Why I Oughta...

Last week, I marked the first tulip bulb of Spring in our front yard that had emerged out of the cocoa bean hull mulch and talked about how I added 57 new tulip bulbs in the Fall of 2020 to that bed.  This past weekend, I was looking around the area where I planted tulip bulbs in the backyard and saw the first one coming up around the large Oak tree.  Below, you can see the tip emerging from the wood chips that almost looks candy corn-ish. In this area, I planted way more than I did in the front and put in 114 total new tulip bulbs around this area, so I'm hoping for quite a show this Spring.  I used a combination of two purples, white and yellow bulbs, but I'm not certain which variety this particular bulb is based on the early color.  

In our indoor container garden collection, we have a few succulents that we've picked up over the years including the Burro's Tail that I bought home from the office and (just last week) began the process of planting some cuttings.   Upstairs, in the sunniest spot, we also have a container of Firesticks Cactus that I planted in 2018 .  I managed to drag that Firesticks outside last Summer and then back in before Fall and it seems to have thrived the past year or two.  It is pretty big and likely in need of a new container.  But, more on that succulent in a separate post. This is about a new (to us) succulent that I picked up recently at Home Depot.  It was a $3.98 2.5" plastic nursery pot that has these plump, crinkle-ended leaves/lobes.  For now, I decided to just leave the Key Lime Pie succulent in the plastic nursery pot and stuck it inside a larger, terra cotta container that doesn't (currently) have a hole punched out of the bottom, but appears to be able to have

We had a raptor visitor to our bird feeder this past week and I was able to grab a photo of him/her with their back to us.  You can see it in the photo below that she was perched on the top arm of our feeder set and there wasn't another bird anywhere around.   We've had other birds of prey visitors to our yard over the years and I've posted some photos of them from time-to time.  Last year, I saw a Cooper's Hawk in a similar spot .  And a huge bird far off in the trees .  I heard an owl on my walk to the train in January of 2020 .  And, most recently, a large hawk in October of 2020 .   I've identified the birds in various ways, but I've always been *kinda* sure about the identification.   But, this bird gave me a lot to work with in terms of looks.  Looking through our birding book, I seem to have narrowed it down to two hawks.  A Cooper's Hawk.  Or a Sharp-Shinned Hawk.  According to the book, the Sharp-Shinned Hawk is a 'doppelganger of the Cooper'

Just about one year ago, I posted a photo here on the blog showing our first tulip bulb tip that had emerged from the mulch and signaled that Spring was this/close.  Today, I'm posting a similar photo of a tulip bulb tip in our front yard/front porch beds.  Last Fall, I planted 57 additional tulip bulbs - adding 28 yellow, 15 orange and 14 white flowers to our bed where we had our original 50 bulbs.  That makes the full count 107 bulbs, but we've certainly lost some to rot, critters or they have exhausted themselves.   The photo below, is taken a little bit away from the base of the Norway Maple where our legacy bulbs have historically been planted , so I'm thinking this is one of the newly planted ones.   If you've been following along over the years, you'll notice two additional things in the photo above. First, the mulch.  It is Cocoa Bean Hull mulch from the Hull Farm in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin .  I first picked up the idea at the Luxembourg Gardens in Paris w

This year's snow totals were pretty high - in particular the month of February.  I posted a photo showing the big pile in between our driveways and mentioned how many thing had gotten buried under the snow.  In most cases, I figured that being buried was going to be fine.  But, there are some instances when the splaying from the weight of snow caused some concern.  In particular, the Gold Cone Junipers - which have a history of splaying - and the boxwoods.   For the Gold Cone Junipers, once the snow melts, I'll get out there and see what the state of them is after the long, hard winter.  I un-wired them , so I'm concerned about the snow.  Here's a look at the boxwoods just about a year ago showing that they had seen some winter burn , but no branching issues.  And, in particular, the boxwood closest to the front walk had a pretty large gap starting to show up that I'm concerned will only get worse with Winter splaying.   As for the front Boxwoods, they were show

As I continue to hone my craft, I'm learning that there are a few category-wide characteristics of Bar Pizza.  Those are things like: perfectly round, crisp, holds a good amount of toppings.  But, in looking at some of the other 'touchstone' pizzas out there, there's something else that seems to exist.  Pockmarks.  Look at this photo of a pizza from Colony Grill .  Pockmarks, for sure.   As part of the class from Slowrise, they provided a cheese blend that, when combined with the right heat in the oven, leads to those pockmarks.  At least, I think it is the cheese blend - that includes cheeses that oil-off at different points that cause the pockmarks to show up.  Some of my initial pizzas that I pulled out of the oven were showing signs of these pockmarks, but I wasn't able to reproduce them all across the top.  Until this past weekend.  I was using an away-from-home oven, set to more than 500 degrees.  And I pulled out pizzas that looked like this: Plenty of pockma

In the Winters since we moved in (and after we planted our Saucer Magnolia tree in our front yard), I've looked at the buds as they are set to burst ahead of Spring.  It started in our first Winter with this post in February of 2018 .  In January of 2019, I posted a series of photos with all of the different front yard tree buds.  And last Winter (January), I decided to wire-up one of the trunks (this is a multi-trunk tree) and posted about that decision and included photos of the buds .  With all of the DEEP snow in our yard, I haven't been able to get close enough to this tree to catch some photos.  But, now, with the temperatures rising and the snow melting, I wandered out to check in on the tree.  And, the fuzzy buds are big and bulbous.  And about the burst.  This tree has, seemingly, grown in height.  Being planted in 2017, it navigated that initial transplant stress.  Then, entering the second and third year of the cycle , I'm thinking it went: 2017: sleep 2018: cr