Rain and Wind.......

The rain and wind is a love/hate relationship to our world.  I like that we have rain and I don't like drought.  I don't like so much rain that it wrecks the spring flowers.  But the wind has been menacing.  Most of my larger blooming irs are laying on the ground from too much water and high wind breaking them down.

The cemetery iris above is going to have a few more blooms so I should get a better photo.  They whole lot of the iris look like they have been through hurricane Lawrence.

The fernleaf peonies are all done but one branch must have slept in or something.  The last two small buds came out on Saturday.

These buds have opened and the were on the ground yesterday from the wind.  I will show you tomorrow what the color is of this iris.  Think red everybody, or maybe red-brown.

I do not know the name of this rose. The plant has many blooms on them and the actual flower is half the size of a normal rose.  I like the rose as I trim off the spent roses and it sets up new buds immediately.

Saturday proved to be an interesting day in Woodward, Iowa.  They put in a new track around the football field and it had been put to good use.  They had a Junior High State Track Meet at the new track.  It was said that over 100 different schools were sending students to the meet.  We live four blocks from the area and we had cars lined up and down our street.  The town was doubled in size just for one day.

I am an art teacher in the morning and a special education teacher in the afternoon. We are running out of Mondays before school will be out.  It has seemed like a short school, but not as short as my last weekend.

Hey, we watched the new PBS version of Sherlock Holmes done in our present time period.  It is done well.  We watched three episodes in a row and became a lot loony.  What I found interesting was the fact that Dr. Watson, wrote about all that they did on his BLOG.  So the whole world was keeping track of them in the modern world as they were solving cases.  Once in a while in the dialog Holmes would ask another person how he knew his information and the person would reply, "I read it on the blog."

Thanks for stopping by today.

Sunday's Blooms.......

The pink wiegela keeps putting out great blooms.  The bush has grown so large that it is banging its branches against a window every time the wind blows.

This is the iris that my parents had planted on the south side of their garage.  I moved it up here and it seems to be a very hearty iris.  I don't know it's history as they moved from one property to their last property and they could have moved it with them. 

This is my favorite iris in the bunch out there. I like it's light purple almost blue color.  It is doing so well right now but we just had a downpour rain. I am sure it took some damage.  I have a few cemetery iris yet to bloom and the one very dark one that blooms wonderful flowers. I also have a red brown iris that is going to bloom in the next couple of days.

Monday is coming.  I will be back at school tomorrow. I spent two hours mowing on Saturday and did not get done. I spent half the time, changing oil, cleaning up the air filter, cleaning the spark plug and finally messed with a failing cable that allows the mower to run. The mower kept dying and I would fix the next thing thinking I could keep it running. I want to throw that old mower away but won't probably until the end of the season.  There is a functioning mower behind all that stalling of the machine.  I will just keep messing with it to keep it working.

Thanks for stopping by my post today.

A Dandy of a Day...........

It is Saturday and our weather isn't looking good at this point.  High humidity, high temps, and there is wind added to the mix.  The wind will help to spread the seeds of the dandelion.

The allium really like this spot as it is spreading out into my lawn.  I hope to dig and move them today so they can start being a great spot of color somewhere else.

Here is another shot of the clematis on my gate roof.  My purple clematis is a smaller variety than this one and it is loaded with buds.  I keep wondering when they will start to bloom.

Plans for the day include taking the neighbor lady on a shopping spree at a couple of lumber supply stores.  She is refurbishing her living room and she needs things.  We will be looking around also. I  may look at plants but it is too early for me to start doing that kind of thing.  I will let the tomato plants grow at the store in their created climates and then I will bring them home in another few weeks.

I should mow this afternoon when we get back.  I still have a section of my orchard that hasn't been mowed.  I may have to address that today as well as the front and side yards.

 I do have a rosebush blooming and a different iris is in bloom so I will have to take the camera out for a shoot.  Resting will be a good part of my day as my school job has been wearing me down.  I think my last day of school will be the 23rd.  What happens to me after that is left to be seen.  I will let you know. Life without school will be good.

Thanks for stopping by my post.  Have a good day.

Promising Blooms.......

Where there are buds there usually will be blooms.  We were foggy today and our ground is very wet so they should be able to bloom readily.

This rose has small little flowers on it and as you can see they are about to open.  The warm March really did help this one rose to develop quickly.  It has a dozen of buds on it.

This wild rose comes into bloom quickly and goes out of bloom just as fast.  There are buds still on it's branches so it should be blooming for at least another week. I have a lot of iris buds ready to bloom but I don't have photos today.

I am subbing for the shop teacher again today.  We may end up inside the high school building whcih is air conditioned and have study hall, as it is hot out in the shop today.  I can take them to the computer lab to hang our if I need to keep myself and others from perishing.

Thanks for stopping by my post today.

Thursday's Things....

My pink wiegela is blooming profusely because of the rains.  It has more blooms than I was expecting because of the freeze. Can you see the freeze damage?

A blurry picture of something exciting.  My wife had told me she was watching a mother cardinal bring a young one to the feeder.  Last evening in low light I sort of captured it.  It is proof that we have youngster cardinals.  Yesterday afternoon I received mail from my wife saying there were two of them at the feeder and no adults.  I suppose they are about to be left on their own now.  This is the first time ever I have seen cardinal young.

