August Garden Pictures

Well, I never completely got my garden cleaned of weeds, but it seems to have bloomed anyway. Our rains this summer have kept everything green and growing. The view from my back deck.Hostas and Suprise Lilies.Hostas, Chameleon plants and an old rake hanging on the side of my garage.Hostas and Phlox in bloom.Hostas, Phlox and Wild Flowers.A college friend, Penny, gave me this cast iron pig. I always say my garden will be completely weeded "When Pigs Fly"! My friend Kem and I made these cement fossil birdbaths a few weeks ago. I have an evergreen tree that needs to be cut down and this will be placed on top of the stump. It's a little over 2 ft. wide.More Surprise Lilies and a variety of Sedum and Liatris I think.

Denver, IA - Cemetery Walk

Have you ever been on a cemetery walk? In honor of Memorial Day tomorrow, I thought I'd share a few photos of an event we had here.
I was on the committee for Denver's Sesquicentennial celebration in 2005, and we sponsored a presentation: Bring History to Life. Voices of the Past: A Walk Through the Denver Cemetery.
The presenters, in their proper costumes of the period their person lived, stood with their back to the crowd or behind a tall monument until the time came to speak to visitors and they would turn around or step out and walk to the group.
First they would announce and introduce who they were and then start telling about their lives, ending with the date of their death. When each finished they would turn their back and walk away - there were no questions or answers from the crowd.

We had small groups guided through the cemetery to keep the traffic moving and tried to choose a variety of people from the towns past. It was a great success with a lot of coordination, but as you can see from the photos, our townspeople got into their parts with gusto.

Denver, Iowa

I took my photography students downtown in April to take some photos. We stood in one spot and then took photos in a 180 degree view from one spot. I choose to take photos of some of the older buildings in town. It looks very spread out but these buildings are actually much closer together. I took 27 pictures to make up this one view at the intersection of Main St. and Logan Ave.Check out our class blog, Digital Intentions, to see some of the students work.

Burrrrrrrrr

I've updated an earlier post about the weather and school. The photos are from the winter of 1961, back home in NW Iowa, back in the days before everyone had snow blowers. I'm not going outside to photograph our snow and you can't photograph the cold so why try? I think it's more fun to look back at old photos.
So far this has been our school schedule this week.
*Monday - we got dismissed at 11 a.m. and got snow
*Tuesday - was a two hour late start, my car didn't start after school and my battery is only 2 yrs. old, we got 7.3" of snow Tues. night
*Wednesday - cancelled
*Thursday - cancelled, our air temp is -24 with a -45 wind chill! The TV station just played Foreigner's song "You're as cold as ice!" I can relate! As of this morning our record snow fall this winter is 34.9 inches compared to 17.9" last year at this time, and there are many more days of winter! We've now missed 5 days of school so far this winter, we'll be going to school into June now. :-( I heard 190 public school districts in Iowa, out of 362, altered their schedule Thursday due to the weather.
I now have no excuse for not attacking my list of things to do around the house. I'm off...
UPDATE *Friday - Two hour late start. My car didn't start. We hit a new record in Denver of air temp of -36 this morning! but it was 1 degree F. at 3:30 p.m... a heat wave!
A lot of people like snow. I find it to be an unnecessary freezing of water. - Carl Reiner
Announced by all the trumpets of the sky, arrives the snow. - Ralph Waldo Emerson