More Blooms..........

Another shot of my one red colored violet.  It seems to be doing very well and everything around them seem to happy for the spring light that comes through the window.

Dreaming of daffodils is all I can do.  We have small sprouts coming up but no blooms yet.  I am on my pain meds for the tooth extraction that I had a few days ago.  As it heals it hurts more than ever.  I am watching to be sure that I don't get an infection with the open socket and I won't hesitate to go back on Monday to see the dentist for that problem if I need to.  In the mean time my blogging capabilities have become a little dreamy also.  I think the daffodil shot from last year will be the last of the blog shots for today.

We are meeting an old school friend and his wife in Ames today to have pizza and share stories. I have known Bernie since kindergarten and we are really good friends. His wife and my wife are really good friends too.  Bernie bought one of Della's paintings and we needed to deliver it to them.  So meeting in Ames makes the trip less long for them and less long for us too.  We have a spring like day today and yet it is still cold. We are at 33 degrees F.  right now and I don't think it is going to warm up much.  We need to hit Hobby Lobby and maybe the bookstore afterwards.  It will be nice to get out of town and my meds keep me feeling pretty good.  I do think that when we come home in the afternoon that I am going to take a nap.  

Thanks for stopping by today.  Have a good day and think warm weather, everyone!!!

Spring things to come......

My twenty dollar used mower is anxious to get out there and level some grass.  I has to grow for a couple of more weeks before I can do that. I have a few sticks to pick up and rough areas in the yard to smooth out.

The sedum actually is just now poking stems and leaves up through the ground.  I will take most of the summer to get the plant to look like this. It was too dry for any blooms to survive so maybe this year it will happen.

My one pink rosebush has life in every stem and the leaves should start to pop out in another week.  It blooms continually all summer so that will be good to see. I need to mulch and fertilize them all which means getting into action in the next couple of weeks.

A friend of mine and his two little boys came to my yard last fall to help with some work. Wesley the youngest little boy found this nest and put it into his bag to take it home with him.  Wesley was four years old and he thought he had a great treasure.  I smile every time I see this photo of the nest. They were so fun to have around and they liked being in my gardens and eating apples off of the trees.

The bee balm is starting to sprout and with that there will be flowers and bees.  I doubt that will be happening for another month.  I hope some of the bees are surviving out there.  The rains have made the iris and tulips pop through with gusto.  It is a good sign as they are in wet soil and a lot of the cracks in the soil are now gone.

The first blooms on tomatoes lets me know that we are almost ready for summer. It takes the major part of spring plus days to get the plants to this stage. The plants that I have started inside need to be repotted into bigger containers.  That will happen in the next few days as I want the roots to spread out and the stems to get bigger and stronger.  I have heard that one needs to have a fan blowing over their plants that are started inside so the stems will develop with strong stems.

Moving the fish back out to the pond should happen in the next few weeks.  I need to clean out the tank of debris and let the rains refill it. I have a new pump for it to use this year.  It will clear up the water and make the fish, birds, raccoons, and squirrels very happy to have clean water to drink.  Barney and the neighbor cats also like to partake of the fishpond water. I haven't been asked to babysit the science rooms fish again this summer but that won't be until May when school is out.

I hope to be able to take a lot more outside shots now with the weather warming and things are growing. Birds continue to migrate through here. Another batch of redwing blackbirds flew through on Sunday and the starlings are also headed north also. The total brown look is almost gone now as the grass turned green about two days ago.  Sunday afternoon and evening was the time of the biggest change.

I am in the middle school Language Arts room today.  Thanks for stopping by today.

I've got nothing to do..........

Since I finished this project I have no other framing jobs waiting for me.  I don't think that has happened for a long time.  I have been on this one, off and on, for too long and now I have nothing to do.

I guess I could go clean out the basement and straighten up all the mess that was created while making the frame.  I could put the sander away and straighten up all the sandpaper.  I could go outside and get some yard work done once it stops sprinkling.

I also am still getting over the loss of my tooth, both physically and emotionally.  My perfect good teeth just split down the middle and they have to be removed to keep infection from setting in and destroying my life's future.

People ask at work as to how I am doing.  The tooth that I had removed had splintered and cracked and it was like having a  cactus in my mouth.  The hole in my jaw now and the pain and bruises seem minor compared to the continue gouging and cutting into my tongue and the inside of my cheek.  I had one day off,  the day of the extraction, and today I am back subbing, battling the fatigue of the pain killer and the craziness of kids  out of control.

