Roses are Red........

An archived photo of my "Abraham Lincoln" rose that did not survive the winter.  I knew that it would not eventually as it was a cheap tea rose and we can't grow tea roses in Iowa unless we bury them in a lot of soil. It did survive two years but now it is gone.

Roses are the theme today as my wife and I celebrate our 30 year wedding anniversary today.  She is such a great woman and I have been blessed to have her as my wife. We will go eat at a traditional Italian restaurant this evening. The place has been in the family for many years in a suburb of Beaverdale.   It is prime rib night and it is one of the many places we ate while we dated back in 1983. They also have great onion rings and coffee.  We were engaged at Christmas time 1983 and were married in June 1984. 

Thanks for stopping by today.

Sunday's Stuff..........

It isn't that dangerous unless the one dead branch does fall on someone.  I am betting the next strong winds from the west will take it off of the its perch. Right now it is just laying up there amongst all that new growth of spring.

The three privets took a hit during the cold winter but this one is going to try it again to grow back into a nice bush.  The dead sticks that were left from winter were all trimmed back and carried away yesterday.  I still need to saw the base of the  dead ones down to the ground and will do that one of these days.  The dead sticks are gone and that does look better.  The dead redbud tree standing next to this privet is going to have to be removed.

The leftover skins of the shedding cicadas are all piled up here under the silver maple tree.  We will have dead cicadas now to deal with once they are all done.  I was walking Barney this morning and I could still hear a few out there buzzing away.  I keep having them land on my back and they then crawl up on my neck.  When I brush them away they make the buzzing sound as if they are irritated with me.

Another shot of the old fashion rose next to the house.  I keep taking shots of it as they are so few in number and they are going to be bloomed out so soon.

My peony that originated from my Grandmother is showing an almost normal bloom cycle with blooms all over the plant.  It is about spent now and the shriveled blooms are putting out good color but they don't look so good as a flower.  The stick you see in the foreground is a stick that was giving to me for walking.  I am sure that guy is back in Minnesota already living near Duluth. He takes off early in the spring to live in his Minnesota home among some small lakes.

My wife was able to get her greenhouse plants in the ground about a week ago. We didn't get much rain this morning as it only sprinkled.  I will carry water for the area this afternoon to get the soil's moisture back up to good  growing conditions. We had a struggle to get these in the ground and they lived in the house for about three weeks with life's interruptions delaying their getting put into the ground.

I hope everyone has a good day today.  We are headed to church soon and will eat out before we come home today.  I am really going to try to get some rest in for today and will be do nothing much.
Thanks for stopping in today.

Saturday Chores.........

The last of the blooms are coming in the house for us to enjoy.  It was the latest that they have ever bloomed.  I hoping the rain will replenish them and that they will come back strong next year. 

It is cold outside and the sound of the remaining cicadas is a low buzzing sound.  I will be interested to see if the warm air that it coming in from the south today will help revive them.  We have dead ones all over the property so I am guessing that we are almost through with them.  It will be another 17 years before this kind of insect will come forth again.  We will have the other kind of cicada coming out in the fall to make it vibrating pitched noise.  It is the sound of fall when you hear them buzzing loud and soft repeats in their call.  They look differently than these 17 year cycled one.  I watched a PBS show about edible foods and they had fried up a bunch of these cicadas to eat.  I don't think I could do that after seeing what they look like squished on the sidewalk.

Potentilla shrubs were the rage for a while in Iowa but our summers are really too hot and dry for them.  This shrub is in full bloom right now as we have had lots of rain.  It will retreat once we hit July.  It will stay green to a certain degree but the flowers won't be returning. I remember in the late 70's when people would have a free site plan for landscaping done for their house by the local nursery and the young landscape artist would line these shrubs up and down sidewalks and along drives.  They do come in different colors.  I remember seeing them in Maine and they have a lot of moisture out there.  The shrubs were a great looking bush and large.   Ours never develop to be very big.





 I am going to take my wheel barrow out and fill it with dead limbs from my privet bushes and also my hydrangea bushes.  I lost three privets with one coming up from the roots.  The hydrangeas that lined the north of house are regrouping now but there is half of it with dead sticks on it. I will try to whittle away at the redtwig dogwood as it keeps taking over a garden area.  I can cut it back a lot and it returns.  I may just move the plants around it and let it take the area. I mowed most everything yesterday and still have the orchard area to hit.  I will probably mow down all the wild violets now as they are through blooming and they are too thick to leave there.  It is hard to find fallen apples in the thickness of that kind of foliage.

I will be wearing my parka outside this morning again as it is too cold for short sleeves.  By noon it will be warm and the southern winds will get us up to 84 degrees F.  this afternoon.  It will also bring strong storms by late evening as the cold and the hot air mix.  Late Saturday evening into early morning Sunday we are to have storms.  Maybe I can get enough rain to water my tomatoes.   Have a good weekend everybody and thanks for stopping by today. 

Friday........

My William Baffin rose continues to put out many blooms.  I haven't seen it bloom like this in 4 years.

The old fashion rose that was growing next to my house when I first bought this place in 1976 continues to grow.  It did freeze out over the winter but the small section that survived is putting out blooms. I have never known the name of the rose as it is such an old rose.  Originally it grew along the north of our kitchen but an addition to the house eliminated that. I had allowed it to grow around the corner of the kitchen so it now grows on the west side of the house.

An update report on the morning glories shows they are sending out runners.  I have helped direct them to the trellis and maybe soon I will  have them crawling by growing up the trellis.  Our weather has been strange as we are having very warm days.  Our nights are so cold that my tomato plants just aren't growing well.  I did have to water things last night as we are starting to dry out some.

