Spring Shots.......

Thanks for stopping by today.

Friday's Findings..........

I am sharing another shot from the greenhouse purchases of last week. Maybe I will be able to help my wife to get them into the ground.  I would be nice if it were warmer which it will be next week. They were brought inside last night as we had a frost warning out last night. We were down to 33 degrees F.  last night but others west of us were in the 20 degree range. I am hoping that will be the last of that for the middle of May. 

The tulip is spent but the back view still makes an interesting photo. In this area the globe alum are starting to burst open.  A warm day will bring them completely out and I will see purple balls of color.

Shirley, our neighbor on the corner, passed away probably 15 years ago but her planting of this lilac lives on to put out so much color. It is a different variety of lilac than my old fashion traditional shrub.  It is bloomed out now while the old fashioned ones are still not completely out in full bloom.  This is a great one that sits across the alley from my property.  Looking down the alley the new young owner has destroyed the white lilacs leaving a mess of short branches and dead limbs from where he just chain saw attacked them.  I don't know why he didn't whack this one to pieces but I am so glad that he didn't.

My other new neighbor and his dad hacked away at a Magnolia tree causing it to only bloom at the very top this year. I discussed that with those two about ruining the tree.  A former neighbor planted that over 20 years ago and one other past neighbor turned it into a lolly pop tree.  It looked like a bonsai tree and was such a great specimen tree.  These two guys, dad and son, this fall turned it into a stalk of celery.  I couldn't get any shots of it and I decided not to show last years shots of it.

My inside bonsai like plant is doing well.  I have resisted watering it except with a tablespoon of water at a time.  I had one bloom die back but the others seem to be doing great.  The plant has had to endure the furnace being on most of the time the past few weeks and it doesn't seem to be effected by it. I have kept it sitting on the dining room table away from direct sunlight even though it is a bright spot for it to be. I have resisted buying any more as this one was half price and I haven't seen any new ones at a good price.

It is a peony like bloom but it is so small that it is not that impressive.  I have two of them left from a set of 6 bulbs.  I don't know why it has been so hard to photograph but white can be difficult to shoot.





The business teacher is gone today for an all day golf tournament.  I am giving tests today and attending to smaller classes because the seniors are now gone and golfers are gone.  It should be a quiet day.  I was going to write a longer blog than this but I am sure that it would probably ramble on and you would skip down to the bottom quickly.

The weekend is coming and we don't have too many plans.  I need to mow in the cold and we have minor things to do. I will soon be without work as school is out in a couple of weeks. The final day is the 2nd of June and I won't work on the last day of school,  My last days could be anytime the last week of May.  Thanks for stopping by today.  I hope all of you are well.

Thursday.........

The birch tree is almost 40 years old now.  Its trunk really makes a great background for the two tulips. I see that the fallen branches and limb make it looks like a natural landscape.

As I wander the property I see this flowering shrub looks better than it did.  I thought it was doing poorly and I now realize it was slow to mature.

Each day I am taking out one more planter or pot of geraniums.  We supposedly are past the frost warning time as of today.  You can see I have dead heading to do.  I do think the hardy geraniums will have a littl bet of a shock coming outside from a long winter inside.  The shock isn't too bad for them and the bigger problem will be remembering to keep their soil watered.

 

 While at the bookstore I picked up a photography book of great photos of the past.  It was a National Geographic book of a variety of photos.  Two things impressed me as I looked through all the photos.  The professionals many times try to get only one thing in focus and the other things are left blurred.  It becomes a photo of motion with special effects. One mallard duck was in focus and hundreds of others were in motion.

The other thing that I noticed was the special angles they used for capturing plants. They had a lot of top view shots of plants.  So you will see me playing with the camera again.  I did take a picture of a columbine flower yesterday and it was blurry and the foliage was in focus. I won't do that to my viewers.

I am in the Special Education, head teacher, today at the high school.  I like working in the room and hopefully can help to explain, teach, or encourage a few more students. I can also correct a little bit of bad behavior along the way.  We have a cool day today and there will be no rain.  We had a small shower last evening for a short period of time but things are going to be drying out a little more today.
Thanks for stopping by today. 

They Hatched.......

