Why I Oughta...

I was perusing the outdoor furniture section of Menards over the weekend and sandwiched in between a pair of these weird Lazy Boy-style chairs (cammo one?  Seriously?) was this electric patio heater from Optimus.  It stands up on pole, has a football-sized heating element and a pretty heavy/sturdy base to (hopefully) avoid tip-overs.   Down near the base of the heater was this product/price detail: And here's the online product listing .  Description reads: Imagine being in your garage, in your four season porch or on your patio and enjoying warmth as the weather turns cold. This Indoor-Outdoor Standing Infrared Patio Heater with Remote Control will do the trick. It is made primarily from steel and functionally rainproof. It’s dominant color is black and the quartz heating elements provide infrared sun-like warmth which does not get blown away by wind, it heats you, not the air. It does not generate UV rays and operates silently. It employs a pull cord manual power switch

If you find yourself down in Orlando at Disney's Wilderness Lodge, take a moment to head over to the Villas - which have been recently renamed the Boulder Creek Villas - and go to the "train room".  There, you'll see a bunch of stuff from the Carolwood Pacific train line.  That's the line that ran in Walt Disney's backyard.   They have two of the cars there that you can check out: I took some other photos of the train room (it is a neat space with a roaring fireplace and lots of comfy chairs) that I'll post at some point.  But these two cars, and the box they're in - which has a tramp art style to it - are the stars of the show.  Take the ten minutes after your meal in the Lodge to wander over to the Villas to check them out.  Neat stuff.

 On our back patio, we have a container with a small conifer that I'm not sure the cultivar.  I bought it last year and worked on it a little bit - as there is some wire on parts of it - but I'm not sure which kind of juniper it really is at this point.  I have two junipers - Youngstown and Chinese - that I have in containers that I planted in the ground .  My plan is to dig them up next Spring and give them another haircut/style.  My Bonsai journey has been one of buying some nursery stock initially and KILLING my first one.  In a matter of months.  Due to over-pruning it, I think.  As a result of that experience, I've kinda taken the 'lazy bonsai' route on these - by giving them an initial wiring up and then planting them (in their containers to restrict the roots) in the ground (or in this case in a larger container).  By next year, all three will hopefully able to handle a little bit of pruning. Here is the unknown Juniper that has grown nicely in the container

On most days, I commute to and from work through Chicago's Union Station and barely notice the station as I hustle off the train, down the platform and up/out of the station. But a few weeks ago, Nat sent me/tagged me in a friend's Instagram post while I was at the office.  At first, it didn't seem like anything out of the ordinary.  Brooke's post is embedded below and if you're following her on Instagram, it shouldn't come as a surprise that her photo features Mickey Mouse.  But, then the caption hit me and realized that she was talking about *my* train station.  She was there, on a fake beach with Mickey the Mouse.  What the What? View this post on Instagram Mickey and some friends from @disneyaulani showed up at Chicago’s Union Station today and reminded me how much I love that Hawaiian paradise. Brb checking flights. 😎🏝🌺✈️ . . . . . #alohawindycity #disneyaulani #disneyvacationclub #hawaii #mic

The last time I did a firewood consumption check was with this post on January 20th of 2020 .  A little bit over a month has past and we've exhausted probably 3/4 of the face cord that was delivered.  That's a fast pace.  In 2019, I ordered the backfill face cord in mid-February , so this year was running three weeks ahead of last year.  Last year, it seemed that the firewood lasted until right up at the beginning of Spring.  This year, I'm not so sure it will.  One of the things that we learned last year is that we wished we had firewood for during the Summer and Fall - to burn in our outdoor fireplace.  So, that means that if we burn through our rack in March, we won't have anything to burn - unless we turn to the Ash firewood that we picked up on our block . Knowing we're now in year three of buying and burning firewood, we might need to consider ordering more in the Fall or doubling the second order. 2017/2018: Ordered one face cord in January 2018/2

This is the first firewood check since we had a couple of face cords delivered in early October this year .  As we've done in the past, the guys stacked our Birch and Cherry firewood in a couple of spots including these racks in our screened porch that you see above.  Let's start there:  on the smaller rack in the back, all of the wood on top has been used and a little more than half of the rack has been burned down.  The rack in front is still untouched.  There's that one errant log leaning up against the fireplace, right?  That's one of the pieces that I cut from the downed Oak tree limb earlier this Fall.  Once the rack clears out, I'll drop it on there to season for a year or so.  In the screened porch, there's one other stack that existed against the wall that has already been burned off, too.  As for the other rack, it looks like it is more than halfway burned, too.    And all of the wood stacked in front of the rack has been consumed, too.  If you

Thanks to Nat's Dad, we made A LOT of progress on the front living room mantel.  Charlie found some old oak boards at an estate sale and after a bit of sawing and planing we managed to make something pretty neat. It isn't done, but the Thanksgiving deadline is fast approaching.

