Bakers and Folgers.......

While looking for things to share on my blogs, I looked up and saw this. It isn't a set up.  I was given the shining bright Folgers can as a gift years ago. Being a coffee addict, I just couldn't throw it away. While emptying a box of leftovers in the basement, I found the old can and just placed in on a blank spot of the shelf.  I was going to move it later stop be with all my other antique cans.  So I have display of a coffee can that is a probably seventy five years old and a new can aged 15 years old. The kids have a Lego box sitting there too that holds valuable lego pieces, probably thirty years old. If it had been a set-up I could have grabbed a bunch of old stuff to sit around the two coffee cans.

Mums the Word.....

I have been watering them and they look a lot healthier than a few weeks ago. I really like the color of them. I have had to keep cutting back buds to keep them from blooming on me. Finally it was time to let them bloom.

Rainwater Collection.....

After the harvest of the pumpkins, I piled them on the patio under the deck. The two put in the enameled bucket can be seen here.  With a rain of two and a half inches the bucket collected a lot of rain and overflowed. The large pumpkin does displace a lot water but it still seemed unusual to see.

My unplanned fall display sits there yet today with only my neighbors in the backyard to see it. My dad's windmill ornament has a new base but I have been too busy to replace lathe boards and rework the top. I won't put windmill blades on it and may try to make a birdhouse on the top.  I do think birds won't nest in something that low in height.

Morning Glories......

When you have a beautiful, perfect subject matter like this you have to keep taking photos of it. The light shines through the blooms on a sunny day helping to show all of its structure.

Mile Long Bridge.......

The mile long bridge that crosses Lake Saylorville can be seen here while I am trying to take pictures of a flock of swans.  I didn't get a good picture as I had my wife's cell phone and the sun was so bright that I could not see what I was photographing. I cross this bridge in early morning to go to the old house.  Pelicans and sea gulls seem to be migrating at this time also and I never know what to expect next as I go to work.

Looking to the north, this is what I could see. The white feathers are all you can see when you look at the tip of the extending land form. It looks like a bank of snow along the lake,  When I returned at noon, the flock here and the one across the lake were all gone. I don't think they went to any other part of the lake but probably now have left the area.

In the Shade......

The angel sat in the sun for years and now he has a step to sit on, in the shade. I have to keep the vines cut back so it won't cover him with green leaves. He isn't completely protected from the weather but he is in a better location.

In The Sun.......

The painted lady butterflies frequent the flowers most of the day.  They are smaller in size so they seem like moths as they fly around in large numbers.

I had to dig out an archived photo to show the patterns of the butterfly.  They seemed to open their wings more in August than they do this month. I know that they open their wings to warm themselves and yesterday they certainly were not cold.

Morning surprise with glories.....

The window box was planted with new seed three months ago.  I   kept waiting for the seed to germinate. It did not.  I replanted last month with some seed that I had collected last fall from the old place. It took three weeks to germinate as we had harsh hot weather.  I have been watching the vines, thinking I will never see blooms. Yesterday I shot this bud while I went down the deck stairs.

To my surprise this morning there were three blooms open at the same time. The color is a far cry from the original blue morning-glories that I had planted a long time ago.

I normally would have only shown this one shot for Photo a Day, but I thought the story needed to be illustrated with the other to photos. It is nice to have something new to watch while going through the fall season.

Morning, there will be sun.......

Friday morning sunrise shows a glow behind the trees. It is warm already and will be hot by noon today. They look like clouds that show up on hot days and probably they will move on when it gets really hot.

More to See.....

I was fascinated with he shape that the flower was taking as it fills out with seeds. Seeing the sunflower first I didn't look to see what was in the background. My tomato patch and marigolds are in view in the slice of the background. I had to put in a metal steel post and tie it to make this flower stand up straight.

Lavender......

I have never shared a shot of lavender as I have never succeed in growing it.  The former owners have it growing among the peony bushes. It blooms later in the summer and looks like a weed until the flowers start to show. I remained patient with the plant, not really knowing what it was. I now know that next spring I should let this plant grow.

