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.

Tuesday's Things.....

 I wanted a shot of the three in a row in open blooms. I couldn't get that as it was just too cold. And yet, the color and shapes of flowers against the new green and brown leaves does have a beauty of its own. 

 

 

The shot seems curious but the house finch was pulling one of its antics. They scramble back and forth and give me great unusual poses. He was looking down at the seed below and planning is means for landing there. 

They have a great song that is different than the wren. I have to think at first of which that it is but in most cases the house finch has a smoother sound. 

Our weather looks good for today. I like seeing the sun shine even though I wish it were a little bit warmer.  I  have taxes to take in soon and also now have a dental appointment for this afternoon.  I love how dental problems show up when you are busy. I have a bridge that is unglued.  I don't even remember when I had that put in but they did get me into a late appointment at  3:00. I was expecting that I would have to wait for many days. Having spent many bucks on my teeth this year I was thinking I was doing good for a few years. Nope, think again.

Thanks for stopping by today.

Spring....

 Our blooms are actually late this year compared to last year. My creeping phlox  succeeded in crowding out a lot of the crocus. I may just have to buy some new ones and plant them somewhere else. I did pull out a lot of the phlox but it still has cut down the number of blooms.

 I like how the crocus comes up among the leaves and grape hyacinths. It is a pleasant splash of color at this time of the year.

 

 

 

Random shots around the place show up in my pile. I like shooting things that might seem strange but are interesting. The salt and pepper collection of my mom's is all gone except for a few of them that I kept just because. She had so many and these chickens are pretty much faded and look a little beat up. 

We are having a sunny day with  warmer temps than yesterday. I will journey out of meds and groceries this afternoon.  It will be nice to go in the sunshine. Thanks for stopping in today.

Visuals Only....

 

 

 

Saturday Sunshine.....

 I have been buying the hardy geraniums that are with mixed colors. I bought this one red one last year and it really is one of my favorite colors. This plant didn't grow this great outside all summer but inside this winter it has bloomed many times. I rescued it from a very dry spot in the arden and I really am glad that I did. 

This is the second winter for this begonia.  It has crashed though and seems to be struggling. I will try to get some newer soil on top of it this spring when I put it back outside. 

The purple oxalis is showing off with very healthy looking leaves. I have been watering it with old aquarium water which is full of nitrogen. When I change out my water in my aquariums I store it in tubs and use it for all of my house plants. 

Yes, I am still working on this pastel painting. I didn't like how dark it was so I am reworking trees and grasses making everything brighter and lighter. More blue sky showing through with that great color is really making me like the painting better. I like being able to come and go on it to solves its color and composition problems. I have added a couple suggestions of sea gulls that will be brightened as time goes by as I return to it. . 

We have a wonderful day of sun today. It warmed up to 55 degrees F. and is a nice day. People north of us are melting off their snow but we didn't have that problem.  Thanks for stopping by today. 

Friday's Finds.....

 A retake of the same crocus shows the bloom opening wider.  We still are cold so they aren't opening up much naturally. 

Green shoots of things are peaking through the crud that is still on the ground. You can see snow is mixed in with the leaves. I took the shot a day ago. 

Iris always fascinate me as they tolerate the cold weather without any problems. I have new iris planted that was given tome from the neighbor, south.  It will be interesting to see how theyt develop and grow for their first year. 

 I spent the past days sorting all of our meds, hospital, and dental bills. It is a big pile but I can take out the good parts of the pile and throw away all the excess paper sheets of info. We had two different hospital stays and a rehab, nursing home, stay for the year. We had me going to the dentist having major work done also, so I have quite a pile now to process. Three grocery bags of excess papers are in the bin now. 

We are gong on an adventure for supper to the Pizza Ranch. We will go for an early meal to avoid the Friday rush. It is still vindy but it has warmed just a little bit. We live only two miles away fro the place so ite really isnt much of an adventure. It will be nice to get out and about from the hosue. 

Thanks for stopping by today.

Wind Be Gone!!!!

 

 I buy tulips in the early fall and plant them.  I know that I will be glad that I did later on and here they are. 

 I have forgotten the number that was in the bag but I just kept putting them down in the ground. It was cold outside this morning and I was out putting things back into place after 24 hours of strong winds. 

My neighbor lost two sections of his fence yesterday.  It looks like the one post was rotted off and the whole section down.  Another neighbor had built this huge visual screen with wood so nobody could see them in their hot tub when people walked down the street. The wind took out most of it.  I though it looked like a shabby, weak design. 

As a funny I will share that my wheel barrow got turned over on its side. The winds were so strong that they sounded like the many airline jets that go over our place. It was hard to know which it was as some jets were flying last night. We were too cold today for any more of my crocus to show open blooms. I guess the buds are fun to see but maybe tomorrow there will be blooms.  Our rain did not amount to much to even be measured. 

Thanks for stopping by today.

Signs of Spring.....

 I had one single crocus bloom out front yesterday. I am hoping the rains will help open up more. 

The two flowering trees in front are budding.  I don't know exactly when they will open but they sometimes show up before I notice. I was talking with my neighbor out front in the cold windy weather and he looked up and said that tree is budding.

Our new wreath looks pretty spring-like. It replaced one that had been up for a whole year that was originally a Christmas wreath. Fake flowers are pretty good considering that real plants wouldn['t last for very long.

I have some outside work to do. I did a little work yesterday afternoon, taking down the dead sedum from last year. I also trimmed back some last stems of the mums. I need to trim back my roses but the weather and my ambition is preventing from getting it done. 

We didn't get any of the major storm in our area.  We are too far south to get the snow but theiy are having blizzard warnings in the north western part of Iowa. We really need rain but we are just getting mostly strong winds and sprinkles. Our grass is looking just a little bit green. 

Thanks for stopping by today.

Tuesday Today....

 

It is one of those days when I needed to see the color red and the bright colors of the Peanuts characters. I am getting too old but I still can be entertained by these images. 

I rescued my sansiveria plants this morning by replanting them in better soil. I lost some of them so I added the different shorter variety along the front of them. 

I have an aquarium downstairs that at certain times of the year creates rainbows. The prism effect, refraction of light, takes place as the sun shines in onto the back of the aquarium and it cuts through on the side of it making a perfect clear rainbow. My robot thinks it must be special being lighted up like that.I don['t know how long it waas there but it was gone just minutes after I photographed it.

The warm weather is wonderful. I see I have one lone crocus bloom right now. Tulips are up and we are suppose to see a blizzard take place just north of us tomorrow. Tulips don't like ice storms so much but they are not bothered by snow.  We will see what tomorrow will bring. Thanks for stopping by today.