• Snow poles?!

    November 9, 2019 / 2 Comments

    Not too long ago, the house looked like this.  Spring and Summer here were wonderful.  The second year for perennials is always a beautiful show and we weren’t disappointed.  We enjoyed the front porch with rocking chairs and an indoor/outdoor rug.  Granted, there were lots of days when the temperature and humidity were too high to even think about sitting on the front porch but it was nice on cooler days.

     

     

    All the plants on the front porch are gone after the freeze but the pumpkins made it.  Inside, it is definitely Autumn…at least until the weekend after Thanksgiving when the Autumn decorations are put away and the Christmas decorations come out.  Autumn is my favorite season.  Everything about it – from the colors to the clothes to the food!

    Doug was working in the garage one day this week and the next thing I see outside are these poles lining the driveway.  For my friends and family in the deep South, just in case you haven’t seen these down there, these snow poles mark the depth of snow.  When the snow is a foot deep, it helps to know where your drive and walkway are.   When I asked him about them, he mentioned that the ground is soft enough right now to get the poles in the ground.  So in they went.

    I’m a very happy camper with the first snow.  I get downright excited.  Watching the snowflakes fall with a cup of hot chocolate with marshmallows is the perfect way to spend an afternoon.  I even get excited for the second and third and fourth snow.  Eventually, however, there are piles of snow eight feet high left by the snowplows everywhere.  The roads and parking lots turn into a black, dirty mess.  Snow boots track in sand and dirt.  This goes on for weeks sometimes.  I haven’t even mentioned the well below freezing temperatures and the windchill.

    There is something to be said, however, for living in Iowa where there are four distinct seasons.  You can count on it:  the green of Summer, the beauty of Fall, pristine white snowfalls in Winter and the new birth of Spring.  One after the other.  The circle of life.  I’ll take it.

     

     

  • Vignettes…

    October 3, 2019 / 6 Comments

    When we first moved into our Iowa home two years ago, the back third of this 1.25 acre yard looked like a small forest with lots of tall trees…mostly skinny trees.  At the base of the trees were ferns and weeds…so many tall weeds, a lot of them flowering!  From a distance, it was rather pretty to me – kind of like a setting for a movie.  However, you didn’t want to go back there because it was also home to mosquitos.

    So my Master Gardener husband began the transformation by taking out weeds and dead, fallen trees.  That let in sunlight and diminished a lot of the pesky mosquitos.  Next, he decided to plant shade-loving plants around groupings of multiple trees to make what I called vignettes.  The perennial plants include:  Hostas, Coral Bells, Astilbe, Columbine, Coleus, Bleeding Heart and Brunnera.  We began searching for and collecting items for the vignettes:  an old hand plow and an antique water pump started the collection.  At one of the art shows at the Des Moines Fairgrounds, we found tall handmade “wind spinners”.  Eventually, the “vignettes” began to take shape.  Unfortunately, these photos were taken after everything stopped blooming!

    Somewhere along the process, Doug decided that he needed a tractor with a blade and other attachments. Once a farmboy, always a farmboy.  He was so excited when he found his 1964 Ford tractor. He grew up on a farm with Ford tractors, so he feels right at home on this pretty blue one!  Using his new farm equipment, he took out the weeds, leveled the ground and planted grass seed where weeds used to be. He also invested in a new shed (which, I think, would make a great art studio *wink*).  Out voted on that idea but it’s a cute building. Now, he has to do some repair work on the old shed and paint it the same color as the new one. He loves his time outside working in the yard and I love the finished look!

    Old shed on the left, new one on the right.  See what I mean?  It’s cute! 

    Doug searched through his old photos and found two priceless photos for me: 

    one of his dad on the family’s BLUE Ford tractor and one of Doug as an adorable towhead on an old tractor.

    Timeless and priceless!  As I said before, once a farmboy, always a farmboy.  I love it!

     

     

  • Winding down…

    October 2, 2019 / No Comments

    It’s 59 degrees with a light rain today.  I love days like this.  I have a Crockpot and an Instant Pot (on the slow cooker setting) full of apple butter cooking.  The house smells wonderful!  There are two more large pots on the stove with apples cooking to make more apple butter.  As you know, you start out with a large pot of sliced apples and they cook down…way down.  As the apple butter cooks, it will simmer down to a spicy goodness.  I still have to prepare the jars, fill them and process them.  A lot of time and work, but the apple butter will taste so good on hot biscuits this winter!  

    Doug has spent many hours working outside this summer.  As a Master Gardener, he loves it.  We have 1.25 acres and he has made the most of every square inch.  The plants and flowers have been beautiful this summer.  This was the second year for our perennial garden which we added to this year.  Next year should be even better.  For now, everything is winding down.  Thanks to the rain, the grass is still green but that will turn soon enough.  Even the humming birds seem to have left already.  Since the bees are enjoying the sweet nectar, I’m not complaining.

    Look closely.  The feeder is covered with bees!

    The roses are beautiful and having one last hurrah with loads of blooms. 

    Their leaves bear the result of the invasion, again this year, of Japanese beetles!