Moons and Rivers

 The humidity was high and the moon had to shine through it. I did get a focus on it, The wind was strong and the temps were at 80 degrees F. at ten o'clock at night. It was a strange sensation of heat on the body as the wind blew the heat in your face while standing in the middle of the street. 

 The morning was also a warm start at 76 degrees F, the low for the night. It did stay hazy for most of the day with the hot sun coming out every once in a while.  I spent my morning watering things. We have high concentrates of nitrate in our rivers from the farm chemicals so it has to be treated to bring the level down a bit. It is our cause of our high cancer rate in the state, we rank at number two state in the nation. The water plant does not want any watering of the treated water as they are just barely keeping up. I used my water barrel supply and carried it everywhere. 

 My newest lily to bloom looks like this. I like it better than the one larger one that I have that is similar.

 I filled the one red feeder this morning. I messed with its seal and got the thing to not drip any more. 

 I had placed a bowl under it to stop if from dripping. I got the chipmunk addicted to shurga as he kept coming up for more. 

 

When the bowl was cleared he would lick it up off the deck. Now that it doesn't drip anymore I can take the bowl away.

 Down on the ground the hosta are doing well. I never expected them to get this big but I like it. I don't thin my plants out but I may have to do so in the fall. I shared a lot of them with friends a couple of years ago and it looks like they could come back for more. 

 I have three boxes of vines and they seem to be slow growing. I watered them this morning to encourage them. There are trellis waiting for them to climb up them any time now.

I went to bring in the garbage bin and the mail this afternoon. It is not nice out there. I see the winds got so strong in northern Iowa that there were windmills broken off. The winds are strong and the heat with high humidity continues.  

Thanks for checking in today. 

 

Don't Go Outside

 Two young mourning doves came to the tray, trying to figure out what they are suppose to do. The sparrow doesn't look happy of them occupying half the feeder. 

 The revived sets of blooms are the second round for this rose bush. I gave the bush a good trimming but part of it is already putting out these new blooms.

 I like to catch the buds and this one is from the other bush near my outdoor steps. I too thought it was dead but it did come back strong.  I have some dead sections yet to cut away from it but it still is blooming. 

 I keep thinking the feeder is empty by now but there are a two that just keep feeding. I guess I can go out at night to change it and fill it as its too busy for me to take it away.

 I have more lilies that are blooming so I need to get out and take some new shots. We hit a high of 91 degrees F. today. It is an amazing weather as we have strong winds and strong sunlight. Also the humidity is high so while going outside one feels overwhelmed. Hopefully tomorrow we have better weather.

Thanks for stopping by today. 

 

Saturday

 We have had a cooler day today and I got all of the front roses pruned back. They will reset blooms pretty quickly once I finished that. I trimmed back in large branches than one set of blooms at a time. It will help the plant to bush up bigger and better. The winter kill was hard on them but they seem to do pretty good for older plants 

 I also got most all of the spent blooms taken away from this bush. It wasn't going to wait around for me to get it dead headed but I know that it will still really take off again.  I cleaned u some peony heads that I just didn't get time to work on. I also got in behind the rose and cleaned out a lot of unwanted growth of water grass. 

 With all the unnecessary growth cleared I could get in and get good shots of the day lily. It has such great color.  It is not planted in a good area now as the red bud tree and rose seems to overtake it and keeps us from seeing it easily. I may make a decision to just move it to somewhere else in the back yard. It might even look good in the front yard. 

 The cottage garden area is filling in with the next set of blooms. I have a tiger lily about to blooms and other flowers to fill in the area with new blooms. 

 An update on the cleaned tank, which now shows some more greens to make it look better. I have guppies in there for now and they are liking all of the clean water. 

 One other update for the day is Cheeto the zebra finch is doing well. The rescued bird was being pecked in a community of birds. He was placed in a separate cage at the store and then sold to me for rehabbing. He is all all filled out with good feathers with great color. His legs are good and all of his vitamin water that I gave him has brought him to better health. He enjoys his new female partner and they have been moving nesting materials into the big nest. I was happy to see how quickly he came around from the codnition he was in when I bought him. He crows and chirps all through the day living the good life. 

Thanks for stopping by today. 

 

Heating Up Again

 

 A lily that I can only photograph by zooming in as it is behind peonies and irises. It is a lighter colored lily of the one other one that I have. I remember that I had to take the same kind of picture last year with it up against the fence. 

 This honeysuckle is blooming again. I don't remember it ever doing that before but it likes the rains that we were getting. 

 

This day lily keeps putting out these great red blooms. The heat is hard on them so I have to keep water on them in the mornings. 

The circle garden in the front yard is doing great. Things are maturing and I keep it watered often. I got to weed it some today while talking with my neighbor. We sometimes have long visits and I just reach down a pull weeds through it. Greg even points out the weeds I should deal with. He hates wild vines.

