Yep.......it is time.

The mantle is emptied of all the Christmas things and the adding of things back to the spot will happen soon.  The print is already hung, crooked, and the grandsons’s photos are back up there. More will happen, as time goes by. The big tree should disappear in the next two days.

I had some down time this morning and put the time to good use. I completed the top part of my bird feeder. After attaching all the of top pieces to the bottom piece, I moved the feeder out into the open. Maybe  some wild birds will be attracted to it out from under the deck roof.  The feeder is nothing like my old feeder at the old place. The old one was named a Roman Coliseum by one of my British blog friends. This one is a lot less bulking and I think will be good anyway. I put two bricks on the bottom to add some stability.

The box is a symbol of storage of the past Christmas season.  I have better cases for the ornaments but this one will hold the lights and other stray things from the tree.

Our storm was over predicted if you know what I mean.  The kids were glad, as most of them are out school even though not much has happened yet.  I drove to the grocery store early morning to do one last errand and it was not so bad.  I can see if it ever really gets to be freezing that things could get difficult.

It is Tuesday and I hope everything is going well with you all.  Thanks for checking in today.

Monday’s Mustered up Moments.......

It is cold out there while he eats up as much as he can. I guess this position helps to block some of the wind from a gusty day.

Sunday afternoon the day seemed a little strange.  The shot across the street looks cold and a is yellow looking too.  The house is now empty, across the street.  We missed them all with three dogs and two kids.  No more school bus visits in the morning while I am out with Barney.

My first shot of the moon looked like this. The haze over the moon was causing the light to distort into this glowing light.

I did finally get a focused shot but I just didn’t want to deal with a tripod with it being so extremely cold. I was glad that I didn’t know there was a moon eclipse going on or I would have frozen off all my fingers.

We have had so much cloudy weather that I didn’t see the moon change to this stage.  It just showed up a couple of days ago and we had cold clear skies the past two nights.

My wife used her new iPad to capture the old man at work.  I need to improve my technique in pushing the snow blower around.  My wife did take a movie of me but that seemed to be too much to share.

I ventured to the grocery store this morning to stock up on everything. We will be receiving another winter storm tomorrow with freezing rain and snow.  I think we need to warm up a bit before we can get any freezing rain.  I see right now that we will get up to 19 degrees F. as our high temperature. Thanks for checking in today.

Sunday Afternoon Stuff.......

Full moon shows up outside of my living room window.  We have had so many cloudy days that I had not knowing that it had become this.

I sat down in my easy chair and here it was hanging out there in the sky. An evening day moon.  It was too cold to try to take a shot of it again in the night time. Last night I looked up while out with Barney and it was straight above my head.  It was very cold overnight reaching down to 4 degrees F.

I captured the view down my street showing all the busy snow blower work that had been done. The new house down the way has its shingles on it but is hard to see even though it is in the photo.  I discovered while driving along the street south of there, after church, that  another house has popped up almost like overnight.  I had seen the foundation done last weekend. It was really fast work that they put it up though this week. That one is not shingled. It looked like it was a single story house.

These are unusual cloud formations that I saw this afternoon.  I am sure the extreme cold is influencing how they look but that sun is not warming anything up for today. It is a good afternoon to nap as once inside I am going to stay inside. Thanks for checking in today.

Skipping to Saturday.....

I really don’t know how I skipped Friday’s posting but I guess I was distracted. I did get this Toro up and running with little problems.  Human error kept causing me to not get it going but finally I remember to put the spark plug cap back on the plug.  It started right away.  I used this today for the first time experience for me.  It worked well but I kept having nuts vibrate off of things.  The nut that keep the handles tight after they have been folded back, fell off right away.  I found it and returned it to the handle assembly. The nut and washer that held the blower tube in position also fell off and I had to go retrieve another one from the basement, two trips, to get one to hold it it in place.  Without  it not there, the snow blows straight up like a volcano. After those two fixes, I am then off blowing snow.  Being the first time doing it,  I bet I looked pretty silly.  I haven’t got the process of patterns when pushing it up and down the driveway.  I really like to use the snowblower.  People aren’t revealing how much fun it is to use one.

The new feeder is not complete.  I am going to put a flat roof over it to keep all the snow from covering up the seeds.  I did have it in the yard but placed it under the patio for now as I could see the five inch snow covering up what I put out there in the way of seed. It is setting below the deck for now. All scrap wood was used and used nails where used until I ran out of them.  I have plenty of them at the old place.

This is the view looking down from the living room. I probably could get a close up of a red bird but I also could walk downstairs and take a shot through the sliding glass door down there. When I move it out into the yard it will bring in lots of birds.

The begonia is doing well downstairs.  I thought this was an angel wing begonia but I now see that it is not by its leaf shape.

