Why I Oughta...

On a tip from my sister Vic, we went down to check out what was doin' with the old First Cup Coffee shop.  Turns out, the (apparently!) successful Elijah's Coffee - which has a location down in South Elmhurst near Spring/Vallette (closer to York) is opening up a second shop.  I've never been inside, but I hear they serve up your Latte with a side of Jesus, so it has a, shall we say, devoted set of customers.  When "That Coffee Shop" opened across the tracks, I speculated that the downtown was too small for four shops (Starbucks, Caribou, First Cup and That), but didn't think that First Cup would be the place to fold.  Time will tell if the folks behind Elijah's can make the location work.

How incredibly frustrating!  These stinkin' mice have decimated our sweet corn crop.  They are so voracious that they eat through the green husks, eat the silk, then just hoss-down on every single kernel of corn.  At this point more than 1/2 of the crop is gone and the rest is getting over-taken by ants.  The mice have pierced enough corn to create a sweet mess - which is attracting the ants - and they're feasting too.  I've tried trapping them and even (gasp!) poisoning them, but the food supply is far too abundant for them to die off.  I'm in real trouble here because once they exhaust the corn, what's next?  Our tomatoes?  Or maybe even the pumpkins that we have growing.  I'm fearful that these little jerks will run the rest of the harvest. 

I'm *trying* to get serious about finishing our basement in the coming months but before we can do anything, we have to waterproof the space.  When it rains, we don't get water, but there's definitely seepage at the cove, so that means that before I invest a cent in the basement, I want to solve that problem.  In order to solve that seepage problem, we have to completely clear the space out.  I've started to pull out the stuff we want to keep (Christmas Decorations, Halloween stuff, etc), but there is still so much to sort through.  Much of it was pure junk.  Left over bricks and boards and old kitchen cabinets that I thought I would use during the construction/renovation but upon reflection I just don't want to deal with.  Because of that, I called the Junk Platoon.  For a few hundred bucks, they sent out two guys who cleaned out everything - and drug it through the half door on the side of our house. We filled a 10 yard truck pretty easily.   Here's some a

This handsome guy was (guess where?  Yup...Menards) on display and I had a hard time resisting the temptation to buy him.  See that flat head of his?  Inside there is a pretty deep bucket that one uses for candy.  I can see some folks using something like this outside on their front porch - if they aren't home for trick-or-treaters - but that's not what I want it for!  I want him inside our house - to greet visitors when they come over.   It isn't cheap ($79.99), so I'll have to pick my battles with Nat when it comes to Halloween decor.  Do we want this?  Or...perhaps a few spooky buildings to add to the village at Mantleburg!?!?!

The old template was throwing off an error up top with the Twitter stream integration, so I had to try to make some fixes.  Instead of monkeying around in the old template, I just swapped out to this new one. Looks pretty good, imo.  Here's how the site looked 6+ years ago .

As I said a few days ago, Menards has gone all out this year with a huge Halloween display.  With all these pumpkins and skeletons around it is kind of interesting that The Babe gravitated toward that turquoise dog toy and not any of the seasonal items.  She wouldn't let go of him.  No matter what I tried to replace him with.  Those plastic pumpkins behind her reminded me that I need to build a third scarecrow - in her likeness - ahead of this coming fall.  Time to get busy assembling the various parts and clothes. 

I went out for an early morning walk/run with Maisy.  You can really tell the season's are starting to change - mostly because of the later arrival of the sunrise.  While out on the walk, on the lot of the house that I think is getting torn down , I spotted this HUGE mushroom.  It is easily 12" in diameter.  I actually have never witnessed one this big.  Ever.  Our lot is lit up with lots of little 'shrooms, so the conditions must be right for them right now. 

I took the Babe to Menards this morning and guess what I found?  The entire seasonal section has been overtaken by Halloween.  Yes...six+ weeks out.  And...you know what else?  I love it.  I love it so much.  And...I love that right after this, Christmas - and Menard's Enchanted Forest of Christmas delights will be up by November 1st.  All those folks who hate "Christmas Creep" probably hate this "Halloween Creep", but I'm not one of them.  In fact...I think were going to have to step up our game with these blowmolds.  I like that they're kind of old-fashioned - in a '1970's old-fashioned' sense.  Especially with inflatables ruling the front lawns of so many Americans these days, these things harken back to years ago when folks were decorating their lawns on Bungalow row in the city and 'burbs. The witch one on the right is particularly cute.  There's Dracula too, but I didn't include him in the photo.  I'll have to try t

There's an old bungalow on our block that was up for sale for the better part of 2011 when suddenly - about 3 weeks ago - the For Sale sign disappeared.  No "Sold" sign ever appeared.  But the family moved out.  The house was empty for 3 weeks when this fencing went up.  I'm guessing that a builder bought it, right?  And...they're going to tear it down.  That's good for house values, but I'm surprised that they're able to move that fast.  I figured someone would try to rent it for a while, but perhaps they have a buyer for the house they are set to build? Does anyone in the neighborhood know?  I've heard lots of speculation, but no confirmation

  A few yellow cherries and a bunch of Romas came in today.  Mostly from the standard Roma variety, but there's a few Sausage and Amish Paste variety too.  There's a lot of green fruit on the plants still, and it is mid August, so I'm a bit concerned that I'm too far behind?  Anyone else having a late-blooming crop this summer in Illinois?