You can't see them that well but my river birch is covered with hundreds of cicadas. It is cold this morning and they still are buzzing away now.  It was in the upper 40's F. when we started our day. The are flying back and forth on the branches looking like a giant bee hive.  The sound is getting to be not so great to hear.

As I have been recovering from something bad, my mind is still not back to normal.  I can't remember what photos I have been sharing but I had 6 or 8 shots of these cicadas taken to share.  I don't feel like going back to research what I shared but I am certain that I didn't share the barberry shrub with its visitor.

I spent the day yesterday subbing for a janitor by painting a wall.  A year ago we painted that wall  a very vivid green, a school color, and yesterday I spent the most of the day putting white primer on it to cover it up.  I was told that the new principal also wants the other green wall in his office to be gone.  I think this will be my project also when he has a need for a sub again.  I sense that when I work that I will always have a paint roller in my hand along with a trim brush.  I don't mind that kind of work.

 I am not working today.  The not working thing means I will be mowing my yard this morning.  It is very cool so it is a good time to mow. Unfortunately I end up wearing a hooded sweatshirt to keep warm and then shed it once I get going.  It is strange to mow grass with a coat on but I did that one time before early on in the season. I have other garden work today as I  plug away at getting things looking better.  I did get my coral bells plant into the ground last evening and I have to start getting on a watering schedule.  We do have severe storms scheduled for Sunday morning but sometimes we don't get a lot of rain with them.  The last severe storm we had though did gives a heavy downpour.  It really is unpredictable.

A sunny day for us all day today and the local weather keeps saying it will be a perfect day for Friday the 13th.  I hope everyone is okay out there and that you have a good day.  Thanks for stopping by today.

Two Surprises........

My first surprise yesterday was this young bluejay sitting on the trellis next to my blue gate.  I just happened to have the camera with me to take a picture of another surprise out in the garden.  The young bird sat pretty much unafraid for quite a while and then I think he needed to move on down the fence. I saw him along the edge of the fence and then he took the corner and left.  He really wasn't flying very well and his little short tail was great to see.

The second surprise was this bloom on one of my cemetery iris.  I didn't think it was going to bloom as I had never seen any stem developing anywhere.  Also it usually blooms at the same time as all my other iris.  I could of pulled out an archived photo of it but this is so great that I get to see it this year.  There may be one more bud on that stem but will wait and see. 

I am subbing again today for a janitor who couldn't work.  I had a day off Wednesday so I should be ready to work when I get there.  No rain for us all week until the weekend. Thanks for stopping by today.

Wednesday.......

 

The pin oak trees are the last to loose its leaves and they were the last to put out leaves in the spring.  The two that I have still are not completely filled in but I was grateful that they were still alive.

The orange hardy geranium that lived inside all winter is now enjoying the rains and the sunshine too.  I have a window box planter of these that my neighbor gave to me last fall.  They are all different colors.

Cicada on the river birch tree is crawling up to the top of the tree to  make its buzzing sound with all the hundreds of others.

I didn't work today and it was good to get some time off. I spent the last two days doing patch material on drywall.  Most of the work was on a 12 foot step ladder reworking and sealing up holes and cracks in 14 foot drywall material.  I did finish and the person I sub for the past two days is probably painting those walls today.  I will sub for a different person tomorrow and if I feel strong enough I will sub on Friday too for a guy who had to go to Montana for a funeral.  We had a busy day today but breakfast out and shopping isn't that hard on a body as some things are. I need to mow some of my yard but it is actually too warm today.  If I wait until late afternoon I can do a couple of small patches.  Thanks for stopping by today.

Tuesday.......

My stand of old fashion roses are a pretty sick looking this year.  Of the few that didn't freeze, they are now starting to bloom.  I keep catching bugs in my photos of flowers.  The buds to the right shows that this rose bush is a very healthy one. The majority of the area is all dead stems. It is one of my next chores to clear the area of dead stems and volunteer unwanted growth.

Locust are everywhere.  Here is one on a peony leaf.  They are the 17 year Locust that crawl out ot the ground and climb the trees or plants to start shedding their skins.  Then they do all end up into the trees and make an strange wave like sound of scratchy sounds. I assume they are breeding and will eventually lay eggs in the ground for the next showing of them in 2033.  I saw them the first time in 1963 when my brother drove us back into our timber to see and hear them.  The noise was unbelievable for me as a 13 year old.  Now the sound seems too strange and is a lot irritating.

Two things you can observe in this photo.  The locust of course and also the damage that the hail did to our foliage of our plants.

This is my apple tree bark bug photo.  I was out to take just a few shots and I could find a locust on about everything out there.  I almost had a photo of one on my shirt but it would stay put for my wife to snap it.  I have many photos of the locust and I will spread the views of them throughout the next few blogs.

I will finish today with a shot of my Grandma Brooks' red peony.  I have one planting of these that is putting out a normal showing of many blooms.  I have another plant that just had one bloom and another that had no blooms.  The nonblooming one is getting moved when I get to it.

I worked  Tuesday as a sub for an absent janitor.  I was needed to do some drywall work and I have had a lot of experience with the work.  They are reworking two rooms and there is a lot of damage to drywall when you remove a division wall.  I will go back today to help out and then I am home again on Wednesday.  I am better and feel stronger.  Working probably was stupid for me to do but putting putty in nail holes was not a very difficult thing for me to do physically.  I did have to do a lot of standing on a tall step ladder as my partner of work didn't like heights.  I was glad I wasn't having the dizzy spells like I had a few weeks ago.  I figure I can get back into shape with this kind of work.  I was very tired by the end of the day.

Thank you for stopping by today.