Friday's Findings........

The rains have set in and will stay for quite a while.  It sounds like we may see sunshine by Sunday. I can't be sure in this house that it is raining. To know if it ism I look out at the deck to see if the deck  is reflecting back at me.

Barney has had his breakfast fill and now is down for most of the day.  We warm our living and dining area with the fireplace on cold mornings. The furnace stays off when we do that and it keeps us from heating the whole house. Barney doesn't like rainy days so he won't ask to go outside very much. He has learned to look out the windows that are down low in the living room.  We have decided that when he barks while looking through the one window that he is barking at the fake, plastic Canada geese in the yard down below.

Things have been put away enough that I now can photograph this area. No boxes sitting around, at least in this area. On a dark day the light does a good job of filling in light on the one side of the room. The oak antique furniture blend in well with our new furniture.  Our bedroom furniture is a strongly influenced in design by Arts and Crafts design so it looks a little different than our  oak dressers and chest of drawers.  Ironically the old oak pieces that we already owned originally were covered with dark varnishes. This one was painted green.  I did have to make a special trip to the hardware to find screws to fit the pulls.  The size really isn't being made anymore but they found one that would thread on and hold the pull tightly to the draw. I had dangling pulls or three of the different pieces.  For safety we put two screws on each bolt to keep everything secure.

I placed the flowers into the light of the sliding glass door so I could get good photos.  The old fashion yellow and brown iris is the next cemetery iris to bloom.  I keep trying to dig portions of them when I see what is blooming.  I know I won't get everything moved to the new place but I will at least try. The small lavender one is one that I want to seek out again and be sure that I have a piece of its rhizome.  The colors are so similar with some of them that I have to look closely to see the differences of them.

I mowed most of the yard yesterday at the old place.  It was good that I did it then as we are now hemmed in with rain for quite a while. The grass has slowed down a lot already as we move on past spring. I don't have any power on my push mower at the old place so I end up mowing that in two different days. The orchard is still full of wild violets so I don't worry about cutting them down anyway. I did notice that out cherry bushes will not have fruit this year.  I did see them flower but I think a freeze took them out. I really didn't check out the apple trees to see how they fared from a freeze.  I definitely had lot of blooms on the apple trees.

Thanks to all who identified this as a geranium.  I remember I had tried to grow one of this kind and failed.  Now that I know that this is a geranium I then started calling the other geranium plant, that is sold everywhere for summer bloom, the hardy geranium.  They are definitely two different kinds of plants. I brought my one hardy geranium with me and it is very much alive.  It is in its adjusting period from being placed outside but it will bloom again.

When I shared with my blogging friends at the beginning of buying the newer house, I had commented that downtown Des Moines is directly south of us.  I did't really know that we can take an offbeat highway at the bottom of our subdivision and drive straight down to the downtown area. It is nine miles that takes us along a river plain and an old town called Highland Park. We first pass through the town directly across the division to us called Saylorville, of which the lake is named after.  When we hit the end of the road we take a jog or two up the hill to get to the hospital. We also can take the same road and are close to my wife's friend who lives in an apartment west a mile or two of the road.  It surprised us as to how close it all is an how often we will be using that road.

We will be hitting NW 6th drive again this morning to make a hospital visit.  We have stopped counting the days since our first visit and know there will be many more of them.. I wish everyone to have a great day today. Thanks for stopping by my posting today,

Thursday's Things.....

The iris continues their normal blooming cycle in their vase. I have to deadhead the spent blooms while the new buds have opened over night.

The colors of the old fashion iris are more red than purple.  The pattern on the falls of the iris make it look exotic.  Some people compare them to an orchid even though they shapes are so much different and the bloom life of the iris is so much shorter.

I plan to return to the old place today and hope to find some new iris in bloom.  A hail storm and hard winds happen there last night so I will see what kind of damage was done to them. I know that there were buds on the white iris and maybe I will see blooms today.

The area under my deck steps is well planted to look like a jungle.  The area is in the shade because of the deck and also because it in the northeast side of the house. As I study what is growing there I may add more things but I will wait until fall.  I have a planted hosta in a nice pot that adds to the area sitting on the edge of the garden.

We spent most of the day at the hospital as my wife's cousin was back in the operating room.  The patient had improved just enough that they wanted to do a follow-up surgery to finalize work done previously.  All the time we were at the hospital we were warned of tornado possibilities. Special directions were given to stay out of the waiting room part where there was a bank of windows.