The discussion at the noon lunch time at school was how we had hostas the are larger in size now that they normally ever have been during a normal spring.  We decided that we experienced what it was like if we were in a couple of growth zones further south.  The 80 degree weather in March is what brought this to happen.

A future project that needs to be done is seen before you.  I am dreading it but it is time.  The red tree is planted too close to the pear tree.  It doesn't straighten even though I have pruned back the pear tree.  The work involved to move the red tree is digging out two different roses, a peony bush, many daffodil bulbs and maybe even a hosta.  I know I have seen Roger on "Ask This Old House" dig up and move things.  The problem is, he does have a hearty, strong crew in the background or on camera helping with the work. From what I have seen him do I don't have to take all of the roots and I will need to prune it back on top some after it is moved.

I should really move it in the next few weeks so I can beat the heat.  I don't know where I am going to plant it.  I will have to water it a lot just to get it to work. Maybe I will move it ten feet towards the camera which would look like good spacing and would allow it to grow straight with the proper amount of light.  I guess I need to walk the estate and see where a nice accent tree could be placed. Did I mention that I am dreading this project???

I promise to find the name of the tree by the time I move it.  It is buried in my blogs a couple years back and it does have a name.  The small flowers in spring are neat that it puts out each year.

I am subbing for many people today.  It is an ok think.  I am not bubbly about it, as moving from to room to room gets to be unnerving.  The entire high school is off to see a movie that shares it's thoughts about bullying.

Thanks for stopping by my post today.

Wednesday's wanderings......

The wild roses in my backyard are starting to bloom.  They show their flowers rapidly and it seems like they are gone too quickly.  The buds are everywhere but the blooms have some splotchy color because of the cold snap a month ago in April.

When the warm  front came through in March it caused a lot of changes in the plant growth.  The hostas are large.  It usually takes most of spring for them to mature.  I know that parts of Alaska where the daylight stays for most of the day that plants do grow bigger.  I think our early summer weather cause these guys to move up two months.   I keep thinking the hosta to the right might be a family member to the one called "Sum and Substance."  It has very large leaves and looks like I will need to split it up for new growth.

I kept a redwood flower box planted with chives.  I have had it for years as it just came up every year. We liked using it on our baked potatoes.  For some reason the whole thing died out the last winter.  I planted some new starts from another part of my garden and it is timidly taking off and growing.  It will be a few years before that box fills up again.  I will put fresh soil in it again this year to revive it's growing matter.

The field lilies are actually taking off early this year also.  I have Asiatic lilies in there and they usually are bigger, taller than the field lilies when they bloom.  This is a view off my west side of the patio for those newbies who don't know my backyard.

This iris is blooming right now.  The ones that came from my parents property are blooming at the neighbors but mine will be a few more days to open.  She has them planted on the north side of the house and one would think they would bloom earlier than ones that are out in the sun.

I am tech guy today but tomorrow I have been promised a busier day.  The high school is taking off in the afternoon leaving all the different middle school classes that high school teach, open.  I will probably jump from social studies to English to math to pe all afternoon.

I took an old man spill yesterday while pitching in middle school pe.  I had bad shoes that wouldn't allow me to stop being propelled towards a ball that I was trying to catch.  I fell on my shoulder, doing a tuck and roll, then rolled right over summersault, was back on my feet and the one little girl tossed me the ball to start pitching again.  I didn't have time to think about what had happened but am a little achy today. I guess the little girl thought I was 13 and I roll around while playing the game all the time.

Thanks for stopping by my post  today.

An Artist's Print Review......

A cropped section of the print by James Gurney  "A Dinosaur Parade." I snapped the close ups through glass and photoshop helped a little to bring up the quality of image.

I purchased this print in a wildlife print shop in Grand Rapids, Minnesota.  It was very inexpensive as the subject matter was not ducks, geese and deer.  I don't know why the shop had it but I bought it for 15 bucks and I never expected to own one of his prints.

James Gurney is the artist who illustrated the Dinotopia books.  I have always admired his work in fantasy painting.  He first painted out of his garage and he may still be there today painting.  He laughs as to how is kids tell people that he makes his living painting dinosaurs in the garage.

I pulled this off of his website which shares a lot of his projects that he has painted. I really like his use of color and the true to life architecture based on classic buildings that exist. He puts detail in all the areas of the painting that make it fun to view.  Click on the photo and take a closer look.

I enjoy his creativity as he incorporates dinosaurs into is paintings, including in the structures and corner posts.

The classic architecture works are mimic with his own additions of work in the pediment.

The people and times are great to see and all the people in the scene are enjoying being in the parade.

His imagination of placing people as casual partners with dinosaurs tends to amaze me.  I don't know if you can call it science fiction as much as it is great story book fiction.

I hung this print in my classroom in school all the years that I taught to give the students inspiration to view another artist creative mind.

I am a science teacher today and also middle school pe.  I see that one class in the eight grade doesn't have boys and girls that play well together.  So one set sits out the first half of the period and then the other set will sit out the game.  I bet the boys are bullies or poor sports. Volleyball is big in our school and girls are tough and the boys don't like to get beat my them.

Have a great day today.  Thanks for stopping by my post.