Stunning Sunset Sunday......

Weather patterns changing last evening helped to give us clouds with color and pattern.  Suburban foreground is a given for us here but the sky was so filled with clouds to make a colorful sky overhead and not just at the horizon.

The Sunday morning sky showed that the weather was going to change.  The air currents above were  mixing with warmer temperatures below.

With the weather warming and snow melting, I am sure that these two may be out searching for their own seed. It is raining this morning off and on helping to finish off snow piles.  My area under and around the truck now has no snow around it. We are expected to drop to freezing temperatures this evening. Our area had another car and truck pile up with one inch of snow on the high way.  That crashing of cars took place again because everyone is driving 10 miles an hour over the speed limit.  There were 70 cars involved in the last one, two days ago.  The weather people are trying to let people know that Tuesday morning we will have ice coated highways.  I am not sure that will help.

Final photo for today shows the street in front of our house. Most of that snow is gone now but there are some piles left that were too deep to be effected by warmth. I wish everyone to have a good day today. Thanks for stopping in at my post.

Sunday’s Sharing Time......

Sunday morning sights included clouds that were being blown in with all that wind. The wind is warm enough to melt things but it looks more like it is evaporating snow.

The last of our bigger snow is still on the deck but I bet it will all be gone by the end of the day. It is evaporating as the water isn’t dripping out below.  We don’t have water running down the streets either. I should have shoveled this off but then I could not have taken this photo to share.

A flock of house finches have been at the feeders off and on today. They are all paired up and still stayed in a flock. There are younger pairs in the bunch.  The males are just smaller. They must have been from last years batches of birds. The young males are slimmer that the older males.

I have seen one junco and then a few sparrows do stop by but house finches are the larger crowd out there. The wind has picked up and the feeders are swinging wilding. It doesn’t seem to stop them from feeding.

The eyes were looking out at me while I was in the basement this morning. I had to take a shot of all these ceramic planters.

I described this planter in the past and someone wanted to see what I was sharing. It is so long and lean that I forgot that it dos have a hole in its back for planting vines or small plants.

I only have one of them planted. I have share this one through all the years that I have been blogging. I bought it a new vine last fall and it seems to be growing well.  I like the dead leaf in the photo showing I must have bumped it someway to break the leaf.

We are home resting today one more weekend. Our Sunday school classes were cancelled because our head pastor had the flu.  His whole family is sick. We are able to see our church service on the computer live so we did go to church.  We stayed home and had leftovers and are taking it easy one more day. We are so much better but hints of the virus just keeps hanging around.

Thank you all for checking in on the post today.  I  wish everyone good health.

Saturday’s Stuff.......

One more shot of one of our house finches that visit the feeder. With the snow melting there are less birds out there picking through the seed.

My seashore display continues to remind me of the ocean. The round rock in the front still fascinates me as I do think it was a canon ball. It doesn’t act like rock when I scrape it with a tool. My dad’s slab of agatized rock shows off it patterns.

The cow bell has a distinct sound with its clunking sounding more like a dead metal sound. The bell came from a farm in southern Iowa and I bet that same milk cow wore that bell for John and Iva Horton.  The gold paint that was put on it by my mom does not really look authentic. It is made from a very rough metal so it could be brown. I bet John would never had imagine that I would be displaying it on his table board bookcase.

Another random shot from my basement, was taken in the storeroom. I did toss a lot of children’s books but I still have three shelves of them. A lot of them are from the 50s and 60s.  Also my mom bought for her grandkids some newer ones that are all Sesame Street kind of books.

 A future project is the painting of these wooden parts of a crafts train.  I couldn’t figure out why I had so many.  I do see that I paid 77 cents for each one so I am sure I was going to sell them in our frame shop.

One last shot for today is the top of my taboret. It is a sight that shows I have not started to work in my basement studio. Things are still siting ready for me to put them away.  I did work two times in the studio with our older grandson was here. He did a lot of paintings on one of the art stations. I gladly sat by him as he worked.

It is a sunny day today but it isn’t as warm as they thought it would be.  Our journey to the bookstore included flurries this morning but that is all done now. More melting will come the next couple of days. Thanks for stopping by today.

Friday’s Final Finish.......

The snow has melted enough to allow us to see the female goose completely. Her head has been under snow for days.

The sunny day is deceptive as the melted front yard is sitting at 16 degrees F. right now.  There is no melting going on today.

In the past two days the rabbit had made a track in the snow to the feeders and you can see that those tracks melted further open making large holes where there just small marks in the snow.

My raise garden bed is now almost exposed now. Another set of tracks shown are actually squirrel tracks as the bound through the snow leaving marks about ever three feet or so.

While vacuuming yesterday we found something that reminds us or our grandsons. We think more Teddy as he did play with the set of blocks more.  It is fun to find them as the kids have been gone since Thanksgiving weekend.

A shot taken two days ago shows the clay tile planter with seem in it. The cap probably is now gone now and I do think they will be very much alive springtime.

It is a slow day around here and we won’t venture out to  go shopping. I do have to get Barney out four or more times a day.  I know we both are feeling stronger but the virus is not gone yet.  I hope all are well out there and thank you for stopping by today.

We Are Melting.......

I didn’t shovel the snow under the truck this past snow storm.  I wasn’t really feeling strong enough to do it and I figure it will be gone by spring. Yesterday the snow on the back canvas that covers the truck bed was really losing a lot of snow.  It was like a small mountain stream of water coming off the back as the sun soaked into the black cover.

