Burning Leaf Litter In-Place - March 2026

Posted by on

Part of my DIY Spring clean-up is doing some small, controlled burns in place with the left-behind leaf litter in the beds.  I rake up some small piles that have defined edges (so the burn can't run everywhere) and use my little weed-burning torch to set the piles on fire.  They burn up the leaves, leave behind some ash and eventually exhaust themselves when they run out of material.   Here's one of the small piles I am burning under the Hornbeam trees in back:


Location: Downers Grove, IL, USA

Comments

Post a Comment

Be nice to each other here.

Popular posts from this blog

A Look At Valley View Pool - Vintage Frankfort, Illinois

Posted by on
Image
I came across this photo of Valley View Pool - later named the Frankfort Township Pool through a friend who found it Via Frankfort Deleted on Facebook here .  That photo above is NOT mine, it came from Frankfort Deleted  - which is run, I think by Pam Biesen, a mother of one of my grammar school classmates(!!) - who I presume got it from somewhere else. Based on some of the cars, this photo was taken in the Summer of 1959. Or maybe the Summer of 1960.  The reason that I'm saying that is that I showed the image to my Dad and he was able to identify *some* of the cars.  He spied: a 1957 Ford Fairlane 500 Sunliner (the yellow one on the far right), a 1959 Ford Galaxie 500 (the red one second from the right), a 1958 Chrysler , a 1955 Buick and a 1950 Plymouth (this one is easy because there's one car - the grey one - that doesn't look like the rest of the cars, right?). I'm saying Summer of 1959 or 1960.  Why?  Because the *newest* car shown in ...
Read more

Cedar Summit Panorama Playset from Costco

Posted by on
Image
Move over vegetable garden and garage pavillion, there's potentially a new entrant into the currently crowded backyard at the Parrillo household.  Behold:  this beauty.  The Cedar Summit Panorama Playset from Costco.   Comes with 3 swings and a tube slide.  Nat spotted this behemoth at Costco and after doing a bit of comparison shopping at a place like Menards (more expensive, I think) and Wannemaker's (don't sell these type of things any more), it appears to be a fair deal. It is a kit - so I'd be putting it together myself, but I'm up for that challenge.  The real issue is getting it home.  I'm going to head back to Costco to take a look to see if it will fit in Nat's car with the back seats folded down.  If not, it seems like I'll be renting a truck from Home Depot.  Yes, the Babe is likely too small for a lot of this, but certainly NOT the swings.  We take her to the park on a regular basis and she gets a kick out of the swi...
Read more

Lou Malnati's Salad Dressing Recipe as Published in the 60's

Posted by on
Image
Earlier this winter, I wrote about the old Lou Malnati's menu and mentioned that as I was waiting around for my pie to finish up, I spied an old Chicago Tribune article posted on the wall that included the original Lou Malnati's Italian Salad Dressing Recipe.  The Tribune reporter called it "prized".  We were set to host a little pizza party over the weekend, so I figured I'd give it a shot.  Here's the article as seen through my mobile phone's camera. I'm not a wine drinker, so the fact that the recipe called for Burgundy wine didn't strike me as odd.  I went shopping at Angelo Caputos in Addison - a really incredible shopping experience - and when I got to the wine section I found Burgundy wine was carried ONLY in those HUGE jugs.  And they were dirt cheap.  The only issue is that needed just 4 ounces.  We ended up with a whole-lotta-wine that Nat won't drink. I've taken the recipe and modified it a bit by eliminating the percentage...
Read more