Wednesday with no Wind.....

The sunrise was great to see. The temps are to warm up today. We are going to stay warmer now for a while.

The flowering trees got some warm today and the blooms are starting to show up. I am looking forward to go out and take photos of the entire tree all in bloom. 

I don't know how I have one lone yellow tulip but I am just enjoying it. The color is fresher looking up against all the red tulips. 

The wild violets are blooming but the drought is really hard on them. I gave this batch some water this morning while I was out carrying water for other things. 

It has been a good day.  Lots of things were accomplished and we are settled in for the evening. I didn't have to turn on the air tonight but we are a little warm in the house. It is that time of the year when you have to deal with hot and cold in the same day.   Thanks for stopping today.

Tuesday's Things to Go......

 

 The pussy willow tree is putting out its fuzzy blooms. They look like spring flowering trees but it is deceptive as they suddenly just drop the balls to the ground. 

The sucker branches are alos budded out and they do look like little pom poms.

We had a warmer day today and the flowering trees might open up their blooms now. I was out working in the weather with a park on with the hood up. 

I am happy to see the fern leafed peony shooting up its sprouts. This one plant should be multiplied after I was forced to move it two years ago because of fence building. It looks like there are 10 or more stems shooting up. 

We have lots of things going on and we have yet to do our taxes. That will happen tomorrow night. They have been ready to go for awhile but lots of things in life kept us from doing it. I have been doing battle with my temporary bridge and I am trying to get a fence built on our property. Things involved with the fence means finding the four property pins that identify where your lines are identified. I have now found three of the four. Maybe tomorrow I can dig and find the last one. I have plat maps of our property all having different numbers telling me how wide our front yard can be. I am trying to resolve that and may have to call some county courthouse people to figure it all out.  I have a heart doctor check up on Thursday and maybe the week can calm down after that.  As people say, "Friday is a coming"!  Thanks for stopping by today.

The Shots for the Day....

 My neighbors have an early blooming tulip. The sometimes are spent before mine are in bloom. These are a little weathered from the wind. 

 

Mine are just beginning to show color. I have a new set of tulips that are of an unknown color for me. I just didn't remember. It will be nice to have a new set of them up in two different locations.  I do remember now that My wife was home from the rehab and I sneaked out and put some of them in the ground while she was resting. 

Our weather has just been too cold for the redbud to bloom. I see that the end of the week we will have warmer temps. 

The one red twig dogwood has great branch colors. I can see that they are just now putting out a few green leaves.  Our grass isn't thick yet but in certain areas it is growing well. 

 

We have been getting spotty rains. Sometimes they are so short that I don't even know we have had any. I was surprised to see the turtle is standing in some water. At that level in the bowl it was about a half inch in total.  We are still very cold today and I didn't stay outside lone to take photos. It will be nice that some day I won't have to wear my winter coat at this time of the year. Thanks for checking in.....

Sun Shine Day....

 We are promised to have a clear day, all day. The sunrise was unhindered and we do have sun. 

As the sun was showing up the black bird was squawking high in the tree. Eventually it landed in my feeder. The picture shows that the maple is about to unfold some leaves. 

The flowering trees in the front of our house are just not quite open. I will monitor them as I do want to get some shots of those blooms. It is a non-bearing fruit tree bred solely for ornamental purposes. 

I put my phone camera away and dug out my real camera. The results bring me flowers in bloom and the shot is in focus. This is the smaller version of the daffodils. I have regular full sized daffodils in the back that have many buds on them for beautiful blooms. 

Spring continues to slowly unfold with hot days and cold days. Blogs of the past shows that our spring is late this year. Our drought slows things down and yet I can see I will need to mow some of my grass soon. It is Sunday and it will be a great day off. Thanks for stopping in today.

Breezy and Cold....

 

The bright yellows looks so great against all the dormant or dead grasses that are around it. 

Ig is almost not in focus and yet I still want to share it. The shapes are wonderful and the colors are so great.

The flowers on the redbud are still not opened. I guess it is too cold for them to bloom. We have a cold wind and the temps are just around 40 degrees F.

The pure blue color of the hyacinth is another great spring color. The variety has big blooms that are not too close together. 

Happiness is when a diabetic is allowed a four inch pancake for breakfast. We make up a full batch and then I get one each morning until they are all gone. When they run out it is back to toast.  I have been doing some work outside this morning and it chills me to the bone. The wind chills are bad so I don't stay out for very long at a time. Supposedly we will be in the high 70s next week. I am ready for it. Thanks for stopping by today.

First Bloom

 It is the first for my tulip season.  They do bloom at different times and it spreads out for a few weeks.

Thursday.....

 A sure sign of spring is the sprouting of the rhubarb. It seems to shoot up and leaf ou overnight. 

The chive is also up and looking good. It is responding to our small amounts of rainfall that we are getting. Better a little amount than none. We are not in a drought anymore and yet we are classified as severely dry. 

I need to return two of these back to their summer loacton. I had to bring them as the wind kept sending them to the ground. The one needs a new wire for hanging before it goes back out there. 

The day lilies and iris are coming up. It seems to be pretty rough out there but things will green up quickly.

I took this shot but almost missed what I was aiming for. The fern leaf peony is one of the first of the peonies to come up. It is the reddish growths to the right of the iris. I was out this morning doing some work and it didn't seem to be too cold. I did have my old winter coat on and that kept me warm enough. We are having sunshine for the most part of the day but it isn't going to warm things up that much.

