Fried Friday....

 We started our day out with lots of fog and moisture built upon our windows. The sun did partially come out but the humidity level is so very high. I mowed my front  yard this morning and I needed a very long rest afterwards. It was just not pleasant and breathing was difficult. After my rest I went back mowed a portion of the back yard. By the time I had done that it was up to 80 degrees F. with 79% humidity, No more outside work for me today.

 Right before I returned to mow I took time to cut off a few rose hips from the William Baffin rose. I also saw I had the beginning of a ripe tomato. I should have left it on the vine but I couldn't wait to pick it.  I am ready for my tomatoes to start produceing but I think I have a long wait ahead of me.

My planter on the deck is struggling. It was a carry over of hardy geraniums and they needed to regroup. You can see that they are putting out some good new leaves but there will be some time before I get blooms. I had a stray petunia that I put in there and it is doing good. This is the planter that I had to put some drain holes in it as it was a swimming pool full of water for a while and the flowers did not like that.

These are filler flowers that were in a new bouquet that I bought. The remind me of pinks. 

The one rose in the bouquet is one I have shared before now. It has a different color for a rose. It isn't red but a mixture blend of red. It seems to be lasting a long time. 

It is blue cup Friday. We have only one blue one and each cycle of using the dishwasher we get to start off a new time with the blue cup. That happens about every three days when the dishwasher gets full and I have to run it. 

Thanks for checking in today.

Thursday...

 

 

 

 

 It is another hot day. We did get more rain in the night. There was more thunder than actual rain. I didn't check the rain gauge yet but the weather people are saying we got another half of an inch of rain. I had an appointment this morning so I didn't get any of my yard mowed. It was too hot for that by the time we got back. I did get one more aquarium cleaned and assembled with twenty gallon of water carried from bathroom to the other side of the room. Two gallon bucket helps and it is only five trips even though if felt like too many trips while I was doing it. Our high today will be 83 degrees F. which is cooler from the past few days. It gets hot so soon in the morning and stays that way for most of the day. It is summer for sure.

Thanks for checking in today.

Middle of the Week

 Heat and humidity started early this morning. In the winter we would welcome 74 degrees F. at the start of the day. But it just means we reached 80 degrees G. by nine in the morning. I mowed the neighbors front yard and sides this morning and it just was too hot to do it.

Yesterday's shot is sure a lot like today's shot. The clouds are fluffy and do not offer any shade. 

 I did finally get a focused shot of one of these birds. I like seeing the textures and colors on the wings. I don't remember seeing the birds with the wings not tucked. 

The hummingbirds like to land on the sunflowers before heading to my feeder. I don't know if there is any nectar on the big yellow ones but theire may be.The shot is taken on the deck looking down. It is a far better shot of all of them than trying to get one standing below on the ground. 

I still do not understand how these small ones are growing from each box. It looks intentionally planted but I don't know why I would do such a thing. I did plant some hyacinth bean vines in there to grow up the trellis and they have yet to do so.

 There are morning glories in there as well as the hyacinth beans. I will just wait and see what is going on with these. 

My clematis has started to bud and bloom again. It took a break for some reason but it is back to showing their white blooms.  I had a person here filming movies of my new fence and garden. They plan on including them with promotional materials on the net. I just turned the young photographer loose and went back inside as it was too hot to stand around to talk.My neighbor lady also came by to chat for a moment and it was again to hot to b e out there. I ran into as I was clearing up things for the film maker. 

I have a second aquarium emptied out with the fish transferred to another tank. I have a doctor's appointment in the morning so maybe I can get it cleaned up and water replace tomorrow afternoon. Thanks for stopping by today.

Tuesday's Things

 The feather textures and colors are great to see. The wing has a great pattern on it. I finally got an almost focused shot of a hummingbird.  My feeder and the neighbor's feeder are both busy as the fly back and forth between them. There seems to be a war going on a lot of the time of the day.

I switched out one of my old feeder for another homemade feeder. This one is more just a tray so I will have to load it more often. I am hoping to get the one cardinal in the area to stay for some seed rather than just flit in and out. 

I have small sunflowers planted, accidentally, in each of my lattice boxes. I don't know where the seed came from because I was trying to plant nasturtiums in there. Mystery continues to follow my movements in the garden.

I fertilized my tomatoes just like my dad use to. I saw six inches in height growth in a week. I also watered them with my old aquarium water so they should be happy with all the nitrogen. 

The tomatoes have grown to the top of my new plant supports. My wife gifted them and I didn't think the plants would ever get to the top of them. the color of the leaves are so great and not being in a drought has helped. Our 89 degree temps with heavy humidity might be good for them. I power washed off my concrete patio this morning and it was already hot. I took a break and then went back out and used my weed trimmer for about twenty minutes. I just had to quit as the heat and humidity was just too much. 

Thanks for stopping by today.

First Day of the Week....

 The blooms are weathered and wet. We keep getting rain and that is still a good thing. 

The many blooms of the sunflowers are all not the same.  I planted mammoth seeds that never did germinate. This multi head variety is doing well.

It is nature's own combo of flowers. It doesn't work well with color harmony but the shapes are  okay. 

