Rainy Season

 I found this in the book pile in the store room and it set me back The boy that this belonged to, who had them read to him all of the time, is now 51 years old. I think the books are around but they got separated from the box.

 Also in the store room has this shelf of various items. I do throw a thing away once in a while when I deem it isn't important anymore. The top row is a bunch of planters that ae ceramic. The panther on the bottom shelf is also a planter.

 

I suppose a vine could be grown in its cavity but I have never planted in it.  I rescued this form a home that was being closed down. I remember as a kid in the 1960s when people had these and they displayed them on their black and white television sets.

 This small sugar bowl was my mom's. I remember it when we lived in a very old house as a kid. I remember when it moved into our new house and she kept silver dollars in it with a piece of cotton on top. When the parents moved to town it was on display of course and the silver dollars were still in it when I closed down their house. I have seen this ceramic piece for sale on the net with a creamer that matched it. 

 I don't throw away antique things. Each of these has a history and a story. The five on the jug was my dad's and the five stands for the five gallons of liquid it could hold. He got the jug as a joke for his birthday many years ago. The woman who gave it to him bought it at an auction for a dollar. The smaller jug was given to me by a couple that I call "John and Iva", my source for so many antiques when I was a kid. They were step family that I knew very well.

 The two gallon pickling container was made by Ruckel's Stoneware. I found the company was in Illinois and it closed down in 1950.  It actually opened in 1896. 

 I could read this one on the other pickling jars. Their printing on the items wasn't working well as the glaze didn't print in the middle of the name on either one. 

 It has rained for two days now. We had three and a half inches of rain in my gauge. I now kow we have added maybe an inch more. It sounds like it will rain all week. That makes things so soggy. Thanks for stopping by today. 

 

Monday's Mention

 

 

 

 Every creature is seeking food. The temps are cold so they do need something to help keep them warm.  Fall is here for a while and it keeps raining. I gave away some of my tomatoes yesterday. I saved some of them and there are a total of three tomatoes still on the vine. I also share with our friends some peony starts and rhubarb roots. I put in an iris rhizome to give them something different to plant. 

My new iris beds are looking better as the transplants are starting to perk up, showing that they are rooting in now.   We have a windy day and the temps are warmed up to 74 degree F. The spotty rains quit at noon and we will probably measure out to have gained a half inch of rain or more.  

 We ate out with friends at one of their favorite places. The tile mural was really amazing and the food was great. It is nice to find another new Chinese place to visit. This place has another place that is located in our own city. We are loyal to the China Moon so I can't see that we will visit a new one. Monday's day light is almost over and I hope we will be warmer tomorrow.  I miss being outside working.

Thanks for stopping by today.. 

Saturday's Things

 The seed seems to put out such a great variety of kinds of zinnias. This one was a different one that I have never seen before.. The size and shapes are all different and even the petal arrangements vary. 

 The bees and hummingbirds do like them. I forgot to mention so do the butterflies find the flowers desirable. 

 

Among the foliage of the zinnias a morning glory vines it way through things. the came later in the season this year.

 We had strong wind a few days ago and it flattened these hosta blooms. The sirens were blaring to warn us of the high speed winds but we didn't have any tornadoes, 

 I picked the most of the tomatoes today. I will be sharing them with some friends on Sunday and keep back some for us. I have only three or four left on the vine but the growing season is done. 

I finished mowing the front yard this morning while wearing a jacket. We have cooled off for a few days. It makes things a lot more pleasant when you don't have to fight the heat. We have had a lot of wind today but it feels good as the day warmed up a bit more. I have started cutting back on some of mypeonies. I do them a few at a time and sack up all of the leaves in paper recycle bags. It looks more like fall we I cut the peonies down and I clear off someother flowers as the time goes by.  My coneflowers are all gone but the birds like the seeds on them so I will leave them alone. The goldfinch like the coneflowers but I haven't seen any on them lately. The humming bird migration has definitely started as we had so many birds out t here fighting for spaces at the feeders. I have three feeders out there and they move from one to another then go out to the morning glories and zinnias. 

 

Thanks for checking in today. 

