Why I Oughta...

Can we take a moment to reflect on the current state of the University of Illinois Fighting Illini Athletic Programs - specifically...the big two:  Football and Hoops.  What a week.  We beat that baby tyrant Shane Beamer and his "shoulda been in the playoffs" South Carolina Gamecocks in a game where we ran the Barge formation multiple times (love that).  Followed by a late night (last night) road win for Men's hoops at #9 Oregon - where the Illini won by 32 points - the largest ever road victory against a Top-10 opponent. When they ask me about the Salad Days...I'll tell them about this week.  These are the Salad Days for my Illini.  

Back in mid-December, I posted the details of my own Dahlia tuber order from Longfield Gardens that included some Maarn Ball Dahlias, Sweet Nathalie Decorative Dahlias and a bulk oder of Pablo Decorative Border Dahlias.   I say 'my own' Dahlia order because below are the details of a gift order that I was given for Christmas.  So...this is a 'gift order' of tubers and it includes one duplicate and a couple of new-to-me ones. Below is a screenshot of the order showing the tuber varieties:  I'll now be receiving some Wizard of Oz tubers, a few more Sweet Nathalies, some Zundert Mystery Fox Ball tubers and my first set of Collerette dahlias - this one named Pooh.  How can we not love a Winnie the Pooh themed Dahlia flower, right? This means I'll have (at least): 2 Ball varieties (Maarn and Mystery Fox) 1 Pompon variety (Wizard of Oz) 1 decorative variety (Sweet Nathalie) 1 collerette variety (Pooh) 1 decorative gallery variety (Pablo) Next job is to plan on where ...

We grew two Amaryllis bulbs this Christmas season - an Exotic Star Amaryllis and a Double Dream Amaryllis .  Both were 'nice' bulbs from the garden center - not a big box store kit-type bulb.  I don't seem to have posted about these in December, but one of them - the Exotic Star - took off.  While the other one (Double Dream) stayed dormant.  That has held true all the way until today - early January. The Double Dream is still dormant.  But, the Exotic Star is in full bloom with three flowers opening up and showing their stripes.   See below for a what the Exotic Star looks like currently.  Note those bottom (and side) petals being a tad LONGER than the one sticking up at the top.  That's part of the 'design' of Exotic Star Amaryllis .  So, too are the red stripes on white petals and the 'green apple' highlights.   Once the stalk(s) started to get a couple inches from the bulb, I started to water this one with the diluted alco...

Another year full of posts.  Mostly about my garden, my pizza oven build and some other various nonsense.  This year, I'll have written 367 posts (including this one); with 2024 being a Leap year with 366 days.  If you look at the archive list (below), you'll see that there are some misses/additions.  May does NOT have 32 days, but October has 31.  Oh, well.  Not a gold-star blogging year, but still more than one-post-per-day...everyday. I've done daily blogging - 365 posts since 2015.  That means...this is the 10th year straight that I've completed that task. Here is 2023's post .  Ten years of writing.  Everyday.  Ten years!  Something like 3600+ straight days.   And 20 years of blogging here.  Twenty years.  Half of which are consecutive.  My goodness that's a lot of nonsense.  And garden diary posts.  

Even more pizza oven progress.  Dome closing in.  Door template removed.  And...the inner arch stayed up.  

I've been SUPER neglectful of my pizza oven build project here on my own blog.  By that...I mean...I've neglected to update the blog, but not the actual oven.  Good news, bad news, I guess.  Good news:  the oven is built and closed in.   The bad news:  I last posted about it in late September when I was like seven chains up on the dome . Let's catch up - a little bit.   I was able to keep putting up chains and finally got around to building out the door: And, from there, I kept going around and around.  Thanks to the indispensable tool. 

 This is my annual reminder that the State of Illinois should bring back the 1983 blue-top license plates. Here's my post from 2023 when I asked for the same return to this plate across the state.