I really like this hosta variety but the rains have been  hard on it. I like its color and it has grown to be big in the location that it was planted at the bottom of my stairs. 

Some of the day lilies are done blooming but his one still has a lot of buds in waiting. I have some lilies that I need to move as they are planted in areas where they are getting crowded out by other flowers.

My backyard views look great but I have so many weeds that need to be dealt with. I guess the weeds blend in but they do bother me. 

It is a very humid warm morning. I sounds like we may have a storm by mid morning. We are having record breaking rainfalls this month. It is still a good thing since we spent a few years without rainfall. 

Thanks for checking in. Have a good Monday.

Houses...

 

 

 

I had to climb on my tall extension ladder today to clean out the opening at the top of a drainpipe of the eavestrough. The tube at the top of the white drainage pipe on the left of the picture had not been draining for most of summer. I won't do that again for a long time even though I did get along okay. It was not fun.  I think a stray plastic sheet from the shingling people from the past must have been in the trough and it worked its way over to seal up the hole. 

Have a good night and see you in the morning.

We woke to tornado sirens this morning, early, and it sounds like we may get awakened again tonight.

Friday Fun....

 

 The tiger lily shot up among the phlox and just burst open with all these blooms. I really like tiger lilies and I would like to buy another one in a different color.  I had a yellow one and lost it.

My ditch lily never disappoints me and I enjoy then now as much as I did as a kid down on the farm. I knew it was summer when one could see them along the gravel roads in the country. 

I get all sorts of volunteer plants that grow from the fallen birdseed. This mus have been one of the sunflower seed varieties that the harvest for my cheap seed. 

I took a quick tour around my backyard so I would have new photos to share. I have been watering these tomatoes and it is paying off now. I noticed that I have a bunch of new blooms now on some of the plants. 

While at Hobby Lobby yesterday I looked for origami paper and all they had was plain, solid colors. I looked over the scrap booking section and found a book of patterned paper. My wife actually found the section for me and it was fun to see how many things that they have. The scrap book paper can be too heavey to fold so I had to find a book of papers that were actually thinner that most of their papers. 

I spent the last two days working on the cleaning of my aquariums. It will take a few days as I have to get one emptied of fish and place in another then drain and refill. Life got too bush and I have sadly done it for a very long time. I know when it is time to get things cleaned when I start loosing fish because the wqter is not good to support them. The oxygen gets crowded out of the water. I will share photos later as I continue the process to clean the next two that are left. 

Thanks for stopping in today.

Thursday's Things....

 It is a popular tray and birds wait for their turn to feed. The female house finch holds very still while the young mourning dove digs around in the cracks of the tray. 

The house finch doesn't know that most birds don't feed at this seed sack. I was so surprised to see it on there and had to snap a shot.

The sun isn't really showing but the sunflowers are turned to where it is suppose be showing up behind the clouds.The sun did eventually show through and made the sunflowers not look so silly. 

My one hardy geranium is regrouping and has put out some small sets of buds. The color out shines its minimal set of blooms. 

The birdhouse that I built during the covid shutdown sits as a decoration on the deck. I noticed that some bird has filled it with nesting material but I never saw anything fledged in it. I guess when the wind blew it of onto the deck when we had a horrible storm that might have stopped the nesting process. 

We had one appointment today and ended up at Hobby Lobby for a visit. We ate burritos on the way home. I am liking our cool weather. Thanks for stopping by today.

Middle of the Week

 

 

 

 The garden stays about the same. We had a loud thunderstorm in the night that gained us tenth of an inch of rain. I pulled grasses and weeds around iris this morning. I earlier mowed the neighbors front yard as she had a showing of her house this afternoon. Our air is still filled with smoke and we have lots of humidity. I guess 81 degrees F. is suppose to be cooler but it still fills hot out there. Thanks for checking in.

Morning Glow

 Getting up before the sun actually rises can help you find great colors. It didn't look like this for very long as I went back to bed for twenty more minutes and this was all gone. 

The phlox does respond to the warm sunshine as well as the heavy humidity. I was outside for a short while without a hat and I really got heated through. Both hats that I have were up the next story of the house in the garage and I was being lazy. 

My sunflowers look rather weathered from all the high winds that we have been having. They are all staked and tied now to keep them from laying on the ground.

My first tomato was small. It is the best they could do at this point. I have some larger ones that are still green and I hope they start to ripe soon. 

The newly hatched sparrows are fun to watch. The don't quite have their balancing act together and they just sit and look around to see what is going on around them. The fledglings are many in number. 

At the other end of this bed I planted my new zinnia starts. I checked on them this morning and all but one are standing straight and looking alive. One single one had a very large stem and it is not not doing well and I can't reach it to correct it with a deeper hole. Maybe another day I can figure out how to reach it wiht out stepping on things. 

 My two large stems that budded late are actually this form of tiger lily. I bought them and the photo didn't show that they were a variation of the original tiger lily. My grandmother had an old fashioned tiger lily and I thought that was so magical to see. I may have to order some on the net. "Lillium double tiger lily"

We are going to be very hot today again. Our humidity is high and the air quality is bad. Smoke of course likes heavy humidity. 

Thanks for stopping by today.