Why I Oughta...

Another year full of posts.  Mostly about my garden, my pizza oven build and some other various nonsense.  This year, I'll have written 367 posts (including this one); with 2024 being a Leap year with 366 days.  If you look at the archive list (below), you'll see that there are some misses/additions.  May does NOT have 32 days, but October has 31.  Oh, well.  Not a gold-star blogging year, but still more than one-post-per-day...everyday. I've done daily blogging - 365 posts since 2015.  That means...this is the 10th year straight that I've completed that task. Here is 2023's post .  Ten years of writing.  Everyday.  Ten years!  Something like 3600+ straight days.   And 20 years of blogging here.  Twenty years.  Half of which are consecutive.  My goodness that's a lot of nonsense.  And garden diary posts.  

Even more pizza oven progress.  Dome closing in.  Door template removed.  And...the inner arch stayed up.  

I've been SUPER neglectful of my pizza oven build project here on my own blog.  By that...I mean...I've neglected to update the blog, but not the actual oven.  Good news, bad news, I guess.  Good news:  the oven is built and closed in.   The bad news:  I last posted about it in late September when I was like seven chains up on the dome . Let's catch up - a little bit.   I was able to keep putting up chains and finally got around to building out the door: And, from there, I kept going around and around.  Thanks to the indispensable tool. 

 This is my annual reminder that the State of Illinois should bring back the 1983 blue-top license plates. Here's my post from 2023 when I asked for the same return to this plate across the state.

There's growth on the tips of this Hemlock tree just waiting for Spring to arrive.  

In the Fall of 2021, I planted three Green Gem Boxwoods in the backyard, about half-way back on the south side of the garden .  They were tiny, $5-ONE-GALLON shrubs that *barely* lifted their crown about the soil.  Today, they're starting to stand on their own.  See below for current state of the three Green Gem Boxwoods in early Winter along with a lot of leaf litter. Some nice moss on a couple of those small boulders, too.  

The garden is sleeping.  It has put itself to bed - with everything going dormant.  Everything...that is....except for some evergreens and semi-evergreens.  Evergreens - like conifers - are what I think of when it comes to winter interest.  But...semi-evergreens are something that I continue to learn about every season.  And...the shining star of my own semi-evergreens continues to be Autumn Ferns.   Have a look at these Ferns below.  This is Christmas Day.  And, everything is bare, brown and dry.  But...these?  Still showing off with their green fronds.  More Autumn Ferns needs to be near the top of my 2025 planting list.  I've said it before, but I haven't delivered as much as I'd like to on Autumn Ferns.  Yesterday's post about a Fairy Garden?  I mention removing Ostrich Ferns.  What should I replace them with in that spot?  Autumn Ferns need to be part of the equation.

2024 was the year of cut flowers, but it also was the year of some ' garden personality '.  I included the notion of adding even more 'garden personality' as number 22 on my 2024 to-do list .  To that end, I feel like I added a bit - including the 'feed me' compost bin sign .  I also added - and mostly neglected - a small Stumpery in the back late in 2023 .   There's another bit of 'garden personality' that I added earlier this year that I failed to post about here on the blog.  That "bit" is my first attempt at a more-permanent Fairy Garden using a piece of Norway Maple trunk and a couple pieces of Norway Maple bark to create a little roof.  I sunk the bottom-half of the trunk into the ground to give it some stability and attached the roof with a couple of decking screws.   I added a little branch 'perch' where the door will go about half-way-up the trunk.  See below for the first Fairy House built in my new(ish) (more permanent) F...

Get the pole out of the crawlspace, everybody.  It is time to celebrate Festivus, of course.  Here is the Festivus post from 2023 that reveals my great hope for my kids - as they grow up.   As soon as the middle child woke up, I planted her down on the couch and turned on Netflix and we both watched "The Strike" together.  Then...when it was over...the next episode up was the one where David Putty was a Saab car salesman - who was 'screwing' Jerry because of breaking up with Elaine. Why is that interesting?  Because...the middle child was able to place Putty's voice:  Soarin'.   Here's to pinning your own son tonight.  

