Why I Oughta...

Around the corner from our house is a Acer palmatum that is planted near the sidewalk.  It is a mature tree that was planted many years ago and has grown up tall-enough to be able to sort-of walk *under* the canopy of the tree as it reaches out over the sidewalk.  I was pretty sure it was a Bloodgood based on all observable factors including the (normally) dark red foliage.  But, this week, I was stopped in my tracks by some of the colors on the leaves. I had to take a photo: Does Bloodgood get these green margins in late Summer?  I know that sun exposure does different things to different Japanese Maples.  But, this is just something else, isn't it?  I really loved seeing this and while I don't know how long this will last, knowing that it takes place in late August/early September is a nice little nugget of info on my Acer palmatum journey. I look at Mr. Maple's 10-for-10 things each week and I see these photos of really striking foliage.  That look ...

 We have a pretty active NextDoor online community.  And as you'd expect, there's TONS of animal/critter sightings on there - including the occasional coyote ( Here's one that I saw on my walk to the train on our block ).  But, Downers Grove has what I think is A LOT of foxes in our town.  We have so many that there's now a restaurant named after the phenomenon (at least, I think that's why they named it that way).  I've posted about some of them on the blog including earlier this year when there was one sitting on the driveway across the street from us early one morning .   This past week, The KotBT and I were out in our front yard dragging our garbage cans down to the curb in the early evening when we spotted the Fantastic Mr. Fox crossing our street - from the creekside of the block to our side.  Here he is trotting across the street: I have a series of other posts about critters/wildlife on the blog including a close-up encounter with a fox ...

I was out moving the lawn sprinkler around ( the gear drive one that I bought this Summer ) and I noticed someone watching me from across the street.  It was this guy - a little Fox - sitting on the driveway watching my moves.  I looked down and then when I looked up, he was gone.  For reference, this is the driveway that you can see in the video here from 2017 with the same white garage door peeking out . Not the first fox we've seen - but I mostly see them closer to Maple Avenue - behind the Lincoln Center - but a good reminder that they're around and our neighborhood is home to plenty of wildlife. Two years ago, I posted this photo of a Coyote on my walk to the train .  Last Summer, a duck laid an egg in our yard .  And earlier this year, I spotted an Owl up in a large tree early one morning .  We've had a bunch of run-ins with foxes up in Wisconsin - in fact I saw one up on the porch one Winter morning .  Foxes are talked about all around...

One of the big things that I've started to do every work day ever since we were put into lockdown and I stopped going to the office was getting out for a walk.  It started with a mid-day walk up and down the block a few times a week to loosen up my back and my Psoas muscle.  But, at some point, it changed to a 'first thing in the morning' walk.    For a while, the sun was coming up on my walks and I was greeted with the first light of the day.  I posted a photo from one of these walks back in June when we were up in Wisconsin .  You can see the daylight/sunrise in that photo . Recently, the days have grown darker in the mornings and I now leave and get back to our house all in the dark.  That's brought some new experiences - including skunks, possums and raccoons picking at cans on the curb on garbage days. But, it also has shown me some interesting weather experiences like what you see in the photos above and below from Randall Park in our neig...

It is sure feeling like Spring around these parts.  But, this columnar Oak tree that I came across on a walk sure isn't in the mood to bud out.  It is still clinging to it's Fall leaves.  This is a parkway tree, so it was planted by the forestry or arborist division of the Village of Downers Grove public works department as part of their parkway tree program.  I mentioned/covered the species that they have available in this post about our own parkway tree at the very end of 2019 and sure enough...one of the Spring-planted trees are Oaks.  They list them as (various species) in their handout . Might be a Columnar English Oak?  This Monrovia listing shows it down to Zone 5 .  This is a lovely parkway tree and the marcescence adds some drama to the curbside that's for sure.  I've covered the concept of marcescence (trees like this one retaining leaves through all of/part of Winter) on the blog.  And we see it with our own Oak trees and...

Yesterday, I posted a couple of photos (and a video) of the Great Horned Owl (or Owls) that have taken up residence in our neighborhood and talked about some of the natural features of Randall Park - including the large Barth Pond at one end and (what I think is known as) St. Joseph's Creek running from north-to-south along the boundary.  Nat and I really love our neighbors and like our neighborhood.  The lots are large(r), the trees are mature and I can walk to two different train stations.  Did we talk about the pond ?  Pretty great , right?  Welp, there are (at least) two other activities that take place in Randall Park that are community/neighbor-driven that make the place a special place to live.  The first is the annual block party Soap Box Derby that I've covered here on the blog.  Here's the Randall Park 2018 Soap Box Derby post and the 2017 Randall Park Soap Box Derby Post .  That's a handful of families who transform their annua...

This is one of my neighbor's Ash trees.  They have a half-dozen or so that have are dead and still standing.  The photo above is striking for two reasons:  the worm-like pattern that is on the tree is the most noticeable.  But, look closer:  see all the holes?  All over the tree?  That's from the Emerald Ash Borer and why the tree is dead. Here's a closer look at a couple of the Emerald Ash Borer (EAB) holes on this tree: There doesn't appear to be any of the Borers hanging around as I presume these trees were killed years ago when the Borer first appeared in Illinois.  The Morton Arboretum suggests that the Emerald Ash Borer is so pervasive that it expects that EVERY Ash Tree in Illinois will be killed .  EVERY. SINGLE. ONE.  What happens when all the Ash trees are gone?  Will the Borers move on?  Fly somewhere else?  Just die off?  Or, will they adapt to the environment and start to attack other specie...

