Thursday's Things....

 An old planter that sat on our kitchen table when I was a kid back in the 1950's. I dug it out of the garage when I closed down my parents home, surprised to see it was still around.  I saw from old photos in my past that it did have an accident and I had to glue the head and one leg back onto the base. 

I ignore the cactus and water it rarely.  I was surprised to see that it was blooming. It is early this year but it does seem to bloom often for a few months. 

I needed more spaces in the window for plants.  I took some old table board pieces and cut them into a new stand.  The birds are also sharing the winodw and they can see over the tops of the flowers. I see in the photo that the birds have sprinkled seed on the cleaned floor already.  I love them so I just vacuum often.

I dug the hardy geranium and brought it in before it was killed in the freeze.  I am glad because I lost a planter of geraniums by not bringing them in time. 

The fragile begonia was brought in too to keep it alive.  I can keep it bloom for most of the winter if it gets enough light. 

I mowed the back yard today to smooth off the look.  It was shaggy and I am starting to get leaves that need to be mulched.  I will mow more as the maple  and red bud drops its leaves.  I worked on cleaning up more of the backyard getting things ready for winter.  We were warmer this morning but I still got chilled out there while I was mowing. The front yard did not need to be mowed and that is fine with me. I see the new mum that I bought and planted has been hit by the freeze.  I should have covered it.  I didn't get a picture of it so I may have to give you a view of it frost damaged.  

I have the three new trellis now to replace the old one that I cut up.  I am tempted to leave them in the box and assemble them on a cold winter day when I run out of things to do.  I am glad they are here but it seems silly putting them up just for the snow. 

Thanks for stopping by today.

Middle of the Week's Worth.....

 Feed the birds when it is so cold.  They need to eat to warm their bodies.  I added a tube feeder after I took this shot and I should have many birds flocking in soon. 

We have many hard freezes now so there is not tuning back.  I dug some hardy geranium sprouts that never grew all summer because of the drought.  They were hiding under dead zinnia plants so they did not get frozen.  All other stuff is gone.  

I dumped out a chunk of ice on the surface of the water of a bucket and it has stayed there for two days.  We are up to 40° F. right now towards noon time so it might actually melt.  I drained my water barrel last evening by running a garden hose from the barrel to the blue spruc tree.  The barrel did eventually empty but the hose is full of ice this morning.   I  had to drag the hose out into the sunshine and it did finally loosen up so I could coil it up. 

 

 I moved this little shelf to the new place and put it to use outside.  It looks good but I then felt guilty aout it being outside.

Two winters ago I brought it into the shop and sanded it down.  I think it was originally a medicine cabine shelf but the glass door was gone.  After refinishing it I added the compartments to make it a display cabinet.  It actually worked better up side down.  I found the piece in the old barn at my wife's farm.  It is an old piece as it could have come from the house back when her grandparents lived there.  It has a long history as it had been moved into the cow milking parlor station to be used to hold meds for cows. 

I was bombarded with news from two brothers, a cousin and a hometown website yesterday about the lost of a first cousin of mine.  It all happened in a fifteen minute period of ttime.  He was five years younger than me and lived alone.  People started to be concerned when they couldn't reach him by phone.  I had seen my cousin Gene back in June and he was not well.  His health problems were not being successfully treated.  His being younger than me and me remembering him when he was just a baby 67 years ago makes it a tough thing to happen. 

I got more work done outside while being bundled up.  All the zinnias are now pulled from the ground and I will sack them tomorrow.  I will need to clear them as I will mow the back yard as it will be warmer. Closing things down is sort of a good feeling but I do hope it stays warm for me to finish.  Thanks for stopping by today.

Too Cold Tuesday.....

 I never know what to do with this plant.  I eventually cut some of it back after it has died down a lot. It is a variety of Japanese iris.  I use to call it flag iris but I don't think that is correct. 

I started to pull up the zinnias this morning.  I had to quit as it was too cold.  We were below freezing for most of the morning. If I do a few each day I can finish it by Friday.

The sedum blooms are in decline but the foliage of it takes a lot of hard freezes to slow it down. My inherited telephone box is always a part of some of the garden photos. 

I am so happy with the growth of this redbud tree.  It actually has large leaves.  It is turning color now an it won't be that showy but it does change. 

This has now been killed from the freeze.  It held out longer than the vines in the tomato patch.  I will collect seeds when they look like they are ready to be taken.  