Friday's Finds

 Most of my flowers are in decline but the hardy geraniums are trying to comback, The heat today probably helped it grow better. 

 We had bright sun shine today and the angel boy looked contnet in the warmth. The hosta in front of hin are finally growing in thicker 

 The hummingbirds are migrating south. We have numerouse ones at the feeders all day. This one is looking around to see if she is going to be bothered. 

 The internet says the fluffier ones are getting bulked up for the flight. I don't know if I believe that as most on mine are slim and trim. It is nothing to have three or four of them at the feeders fighting for a turn at the feeder..

 I really like the bright colors of some of the zinnias. I didn't work on a good composition of these as the color is what I wanted you to see.

 thanks for stopping by today. 

Friday is Coming

 The morning colors were wonderful for only a certain period of time. Within minutes from my taking the shot it all went dull and gray blue. 

 Another batch of flowers came into the house as I cut down things in the cottage garden. I had to cut back zinnias that were invading the growth of other flowers. Once I got done trimming things back I found the iris that I wanted to rescue was all rotted and gone. 

 My geraniums have started to go into decline. The one lone white bloom is all that is left on this plant. I will start to dig them for winter, growing them in my basement window. 

 I dug rhubarb today for some friends. I am concerned that I didn't get true roots of it.  So tomorrow I will take a hose to it and see what I did capture. If it doesn't look good, I will dig more on another plant. I saw a video today that said I should be using my potato fork to get it out of the ground. After an doctor's appointment this morning I came home and mowed some parts of my backyard.  I have areas in the yard that now don't need to be mowed so I will just mow the shaggy stuff. 

 A still life of cans is on the counter. We recycle but sometimes we reuse them. My wife takes some for her painting work and I take some for the basement for varnish. Anything that isn't taken gets to go into the recycle bin. 

Thursday is almost over and Friday is coming. I like the good weather for now and I can get more outside things done.  Rain may interrupt us again but I will just work around it. Thanks for checking in today.  

 

After the Storm.

 It is the day after of a very stormy night. We started with strong winds around the dinner hour and it continued to be stormy for the entire night. The winds were severe at the beginning with some trees in our city coming down. It was a night filled with the sound of thunder and lighting. It was on and off rains and one finally had to zone it out and fall to sleep. 

 The zinnias are mostly fallen down again from the last storm. I doubt I will tie them up this time.  Lots of leaves are in the yard from various kinds of trees. I have leaves from the front yard ash laying all over the backyard. If it every dries out I need to mow the other half of my back yard grass. 

 

The sedum in the backyard is all sprawled out on the ground. The front yard sedum is standing up straight. I have two varieties of sedum here and the one has not  started to open its small flowers.

I didn't see spilling any of my morning glory seeed but I have a nice vine coming up from underneath the wood steps. 

 Recycle boards were use to make the frame. The long pieces were actually a part of my son's twin bead. I used the boards for a few years to prop up in the back of my pickup to push a mower up into the t ruck for transport to the old place. Now I don't need them so I just used them to get them out of the workshop area .

 

When I moved from the old place I had many iris to transfer to the new place. I planted them everywhere not knowing what the growing conditions were as I just moved in. I look at past photos and I had some wonderful iris of many colors As the years have gone by I found out some places were too wet for iris and rhizomes were rotting. I also needed better placement  of them. It may seem that I am getting too obssive of this but I wanted to rescue them and get them healthy again. I lost a lot of my cemetery iris and even some that seem to be doing well just started to rot. Anyway, I now have these all in raised beds which should keep them from being too wet.  This will be the last bed that I will create and I now have to just to wait and watch. I will know what colors they are only when they bloom. That really should be fun.

We had three and a half inches of rain last night so this bed should be watered in well, getting their roots settled in for good.  We got up to 80 degrees F. and that is a cool down for us. We were at 94 F. last evening and it dropped to 74 F. when the storm hit. I did not get over heated today when I worked outside. I need to mow a section of my yard and maybe tomorrow I can get to it, It was too wet this morning. Thanks for checking in today.

Thanks for stopping by today. 

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.