Second Day of the Week...

Do not fear, it is now clear. I didn't get the jar cleaned as well as I should have. I am waiting to see if it makes a difference. I have not seen a bird, but they do feed in the evening. I will be watching.

It looked threatening but it didn't rain. It missed us but we are cooler today. I  was able to go out and mow the back yard.  The grass was shaggy and actually dormant in some of the areas.  The shade of the house gives me tall grass.

It was mixing it up with different formations showing up all over the sky. Eventually the sun did come out and we will have a normal summer day.

Our oldest son drove through Iowa Monday from the Chicago area to go to a friend's mother's funeral. It was an eight our trip for him.  When he returned he stopped in to our downstairs motel.  He got some needed sleep. He left this morning and is back home to his family now.  It was great to see him.  We sat out in the sun room and had a good visit.

It was nice to even up the heights of the grass. I didn't mow the front as it seems greener than most peoples' yard as my three trees in front shades the grass.

Thanks for stopping by today.

Monday......

A classic ruffled day lily that has cprouted through my webbed wire that protects the plants from rabbits. It is a smaller lily but puts out many blooms.

Nothing is blooming around it but it is a nice gazing ball. This area is where the vole ate the roots of a lot of plants. My electric box behind that is sticking out in the area.



I call it the rack, the pieces of wood that holds together the set of four drawers. There are some problems that I will have to repair or it can never put back together again.

The chest of drawers is at least a hundred years old or more. The structure looks sound but it is not.  The joints are complicated and loose.  It is all solid walnut.The inside parts are mad us lesser woods.

I got this as the frame and the four drawers sitting on the ground.  I laughed as I did did get the top drawer in place but when I tried to put in the second drawer everything shifted around the whole corer of connections all separated creating gaps from the top corner all the way to the bottom. I can tell this is going to be an engineering challenge.

This is an ever changing  arrangement of different blooms each day. It is a warm day today but not as hot as it was in the past.

Thank you for stopping by today.

Sunday Afternoon Mentions......

Tomato Island is what you get when you over plant the plot.  I grow them from seed so I planted all of my starts. My neighbors have four plants in the spot like this. It is unwise to have the so crowded but it is what it is. I even have a couple of volunteers that came up from last year. I think I have 14 steel posts in there to hold them up.

So the camera took a perfectlygood  shot of the wire cage. It is focused and the tomatoes are not. This will be my agricultural experiment for this season and I will see how they do. By next year  I will remember that I should go out and buy four plants and any volunteer tomato plantsget to stay.

The morning view is a plain one and those clouds did just go away without us getting any rain. We were cooler a little bit but the cool was 86 degrees F.

I found this at the old place on Friday. I will dig some of it and bring it home at some time. We use to go to a nursery north of where we lived when they had their yearly lily sale.  It was at an arboretum and the sale was during the times when they were blooming.

Thanks for stopping by today.

Stuff and more stuff......

A visit to the old place gives me some flowers to pick.  I really like the ditch lily, field lily, but I guess I realize that they spread over the years. They are the lilies in the back left side of the vase.  The vaxe is an old water bottle that was laying loose in the truck.

The mums needed to be trimmed back at the beginning of the month but I just didn't gget it done I did trim them finally and I think I will get bush mums by fall. My plants really didn't look so healthy as the drought was hard on them. I am watering them now.

I spent my morning cleaning up all the parts of the four drawer chest of drawers. There is evidence that the whole rack had collapsed at some time with the bottom of it being reworked by the owners to keep it together. I don't know if I laughed or cried when I discovered the top of the chest of drawers was nailed on by four large finishing nails. Wow, that is walnut and how did they hammer through the hardwood. Sometimes it is the stories that I find with a piece that makes me like restoring it. More pictures will come but I had to have it cleaned before I bring it into the basement workroom. It had been setting in a shed, dirt floor for a very long time.

The heat with the high humidity is amazing.  We had a surprise rain this morning as it fell through all of the humidity.  Then it cleared and got hot instantly.

Thanks for checking in today.

Christmas Gifts in July.....

It is not a tiger lily but it has the coloring.  It just doesn't have the shape of the flower. I would show you a tiger lily but two voles ate up the bulb over the winter time.

I was going to start with photo and title it "Christmas in July."I have a lot of storyI could tell  you about my gift from a former student. The chest of drawers has a long history but I will share that all later. The photo gives the clue of what it will look like.

Eric had seen me posting things on facebook that I had refinished during this lock down.  He told me on a message that he had something to rehome from his late dad's home.  This piece is like one I would have been wanting to own when I would see them at antique stores and never ever imagine that I would own it. I really am getting to be too old to add more furniture to the collection of my lifetime. Yes, the thing is all faced with walnut and the pulls I am assuming are carved walnuts.  I was so impressed that this former student wanted to give this to me. It will need mild sanding a glue to make it stand upright again. I picked it sight unseen this morning from the dad's farm near my old house's town.

Another shot of the young cardinal. Thanks again for stopping by today.

Stay safe and strong.

A Daring Dove......

Walking the rail to get to the feeder is not so easy. The top of the rail is rounded and a lot of birds do slip off of it.

The dove did make it to the other end and reached the feeder.  A raccoon tore down the hanging feeder last evening. His weight was too much for it and it fell back onto the deck with a great sound.  I had to scare him off and I  brought the feeder inside.  I guess I get to bring it in each evening. I have newer seen coons in the neighborhood but w e are surrounded by timber as a building development.

I am running out of day so I will finish off with these Susans. They took a lot of days to finally unroll and bloom.  Thanks for stopping by today.

After the Storm....

The sun was shining on the above clouds as the storm was filling in the whole sky. The glow in the hole looked better but I didn't get the shot taken soon enough.

It looks pretty harmless but then we eventually went to the basement as we ended up in line of the tornado.  A town just southwest of us had hurricane conditions as pictures show the trees looking like wind beaten palm trees. The lost many trees in the town and we ended up missing the worse of the wind. We had heavy rains and we were glad to get it. I did not have to water things today.

The knock out rose that I moved and planted in good soil is looking better. I am glad it is starting to revive.
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I built a frame today for the painting of Ella. I had not done that for a while and I had to review the steps.  It is all together now and I need to do a little sanding.

We have been in the low 70s today but it promises that we will go back into the heat in the next few days. It is good to have at least one rainy day to cool and green up things. Thank you for stopping by today.