Reflecting...

 The sun actually is up but it is covered by the darker clouds. The rays are shooting up and reflecting on the scattered clouds. 

 The Susans are like glowing suns as they glow with their yellow colors. The poor plant is crowded by the iris next to it and there just are not that many blooms. 

The lily is still putting out blooms. It has lasted for a long time with a few blooms each day.

It is a vine, weed, with some nice flowers. I don't think I have seen this vine bloom before because I usually get it pulled before it gets a chance to bloom. 

I have kept the ever invading morning glory vines at bay. I had too many last year so I have mulched and pulled a lot of them. I do still have plenty but just not so many this year. 

I mowed this morning in cool weather and it got hot by the time I was done.  Full sun made it hot even though we aren't going to be extremely warm. I mowed both my front and back today. I don't normally do that but it just happened today.  I  have some serious invasion of crabgrass right now with all this rain. I sprayed some today but lost track of where I was spraying when my neighbor came over to talk. I will wait a few days and see what has been affected and what needs to be sprayed. I will be happy to see some of that stuff dead. 

We didn't get rain last night.That is a nice change. Thanks for stopping by today.

Soggy Bottoms....

 My cockatiel has a bird's eye view out the sliding glass door window. He has a large cage, full exposure to the outside and his own bird pet friend. I bought him a zebra finch for company ant she sits right next to him. I have been looking for a male finch to put a family of birds together. The store that had male zebra finches is at the other side of town where I made a visit but didn't have the time to buy one. My local pet store rarely carries any birds at all. 

We got a lot of wind last night and three more inches of rain. I couldn't believe the amount in the gauge. Everything is soggy and the sunflowers have a new lean that I might have to  manually correct. 

Looking out and the window was coated with drops. The hummingbirds were active but the sparrows just sat and looked out at things. Eventually they tried to feed. I am waiting for a dryer time to mow my next door neighbor's front yard. I may have to wait until noon and just have a late lunch.

My newly cleaned tank is looking sharp. I have just a few guppies in there right now as I keep shifting fish from my four different tanks. The one surviving angel fish is like the clean clear water. 

Our morning looked really soggy and I stepped out on the wet deck to get this blind shot. I couldn't see what I was taking but I knew it probably was going to be good. 

Thanks or stopping by today.

Tuesday's Things

 

 

There are lots of hummers this year enjoying and fighting over the feeder. I can get better photos when the sun is higher in the sky and the reflections on the feathers put off some nice colors. 

My dinner plate hibiscus is blooming. The whole plant has less stems this year but I will have numerous blooms anyway. The are a lot of buds on the stems that I have. It was so slow coming up that I thought it had died out from the winter weather.

 

While standing next to the hibiscus one can look up to see where I climbed the ladder. I cleared out the clog in the trough and water is running again. 

After I had cleared it that night it rained. It filled my barrel instantly. I now have plenty of water to use in the garden. I have two of these barrels one at each end of the house and they both are full of water. I inherited these and they really were great to have during our two years of drought. During the drought though I did run them to empty for long periods of time. 

I went for groceries this morning to avoid the 91 degrees F. temp in the afternoon. All the rains have the yards ready to be mowed again already but it was too humid with hihg heat by ten so I didn't mow.  Staying inside for the rest of the day is the plan. 

Thanks for stopping by today.

Monday Blew In.....

 

The camera fogged over and I kept wiping away the lens so it would work and still I got a hazy shot. The humidity is talked about as much as the heat as both make being outside uncomfortable. 

 

The tomaotes keep showing up but they are not very big yet. I picked another small one yesterday which was my third tomato for the season. 

Zinnias are loving the heat. I like all the different colors. The genetics of seeds always puzzles me as the seeds were from red flowers mostly. 

I need to replant my oxalis in new fresh soil. It has been a long time coming and maybe  it will happen soon. St. Francis thinks it looks pathetic with the dead stems everywhere and new meager stems coming up. 

I keep trying to get the best shot of these guys. I guess this might be a female. I have not seen a red band male even once this year. 

We had an appointment for my wife this morning. I worked outside a short period this afternoon cleaning an aquarium out at the spigot. I had to stand in the shade and it still was miserable. I also cleaned out my bird bath from the horrible green moss that it had in it. The birds really appreciate the water during this summer. More storms tonight, it will be  just like last night. It rained and the wind blew very hard. The northeast side of our house was blasted with rain and things did get blown around a lot. I don't even try to keep our sunroom windows clean as the just keep getting messed up.

Thanks for stopping by today.

Sunbeaten Day

 One lonely marigold bloom is almost hidden from the camera. I planted some harvested seeds and they are growing up and will all be blooming soon. Out of all the seed I had seed for one very tall variety.

I had to search to find my one lone morning glory bloom. I worked hard to keep my vines down this year as last year the glories overtook my tomato plants. I know I will have more blooms but right now they seem few and far between. 

Pink rose bush has done well with all the rain. It is again blooming now on certain sections of the bush.

I have a barrel to act like a water feature for my patio. It looks good enough but when I put gold fish in it the raccoons come and eat them all. So this year I put my excess guppies in there. You look close enough you can see they are doing well. It is amazing how many are in there and fun to watch when I sprinkle food on the water. 

I am thinking most of the readers are suffering from this heat and humidity. High humidity and temps are overwhelming. We made it to church this morning and grabbed a meal before we came home to a cool house. Neighbors were all out in their swimming pools for a while but the heat got to be too much for them. One could get a great sunburn on a day like this. 

Thanks for checking in today.

Summer Stuff

 

 I finished mowing this morning in the back yard. It was so humid and the grass really wasn't dry but I mowed it anyway. I don't mow it as often as I should so they finished work is rough looking. 

Some of the things one can see are the roses blooming for the second round this season. I had dead headed it but really wasn't watching to see that it had formed new buds .

The zinnias are starting to look like a full bed of flowers. It has a ways to go but they are really doing well. 

I do have a couple of white phlox in  two different places. The one small batch is in the foreground. 

 The other batch is right across the way. I was thinking that I didn't have any white but they just bloomed later than the others. The rains have been hard on the phlox and there are somewhat weathered now. 

 

My first real tomato looks like this. It has some green on the other side and we will wait to start slicing when it is all red. I don't think I have any others ready to turn yet that are on the vine. 

The humidity is the issue again today and I finished mowing being really ready for the air conditioned house. It makes it hard to breathe and it feels hotter than it really is.. We keep getting small rains each day and we haven't had any severe storms. With the heat it is bound to happen sooner of later. Our lake is full of water for a change and the rivers are getting full. It is a good problem with our past two and a half years of drought is now in the past.

Have a good Saturday.

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.