Monday, September 30, 2013

Monday.......


A garden shed shot of my dad's and brother's tools.  They are more useful as a photo than they are of anything else. It is a mixture of extensions, antique wrenches and a clamp.  A modern wood planer with a plastic cover is in the foreground.  I have never seen on like this before now.

Sunday, September 29, 2013

White Marigold.........


I think this is as close to white as this large marigold is going to be. The package described the flowers as white but the subtle colors inside the flower lean towards the greens.

Saturday, September 28, 2013

Backlighting.......


I find it necessary to go with where things are and realize I can't change much outside.  The sun is in the west.  The cat is resting in the sun staying warm.  The cat sits that way because the sun is bright in his eyes. If I were to try and turn the cat around he would just walk around and want to be petted.  I just went ahead and took the shot hoping it might turn out good.  It did turn out good as it created great shadow textures on all the green leaves and the shadow of the cat draws your eye into the picture.

Tiny Tim lives in our yard most of the time and he never did move from this position as I walk all around in the orchard area.  You can see that the  one rain of less than a inch really did green things up out there.  I need to mow the yard now as all that dead looking grass has come back to life.

Friday, September 27, 2013

Still life in the window.......


I have two shelves in front of my garden shed window that I use to place things. Thay should be in the house but they  never made it in there.  The stuff was my still life things that I had at school when I was teaching.  When I moved out of my classroom all the boxes of still life went to the shed.  I don't have electricity to the shed so everything I photograph is back lighted or has the effects of low light.

Thursday, September 26, 2013

Saving Seeds.........


Our neighbor gave us a melon from her son's garden.  It was one of the smaller muskmelons.  I liked the size and thought maybe I would try growing them next year. Two people can eat one melon at a meal and nothing is left over to be put in the fridge.  Saving seed from melons is sure easy compared to some plants like tomatoes. I can see that this seed was not washed well but I don't think that will be a problem.  I will store them in an envelope once I am sure they have dried out thoroughly.

Tuesday, September 24, 2013

Tuesday's Single Shot.........


I can't stop taking shots of the red and green. The cooler weather is nice and I don't have to water them so much.

Monday, September 23, 2013

A Bowl Full.............


An elderly man rode his hover craft chair over to our house yesterday afternoon to give us these peaches.  They are small but I think we will juice them and turn them into jelly.  We don't get cherries anymore from our trees and I think this will be a fast way to get jelly.  We juice things on one day and put it in the fridge for the making of the product later.  A lot of these are still green so I will have to sort them and work with them a batch at a time.

Sunday, September 22, 2013

Birch Report


It was a bright day and I shot another view of the birch tree.  The first leaves that changed color all turned into dried up shriveled leaves and fell to the ground.  Maybe the rains have helped to allow the tree to go into a normal fall color of yellow now. 

Saturday, September 21, 2013

A Tree Grows In Woodward.........


I planted this tree about eleven years ago.  It is a redbud tree and I thought my father in law whose room looked out to the street needed a flowering tree to see in spring.  Little did I know that the redbud would become that large.  I see redbuds growing wild in timbers but they grow among grown trees that keep them shaded and apparently stunted.

I took a major load of branches off the tree last summer and it still is so big that one can't look out the window three of the seasons.  You can't really see the house either when driving by it.  I will crop it back some more when the saw is ready to go.  That is what gardener teachers tell you about when to prune, do it when the blade is sharp.


As an afterthought I looked through an album of 900 photos and I found this.  Spring is a long ways away from now.

Friday, September 20, 2013

Silver Maple......


The tree has been around for a long time. I have evidence that there use to be six of these trees on the property.  I evidenced one of them falling in 1997.  The second one was taken away by the city. It sat on the corner and one couldn't see traffic coming from the south.  It was probably the best looking of the trees.

Evidence of two other threes are the soil indention areas in the yard, one is at the north end of the house and one to the south of the house.  The one to the south fell before I bought the place. On a part of the kitchen roof as when I was shingling, I could see the replaced boards from the tree damage.

The bad thing about the silver maple also is how sections of the tree die out and when the section falls it makes a large mess.  Some of these day that dead part will fall during a strong wind storm.

Thursday, September 19, 2013

A Simple Snap.........


A fallen branch with leaves has turned to a fall color unlike the dead leaves in the background. The dead leaves are from the same tree because of the drought and the broken off branch actually turned to fall colors.

Wednesday, September 18, 2013

Fall.............


The aronia berry shrub puts out a great set of colors in the fall.  The fruit helped my neighbor to create a good tasting syrup for her pancakes.  The aronia berry has become very popular in the midwest.  My plant came from an aronia berry convention in Council Bluffs where they were selling various sizes of plants.

Tuesday, September 17, 2013

Glancing Upward.......


Standing under my entrance to my backyard I can see the fluid set of shapes of the ash tree.  The hard straight structure lines give you a feeling of peering out of a jail cell.

Monday, September 16, 2013

A Gray Day And A Blue Flower,,,,,


A surviving violet from my past disaster period of growing these things.  I didn't know that it had survived but I was so pleased to see such a nice blue.  The camera continues to want to focus on the leaves under certain lighting conditions so the flower is a blurry blue.  I took many violet shots and consistently they were all blurry. I will try again when the cloudy days clear up and we see sunshine again.

