Sunshine..........

The red twig dogwood is looking good but still now new leaves have shown up yet. The statue in the back sits in the sun waiting for warmer weather.

The pussy willow buds seem to be hanging on for a long time. I kept thinking leaves will start soon.  The birds like the tree but I don’t think there is anything there that they eat.

I counted the number of clumps of iris that I have moved and it is 22 clumps.  This is the fastest growing clump which means it might be the white iris.  It usually blooms first along with the cemetery iris. This plant shown does look like it will mature enough to put out some blooms.

The daylily that is up looks strong enough that it has always been there.  It will be fun to see what color it will be.  I didn’t move day lilies like I did with iris.  I have about four that I moved.  I guess it was not so urgent as I can pick up new day lilies at the different stores around here. The iris that I have collected in 40 years can’t really be bought out right at any nursery.

The last time I took the truck to the old place I had a warning light on this tire. That means I need to put in some air.  I didn’t have my gage to know how much I needed to  fill it.  I made the first stop and of course the country store gas store doesn’t have a gage on the air hose, so I just guessed.  Took off after filling it and the warning light is still on. I am not use to caring for truck tires so I stopped again at another station and added some more air.  I thought that the tire must have been really low.  Making it a short story out of this mistake, I kept filling, with no gage.  I went out after I went home and I had 50 pounds of pressure in it.  The light of warning must no like an over inflated tire so it tells me something is wrong. I now have a gage in the truck now.  Yes, I had to let out a lot of air.

The sun is going to shine all day today.  It will be nice to see things becoming greener.  We have flowering trees that should have been in bloom by now that might just start doing that.  I hope everyone with cold and snow is now feeling this southerly breeze that we are having.  Thanks for stopping by today.

Thursday’s Things......

Mr. Cardinal is crushing down the larger sized millet. Some of the smaller birds don’t like that larger sized seed so they leave it around until I have to dump it.

The snow is gone now with a little bit of sleet in the roof valleys.  We are promised no more snow.

The pair of house finches often share the sock on opposite sides. The sometimes follow each other around it as they find better seeds in front of them.

I had to vacuum around this table with plants this morning.  I was thinking that I can’t wait to get these back outside again. The shot is taken from outside the door looking in showing that the window in the sliding glass door did a good job to  cause growth on the oxalis.  I have all my geraniums in buckets to take outside too.  I will have to decide if I am going to leave them in the buckets or put them into the ground.

I moved the skillet close to the house to keep the snow from filling it up and covering the seed. I see the birds really don’t  feel unsafe to come this close to the door.  I sometimes slide open the door a crack to let the kitchen floor cool off for Barney.  He likes his hardwood floors cold. Anyway, I pull the screen now as I don’t want a stray bird in the house or even a squirrel.

We sent off a birthday box for our youngest s2 year old grandson this morning. His parents really are going to have to do a garage sale to get rid of all of the toys they have.  We sent some fresh new ones today for our sweet littlest guy. Recently we received some shots of Teddy eating a fudge ice cream bar.  It was all over his person.  This morning we got a shot of him working with stamp pads at daycare.  Teddy had used his forehead and cheeks as places to  press the stamps.

We are off on an adventure this afternoon and won’t be gone for lone.  We are promised that spring will be here tomorrow and we will see no more snow ever this year. I bought some lawn treatment materials this morning while at the Ace hardware.  I had gone for a new light bulb for our range hood but I did buy my weed and feed stuff.  I wish everyone a good day today.  Thanks for stopping in today.

Wednesday’s Words and Photos......

Early morning yesterday the snow was still covering the top of this skillet with seed.  By the afternoon the snow was gone and all birds and squirrels helped me to get the thing emptied.

