Why I Oughta...

About three years ago, we stopped at an Estate Sale at this beautiful white house on York Street in Elmhurst, just south of St. Charles.  After looking around, we were told that the house is the old "Hill Cottage Tavern" that was once located on Cottage Hill Avenue but was - at some point - moved to it's current location .  The house was up for sale and if not for the location, would have been SUPER hard for us to pass up . We bought a few things at the Estate Sale, but one of them is this plate that you see above.  We bought it and then 2+ years ago, it went into storage only to be unwrapped and discovered as we unpacked our stuff at our #NewOldFarmhouse. On the back of the plate are the details:  it was made by the York State Bank and Trust Company and this plate was made for their 55th year.  They made 1000 of them and this one is #538. Once we saw it unwrapped, Nat knew immediately what we needed to do.  She quickly came to the conclusion that this plate

I tend to do most of my shopping up in Wisconsin at Walmart.  Nat isn't a fan, so most of the time, the trips I make there are with just some of the kids.  We buy fishing gear, groceries (including turkey for grilled turkey and cheeses) and other lakehouse what-have-yous.  On one of my recent trips, I came across this huge pallet of New Glarus Spotted Cow 12 packs of cans right by the 'greeter'.  Interesting to see this craft beer being sold in Walmart, isn't it? Having recently read this piece about New Glarus planned expansion , this got me thinking.  From BrewBound : New Glarus Brewing Co. is adding 16 fermentation tanks that will eventually allow the Wisconsin brewery to double its annual capacity to more than 400,000 barrels.  The German manufactured tanks, each capable of holding about 580 barrels of beer, arrived via boat in Milwaukee earlier this week.  Carey had hoped the tanks would be operational for a busy summer selling season, but the additional

Our builder came over after we moved in to take a few photos of the house and as she usually does to visitors, little Miss Lizzie cozied right up and made her presence known.  The result?  This photo that they posted on their Instagram handle .   Adorable?  Kinda.  Maddening?  That, too.

Earlier this month, the Chicago Transit Authority had a neat display of both modern and vintage buses set up at Daley Plaza right next to the Picasso for people to check out.   The buses ranged from one built in 1960 (that you see above) to a brand new one out on the street today.  I didn't go on the buses, but you can see people boarding them, which is kinda nice.  The oldest one is the coolest looking of the bunch that you can see below, isn't it?  Also, the green and cream are lovely to look at, aren't they?  The blue ones could be buses from Champaign or Chicago.  There's nothing making them unique. The display was part of the CTA's 70th anniversary celebration.   From WGN : The CTA will display three of its vintage buses on the Daley Plaza Monday and Tuesday as part of its 70th anniversary celebration.  The buses were gradually retired between the 1970's and 1990's -- but you'll get a chance to check them out.  Many of them still have

Over the past few posts about our fence , I showed the posts being installed and talked about what the fence was going to do in terms of framing up our backyard .  Unlike our first fence in Elmhurst , the crew putting our fence in this time dug each of the posts by hand.  I'm not sure if that is just how they roll or if it had something to do with the posts we selected? Because we're planning on staying in our #NewOldFarmhouse for quite some time, after talking with the team at Classic Fence, we decided to upgrade to steel posts instead of the traditional 4x4 cedar posts.  The steel posts we selected are called Postmaster posts from Master Halco . They're specifically designed for wood fences and allow for the attachment of cedar rails on the sides and accept planks on the outside and inside to basically 'cover' or mask the steel post in it's entirety. Here's a look at a few of the posts that were installed in our #newoldbackyard.  The one on the le

Another tree?  Yep.  This makes number nine.  Nine trees planted this season in the yard. There's 2 flowering pears, 1 Japanese flowering cherry , 2 Lindens , 1 Dawn Redwood , a Magnolia, a Corkscrew Willow and now this one: A Crimson King Norway Maple.  And let me get this out of the way.  Yes, I know some folks wouldn't recommend this tree.  But I've been drawn to them for a while and I wanted something that would break up the sea of greenness in the very far reaches of the rear of the new old backyard. Menards has marked their trees down to 30% to 50% off, so this one was a no-brainer for me.  I brought it home and found a spot along the fenceline all the way in the back.  We haven't quite gotten around to cleaning out most of the weeds/brush areas around the perimeter of the lot, so this is - for now - mixed in amongst some native weeds and various, unidentified brush. Now, back to the tree.  If you're looking to find out why some folks have maligned t

Last week, I posted a BF (before fence) photo of the #newoldbackyard and here above is an in-progress look at the fence posts going in the ground.  The above photo is clickable, but here is a link to the Google Photos version where you can zoom in and scroll around.  This is the second fence that we've installed and I documented almost the exact same point in installation from the first time .   Check it out here from seven years ago . If you look closely, you'll notice the posts aren't traditional 4x4 cedar posts.  We opted for steel posts as an upgrade this time over the standard cedar posts.  They cost a bit more, but they perform much better and will last much longer.  I'll post something on the posts themselves in the coming days. The fence is one of the first steps in the evolution of the backyard.  Once it is finished being installed, I can move on to planting some of the trees and then move on to deciding on some of the locations of the landscape beds