I had noticed the mother robin staying on the nest on Sunday, not leaving the nest even when I was walking around.  I suspected then that the four eggs were hatching. Yesterday afternoon I was out and about and thought I would try to get a picture of the mother on the next but she must have taken off.  I can't get a focus on the babies as it is under a porch roof.  I will probably be more successful when they start sticking their heads up to be fed.  All four of them did hatch even though it is hard to figure what you are seeing here.

I have to stand on a couple of things that could prove a fall for me if I am not careful.  I still am taking blind shots as the nest is about a foot from the top of the porch roof of the garden shed and too high for me to see anything but the nest.

Hyacinths in Iowa do not do well with our weather. This is a token set of blooms that are struggling for space from the vinca vine.  It has been so cold that the other hyacinths haven't developed this much.

 My lilacs still are not in full bloom.  We have one warm day coming on Saturday or Sunday.  Maybe some heat will help them fill out into full flower.  The rains didn't hurt them as much as I thought that it would.  My flowering trees lost most all of their blooms with the heavy rains.

The smell of these lilacs are so wonderful.  I don't really do well this time of the year with the perfumed air but I still go and take photos anyway.

We have some greenhouse flowers to get into the ground soon.  Our soil is so wet that I really don't want to dig around in the bed until it dries out. I don't think that we are too cold to put them in but it is too cold for us to go out and put them into the ground.

I have the day off today.  My possibilities to work are dwindling as school is out in two and a half weeks.  I don't work Wednesdays often.  The closer to the end of the year means the less work I will have.  I do work Friday for a golfing coach who has to take students to a golf tournament.  The seniors graduate this Sunday so the school will have fewer students for the rest of the year.

Thanks for stopping by today.  Have a great day.

Tuesday's Things.....

My two large lilacs have done well to grow very tall.  They are so tall that I can not pick anything from them. I am having a hard time to get a good close up of them so I went to the alley. The alley used to have many white lilacs but the new neighbor cut most of them down to about two or three feet tall.  I only had one branch that actually bloomed this year and as you can see it is a meager growth of blooms. I do know they will regrow to full height in a couple of years.

The hostas really like the rainy season and also our now cool days.  I get discouraged about my backyard garden and how it looks but once the hostas start to fill out I feel it is starting to shape up into a better looking place. I don't hesitate to dig up large clumps and randomly pick new places for them to grow.  I am looking around to see if I can find some different variety than I have right now.

This apple tree has many blooms this year.  It is one that I rarely pick from.  It has a way of putting out small scabby apples and it just has never done well.  It sits right next to another similar kind of apple that does well.  I haven't been in to prune back limbs for awhile.  I always heard the best time to prune trees is when you have a sharp saw and the energy to do it. I think I can get a few branches out of there this summer.  One gardener teaches that the pruning actually makes the tree feel it is damaged and it rushes more energy to the areas to recoup itself. That gardener also taught that you could wrap the bark of the base of the tree with rolled up newspaper and you could get it to produce better.

The purple crab apple has given us great color to see.  I remember when the then neighbor planted this tree.  It had been given to him free from a bank as a promotional. It was almost chopped down a few years ago and I plead with the guy to leave it be.  I bet the rains have pretty much taken away of any chances for me to get a perfectly focused shot of the blooms.

 The ornamental pear tree continues to bloom profusely.  The real pear tree sitting next to it is putting out few blooms this year.  If the pears form I will have to get my tallest ladder to pick them.  The tree self pruned itself with heavy branches of fruit last fall and the snow this winter loaded down the smaller branches and removed some more.  I need to get in the tree and finish the job of thinning out the tree branches.

It is a stray planting of these four bulbs out in the orchard.  I am like the insane gardener as I place things mindlessly without a plan.  It usually is freezing cold and I find somewhere to quickly put the bulbs so I can go back into the house to warm myself.  Another article I read a few years back described a gardener as planting like an old lady, no plan and fill in all the empty spaces.  Well I don't plant like an old lady but I plant like and old man.

I am in the special education room today.  I am following a student to all of his classes.  He gets to leave five minutes early and arrive five minutes late.  I do have to shadow him all day so I will get a good middle school education today.