I just couldn't work outside today.  It is still below freezing at the noon time.  I see we will get into the 60°s on Thursday so maybe I can then mow my back yard.  It is shaggy.  I worked on shelves to hold houseplants this morning to hold some of the plants that I brought in.  I have two geraniums that I would like to see blooming.  I had to design it so the cockaieil birds can stll look over it through the sliding glass door window. They really like seeing outside and squawking at birds, dogs ,or cats that they see in their view. They have mistakenly squawked at me when I am outside on the patio. Wishing for it to warm up sooner but it is Iowa.  Thanks for checking in today.

Breezy Monday.....

 Yes, it is iced over water.  The birds will have to wait a few more hours before it will be melted a little. 

With a hard freeze it makes it time to start to bring in the seeds. It is too cold to be out there.  I go out for short periods of time and then come back in to warm up a bit.  

I went out a second time to collect more zinnia heads.  I like to let them dry out for a good time and then will pull the seeds off and place them in uncovered jars. 

 

The marigolds needed today's hard freeze to get them ready for harvest.  They are still moist and really haven't gone into the seed development stage.  I collected some anyway but will go out at the last of the week and try again.  I need to start pulling all of the plants and Friday is suppose to warm up. 

This ground cover did put out some more blooms this fall.  I didn't plant this and am not really happy with it.  I think it has invaded too closely to cone flowers causing them to die. 

It is warm inside and the roses are happy in a glass jar with plenty of water.  It is the time of the year that weather just controls the outside projects.  We have bad wind chills and it is best to be inside.  Thanks for checking in today.

Random Things with Thoughts....

 

It is full of seeds and I am sure I need to cut it soon if I want to save it from the birds right now.  I can save it and feed it in chunks during the cold winter monts. I went out to collect some rose blooms for a vase and had to do a fall report on the things in the yard.

 

 Tomorrow I will start to collect seed heads.  I won't know some of the colors anymore as they are all to dead to see the original color.

 The phlox is putting out the very last of its blooms.  It seems to be a tough one for the cold but I did see our strong winds for a couple of days caused some ot the stems to just lay on the ground.

 

 It is in the last of it blooming time as most all the cottage garden is at its end of the season.  Even the weeds are dead from the cold and the drought.

 

 

It is getting almost too cold for these blooms.  The cold is causing its colors to be different than the original heavenly blue.  I am happy to see them each morning but won't be surprised when then are dead one morning. 

 

The moon is in the phase location where it will be too far in the east for me even to see it. I guess I keep taking its photo because is is still right there.  It is between my maple and blue spruce and in a couple of more nights it will be just too  low in the sky.  Trying to stay warm today as it is just cold again.  Thanks for checking in today.

Saturday's a Go......

 A male downy woodpecker showed up this morning for some suet. He stayed long enough that I could get way too many pictures. 

The female downy was at the feeder a few days ago. She is identified as the female because she does not have a red cap. 

This is my neighbors rose sitting next to my pink rose. It is a knock out rose that sits next to my pastel pink one in sharp contrast.  It is a good thing.

 

My pink rose keeps putting out a few blooms. It won't be long before the last of them as we keep getting colder. 

There were three panels of these dead vines.  I spent the morning taking a saw and cutting them into four pieces.  Once they were cut up I could pull off the vines from the latticed trellis.  I had a very large pile of dead vines which are now all bagged up for recycle.  I am glad that it is done.  It was such a mess.   I have new trellises ordered to replace these.  They will be a bright white set of three.  I may have to wait until spring to install them even  though I am eager to get them up. 

It was cold outside today as I worked but one just gets use to it as our side of the earth cools down.  Thanks for stopping by today.

Friday Fun.....

 

The morning view looks like we had a promise of a good day. It wasn't really sunny out there.  It was cold and not that nice to be outside today.  I still feel chilled from the time that I did spend out there.  I still have a lot of work to do outside before it starts to snowwwwwwwww!

Yesterday I took out the last of the tomatoes and did see that I had a few stray onions still in the ground.  The ground was hard and dry and I had to dig around to find them as the tops of them were all dried up and gone. 

The stray zinnia was clipped off while I was cutting back tomato stems.  The zinnias are in decline  but a few good blooms are there. 

This is a disturbing view is of the vine that I am removing.  I have two of the panels down now and one yet to go. 

One garden magazine called it a thug vine.  I am glad I finally decided to take it out of there.  It was so much work to try to keep it looking like a vine. I have ordered new white trellises to replace this.

This is a visual of the innocent looking vine.  I saved a piece back just to share.  I will be fighting the vine in areas for a few years as it has spread all over the parts of that end of my garden. I did not plant this vine just in case you haven't heard.

While photographing my work I turned and took this pleasant view of the rose. The late buds are now blooming and they are not bothered by the cold yet. 

Saturday is coming. Thanks for stopping by today.