We started the season with three facecords - one Birch, one Oak, one Cherry.  And...after burning for a couple of months...here's where we stand - in the photos below.  The stoop rack is full-to-the-top, but the pile on the left has diminished quite a bit.  This is the Birch. The other two outdoor racks are 2/3rds full - Oak on the left, Cherry on the right: And, lastly...the inside racks - in the foreground is oak on top, cherry on bottom.  In the background is birch.  

I post a lot of my own gardening wins.  So, I should also post a few of my gardening losses - including this 'garden edit' that never was.  I moved a bunch of ferns out of this bed by the tree swing tree and planned to replace them with Hakonechloa Macra Japanese Forest Grasses - to join the four existing ones.   But...I never got around to buying them and planting them.  See below - the space to the left of the existing grasses all the way past the boxwood is supposed to be these grasses.  Right now...it is BARE. Something - for sure - to do in 2025.  

I've documented a few pizza operation tips over the years here on the blog.  From what a pizza parlor could/would look like to the signage to the uniforms/tabletops to the *actual name* ( Dorianell's ), I've 'dreamed' a lot about the front-of-house.   But, I've also documented tips and tricks for the back-of-house.  Including how Aurelio's pre-pans their dough to the type of tomatoes and more.   This past Spring, Summer and...Fall...I built out my own wood-fired pizza oven.  (Note:  I REALLY need to finish those posts!).  So, I'm turning my attention to building out the rest of the oven setup; including prep tables.   The latest tip comes via world's best pizza guy - Chef Anthony Mangieri, owner of Una Pizza Napoletana in NYC in this YouTube video from Bon Appétit . Here, below, is the full video - but further down, I've taken a few screenshot stills from it that I wanted to call-out. First...he talks about setting up his layou...

2024 was the year of the dahlia around here.  I went A LOT further with dahlia tubers in 2024 than I've done in the past - including pre-ordering them, starting the tubers indoors, planting them in the ground, trying to prune them/cut the flowers at the right time/place and....most recently....attempting to overwinter some of the tubers - both in Saran Wrap as well as in the ground. Since the pre-ordering thing went so well this past season, I figured while Longfield Gardens was having a sale on their Dahlia tubers, why not order a bunch to arrive in Spring. Last year, I ordered Melina Fleur and Cornell Bronze .   This year, I ordered three varieties:  Maarn Ball Dahlias Sweet Nathalie Decorative Dalias Pablo Decorative Border Dahlias. Below is a screenshot from my order: They arrive in April, but I'm already thinking about where to grow these Dahlias.  The Pablo tubers were a 'bulk order', so I will have a good-sized colony of these (if they're successful...eek...

'Tis the season for winter, evergreen mixed arrangements around here.  I've made a couple of 'big' ones that ended up at each of our folks houses and some that ended up at neighbor's houses.  A few day ago, I posted a pair that went to my sister's houses .  And, back close to Thanksgiving, I posted a photo of the first one that I put together for our own kitchen counter .   A couple weeks later, that initial one needed a refresh, so I pulled it apart.  And, Nat found this little vintage planter with a wreath on the front that I filled with some floral foam and stuck various evergreen branches to make this arrangement you see below: This has Thuja, pine, fir, boxwood, Alder and painted Birch branches.  

I planted some Green Giant Thujas back in the Spring of 2022 and....now...coming up on three years later...they are starting to have 'presence' in the garden.   Perhaps it is because everything else is in dormancy.  Or...more likely...because these have put on size - height and width.   See below for the three along the southside of the property.    I'm now thinking of putting a few more of these in the backyard - come Spring 2025.  Screening trees along the back sides of the garden - including adding even more along this same fenceline.

Each late Winter, I prune up the pair of Greenspire Lindens that are formal in shape via espalier.  They need a bunch of pruning along the top level of the horizontal cordon.  There are waterspouts EVERYWHERE.  And, this year is no different.  With these trees recently dropping their leaves, the structure has been exposed and I can see all the top-growth from that top level.  See below for the pair of trees: Come February, I'll dormant prune ALL of those off and bring it back into shape.  

