Snapshots of Evanston Yards While in Chicago last week, I managed to visit my old neighborhood in Evanston, a suburb on the lake. The neighborhoods are still quiet and beautiful, the beaches alluring, but a few things have changed. The houses used to be almost uniformly painted in shade of light gray with deep gray…
summer
Mid July Chores
It finally heated up and this is what we expect in July: hot muggy weather. It is time to keep up with the weeds, hoeing them out in the morning means that the hot sun is killing the weeds and not you. Afternoons are made for sipping lemonade in the shade of a tree. Look…
Everything Is Late, But Coming Along
Home in Late June My main endeavor this summer has been to weed, since absent from the garden so long. While taking care of the vegetable plot, which if you will remember was planted hurriedly just before leaving town, I noticed some tomato fruits. Green, small to medium sized, but coming along. After all the…
The “what did you do over summer” essay
Remember the first days of school when you were a kid? There were always the obligatory “What I Did This Summer” essays that were supposed to sum up our activities- as a way to segue back into the halls of Academia. Leaving the fresh air and sunshine behind, we gazed through school windows and tried…
Endless Summer Hydrangea, 2010 Season
This summer ‘Endless Summer’ hydrangea has seen the best of times and the worst of times. The early part of the season with its regular drenching rains created perfect blooming conditions, and the bush looked the best I have yet seen it. Then the scorching hot and dry patch drew out the moisture faster than…
June Flowers
A sampling of some flowers that bloom in June, here in my Central Ohio garden. I had plenty of deep blue larkspur and mammoth-sized dill that came up in the vegetable garden. The heat caused most things to go by all too quickly, and we have now entered a seasonal lull in which the container…
Knee Deep in June
“Long about knee-deep in June,‘Bout the time strawberries meltsOn the vine.”– James Witcomb Riley That is where we are in the year’s rivulet which we mark in our short span of life. Knee deep in June already! Ohio’s strawberry time, where small, but bright red strawberries with their sweet summer aroma are in the field…
HOT!!
i have been AWOL as well for awhile. wish i could say it is housecleaning, but living alone does have its merits. i would rather dig a hole than run a vacuum cleaner! my sandy driveway continues its slow migration into the kitchen. visitors and my old dogs don’t help… it has been up in the 90’s,…
Garden update: August 2009
Last few days of the month mean a garden update is in order. In some ways the garden is an ogre again, but in a Shrek sort of way. Walking around the garden and putting in two bits worth of work this last week… here are my observations: The month has had dips and hills…
Zen-Zeitgeist – a spate of Japonica
How is that for mixing metaphors? As I was writing one of a neverending stream of plant profiles for my website, I found the National Arboretum site…which led me to a page on the art of Kusamono. That in turn made me remember that I meant to give Joanne a link on “Kigo” because she…