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. 

The Tuesday's Report

 The clouds were looking unusual last evening. I went out to take a shot and it looks like the most unusual monster shaped cloud.  The white small shape down below has a special name that is made of water collecting and not falling to the ground. 

 Our morning looked more normal with us already at 74 degrees F. It did get up to 94 degrees F. and we will not cool down in the night. 

 I haven't taken photos of the hummingbirds for awhile. We have many new visitors out there now and they keep darting in and out and bumping into each other.

 

 

 

My lighting was perfect for the photo shoot at that time of the morning. My wife saw a male bird, ruby throated one, but I didn't. I am going to try again tomorrow for a shot of that red flash reflecting off the sunshine. 

I spent the morning watering everything.  I had the two new trees to get watered and then I hit the four tomato plants with a good soaking. I have only one of my tomatoes that is going to give me a good harvest. The others have very few tomatoes on them and the grape tomato is just barely putting out a harvest. I don't think anything that is blooming now will every develop anything. 

I dug up a section of one of my hostas on a hot day and moved the different parts to the front of the house. I know that I should have waited for cooler weather but I was motivated to do it today. I spotted four different new starts in between some established hosta so that it will be a thicker row of plants. I will water them every day for a week to try to keep them alive. I also did another rescue of two different iris that were growing in wet zones and they needed to be move to a more sunny spot. Again, I should be doing this in cooler weather but I never do things the right way. They still grow for me anyway. 

Thanks for stopping by today. 
 

 

Moneday's Mentions

 The start of the morning could have been colorful but I didn't get up so early this morning. The clouds did give me a great show.

 I mowed the front yard this morning, It was warm and almost hot. I didn't know how hot it was until I quit and walked inside. The grass is going dormant again and may just stay that way as the fall weather hits. I did some more work on my back patio area moving some pavers to new locations. I cut out some unwanted trees and I did have a long conversation with my neighbor. He came sauntering over and I just shut off the mower and we talked. We had not had a good visit for a long time as we just didn't happen to be outside at the same time. I see him mowing his yard and vice versa but we don't cross paths in the front yard.  It still is a good thing as we just  respect each others space and no one bothers each othelr. 

 I took a shot of the moon last night. After all the eclipse thing happened this seems a little boring, I don't like how the moon changes like seen here and it looks like someone is chewing off on a cookie. 

 I recently discovered a song on the net called "Memories". The song mentions that "memories bring back memories bring back you". The song is more about people meeting back together again and recall all the has happened in life. Also some people are just gone and all that is left is memories.  The plate is one of the things that is old, not valuable , but has a long history.  It came from a Minnesota cabin that was used by renters in the summer who would come to fish and cook up their catches. The plates I have now, even though  the cabin has been long torn down and replaced by a new one. I owned that cabin for a few years and then sold it. 

The plate reminds me of fish dinners, trips to the local town to get ice cream treats, our boys being young and running wild all over the place day and night. The boys lived on the lake shore and played games, or rode their bikes. My wife and I set up studios in the front windows of the cabin and painted all  during our stay at the cabin. The plate is a stretch in design of the blue willow and I am sure the set was bought at the dime store in town when the resort was first established along the lake. When the resort was sold out, there ended up fourteen individual cabin owners.    Whenever I pick the plates for supper I smile and say Sunny Shores Resort summers.

Memories bring back memories bring back you......Thanks for stopping by today.  

Shool Daze

 The sun struggles to shine through will all our clouds. We still have the promise of a hot day,

 The guppies are thriving in my waterlily pot. They do act like tamed fish in the aquarium as they beg for food whenever they see my shape. 

 I had to move my begonia onto the table. It is getting to the point that I am going to have to cut it back or start new pots of it as it is now a hanging plant shape.  When I take it into the house in the winter it could just get a hair cut. 

 I see mostly bumble bees this summer. There are a few honeybees but more of the others. 

I haven't shared photos of the grand kids for a year. They are back in school after a very busy summer.  I know for sure that the boys ride their bikes to school but I don't know if Ella does. She can ride a bike and probably could even with wearing a skirt. She has had to keep up with the boys and takes care of herself quite well when she is around them. 

 

 My newest project was quit a folly. I didn't need to add three more pavers to the six that were already there. I sat there on the patio and thought it just would be better. It was a lot of digging and lifting and I am glad the job is done.  I inherited the stepping stones from the previous owner and I had to do some moving of them also. I had to dig new holes for them and shifted them to make it look natural and not haphazard. The grass will grow in fast enough once I get the seed scattered. 

 

Thanks for checking in today.  

My Saturday Stuff

 I have a lot  of painted ladies in my garden this summer. More than any other kind of butterfly. I see reports that the monarch is starting to migrate south but we haven't seen anything like that yet. 

 This rose bush has set on new buds all over and it has so many great flowers to see. We go from cold temps to hot temps so it is hard to know what it is doing to the flowers. The word that is out that the weather has messed with our apple orchards and the apples are maturing far earlier than usual. I am frustrated as the tomatoes also are not ripening anymore. We will have three days of heat and I will see what that does to them. 

 I finally found places to plant these iris. We had a rain this morning and afterwards I did find places to squeeze them in the two new iris beds. I dug a new hole and place for the healthier looking iris, It is the black iris, dark purple. I dug a big deep hole and put in fresh new dirt and watered them in to revive them. The rhizomes had been dug up about five days ago and I just now got them planted. 

 

The zinnia always has such great color. All the texture and different shapes makes it a great flower in the garden and as a cut flower.

 I move them in and out of the sun room to give them good light during the day. The plant behind them here has five new blooms, leaf-like shapes, on it. It is a tropical and we keep it watered often,

No big plans for the day. We get projects done in the morning and then rest for the last half of the day. Supper is thawing and we do have sweet corn to add to our meal. that is good stuff. 

Thanks for stopping by today.