Wordlessness on Wednesday.....

Big story to come, involves trucks, trash, sea gulls, waiting in line, dangerous work and scenery. Later.......No, I am not on the moon, even though it looks like it!!!!!

Looking back.......

Throwing things away while cleaning out the basement could give me some pretty disgusting photos. How could 33 years of living in the same house cause me to have so much stuff, useless stuff. My problem is that this property never had a garage and I never did get one built. I built a nice garden shed, but I have never owned a garage in my whole 59 years of life. I aim to change that.
So as it is getting cold and I am doing drudge work filling up a truck to drive to the landfill, I think of our summer. My wife and I have been unable to travel for the past six years so this summer was a free for all for us. Kansas City is our anniversary place and we had a great visit there for a few days.




We hit the Iowa State fair for the first time in many years and it rained and was cold. But between rains we saw a lot things that made it worth while. The newly hatched ducks were all napping. The next thing I knew, they all jumped up and ran over to the other end of the pen to get food and water.






The Blank Park Zoo is small in Des Moines but we still enjoyed seeing what was there. The goats are out for a good run and a skip as they enjoy life.






We took a whirlwind trip to Minnesota, Duluth and the North Shore area. It was a quick visit but we didn't miss this Sea Gull convention. It was a little rainy and they were taking a rest from all that they do.





I can never forget the sound of the bell that is attached to the buoy out in the ocean. Along the Maine coast it was very rough as the wind was blowing and the bell was loud and clear. I don't know why it sounds like a lonely sound but that is what it seemed like to me. Maybe because it is stranded out there.
I have to return to my basement again tomorrow. I am a collector, not necessary a good collector, but my imagination can tell me that I could use this later for something. I saved too many of those kinds of things and I am sending them on their way. I have extra bird cages, and aquariums galore. Garden stuff and a lot of things that my college kid left in my basement before he moved to Maine. He will never return for it so I am selectively helping him out by deciding to throw worthless things away for him. Tuesday is predicted to be wet and dreary, so spending time in the basement will be an improvement than being outside. Everyone take care. Thanks for reading......

Indoors and Our of Doors......

I have a few shots of the snow, which was not too impressive of a snow fall, but I wanted to share this window. It is in our spare room where my father-in-law had lived for the last seven years. We put it in when he moved in with us and he really enjoyed it. Last week we ordered another window just like it for our dining room. It will be here by the end of the month and I will be installing it then. It will be great to have that window replaced as the one in the dining room is a very bad window, that someone put in many years ago to replace a long narrow original window. When people with good intentions modernized the house they actually put in windows at the time that looked modern but in reality were less energy efficient than the original windows.





The snow was pretty and now it is gone. Because of the cold, I am reminded that I need to get ready for winter. I bought a new energy efficient door today, that I will be putting in soon, on a warm day. Instead of working on my parents home, I have decided to get things done on our house instead. The house down south will still be there when I get our house done. I also need to clean out my basement.
A new furnace is in order also, and I will blog about that later. Just think that this house has it's original coal furnace in it, that was converted to natural gas, you know we need a new one. I may share pictures and then I may not. A busy week ahead in spite of cold wet weather. Thanks for reading.......

Snow forces the final harvest.....

We had our first measurable snow Friday night and it wasn't too bad. Minneapolis area and western Iowa was hit a lot harder that this.





I went out to take some quick shots and look at this, I forgot to bring in the spider plant. I didn't hang it this year and I thought it looked like a falling water cascading over the top piece. I was given the water fountain a few years back and it has enough of a leak that I would have to keep filling it with water daily. I will put a sealer in the bottom of it next year.




I planted these late and I was a very bad caretaker of them. So I did blog about them earlier and made fun of my lack of discipline. So about four days ago I was so surprised that I had beets that actually matured. I didn't get them pulled Friday night as I know that a hard freeze is easier to get out in the country, in town the the houses keep the temperatures warmert. So when it snowed, I though well I will pull the beets, but after the snow melts. I really like pickled beets so I will have to look up a recipe out of one of my wife's cookbooks.
I brought in the potted agapanthus and various other planters, so our entry to our art gallery is like a green house. I have started to move some of them to the spare downstairs room and eventually I will get them all spread throughout the house. We will get down to 28 degrees F tonight so plants will really get hit tonight. Have a great Sunday. Thanks for reading........

Framing in the Gallery.....

I have three larger frames made for a job that I am doing for a woman with wedding pictures from all sides of her parents family and her own wedding and her children's weddings. Also the one frame will be for her late mother's diploma.


