Friday.

 Spots on its underneath neck makes it identifiable. Some do not have the spots. 

Multiple blooms is a great thing to see. The vines in all three of the flower boxes are taking off with many blooms. 

Two of the three have lots of history. I will probably never put a new handle on the spade as I have a dozen spades and shovels. When one is the last person standing you get all the tools in your possession. I have shovels and spades from my dad's garage. I have the same from my late bother's construction tools that he had left in my dad's garage. I bought spades and a sand shovel when I set up my own household with gardens when I bought my first house. Then when we moved to our new place in Ankeny the former owner left me a tool shed full of tools, all bought at Ace Hardware.  The petrified wood rock has history too as it belong to my dad who brought it back from Wyoming, He didn't get it from the park which is illegal but he found in a large desert field where rock hounders searched for them. 

I keep picking tomatoes. They are not big but they taste great. I have to give some of them away soon. I know the neighbor lady who comes to check on her house could use a sack full. We hit the bookstore today.  It was good but the were in the middle of a remodel so the coffee shop was closed. It was good to get out of town.

Thanks for checking in today.

Thursday's Things

 It was a clear sky when the sun showed up on the horizon. We made it up to the low 80s F. this afternoon.

The sunflowers keep putting out blooms. The  morning glories are now shooting vines all over the etems. 

Lots of purple blooms are scattered all over below as the tomatoes are putting out orange to red tomatoes.  

The vines are actually growing  and blooming flowers. They were slow in development but each year is different. 

As I mentioned the tomatoes earlier you can see half of the harvest here on the counter.  I picked another batch this morning that were about of this same number.  I have to get in contact of friends to help us eat these.

It is a blurry bee but you can catch the idea that the bees are hitting the blooms this season. 

I mowed the back yard this morning when it was cool. I didn't get overheated, and it looks great and green. I can see that the grass is starting to turn a little brown in the front yards where there are no trees.  It is the time of the year when we shut down on the mowing but the rains keep coming. 

Thanks for stopping by today.

Middle of the Week....

 

 

 

 

 It is a work of art. I mow my neighbor lady's front yard for her. It is up for sale and I have seen her late husband do fancy work like this. About ten feet in the front of this shot is my lawn. I mow it in a different direction so the buyers don't get confused about the size of the yard. I did see one realtor dig out a map to show a potential buyer to see how wide the lot is. 

I got very hot again today while mowing out there. I should have gone out an hour sooner. I was mostly in the direct sun and there just wasn't much shade to get relief. I will mow my backyard tomorrow and will try to get out earlier. Weather people keep saying we are going to cool down. It sure hasn't cooled when it is 84 degrees F. Thanks for stopping by today.

Sunny and Hot...

 The  seed from the past was all of this variety that I planted in my flower boxes. I really like this color but I have a problem keeping track of what color the seed that I have planted. 

This variety of glory is taking over the tomato and sunflower patch. They are vinning everywhere and blooms are everywhere. It comes up volunteer every season and I pull them up as much as I can each spring.

The bee was out there fighting for space from the butterflies. I have a lot of bees this year and I am glad. The years of drought there was rarely one seen. 

The phlox are starting to shut down for the season. This color of them seems to have a deeper color as we move into the fall. The butterflies do not land on them when there are zinnias for them to get nectar. 

I planted this pink rose up by my front door and it is not good. It ends up being a climber and I am going to have to move it. I don't remember when it is best to move it but I will wait until fall. I want it to be cooler before I try it. We are hot again today. We had a shingling crew working in our neighborhood today. It was too hot for them and they worked the whole day up to 87 degree F. That is a thankless, dangerous job.

Thanks for stopping by today.

A Hot Monday.....

 I chased a monarch around for a while and just quit trying. I went ahead and did some garden work for a while. I went inside and then came out seeing a yellow swallowtail at a distance. So as I took out my cell phone to take shots the monarch returned. To get them both in a shot at one time is once in a life time chance. 

The swallowtail is a little beat up with some broken parts of its wings. It was very active flying from one flower to another and it was not afraid of me.  

The monarch seemed less concern about me being around with the other butterfly being there. It was a smaller in size monarch but it still had all the right patterns of color.

I like sharing shots of them on the flowers from a distance to give a true perspective of their size compared to the garden flowers.

I have goldfinch that are eating from my sunflowers. I can't seem to catch one with my camera. It probably is a pair but they don't eat at my feeder. I will keep trying to capture at least one of them.

I have the yellow drose blooming with great gusto. They are so delicate and the rain last night didn't seem to damage them. 

