Thursday, October 31, 2013

Interior World.......


This shot reminds me of the close up shots that movie makers use when they have fairies or avatar characters in their movies. The depth of the photo looks like a perfect place for some being to live in the shrub.  Star Wars had bear-like creatures living in trees while the elves of Rivendale or the elves that live in the woods walked up into the trees to live. Avatar had their  tall blue people living among the branches with flying creatures as their means of transportation.

The burning bush has not turned yet while my neighbors shrub is completely red and leaves are following. I have one that seems to be planted too close to a tree and it is struggling to stay alive due to the summer's lack of moisture.  We had a great rain yesterday. 

Wednesday, October 30, 2013

Silver Maple..........


I have three of these trees on my property.  They have become so overgrown with large limbs that they tend to lose their beauty.   I still like them with all their leaves are on them in the spring and I know their history is long in years.  Sections of it keep breaking off after the wood has died out and they fall to the ground in strong winds.  The leaves should turn a stronger yellow as time goes by if they don't drop off during the next two days of rain.

Tuesday, October 29, 2013

Behind the Shed.......


The dog fencing that would not contain an insecure border collie, leftover eavestrough and trellis material salvaged from somewhere, all seems to have landed behind my garden shed.  There is an old carpenters table under these things and a few barn boards from the tornado 6 years ago. All of it is waiting for someone, I don't know who, to put it to use, give it away or throw it away for good. This area is actually quite neat looking after I threw away some weathered old windows and a bad ladder.

Monday, October 28, 2013

Another Shot.......


The tree is very yellow now and I will get out and take a new picture soon. It is cool and windy again today.

Sunday, October 27, 2013

Sunday.......


The sidewalk is old, created by a government program, to give young men work.  It has held up pretty well considering its age.  The top concrete has worn away and the rock is revealed.  The leaf is stationary for only a moment as the wind sends it on its way. More leaves will fall soon as the tree turns to red and then they fall.

Saturday, October 26, 2013

Wild Animal........


Since I couldn't get the wild rose bush to come into focus, one can just focus on Barney.  The wind was blowing and causing the stems to swing back and forth.  Barney was standing very still  as to watch the neighbor's dogs in their backyard.  If they needed to be corrected he would bark at them to act better. There was not let up on the strong gusts of wind as the cold air keeps moving into our area.  It is fall weather for sure and the last local football game was played in the cold.

Friday, October 25, 2013

On the Corner........


It is Friday and I am home today.  I plan on  recouping today.  The body does sort of hit the wall and you have to rebuild some strength.  I hope you all have a good day and have a great weekend.  Thanks for stopping by today.

Friday............


The final day of the week and the trees are gradually changing.  The cooler weather makes is seem more like fall even though we are staying green with grass and trees havinb subtle changes.

Thursday, October 24, 2013

Glazed......


The pots that I created as demonstrations are finally finished.  I subbed in the art room for a few days and demonstrated the potter's wheel.  I ended up with four different pieces. I subbed another day in there a week or so ago and had time to get glaze brushed on them.  I was not familiar with any of the glazes so it was really an challenge of reading the labels and guessing the colors.  Glaze turns color after it is heated so you may put a light color glaze on a pot and it turns blue when fired. The one bowl looks like I had squirted chocolate syrup in it.

Wednesday, October 23, 2013

Fall Winds..........


Sometimes the squirrels go through a maple tree and they bite off small ends of the branch and they fall on the ground.  The popular is such a soft wood that the ends of the tree just breaks off in the wind.  I am amazed how these keep getting blown into my back yard from the orchard area.  They have to be blown over a fence and near an ash tree to get there.

Tuesday, October 22, 2013

Green Tomatoes.............


I went out last evening and picked the last of them.  They will probably turn color and ripen.  It seems stranger to pick them with the summer being so strange.  Our last snow fall was May 1st and now we are facing snow today or tomorrow. 

Monday, October 21, 2013

Apples and Pear............


It is cold out there today.  My thermometer said it was 33 degrees F.  One degree above freezing could mean that it was colder as the house holds some heat to cause it not to be accurate.  I will know for sure as I watch to see plants being frost bit and the extra fruit on the trees turns brown.

Sunday, October 20, 2013

Corn.........of many colored kernels.



I don't know what the politically correct word is for this kind of corn so I will call it multi-colored corn. We don't intend to be insensitive to anyone, we just need to rename things.  I bought these ears of corn a few years back and I never did get some of it planted to grow my own.  Maybe next spring it will happen.