Two other jobs I am doing for myself. I can't stop talking about how my new saw cuts perfect miters. Even when the wood is a little warped it cuts it correctly.


I was a winner from a wonderful blog about the New England area and the Oregon west coast area. It is entitled Barnyards and Barnacles. On it's 100th blog anniversary I won, from a drawing, a beautiful photo in Massachusetts of a wandering tree lined road from Sunny, the blog owner. She sent me a bonus picture of one of her wonderful sheep pictures. I have more fun framing new things that are mine.


I picked out two mat colors that enhanced the sheep's colors and also complemented the frame.



Here lies the final assembly of backing, matted picture, glass on top (that is what the funny glare is all about) and the frame.


The tape gun helps me place a layer of sticky tape on the back of the frame so a paper backing can be put in place like the one done to the left.


I normally use brown paper for backing paper, but we were out of it right now and for our own work that we hang or our walls, we sometimes use the paper from old leftover rolls of wallpaper. We use the paper and it does look nice. The sheep picture is the one in which we only see the back side and the one on the right is the picture that I won.




The final process is to center a alligator hanger and nail it on to the back of the frame and putting bumper pads at the bottom corners. Then we need to go hang our pictures. Thanks again to Sunny for sharing her very professional work. Check our her site.

Friday's Findings

This is a nice little rose that I bought a few years ago. It really has been one that you can only appreciate, by taking photos of it, or bring it in and float it in an antique glass bowl as it is too small to be very showy.






I planted basil between my zinnia rows. Bad idea L.D.because the zinnias overpowered the basil. So next year I will plant it far away from other plants. The smell and taste of basil is so great with fresh tomatoes.






Spider plants are so fun with their little babies developing out on strands, like little spiders. I have planted them in the ground next to the pond, but it is easier to keep them in planters or pots as I don't have to pot them up to bring them in from the cold. They also allow you to see their little off-spring hanging out and about the main plant. Taking it easy on Friday. Thanks for reading.......

Harvest time in Iowa......

Across my street is a row of single lots of houses and then there is the view of these farm fields. At the bottom is my neighbor lady's farm field which this year was sown with alfalfa hay. It was cut three different times yielding bales of hay. I believe she said they had 11 large bales of hay off the last cutting. Probably the farmer will plow this green alfalfa under in a few weeks as green fertilizer and it will be planted in beans or corn next year. Above the hay field is a bean field that is ready to be combined. They will come in with their self-propelled combines and harvest it in an hour or two. The field goes back over the hill quite a way.



In this photo taken to the south of the above photo, you can see the large bales of hay. You may have to click on the picture and enlarge it to see it. It takes a special lift on the front of a tractor to pick each on up off the ground and to be put on a trailer. Usually they can load two of these on one trailer.
When you look beyond the bales you can see the corn field. It really is very green yet as most of the corn in the area has fired, turn yellow and is dead, but this field must have been planted later. This weekend we are forecasted to have a hard freeze. Below zero degrees, C. or below 32 degrees, F. It will be a couple of weeks after that before it will fire.
For all you non-farmers, corn is picked and shelled out in kernel form. When my dad farmed it was sold on the cob, and the buyer would shell it out and store it as kernels.
Anyway, what I wanted to say is that the farmer shells a couple of ears of corn and takes it into a grain co-op and they have it tested to see how dried out that it is, or check it's moisture content. Last week it was testing 23 percent of moisture content so they couldn't pick it yet. The freeze will dry it out and help them get dryer corn. If they pick it too wet, the grain buyers have to put it in storage, where they run a large fan system through it to dry it out. They charge the farmer for that by how high the moisture the content. So a farmer really has to wait to pick when it is dry. Wet corn is a great loss of profit. Wet corn can mold and mildew. That is very bad for our corn flakes.






This is my last batch of rhubarb. The leaves were starting to die and some of the stalks were really getting porous. I cut it all and this is my last harvest. I froze two more, four cup bags of cut up rhubarb, ready for cobbler. My wife and I together made an interesting cobbler also with it. We added two finely cut up apples to the rhubarb. It was a great taste and really cut down on the tartness of the rhubarb. Try it sometime!





The camera picked up strange colors off of this. I think the light reflected off of the oak table and it really read the wrong colors. This is the last of my banana peppers and the few tomatoes that were left. It was a good season for us, and we didn't have to work too hard to get it. Thanks for reading.....