it's still summer

Hello, friends! 

I know Labor Day weekend signifies the final hoorah of summer, but I like to keep in mind that we have another three more weeks of this beautiful season.

Give me all the days of warmth, sunshine, bright flowers, and patio sitting.

I would never get tired of spending Sunday mornings barefoot on the patio with my iced coffee and newspaper (it's the only day we get the paper).

My pots of veggies have been giving us beautiful tomatoes...

and I just harvested the first of our red onions. (Why are they called red onions if they're more purple? 🤷)

Evening walks to the lake to see the sunset are a bonus to living in this neighborhood, but the sunsets are getting earlier by the day. I hate having to close the blinds in the house at 7:30 now. Though in the throes of winter, I'll only be wishing the sunset were as late as 7:30. Aack, my mind can't even go there.

Our little town had their annual weekend fest in August, which always ends in a fabulous fireworks show over the lake. Thousands of people from all over come to see these fireworks. We stay home and watch them from our side yard. I don't like crowds or loud noises. Truth be told, I'm not a fan of fireworks in general because of the trauma from the noise to our veterans, cats and dogs who are usually terrified from the noise, and the terror and damage to wildlife. I saw online that some cities are choosing to do drone or laser light shows, and I'm all for that.

My birthday is in August, too and we spent the day in Chicago. One of the places I wanted to visit was St Michael Church in "Old Town". I'm not Catholic, but this place is rich in history and architecture, so I wanted to see it. It's one of the only handful of buildings that survived the Great Chicago Fire of 1871. 

The interior was breathtaking. I got goosebumps when I walked in and saw this view.

Two violinists and a celloist were playing soft music, as they were getting ready for a funeral service.

It's been so dry here in Illinois this summer. The leaves on the neighbor's maple tree are already turning red on the top. And this photo was taken at the end of August! Way too early, that's for sure. There's also dried leaves all over our property. Another sign of dryness. I love the low humidity, but we desperately need rain.

It's supposed to be in the 90's the next few days, so we'll be firing up the grill tomorrow. I'm going to make a mayo-free potato salad. Not sure which recipe but it's between this French potato salad or this dill pickle potato salad. Either of one of them perfect for summer.

PS: totally unrelated subject, but for those of you who do your own blog header, especially if it's photographs, what photo site do you use? I'm more interested in a free one, but haven't had any luck with a Google search. I used to love PicMonkey, but it's no longer free and I wouldn't really use it except to change my blog header once in awhile. Would that be worth it?Thanks for any suggestions.

Have a fantastic weekend!

mulberry tree ~ and a tour of our late june yard

In my last post, I shared about my neighbor's mulberry tree that overhangs our property. That the tree drops mulberries all over our patio, the patio furniture, the plants, walkway...literally everything that's on the south side of our house. And that it was about to start.

It did indeed. Here you can see how the berries are littering the mulch on the walkway to the patio. Impossible to clean up when they're in the mulch.

In this photo you can see how I had to take the cushions off the furniture and put the chairs up against the house. The berries still find their way onto the chairs and get stuck in the crevices. This photo of the berries on the patio isn't even that bad; this was a few hours after I swept. You can see how they're already staining the concrete. Flies are also attracted to the mulberries, so we're dealing with those nasty insects, too.

My poor plants are getting socked by the berries. The Bishops Cap is a more delicate plant, and it's falling over from the weight of the berries constantly falling on it.

Some of you commented on my last post and also emailed me about having our neighbor's tree trimmed. For reference, those tall overhanging branches you see in the next photo are part of the mulberry tree. They're about 40 feet high. The wooden fence is hers. It sits right on our property line. We don't mind those low hanging branches in back of the patio. They don't cause any problems and provide shade for our patio.

We've had the mulberry tree trimmed twice in the past six years: once every three years. We are legally allowed to have her trees trimmed back to her property line. Here's the problems: 1) The tree trimmers can't reach those highest branches. There's no room for a cherry picker truck in our front yard. And she will not allow the tree trimmer workers onto her property to climb the tree to trim it. 2) Without getting into too much detail, the neighbor is a mean, nasty person. She has caused us a lot of problems over the years. Each time we've hired a tree service to trim her overhanging trees (which costs a lot of money), we've written a letter ahead of time and mailed it to her Certified Mail Return Receipt (which she did indeed sign) to let her know the date her trees would be trimmed. 

Three years ago when we last did this, she made sure she took the day off work and flew out of her house, yelling and screaming at the workers because they had to step onto her property to cut some of the branches. She even threatened to call the police. I had warned the workers ahead of time about her, but they told me afterwards that they had never encountered anyone quite like her. 

(The "offending" tree)...

After the tree trimming guys left, I went to the police station to let them know the whole scenario in case she decided to contact them. The policeman took a report and said to me, "I don't understand. You're doing her a favor!" 

On to more positive things. The shady portion of the south side of our house is starting to fill in nicely. The ferns have taken off and the coleus plants between all the hostas are starting to grow, even though you can't really see them in this photo.

Now you can see some of the coleus in a close-up photo.

The plants in the butterfly garden will soon burst into bloom and that's when it will look especially beautiful. From the back coming towards the front of the photo, there's black-eyed susan (the shorter plant), tall garden phlox, bee balm, lamb's ear, sedum, purple coneflower, and columbine. The columbine is now slowly fading away, as it's a spring perennial.

My herb garden in back of the house has mint, lemon balm, red leaf sorrel, two varieties of thyme, oregano, rosemary and chives. I have basil, dill and parsley in pots around other areas of my yard. I don't mind that mint and lemon balm are invasive. They've been in my herb garden for many years and I just pull stalks out when they start spreading too much.

