Blog at Night

 It has been a long tine since morning as I put up a late night post. We started to get a strong rain storm at supper time and it still is thundering and lighting at late evening. We do need the rain and I am glad. We had some really strong winds that caused tree damage in the city.  I haven't been out to see if any of my trees were hurt. I will see things in the morning.  We had a high of 94 degrees F. today. A weather forecaster said that he doubts we will get this hot ever again this year. I worked in the yard this morning and the sun was hot bearing down on me while I worked. Old men shouldn't do such a thing anymore. 

Monday

 My prunning shears were in my pocket and I did it. I picked a bunch for a bouquet. It fits into the milk glass vase perfectly along with some of my fern from another one of my planters. 

 

 I noticed today that I have only three white colored zinnias. I really hadn't noticed that with so many colors being out there. But from a distance the white ones really show up. 

 There is one less of them out in the garden now. My whole garden patch of zinnias is really impressive, Sadly it is getting to be time for them to fade out and die, 

 We didn't have anything special to do this day. We were fortunate to get rain for most all of the morning, We needed to get something and it did sprinkle for most of the morning. Des Moines got huge downpours last night but we lived just far enough north to miss most of it. The brown spots in the yard greened up a little. My neighbor was out there mowing this morning in the sprinkles and he just kept going until he was done. I went out and clipped off the peonies in my corner garden. I need to dig some of them to share for my friends to get a start of them.  The leaves are starting to fade. 

Thanks for stopping by today.  

 

Checking In and Out

 

The heat, temps, aren't as high but it still is hot. I can see things in the garden that show the heat and the time of the year means things are shutting down. My backyard has large brown spots in it and will not need to be mowed. Other plants seem to be fading, My one dogwood shrub in the front yard was all wilted from the heat as if it were a neglected house plant. 

We were out for the day to church and found a fast food to hit before we came home. I don't want tog ooutside again.  Supper is planned and we don't need groceries so it is home we will be stay. Tomorrow won't be a holiday for us other than the garbage and mail won't stop for one day, It will be another Monday, 

Thanks for checking in today.  

Busy Work

 While taking my daily sky morning shot I looked up high. There was the moon in the darkness. 

 I originally wanted to share the glow of the clear sky. There were clouds higher in the sky but this was a great glowing sunrise. 

 

I worked outside this morning in spite of the heat. We cooled down to 75 degrees F. over night. It meant that I was working in the 80s by the time I was out this morning. I had some spot mowing that I wanted to do and sprayed for crab grass. I did get my tomatoes picked and I also was working on cleaning out an aquarium getting it ready for me to set it back up again. It really was needing to have its total water replaced. 

The one monarch joined me this morning. I kept dodging inside and out to keep alive with the heat. For some reason the heat has started to shut my morning glories like overnight.

I have been watering them but I guess the endless days of high heat just was too much for them. I see that I have lots of seed pods already so I guess the vines think it is fall. I watered the two new trees today and also watered the tomatoes with all my old aquarium water. That is full of good nutrients and I like to reuse my aquarium water for plants indoors as well as outdoors.  I did get the tank refilled with fresh water which will have to sit for 24 hours to get the chlorine out of it. Tomorrow the fish can be taken from my temporary tank and returned to their home. 

We may get a rain storm tomorrow and it will cool down about 10 degrees from where we have been averaging. Thanks for checking in today. 

Friday's Finds

 The sunrise view shows the spots of clouds. The reflections are of great colors. The camera did pick up the form of the sun even though one couldn't see it. 

 

 The painted lady butterfly benefited the shot with full sun on it. It shows distinct color as in most of the photos I take of it the bottom part of the wings fade to brown. 

 

 There are a lot of hummers out there and they have decided to land on the hook and wait their turn to the feeders. The dark band at the throat indicates that this is a male ruby throat male.

 The spots on the throat indicate that it is a ruby throated female bird. 

 The heat does slow down the visits of the butterflies. I may go out in the evening and see if any are out there. 

I am happy that the propping up of the jade plant for a time helped make the plant to stand up straight on its own.  I actually grew this one on my own with a small branch, I have never been successful at doing that before now. 

I didn't work outside today. We took off to the bookstore for a visit. We didn't find any new books but we did get to look through a few newer magazines. Ordering books online really has changed the selections of books available at the bookstores. It was still good to get out for the morning. 

Our high was 93 degrees F. in the afternoon. It wasn't good to be out in that temp. Our cool down isn't expected until Sunday.  Thanks for stopping by today. 

 

High Heat Indexes

 I had a chance to take shots of two different monarch. They would circle around a lot but did eventually find a zinnia to land on, 

 I have had many painted ladies out at the flowers almost every single day. There are a lot of them and they stay active most of day. I can look out at them garden and something is moving. 

The birds have spread the blue morning glory over to the opposite side of the yard. This is growing in the hosta next to the trellis of the magenta  glories. 

 At the opposite end of the yard these are doing well among the sunflowers. I can see how the birds could move seed in the fall.  Every flower puts out a seed pod with three or four black seeds in it ready to sprout in the spring.  The morning glories don't like the high temps in the morning so they barely open up when the sun rises. They do shrivel up after an hour or so in the heat. We woke up to 75 degree F. and it was already middle 80s by nine in the morning. 

 The red dot is not an illusion. It is a young newly hatched humming bird. As the ruby throat continues to mature it will be a complete red band around his neck. I hope he stays around long enough so we can see it. We are reading on the net that the migration has started. It explains why we have so many birds out there at this tine of the year. My wife did see the red dotted bird again this morning but no camera was in hand. 

We have a couple of more days of this extreme heat. It is abnormal and yet  it is summer borderline fall. I can't do much work outside with it this hot. I did get some work done but then I just had to escape and sit is the air after about and hour.  I guess I need to get on to my indoor projects. Thanks for checking in today. 

Hotter than Hot

 The sunflowers that are blooming still but most of them are the small ones. The colors are still neat.

 

The moss rose put out a different color of bloom. It has been so slow to grow. Maybe in a couple of days it will have two blooms opening at the same time.  I did work outside this morning but not for my normal amount of time  It was very hot. I moved some hosta around and dug up one last iris that needed to be moved to a better growing location. 

The grass has turned brown overnight and things are really dry. Usually when we get this hot we have severe storms. We did get rainstorms in the northern part of the state but we didn't budge from 96 degrees F. and had no rain.  I made a trip to the grocery store and that concrete parking lot really reflected heat up into my face. Our heat index is at about 101 degrees F. Thanks for stopping by today. I guess I will go get a cup of coffee.