Last week, I planted a few different varieties of seeds in my little non-peat greenhouse including what I hope to be one of the most important pizza-related plants:  my San Marzano Tomato seeds . I woke up this morning to some good news:  they've started to sprout. The seed package explains that I need to "thin" them out, so as they sprout, I've begun to pull out the smaller seedlings in the hopes that the one remaining will thrive.  If all goes as planned, by the time spring comes around, we'll have 9 healthy San Marzano plants that can head into our garden (and maybe  one or two to share with family, too.). Now, all I need to do is to start to collect some ash from the fireplace to add to the soil.

It may be the last day of March, but - just like the peonies - the hostas are now tipping through the mulch.  You can see the purple tips that have sort of spiraled their way through the ground and are ready to unfurl in this bed underneath our kitchen window.  Those of you eagle-eyed readers might also spot something else in this photo:  a piece of burned wood/charred hardwood.  On the right side of the photo in the middle.  That's a result of spreading the hardwood ashes from our fireplace out in the yard .  I've put some of it in the grass, some in the beds including around these hostas.  This is the teardown hosta that I've been tracking since I transplanted it.  Here's a look at this plant in mid-Summer last year .  This is a bed that I'm going to try to tend to with a topcoat of hardwood fine mulch because, as you can see, most of the remaining mulch is the larger, more coarse pieces.

If there is one truism during construction it has to be:  "There's always something." Things pop up and slow you down (and cost you more money) all the time and this basement job is no different.  This specific instance is this odd configuration of gas pipes.  The plumber tells me that this rig was in place because (back in the day) gas meters were once hung in the basement.  Inside. This is the remains of that configuration and the plumber who installed our fireplaces upstairs took a bit of a shortcut and never took this out. It is going this week, but not before costing me a few days.  The plan was to get the drywall hung this week, but that is looking less and less likely.  Still have to plumb the bathroom/fireplace, insulate and have the carpenters come back to build one more soffit.

Last week, I read this post from Lee Reich where Lee compares spreading their hardwood ashes to conjuring the dark arts and had a little laugh.  I also...quickly learned a bunch - including how wood ash is a good source of Potassium (the "P" in N-P-K) and how a garden amendment that I've heard about/read about - Potash - is (obviously) the root word from Potassium, but is made up (mostly) of Ash.  Hence the name.   Lee talks about how the spreading of wood ash isn't a precise project; rather just a thin 'tossing' of the ash on the beds does the job.   Because we burn a lot of fires during the Winter, we end up with a surplus of ash that I collect at a couple of intervals when I clean out the fireplace and ash bucket.  Over the years, I've posted about how I've spread this ash - around trees in 2019 and on top of some snow in the perennial beds in 2022 .   I ended up with a bit more than five gallons of ash from Cherry, Birch, Oak, Hickory and....well

Just to make things simple here for the record keeper at the 'official' coaster collection archives, I'm calling this just one coaster.  You can see a bunch of coasters in the photos of this post and one side of them are all different, but just to keep things simple here, let's call this one coaster. And that coaster is pretty neat:  it is from the new (at least kinda new) Lamplight Lounge at Disney California Adventure. As I've posted over time, we're lounge people when it comes to Disney parks and dining.  After taking some advice from Pam at the BoG Podcast, we've sought out more and more lounges.  They don't require ADRs and you can get pretty good food in an atmosphere that we can enjoy and the kids can tolerate. This place - the Lamplight Lounge - is called a 'lounge', but it also takes ADRs.  Or at least reservations via the Disneyland mobile app - which is a bit different than WDW ADRs.  But, you get it, right?  Also, the food is

