward to spending time with each other. and catching up.

Have a good Saturday.

Friday with Light Rain....

 I got a chance to shoot at the big red. I figured this is the best I will get. He didn't disappoint and showed up later for a better shot. 

With his tail wagging he got to pick out more to eat from the new tray of sunflower seeds. I guess that very expensive bag of seed was good for the economy and I did get a glance at the cardinal. 

The two years of drought were hard on my bluebells. They are coming back but they are still thin with their foliage growth. This is a stray one the grew up about two feet from the mother plant. 

I worked on my gate latch today for a long time and I was really unsatisfied with the results. I am going to back away from that project and rethink the kind of latch that I can buy for it that will work with the door that I have.  I mowed the front of the yard and spent time cleaning up in the basement. We have our two sons coming to visit us for a few days. One from Maine flies in on Saturday and the the one from Chicago will drive over after his two son's soccer matches. It will be great for them to be here.  Our house is in pretty good shape for company but there is always those picky things that one has to do. 

Thanks for stopping by today.

Fence Me In....

 The colors are great and the leaning makes it interesting to look at. I think the wind has been hard on them but the are aging now and I am sure the lean comes also from their decline. 

I see from my past blogs that I planted these a couple of years later. They look like they belong together in this peony bed. 

I have planted these in many different places. I was out looking for blog shots and I was surprised that this also was here and in bloom. It blooms first while my all white one will bloom next. 

My original idea was to put a picket fence on the right side of this construction. I told the fence builders to leave it and I would build it. It was a bad idea, the picket gate, so I built the door on the right by myself. The crew boss must of thought it through for me and knew that my plan was a bad one. Anyway, the boss left me ten extra boards without telling me. I used every one of them. I had salvaged a few of their leftover two by four boards and I was glad. 

It isn't quite done but it is close. It was agonizing as things were left for me in sort of a hodgepodge way and I couldn't just design a straight forward door. It had to match their hole. The latch is a screwed up mess as I had to swing the door to the opposite direction from theirs. I have some cosmetic things to do to cover up some botches but all in all it is done. I have grass to dig out behind the door so it can freely swing open. I don't usually get angry as I work but I did really drag through the solution of this door.

This is the other side of the house that the fence company built. It makes my back yard fenced in completely for the first time since we moved here.  It was cold to work outside to day but it didn't rain. Thanks for stopping by today.