Posts

Wilco: Love is Everywhere (Beware)

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A few nights ago, Wilco played on Late Night with Seth Meyers.   Their new single (is that still what you call it?) is pretty good.  Dad rock and all. The archives are full of Wilco-related posts all the way back to 2004.  Go ahead and nose around in there if you'd like. 

Linden Espalier - Fall 2019 Pre-Dormancy

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I took this photo above a week or so ago - with the Greenspire Lindens being entirely green and not having lost a leaf yet this year.  Putting this here in the [garden diary] to note how much the trees hve grown and to document the progress of the Candelabra that I've made this year. I'll take another photo once the leaves fall off to get a sense for the structure, but below you can see the candelabra that is taking shape.  The red indicates the branch structure that exists so far and the yellow show the bamboo supports that are in place. Winter gives me a chance to look at this double candelabra espalier and decide if it is going to be five cordons or six cordons or limbs in the candelabra.  Here - below - in teal - is the six limb version.  It looks tight to me. On the left, this means that I need: a new 2nd from the bottom left limb. a longer bottom limb on the right.  a decision between three and four on both sides. a new fifth left limb cutting the top

Weeping White Spruce - Fall 2019

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I bought this small Weeping White Spruce in the end of May this year and planted it on the southside of our property close to the fenceline here (it is a columnar, very narrow tree !) at the beginning of June .  I seem to have failed to measure it and include it in my annual yard tree inventory post this year , so I thought it would be worth sharing this thing as it goes into Winter. I don't have the best luck with Winter conifers.  This past season, I lost my other weeping tree - the Alaskan Weeping Cedar - even though I tried to protect it with Wilt-Pruf.  Welp, actually, I don't have much luck with conifers anytime as I also lost my first Fraser Fir last season . I'm torn as to if I should apply the Wilt-Pruf to this Weeping White Spruce, but I'm thinking that it can't hurt.  Last Winter was brutal and the Cedar Tree was just a casualty of it - like the buds on all of my flowering trees and the Wilt-Pruf didn't seem to help on the Cedar.  If I mix up

Fighting Illini Football - Homecoming 2019

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A few weeks ago, we packed up the Minivan and went down to Champaign for Illinois Homecoming.  That started with a visit to Memorial Stadium where the Illini were taking on the Wisconsin Badgers and I was able to participate in the annual Varsity I weekend where they welcome back past athletes (see my Football Alumni badge at the top) and all the festivities that includes like a tailgate party, some free tickets and going on the field before the game.   We watched the game (at least most of it) and also had a nice time with my sisters at their tailgate in Grange Grove. As part of the Varsity I celebration, the Athletic Department hosts what they call the "Legacy Tunnel" - where former players line up and the team charges out in front of when they leave the locker room.  I had a good spot - facing West - and snapped a few photos of the Fighting Illini Football Team wearing their "Grey Ghost" uniforms.  Check out this post that shows the 1998 team photo and

Willow Oak Tree in Memphis Tennessee - Fall 2019

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I spotted a few of these trees outside of a corporate campus building in Memphis recently and they struck me as a pretty nice shade tree.  The leaves were falling - and are long, non-traditional-Oak-tree-shaped.  Check one out here: This is from the same site as that cloud-like hedge of Boxwoods that I posted about earlier this month. It thrives in Tenneessee, but what about Illinois?  Zone 5B?  Not sure.  The Missouri Botanical Garden team lists this tree suitable down to Zone 5, but also includes this note: Trees or seeds for the St. Louis area should come from northern sources because there is some question as to the winter hardiness of this tree throughout USDA Zone 5. This tree has a couple of features that I can see people being drawn to:  it is shaped like an Oak, but has the leaves (above) that are Willow-like.  Oh...and it grows fast - something you can't say about most Oaks.  From Missouri Botanical Garden : Quercus phellos , commonly called willow oak, is

Lemax Reindeer Grooming Barn - 2019

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This one isn't 'new' for 2019, but rather was released last year.  At least....that's according to the  Lemax site that shows this Reindeer Grooming Barn being part of the Santa's Wonderland collection and 'new in 2018'. It is, however, new to me and new to Menards as far as I can tell. This is the fourth Lemax Christmas Village structure that I've put on the blog this year. First was the North Pole Tower - part of Santa's Wonderland. Over the weekend was The Hop Stop craft brew building - part of Harvest Crossing. And most recently, I posted photos of the Sugar Plum Bakery . Like the rest of the standard structures, the Fly-Tru Reindeer Washing Barn retails for $39.99 at Menards, but will be on their reverse Christmas pricing that has discounts that grow as we get closer to Christmas Day. As for Mantleburg...I think you know the answer by now:  the Village Board isn't going to annex anything like this in the near term.

Last Night's Tally - With Disputed Numbers in 2019

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Here's the tally from last night's visitors in Downers Grove:  32 kids we know.  20 kids we don't know.  15 adults with costumes.   3 kids no costume.  And 3 Adults no costume.    That would be a total of 73 with a pretty big asterisk. Last year, we had 24 total.  All kids we knew .  And that was a pretty sad number. I think it is safe to say that these numbers are in dispute.  For sure, the numbers in the red circles below, I think we can just simply throw out.  It was snowing like crazy and we don't live in Elmhurst any longer so there were no Adults and no babies out there like there have been in some years. So, let's throw out those numbers.  Minus 21.  Takes our 73 down to 52.   That seems plausible.  We did the whole 'bowl on the front porch' thing when we were out, so there's no counting those kids.  But, like we do every year, Nat has a little party at our house after trick-or-treating and there are more than a dozen kids that c