We were still cold but the sun gave us a taste of spring yesterday. I am waiting for the red twigs to show some leaf sprouts but it just isn’t warm enough for that to happen. The grass along the row has green grass showing. Out of the wind and in the sunlight it could almost be called a spring day.  I still had to have a hat and coat on to stay comfortable

I am hoping that this is my Grandma’s red peony from the old place.  I am thinking I brought a big chunk of it from one of the three locations that it was growing. It it is that the peony would have traveled to its fourth location  The previous owner has peonies planted up in the front yard that are not the old traditional kind of peony.  It will be nice to have these growing in the backyard.

The tulip heads have been showing the past few days. I guess tulips are May flowers so I won’t get to anxious yet for them to bloom. I did locate a couple daffodil sprouts yesterday of the normal sized ones.  They were at the bottom of my outside steps going down to the backyard. I know there are more than just two bulbs so I will need to be watching for more some where out there.

The transplanted hydrangea has leaf buds on every single cane of the bush that I moved to here. Both rose bushes have green stems on them and I did finally trim back the dead branches from them yesterday.  I didn’t have my clippers with me so I used an old pair of scissors.

I did get this sock filled and it helped with the ways the birds were getting along with each other.  Here the finch cousins are sharing the same sock at different  levels. The house finch is still the bully when it comes to sharing any of the seed sock.

Our weather forecast to day puts us on the edge of snow again today.  We did get the sleet this morning with the deck still covered with that.  We are n to above freezing so it may stay there all day.  The sleet is what we got instead of the rain that was promised at first. We have decided to just stay inside for the day and not take any chances on the road. There is not sunshine today like you see in my yesterday’s shots.

Thanks for stopping by today.  Have a great Wednesday.

A Title Goes Here......Tuesday.

The snow did retreat yesterday because of the sunshine and not because of any warm temperatures.

The small daffodils really were not damaged by the snow.  They will get to have more snow around them on Wednesday.

This was our sight on Monday morning.  The sun did seem to be out there most of the day but the wind and air felt very cold. We still seem to be caught in January weather.  I would think that the earth tilt will finally make a change on our weather.

Having watched robins picking out millet seeds to eat was the first new discovery for me this birding season. The photo now shows me that the cardinals scoops up large amounts of the millet and crushes up and down on and then swallows.  I again thought they would only eat sunflower and safflower seeds. I know we have seen them eat berries so it makes sense they eat many kinds of seeds too.

At the beginning of our snow storm the female was sure looking around for something to eat. I had not scattered any loose seed out there before this but this photo encouraged me to do that. I placed this photo on my Facebook site of Looking through the Lens in Iowa.  It was a real hit as it received 125 “likes” and the number keeps growing.

Snow is melted mostly and I need to hike around the property to see how the transplants are doing.  I can see iris getting taller leaves by view from the window. I want to see more sprouts on the peony bushes and maybe I can get that one rosebush trimmed back today.  We will have a light snow on Wednesday because our temps are just remains too cold for rain.

Thanks for stopping by today. I wish everyone to have a good day.

No Sunday Blog but......

I guess I just kept writing on my Sunday’s Photo a Day and thought I was doing this blog.  Anyway, it was a busy day yesterday.  The wind blew the feathers around on the cardinal and most birds were trying to get something to eat at our place.

Last winter I was trying to figure out what kind of bird that this is but I do think I found it to be a cow bird.  I looked it up again this winter and yes it is a cow bird.

The brown head is the clue that makes this to be a cow bird.  We have larger trees in the neighborhoods all around us.  I assume that this was once farm fields so this kind of bird didn’t move away when a housing development moved in to its territory.

It snow all day yesterday until late evening.  The birds lined up to help themselves. The house finches did bully the goldfinches so they didn’t eat here.  I did see one sneak in once in a while but the house finch seems more wild and pushy. I did get some photos of goldfinch this morning on the socks this morning so they are still doing fine.

I don’t take so many shots of the sparrows.  This little one seemed to be posing for me for the shot. I again say that the house finches seem to be keeping the sparrows away from the feeder too. The snow did bring in more sparrows than is normal.

My wife picks out the mix and the frosting.  Everything was vanilla. I bake once a year, her cake.  I even had homemade vanilla ice cream to go with it for her birthday. If we get bored we can drizzle chocolate and carmen sauce on the ice cream.

