What's outside of your picture window today?

Posted by John, Volunteer Mentor @johnbishop, Nov 25, 2020

As we get ready for the real winter to show up and COVID-19 still playing a major part in our lives I like to spend moments of my day de-stressing about what's going on in the world today. All I have to do is look out the window and observe some of natures beautiful creatures, how they interact and ponder how small it makes my troubles seem. Sometimes I may even get the opportunity to take a photo or two. How about you? Anything going on outside of your window(s) that you want to share?

For those members that have the ability to size your photos before you upload them to the discussion, may I suggest using the following sizes:
– 500 x 335 pixels (landscape)
– 210 x 210 pixels (square)

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@johnbishop

Well it's not exactly outside my window but it is within walking distance 😁 and it's Stagecoach Days in Mantorville. Sigh, it's too hot to walk even for ice cream or chocolate...I think.

@elimseoj - Did you get a chance to stop by the Chocolate Shoppe when you visited our town while at the Rochester Mayo Clinic? I hope so. They have a great selection of homemade candies - https://chocolateshoppe.co/story

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Southern Oregon and Pacific Railroad runs through middle of town. There are several big old oak trees, and we staged the mobile fireworks booth under one of them. Temperatures are supposed to be about 100 today, and excessive heat warning continues to Monday night. Late at night it dips down to 45 or so, and all the windows are thrown open.

Here is my "red velvet rose" from this morning. I spent just over an hour weeding and prettying things before the heat hit. Tomorrow I will work on the north side, cleaning sidewalk and gathering more weeds. It's been too long since I was down there!
Ginger

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@gingerw

Southern Oregon and Pacific Railroad runs through middle of town. There are several big old oak trees, and we staged the mobile fireworks booth under one of them. Temperatures are supposed to be about 100 today, and excessive heat warning continues to Monday night. Late at night it dips down to 45 or so, and all the windows are thrown open.

Here is my "red velvet rose" from this morning. I spent just over an hour weeding and prettying things before the heat hit. Tomorrow I will work on the north side, cleaning sidewalk and gathering more weeds. It's been too long since I was down there!
Ginger

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This is stunning!!! Wow, Ginger, What a glorious bloom! ❤️

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@loribmt

This is stunning!!! Wow, Ginger, What a glorious bloom! ❤️

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The coral rose is blooming, as is the fiesta rose bush, but they don't "hold a candle" to this wondrous red plant! The two different lavender bushes are happy, my succulents are happy. The little yellow tearose bush has decided to not do much this year, although I am still encouraging her.

I am concerned the county has not come out yet to create defensible land space in the lots they took over in January. Guess I will give them a call and leave a message for the land manager...

This morning I saw a mated pair of eagles floating over the valley, catching wind currents. We have a lot of turkey vultures around, so it takes a while to understand the different flight patterns and wing formation.
Ginger

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Yes, we even have heat (or what seems like heat to us, mid-sixties) on the Oregon Coast. After weeks of cold and rain during the wettest spring I can remember, it's been great to be able to finally "harvest" the hip-high grass on most of the acre I usually mow. It's so high and thick with mushy soft ground underneath that I finally "mowed" about a third of it with my weed whacker. Today, I'll go out beside the one lane gravel road and start to mow...by the time I've finished, it'll be time to mow again as it takes me three or four days to mow and trim everything. I had hoped that this would be the year that I'd dig up and fence a garden area (to keep all the deer and elk out), but it's getting late to do that, plus I still have at least a couple dozen of big sword ferns to trim...if you trim the growth left over from the previous year, they grow much larger and nicer. The big flower bed out beside the road is finally really growing, with some dahlias that survived the flooding coming back. Although we can't see the flowers from the house, everyone who walks along our road for exercise really enjoys them. I can't grow flowers near the house due to all the trees as they need to be both shade-loving and not food for deer! There's one sort of open place where I have my clothesline; that's where I'd have to put a small garden. It seems strange to have so much acreage but only a small place that gets enough sun for a garden! I'm really missing fawns this year: not one single new fawn! Usually, there are a half dozen or more. I'd think it might have had something to do with the long, wet spring, but I didn't see any pregnant does. Was the big magnificent buck on holiday last fall? I'm hoping that rivers will drop so that I can drive north to put the last temperature monitor into the river there: it was so high that we either couldn't reach areas for spawning surveys or couldn't see when we were able to wade sections of the river. In 30 years of collecting data, we've never had this lack of data to report, which is very disappointing. It's amazing to see that the front deck is dry for the fifth morning in a row; I'll take this lovely dry weather for a little while before I begin to worry about fires!

