Why I Oughta...

One of the things that I've been doing in quarantine is honing a new pizza dough recipe - something that is close to a Chicago Thin.  I first posted about a Chicago thin formulation four years ago in February of 2016 , but I haven't really been happy with it over the years.  I've settled into a dough formulation that I'm starting to hone in on that makes a 12" pie. The resulting dough is sexy.  Like it is soft and supple.  It includes butter AND oil, which I think is part of the reasoning for how the dough feels.  I also don't use any pan lube in this recipe, which is a first for me. You can see the finished product above - featuring a mozz/cheddar blend and these thick-cut Old World Roundy's pepperoni via Mariano's via Instacart.  I just kind of wandered into them and now love them. Below, you can see the upskirt.  Or...undercarriage if you will. I've been baking the pies at between 400 and 450 degrees with the 'convection' *o

From their Grammy, the kids received these six packages of flower seeds as part of the effort to keep the kids occupied while being home during their social distancing period.  I showed recently that some of the Cut and Come Again Zinnias had germinated and mentioned that we didn't plant all the cells with Zinnias. That's where these seeds come in:  the kids are choosing from these six varieties to plant the balance of their little greenhouses. The six seed sets they are choosing from include: 1.  Butterfly Wildflower Mix - North American Mixture. 2.  Forget Me Not - Cynoglossum Blue. 3.  Shasta Daisy. 4.  Marigold Sparky Mixed Colors - Heirloom variety. 5.  Four O'Clock 'Fairy Trumpets' - Mirabilis longiflora. 6.  Night Phlox 'Midnight Candy' - Zaluzianskya capensis. The one that I'm most drawn to are the Four O'Clock 'Fairy Trumpets' from Select Seeds.  From their product page, they talk about the historical significance of

I wanted to take and share some photos in the [ garden diary ] here so I can look at the development of the shrubs and perennials in our yard.  I've already posted images of a few things including our Saucer Magnolia , Dappled Willow (treeform) , front-yard Cleveland Pear , some of our lilac buds , how we've added some wood chips to the far back and biosolids in testing and most recently, posted both hostas and peonies coming thru the mulch .  Here's a few items that I've covered over the years.  This is what they're looking like in mid-April, 2020. Starting with the northside Rhododendron.  This was put in the bed in 2018 and didn't flower last year.  Buds game looks strong this year.  This is the one plant that I applied Wilt-Pruf this Winter .  In the bed outside the screened porch, I planted a solitary Karl Foerster Feather Reed Grass a couple of years back.  We should add more here, I think.  I trimmed last year's growth off in March and th

One of my social distancing projects has been to keep working my way through the processing the firewood rounds that I picked up late last year.  Right after Christmas, I posted some photos of some of the split rounds and mentioned that some of them were very yellow and believed that they were Mulberry wood .  That belief (that it was Mulberry tree wood) was based on a couple of posts on the Firewood Hoarders Club site.  This one .  And this one .  Both have photos.  Have a peek at those posts.  Then come back and look at the photos in this post.  Same wood, right?  Down to the more whitish ring that appears at the very outside edge.  The white line is more prominent in the photo below: The Hoarders Club members say that it burns long and hot and makes great firewood.  I have a few rounds that I've split and a couple more left.  Unlike the Ash trees that I took, this Mulberry tree was live when it was cut down.  So, it is VERY heavy.  And wet.  The Ash can be burned almost

Well, well, well...now we're talking.  Have a look at that test plot above where you can see the impact of the biosolids that I topdressed in this section of our backyard lawn.  A week ago, I shared a photo that was two weeks in and the turf had already started to react positively .  Today, you can see the dark, thick grass in the rectangle that had the biosolids applied. Here's the timeline: Application of 5 gallons of biosolids . Two weeks in . Three weeks in.  (this photo/post). I don't know how I could classify this experiment as anything other than a spectacular success. I can see a process of top-dressing larger sections of our yard, but that's not a small project if I get it delivered - as it requires three yards minimum.  I could, however, see taking a series of five gallon buckets over to fill up and use on the parkway to try to thicken that area.

Last Summer, we added a tree-form Dappled Willow (Hakuro Nishiki) to the south fenceline of our backyard after having one of the same trees in Elmhurst years ago.   Both Nat and I fell in love with this tree after buying it (the first time) on a total whim.  It is a lollipop-shaped tree with a single trunk and a festive, mop on top that grows these beautiful multi-colored whips of willow.  In the photo at the top of this post, you can see that it also puts off these little cone-like things that mark it's return to glory.  This tree is probably the furthest along of all the deciduous trees in our yard with the first leaves of green showing on some of the tips. This was the most recent tree that I planted in our yard - the last one of 2019 and I'm happy that it is coming back to life after the first year in the ground.  Based on my previous experience, I'm thinking that I'm now out of the danger zone in terms of getting this tree to come back.

This troubled tree - in our front yard - appears to finally have overcome transplant shock and a clay bowl to get back on schedule.  At least....that's my hope.  You can see the flower buds that are set to explode in the photo above.  This is the second tree in this location after the first one that was installed when we built the house died.  This one , too, would have died if I didn't intervene.  I'm pretty sure that digging out a little channel that broke up the clay bowl underneath this tree is what saved it from drowning itself. The last time I posted about this pear tree was last Summer when it was leaf'ing out .  It didn't look super healthy and robust, but was green.  I trimmed many of the dead limbs off, but left everything else that was leaf'ing.  Prior to last year, this thing was all out of cycle.  In November of 2018 - YES!  November... it flowered .  In terms of timing, this flowering pear tree is showing buds about the same size/timing as