Why I Oughta...

Growing up, my Dad collected bottles.  Mostly soda bottles.  He kept them in various places including on top of the cabinets in our laundry room.  He even got into collecting cases.  There were plenty of Coke and Pepsi ones, but there were also a bunch of obscure ones.  Some from the 80's but mostly older than that.  When my parents moved out of my childhood home a few years ago , they had an Estate Sale.  And guess what?  A bunch of my Dad's treasures sold.  That included many of his bottles.  I think he kept a few on hand, but for the most part, he parted with a long-term collection. So, when I was at a garage sale on our block a few weeks back and I came across these bottles, I had to grab them.  I mean...look at the prices:  five cents a piece.  That's nuts, right?  I mean...even if they were junk, throwing them away cost only a dime. The 7-up one is from the 50's according to my Dad.  The Ting bottle is old, but has a zip code on it from the bottler.  Turns

On a trip to Binny's to pick up some fancy beers for herself, Nat noticed a sign that said that the Budweiser Clydesdales were going to be appearing at Binny's in Oak Brook.  Well, we couldn't miss that, right?  I have never peep'd them in person before and it was pretty neat! They were scheduled to be there for a few hours, but the weather cut it short.  Fortunately, we were there for a while before they put them away. Talk about nostalgia and holidays and the feels all wrapped up in one nice, neat package. Amazing ambassadors for the brand.  Too bad it is a giant European conglomerate these days. But they're still bringing out the horses for Suburban rubes like us.  And guess what?  It worked.

Last year in July, I planted a Crimson King Maple Tree in the back part of our yard.  I chronicled the planting here .  And then gave a late Fall check-in post here before it dropped its leaves for the year.   One of the things that I was struck by was the lack of seeds in the tree last year.  The good news is that right now, the tree is loaded with them!  Here's one of them, all green and ready to burst.  Helicopters as we say, right?  I'm thinking that the tree was prioritizing putting down roots last year and didn't have the energy to spare to produce seeds.  Isn't nature amazing?  This season, I didn't pay much attention to the tree and I think that's just fine.  I mean...most people pay NO attention whatsoever to all of their trees, so these trees figure out how to survive on their own.  Just by the eye test, I don't think this tree has grown much in terms of height, but it seems like it has gotten thicker and more full and definitely wider. 

Almost one year ago - in early October of 2017 - I posted some photos of the locations of the Allium Purple Sensation bulbs that I put in the ground in the backyard.  I ended up putting them around the base of a big Oak Tree about half-way back from the house .  I don't think that all five of them came up and I know that we had at least one of them get dug out and taken by a critter, so I'm thinking that we likely have three left. When I came across the fall bulb section recently, I'm naturally drawn to Alliums.  Since 2011, I've posted about the various Allium bulbs that I've planted, starting with a surprise gift to Natalie that first year .  I also covered the bulbs that went into the ground in the Fall of 2017 in a post in April of this year when they emerged .  This year, I have five bulbs to put down of the same variety as last year:  Purple Sensation. In thinking about the 'path' concept I have in my head for the backyard , I'm wonde

We've been growing Sweet Potato Vines for the better part of ten years.  Basically ever since I started to buy and plant containers of my own, we've found a home for one of these.  Or six of them.  With their rock-bottom price (usually $0.99 a piece), I naturally grab one of these and a spike or two and check the box on the "spill" and "thrill" in the fill-spill-thrill container philosophy trio. But in all of that time, I have never had a Sweet Potato Vine flower.  Until now.  And I have not one vine flowering, but two!  In two different containers .   Here, below, you can see both of the wine barrel containers that I used on our patio and you can see that both of them have a very healthy/robust purple sweet potato vine and both are flowering! (also note how happy the Lemon Coral Sedum is, eh?) The flowers are quite striking and add some drama to the normally boring vine. From this DIYNetwork post , it turns out that the reason I haven'

That's our very small Canadian Hemlock up above in happier times:  right after planting.  But, alas, the tree is gone.  Lost it this Summer due to drying out.  Just like our Fraser Fir .  I don't have a photo of the carcass of the Hemlock unfortunately.  I took it back to Menards and didn't take the care to photograph the deceased. This makes five tree's we've lost.  Two of them pure conifers, one deciduous conifer. 1.  Chanticleer Pear 3" caliper tree .  Which we might lose again . 2.  The Corkscrew Willow I planted for Nat all the way in the back .  Might be a good thing knowing they're ratty trees. 3.  The Fraser Fir .  And our dreams of grow-our-own Christmas Trees. 4.  The Dawn Redwood that we replaced . 5.  This small Canadian Hemlock. 26 up, five down.  Two of them replaced.  Net of 23 trees alive and well in our reforestation.  In two seasons.  Only one of which is a conifer ( Weeping Cedar ) and two of which are deciduous conifers (rep

In June of this Summer, I posted a series of photos that attempted to document the full tree height in our inventory on Hornbeam Hill .  I didn't get every tree, but I was able to put a height (approximate) on most of the new trees and that post was meant to serve as a reference post for documenting some of the trees as they grow.  But, there are at least two trees that went in *after* that post was shared that I wanted to document.  First up is the replacement Dawn Redwood .  That's the photo on top.  You can see the height of the tree (currently) is just shy of 63" tall. Below is the newly planted Bald Cypress in the front yard by the driveway.  That one is currently 51" tall.  I'll be going back to these trees (if they make it over the Winter) next year and hope to see some 'creep' going on as they shoot upwards.