Barney was out laying in the grass near here so I took the time to pick a few stems of it. Barney was enjoying the weather and sniffing the air and I just let him have some time outside. I am sure he  could smell the lavender too.

Fall Flowers........

The flower gardens really are our own test gardens. I can see which petunia that will hang on to the very end while others were just too fragile to survive the fall weather. This variety of cockscomb is far superior to the old fashion, fan-shaped variety. The aster s seems to be a good bloomer but they are not consistent in colors at the very same time. I haven't had asters before but I can see they are very different than mums.

Dipping Down....Mammoth.

As a kid, I was encouraged to grow sunflowers.  I really don't know why but maybe they thought it was good for me to learn how to plant and care for things. I already help planting the vegetable garden at a young age. The seed available back then was only the very tall plants with large flowers, over 12 inches wide. Today you have to really read the label as they now have decorative sunflowers in smaller forms.  I know the shorter form of sunflower is grown for the sake of bird seed and maybe even human consumption. I have seen the decorative one for sale in gallon pots for replanting.  This particular sunflower was the one that was on the ground after a storm. I have it supported with twine and a steel post.  Even with the post, it really is leaning low, as the seeds develop and put more weight on the flower head. I do grow them for reuse as bird seed. I do have to admit I also grow them for the fun of seeing them grow and bloom. This is the very first year where I was able to water them regularly which gave me large plants.

Fading and Changing.....

The colors change as they start to fade, showing new and sometimes better colors than they had before they first bloomed.

Old Things......

An image of bottles, a collection of history, that shows the various uses of glass. The yellow one is not glass but ceramic. But the rest are glass. It is a spontaneous shot as some of the bottles look dirty and most were stowed in various boxes.  I started sitting them on this corner of the shelf to see what I had moved. They also are sitting there waiting for my "after the move high grading" process. Our friends, Norm and Heidi, have five kids. When they first visited my blog, the kids saw my old bottles collection posted.  The remembered seeing old bottles down west of where they lived and started collecting old medicine bottles.  They either found a garbage burn site or a pharmacy dump site in a ditch nearby where they found dozens of very old little bottles. That site had to be 80 years old or more. The family has now moved to New Mexico and I sure miss them. I wondered if the old bottles were packed and moved with them.  Some of the bottles had 1800's dates on them.

Keep Snapping....

It did not look like a promising day to capture anything good out there on the deck.  I went out anyway and took a couple of shots. Then I saw the dead tree branch.  My best photo has a good sunrise background but the branch makes the show.  The sun peeks through the tree. This was my last shot before I downloaded.

More Blooms......

It was slow to grow but has bloomed more numbers each day for the past few months. With that show of color it is hard not to keep taking photos of the blooms.

Find the Birdie.......

From my deck above the zinnias, I could see the youngster goldfinches eating at the flowers.  Getting a focus on them was difficult but I accidentally got this one. The camera acted like it could not find a focus most of the time and yet a couple of them did get photographed.

Another shot shows a timid pose of the goldfinch.  I do have some blurry shots of one of them tearing away at a flower to get the seed.  The mature seed is actually attached to the dried up petal.

I will try a another day with  my wife's camera.  She will have to train me in how to use it.  Various lenses would help me if I get the right one.

Painted Lady Feasting......

This is the first time that I saw the butterfly on the sunflowers.  There were some on each of them today.

Monday's Moment.....

Painted Ladies.......

The zinnias have been the draw for all of the painted lady butterflies.  For some reason they also like the leaves of the sunflower.  I can see them scraping over the surface of the leaves.  The bodies of this butterfly are unusual.  They remind me of moth like feeder that like to eat from flowers, with their furry bodies.

Saturday's Sky......

I didn't have a big enough lens for this.  I guess I could of taken the car and drive north five miles.  There is a large spiral of clouds in our sky as the sun just comes up.

We don't have clouds like this except when there is a hurricane or tropical storm approaches the coastline. The photo at left was Friday evening with these spots of cloud everywhere.

The Rose Blooms Again.......

When I saw this rose at the nursery and it looked like this, I had to buy it.  It was on sale too. Not every bloom opens like this but I like that way that it opens. I have never had one like this before.
The tag says it is an award winner but we will see if it survives the winter.