On a recent Saturday, we took the three kids down a couple of blocks to Fairmount Avenue to the annual neighborhood Block Party and Soapbox Derby. 1    This is the second year in a row that we've participated and you can see a video and my post from the 2017 edition here on the blog . As I wrote last year, this is a really fun family event.  The families that put this on go out of their way to make their block party a really special experience and they draw in families from not just their block, but from people like us - who live a few blocks away.  Once again, they had a DJ tent set up, a really well-put-together starting gate/ramp, a big food spread including hot dogs, a frosty keg and lemonade/water setups for all the kids (and shandy setup by combining the keg and lemonade setups for me!), a snow cone station, a number of sawhorses set up by the garage to tune up your car and every tool and wrench and impact driver you could ever need.  Oh, and they...

Tis' the season for the arrival of these beautiful anemone flowers down the block from our house.  Just about one year to the day, I shared a similar photo of these blooms that are in the front yard of a house a few doors down.  Those of you who have been with me for a while will know that we had an anemone perennial at our old house in Elmhurst .  And it came about because of a re-do of Nat's wedding bouquet .  Earlier this Summer, I shared a photo of the 'teardown haul' that I pulled out of Nat's Sister's yard before they started construction .  In that pile of stuff was a perennial that shared some of the characteristics of the anemone plants - with leaves the same shape.  I stuck that plant in the back of our yard and tended to it just a little bit.  After some shock, it appears to have rebounded.  And is growing foliage, but no blooms.  I suppose we won't know until next year if we do, indeed, have anemones or if I rescued some wee...

We have a neighbor down the block that spends a lot of time and effort to tend to his yard and garden.  He's out there constantly and seems to really like to make his yard look the best it can.  On one of my walks with Lizzie, I chatted him up about the garden and we got started talking about how he was about to split up his Daylilies.  And he offered us a few of them.  Of course, I'd take them, I said.  What you see above are a few containers that we ended up with before I put them in one of the beds in the rear part of our yard.  I don't know that much about daylilies, but we had three of them in our old garden that I placed at the foot of our Ginko Tree in the backyard .  We don't have daylilies in our landscape plan, so I've been torn about where to put them.  Seems like a little bit of 'longer-term' hosting is best.  According to the donor, these seem to tolerate some shade, so I'm putting them in an area that we aren't planning o...

Back in May, I posted a photo update on what I have been calling our 'teardown hostas' that came out of a yard down the block .  They've subsequently grown quite a bit and have leaf'd out to be nice sized hostas that are really in their first year of growth in our yard.  I mean... I put them in the ground in October , so there was really very little opportunity for them to grow/put down roots before they died off for the Winter. In that same post back in October of 2017, I mentioned that I grabbed a fern or two as well from the tear down lot.  I planted them right amongst the hostas and guess what?  They, too, came back.  I took the photo above at the beginning of the month - and that's one of my favorite stages for these Ostrich Ferns - when they begin to unfurl.  But, because I'm just getting around to posting about these ferns, I went back and took another photo to show the progress/growth.  Look at how tall and proud it is standing now. ...

That pile of stuff in the photo above might not look like much, but it potentially is a bountiful harvest from down the block.  There's a family that is tearing down a house four doors to the south of us and the lot had a decent perennial garden.  So, the new owners put out a note to the neighbors to 'come and dig' what you want/can out of the yard before the heavy equipment rolls in and everything is tossed.   I went over there with my spade shovel and this blue trug and found a half dozen variegated hostas, a few what I think are going to be ostrich ferns, and a hydrangea bush.  Dug them out, walked them home and put them in the #newoldbackyard with some water to give them a chance to survive.   Back in Elmhurst, I did the same thing a few times when homes were being torn down in our neighborhood.  On one occasion, I grabbed a few peony plants and irises and one other time when a house across the alley from Equation Boy/Man's house...

A few blocks over, the neighbors on Fairmount Street host an annual block party in September that features a Soapbox Derby.  This was our first time attending.  And it was great fun.  You can see the Bird riding along with one of the girls from the block in the video above to get a sense for the setup.  The neighbors on the block come together and put together quite an event starting with the starting gate/ramp.  There's a DJ and they had a food truck come out along with a keg, a snow cone maker and a lot of food.   Nat and I know just some people from our block, but we didn't know many folks from the neighboring streets - but we took the time to get to know a few new people and they couldn't have been more inviting.  This is a real, authentic family event.  It was really enjoyable.  The kids - and I am assuming - their fathers really showed a lot of creativity in designing the various cars involved.  There must have be...

On the way to and from the bus stop with the girls, we walk past one of our new neighbor's house in the Randall Park neighborhood who have replaced their entire front yard with a perennial garden.  Not an inch of green grass to be found.  Not even in the parkway.  In one of the prime spots adjacent to the sidewalk is this big, sprawling Anemone plant.  If you click on the photo, you'll see that it is still blooming a bit this late in the season and gives me a little bit of joy every time I walk by it. If you've been following along since we were in our old house (before Equation Boy/Man's house ), you might remember that we had an anemone there, too.  It was in the front/side yard, just outside of our front porch and was awfully happy with the location .  The first time I posted about the plant was back six years ago here on the blog .  Our history with anemone goes back to Nat's wedding bouquet - as her friend/florist stuck a few blooms amongst ...

It was just back a few months in August that the construction fences went up and I expected the old bungalow that was on the lot to be torn down.  Fast forward to this week, and this big house is going up fast.  They have the framing done and the roofers arrived to get started. They've made (in my mind) a mistake by putting the garage up front, but I'm not the guy buying the place.  We have an alley on our street and there's a lot of ways that you can improve the curb appeal by getting rid of that garage that takes up more than 50% of the view from the street. The listing has it at $899,900 with 4 bedrooms, 5 baths and 3700 square feet.  Nice house.  But, not my style.