Tuesday’s Here.....

A hot summer bargain that I can grow inside this fall. I haven’t had a begonia for a long time and I could not pass on this beauty.

My newer rose has returned with more blooms.  This is its second round of buds on this rose.

It is good when a volunteer tomato is actually one of my favorite varieties. The yellow pear tomato was in the main raised-bed last year.  I am not sure how the seed traveled that ten feet.

It isn’t impressive at this time but the William Baffin rose has been planted.  I am so frustrated with the clay soil on my property.  I know builders think I should only grow grass but their layer of clay in hot weather becomes really hard.  I couldn’t get a spade into the ground where I had originally decided to plant.  Instead I  put it up agains the house where the asparagus plants struggle to produce.

The tiger lily has always been a fascinating bloom for me.  As a kid, it seemed to be unreally to see a flower that looked like that. I have never seen any other color of the lily but I do know there are some out there.  I don’t see them on the market at regular nurseries.

I am traveling to the old place today and will see what the weather effects have done to the place. I will get the old truck and journey to do some more work.  Thanks for stopping by today.

Five out of Five........

There is a lot of color out there as many things seem to be in bloom at the same time. We have hit full summer now with the drying grass and the lack of rain. Monday does seem to be sluggish coming out of the weekend.   Thanks for checking in today.

Sunday’s Showing.....

Saturday’s Report........

Teddy loves cars.  He can spend a lot of time moving them around and making sounds to go with the movement.

AJ looks older with his glasses.  He has a lazy eye that causes the guy  to  block his view in one of his eyes each day.  The time can be an hour long, but if he gets to use the tablet he may even sit longer with it covered. AJ starts kindergarten this fall.

These sunflowers have various heights.  They will all be the same height eventually and probably bloom at different times. The one plant on the right has adjusted to its band aid where he had bent over and broken the stem. I am not certain that it will keep and stay growing but it is worth the try. If it stops woking the leaves will wilt instantly. Right now it has numerous wires holding it to two different stakes to keep it vertical.

The tomatoes are slow to ripen but I do think that will pick up in the future.  I am still watering them daily as we have large cracks  in the ground.  I don[t want any of my leaves to wither.

The front planter on main street seems to look good.  I think my last years’ planter was little more showy as I had cannas in there to give the area some more height.

We did hit the bookstore today and it was nice to get out.  We had a bout of salmonella poisoning a couple of weekends ago and my wife is now a lot better.  The store finally told the whole state that they had pulled the spring salad from their shelves.  The celery was bad.  I don’t eat celery because of my allergy to it so it left me free to help out my wife. The discovery seemed to be from a batch that was made by a company back in June 22nd. The public was not informed until July 9th.  She is all good now but it was not a good experience. Getting the refund from the product doesn’t quite seem to be the balance to seven to eight days of continue pain and nausea.

There is not flooding or tornadoes in our near future now.  It seems quite on the central Iowa front.  My neighbor did say the he saw the funnel cloud on the east end of town before it took off to terrorize the 5 towns with lots of damage.  Thank you for stopping by today.

Weather!!!!!!

The deceiving clouds that turned into destruction.  The sirens were blaring and it seemed like a perfectly normal summer day.  At the north end of town,  dry tornado spouts were moving east sending off three different fronts of clouds.  All of the conditions were perfect for making dry tornadoes.

This is more than a casual cloud as it was dropping tornadoes onto the Pella, Iowa area. The major plant of Vermeer (Caterpillar) was being destroyed. Parking lots of cars destroyed and most all roofs on the plants were removed. Our friends in Marshalltown were safe but their downtown area was destroyed and many homes were lost to these dry tornadoes.  I have never heard of tornadoes without rain and hail.  I guess they were like the whirl wind dust twisters that you sometimes see.  The difference is that the 115 mile per hour winds and the twisters included just clears everything in its path. They are now reporting that 27 tornadoes developed from this cloud.

By Thursday evening we were left with these different kinds of clouds. We cooled off and cities and towns all east of us are still picking up the pieces. The cell phone cameras were on extra duty yesterday as people captured shots of buildings be destroyed, cars flying in the air,  and a clock steeple being blown off the tower of a court house. Weather that did have rain was unusual as for me I was rained on at the town’s brush dump yesterday. My time while unloading the truck of limbs and branches was one with a continual downpour.  My clothes were soaked and I was glad I had an extra shirt in the truck.

