Why I Oughta...

Word came this week that the City of Elmhurst City Council did something that I have never witnessed a governmental body do before: Aftering giving something more thought, they unanimously adopted a “minority report” version of a recommendation coming out of a committee over the initial “majority” view of the situation. The details of what exactly happened can be found here on the Elmhurst Patch. The interesting part isn’t that a marketing agency only received a five month contract and not a twelve month contract. That’s not the big takeaway here. The important part is that Alderman Dannee Polomsky - my Alderman and neighbor - used this time to make a larger point about the City of Elmhurst taking some time to be deliberate and evaluate ALL of the marketing initiatives as a collective whole and work to optimize them.   For instance...The City of Elmhurst has a role (Part-time) on staff for something called "Visitor and Tourism" while at the same time, Finzall main

Some merchants in the Elmhurst City Centre are having what they bill as the "1st Annual Downtown Discount Days" coming up August 1st through August 3rd.  Sounds like a nice event. But 1st Annual?  That's my pet peeve.  I see it all the time and don't like it.  Call it what it really is:  the "Inaugural", please?

Back in the fall of 2010, we planted this Anemone plant in our sideyard (southside) after Nat's mom bought a few for a project.  I documented the blooms in 2011 and was surprised that it survived. I don't think I took a photo of it last year, but when I went out to plant our pumpkin seeds last week, I was amazed at how big the Anemone had gotten.  With the blooms, it is 3+ feet tall.  And the blooms?  You can see that there's TONS of them.  It clearly is happy in this spot.

A few weeks ago, I took the girls to the local "My Favorite Toy Store" in the Elmhurst City Centre where we picked up a few things including a butterfly project.  For twenty-ish bucks, you get a mesh cage and a coupon that you send away for caterpillars.  This was going to be a project for me and the Babe, my oldest daughter. We dutifully filled out the coupon and send it away.  This weekend, the Babe received a box in the mail and when she opened it, she found a sealed cup with five or six tiny caterpillars in it with some peanut-butter-looking stuff at the bottom. Once we opened up the box, the instructions said to set the cup upright in a place that is 68 to 75 degrees out of direct sunlight.  At first, these little guys didn't move at all.  They seemed to be stuck in place.  They must be kept in some setting that keeps in a place close to hibernation which ends after the box arrives, I would think.  A few hours of sitting on our counter, they started to move.

I have news for you folks:  We're 100ish days until Halloween and that means it is time to get your pumpkin/gourd seeds into the ground.  Based on the package, I'm actually a bit late, but with some care, I think I can get these guys up to speed.  Since we're not eating any of the pumpkins/gourds I'm growing, I have no problem giving them a feeding or two of fertilizer to get the fruits nice and big. I have planted these in a totally different part of our yard.  Totally separate from our vegetable garden both because of the above mentioned fertilizer, but also because of the bugs that these things draw.  I want to be able to use some Seven on them if I need to and (although it says it is safe for vegetables that are being eaten), I prefer to not do that on the rest of our plants/fruits. Having not grown this type of swan-neck gourd in the past, I have no idea how successful we'll be, but I figured it would be nice to have a few of these around come fall.

That is all.

Just a bit less than a month ago, I posted this photo of our radish seedlings popping up in our center vegetable bed.  Yesterday, I started to pull them up and we got a mixed bag.  Some really nice, plump, beautiful pink/round beauties.  And some skinny-minnies that are the result of bolting (I think?). This was the first year I grew radishes and they were VERY easy from seed.  They are an early crop, so can be replaced by things like Pumpkins and lettuces I would think.  I'm not sure I'm going to put anything in the space these were in this year, though.