The Second Day of the Week........

It was a slice of sundown last evening. The clouds were blocking the color so the streak of yellow was striking.

My backyard neighbor’s tree sort of glows with the streak of color behind it. This is such a great tree that sits about two houses over from our lot.

This is my second watermelon that I bought this year.  The prices are high in most cases but this time of the year they have lowered the price.  I had bought one earlier at a lower price around the 4th from Target and it was a seedless one.  This too is needles but is a different kind of melon. It is a big melon, as I cut chunks off and eat it a little at a time.  I still have that left section in fridge. I was really thirsty a few days ago and I just sit down on the deck and ate a bowl full of melon. It is a luxury as we don’t normally buy melon in the summer.

The new phlox are now planted. I am hoping that they winter over and next summer they will look more natural. As things keep growing in the cottage garden the area will fill in tightly with flowers.  I haven’t had too much of a weed problem as the larger plants are keeping them down.

The containers for the phlox cleaned up with a garden hose and now are tomato baskets.  Our boys and families are in Minnesota now and I got word last night that they ate our tomatoes in their tacos last evening.

My foundation block of the old days has four holes in it.  The sedum from the old place seems to really like growing in it. I harvested the plant from around one of my old silver maple trees.  I never expected it to do this well but it is growing with gusto.

My turtle thrives on the back patio.  We don’t sit down on the back patio but maybe we will start to do so in the fall.  It is a nice private area with vines on both sides of it. The former owners had a small free standing fire pot down there to burn wood in at night. We haven’t lived here long enough to work that into our routine.

I am off to to the old place this morning.  We are having spotty rains that are so welcomed.  We may see green grass again if the rains continue.  Thank you for stopping by today.

Monday Morning’s Report>>>>>

I planted my new coneflower this morning.  I believe it is named “Cheyenne Summer”.   It is a nice color for the front garden bed. The whole plant went in the ground easily and it should do well there. I  have three other colors of coneflowers

I also planted my three new phlox in the garden. the first two went in easily but the last one was in area where there was a lot of clay.  I really did need a pick ax to get the ground opened.  Once I scraped it out with the spade, I found some better topsoil in another area to put in amongst the roots of the new phlox. I know that plant roots can help break up the soil but this clay was like an area where the big machinery must have shifted and packed it down.  It will be nice to get all these perennials established in this cottage garden.

I have a new flag replacing the old faded one.  It also had a tear in it which didn’t make any sense to me as t how that would happen. The colors on this plastic flag are so bright and clear.   It is bigger than the older one but it seems to look like it fits there in that spot.

The second day with another bloom from the volunteer morning glory. There were actually two blooms today and maybe tomorrow there will be more.

It rained early this morning with lightning and thunder.  Barney was bothered but couldn’t get me to build him a car to hide him. We did get two tenths of an inch of rain. It was welcomed and every one in Iowa, I am sure, probably said ti wasn’t enough.  It did change the color of our yards just a little.

Thank you for stopping by today.

Sunday’s Stuff........

Company is fun.  It is especially fun when it is family from Maine. Our son and his wife were here for a few days.  It had been a while since we had seen them and we had a lot of catching up to do.  We caught a meal at Pizza Ranch last evening. We ate out breakfast early this morning as they took off on their next trek to northern Minnesota. They should be in the Grand Rapids area by late afternoon.  Our two sons will be out on the lake fishing by Monday.

We had lighting and rain this morning with a light amount of wind.  It tossed over the new phlox plant onto the ground. We needed the rain but it wasn’t very much. I just bought three new kinds of phlox to put in my cottage garden.  I wanted it to rain and cool down some before these go into the ground. I was at Walmart and I could see various carts being pushed around with the phlox and cone flowers being bought.  The nursery area was almost closed down as I am sure they had too many dead plants to sell.  The new shipment of asters, cover flowers and phlox were the limited supply of plants. They had some hosta plants too but the nursery part is shut down for now. I assume they will be bringing in shrubs for the fall but August is too hot for those to be planted right now.

I did succeed in bringing one small batch of phlox from the old place down to the new place. It hasn’t quite started to bloom but the buds are there.  I hope these varieties are as tough to survive the winter as the ones that I have at the old place.

The very first morning glory bloom looks really rugged. I think maybe the rain was hard on it.  I will now check everyday to see how this vine is doing.  I have other colors planted this year but I don’t see the buds forming yet.

Saturday’s Stuff......

Saturday morning and the sun is back there somewhere.  I described on my Photo a Day blog that it was a clear sky, but I must be confused.  It has cooled down over night ant it seems to be less steamy outside.

I finally picked some tomatoes.  I wasn’t getting the job done but I only lost one of the tomatoes which was too ripe. The volunteer yellow pear tomato is putting out good tasting tomatoes now.

The statue sits among a variety of green plants.  I water in this area as the rose bush is behind this view.  I have volunteer morning glories coming u here as well as plants from the fallen birdseed from above. The two hosta plants are happy there too.

I have three day lilies that are still in bloom.  There are more buds so there will be more blooms. This is planted in three different locations.  It is a good color of flower.

I have watched birds before that would follow each other as the circle feed around the feeder. The one is a female finches the left and I am betting that the one on the right is the same.   They house finch are not fond of this new feeder as they are a little too big for it.  They do feed on it but not very often.

The dinner plate hibiscus continues to bloom.  It is a pale color.  The are so many buds on it that it should bloom for a long time. It is a hard bloom to photograph as the direct sun hits it all day. We have visitors today from Maine.  They were exhausted from all of the traveling and visiting of people along the way. Long plane flights, driving and visiting in the twin cities, and coming to Iowa made for a long adventure. They are anxious to see old college friends and downtown farmers market.  The farmers market is such a happening with flowers  and garden things, baked goods, cheese and corn. The people show up with their woks to cook Asian food and food on a stick is good too.

