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. 

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.