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@sueinmn

This is "What's INSIDE my Picture Window Today"
Quite probably the longest-aged quilt in my history - made entirely out of fabrics in my stash. It took 3 years of hanging on the design wall for the ombre (variegated) fabric to decide what it wanted to be. Then another year for the print fabric to jump out of its bin and land on the table. And a full reorg of my quilt fabrics last Spring for all the other colors to join in. And a week or two to draw & finalize the design. Finally, 9 months from cutting to finishing - a marathon 12 hour day Tuesday of finishing the machine quilting, then hand binding.

Now I'm waiting for it to tell me where it wants to live!
Sue

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Oh my goodness. I wish my Grandmother could see this. I used to watch her sit outside with the quilt stand that my Grandfather made for her. She loved doing wedding quilts. She would hae had trouble with me because I was married three times but not just to get another quilt.

Great work of art Sue.
Chris

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@artscaping

Oh my goodness. I wish my Grandmother could see this. I used to watch her sit outside with the quilt stand that my Grandfather made for her. She loved doing wedding quilts. She would hae had trouble with me because I was married three times but not just to get another quilt.

Great work of art Sue.
Chris

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Thanks Chris. We spent this weekend immersed in art, local history and chatting about both in Southeastern Nebraska with a dear friend. We capped it off with a visit to a couple of the covered bridges in Iowa. I am refreshed and energized. Can't wait to get back to my fibers, paints and gardens.

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I guess this is technically outside my (car) window- even though I strolled a little way to get this shot.
At the Rosman Covered Bridge in Iowa, the next door homeowner built a birdhouse copy of the original.

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@sueinmn

I guess this is technically outside my (car) window- even though I strolled a little way to get this shot.
At the Rosman Covered Bridge in Iowa, the next door homeowner built a birdhouse copy of the original.

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@sueinmn @artscaping @johnbishop Just catching up on outside my window. The picture is wonderful. I still do miss Iowa. What is happening outside your window in July? I can finally look out and see big round bales waiting for transport to the big barn. But the pastures are turning brown as we continue to have very little rain and record-setting temps. It has to be cooler somewhere. Would like to see more pictures. Take care and be healthy. KLH

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@kilh

@sueinmn @artscaping @johnbishop Just catching up on outside my window. The picture is wonderful. I still do miss Iowa. What is happening outside your window in July? I can finally look out and see big round bales waiting for transport to the big barn. But the pastures are turning brown as we continue to have very little rain and record-setting temps. It has to be cooler somewhere. Would like to see more pictures. Take care and be healthy. KLH

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Yesterday I was in southwestern Minnesota, the corn is tassling, the soybeans are green. Only the marginal land gets planted for hay...they had a surprise heavy rain a couple weeks ago, and right in the Minnesota River flood plain there were a number of fields still underwater. Sadly with many big round bales sitting like islands in the water. With the costs facing farmers this year, I was sad to see all that spoiled hay!

We have had little rain here, so out yard looks a bit like a brown pasture - just keeping the vegetable garden and flowers alive.
Sue

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@sueinmn

Yesterday I was in southwestern Minnesota, the corn is tassling, the soybeans are green. Only the marginal land gets planted for hay...they had a surprise heavy rain a couple weeks ago, and right in the Minnesota River flood plain there were a number of fields still underwater. Sadly with many big round bales sitting like islands in the water. With the costs facing farmers this year, I was sad to see all that spoiled hay!

We have had little rain here, so out yard looks a bit like a brown pasture - just keeping the vegetable garden and flowers alive.
Sue

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Thanks for the catch-up reply. I hate to see any bales getting ruined. Especially with the raising costs of feed and fertilizer. We did spread N-P-K but the smallest we could get by with.
No garden for me this year had all my seeds and things ready to go when at the beginning of March I ended up in the hospital, rehab, and finally extended care. I returned home on May 5th. Who would have thought I would be gone all that time. I am glad you are well and get to be outside. Keep me posted with photos. KLH

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