Why I Oughta...

Right before we went out of town for a few days recently, I gathered all of our patio containers and put them together in order to assist the watering - which was being done by one of our neighborhood kids.  I snapped this photo of all of them in one spot to text to Nat to share with the girl's Mom so she knew what needed to be watered, but I figured I'd post it here to mark what our patio containers looked like in July of this year. In the far back, in the yellow pot 1 you can see the Chicago-hardy fig tree 2 that my Sister Vic and Equation Boy/Man gave me for my birthday this year.  Right in front of that is one of my wine barrel planters with a grapevine 3 growing on the trellis.  That's also the pot that has the Lemon Coral Sedum growing in it . In front of that wine barrel, but mostly obscured is my large basil plant.  It is sharing a pot with one of my Elephant Ears .  Then, buried under the foliage is the other wine barrel planter.  That's this one wi

While I've been posting here on my blog "Why I Oughta..." (nee JoinCross.com/blog, joincrossblog.com, rhodesschool.com) since 2004, but I also have been (apparently) posting over on my link blog for five years.  I was just reminded by Tumblr (which is where my linkblog is run currently) that I crossed the five year mark over by dere .   And, yes, I wrote the phrase "Over by dere" - which happens to the name of my link blog.  Think of this as my 'favorites' feed from the old Google Reader days.  You can keep up with my posting over there at:  http://www.parrillo.info/ . I shared the details of Over by Dere here on my main blog a few years back where I mentioned the name . The name is straight-up Chicagoese , but for those of you who aren't aware, it roughly translates to : Over by dere. i.e. "over by there," a prolix way of emphasizing a site presumed familiar to the listener. As in, "I got the sassage at da Jewels down o

We moved in right before 4th of July last year, but I don't think we had time (or the wherewithal) to put out a flag to mark our country's birthday.  This year, however, was a different story.  You can see that I put out our Old Glory, draped from the front porch top railing.  This is the same 48 Star Flag that I bought at an Elmhurst Estate Sale back a few Summers .  It came with weights on the bottom of it, so in it's past life, it was clearly hung in this vertical orientation.  But, turns out, there's a 'right way' to hang a vertical flag.  See here in this earlier post that I hung the flag with the field of 48 stars in the top right .  According to this post , the proper way is to have the Union to the flag's own right and to the observer's left.  Hence, why I posted it the way I did this year on the porch.  We have a really nice wraparound porch and I think it deserves a nice flag.  I have a pole, but the issue is that the location that we'

Just posting this here to mark the beginning of our Lego Disney Cinderella Castle build for the Summer.  Or what is officially called "Disney Castle Playset - By Lego" .  This is page three and, while we actually got to this spot about a week ago, I'm just getting around to posting now.  So, once we complete it, let's add seven days to the tracking.  Also, Step 3 is where we already ran into trouble.  Why?  Because why wouldn't a seven year old who has this Castle set in her bedroom for seven months open up bag one and tinker around.  The only problem?  When we sat down to do it together, we had to scavenge together parts from bag one that were littered across the various bins.  In some cases, we swapped in wrong color bricks.  Or two smaller bricks to make up the composite of a larger, spec'd one.  We're getting it done and I figure since most of this is the substructure/undercarriage, the colors don't matter so much because they'll be buried

Back at the beginning of May, I posted about how I was trying some elephant ear bulbs in our containers this season after picking up a pack of nine of them .  Above, is one of my wine barrel containers that I have out on the back patio with - as you can see - some very happy Elephant Ears.  You can also see the wine barrel trellis that I embedded in the wine barrel with a first-year clematis vine growing up the back.  (I'll try to post about the trellis in a different post.  I have two of them that are both hosting first-year plants that, I *hope* will come on strong next year and we'll be able to use the trellises as screening material in a meaningful way.) I have to say that I *LOVE* these elephant ears and the real tropical feel they lend to our pots.  I now have them in a few - including the Black Magic variety I planted with some Dahlias - and I know that I'll do them again next year.  I believe there is likely some way to salvage and reuse the bulbs each season,

The last time we checked in on my basement workshop was a ll the way back at the beginning of April when I posted about the new wall and sealed, exterior door that were installed , thus, creating the shape of the shop.  Then Spring came and all of my attention and time were focused outside on the garden and yard.  I left the shop empty and forgot all about my plans to finish the floors.   Well, the recent run of super hot weather afforded me the opportunity to get back going on the shop and job #1 was finishing the floors.  I had, on hand, a couple of the Rocksolid Metallic Epoxy floor kits that I bought back in April when I was planning the shop build out.  Inside of each of those kits was a package of 'floor etch', which I got busy with.  Below, in the first photo, is after one round of etching the floor.  I did it 2x - just to be safe.  But, since there isn't a floor drain, I ended up having to saturate the floor (post etch) and then use a scrub brush to pick up mo

Back in June of this year, I posted about the two fingerling varieties of potatoes that I planted in containers .  I've kept them in one of the most full-sun spots in our backyard, right outside of our kitchen windows.  And they shot up.  I 'hill'd them up' as best as I could, but pretty soon, I ran out of container height.  (Lesson learned...plant them in super tall containers and plant them low, so they can get 'hill'd up' quite a bit. This week, I saw these flower blooms emerging and thought that they're quite striking.  In fact, that's the exact phrase I used in my Instagram post from earlier this week.  Striking. (on yeah... that's my gardening-focused Insta handle.   That, much like this blog, is intended as a diary of sorts.) Potato blossoms. We're growing fingerlings in containers this season. The blooms are quite striking. A post shared by Hornbeam Hill (@hornbeamhill) on Jul 2, 2018 at 7:16am PDT I posted