Mentions for Monday

 

 

The neighbor's maple is losing leaves rapidly now. The wind helps to send some over to our yard. The red leaves in the yard shine out among the green grass.

 The leave could be from this tree but there is a whole yard between us and our yard. Rich planted that middle tree a few years ago and we have watched it mature into the beautiful tree. The one on the right actually is an older tree and has reached its mature size. I am happy to see the weeping will in the next yard over but one has to stand at just a certain height of the deck stairs to even see it. 

 As I walked the yards today I can see the morning glory is doing well. I do keep taking away all the many vines that were all over the sunflowers. 

 The butterfly bush has continued to bloom even though the growth of the shrub itself hasnot grown much. I watered it this morning as well the two new trees that I planted earlier. We have had a lot of rain but I know deep watering doesn't happen with a half inch of rain.

My indoor birdhouse is just for show and not for birds. I used scrap wood to create it one story at a time. I built the top first and then added the bottom of it to create a pedestal with decorative detail. The house has never been outside and I have found its perfect nook to sit in. Plants use to be in the nook but it really isn't a good place with it have blocked light. 

It rains and then drizzles. We are suppose to get this weather for the entire day. I think I am seeing that the week looks wet also. We will store up all of that moisture. The farmers hurried to harvest corn but now they are back to waiting for the ground to dry out. Our test cornfields near us where the corn breeders are have their  corn picked. It was like it was just overnight as I have been watching it for a couple of weeks wondering why they had not gotten it done.

Thanks for checking in today. Yes I used to be a southern Iowa farm boy and I still keep an eye on things even though I am not involved.
 

Saturday

 I have no understanding of how to grow orchids. Normally I cut off the spent stems that held flowers. Now I see my old stem of the past, that I didn't remove has grown new buds on that past stem. I water the plant very small amounts and just ignore it. I did notice that the leaves were looking larger and when I turned it around I saw this first bloom The buds were just small bits but now have formed into buds that will bloom.

 

 

I did notice that I had spikes with buds on this calla lily. I have had a hard time getting focused views of them with the camera. This morning I was successful with the one out of two shots.

 I took a walk around the field this morning between the rains. We are getting rain all day for sure but there will be breaks in them. The vines are seeing changes as the shorter days are here. The rain does keep them up and going on this variety of morning glories. My pink/magenta glory has failing buds but no blooms now at this tie of the year.

 

The knock out roses are still bloom in the cooler weather. The front of the house gets almost full sun and it helps them to strive.

 This is the rose that died down and came back new after most of it being dead wood. It is looking good and the buds do keep opening up. The backyard is more protected with the new fence behind it.

 Red is still my favorite color and when I see the zinnias in that color I just have to keep taking visuals of it. I did notice this morning that I could start collecting seeds of the earlier blooms and I can soon start cutting them all down. 

I missed blogging yesterday as I had a doctor's test yesterday. It set me back for the whole day so I just didn't get on the computer. It is a good day for rest for me today and I did still go out an walk anyway. I will  be back to normal tomorrow. Thanks for stopping by today. 

Fall

 

 I could never get a good view of the tree that is up the street. I decided the walk would do me good so I took the time to get the good shot. The maple is just starting to lose leaves at the very top.

 I looked up and there was the moon. I don't understand anything about its movements. I know that last night it was at the southeast side of our house. This morning the day moon is at the northern direction from our property. With earth rotating and the moon rotating around the earth it seems to be too much for me to understand.

 Down on the ground I can see why I bought a new pot for this hardy geranium. It has started to rebloom and it is so healthy. I can pot it when the temps get more threatening to it and will have blooms during the winter insided.

 I keep cutting away at the structure of sunflowers that the vines are clinging to. I used an antique hand saw to cut at the sunflower stems a couple of more feet shorter. Eventually there will be not more places for the morning glories and I will have pulled away most of the vines. 

 It is nice to see the iris are growing rapidly. They are rooting down and maybe I will have blooms next summer. They are all planted to closely but I will deal with that  problem later. I am hoping to see the blooms and see what the colors of the iris are. Waiting for tulips and daffodils to come up are worth the wait even though you have to wait through winter to get to them. 

It has been a slow day but tomorrow may pick up and be better. Thanks for stopping in today. 

Fallish Things

 The sunrise seemed too dark and maybe not promising of a good day.

 The sky did mostly clear and as you can see down our street that the sun is shinning. The clouds are moving to they east and rain may hit us tonight. 

 From the lowest part of my backyard I can see some trees of color. This one was just planted a couple of years ago and it has grown up so quickly. The red bud tree on the left foreground has lost most of its leaves and it looks more like a Halloween tree. 

 I have some flowers reblooming as if it is spring. The hibiscus keeps setting on new buds and this is what I see, one bloom every few days. 