Thanks for stopping by today.

Rain and Cold Air....

 

 

 The cold hard winds seem to neutralize the feeling that it might be spring. Our rain last night was only a half inch but it was welcomed. The grass is getting greener and tulips are starting to show buds. It seems like it was a busy day. Thanks for checking in today.

Tuesday's Things....

 

It rained a little this afternoon and the wind blew hard. It made for bad wind  chill temps. I think the hardy geraniums were better off staying inside where it is warm. I was out there for a while with a guy who was going to give me an estimate on a length of fence. It was so very cold. It took me a couple of hours to get warmed up after that experience. 

The begonia also is doing well in the spare room It leaves look better that its blooms. It is about the third winter that this plant has been wintered over inside. 

We needed the moisture and we are getting small amounts of it off and on. It seems that snow is mentioned once in a while but we haven't had any yet. Tulips are starting to bloom in places so maybe they will see sun soon. I hope so.

Thanks for stopping by today.

Bird and Blooms.....

 

As the earth tilts back I see the sun is now between the small top of the pine and the old silver maple. It was really cold out there this morning. 

I brought the stems and and immediately I had one bloom.  Now the majority are going to be in bloom. I picked them late this year.

My nature camera is busy again as I brought it back out from inside last winter. The dove decided to just sit there and rest after it finished eating. 

We are back into cold weather but it does warm up a bit in the afternoon. We have magnolias in town in full bloom and my neighbors have tulips in bloom. Mine should bloom in the next few days. The warm spell was so nice but it wasn't normal. I guess I am not so anxious to start mowing grass so things should slow down. 

Thanks for stopping by today.

Windy and Cold Again....

 

With all the windy weather I wasn't out to check on the  development of the pussy willows. I almost missed the budding of them. The sucker branches at the bottom are behind the main tree so I could havest some of these.

 

I usually bring in branches and keep them long enough that they start putting out leaves and roots. They were always a novelty to me as I never had a plant of it of my own. This new property of ours came with the pussy willow bush. 

 

I spent two different mornings trimming back five different rose bushes. I had about five containers of these as I worked. I do have the scratches on my body proving that it is a dangerous job. I had three other bushes that I had deadheaded last fall so they won't need much pruning. 

 

My roses were planted by a previous owner.  These three will look better when the leaf out but I am thinking I may need to start to replace them with newer bushes. When you buy in on someone else's gardens you can't know how old things are. The previous owner was here eleven years and he did build the flower bed and rock garden bed with a raised brick wall.  The trailer is my new permanent lawn ornament as he stores his wood for his project in the trailer. 

Our weather was warm and windy yesterday and today we dropped into cold temps.  We will be out for church this morning and meet friends for at a sandwich place. It actually will be colder by that time. 

Thanks for stopping by today.

Friday Is Just Fine....

 I know the mourning dove doesn't know he is being photographed with my nature camera. I do think it is looking at its reflection in the glass. The dove is really downing the cracked corn pieces. I bet the a pair is already nesting somewhere and I wouldn't know which one of the pair is coming to the feeder.

This little guy is busy picking up the pieces that fall onto the deck. He is really filling  his jowls. This is my first siting of a chipmunk for this season. 

It was about time that I picked one of these up at the grocery store. The hard part is picking the color as they have a large variety to choose from. I bought just one even though I wanted more of them.

 

It is nice outside today. I got two different roses dead headed, maybe really called pruning back the rose hips. The roses are sprouting new leaves but I still can cut away on things.  They need to be shaped up a little anyway and this is a great time to do it.  We are going to get up to 80 degrees F. this afternoon. I had to turn on the air already to take the heat down a bit inside. Spring and summer seems to be hitting at the same time. 

Thanks for stopping in today.

The Day After.....

 Yesterday was my birthday. It is a long way form the year 1950. I read recently that we got old enough that our positive and negative experiences of the past can get to be too many memories. The bad ones can get to be dominate. It makes me tired. 

My new memory of my yesterday's birthday was sitting the morning in the dentist's chair. It was not a great experience.  In fact, I can't think of anything worse that having needles prodding and large tools shoving into my mouth. My dentist complained that I had a small mouth. Both the helper and the dentist really don't know how abusive they can be with their tools as they don't have personal experiences of what it feels like forcing devices here and there. 

I had an old bridge of three teeth that had collapse, unglued on one end. The bridge was made of three  gold teeth and he claimed he had never see one break or crack like that one. Anyway they took all of it out, ground down a fresh connection point for both ends. After two different plastic clay imprints, I now have a temporary bride that fells like concrete.

On the positive side of things I got a moon shot early morning yesterday. After resting from all the abuse I went to Olive Garden for supper.  I had soft thins to pick from and got along well in spite of all the sore spots and bruises on my lips. This morning things are just better. The worse part of it all is done as the new bridge will be easy now that all the prep work is done. The new bridge with expensive ceramic white teeth are all on order. My temp needs to last over twenty days or  more.

It was a warm day yesterday afternoon so I did get some b etter crous shots. They opened up nicely. 

I have a few white ones out there. They are crowded just litke the others from the creeping phlox. 

Thanks for stopping in today.