We have heat again today but tomorrow it will be a few degrees cooler. School has started and it didn't get so hot that the kids stayed in school all day. I took a trip to get meds and a few groceries. It was uncomfortable to walk out into the heat and I was glad to get to the car and drive off. Thanks for stopping by today.

A Hot Finish for the Week...

 We have been having heavy humidity and the nights are filled with cloud cover keeping me from finding the moon.

 I planted some spare seed from the past in one of my planters. I have another color of morning glories, finally after all the time it has been planted. It seems to be a little beat up but it has great color. 

I picked them as they started to turn. The excess rain is causing splits in one of my varieties. This variety is one that is going to go ripe all within a few weeks. In some ways they have been slow in their ripening. I should have paid closer attention to the varieties that I bought but I do know I didn't want any of the larger varieties. I think the markers are out there underneath the grass mulch. 

A new garden of hosta is developing for me in a good way. I planted the ledge next to my new backyard gate. I just filled it in as it made sense to put them there rather trying to get grass to grow there. I leave my hoe out there for my neighbor lady to use when she visits her home while it it is still up for sale. Her weeds grow in her raised beds where they grew vegetables. I offered  to do the job but she insists that she wants to do it herself. 

My dianthus were slow in getting established in my front flower garden bed. I was surprised to see them blooming  so well this past week. 

Heat and humidity continues in our area. I should say high heat but I think most people know we call it heat. Our trip from the car to the church was amazing and it was typical Iowa weather. The weather people say we are going to cool down a bit but it doesn't seem like it has. I can the yards are now being affected

Thanks for stopping by today. 

Saturday Sun All Day

 It is a wonderful color. I can only see one of these out there of this color. The zinnias are getting to be taller even though they are not all the same height. 

The phlox are starting to look pretty weathered. It is the middle of August so I guess it should be expected. The rains and the winds are hard on them but they do just start dropping the small individual flowers on the ground making it look like pink snow. 

My roses are in their second blooming cycle right now. It was slow coming but it shows here how the four are all in different development stages. 

The bush at the bottom of the stairs had a lot of deadwood this spring so it didn't look like it was going to have many blooms. It has revived even though the major form or shape has shifted in appearance because of the loss of stems on the north side of it.  With the new fence installed they may not freeze out so badly. .

 I spent time cleaning up some of my mess from the weed trimming that I did yesterday. I also started the cutting away of my peonies today. I do a couple of bushes at a time each day as they have to be stuffed into paper bags for recycle. The peonies are starting to get a gray mold or rust on them so it is time to remove them. They are sure healthy otherwise with all our great rainfall this year. I have three more to remove in the back yard and then I need to work on the row of peonies in the front yard. I am also fighting back a vine that the former owner had planted. I think I would like to completely eliminate from the front flower beds as it just keeps spreading even on the rock garden surfaces. 

We did get up to 92 degrees F. this afternoon. It is great for the swimming pool owners to get in the water and stay there all afternoon. My walk to the mailbox is the most and only exposure that I have to do this afternoon. Thanks for stopping by today.

Wait for It!

 As I took the shot I could hear the calls of the flying Canadian geese. I couldn't see where the were but when you look at the left side of the shot you can see two birds.

I waited for it and there they were. I had to shoot quickly because it is so easy to miss them with you phone camera. I am shooting blind. 

I waited for it and there they were in the V formation flying over the house. I don't know how many are honking but they do take turns as there is continual honking. 

Down on the ground I went on to help with breakfast, making coffee.  I got frustrated and put my camera down for a while as the hummingbirds just would flit in and out and I just wasn't getting good light or good shots. Then it happened as theis one sat on the feeder and gazed up to see if anyone was flying her way. 

The woman of the house next door frowns when she talks about what her husband did to a perfectly established set of iris. He thought they look too crowded but they were not. They ended up not having blooms. He thinned and removed so much that the last bits of iris had no base for blooming. I looked over while mowing this morning and I saw this. The woman must have bought a reblooming iris and here it is blooming in August. I had to shoot the photo through the narrow slot of the fence. I see next to this plan is the struggling older iris trying to regroup. I bet it will bloom next season right along to this new one.

 

I got out my weed trimmer this morning and did some serious work. I finally got to the job and I did the best I could until it got to be too hot out there. I  could return in another week and maybe touch it up with anything that is left. The weeds had taken over in a lot of my gardens. 

It is Friday and I am ready for a quiet evening. Thanks for stopping by today.

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.