Monday is here and the sun is shining. I don’t think it will get very warm but the sun does help to eliminate some snow. Everyone have a good day and thanks for stopping by today.

Saturated Saturday..........

I took a quick shot this morning from off the porch while it was raining. It rained all night with hard gusts of wind blowing everything around up and down the street.

I did some digging in my photo files and found this visual of what I had purchased back in September. I can now say that I did plant those small daffodils. They are called Tete a Tete daffodils that are shown in the top left bag. I did not know they were dwarf flowers.  I don’t read the labels well and they did take a close shot of them making them look like they are the normal size flowers. I know where I planted the tulips but the bottom package of daffodil mix has been planted out there in no man’s land.  I have not seen any evidence of any other them coming up anywhere.

The rains are to continue all day while the northern part of the state is having  blizzard conditions for two days. We had tornado warnings all evening last night with the best chances to be south of us. Snow to the north is strange but I see we are also promised this afternoon. This shot sort of shows water running down the driveway and street.

We will just stay home today as it is so windy and close to freezing.  My robin waits out front of the house, standing in the rain,  He isn’t in the photo so don’t try to find him. We had a few minutes of sleet for variety and they still say snow will happen in late afternoon.

My wife made potato salad yesterday afternoon and I grilled burgers out on the deck in the cold wind.  The bowl my wife found to use was this depression ware piece. It is a beautiful piece and I am glad she is willing to use some of the older pieces.  She had this filled to the brim with potato salad so the leftovers went into the refrigerator.

I looked it up on the net to verify that it was Imperial Glass.  I guess in tough times they made tinted glass pieces at the Ohio company.  I knew it was Imperial from all the other things that I have which have that starburst design in its base.  We knew an older woman, not related, that made ginger cookies.  Before baking they had a starburst pressed down on the cookie dough to make that decoration on the cookie. She was called Grandma Starr and Starr was here last name.  I do think she liked to put her trade mark on her ginger cookies.  I have a goblet that could be used for that andalso I have glass sugar and creamer with the same design.

I will be finishing off the blog with this shot of one of our rascally critters.  He didn’t like the rain but he was just too hungry to not seek seed and get wet at the same time.  I had just filled this skillet so I may go get a strainer to get rid of all that water.  Everyone have a good day.

Friday’s Finds in my File........

I am on a look out to see what tree that this is when I go down the street. I actually think all the trees in the photo are the same height but this one is just closer.  I don’t really need to point out a gloomy view of our start of the day.

I removed my temporary bird feeder tray from the birdbath so the birds can easily get some water. The water sources for the area are really a long distance from our neighborhood so I will try to keep water out there all summer.

I was glad to see that there were some grape hyacinth bulbs planted around the front.  I didn’t know they were there but may buy some more to be put in other flower garden spots. I did notice this morning that my New England bluebells are popping through.  The bleeding heart also seems to be showing sings of sprouting.

It seems to be a hyacinth but it has flowers are positioned differently than the commercial ones you by in pots at flower shops.

I like the colors of these and they really show up from viewing at a long distance.  I don’t know if they will get taller.  My mind with few memories tells me that these were up earlier last year and we did’t see them while we moved into the home. I think they were spent blooms and I never saw any signs of daffodils. Wouldn’t the joke be on me if I planted those daffodils and just didn’t remember them.  I guess I could have bought them thinking they were full sized daffodils. I will go back in my blog history and see if I have shots of the package.

I do know that I planted these tulips. I have a dozen and a half of these planted all around the property. We need some good spring rains to get this stuff blooming. The sign says "bunny crossing” and I will put it out in a better location.  Unfortunately I have a neighbor who doesn’t like bunnies.  I did see one a few days ago in our yard.  I bet he feeds at the feeder seeds that have fallen during very early morning.

Thanks for checking in on my post today. I do think we will warm up today in spite of the gray overcast sky. Everyone take care.