 My one pink rose looks like it is failing but there are two buds that now blooming. I will have a lot of dead wood to take out on this rose bush.

 The leaves on the zinnias are now all failing. The gray looks more like a blight. It does add a new color to enhance the bright colors.

 I forced myself to go get more paper recycle bags this morning. I needed to empty the pile high stuff and I didn't have bags. I did get it all into two bags. I was the only customer at the Ace place for a while. I was going to only buy bags and then leave. It didn't work out as I looked over the plastic flower pots and I bought two for my coral-colored geraniums. I have no empty flower pots right now and I do like to carry over some of the hardy geraniums. I will dig cannas and geraniums when the next frost hits hard. I will sneak out the geraniums in the cold before the freeze. 

Thanks for stopping by today.  

Da Moon

 

 

 It was a struggle to get a shot of the moon as the haze was winning, defeating my camera. Finally the moon was up in the sky far enough that I could get a shot. I did get some blurred ones as I worked through the process. The one I am sharing really isn't a perfect focus as all the moisture is still in the air to shoot through. 

 It was cool out side while I wandered but it was just good to be outside. I took shots of some of the same things then worked hard to find new things to photograph. The newly purchased butterfly bush is small but is putting out good blooms. I know that it will get a whole lot bigger and will welcome its growth. 

 The zinnias still have some good blooms but  you can see here that the majority are frost damaged. 

 The colors of this section are so great even with some of the dead ones among the good ones.

 My one rose is putting out new blooms with its remaining buds opening. Our mild climate is creating a spring climate again for this period of time. 

 I walked up the front yard sidewalk to get the shot of the neighbors clump birch. It isn't such a bright yellow this season. Maybe it still will but it looks like the leaves are just turning brown and falling. 

Northern Iowa is getting rain today and we are just getting lots of clouds. Haven't seen the sun yet today. I don't have much yard work to do now as I got all of my bulbs and ponies planted in the past few days. I was hoping we could get some rain on my new plantings. I did water them in but more rain from the sky would be great. No more appointments for a while until Friday. The next week there will be a couple more. The medical field does keep my generation busy.

Thanks for stopping by this day.  

Thanks for stopping by today. 

First Day of the Week

 

The sky is decorated with streaked clouds and the trails from the practicing Air Force jets from the area. Some mornings I do see them making them but not today, I slept in a little. 

 The image shows the story of a frost and yet cool sunny weather. The sun is reviving the morning glories after their few days of being damaged. The warm few days brought out new blooms on all of the morning glories and also the zinnias. 

 In certain areas one can't see the frosted zinnias as all the buds were not hurt from the cold. I have areas like this that show great color with lots of new blooms 

 Among the failing leaves are new pockets of fresh blooms. They do put out a great contrast of color to the gray foliage. I don't know why these three are all so close together but I am thinking that some of the branches that are laying on the ground are bunched together.

 

 

I thought I would have to remove them but I won't take anything down when I have blooms like this. 

 

 On the farm when I was young we would walk the corn rows to cut down burs and other large weeds. My dad hated to get the larger weeds stuck in his two row corn picker. We walked them early in the fall and I was always so happy to see the wild morning glories in the stalks of corn. I wanted to bring them back to plant and I would just pull the vines and place them in the ground. So I wasn't too smart then as I didn't know much about their seed pods. 

 

I cut down some more dried and dead stems this morning out in the cottage garden. I also planted some alium bulbs too. I had ordered a new white peony and they threw in some of the alium at a low price. I didn't enjoy planting them as I just kept thinking am I ever going to get done with this batch of bulbs. I will smile in the spring and think it was a great idea but I was forcing the job this morning. I guess I wasn't wearing my reading glasses so I could see what I was doing up close. 

My eyes are still struggling with each other but I can see so well. I have always worn glasses or contact lens most of my lifetime. So now things are revers and I can see forever but can't see up close. A near sighted person has to deal with that. I don't have to look for my glasses when I get up in the morning. Our weather was good today and we were cooler with the temps. It is nice to have a good day. Rain may be falling late in the evening. Thanks for stopping by today. 

Cookies

 

 

 

 Four different trees with two of them with the same color. The houses block the view of the yellow and red one. The brightest colored trees are just peaking through other less colorful trees.

 

We had a wonderful day with sunshine and warm temperatures. The gentile breeze made it seem like spring.  Lots of dog owners were out walking their dogs. Neighbors were out doing things.

 The neighbors up the street. two houses above, had a house full of girls. The mom and dad and one son stopped by to give us some Halloween cookies. The house full of teenage girls were making and frosting them. The three at our door were escaping it all for a moment. 

Thanks for stopping by today.