I mowed both my front and back yards today. I had to use the grass catcher as the buildup was looking bad. I got to use the grass clipping on my tomato patch mulching everything. I also used some of the grass in the back corner to mask out some weeds that I didn't want to pull.  It was really not too hot and I was done before the heat started to set in. We are headed for very high temps the next few days. Maybe the growth of the grass will slow down a bit. 

Thanks for checking in today. 

Thursdays Things

 The beginning of a hot day. I guess we are going to be hotter. The clouds have been covering the sun for most of the day.

 

 

 

 This is a new bloom in the garden. I have always like this one. Its history is the purchase of it at an arboretum sale. It was a sale with no identity, take a chance sale. I moved it down from the old place and more blooms are on their way.

I worked in the garden on my hands and knee pad, moving and spacing out the new zinnia plants.  I dug a few extras today and moved them into my raised bed tomato patch. Hopefully they get rooted in before we get too hot. I dug iris today that were being crowded out by lily of the valley. It was difficult getting them out of there as all the roots of the lily were entangled all around the iris. I planted them in a new area where I will treat them special for a few days. Some of the iris that I moved a couple of weeks ago are now sprouting new growth. That is encouraging as I know I should wait until fall. 

I also dug out an iris from the overgrowth of hosta. I let the hosta grow next to them and now they too have crowded out the iris. It is my large white iris and I made a little bit of headway with the job by getting a few rhizomes out of the hosta. I still have more to do tomorrow. The white grows in other areas but these didn't bloom this year because of overcrowding. 

Happiness is having a cleaned fish tank. I put guppies in it this morning and they were so happy to have fresh water. I did put some more plants into it after I took the shot. I like to use the old waste water for watering the plants inside and out. 

I got too hot again working outside.this morning. I will start earlier tomorrow as I have some grass to mow.  I share a strip of grass next to the neighbor and when he mows I need to mow. His grandson mowed it today and I will do that strip first thing tomorrow so his front yard and mine too will look good.  I have a bunch of roses that need to be dead headed when I run out of things to do. 

Thanks for checking in today. 

Middle of the Week

 The sun hides behind the clouds and the two trees. Our earth starts to tilt back now. We have a humid hot day ahead of us and the clouds have cleared. We have hot sun and it will stay that way for most of the day. We won't be cooling down much at night.

 I worked with my second half of my zinnia plantings this morning. They were planted a couple of weeks later so they are just now big enough for me to move around and get in order. I don't need straight rows but I do want  a strong looking flower bed. I dug up bunches ans spread them into areas with no plants at all. It got to be too hot for me but I did finish. I got out the garden hose and sprayed them in with a fine mist to get the roots to settle in better. 

 This is my first patch and I am happy with the layout of the plants on this one. I have to hand pulll the water grass from the bed as I transplant things. 

 As I just scatter plants around the place these host are looking good next to my platform at the gate. It is the second year of growth on the now.

 The row here of hosta also are filling in nicely. It looked like a good place to put them as the gap between the yard and the steps wasn't growing things very well. The grass can't be mowed there easily so the hosta make a good liner. 

 

 

 I promised to share the visuals of this old church in downtown Des Moines. It is said that it was designed off of the Pantheon with its center open sanctuary and front columned entrance. The pipes for the organ are covered with cloth panels instead of being traditionally exposed. The balconies had individaul ceiling skylights of stained glass windows. The building is on the National Registry and any remodeling must be done to code of the original design.  It was completed in 1908. 

 Thanks for stopping by today.

 

An Outing

 

We took a break today and visited one of our bookstores. It was good weather and it was time for an adventure. Our coffee and scones tasted good and we searched through a lot of books and magazines. 

 

Back home the day lilies are opeing up new blooms each day. The red one that turns to brown as it ages has some really great color. 

 The   has a couple of more buds opened and there are a few buds that are maturing. The front circle garden is shaping up as the different flowers planted there are maturing and filling in the blank spaces. 

 I water the hanging basket in the circle garden daily as they don't really put real soil in those. It is easy for them to dry out in just one day and they look bad for the rest of the season. I planted some small canna tubes in that area and I thought they were not going to grow. I was wrong as I have four canna plants shooting up. I doubt they will get very big but they will add foliage to fill in the spaces. It was a variety pack and I see I have one purple leafed canna coming up among the green ones.

 The begonia that I carried over through the winter inside, is now showing off in the out of doors.  It never really stopped blooming inside during the winter but it is really doing better outside in daylight.

We didn't get free pie today with lunch as this is Tuesday. If we had come on Monday the crush burgers would have been only five dollars. It is the way it works. The place wasn't very crowded but was understaffed. We did enjoy eating out and it made the adventure complete.

Before we made it to the bookstore we stopped to get fish food at the pet store. We had a chance for a wonderful golden retriever come up to us and lean in for some petting. He had a four year old boy attached to him and the mom apologized. We said it was such a treat to pet such a nice, friendly dog. She had her hands full with a stroller and small baby, the little boy hanging onto the leash, and the dog going anywhere it wanted to go. It was fun to see all the dogs that were visiting with their owners today. 

Thanks for stopping by today.