Why I Oughta...

 Sandhill Cranes were migrating south above our house on Thanksgiving Day 2023.  I covered these large birds migrating NORTH earlier this year - March 2023 .  Below is a video showing the birds flying in a circle above Downers Grove late last month: This is the full list of posts about these fascinating birds .   I first posted about them in Fall 2020 . Spring northern migration 2021 . Spring northern migration 2022 . Spring northern migration 2023 . Fall southern migration 2023 .

Via RealCedar.com I came across this pavilion on the RealCedar.com site and I'm posting it here so I can later reference it when the time comes to think about such a structure in our #newoldbackyard.  Those of you who have been following along for years might recall that we had a pavilion at our old place.  All the way back in April of 2010, I posted the original inspiration photo here on the blog .  That one was anchored off a structure (garage in our case) and came to life over a series of posts .    The one you see above has some modern touches - like the horizontal slats, lights and some of the flat cuts - and is unanchored to another structure.  The slats remind me a lot of the raised bed planters that I posted about over the weekend.  The simple, single-plane roof is interesting to me in that it requires less framing work.   The #newoldbackyard is much bigger than our old one, so we have space to do a few things.  Pizza oven.  Greenhouse.  Sports court.  Veg

I don't seem to have posted on our Front Yard Tree in 2012, but above is the photo (made #autoawesome by Google) of this year's tree. The full story is here in this post on our 2011 tree - which shows the sad state of snow last winter.  We're already ahead of last year's total it seems. Here's my  post from our 2009 tree . Here's my  post from our 2010 tree .   Here's my  post from our 2011 tree .

We couldn't have had more fun at Wilder Park this past weekend both during and after the Easter Egg Hunt.  We spent more than an hour on the playground doing the swings and one of her favorites:  the slide with Daddy!  Nat snapped this photo with her phone and I've shared some of the photos I took of the day over on the Babe's blog.  If you know that address, you can go over there to see some shots of the Easter Egg Hunt. 

Well....that didn't take long.  Just late last week, I shared the news that in addition to trying some vegetable plants from seeds, I was also trying my green thumb at sowing flower seeds.  One of them that Nat picked out (she's the flower expert) was heirloom Amaranthus that I showed last week.  Along with a bunch of other flower seeds, these have really taken off.  The Amaranthus are the light purple ones in the foreground.  Right behind them are a variety of Cosmos - but that is for another post.  As often happens (I'm learning), it is now time to thin all of them out to allow the healthiest and strongest seedlings to flourish, but I hate to just throw the extra seedlings in the trash.  I'm going to try to make it to Menards soon to pick up more non-peat pods and maybe grow some of these to give away.  Maybe they'll find a home in some yards on our block or in Frankfort or Naperville. I've never attended a seed swap, but after hearing about them, I was w