I did take this feeder down last evening.  The many newly hatched birds were learning how to pick seed from the feeder rather to learn to go out into the real world to find seed.  The numbers were just too many, as I would seed dozens of birds fly in and out all day.  Flocks of birds would fly away and another flock would fly in to eat. A few slow learner are out there looking for the feeder and are wondering what happened.  The finch feeder will stay up as they are not such a large bunch of birds.

I have seen a couple of hummingbirds at my feeder but they are slow to learn about its being there. I don’t even get a chance to take a photo as they flit in and out.  Once they get used to it I do know they will linger and enjoy the free sugar water.

The cowbirds keep hanging around on the deck as long as I put seed in this plastic container. A statement that I found about this bird is informative. “ They are brood parasites, laying their eggs in the nest of other species.”  The behavior of laying an egg into some other’s nest causes the eventual hatching of a larger bird that crowds out the others. The owners of the nest remain loyal to the cow bird chick until it leaves the nest.

It is a day of projects again for today. I don’t have any more new plants to put in but I may be transplanting a few plants to a new locations.  I do want to  mention that I did get my mums all trimmed back on time this year. My deadheading of the knock out roses has already brought  new buds to form.  We are having a cool day today.  Thanks for stopping by today. 

Truck Magnet.....

The oldest grandson announced that he wanted to ride in my truck.  He got to take a ride before they left. He went with me all by himself and had to sit on a pillow to see out the front window.  As in the top photo, the younger grandson really wasn’t too impressed with the truck.

The milk can was temporarily place and I like it there for now I sat a potted red hardy geranium plant behind it so it is a balanced display.  I don’t even want to revisit the milk can story with you involving my BIL At the present time I have four or five of them on the property.  I did exchange this one can with a smaller one so things blend in better.

The evening sky looks like this late in the day.  The days are shortening and yet our days are still long.

When the shutter stays open, I move a little sideways making the moon fatter than it really is. It is a fine sliver of a moon but I just couldn’t do it last night.

I grow zinnias for number of reasons but the butterfly draw would be one of the major ones.  I do like all the different kinds of flowers of a zinnia that you get when you plant a mixed set of seeds.  They are a tough plant that grow quickly and are as tough as my sunflowers. When they are that easy to grow it just must be done.  They really are more exciting than a couple of rows of peas and beans.

Cooler weather today with a breeze. We had the threat of rain early morning but it was too far north of us. I will make a trip to the farm today with some goals in mind.  Thanks for stopping by today.

Middle of the Week.......

The promise of more blooms is shown by how many buds that will be in line to bloom one day at a time. I have the other twin of this daylily shown below.

The more orange lily with the darker red target shape did photograph well today. It is interesting how the breeders can get some similar results with different colors.

While out at the tree dump site yesterday,  I caught a photo of one of these wild phlox.  I have seen photos of them but it was my first real live view.  There were wild morning glories everywhere growing among the hemp plants but I couldn’t get a good focus of them because they were pure white.  I was in a hurry also to get back to the house to get another load of branches.

 I brought back a phlox bouquet from the old place yesterday. I did decide to bring some of this to the new place after it is finished blooming. I won’t bring any of that creeping Charlie with me.  I inspect all of the soil and roots of anything I move so that I won’t get any of that weed.  I did hear from my neighbor that his daughter down the street had Charlie and he asked what chemical to I use for it.

A correction that I need to make about the identity of this plant.  I did call it something else but while at the nursery a couple of days ago that it is Russian sage.  They former owner has it planted in a strange way along the peony bushes.  I am going to move it so it looks like a bush and not a gangly plant.

The nursery  at Home Depot have dropped some of their prices as they hot summer sets in and makes it hard to add plants to the garden. I mentioned earlier that I bought a climbing rose which will plant and grow easily durning this weather.

Looking down to the flower garden shows things are growing well. I have a few spaces yet that I can fill in but will wait and see how the existing plants fill in more. The small structure is there on a trial run to see if i like it there.  I have another one at the farm that is taller and I may bring it down to put there.  Either one that I use will have to have a coat of paint.

The wounded sunflower has been giving a lot of attention.  It doesn’t wilt so maybe my mending procedures will save it. The plant grows so fast that maybe it will just heal over and shoot up stronger than ever. For someone who thought about not growing, being me, I have seven of them in the garden again this year.  They are fun to watch grow.

This is a resting day for me as I did a lot of sawing of sucker trees off of the property and ended up with two truck loads to dump.  I still have things to do around the house but not with such intensity on the muscles. Thanks for stopping by today.