The various rains that we have had are such a blessing.  We are behind by 9 inches and have now recovered 2 of those inches. My water barrel is completely full and we do have some puddles.  Unfortunately snow is forecasted but it won't last long.  Because of the rains the grass, tulips, weeds, and peonies are all bursting forth.  It really isn't that warm but the longer days of light are making things perk up a lot.

I am subbing for a music teacher today and will be doing middle school social studies tomorrow.  It is only Thursday but Friday is coming.  Thanks for stopping by today.

Wednesday.........

We are getting a lot of rain and maybe snow will be falling again by the end of the week.  I am finally getting into the dentist to have a tooth extracted. I had to wait for my dentist to be in the office to get bumped to the next day.  I hate what old age gives me at times.  Thanks for stopping by today.

Replanted.......

I removed the sansivera from the pot and now I have turned it into a desert planting.  A friend gave me the little barrel cactus and I put in another two sprigs from other cactus that I already had.  The prickly pear cactus I set outside a couple of days ago to get it accustomed to the outside.  It would be nice if I could get it to bloom but I doubt that it will.  The other strange piece of cactus is from one that a neighbor gave me from her four foot tall plant.

The two long narrow cactus are new ones given to me and I put them in with my neighbors rough leafed looking cactus.  She had this tall one that she decided to cut off and start over again.  The original got to be so big she had no area to place it in her house during the winter.

I took an algebra book home over the weekend so I could teach high school math today. Solving systems using substitution is the name of the game.  Two sets of formulas can be solved by subtraction, addition, and multiplying both equations to get a common multiple.  Makes sense doesn't it?  It scares me that I understand it but I vaguely remember it from my high school 40 plus years ago.

4x + 2y = 14
7x - 3y = -8
Solve for x then for y.    Why? I don't know, math people love it.

Thanks for stopping by today.

Progressing to the Finish

The frame was made out of maple wood to mimic maple basketball flooring. I first made it out of a single layer of wood but I eventually had to make another thickness as the items being framed were too thick for the single depth of wood.

I was asked to use the Spaulding notebook cover to create a mat for the photo.  It was made from the same material as that of a basketball.

 I had to mount the basketball material on foam core then cut it into strips.  The material spliced together fairly well leaving a minimal seam lines.

The basketball work on the front and back of the folder seemed to belong on the mat plus it guaranteed that I had enough material to cover the mat.

A double black mat had to be cut to cover up the edges of the basketball material. I had to keep trying the mat into the frame so I wouldn't get done and have to trim it down, which would have been difficult.

I had to add a second thickness on the front frame to give it enough thickness to get the frame to hold the matted work. Spar varnish made the wood look like gym seal that they use to have on the gym floors.

I had to engineer a way to hold in the work with one more set of strips of wood. on the back.

Flipping it over and it finally is completed.  The time on this work was more problem solving that actually doing the work. A custom job requires engineering that one may only do once.  The job reminded me of a frame job we did once of a full sized American flag. The inventing of the frame and creating a backing and plexiglass covering required designing as you go.

Within the week this will be headed for a neighboring town where a guy will have bragging rights to share the print that he purchased at an auction.  His vision of how the frame job should look did become a reality and now he can enjoy his one of a kind framed print.

Leaf Soup........

When you see a picture like this you know it is time to clean the bird bath.  It isn't frozen anymore so I should not have any excuses. I will dump it out this morning so the predicted rain will fill it again.

I succeeded in moving this rose to a new location.  It is William Baffin and is doesn't like wet roots.  I had it by my garden shed and the rainy seasons a few years back really slowed it's growth as the rain from the roof kept the soil very wet.  All of my roses appear to have survived our long winter as they are showing green stems.  I need to carry my shears with me every time I venture out now as I keep seeing things that need to be trimmed back.

My inside hardy geranium has put out it's first bloom.  The foliage of the plant is wonderful but the color of this bloom is great too.

It is a day to finish up my major frame job.  I have been on it for a couple of months with taking a lot of time to devise the solution to the job and then engineering the actual project.  A photo essay is in the making.  We are out of dry cat food for the neighbor cats and they seem to be very hungry.  We buy the lowest priced food in large bags so we can keep them going.  Tom Tom the one who frequents the porch most has actually put on some weight.  Thanks for stopping by today and have a good weekend.