 I walked the entire area of the backyard yesterday just to see what is out there.. I see this morning that every footprint that I made in the snow has already melted open, showing grass shapes of where I had walked. The raised garden will be my tomato patch again this year.  It will be planted earlier this year as we were in the middle of moving last year and I planted a month late.

My neighbor’s backyard looks like this when you position your lens between the slots of his gate. His descending stairs are here and the sedum do enhance the stairs in the summer.   He has heavy weed barrier down so that no weeds will develop. He had a load of large stone put in on top of it to hold it down.

There were three batches of these going over and this is the one shot that I caught two of them in the viewfinder. The Des Moines River is open right now so all the waterfowl and bald eagles are happy. We saw swans yesterday on the one open area on Lake Saylorville as we came home from our tax man's town. Small ducks are wintering over here in this area but I never see them fly over our place.

The red twig dogwood shrubs are turing red now at this time of the year. They normally are blacker in color during the summer but the red is nice to see.  I am anxious to see how the branch out after their butch hair cut.  I have seen these pruned to the ground in garden magazines letting them start over at a lower height. This will actually be our second spring here at this place but I will have more time to notice it all developing.

Yesterday the bench was already melted of snow.   This shot shows the angel being uncovered from its snow blanket.  It won’t be long for me to again  be running into the bench,  as I mow grass around it.

Yesterday we went to our restaurant where they give free pie on Wednesdays. It was so crowded. It may have been of the holiday but it usually is very busy as some people like free things. We went early as we knew we had to venture up to the old place later in the day to have our  taxes figured. We brought both of our free pies pieces home so the eat them later.  Eating a full meal and putting a whole piece of pie down afterwards  just doesn’t work for me.

Our tax preparer from the past years, retired, and we had a new guy helping us this year. He is such a nice young man who really knows his stuff.  Today's taxes are figured with the cooperation of the governments computer.  Our investment company has already sent in all the paper work to the IRS and the tax preparer pulls it up on the government computer.  The spaces are blank where all the figures are suppose to go but the computer will know if he filled in the spaces correctly. They already know the information.  Our whole year's, and past years finances, are already on a form for any tax preparer can pull up and fill in. I am surprise that the government doesn’t go in and place what is going to be placed where, but that would be more like big government controlling it all. So when our taxes are filed, the IRS will verify the forms to see if our preparer did an accurate job.  He did say that by summer, he will know what mistake that could have been made. That must be a big computer that the government has to hold the records of 200 million people or more. I stand amazed and we were happy with our tax outcome this year.

No plans for today as we did two things yesterday. I did almost forget to recycle by putting out the bin, but they go late in the day.  I have to sometimes look up the street to be sure it is the right day. Our melting continues today and that is good.  I want see rivers and streams running down our sidewalks and streets.  It gets us that much closer to some better weather by eliminating the snow.  Thanks for stopping by today.

There Be Sun, Annie..........

Seeing geese flying overhead really is not a sign of spring for us. Three different times flocks of Canada geese flew over while I was walking the property.  We warmed up a little and I forced my self to walk our borders and to go around the house.  It is but above freezing and seems warm right now.

Our neighbor’s house southeast of us, is in view, as I take a shot up into the sky. Geese could be heard but I didn’t see that I caught any in this photo.

The view that I saw while descending the stairs next to the house. It is deceiving to see as there is a lot of snow on these steps.

I did try to fall on one of the last steps as I missed one of them as I climbed downward. I had not been outside for a long time so it was fun to see all that was going on out there.

The one garden looks more like a cemetery with its two gate posts and the leftover sunflower stems. The snow actually was crusty on top as I walked around the backyard fence.

The snow has melted enough to let the female Canada goose is almost above the snow again. The snow is all melted off of their backs.

The raised bed is becoming visible as the snow retreats. The bed won’t be planted for another couple of months.

The raised bed next to the front corner of the house is looking bleak. The bush normally covers the gas meter. I am anxious to see what hosta plants survived over winter that I planted in the rock garden there. My walk outside was a good one even though I had to force myself to do it. I don’t have excess energy to just spend but I did get some photos and had time to enjoy it all.

We are headed out this afternoon to do our taxes.  I am hoping that things are far more simplified for us and it won’t take so much time to have them prepared.  I appreciate you stopping by today.

Grandsons On Parade.....

AJ is almost five years old now. He was somewhat overwhelmed with the John Deere museum that they were visiting.  I am sure he didn’t have a clue as to how big all of the machinery was when they went in for the visit.

Teddy too has grown up and you can see that wonderful smile that he wears a lot. He will be two years old in April. He is such a positive spirit at most times making the best of all that goes on in the world

They both have hit the out of doors enjoying what the snow offers. AJ is busy building a snow fort  and has worked on it for a few days. I am betting that Teddy is kept away from the snow fort as he could help to knock it down. All photos were emailed to me by our son’s phone.

Back at the ranch we still have lots of snow and we are tired of it. The promised warm up today isn’t going to happen and tomorrow is suppose to be the day of heat.  It won’t melt much if it only last one day.

I hope everyone is doing well out there and the weather is not a big problem.  I am thinking the month of March will be a welcomed one for me.  Thanks for stopping by today.