Thursday's the Day

 I still don't have a weather vane for my finial. I will work on that. I have a base made to raise its height but I will wait until fall to install it after the flowers have been frozen off and they won't get damage. 

A blurry shot of the little guy getting bigger in size. It is the smallest of my rabbits. The other small one is the size of an adult rabbit now. My  telephone camera cant get good pictures of small things that are far away.

I have a good collection of shots of the yellow rose. Since I didn't get my blog done yesterday I have a few photos to share for a few days. I mowed my front yard yesterday and I did stop before I was done as it got to hot. I will finish the backyard today and we woke up to 67 degrees F.  I can mow with cooler weather and be done before it gets hot this afternoon. The grass is the best it has been in years with the frequent rains. Usually in August things start to die out and get brown. 

We hit a movie yesterday and ate out for supper. It was good to get out of the house. We live a couple of miles from the movie theater and it is in a major complex of stores. We explored one of the cafes that had a "Breakfast from Tiffany's" graphic on it. The woman is a large illustration of the woman from that movie and she is holding a stack of twenty pancakes. We didn't go there but we drove around to see where the front door was. The side with the sign was not the entrance and as we drove around it there was a parking ramp there on the side. So we kept driving around just to see where they were hiding the front door. We found it. We will have to hit the place some morning for breakfast. 

Happy Thursday.

Tuesday's Things....

 It was beautiful. I took a shot of it on Monday and it rained that night. The next morning every single petal was on the ground. I guess it was spent and ready to shed.

The knock out roses are not doing great even with all of the rain. This single petal variety has just a few blooms on them. 

 

My newest host is looking better after I tore out all of the invade creeping phlox. It struggled the entire last season and this season it is coming to life.I can see that I need to pull some grasses around it but that is not a problem compared to that invading phlox.

The young mourning dove just keep coming to the feeders. There must have  been a couple of nests of thm as there are so many. 

These two are just hanging around  and seem to be like explorers. I am at the point that I want to put less seed out there as there are just too many birds out there. Sparrows just flock in large numbers as they two have lots of fledglings. 

I planted many glads but this seems to be the only one that I will have this year. I mowed my neighbor's yard this morning trying to keep it looking good in case there are any people here to look at her house. I may hit it a second time Saturday just in the front to perk it up for a Sunday showing. We are waiting for a repairman today. It may be late today or maybe could even be tomorrow sometime. They were not a company that had fixed appointment times. It is not a great way to do business and yet I am so glad they can come to repair rather than us buying a new one. The sun is hot today and yet we aren't going to get so extremely hot. No rain today is a good thing. Thanks for stopping by today. 

I see that the glad photo is a repeat showing. It does get to be complicated keep track of things.

First of the Week.....

 A humid start of the day and then we were in full sunshine. The humidity is the major hurdle as it is very heavy even when the temps are not so high. It is raining right now at 77 degrees F.

 

I was out this morning trimming back bad growth and excess growth on my variegated dogwood shrub. I really like the dogwood but I did let it get so big that people had to walk around it to come up our front sidewalk to the door. 

I tried to plant some mammoth sunflowers among the volunteer ones and they did not grow. I did apparently drop a seed accidentally and it landed on the very corner of my raised bed.  I didn't know what kind it was when it first sprouted but I let it grow. It is going to be a big sunflower. 

 

Among the volunteer sunflowers the morning glories are taking off. They are starting to vine to the top of them.

With all the humidity and rainstorms in the north we got some good cloud formations last evening. I am sure a weatherman would know the name for these clouds. 

The hummer looks a little weathered from all the moisture yesterday. They have learned how to sit on that perch of the feeder.I have both feeders filled and the do move back and forth and of course they fight over them. The do not like the wasps and bees feeding at them but they don't get aggressive towards them. They just move on until they are gone. Thanks for stopping in today.

Checking In to Post...

 We continue to get heavy rains. The last one was with lots of wind and it gave us over an inch of rain. You can see the wind was from the east as the water is still clinging to the window glass.

I read that the mourning dove can hatch and fledge three or four nest fulls in one season. Can you see why we can identify the new young ones. The adult is on the right. I looked up the word fledge and it means that when a bird fills out enough feathers to be able to fly.

They first act like explorers wonder what is going on out there in this world.  The morning dove prefers a flat area to eat from. They love the spillover of seed on the deck. 

My black swallowtail returned the next day but had damaged wings on the top of its one side  I hurried out to take photos of it this time with my good camera and it stayed long enough for me to get one shot. Then it flew off to another neighbor's backyard. 

It was a hot day again today. We had a thunderstorm in the early morning with strong winds. The day cleared up and it is a beautiful summer day. More storms are predicted. Thanks for stopping by today.

Lots to Share....

 This was taken through my bedroom window this morning. I was just raising the shade to see how good the newly mowed yard look. I was surprise to see this and I had to snap it.  Dots on the window are extra things to see in the shot. 

 I planted glads and fenced them in to keep the rabbits from eating them. It doesn't mean much as this is the only stem of flowers that I have from the dozen that I planted, Maybe there will be a couple more to surprise me. 

I bought the front step flowers and they have done badly. They aren't planted in dirt and they just struggle. There are just as many dead flower heads are there are live heads.  I didn't think I should have to repot the whole thing in dirt but I guess you get what you pay for.

 I spent time trimming the under branches of the red bud tree.  I kept putting it off until I just couldn't get my mower under the tree to do the grass. I am not sure that the remaining shape looks so good as it looks like a chocolate kiss. I keep wishing it would grow taller. 