Here's a look at the five firewood racks that we have in and around our house.  (I have another aack at the back of the property, but we use that one for fire pit wood.) These were full with Oak, Cherry and Birch early this Fall and by early January,  we've just about completely exhausted the supply.  First, the pair of outdoor racks along the fence line.  On the left, you see some of the recently split Ash (or Walnut??).   On the right, you see some of the unprocessed Norway Maple that came down this Summer.   I've just ordered another two Face Cords of wood that will be delivered next week to fill these up, but I'm thinking I should get the rounds out first so I can split them this Winter. Next up, below, is the Oak rack that I keep on a side stoop. Two months ago, it was full .  Today, it is empty but for a coupe of pieces that I'm keeping on hand to test moisture content over time. Now, we move into the screened porch.  The double rack (photo below) has about a

Nat, the babe and I were up in Michigan for the past few days - and we were set to stay up there next week on vacation, but circumstances arose that required us to come home. My family loves the lake during the summer.  Everyone competes for weekends.  In fact...there's even a calendar and draft! But...for me?  I think I might prefer the winter.  It is calm.  Quiet.  Pretty.  We just light the fireplace (we used to read, but now with the babe...not so much) and relax.  I'm glad we got to spend a little bit of time up there, but I wanted more.  So glad we're going to be able to go up after voting for a few more days of respite.

Just a few days back, I posted a link to these DIY firewood rack brackets that Menards was carrying on their site .  I ordered five sets and got busy working with three of them.  Here, above, is a work-in-progress show that shows the position of one of the racks that I'm building.  This one is the one right outside of the family room door and I've built the rack in a vertical orientation.  I ended up using some rough sawn cedar that was left over from my fence installation, but that move caused some issues.  Turns out, rough sawn cedar 2x4's aren't the same size as normal, dimensional construction lumber.  They're a bit bigger.  Not true two inches by four inches, but bigger by just a hair.  Here's the height difference.  On the left is a traditional, Home Depot bought 2x4.  On the right is a rough sawn Cedar 2x4.  And the thickness difference. I first went to Home Depot and the one by us has just an indoor lumber yard, so they have limited su

Back at the end of April, we planted a tree on Earth Day outside of our screened porch.  It is a Chanticleer Pear - which, I know....I know...isn't the best tree to be planting in our landscape, but we were facing a set of circumstances that warranted this approach.  Our neighbors to the north were building their house all this calendar year and while we had planted our row of eight Frans Fontaine European Columnar Hornbeams to provide screening from our back patio and screened porch , we planted them without knowing where the house was going to be built.   By Earth Day, the new house next door had the framing done and - much to our surprise - we had *most* of their windows screened with trees.  But, there was ONE new window - closer to the front of the house that was basically unblocked by the Frans Fontaine Hornbeams. Have a look at this post from back in April - where you can see the window I'm talking about . And now, have a look at the same view as it looks now - in late O

Back in Elmhurst, we planted a Pussy Willow (Salix Caprea) in our backyard next to our outdoor fireplace. I first came across it at Menards in 2011 .  Bought and planted in 2011.  One year later, it was going crazy.  Here's how it looked in Summer 2012 .  I liked the coverage the plant gave us, but we haven't planted one in our new yard despite seeing them at the garden centers the past few years.  But, this post about gardening New Year's Resolutions from the University of Minnesota Extension includes (as one of their recommended resolutions): " Plant pussy willows, a pollinator-friendly, eco-friendly and energy-producing shrub ". From the U of M post : Pussy willows (Salix discolor), a large 15-20 foot shrub native to Minnesota and much of northern U.S. is one of the first plants to bloom in the spring. Pussy willows provide some of the earliest flowers and pollen for honey and other native bees. The foliage also supports native butterfly caterpil

Over the past few years, I've dreamed about building a backyard pizza oven - both in our old house in Elmhurst and here in Downers. I've posted a few times on the potential location(s) on the blog. Here back in 2017 . And, here again earlier this year and most recently just last month when I was talking about a pond. In each of those explorations, I've included a location of the pizza oven that is along the north side of our property, off of our patio, down in a lower level of our patio. As I continue to think about the location - and I'm increasingly thinking that the northside site - that is situated down low - is the right spot.  It is low-lying, so the fireplace won't be sticking up for all of the neighbors to see - and to expose to the elements.   I've read the Forno Bravo DIY installation instructions like six times and lurked all over the forums over the years.  One of the pieces of counsel that they give is that if you live in an area of

Earlier this year, I said we were finally thinking about finishing our fireplaces .  Wanted to share the progress with you.  Still plenty of work to do on this one and the other one, but hopefully before the weekend is out, these will be grouted and ready to roll.  Just in time for the babe's baptism party on Sunday.