I like how there are three genetic varieties in the corn.  I doubt there will be any other mixtures take place if they were grown together.

A story from my past as a farm boy is having my dad patiently letting me throw kernels of this kind of corn into the round planter boxes of his four row corn planter.  The seed was scattered throughout the corn field as he planted it and the stray seed grew among the normal corn plants.  My dad was a little bit creative too as myself as he knew we would not see the new corn until it was picked and came in as ear corn in the wagon.

Back then the corn was picked as ears of corn and it was stored in bins with the seed kernels on the cob. There was not fancy machine to shell the corn while it was being picked. Wow what a world that would have been back then.   When my dad would dump the ear corn into the hopper of the elevator he would pick it out from the regular ears of corn. Sometimes I would be there on weekends and I could see those special ears on the heap of ear corn as it was coming in from the field.  It was like viewing Christmas lights seeing them among all that yellow.  I still enjoy the colored corn.  I would like to grow some of the blue corn someday also.


Saturday, October 19, 2013

Corn Patch.......


My visit to the corn field across the street gave some interesting sights in which to take pictures. The sun was shining brightly and it enhanced the colors. 


The rows of corn are magical as you can see down the line until the corn rows take a turn.  There are two good size ears on the each stalk so this farmer will have a good harvest. I would expect the harvest of this field to happen soon.  I am sure the farmer has larger acreages that he is dealing with as this patch is only 13 acres.

Friday, October 18, 2013

A Watch Cat......


Wild life that was in my yard as I was working outside yesterday included this cat.  It looks like a Bobcat but it isn't.  It is one of the ferral cats of my neighbors which likes to get away from it all by visiting my orchard.  I am sure the cat is now tame with three little girls around to pet it but I couldn't get near it. I left my orchard be wild this year with me mowing it only once.  The nice thing is that the grass stayed green most of the summer .The area seems like a natural preserve.

Thursday, October 17, 2013

Frail Branches And Twigs.........


The tree form of poplar grows a lot like the lombardy poplar.  It is a fast growing tree and when a serious wind comes along pieces of it fall to the ground. I am sure an ice storm would thin it out quickly. I don't even know how I have this tree in my yard but I must have purchased at a cheap price.  A second one came up from its roots and is half the height of its parent tree. The bunches of leaves surround the area of my two trees and this one piece was caught hanging inside my metal rain barrel.

Wednesday, October 16, 2013

English Ivy.......


As I watch it grow to all ends of my garden shed, I still can't get it to climb. It really has established itself and has large healthy leaves. I do know that it climbs because my dad had it climbing up the south side of a shed and also it was growing up the side of a tree.  I think with patience that it will become so thick that it will have to start climb the trellis the stands above it. Now that I think about it I may have to wait until it spreads to the south of the shed to see it climb.  That may take a few more years.

Tuesday, October 15, 2013

Layers of Color..........


Up the street is a collection of trees, all in different stages of fall color.  The sumac seems tall even though I am shooting up hill and it adds to it looking taller that it really is. The tree with yellow leaves is the one that loses its leaves first.  The leaves are down and raked before most trees start to lose their foliage. The wires run up and down the alley supplying electricity to all the houses.

Monday, October 14, 2013

The Wood PIle........


Wood from my father in law's farm is still laying under the tree where I placed it a few years ago. I think it is time to cut it up into smaller pieces and bring into the basement.  I have blogged about this wood before a few years back.  It is the wood from a coffee tree.  It is a hardwood that burns really well.  I need to half it as it is too long for my fireplace. I did burn my fireplace with scrap wood from my shed but it would be good to have an emergency batch in case we loose electricity this winter.


Sunday, October 13, 2013

A Photo Shoot........






Challenging my camera skills while experimenting with lighting I took some shots of my marble collection. While taking the shots I wondered where I acquired the glass container.  The Asian decoration on the outside of it brings back no memories in any of my different family connections.  The reflection of light off of shiny objects does cause difficulty with the auto camera.  Each sphere has its own individual color and pattern identity.  The toy plane is an older item that belonged to a family of boys who are 15 to 20 years older than me.  It comes from the WW II era.

Saturday, October 12, 2013

Rose Hips..........................


There is a beauty in the color and shape of a rose hip.  The form and the little flower shape on the end of them from the spent flower gives us another flower shape.  I have been having trouble getting a good shot of them as I refuse to show a blurry one to you.  The camera wants to focus on the leaves around them and I get great leaves with a fuzz ball for rose hips. 