When we arrived home I immediately took Barney outside.  It was thundering out there but within less than a minute we were blasted with a monsoon downpour of rain.  I had to drag Barney back into the house because instantly we were experiencing the 70 mile an hour wind.  We both were soaked to the bone. It started in an instant without any warning and visibility disappeared as the trees bent in the wind and the water blew the water sideways. Hail was coming down for a brief moment while we were getting shaken off from all the rain.

Barney had to wait until the storm passed to go outside.  When we did go, it was so damp and still sprinkling.  Having two yards that need to be mowed, the rains will help make the grass grow so much more. I plan to mow the old place's yard sometime today.

I wish everyone to have a great day.  Thanks for stopping by today.

Wednesday's View......

The deck was wet this morning so I knew it had rained.  Storms were strong at our old place with neighboring towns having a lot of wind damage. We are expected to have more rain storms throughout the day.

The plant at the front door is now in full bloom.  One blogger gave me a suggestion of it being a geranium plant.  It was a name that I had never heard of before and this is a plant that I have not seen either.  It is a very robust plant and looks great right now.  I will be watching to see how it weathers through the summer or if it dies back.

The pot above is temporarily sitting on the step.  I brought it home with the agapanthus in it.  I was going to repot it until I read that it likes to be crowded in a pot.  I have added some fresh soil to it from the top and I still have to trim back the dead leaves.  The article I read stated that it could take 3 to 4 years for one to bloom once it was planted in a pot.  I know they grow freely as a lily in states like California. I see the plant as a background filler in landscape magazine photos.

A bucket of blooms from the old place sit there waiting for me to put them into vases.  I visited the house and picked them, placing the only thing I could find in the basement that held water and flowers.

The day will be another day of visits to the hospital.  I wanted to go mow sometime today at the old house but we are to have rain off and on all day.  I will have to wait until tomorrow and push harder to get through the tall grass. We are weary from all that is going on but we are up to the task.  I wish everyone a great day.  Thanks for stopping by today.

Tuesday's Tidbits.....

It isn't a fall photo but one of the sunshine showing through base leaves of the maple tree. Most of them are a dark reddish color but these that sprout out from the bottom of the tree trunk are leaves of a different color.

I have never owned one of these vines before now.  I am not knowing the name but it has flower buds that seem familiar.  It is growing on the southeast side of the house in clay soil. The leaves with white lines dividing them into four parts makes it an unusual leaf.

I am assuming that this is a knock out rose.  This is the first bloom of the three sets of rose bushes.  I am debating the digging of the one bush and moving it to another location. It had died down from the winter weather and it would make it easier to dig and move as a small shrub.

We want to hit a nursery soon to look for new flowers and maybe a different shrub.  I did see a Japanese maple at the Wally mart but I want to think about that before I buy it.  In time they can get to be larger that what a typical shrub grows so you can't place it up close to a house.

The planting of the hosta plants really does make all those rocks look better. Most of them really like their new location.  I dug rocks out and put in black dirt before planting them. I have had to water them to keep them going and with our really high temps I will continue to do so.

We are still making trips to the downtown area to the hospital where my wife's cousin was admitted.  We make trips down and space the visits during the day.  She is in ICCU and doesn't know that we have visited. Either way, we are the only family that is in the state that can visit so we will be going back today. Her kids are on the west coast and her husband is unable to visit. We went one evening the first day she was there and decided it was not necessary to be out at night in the downtown area. When they are in intensive care they are getting 24 hours of care for the best that they can give.

I will sneak up to pick up the mail at the old home and see if everything is good.  I know that the yard is probably needing some work but will put that off for a couple of days. The Woodward area received large rains last week which will make the yard grow faster than the one at our newer home.

I hope all is well with you and thanks for stopping by today.

Monday......

A blurry impression of what I could see. The neighbor's iris are blooming and the rabbit is resting. My camera just could not reach that far to pick up those wonderful flowers. I am jealous of the iris as I have only meager starts of plantings in my yard.

Barney took me outside to see this wonderful sky view.  The colors were changing quickly as the light clouds reflected the light.

New plates intended for patio use are decorated wonderfully were a gift to my wife yesterday. The graphic design is so great with eh flowers and butterflies. An added hummingbird is perfect to the plate's design.

Two sizes of plates and a couple of bowls will be fun to use as we eat out on the deck.

I am staying home today from working at the old house, as we will be doing hospital visits throughout the day for my wife's cousin.  She is on her fourth day of intensive care from two surgeries. We are the only family here in Iowa so we will do what we can do. We have a back road, street, that gets us to the hospital in 9 miles. We are choosing to make trips instead of staying the whole day.

