A Year Ago......

Last year these photos were all taken at our old place. The burning bush is just turning to their red colors.  The greens are looking pink and there are still green leaves.

The birds were already feeding as the weather was turning cold around Thanksgiving time. The feeders were well establish having been filled year round.

When they are hungry they can share the space for sunflower seeds and millet. I am thinking that I will start off filling my feeders in the next few days. I don't have the tray feeder anymore so I will figure out something new on our deck.  I will hang a feeder first that has its individual holes for seed.

Last year we had many good colors in our leaves.  That really didn't happen this year at the old place. I still have leaves on the silver maple trees. They will get mowed in the next few weeks.

The fall sunrise is looking cold here. This could have been a December shot as those trees have lost most all of their leaves.  I am slow today getting any blogging done.  I thought a journey back would be interesting to see to compare the same time at a different year.

Thanks for stopping by today and have a good Sunday.

Friday without edits......

The table was called a turkey legged table when I saw it on Norm's PBS  wood furniture making show. It isn't on anymore but Norm couldn't figure out why they were called turkey legged.  The whole texture pattern created by the rings on the legs does resemble the texture of a turkey's leg.  The table probably originated with my wife's grandparents and we now want to rework it. The legs have metal sleeves on the feet with a glass ball in the bird claw.  It is just like the piano stool only they claws and brackets are much larger. The top that Norm Abrams made on his show was a round one and not a three leaf clover shape. The whole arrangement is an accident as I was putting out things to take up to the kitchen to put above the kitchen cupboards. These things were leftovers that I ended up not wanting to use.

While shooting pictures a couple of days ago, I revisited my storage shelves in the workroom. The ceramic flower pots all glare out at me and wonder why they are not being used in the main house. The long black cat up there on the top shelf is a new thing that I found in a box in the basement of the old house. I should photograph it some time to share. It is a planter I believe that is built into the back of the stretched black panther.

People do like fall but this is what I think of when fall arrives.  Things just die and I have to take away the dead plant material.  I still have mums to clear away. I may leave them for the snow to collect on and then again they may be just cut away.

I spent my morning at the Boone County Landfill.  It is always a strange experience where on goes to get rid of things.  Today I was dealing with tires.  To make the story short, I offered to take all the tires from the now sold farm and store them on my property.  There were a hundred tires on that farm that we recycle and the 21 of them I got were ones that were still on their rims.  Five or six years later they were still sitting out there, with a tarp over them.  I didn't get offers of help from the people that I was doing the favor in storing them and in getting rid of them. My wife said she would go and help me but that was nor really her job. Today I took the truck to the old place and loaded them all into the truck. The second tire that I picked up had water in inside of it and that went all up and down my left leg. The water was rusty and dirty and I was wet then the entire morning.

The landfill has many rules and if you don't have a tarp over your load, that it is an automatic 25 dollar charge. I ended up having to back the load up to a deck area and place them into the back of an old shipping truck.  Those donuts of rubber are now gone.  I ended up paying them one hundred dollars for the load, with fine,  and the pleasure of driving away knowing that I will probably never ever going there again.

Thanks for stopping in today. 

Middle of the Week.......

Wednesday morning seems to be a typical day but it does seem to be a lot warmer. The sun glows on the clouds from behind the row of houses.

Barney has lost a lot of his eyesight but once in a while he takes notice of the back window view. I guess he sees motion of things and does try to figure out what is out there.  I don't think it bothers him being on a second story window but I am sure whatever he thinks he is seeing is worth while for him.

These bells laid in the grass at the old place and were lost.  I found them while clearing grass from beside the steps.  One bell had come off earlier and was brought into the house. Whatever their adventures were, they have all three have been reunited, waiting for me to reconnect them and to polish them. I really like the sound of brass bells and will make that a winter project to restore the bunch.