I hope all are doing well today.  Thanks for stopping by today.

Finishing up the Week.....

Living in suburbia north of the big city gives us new experiences. While watering flowers or mowing the yard I can look up and see the air traffic headed to, or leaving, the Des Moines Airport.  I also can see the traffic of our local Ankeny Airport.  The planes from the local airport are small planes and some biplanes. The sound of helicopters are not every day but it isn’t unusual for the life-flight kind and also the National Guard base near here.  I took a wild shot and was surprise to pick out this plane with the camera.

This is not a butterfly but one of a mean looking flying insect. Our drought, I believe, has hastened the butterflies this year.  I did see a wonderful swallowtail butterfly up at the old place two days ago.

I bought my very first solar lights in my lifetime. I thought that they would work well along the curved sidewalk that is lined with hardy geraniums. I bought that kind that said they were three time brighter than most lights out there.  Not knowing anything about them I believed the writing on the box.

Greenie is still out there partaking of the sugar water.  I haven’t been able to get a close up for a while and this one could have been edited into one.  I know there are two of them out there but I am sure more will come as the flowers keep maturing. I really need to get a batch of phlox flowers going for next year.  I will have to dig a clump and bring them to the new house when our weather cools down.

The Susans are doing well with my continue watering.  My neighbor does not water his and most of his plants are dead now.  I am not sure how the corn and beans in the farm fields are doing right now.  I know that the beans could be having trouble as they need moister to from beans in the pod.  The corn is so advanced that there are full corn development on the stalks.  We saw a visual on the map today of Sunday being a rainy day.  I hope it is not one more false report.

The sedum likes dry weather and I can now see a little of the color showing on the heads of the plant. My sedum that I moved from the old place is short this season as the rabbits had eaten it off while it was planted in the back yard.  I moved it up to the front yard so maybe it too will join the tall new plant next year.

We are getting ready for company from our son and his wife who live in Maine. They are headed to a vacation in Minnesota with Aunts and a cousin with family on Lake Pokegama.  Our daughter-in-law is excited about visiting our downtown Farmers Market on Saturday.  It is a very large venue and many people come from miles around to shop at it.

The weekend is almost here and I wish you all to have a great day today.  Thanks for stopping by today.

Thursday’s Review........

The rains that never travelled south.  It was good to see someone in our state was getting rain. They are now saying that our drought is the second worse in July in 180 years.  I just keep watering things. I did start to water my yard in the front today.

Standing in the middle of the street I could get this shot of the clouds in different colors.

My side steps had a little bit of renewal when my older son was here.  The sand between the flat bricks washes away and they need to be refilled.  I filled them up last summer and they really needed work again this summer. The former owner who had these steps made had a good design but I do know that things are shifting.  I want to put another set of steps on the other side of the house maybe more like stepping stone type of thing.

At the bottom of the stairs is this vine that seems to grow everywhere.  It is kind of good looking but I will have to eventually cut it off to the drain spout.
I had cut it back severely in the spring and I guess I get to do that again in early fall.

My new sedum plant is doing well where it was planted. Even though it is a sedum I am watering it anyway. The petunias in that flower bed have taken a hit even with me watering them.  I noticed in the planter that the dirt has dried up away from the stone wall by a couple of inches all the way around.

The coneflowers seemed to have bloomed a little earlier this summer and they do appear to be in decline too.

A blurry photo of a zinnia with nice color.  I don’t have very many of this color. I have been taking shots of the more unusual shapes and colors that are in the patch.

It was a struggle to get focused shots last night. I sure have not seem many butterflies this year.  I did see a beautiful swallowtail on my phlox up at the old place yesterday.  That property has a lot of swallowtails and painted ladies. I didn’t have a camera along and I was too busy to take shots anyway.

I am home today getting odd jobs done and doing a little cleaning in our downstair guest area for company this weekend.  We hope to see the Maine kids over the weekend  before they travel to vacation in Minnesota. Thanks for checking in today.

Middle of the week......

The dry grass below show the evidence that I have been watering the flowers.  I really like this particular variety.  It must be popular as they seem to be the only choices to buy in pink and lavender.

The hardy geraniums are having a tough time out there in the front bed.  I am having some volunteer cockscomb that will put out some blooms.

I tolerated these plants this summer while they grew up to bloom.  I couldn’t identify them and cut them back as if they were weeds.  I do now know they are butterfly feeders and will have to learn the foliage.  As a farm boy seeing many weeds, they still look like weeds. The blooms are wonderful. You can see I have white and pink for colors.

Butterfly weed or Asciepsias was shared with me by Far Side as its identity.  Thanks.

I need to move it all in a location where I can know that it will be growing and I won’t be pulling it out of the ground. A few stakes in the ground will help too. I did let it grow in the front garden and it looks good there.  It is taller than everything else but it makes a nice accent plant.

This is the view of my flower garden from the side. I usually share the end view but this is the zinnia side of the patch.  The sun was in the west and it gave everything a glow.  I have mixed sizes, different planting times, of these zinnias. That are not fully grown yet.  I had the taller screen on this side to keep the rabbits out but now I toolkit out leaving the shorter screens. That will help keep the plants from leaning out onto the ground like last year.

I am heading to the old place today. I am not excited about it but once I get in the truck and head northwest, I will be more energetic. I am going to put down a new tile square floor in the kitchen. I damaged a lot of the old  floor with removing of the dishwasher.  It will look newer and better with a quick tile floor being put down. It goes down fast. I need to go now to start that job. Thanks for stopping by today.