Clouds

We went on a 9 hour motorcycle ride through the rolling hills of Wisconsin last Saturday. The clouds were ominous all day, but they never dumped on us. The sky was pretty tame in this particular picture. I took it more for the beautiful view of the rolling hills. We pulled into the parking lot of Hansen's Hold-up Bar and Grill so I could get this shot. (We didn't eat there this time, but the view is incredible and they have decent food.)




When I looked the other direction in their parking lot, however, there were much more forbidding skies. We got a tiny bit of mist for about a minute, but that was it. The clouds kept the temp in the low 60's all day....in the middle of July, no less! It felt like a beautiful fall day and the riding was great.




Earlier in the ride, we stopped in Fountain City to stretch our legs. For some reason, the ornately designed vent on top of this building really intrigued me. That, combined with the mean looking sky, just begged for a picture.

Santa Rides a Crotch Rocket?

I've seen a lot of strange things in our neighborhood, but the last thing I expected to see this morning was Santa riding a crotch rocket. Now I know how he gets around in the off-season.





Here he is, making a careful ascent of his Yamaha R6 steed and navigating down the sidewalk to the driveway.


Techie Corner
Yep, they're blurry. I had to run and get my camera, change lenses, eject my memory card from the computer so I would actually get pictures, and hand-hold a telephoto lens while shooting through a dirty, sunlit window. Whew! I'm lucky I got any pictures at all!

Mona Lisa

While we were poking around Menards one day, looking at all the gardening accessories, I saw a display of boxed lily bulbs. They looked so forlorn and pathetic! Most of them had already sprouted in the box and were marked down for quick sale. I had always heard you should plant bulbs in the fall, but the back of the box said March-December, so I decided to give them a try. My philosophy on plants is, either they will live or they will die.

More time passed before I got them into the ground, so I had little hope that much would happen this year. But the ones that were growing in the package, kept right on growing once they were in the ground. This particular one is a Mona Lisa oriental lily. They are supposed to get 40" tall, but since these bulbs got started so late, the plants are barely a foot tall. Each one has one or two flowers that almost hang on the ground since the stalk is so short.

Hopefully they will be even bigger and more beautiful next year. Grow little plants, GROW!

Old Glory

Happy Independence Day!

I Heard it Through the Grapevine

Our grapevine has a mind of its own. It's always reaching, always grabbing, always trying to take over everything in its path. I have to wrestle it into submission every summer or it would engulf the whole neighborhood. Creatures live in it too. The rustling leaves and animal noises make it seem even more alive.

Someday maybe I'll be brave enough to eat some of the grapes. Or not.