Middle of the Week

 

I am remembering my dad everyday with the flag at the door. Today I honor dad, uncles, cousins and friends who served in the service for this nation. I do take the flag in and out everyday. I don't salute each time but I say it once it a while.

 I worked today in the backyard, finishing up on my two raised bed gardens. All has been cleared with four recycle bags full of debris. I drained my two rain barrels also put water onto the blue spruce and also on the red bud tree. I found another green tomato that might ripen. I need to take off the greens of the hosta but I will wait until after our two hard freezes in a row, soon to come.

 I am finished mulching leaves in the backyard. Any leaves that fall from here on now will have to crumble and die in the snow. I need to now work in the front yard mowing and bagging up the locust trees little leaves. They have not all fallen yet so I may start to do the first half. I have roses to be trimmed back but I can decide what to do with all of them. Some roses may have to be cut all the way back where there is already so much dead wood. 

 I now have succeeded to get the two tanks that sat in my double windows moved. They will be great there and I will put many plants in the windows as it should be done. The one last tank's fish will be transferred tomorrow after the water has set for 24 hours, getting the chlorine to go away. It has been quite a process but I did pull it off. The temporary small tank sames me time as they are good for days if I wanted to do so.

 I went outside for some cleanup of things and our temperatures have really dropped. I may go out and clip a couple of roses and bring them inside for a vase. 

 I did get the flower harvest done. We will be too cold for them to survive. I wore a stocking hat to go get them. Thanks for checking in today.

Tuesday in the Backyard

 It has been a great season. Even though the rain storms and wind caused them to lay on the ground they still put out so much great color. The frosts has finally finished them off and I took the zinnias down. I pulled back a couple of the leftovers.

 The few that survived did start turning brown as we had many frosty mornings. I took them down today as I see the weather is going to turn bad on me. I have one more day in which I will pull up the remaining stems by their roots and shake off the dirt. 

 I ended up with three bags of recycle material. The roots I am going to toss in the garbage. I will have to take another trip to the north end of town to get to the bins. 

 I don't have a lake in my backyard.  This pan of water gives me a great reflection like a lake of the maple tree.

 The contrast of the old with a new bud seems sad. I hope the weather holds so I can see the bloom open. 

Thanks for stopping by today. 

Monday's Mentions

 

 

 

 It was a busy Monday with a doctor visit and then mowing my backyard. I had leaves to mulch and the tree has finished dropping leaves. I will return to finish mowing parts of the backyard and also start cutting out my zinnias. We have two good days to come before it gets windy and wet. I will stayon the task and get as much outside work done. We still need one more hard freeze so I can dig cannas and trim off hostas. 

Visited my neighbors this evening while getting my mail. It was getting dark and the whole family of four were out putting up their Christmas lights display. Lots of lights and inflatable things made it really colorful. I don't know if I will decorate outside this year. I wish I had an evergreen tree in the front yard but I don't. Lights on a buring bush doesn't quite cut it. 

Thanks for stopping by today.  

Sunday

 The norther flicker showed up for only a couple of minutes. He was gone just two seconds after I recklessly took a shot. The head would of been in the light but I couldn't wait for him to turn his head. I find the spots on this bird to be so unusual. 

 The freeze finished almost every single bloom. The colors are still good to see as it starts to wither up and die.

 This stray stem that grew threw the webbing didn't seem to get frosted. Most of them did. I can not start cut out big sections of them, bag the stems and dead leaves, and pull the roots getting the area ready for spring. 

 The red tropical has been brought inside as the sun room doesn't get heated at night. We have nine red blooms on this plant right now. Some people didn't think it would last us very long.

 I placed the green tomatoes in the depression glass bowl. They are taking a long time to turn but some of them have ripened. I am sure they won't taste so good but I can cut them up to put in spaghetti sauce. I am old enough now to not know where I got the bowl. My grandmother or my mom had it and I rescued it,

 The neighbor's maple tree was more colorful. I am not sure why it lost its red but I suppose they are at the stage of dropping and turning brown. They get a huge pile of leaves beneath this tree. I have some more to mulch but will get to it on Tuesday. I have an endo doctor visit tomorrow morning. 

