Happy New Year!

Wishing all a happy and prosperous 2010!

Winding Down

I took these photos two days ago and forgot to post them. The end of the blizzard was really quite pretty, if you ignored the fact that it was bitterly cold and we were snowed in.

December Blizzard

We had a blizzard today. Our road is impassable, visibility is less than 1/4 mile.

It's a snow day!

Tonight will be bitterly cold, well below zero.

Moving Day

It's cold and cloudy today, this last day of the Thanksgiving weekend, 2009. We are finally resting a little after all the cooking and traveling and visiting of the past three days.

Some people don't get to rest today. We saw this garage moving down our road this afternoon, VERY slowly.

Huh??

This large role of field tile has a balloon bouquet attached to it. I wonder why? Is it it's birthday or are these congratulatory balloons? Just one of life's little mysteries...

Deer Damage

Yesterday on my walk, I discovered a deer had attacked my poor little aspen tree.


This little pine tree did not escape:



Neither did this honeysuckle:


Someone is not doing his job!

Cold Ride

I saw a three-wheeled motorcycle with a cab today, cruising down the street in Waterloo. (Sorry for the out-of-focus photo. I took it while I was stopped at a stoplight.) Even with the protection from the wind, it had to be a cold ride with the open sides.

Fall

I haven't posted in, oh, about six weeks. We've gone from early fall to late fall and it seems like it's been raining the whole time. So many gray, cloudy, cold, damp days in a row that I lost count. But this weekend was nice and the nearly-full moon was a welcome sight.

Six hours on a river in a red kayak...

It was a great weekend. We canoed and kayaked on the Yellow River. This is a photo of the rapids that gave us the most trouble - and some of the most fun on the trip. We saw bald eagles, turkey vultures, kingfishers, deer, and trout.

Foggy Morning

This morning was chilly and there was a line of fog along the creek south of us. There's just a hint of fall in the air. It turned out to be a beautiful day, not too cool and very sunny.

Rainy Sunday

We had some heavy rain today from several thunderstorms that passed through. The first storm was rather severe but we were lucky and had no damage. (Some places near by had large hail and high winds.)

This is a photo of the approach of the second storm.

Oh, darn!

I TRIED to work at school today, I really did! But the janitors were cleaning the library and then the network went down so... I gave up and decided to work from home. This is what my desk looks like today. Looks like I'm VERY BUSY! (Looks can be deceiving. I do have a messy desk, however.)

Barking up a tree

Bear cornered a squirrel in a hollow tree trunk. He spent most of the afternoon barking at the tree while the squirrel laughed at him from the safety of the hole.

Today I went in to get started on my work at school. I guess my summer vacation is now over - and my to-do list here at home just won't get done! Summers seem to be getting shorter every year.

Going mobile

I just spent 45 minutes linking my iPod touch to my blog so I can post
from my iPod. Does this work? This is a test post.

Blogging the Day Away

Thanks to June's suggestion, I'll be posting periodic updates on the absolutely fantastic happenings around our house today. Stay tuned...

6:30 am Slept in for a whole hour this morning. I'm about to have my usual bowl of oatmeal.






























7:00 Ready for my first cup of coffee




























My day is just TOO exciting...

9:30 am Thinking about caulking the new bathtub. Hmm. Sounds like work.
































12:45 Nap time. No pictures here.
4:00 No, I actually didn't sleep all this time. I GOT THE TUB CAULKED! I'm happy I got that done but it's not really worthy of a photo.

Another thing I did was water outside plants. Here are photos, first of a baby watermelon (so cute when they're little!):

Next, a large seed pod of a Green Dragon plant:



Next, watering a bush:


Watering a sedum:



Next, watering a Dwarf Alberta Spruce:



and cantaloupes:


I took some time to admire Prairie Area #1. Newly planted this spring, I'm having some difficulty telling the weeds from the prairie plants but Blazing Star is visible in this area.


This is Prairie Area #2. There's more to see here. The pink plant is Swamp Milkweed.

Lots of these:


I think this is Hoary Vervain:



This grass doesn't seem to be on the list of seeds that I got so I have NO IDEA what it is:


And finally, we have Partridge Pea:


A final photo from this afternoon - I checked the mailbox:


I'll be back with end-of-the day posts at the end of the day!

8:15 pm It's not quite the end of the day but close enough. I learned more about using Blogger - it has some quirks I'm still figuring out. I had fun doing this and look forward to reading blogs of others who participated. Thanks for the suggestion, June!

The sun is setting. And so, to bed.

Sooo Good!

Around Labor Day these babies are going to be dark purple and ready to be made into grape juice, gallons and gallons of it. (I tried wine one year. A lot of work for some REALLY BAD, undrinkable wine.)

This is Bear. Last night he was expecting a treat from me, not a stupid photo op. (Treats came later.)

I found out some people don't really care for frogs (Yay! I got a comment! Thanks!) so this post will move the frog photo further down on the page.

I hope to be doing some renaming and reorganizing of this blog in the near future. I may even post more often! I have to think about this...

Look what I found in the flower bed today. I believe it's a Northern Leopard Frog and I think it might be "threatened". I've never seen one here before. It's been a fairly wet summer so maybe he/she is enjoying the dampness.

The Hopa crab apple tree is particularly beautiful this year, despite the fact that I never get around to pruning it.

January Blahs

Not gravel dust this time, but snow. Lots of snow. I'd rather have the dust, I think.