The Alice Oakleaf Hydrangeas on the southside of our backyard in the 'kitchen curved bed' are holding on to their greenish/purple-ish leaves this late into the year.  Below in the photo you can see a number of them lined up along the back/middle-back of the border that are droop'ing, but...holding their large leaves: Also note...the leaf litter in the photo all across the beds.  I've cleaned these out a handful of times, each time trying to cut up the leaves with my mower and blowing the scraps back onto the beds.  

Once I posted the structure of the front-yard Spring Grove Ginkgo tree , I figured I should include the back stoop versions (there is one on each side) in the [garden diary], too.   Both of these have a one-year head start, but are showing a bunch more height than the front-yard tree.

I put together a pair of evergreen arrangements for my Sisters that include a bunch of foraged materials - including Thuja, Spruce, Boxwood and Yew clippings as well as a little bit of euclalptus and some branches from both Magnolia and Alder trees.  The vases are, of course, thrifted.

Yesterday, I posted a photo of the small Skylands Spruce in our front yard island bed.  Today, is a photo showing its companion:  the Spring Grove (dwarf) Ginkgo tree that was planted this season, too.  Unlike the Skylands Spruce, the Spring Grove Ginkgo tree is naked right now; it dropped all its leaves earlier this Fall.   And that's revealed a STRIKING structure.  Pointy and sharp.  The branching provides a bit of 'Winter interest' with a handful of main branches and dozens of short, straight secondary branches emanating like spikes.  See below:

The small Skylands Spruce tree that went into the 'island bed' in our front yard has a number of cones clinging to the tips of some of the upper branches that have sort-of 'unfurled' and grown the past few weeks.  The cones - once tightly wound - are now a little bit more 'open'.  See below for a photo of one of the cones.  Note the chicken wire ring to keep the (dang!) rabbits from gnawing away the tips of this tiny tree: 

The 2024 season for the Fighting Illini will be one that I remember for A LONG TIME.  We went to a number of home games down in Champaign and between the start times (2:30 pm on CBS!), the weather (Chamber of Commerce Days), the tailgating (Thanks to Equation Boy/Man for Lot 31) and...well...the winning....the 'vibes' (as the kids say) are way different this year than they have for MOST of my fandom. Yesterday, the DIA annouced we've accepted a bid to play the South Carolina Gamecocks in the Cheez-it Citrus Bowl on the afternoon of New Year's Eve.  From the Fighting Illini Football press release : The #20 Illinois football team has accepted an invitation to play in the Cheez-It Citrus Bowl in Orlando, Florida, it was announced Sunday. Illinois will play #15 South Carolina at Camping World Stadium on Tuesday, Dec. 31, at 2 p.m. CT on ABC. The Illini qualified for the 21st bowl game in program history and the Illini's second New Year's bowl in Florida in the last...

The annual tradition of the Christmas Train is back ahead of Christmas this December.  The KotBT was fumpferhing around with his Lionel O-Gauge train and his new (thanks to his Papa) ZW transformer.  This year might be the year of sorting - what we want to keep (and what works) and what we can get rid-of and likely re-sell via Facebook Marketplace and/or Craigslist.  As expected, he's not that drawn to boxcars, but is mostly interested in the operating cars and rolling stock.

There I was...sitting at a railroad crossing of the BNSF when this Christmas train pulls up.  Did I just get lucky?  I think so .  Below are a number of pics - but they're not great.  Granted...the train was flying by!  You can see the lights, the garland and even...a tree.   Well done, Metra .  Well done.  Here, below is an animated gif of the train:

Yesterday, I posted photos of how I'm attempting to overwinter some Dahlia tubers in the ground and in a couple of those pics, you might have peeked at the chicken wire cages next to the piles of mulch on the dahlia tubers.  Those chicken wire cages are full of fallen leaves and are set on top of the three Disneyland Rose crowns along the southside of our house. See below for a couple of photos showing how I set up the ring of chicken wire and filled it with mulched-up leaves: These roses struggled this year, so here's hoping this little bit of extra Winter protection is going to help them get through the cold.