The moss rose  looks so wonderful even though they are small. The close up shot makes it look more like a rose.

I have all of mine planted in containers. My neighbor to the north has some planted in the ground and it is doing so well. I would hope it reseeds for her. I should move some of mine somewhere and see if it would happen for me too. 

I didn't get much don outside this morning as it rained again. It wasn't too heavy but it kept me inside. I did have some branches to cut up and bag for the recycle and I did that under the sun room. We weren't so hot today but the humidity is just so heavy. it was good it gave me an easier day after my mowing job I did in high heat yesterday. It is Iowa, and it is always too hot of too cold. 

Thanks for checking in today.

Friday's Butterfly

 A welcomed visitor to my zinnia patch was this swallowtail. I had to stop my mower and go get my phone camera. I wasn't sure that it would still be there when I got back but this one hung around long after I started back mowing. I took too many photos and had to delete some. 

In certain light the butterfly looks brown. I at first sight thought it was a monarch but when it landed I was so pleased to see this swallowtail. 

I needed to finish mowing the backyard this morning. I tried to beat the heat but that wasn't possible. It was up to 80 degrees F. so quickly and there is not any chance of a breeze in the backyard.  I took three different breaks to get it all done. Once done I had just enough energy to trim back some of the lower branches on the red bud tree. I decided it they were hitting the ground that they needed to be gone. It will help me when I try mowing underneath the tree. 

The flowers in the front gardens are holding their own. We are getting good rains and they like getting regular moisture. The roses under the eave are getting as much rain but they seem to be getting just enough to have them starting their next blooming cycle.

U gave an appointment this afternoon during the hottest time of the day. I don't have to drive over one mile so it won't b a big problem. I don't usually like late afternoon appointments but this one is a make up one since I missed one on Tuesday. I was confused and missed it.

Wednesday is the Middle

 I fold these for my mental check each day. If I can keep the process going and know the folds each day when I get up I figure my brain is still being tested and passes the test. I am up to having folded 300 of them now. In the photo that you see I am using one new batch of papers. My wife was shopping for brushes and I found a section of origami paper books. The floral patterns look great when folded. 

The light was just perfect tto help capture all the textures and colors of the hummingbird. We  are having a rainy morning and they come to eat anyway. I have the two feeders up and they eat at either one of them.  With it raining I don't have to work outside for now. I was planning on mowing the front yard. I may have to to it this afternoon.  We are going to start to have hotter temps now again for the week. It is State Fair tine and it usually is hot for those days.  We will hit 84 degrees F. today even with the rain this morning. It didn't cool down over night. 

Thanks for checking in today.

Half a Day Late.....

 When you have to drink from a fake metal flower you still have to use good flying form. There are metal stands on this feeder but I am not so sure they placed them at the right position. I hung a second feeder just because their was a lot of friction among the masses. The red glass feeder is the most favored as they are attracted to the red color and hover over it hoping there is an opening on its shining glass surface. 

The color is so striking but the form of the flowers are also so great. I keep looking forward to seeing the garden space fill in with a hundred of blooms. The genetics of zinnias means that the seeds of a droed up maroon flower puts out other great colors, not of its mother plant. 

 I share the same morning glory as a lot of my blogger gardener friends. It is nice to have other colors of them but this is the only one that comes back. I use to have a wonderful light blue morning glory. I guess  I need to buy the seed. 

Our great rainfalls have helped keep our grass green. It also has cause the crabgrass to take over some parts of our yards. I spent the morning mowing my neighbor's front yard and using my edger to get rid of some of the dead crabgrass plants. I didn't get done with the edger project as I just wore out. It had become too hot and I had reach my end to my energy level. I have to go back tomorrow and work on scraping up the edging scraps and the dead weeds of crabgrass that I killed with a spray. My neighbor to the south is working on the eradication of our shared crabgrass plight. He sprays over to my side with his killer as I also spray over to his along the sidewalks that extend beyond my property line. 

I just remarked to myself that I post in the afternoons and then that makes me a day late. It could work the other way as I could wait to post today's work in the morning, but I guess I will just stay the way that I am. Once it has been habitually it will just have to be. I loved "show and tell" in grade school and I guess I just do it at end of each of my days. Thanks for checking in anyway.

Monday's Mentions

 The sunrise was subtle and quickly disappeared behind some of those clouds above it. I always check in the morning while fixing breakfast as there might be something out there to photograph.

 While out taking photos in backyard I found some weeding that I needed to do. I did take a few shots as I was working. The tiger lily has lasted a long time this year with all our rainfall.

 

I found this phlox trying to survive under the invasive vine with the small blue flowers. 

I found this among the weeds. I didn't plant it but looked up on the net. It was identified as a butterfly milkweed flower. It isn't a milkweed like I am aware of but that is the name of this variety. The former owner planted it.  

 We have bees this year. The butterflies are not around yet but the bumblebees and honeybees are doing well. 

My hibiscus has bugs too as everyone wants to eat.  I really don't know why the plant was stunted this year as I saw one up the street that was five times as large as this. 

I got my weeding done and also cut out some dead branches from the red twig dogwood bush. I ended up with a long splinter in my thumb so I just quit and hung up my hat. Three bags are collected and ready for storage.  We have a warm day but not super hot.  It will be good weather when I go to pick up my meds. 

Thanks for stopping by today.