Small Tomatoes....

It is like a modern art work with the wire slicing through the photo with verticals and horizons of stems. The yellow tomatoes are small and very sweet. It was the first plant to put out tomatoes. I think sun drop was the name of the variety.

Back Yard News....

Looking down and over one lot you can see the new fence. My half of the flower gardens in front of it there is not covered with rock. The electric and cable services have all of their boxes there and we cover them up with plants.  When the guy had his fence ready to put in, I noticed that the two neighbors also are run off of those boxes. The guy, Ben, tore up his yard when working on the fence so he has to reestablish his lawn. The little girl has a mini powered vehicle that helped to kill out the grass.  She drives it in circles and her little brother rides with her.

Monday Munching...

I have some blog friends that think they are real Canada Geese.  They are not real but are very much made of plastic.  My neighbor shared that we must have a fox in the neighborhood as he had a dead leftover carcass of a rabbit in his back yard next to ours.  Coyote is a possibility. People take photos of coyotes in the area north of us. All of our trees around here do connect all the way down to the Des Moines River.

Watch Your First Step......

The cedar stairs will need to have a finish appliedt during the fall. I like taking the stairs as I feel I am making myself more healthy when I do.  Sixteen steps that the builder worked on for a whole day.  He checked every single board to be sure the woodgrain was running the correct way.

The Summer Reds.....

I really like my new raised bed.  I don’t have to fight the grass creeping into the flowers. I will add more soil this fall to make it more like a raised bed rather than an area with boards around it.

Summer Flowers.....

The flowers look good but they really are needing a good rainfall. I will water them this morning to help them out a little.

Bees Buzzing Around......

We have lots of bees this year.  I more bumblebees than any other but I did get a photo of one on the flower stem. The heat was hard on this flower so the blooms were not very showy.  In fact the heat caused the stems to lean over even when I tried to keep them watered.
In this photo you can see the top of the new fence.  All of the other panels have been trimmed into a gentle arch.  The last panel to go it looks like this and he didn’t get back to trim it.  My neighbor said he is a nice guy but we may not see that done until next spring.

A Character of a Tree.....

The camera is caused to default to a blur when the glow of light is great but the focus is landing on the large tree. The haze can prove to be an interesting part of the photo.

I previously lived on a property with five large silver maple trees. Now in suburbia I get to enjoy a neighbors birch tree out front and a large older tree two houses up from our property in the back.  I liked having large trees to nurture the birds, squirrels and sometimes raccoons. The zoom of my camera gives me the freedom to be closer than I really am to this large one. My one neighbor lady told me that there use to be two of them and when the one was removed it involved two or three property owners. It isn’t a major feature in nature but it is a good thing to be able to look up at it rather than the rows of houses in the back valley.

Tiger, Tiger in the Green.....

It is a different variety of a tiger lily but it still puts out a great show. They survived the windstorm with out a hitch.

A Child’s Imagination......

Teddy is all in for trucks and placing things into trucks. Sitting on Grandma’s lap with trucks on the table. He is the trucker moving seashells from one location to another.

Grandsons.....

AJ is six years old and is out there exploring and learning about everything in the world.  He is working with a planted bean seed that he watches grow everyday. It is almost six feet tall now.  I bet he will be a gardener some day.

A cuddly energetic Teddy, three years old. who hugs his parents and grand parents all of the time.  My son describe Teddy’s reaction to the first visit to the ocean.  He watched the waves coming in and sudden just laid down on the edge and let the waves flow over him.  He rolled back and forth and just laughed with joy.  He was dressed in his nice clothes with a white shirt and soaked the ocean water in through and through.

Baby Girl Ella.....

We visited our new granddaughter Ella Friday and Saturday.  I have 70 photos of everyone in the household but these two are for my photo a day blog, for sure.

Special Effects....Steam Heat....

The sunsetting tonight was beautiful.  I never did get a exact visual of it as my automatic couldn’t adjust to it.

The hazing on my camera lens was hard to control as it was so hot out there in the evening.  I kept wiping moisture off of it but it kept returning.  It was a miserable evening and the camera didn’t like being out there.

The Wheels Fell Off......

The volunteer tomato plant at the bottom right of the photo is welcomed in the garden bed.  It is a tomato of a yellow pear variety and it is supper sweet.  It comes up every summer giving us some good food.

Coneflowers

One single plant put in the ground last fall became this large growth of blooms in a very small growing space.

All in a Row.....

Red Streak......

One plants a blank slate of a garden with a row of petunias along the edge.  It looks great now but it isn’t that exciting when you first spot them in along the edge.

Ruffled Lily.....

The new fence put in by the neighbor gives me a wonderful background for these blooms. The ruffled variety is a more special day lily.

Moon Beams.......

When you snap the camera and don’t wait for the shutter to close, you get and action photo like this. A planet is in the photo also near the moon.

Friday......

Lily Beauty......

Back to Front.....

I take a walk through the house to get the back yard view and then the front yard view. Evening shots of a few days back.

It is the day lily season......

Dallies are some of my favorite flowers.  They seem to be strong and determined to bloom out one each day no matter what.

Network Breakdown.......Dead Wire.

The flowers kept blooming and life has gone on but our internet provider has fizzled out.  We are on our third day without our internet.  It is incredible.  We have gone to the Panera Bread store and found some net to hang on.  I kept thinking that they would get our area problem solved but the phone site keeps saying the engineers are working on the problem.

We have been down since Saturday morning.  We keep hoping that it will all come back soon.  I am sure the company will lose a lot of customers if they don’t get if fixed soon.

Early Morning Sky.....

The day after all the fireworks and many clouds we have a subtle view.  It is five in the morning and the sun is on the ride side of the photo reflecting off of the clouds.

Birds Eating Seeds......

Young birds are flocking to the feeder.  Sometimes you get to see the adult bring them over to the feeder.  Others have learned that there is fallen seed on the ground. One adult is with this group as they crowd around the feeder. The goldfinch just doesn’t come by very often but we did see an adult bring a couple over to the feeder.

Water Sculpture.....

The neighbor up the street, two houses, is watering his lawn. The sun was catching the spraying water showing the spirals reflecting the light.

Hollyhocks.......

When it is time for them to bloom they just start all at once. Over night Saturday they opened up along the bottom rows of buds. I didn’t really know what color they were going to b but pink is good. There are many buds all along up the stems so they will stay blooming for a long time.

Cloud Forms.....

The heat helps to create these impressive cloud formations. The temps are in the middle 90s and the clouds really are reacting to it.

Looking north and the sun is getting ready to peak around the clouds. Lots of special effects going on and things are continually changing as a southern breeze helps to move them around.