Sunday, September 15, 2013

Fall Colors......


The plants lacked enough water to continue and the fading flowers and trees are showing a quick decline.  The coneflower still has a subtle beauty showing even when it is fading for the season.

Saturday, September 14, 2013

Image Of The Past.............


I guess it is the middle of September and plants should start to be in decline.  I guess we spent the season hoping for something more that what we received......... but it is what it is. 

Friday, September 13, 2013

Ash Tree Seeds.......

The tree will drop these for a whole month as the fall season creeps closer. It was a volunteer tree that my dad had identified when I first bought the property in 1976.  I moved the tree and it has grown to be so big.  I wired it together with cable 20 years ago as the y shaped trunk split in the middle.

Thursday, September 12, 2013

Thursday's Shot........


My Creative Zone yesterday was filled with foliage shots.  I forgot to include this one.  It is the hardy geranium that has the coral pink blooms.  The red geranium and oxalis are also in the photo.  The dark colored leaves are unique for being a member of the hardy geranium group and I bought it especially because of it colors.

Wednesday, September 11, 2013

Oxalis.........


It survives on my back step with a good drink of water each day.  It will be wilted each evening before I get to it but it responds to my care very well.

Monday, September 9, 2013

It is time to spruce up............


I really don't know how long I have had my garden shed.  I do know that it is getting weathered looking and a molding pieces has fallen and must be laying on the ground.  A new paint job will be nice, next spring, and the cupalo needs to be removed and reworked.  I built the cupalo inside the house while the shed was being built.  The shop boys built the major structure and I did the detailed work. 

Horse's Apple Candy........


My friend and her husband bought a percheron a year ago and they keep it at the local county park near Lake Saylorviller. There is a boarding stable there.  At the beginning of the summer she bought another female percheron horse.  They wanted to have a pulling team for the park visitors to see. While at work at school my friend received a phone call and the new percheron had dropped a new colt. She had owned the horse for three weeks and now she has instantly three horses.  It was totally unexpected as the previous owner did not know she was pregnant when she sold it. Unfortunately mother and young one were evicted from the park stable as they thought it was too many horses there by one owner.  They had to find another barn and field to put them in near a neighboring town.

Because the horses are such large animals these fallen apples are more like candy to them than a piece of fruit. I put a few fallen pears in there too to see if the horses like those also. The two sacks are there for a pick up to be taken to the horses.

Sunday, September 8, 2013

Peaches......ripe and green........


I picked large peaches from the tree and also some small ones.  They are great tasting peaches as we  had some on waffles Friday night.  A fresh peach is so  much better than anything that we get from the can.

Saturday, September 7, 2013

Bumblebees..........


The bumblebees have been hitting my large sedum plant as if it were their last meals.  I keep it watered but it has all fallen down from the middle outward.  I have decided that the plant has been there in the same location over 15 years or more.  All the sedums I see at homes and around the  school are still standing.  So it probably is time for me to divide it and plant it all over my property.  It seems to be a pretty hardy plant so I will probably have no problem.  Maybe spring is a better time.  I will look it up on the internet.


Another shot to show you how it just collapses once the hot weather hits. I do think I bought this plant and yet it could be a start from another one that I have in a different location.  I should move some of that too.

Friday, September 6, 2013

Friday's Post.........


The dianthus should be planted in the ground eventually as it will come up in the spring if the winter isn't too severe temperature wise. I had some come up from last year but they didn't do well without a lot of watering.  The white geranium seems plain in real life but it photographs beautifully with the leaves making the flowers sharper and clearer.

Thursday, September 5, 2013

One Big Ear and One Little Ear........



The second small ear is either very small or isn't there at all.  This is the field across the street behind my neighbor's house.  It is still pretty green and would really benefit from some rain.

Tuesday, September 3, 2013

Shining in the Sun....


Looking through my grape arbor of the past this view was visible.  I like the way the sun was treating the objects in view.  My grapes wouldn't grow on the arbor after the trees grew up and shaded them.  The bottom of it is lined with woven wire to keep Barney and Button from leaving the yard.


A bonus shot that gives a different effect when viewing the windmill through the arbor. I still am not happy the way the windmill got chopped into two parts but I didn't have a stepladder around to stand on to take a shot from a taller angle.

Monday, September 2, 2013

Signs of Fall.......


I was mowing the yard on Thursday and looked up at the birch noticing no color change of its leaves.  By Saturday the change took place.  It was like overnight that the leaves of the birch changed to yellow. It is one of the trees that changes first in the fall.  It also drops it leaves so quickly once it starts, with the leaves looking like dive bombers dropping from the sky.

Sunday, September 1, 2013

Harvest Time.........


Working a little in the yard I decided to bring in some apples and tomatoes.  I am thinking pie would be a great thing for the apples. We had a lot of pie last year but this years harvest will be much less. The fallen apples are in various sizes as the little ones were the first to come down but now the larger ones are dropping and I have to get to them before the ants start eating them.  I have been picking up fallen apples for  my janitor friend at school who feeds them to her three horses.  She says they eat them like candy because the horses are large percherons.

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 ...