One of our neighbors from the old place moved to our city a few months after we had done so.  She went into a retirement building away from living in her parents old house.  We got together today and were pleased of her set up.  She really has blended in to the environment and the people there. She knows everyone and that life style will be great for her.  She shared that she was homesick and yet knew that the move was a good one for her.  After she showed us all around the many wings of multistoried apartments we took her to a diner.  We all had tenderloins and fries with pop.  We caught up on a lot of things as we have both been really too busy to get together for a long time. We were pleased of her place that looks out over a large pond.  She has squeezed in the most valuables of her past and it is a cozy place.

Thank you for stopping by today.

Second Day of the Week....

As I was posting this photo I thought that I will get a lot of good winter photos of this tree. I also notice that my dogwood bushes  were a good visual barrier from all the neighbors.  They were getting really tall so I would not have seen that light in the window before the trim. I am sure the neighbors liked not being able to see us too.

When we first moved here it was an adjustment as to how private we should live.  I walked by the sliding glass door and the neighbor guy, young, was in his large window. When he saw me walk by I noticed that he jumped and ducked out of sight.  He has gotten use to the idea that we like to see out and our double glass door curtains are going to be opened in the daytime. Within a few weeks I noticed that they now just leave their curtains open most of the time. I guess we are old but not too scary to them anymore.

A project in progress is this old piano stool. I have had it for over 40 years and never refinished it.  I am thinking that it may get a coat of paint as the wood is really not in good shape.

The claw feet are metal, which I can't identify the kind at this point. I need to research that as I would have thought they would be  brass. The glass ball inside that taloned feet seems to be soundly fastened.

The bottom of the seat doesn't really look like it is made of a fancy wood.  I may have to strip that residue finish to see what it is.

The metal bracket has the words "gerts" and "Chicago" cast in it. As with most pieces that I restore, I work at it before I decide how to finish it.  I could see the seat refinished as a natural wood and maybe the base being black or brown paint. I have to glue most of the joints as that has all vanished.  It holds together well because of its design but I wouldn't want anyone to sit on it until it has been repaired. I could see it slowly squash down with weight on it, spread-eagle.

It isn't the money thing that I keep the hardy geraniums over the winter.  It is that when they are so much alive and healthy I can't just let it die.  So, I now have three of theses sitting on the back of my workshop bench.  I turn on the shop light once in a while just for them and they will survive for spring. The other two sit in galvanized buckets and I really do need one of the buckets.  I will find something else to use up at the old place. As a footnote, I did let one other geranium freeze and die of natural causes.

It is Tuesday and we are warming up a little bit.  It will be nice to be outside with a light jacket. Thanks for stopping by today.

It's the Berries.......

I mentioned earlier that the berries were forming and immediately realized the bush was a burning bush. It isn't such a great looking shrub when it loses its leaves. While looking at winter pictures of it I had decided that bush needed to go.  Now I see that it is not very old and needs to have room to grow.

I am glad we have the shrub.  I really am bothered by the neighbors all having nothing in their yards. There is a young couple up two houses just hired a nursery to plant a lot of trees and shrubs. I am happy to see it to help break up the starkness of our neighborhood. It reaffirms to us that this house was good for us as the previous owners bless it with a lot of good plantings.

I took the shot as a challenge to see if I could get a good composition with it.  The yellow lightbulb must go but it just haven't happened.  I replaced the entrance bulb that was yellow with a spotlight bulb to light things for the dog. There are neighbors who have blue lights to commemorate the brutal killing of police officers a year ago.  I am believing that this color was use for repelling the bugs in summer. I really like the two lights on the garage as they do resemble carriage lights of old.

The woman of the house in the past liked quilts. She had prints of P. Buckley Moss pictures of Amish themed artworks. Moss would paint lots of different scenes that would include quits. We don't have any prints of her's but we do have loads of quilts from my mom's leftover collection.  I am assuming the quilt decoration placed at the peak of the garage gable is a part of the movement in which people place quilt block designs on their barns.

My wife and I are undecided as to what we should do with this.  Our house is different than most up and down the street.  It really is a country cottage design but the two artists need to figure out what to do to replace it. Most all the other houses are modern high pitched roofs with multiple garages making them a modern style.