I went to the plant and found its tag. It has the name of Rosa 'Meimacota' PPAF.  The double red bloomer is suppose to be drought tolerant and will survive up to -20 F.  I see by the label that it is fragrant.  I never even checked that out as most purchased roses these days have no smell. It is a patented plant so I am not suppose to try to propagate it.

Clouds Above.....

Our clouds do change in their form when there are hurricanes headed to land. I don't think it is my imagination as they do just look differently even though we are half a continent away from the storm.

Our weather has turned cold on the same day as the earth takes it tilt back the other direction.  We are promised to warm up again but it sure doesn't seem to be we will ever return to any summer-like weather.  We do have sun today with fluffy light clouds.  I hope to get outside and work today.

Grow Your Own Sunshine........

This is why I grow sunflowers.  The negatives of cleaning them up and disposing of the large overgrown stems are tolerable when you get to see this. The variety of seed is call "mammoth" and the flower head is over a foot wide. Van Gogh would probably sit up shop out in my yard and paint them for sure.

Fall weather seems to be closing in on us and these plants don't mind that at all.

Special Effects......

Sometimes the unplanned things can create an abstract work that is just great to see.  Our "knock out" roses have revived one more time putting out great flowers.

I was not such a fan of this kind of rose and now that I live in the big city I have learned to appreciate them. The businesses everywhere use them in their landscapes and they do look good the majority of the time.  Their ability to rebound from dry spells or even harsh winters makes them a good choice. I cut one down to the ground and it came back as a hearty rose.  I never kept many roses alive at the old place as they would freeze out. They seem to be flourishing again as our fall weather starts to kick in and I am guessing that I need to cut them back to get them ready for winter.

Just Driving and Shooting......

Beans and corn are doing well this summer.  The yellow field is soybeans and the fence row beyond shows how tall the corn is this time of the year.

Both photos were blindly shot through the truck window as I headed northwest to work at the old place.  You can see the ears of corn becoming heavy as they ripen and bend down towards the ground.

Since my photo quality is lacking, I will show three bad ones instead of one good one. It isn't time to pick any corn at this point of time but it looks like the beans will be coming out before the corn does. Prices of corn were low last summer so the farmers put in a lot of beans this year.  I am seeing fields of beans where there has been corn fields for years.

Depression Glass.....

The new and the old sit in contrast of their history.  The depression ware dish could have been a sauce dish or a candy dish.  There would not be perfectly formed chocolates wrapped in foil with paper tags for advertising inside of this dish years ago. It could of had been a jelly dish or hold cranberry sauce on Thanksgiving.  The candy back then would have been cooked on the stove until just the right temperature and then cooled, to be cut up into squares for eating. My favorite would be divinity candy placed in there ready for eating. We are using a lot of our older glass pieces now as there isn't time just to let it sit for memories sake only.

Construction Zone.......

Seven days a week we can hear construction going on to the south of us. Our development is 15 years old now and another development to the west of us is mostly done.  It is smaller group of homes than the one we live in and was put in quickly with houses being placed close together. Closely placed side by side and small front yards. It looks like an army barracks facility.  The ones being built south of us now are more exclusive houses as they will have larger lots and bigger and better houses.

I use to explain that we lived in the most southwest of the city and now we are not that. The ones to the south of us actually are half sitting in Ankeny and the rest will be in the small town of Saylorville. By the way, those guys working are on the second story of a house yesterday. This morning I can see that end of the house is already framed in with us having a full view of it. This building area and all the apartment areas going up is the reason why our city is the third fastest growing city in the United States.  The city has changed a lot from being an old mining town to having a powerhouse factory of John Deere equipment that is sold all over the world.  Because of the growth the city has two full independent high schools.

No more development will happen to the west of us as there is a lake right next to it.  South is limited in growth as the valley below it is a flood plain and a large gravel pit before you hit I-80/35.

Strong Colors......

My border of marigolds have a variety of kinds of plants.  In the middle of all of them there is one stray plant that is different color than all of the others.  The normal flower that I bought for this area looks like the flowers on the right. I do like this renegade set of blooms.