Sunsets, Friday the 13 Moon, and first Bouquet of Summer.

I did manage to get a few shots of the moon. A bit disappointed, tho. Oh, don’t get me wrong. It was beautiful. Nature always amazes me. But, then, look who the Creator was. After the media predictions, I was expecting a more reddish/golden color. But don’t they always over state everything?

I took this picture of the Friday, the 13 moon around 9:30.

Hubby took this one around 3:00 a.m.

Here is the first bouquet of the summer from my flower gardens. Everything is growing and looking good. Praying that tonight doesn’t change that. There is a 90% change of very strong storms with high winds, large hail and possible tornadoes. The winds are very strong already. In fact, we were sitting out on the deck and I had to come in. The swaying and cracking sounds of the trees made me very nervous. I swear one is going to come down sometime, right on our roof. Told hubby we would need more than new shingles if that happens. He, of course, told me that I just have a vivid imagination, that I am a bit of a worrier. Sure hope he is right.

I took these sunset pictures one evening this past week. Sometimes I am a bit slow getting the pictures “out” of my camera.

Happy Father’s Day to all the fathers in our lives.

Have a wonderful weekend with your families.

Rose

Honey Moon, rare full moon on Friday, the 13.

What a rare event. 

US National Weather Service Kansas City Missouri

The full Honey Moon will rise late Thursday night and set on Friday the 13th. The Honey Moon is the last full moon before summer solstice, thus, it takes the lowest path across the sky (alternatively, the sun takes the highest path). The moon takes on a reddish tint due to the observer looking through more of the earth's atmosphere during this projection. A June full moon is also know as a Strawberry Moon or Corn-Planting Moon. A full moon on the 13th during any month is somewhat rare, and will only occur 15 times in between the years of 1990-2030. The last full moon to fall on June 13th occurred back in 1919. The next time this occurs will be June 13th, 2098. A rare event indeed!

Moon rise time for us here in Iowa is 8:21 p.m.  Forecast is for clear skies. I sure hope so. I will be out there with camera in hand. A once in a life time event for most of us.

Here is one I took a couple of years ago. Doesn't it look like the moon is sitting on the branch of our big Maple tree?

And one more.

I have a bit nicer camera then I did when I took these pictures. Hope I can get a couple of decent pictures tonight.

Keep your eye to the sky this evening,

Rose

Patio Makeover.

We are now all set for summer. Our patio makeover is finished. And we just love the new look. The only before picture I could find was one taken May 5, 2013. That in itself was amazing.

This gives you an idea how it looked before we started the makeover

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May, 2013

All cleaned off and ready for the makeover

Almost done

The patio transformed to a deck.

Don't you just love the new look. We do. We will be having our 10 o'clock Dr. Pepper every morning on our new deck.

Have a  great weekend.

Rose

Welcome June but where or where did May go?

Where did the month of May go? Turned around and it was gone. Not sure where it went. Time sure does fly. It has been a busy month. Hubby and I “teen sat” for three days in Des Moines.  It was fun to spend time with two of our grandsons without parents around. They seem to talk more. Another thing I forgot about teenagers. They can eat. Haven’t cooked for teenage boys in a long time.  Even was able to take in a couple of their soccer games. The weather was suited more for football, tho. 

We had seven graduation parties to attend. We, also, attended our grandson’s graduation ceremony in D.M. He has grown up to be a nice young man. And I do mean grown up. He is 6’3”. He is the tallest in our family of 24. We stayed overnight in D.M. and did some plant shopping with a couple of our daughters. Fun time. We were back in D.M. Memorial Day weekend for grandson’s graduation party. This weekend is my niece’s wedding reception. Add spring planting and yard work and May is gone. Welcome June 1.

Have a wonderful weekend,

Rose

P.S. New Hosta bed is coming along nicely.

Right on time and they are EVERYWHERE!

The Orioles arrived right on time, May 5. Not sure how they know the date, but they are very prompt and have always arrived at our house on the 5^th. Did you know they travel in flocks at night? The flock was apparently hungry after their long flight because our alarm clock on that morning, were the Orioles wanting “breakfast”. Normally, I try to have the feeders up and ready. But with the very cool spring, I thought the Orioles might be late arriving.

We have one nectar feeder and two jelly feeders. They love grape jelly. Hubby fills the votive like jars with grape jelly every morning and late afternoon. I told him we need to buy stock in the Welsh jelly company. We counted 18 at one time at the feeders. 

We counted 18 Orioles at one time.They were everywhere.

And, boy, do they fight. We have one we call THE BULLY. He will eat, fly up to a branch close to the feeders and proceed to yell and fight with any Oriole that tries to eat. Most of the time, he wins. But every once in awhile one will try to whole his ground and he retreats. Good thing we have two jelly feeders, one the east side of the house and the other on the south. While he is busy keeping his “friends” off of one feeder, there will be Orioles eating at the other one.

They are so beautiful and very entertaining.  What a fun way to spent a spring morning, watching the Orioles.

I hope this past week was a good one and the coming week even better. Rose

You can listen to the song of Orioles and learn some interesting facts about them here.

Songs and Facts of Orioles.

What a difference a week can make.

             What a difference a week makes. I transplanted these Hostas on April 30.

                      Same view a week to the day later. Nature is so amazing.

  

Have a good weekend,

Rose

Spring weather, our close call.

Spring, or should I say summer, is finally here. The temp got to 94 yesterday. And today there is a chance of severe thunderstorms. I love the warmer weather but I don’t like the storms that usually come with it. Here in Iowa the weather can go from beautiful and sunny to cloudy and stormy in no time at all.

Back in June of 1968, I was pregnant and very due with our fourth child. It was a beautiful late spring day. Sunny and a nice day to be outside. But by evening that all changed. Thunderstorms moved in by bedtime. After being outside most the day, very tired and very pregnant, I was sound asleep when hubby woke me up with” do you hear that?” I remember saying, “It is just thunder, go back to sleep.” I had just got the words out of my mouth with the slamming of doors and breaking of windows had both of us out of bed in a flash. The wind was so strong it blew our 2 ½ year old girl’s door shut. Over the sound of wind and glass breaking, we could hear screaming. Hubby had trouble getting her door open to rescue her. The foot of her bed was in front of the window and there she stood with glass all around her but not a scratch on her.  But hubby cut his foot getting her out. We got the other two girls and headed down stairs. By then the storm had passed. Apparently a tornado had dipped down but had not touched ground. All the windows on the south and west side of the house were broke and water was everywhere. A huge, very old tree was uprooted right on top of Hubby’s car. And Hubby just kept saying “Don’t decide to have that baby tonight.” God was with us that night. Yes, we had some damage but we still had a house and our lives. It definitely was a night to remember.

Stay safe,

Rose