The downstairs space has been rearranged one more time.  It doesn't look like this anymore. I still have more plants than I really need to have. The walkout basement doors are really nice and it will be great to see all the things that I have planted for spring just outside the patio.  The actual sliding doors are cheaply made and we will wait until next year to replace it. We will probably regret that decision as winter sets in but it seems to be something we can put off for now among all the other things we still need to do.

Those curtains are ugly in our opinion and we do want to replace them. They are bad looking from the back side also.  It is great to have a studio/family room and guest bedroom and bath downstairs. We haven't put it on priority as we are still settling in upstairs.  The back corner of the area has a furnace room that has given me a great workshop and storage room. Our son and his wife with he grand boys are coming for Thanksgiving.  They will have a large space to stay and a lot of room for the kids to play.  Our son last saw this space covered with boxes wall to wall. I will be anxious to see what he things now with it all put away and it looking livable.

The guest bedroom looks like this looking through a back storeroom door. It has the best rug in the house and the space is large for a bedroom. We have missionary friends in Africa who are interested in using the space next summer.  They specifically like that it has its own entrance and they can come and go with some privacy.

I am taking a day off from going to the old place today.  Our temperatures will be warmer tomorrow and that will be better.  We woke up to frost and fog this morning.  Our day will be warmer at 43 degree F. by the afternoon.  It is more pleasant right now.  Thank you for stopping in to my blog today.

Sunshine is Predicted.....

We had two locust trees down on the farm in southern Iowa. They were horrible trees with large thorns and distorted shaped limbs. They dropped limbs, leaves, sticks with thorns continually.  The locust that we have in the front yard is nothing like those trees.  I assume they have bred out the bad qualities to give one a decent tree. On the ground are the leaf bunches that have fallen to the ground.

I have a blanket of the leaves on the ground now. I think I will let them dry up before I deal with removing them. The don't tend to blow around so I can leave them for now.  The two bradford pears in the front yard are not thinking of dropping leaves. As my one neighbor says, they hang around too long.  I guess that is why he cut his two down. I am keeping my two trees.

It was a surprise to see these bunches of branched leaves falling from the tree. I know the old fashion locust would do that during a wind storm. I still can't forget the throne of the old trees as the barefooted boy would always step on one at least once in the summer.

I have a formal portrait of one of the clusters.  I think now it is called "over kill" with my handling of the locust tree.

The potted mandevilla did not bloom this year.  I should repot it and give it one more chance. I could just toss it too as it takes up space where I don't have a lot of space for a plant hospital.  We will wait and see what happens.

Normal Sunday activities for today. It really is warmer than a few days ago.  The light rain is almost done now and we won't need winter coats for now. I thank you for stopping by today.

Reality Check.....

As the earth keeps tilting I have to now say goodby to the early sunrise shots. The sun is showing up behind the house next door.  I will just have to settle for the special effects that show up in the sky because of the sunrise. Having not lived here at this time of the year I really didn't know what things would look like. The southeast end of the house is directly in line with the sun in the morning and the reverse of course is true at night with the northwest end of the house.

The neighbors, up two houses, have the large tree   just now has its leaves changing. I am yet to know the kind of tree that it is an even though it looks like a silver maple, the leaves should be yellow by now.

The maple tree to the left of the blue spruce is almost done dropping its leaves.  I am not a fan of its shape but I am glad that it is there. The tree grows out as if the top of it had been broken off during a storm. With the leaves gone on most trees, I can now see layers of five rows of houses looking northeast. I may just mow the leaves from the maple as it seems to be easier than raking.

The kids keep growing up and the pictures need to be updated in their frames.  I finally got the new ones in their proper frames and the old ones were placed loosely into a photo album.  The album really needs to be organized but even to have one is good for us. We normally have kept boxes of photos.  On a cold windy winter day we can get them all placed in the book. The youngest one looks a lot like his older brother but we can see some differences as we look at the shots of them both.

We are venturing out today as the now normal warmth doesn't seem to be too bad. We are to get rain this afternoon. We will still visit the bookstore today and come home for a quiet afternoon. I tend to back off projects on Saturday and do treat it as a day off. I am settling in with my mind that our outdoor work is almost finished. I wish you all to have a great day and thanks for stopping in today.