I haven't mentioned this but I keep telling you all my summer projects that I plan on doing.  I have refused the summer janitor job that was offered to me.  I am hoping that some of my health problems will fade away with a summer of self determined work.  Eight hours of labor is hard compared to being your own boss and starting and stopping when I want. Some time off will be welcomed both physically and mentally.   I appreciate you visiting my blog today and hope you have a good day.

Spring.......

The robin doesn't leave her nest now as if she might have hatched birds under her.  She would leave normally when I am around but yesterday she sat still and quiet. It was such a bright day that I couldn't pull off a good shot with the nest in the shade of the porch roof of the garden shed.

Two of my three apple trees have many blooms on them. The tree that I picked so many apples from the last two years has spotty places with blooms. I don't understand the scarce batch of blooms but there are enough that I can get a few apple pies from its branches.  This tree has red apples and it was the first to bloom. The one next to it bloomed later.  

We had a strong windstorm last night that could have developed into a tornado.  The line of winds went through most of the state around 10:30 last and we did have things ready to go for retreating to the basement. Some places near us had severe damage and  power lines were down.  We had a bad part of the storm go south of us and also to the northwest of us. 

The lightning did not stop most of the night. I got up once with Button in the night and this huge flash of lightning hit outside of town and the thunder for that lasted over 30 seconds.  Button was willing to go out as I think he has lost most of his hearing now.  We are sad about that but it has made us be able to sleep through storms with him not getting us up to pace the floor with him. Barney sleeps downstairs and he can be found in the windowless bathroom.  If he could learn to shut the door, he probably would.

The dandelion is really a great flowering plant.  I don't have a lot of them but I always like to catch a shot of at least one each spring.

I am the high school librarian today.  It is one of the  last two days for our seniors. They come in on Wednesday to check out and then come in on Friday to practice their graduation walking down the aisle.  I did have the senior in 6th grade art my last year that I taught here on staff.  I am hoping that this is my last year of subbing and I can re retire. Many circumstances will determine that but I won't be working as a janitor this summer.  I will work at my own pace on the house this summer and get things done that needed to be done 7 years ago.  It is a lot of catching up that I  need to do both inside and outside.

One last photo to share of the apple blossoms. I am having a hard time getting a focused shot. The winds have been continuous the last three days. The best I can do is give an impression of what they look like this year.  Thanks for stopping by my post today.

Sunless Sunday.....

This is a tulip even though it doesn't seem to appear to be one. It is a splash of color like an explosion with distinct line designs.  I spent the day yesterday helping judge a conference Art Show.  The three of us judged 23 different categories finding five place winners in each category.  The three of us accomplished the task in 6 hours.  It was a fun day and yet extremely tiring.  A couple of breaks helped out but it is a lot of time standing.  It wasn't a job that could be done sitting down. We judged a color and a black/white section that was fun to do.  My standards on photos have risen a lot since I started blogging back in 2009.

It took a chunk out of my weekend but I really did find it to be an interesting job.  There were works from 10 schools there.  I use to have to show my students work in these yearly events, for 35 years in fact.  Now I was abe to feel the things a judge experiences as the shows are evaluated. It is easier to judge than to do all the work it takes to teach the art, collect art work, display art work and manage the kids all at the same time.

This is a different shot of the white daffodil that I posted on my photo blog. They are my favorites.  I didn't have very many blooms this year but maybe next year they will do better.  I had planted some of these in my garden and also in my mom's garden.  I successfully brought the clump home with me from my parents place and they grew happily in my garden. It means I have two clumps of them and I am glad to see them.

The nest report for today shows what the eggs were doing three days ago.  I would expect that they could be hatching today or tomorrow.  I will try to monitor the nest to see what is happening again today.  The robin always leaves the nest when I am out there and she  pretends to be hurt and puts on a show to draw me away from the nest.

I will need to take new photos of the lilacs in the next few days.  It may be raining today or storming.  Maybe tomorrow I  can get out for a photo shoot.  I have a white lilac that only blooms at the very top and that top is ten or more feet high.  Maybe my neighbors on the alley will have white ones that I can reach to photograph.  The mild rainy day we are having seems like a spring shower that will last forever.  We are headed to teach Sunday school this morning and if it isn't storming we go eat out for Mother's day.  I wish all will have a great day.  If it is storming we have to return to tend to our scaredy cat doges.  Thanks for stopping by my post today.