Our day seems to be looking really good but a warm morning means we will have a very hot afternoon.  I wish everyone to have a great day. Thanks for stopping by today.

Sunday Mother's Day.....

The iris bloomed out in the old canning jar showing its frilly white and pattern on the falls. The jar looks like it isn't one of my best ones.  I think I grabbed it out of the garden shed and I can see now I didn't change the flowers to a better jar.

This is a repost of a shot showing the two different kinds of iris that I collected.  I should have a few more kinds blooming soon.  I will share them as they bloom. As I move the plants to the new place, I am confident that they will survive. They grow in really tough kinds of soils in all the cemeteries and have done so for years. My clay soil really should not bother them much even though I am putting some good Iowa dirt in the hole as I plant them.

I have planted hosta plants in my rock gardens and the Iowa dirt goes right in the hole with them.  Every single one that I have planted is doing well and they all are perking up from their move.

As my wife gets moved into her new place you can see all the clutter that comes with that. We can now start to sort out art stuff and can now set up the second basement studio. We are going to have a painting studio next to the sliding glass doors in the walk out basement. It will be nice to get both areas established and then the rest of things can be sorted. The floor installer asked if we have had to wait a long time for the floor.  It was a silly question as he knew he had been delayed two weeks from when he first started.  I explained that once you order the floor you wait a week to have it be shipped to the store. Then you pay them. Then they set up the installation for two more weeks later, in our case it was four weeks later.

A part of the move is to distribute the books into three different locations with large shelving plus into two smaller bookshelves that hang out in a bedroom and a downstairs bedroom. We gave away a lot of books to Goodwill but we still have plenty to arrange.

It is Sunday and we will eat out for Mother's day.  Afterwards we need to visit my wife's first cousin who is seriously ill in the hospital. Neither of the cousin's children live near in the state and are on the west coast.  We are going to have to help with the situation.  Maybe today she will be out of intensive care and we can see some improvement in her.  It is so great to live closer to the Des Moines area as that has make it easier to do visits.

I wish you all to have a great day today.  Thank you for stopping by today.

It is about Time.........

We finally found a clock that was fitting to hang on our kitchen wall.  The ceiling is vaulted so the space above the kitchen cupboards is vast and vacant looking. The clock is made with real wood, jointed together, to make the circle shape. The works of the clock are real-looking metal pieces made of plastic.  We liked it and it fits in to what we have arranged here. We had looked in so many stores to find the clock and this was at Bed, Bath and Beyond.

It is very hard to make arrangements like this when you have to stand on the kitchen counter to do it. The ledge of the top of the cupboards are very strong but I had to keep one hand on it continually while I was placing items. My wife would stand back and help make the decisions on the placement of things. Nothing in the display is permanent and we do have many more things boxed in the basement that may be replacing the present items. I can visualize some small metal things hanging from the wall.  I don't own any old metal signs and a license plate won't work.

It had been a month since we wrote the check for a new floor and when we received the product.  There were things that slowed it all down, in our getting a new floor,r but it seemed to be a slower business than I would have imagined. The before picture here show what the raw floor looked like when the house was first built. It is amazing how the painters do what they do and how they leave such interesting pattenrs in the center of the room and along the walls.

The after view is quite a transformation.  It is a laminate which really is not intended for a lifetime of wear and tear.  It was the product that works for us and what our use of it will be. Carpet could easily be put back down but we won't be doing that.

The room was one of three bedrooms on the main floor. We will turn it into an office and art studio for my wife. Here you can see the bedroom closet which will be great for her to store her art supplies.  I want to put in portable shelving to make the storage more efficient.

The floor will be a better choice for an art room with products that accidentally land on the floor. They can easily be cleaned up. The pattern of the floor is nicer than we thought. When you look at a short sample your don't really get to see the full pattern view. I know that I will share more photos with the furniture moved into the room.  It will be nice to move it all in and continue the moving process that we had halted while waiting for the installation.

Our kitchen window view is not as impressive as the one we had in the old house. Our ledge is small and only the small blues can be placed on the ledge. The view of the patio will be nicer as I get plants growing on the deck.

The stems of iris buds did perform for me by opening to normal blooms.  This is one of my cemetery iris varieties.  I did bring roots of this to the new house. I planted more iris and hosta plants in the new garden area yesterday.  I also moved big rocks around in the rock garden and placed hosta plants in areas to make that area to look less like a desert. Yes, I am too old to be moving large rocks and I promised myself yesterday that I won't be doing that anymore.

We are both exhausted from all that goes on around here so we will take today off.  Our weather is really pleasant and we like not having to wear coats any more.


Thank you for stopping by today.