It is nice to have them blooming through out the winter.  I always think of my Aunt Eva, who had dozens of begonias in her garden surround her back door.  They were so big and so many of them.

It was windy this morning when I took Barney outside.  It is cold enough to get frost burn so I stood with my back to the wind. It has calmed down a little now but I did have snow blowing in my face as I used the snow blower.

Everyone have a good weekend and stay safe and warm. Thanks for checking in on me.

Thursday’s Things........

Antique corner in our downstairs shows many old pieces .  Our old house was an old farmhouse and these kind of things fit in well to an old house full of many old rooms.  The group doesn’t really have a place to fit in on the main new floor.  I saw on a show once that the four legged table was called a turkey leg table.  The legs do have a lot of groves that remind one of a turkey’s leg. The chair use to be an old wash house chair and the different stoneware things are from old. My mom used the white bowl to  stirrup dough for bread.

Barney could see out the windows in our new living room when we first moved in a coulee of years ago. This is a photo from when we first moved.  His eyesight keeps failing and I don’t think he sees far enough to look out our window. For some reason though he can see across the street people walking their little dogs.

This is an archived photo of what we  could see out our dining room window at the old place. I am rethinking the idea of making a new tray feeder to try to bring in the cardinals.  I certainly have plenty of scrap wood to make one.

An archived photo of cookies that I really like to eat.  I haven’t bought any for a very long time and that is best for my health not to buy any. We didn’t have grandkids around this Christmas so we didn’t do cookie buying.  I think that some of these would be sent him to the boys and parents.

It is Thursday and we are ready for the storm.  Saturday and Sunday will be bad days for us.  I heard them mention that wind chills being  around -26 degrees F. It is unbearable when we get such strong winds.  I have the beginnings of a tray feeder for the backyard.  It will be freestanding and maybe a covered tray.  Scrap wood is being used.  Thank your for stopping by today.

Streamlined Junco....

The feathers are all in their correct space and the accents of white makes it look more aerodynamic. When the leave a feeder they sometime drop down in a streak headed for more seeds on the ground.

They seem to be the most loyal to eat at the feeders.  Sparrows are the only other kind that are seem to be eating at the feeders right now.

I bought a new sketch book hoping to get me back into being an artist.  It is a fun book with quality paper that I could watercolor in also. So far it hasn’t helped that I haven’t picked up a pencil and use it.

It isn’t a big sketchbook but it will work well for doing small details drawings. If I can just one drawing started maybe I can get more of them done.  A sketch a day would be a good idea. We will see if that every happens.

It is made up into a nice package with the elastic band to help keep in closed when not in use. You can see why I was tempted to buy it.

Two women who were our neighbors at the old place, stopped by to see our newer home.  The Christmas decorations are partially taken down but it was good to be able to show it with some decoration.  The angel collection is still out  as well as the villages.  The two will be the last to be taken down.  The two angels here are actually new ones my wife received a couple of different years in the past.  I could not find any new ones to add to the collection that would fit with the kinds that my wife collects.  I could buy her a santa or a Mickey Mouse done by this artist but not really any angels were left to buy.
The day is cold and crisp with all that snow freezing into crunchy textures.  Barney doesn’t like to walk on it and I don’t blamer him.  It seems colder out there and stocking caps are necessary.  Thanks for stopping by today.

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

The red twig dogwoods are turning to a good color in the winter. I trimmed them back the first year that I lived here and they are now getting tall again.  I am thinking though that I won’t trim them until they get taller than the fence.  I had these at the old place and really like having them in the garden.

I took this shot a week ago and almost did not share it.  The ornaments at the top row are some that I bought twenty years ago.  The were designed to duplicate the early glass blown ones of old. The bottom row I bought thirty five years ago in a mall in Omaha, Nebraska. They seemed meager looking but it was a neat and cheap collection.  Having studied ornament books, they too were created duplicating the early  glass blown ornament.  Notice the acorn and mushroom in this set.  The design was used in the beginning of the making the ornaments. Two stray trees at the top left areanother example of duplication of antique ornament shapes.

One more closer look of the oldie but goodie ones from Nebraska. I remember buying them in a kitchen shop in that mall and the Nebraska Cornhuskers game was on throughout the mall.

If I plan on seeing cardinals this year, I will have to keep this pillow around the house. The patterned chair in the downstair room sure does not blend very well with the pillow.

I have a set of four of these shots of the squirrel.  He was digging down to the pan of birdseed that was buried and frozen in the snow.  I will share a shot a day to show you the antics he was pulling to pull out that frozen food. My birds really have not proved to be too interested in my feeders. I may put one down on the grown below where I am feeding to see if they are avoiding the height of the deck.


We will be melting some today.  It won’t be very warm but it will be enough to melt snow from underneath.  I think more will be coming at the end of the week.  Thanks for checking in on my blog spot today.