Thanks for stopping by today.  

 

Saturday

 It is 31 degrees F. and the sky is red. We did warm up a but it was cold when I was working outside.

 

 

My painted table was dry this morning.  I had to do some shifting to get it from the storeroom to the main room. I moved it to the new place nine years ago and I finally got it finished into a  good condition for use. The drawer in the table of the school house desk was built deep so I can stow a lot of things in it. My goal is to use it as an aquarium stand for two aquariums. I want to move the tanks out of the window so I can put plants in the double window where they are now sitting. 

 Moving the ones in the window will not be an easy task. Fish have to be netted and moved out and all the water has to be bailed out. It will probably be a four day task as water needs to be removed and then water then has to be carried to fill them up again. It is a good physical workout for me. Plants will really like being in those two windows and I do need to shift lots of them from upstairs and from the other rooms. I dug up three geraniums this morning and put them all into one large pot. I like seeing them bloom in the winter. 

 The freeze didn't kill them and it was time to bring them in from the cold. I also had a white one along with the two pinkish ones. 

 My zinnias did get their final hit last night so I will be cutting down the whole patch soon next week. We are suppose to warm up a little the first three days of the week so I can get that done. I planted five roots of columbine this morning in cold, wet soil. I hope the sun does shine for a few days to get them established.  I have another set of five to plant in another location but will wait until next week. 

Winter isn't here but the cold makes me retreat and avoid it now. I guess I will get use to it and I will dress warmer as I do like to be outside. Thanks for stopping by today. 

Friday's Finds to Share

 Our neighbors' view blends with our trees, so I call all of it our forest. The maple tree lost a major section last year and it has rebound and filled in its blanks space. One other neighbor in far distant has the same tree.

 Our other direction has this view. I enjoy seeing the weeping willow in the background. The tree on the right looked brown but did change into red which was a great to see. 

 The bush looks dead except for these three buds. I may be able to get a shot of one or all of them in bloom even though they are back in the crowd of bare branches.

 Others have burning bushes looking very red. Our two bushes are just now starting to show some red. The whole long row of burning bushes in front of our pizza place are all turned to red now. It may be that growing in full sun makes the difference.

 We have had a lot of rain. The basin was left out by me to get it to being rinsed out. I use the basin for various jobs with gardening. I carry dirt, collected iris roots, and sometimes take a batch of water to the job I was working on. We had over two inches of rain plus there probably was rain in it from past sprinkles.

 Who's your father?  I smile every time I look into the guppies in the tank. I bought two male yellow guppies a month ago and you can see the offspring. Most live birthed guppies are grey but look at the yellow ones all over the tank. 

 I am not a professional guppy breeder but I did get the results that I wanted by buying the two males. The variety is a pretty yellow but so seem to be smaller that the other guppy varieties. The males are smaller than the females.

It was cold this morning but it has warmed up now. I went outside after working on my new project. The new project consists of getting an old school house table out of my rubble and painting it white. When the old school building was being torn down I asked janitor Ron if I could have that table/desk from the furnace room. It looks like the teacher desk that used to be in one room school houses.

 Thanks for stopping by today.

Cottonwood Tree

 It is two blocks down the hill and it has changed to yellow. The cottonwood has a light gray bark that looks like a white birch but it is not.

 It is a distorted shot but I can like the look. I made it to the dumping area to get rid of my twenty recycle bags of leaves and sticks. It was damp out but it wasn't raining. These are not all of my bags but some of them are mine. I actually tossed a few of mine over the pile and they ended up behind the pile. It is nice to get them out of the back of my truck. Any more that I get filled in the future can be taken up again or I may throw some of them in the garbage. I have mostly zinnias left to dispose of and that will happen when it warms up next week.

 The oxalis was brought inside from the outdoors. It acts like it still wants that amount of light. It is healthy but one sided in the pot. 

 

 

We were cold all day today. I had to bundle up to drop off my recycle bags. I didn't venture outside. It sounds like we will have the same kind of day. Frosts are being predicted soon. It is bound to happen and I still have two large pots of agapanthus yet to bring in. I can get on it in the morning.

Thanks for stopping by today.