After and Before

So I feel as if I have made some progress.  I have finished painting the eaves!  I divided them into four sections, and each section required scraping, then treating with mildew remover and then rinsing with a garden hose, and then a primer coat and then the finish coat.  This has been a lot of work on tall and short extension ladders.  I have also, as you can see, painted a fair amount of the siding as well.  It is nice that all the really high parts are done.  I am not afraid of being on the ladder when I am 25 feet up off the ground, at the peak, but I am shall we say "less comfortable" than I used to be up that high.  And you can see my bright orange safety rope hanging from the attic window, which I clipped myself into each time I climbed up one of the ladders.  So I have worked safely.  And the really hard parts are pretty much done, I just need to finish painting the siding.  It will be beautiful to see it all finished in bright new white paint!  Oh!  Please click on this image because it is a larger size and you can see more detail.

I thought I would include a "before" photograph so you can get a better sense of how bad it looked and how dramatically improved the new paint makes it look!  I have a deep sense of satisfaction with having done this work, seeing the newly painted parts of this side of the house.

 

A Sunset Does Not a Photograph Make.

We saw a spectacular colorful sunset in the sky as we were driving down Laurel Avenue, heading to the beach.  By the time we were parked at the beach where we were going to walk, the sunset had faded a great deal.  There was this little bit of color left, close to the horizon, and it wasn't much but I took a couple of frames anyhow.  This is hardly a complete photograph.  It what I learned years ago, is that this  is known as "a fragment." It has the makings of a photograph, but there is not enough in it to make it complete.  Perhaps a foreground object, like a tree or a person.  Something to add a point of interest to what is here, just a colorful photograph of the sky. So I was desperate, yet again, and so here you have a beautiful fragment, but not a complete photograph.

 

Our Little Concrete Angel

As I mentioned yesterday, Kathy has not been tending to the gardens at all, and I don't pay attention to them either.  But yesterday when I went over to the side garden looking for a photograph, I found the American pokeweed which we didn't know was in the garden.  I walked toward the street and was shocked to see our little stone angel almost completely covered in leaves from some vines!  You have seen photographs of our angel before, in various seasons, but never like this!  She looks as if she is in a predicament.  It is perfect weather for painting and I will be painting more tomorrow, but the day after I will go over and clear away the vines.  But this is kind of interesting to see out tiny angel almost completely overgrown.  If you want to have some fun, in the upper left hand corner of this page is a white space where you can enter "angel" and then click on the magnifying glass and it will show you a whole bunch of my garden angel photographs!

 

Look at The Pretty Berries!

Look at the pretty berries I found in the garden this afternoon!  How beautiful they are!  I cannot believe the brilliant magenta stalk on which the berries grow.  You will be pleased to know that this plant is American pokeweed (Phytolacca americana).  It always helps to know the Latin name!  So I looked it up.  IT IS POISONOUS!  EVERY PART OF THE PLANT, EVEN THE ROOTS!  Yikes!  What?  I used Google Images and uploaded a photo of it to get its identification.  I found it growing in Kathy's garden.  Given her knee replacement surgery and the recovery, she has not been working in her garden at all, and it is pretty much overgrown.  I had never noticed this plant before so it must be fast growing.  There are bunches of berries everywhere on this plant.  I thought this close up was pretty dramatic so I posted this photograph first.

Here is a better view of more of the plant.  I think the poisonous quality of the plant is worth reading about, so I am posting a lot of text. Wait until you read about how the leaves have been eaten!  The entire plant is genuinely poisonous to humans, but its toxicity varies considerably depending on which part is eaten and how much.  The entire plant is considered poisonous, including the berries, leaves, stems, and especially the root. Eating one or two berries generally does not cause serious poisoning, particularly in children, but larger amounts can cause significant gastrointestinal poisoning—abdominal cramps, nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea. The roots are considerably more concerning. People have mistaken pokeweed roots for edible roots such as ginseng and developed severe vomiting and diarrhea, sometimes with blood, low blood pressure, and other serious effects requiring hospitalization. Get this: young leaves have traditionally been eaten as "poke salad," but only after repeated boiling and draining. Raw or improperly prepared leaves can cause poisoning, so I would not regard them as safe to experiment with.  Yikes!  Boy the things you can learn on my blog!  You are welcome!  :-)

 

A Jungle?

Anyone want to guess what this is a photograph of?

I bought Kathy some flowers for our anniversary and then I put them in a clear glass vase on the dining room table.  One evening I was looking not at the flowers, but at the stems in the water.  So I got out my close-up lens and spent a few minutes trying to make something of these stems underwater.  Not one of my greatest efforts, certainly, but I am a bit desperate because I have nothing else for the evening.  That's what happens when I am painting - I neglect everything else!

 

I Am Just Too Old!

I wanted to buy a box of chocolates for us for our anniversary. So I went to our local CVS where I have always bought Russell Stover, or Whiteman's Sampler boxes of chocolates.  I looked all over the place and couldn't find any!  So I asked one of the young employees if they had any boxes of chocolates, and they had no idea what "a box of chocolates" was!  So I went to the larger, newer CVS about a mile or two away, and asked an employee the same question.  I used my hands and fingers to describe the size of the box and that it was not very thick.  He showed me all kinds of things but he didn't seem to know what I was talking about.  Of course the new thing is they they have small and large bags of chocolate candies of all kinds, but he just didn't know what I was describing!  So on a chance, I CAREFULLY looked at each and every shelf from top to bottom, and finally saw maybe three of these boxes on a bottom shelf!  I was in luck.  So in the end I figured that it is only old people who even know these things exist, a more formal gift than a giant bag of Reeses Peanut Butter Cups!  In Wikipedia, it did say that apparently "Boxed Chocolates" are a big favorite at Christmastime.  We'll see if that is true.  I will let you know.

 

A Different Sky Tonight

Our usual walk around sunset tonight.  A different kind of sky - high stratus clouds rather then the usual cumulus.  I first noticed the glowing clouds in the center of the photo and thought that was interesting but then I saw the three small figures, and new I had a photograph!  I grabbed my iPhone, rather than my Sony Rx 100 because it was quicker, and it had a wider angle lens on it.  Two shots was all it took and I knew I had it!  A lucky evening for me!