This yellow rose has large hips and they stayed on because of the good rains we have been having.  Most of my roses only had a few surviving ones as most dried up early on in the summer. I can see from the photo that I need to go prune out the dead branches in the back.  I guess I should carry my shears with me will I carry my camera around taking shots.

Friday, October 11, 2013

Minnesota Memories......


The glaciers brought down many rocks from the north during the ice age and they are everywhere in some of our county next to the Loess hills near here.  Our Loess hills are gently rolling hills compared to the ones along the Missouri River where bluffs have been created.

These rocks came to my backyard from the many adventures my wife and I have taken in our past along the northern shores of Minnesota.  The water actions of Lake Superior continually rub the rocks together creating a smoother rock.  Who knows how long it takes the lake to make them like this but most shorelines have rocks that look like this.  When I look at these rocks I can imagine the lapping of the water on the shores.

Thursday, October 10, 2013

Sorry.......Another Geranium.


Survival of the weather merits these few buds and blooms a place on the photo a day blog.  It is suppose to be a warm day today.

Wednesday, October 9, 2013

A Simple Statement.....


The wind was so strong that a poplar leaf was blown over the fence and ash tree to land on my back steps.  The partial turning in color of the leaf reveals where we are in our fall changes. Most trees are just starting to show the change in color.

Tuesday, October 8, 2013

Porch Day..........


When I added this to the front of my house I was putting on another layer of architecture onto this 108 year old farmhouse.  The original porch was an open porch and I had never seen that.  The previous owners put storm windows all around the sides of the porch so it became a closed in porch.  The present owner, me, took out the windows leveled the floor and added it on to the house as a bump out for the living room with a small closet and and a downstairs bathroom. 

It never looked very good having the porch turned into an addition with only one window on the end.  I couldn't put windows into it as I added a fireplace and a bathroom against those walls. Nine years ago I added a colonial or Victorian looking porch. It has changed the look of the whole house. It is now an old farmhouse with a fancy bay window and a fancy porch.

Monday, October 7, 2013

Maple Tree View.....



I had to venture out this morning as it was warming up and the sun was shining. Our ground is still wet from the rains of the past days.  It is a rare thing but nice to see. The neighbor across the street has two of these trees and it will eventually be aglow with red and orange.

Sunday, October 6, 2013

Waiting.......


These buckets were loaned out and I need them to be returned so I could pick apples and pears.  I guess I need to get up out of my chair and go get them.  It is too wet and sprinkling so I would go pick anyway so I will go get them tomorrow.

Saturday, October 5, 2013

Coke.......and nuts.



This is another shot taken while looking out of the garden shed window.  I think the coke bottle is dirty but it is what it is.  I am on a blog with fellow graduates of Murray, Iowa and they keep talking about going to a certain very small gasoline station and buying pop.  The blog is like a giant all school reunion as all ages of people write about memories of Murray and the school live. In the past students would put a penny in the peanut dispenser and get a handful of peanuts and drop them into their coca cola before they would drink it.  I think I remember seeing people do that but I never did.  I liked peanuts too much to take time to treat them to a bath first.

Friday, October 4, 2013

Rainy Days Are Great.........


As I was picking up pears from the ground I could see large cracks in our soil.  The rains have been going on for the past five or six hours.  We have had three different fronts coming in from Omaha and it is great.  South of us the winds were bad but we seem to have missed the damaging winds.  Staff and students were coming in this morning frazzled as they didn't have electricity at their homes.

Automatic cameras are so wonderful but sometimes it focuses on only one thing and the other same kind of objects are blurred.  I still liked the color and the arrangement of the photo.  The dead shriveled flower next to the new bud is there by accident as I normally keep the violets cleaned up from the dead debris.  I guess it tells the story of the life cycle of a plant not that I need to find meaning in it.


Thursday, October 3, 2013

Back From The Dead........


Special watering on one section of my phlox did pay off for me.  The rest of my phlox beds are all shriveled up and gone.  One bright spot that is actually growing from out of the ground and not out of any of my planters.

Tuesday, October 1, 2013

The Real Thing........


We have trees that are starting to change colors.  I am glad to see that they will this year unlike last year when they were brownish in color and then just fell to the ground.  The is a real shot of what one actually sees looking out over the corner of my property.


The closer shot eliminates signs and houses but the electric wire has to stay in the shot. The maples near by are just turning slightly but they look like they will be beautiful again this year.


Blurry Blue Cup Day.....

 It is Monday and I am a little blurry eyed today. It is fitting then my blue cup is blurred a little because it is in low light. I was too ...