The tomato plants are huge now and have yellow blossoms. Can't wait until we have tomatoes! We were lucky enough to find heirloom tomatoes at a farmer's market this past weekend and there just is no comparison to supermarket tomatoes. Doesn't even taste like the same fruit. (Who else wants to call tomatoes a vegetable? 😏)

An addition to Zippo's memorial garden is this angel kitty statue I found at HomeGoods.

Brian and I were working in the yard the other evening and he spotted this mourning dove couple up in the tree. Aren't they the sweetest?

Have a beautiful week!

summer in the midwest

We finally, finally got a break in the weather from all the rain and thunderstorms where the sun has been shining every day and the temps have been perfect. It's been glorious to have the windows and doors open and the fans going instead of everything closed up with the air-conditioner running. Of course, this isn't going to last - we'e back up into the 90's tomorrow - but I'm living in the moment. We've been spending lots of time outside doing yard work, forever cleaning up mulberries (poor Brian had to clean them out of the gutters), taking walks down to the lake in the evenings, and visiting with our neighbor-friends down the street. That's their gorgeous bee balm in the fourth photo.

This is the time of year where the Midwest shines. It is so green and lush...the trees look like big stalks of broccoli dotting the landscape, gardens are bursting with color, and wildflowers line the highways. Nothing says summer like driving down a country road past fields of corn, windows down (sometimes with the AC blasting at the same time), radio on, puffy clouds floating above. And then there's sitting out on the porch at night...the heavy, musky humidity hanging like a blanket, glimpses of light still visible, and fireflies flashing their little lights on and off like SOS signals.

We took another day trip this past weekend - this time to Lake Geneva, Wisconsin. We're right near the border of Wisconsin, so Lake Geneva is only a 40 minute drive for us. We don't go up there often - it's been over two years. The town is touristy and crowded, especially at this time of year. The shops mainly cater to the tourists and wealthy locals, but it's a charming town to walk around (we put on almost five miles of walking!), dip your feet in the water, and have a bite to eat at a fantastic restaurant.

How's your summer going so far?

please don't rush summer

I've already seen posts all over social media about fall and even - *gasp* - preparing for Christmas!

I just don't understand the rush. It is only the beginning of August. We have over six weeks of summer left. I am not thinking about pumpkins, leaves changing colors, cool days, Halloween, or anything even remotely associated with Christmas.

Maybe it's because I live in an area that has long, dark, cold - even sometimes brutal - winters. It makes us appreciate summer even more.

Our lives are always so rush-rush as it is; why do we find it so hard to slow down and be mindful of what is going on around us now? It's so easy to get in that mindset of what is coming next instead of being present in the moment - whether it's rushing the seasons or even the activity of our everyday lives.

To me, August is the epitome of summer. Everything here in the Midwest is so lush and green and brilliant flowers abound. The roadsides are filled with Queen Anne's Lace, Purple Loosestrife, and some kind of small yellow wildflower that appears in late summer. If the humidity is low, the sky is a brilliant blue and if the humidity is high (which it often is), the sky is dotted with fluffy, cotton candy-like clouds.

I also crave a lot of light and sun, and this is the season to revel in that.

I love when I'm in the kitchen making a meal and decide I need fresh herbs, and being able to slip outside and snip herbs from my containers or little backyard herb garden. Even better when I do it with bare feet. 

And then the fresh produce...another reason I wish summer lasted a lot longer. We are surrounded by corn fields here in northern Illinois. Of course, most of it is GMO and used for animal feed (one reason to buy grass-fed beef, if you can), but two of the local farm stands here carry non-GMO corn that is picked fresh every day.

My own tomato plants are doing terrible this year and I've heard the same comments echoing from others in the area. We think it's from the erratic weather. At the start of summer, we had a deluge of rain to the point of local flooding. Lately, it's been a dry spell. Can't seem to get that nice mix of dry and wet weather. So I've been getting my tomatoes (and peppers) from the local farm stand, too. This is the only time of year I eat raw tomatoes. I can't stand the waxy, tasteless supermarket ones.

I have a friend who gardens on her farmer friend's huge plot of land. My friend is out of town right now, so she had posted on Facebook that she needed people to come every few days and pick veggies. There were about seven of us who volunteered, so my friend set up a schedule for picking.

Brian and I went yesterday morning and came home with onions, swiss chard, jalapeno peppers, tomatoes, beets, carrots, zucchini, one little cucumber, and a ton of green beans. And a couple of sunflowers for the kitchen table. (Yes, she said we could help ourselves to those, too.) Last night we feasted on corn-on-the-cob, sliced tomatoes and steamed green beans. It was a perfect summer meal. Nothing tastes better than vegetables that were just picked that day. I remember when I was little, my grandma grew yellow tomatoes in her garden. I had never tasted one before. She told me how they were a bit sweeter than red tomatoes. She picked a yellow tomato and brought it inside, sliced it up and sprinkled with a little bit of salt. We feasted on the juicy slices, still warm from the sun. To this day, I still prefer sliced yellow tomatoes over red, and I always think of my grandma when I eat them.

On the evenings where Brian's home from work, we walk down to the lake and watch the sunset. Such a beautiful way to end the day.

Oh, the summer night, 

Has a smile of light,

And she sits on a sapphire throne.
(Bryan Procter)

Happy Wednesday, happy summer.

xoxo

gardening around comfy house

I think we're a little bit late in the game this year with our gardening efforts. We can blame yucky weather (we've had a lot of rain and cool temperatures), full schedules, and my knee. I still can't crouch down or kneel and I'm still struggling with swelling, stiffness and discomfort after being on my feet for several hours. This is despite still being in PT and doing some exercises at home every day, plus elevating and icing. But, I digress.

This narrow gardening space is on the south side of our house, up against our (nice) neighbor's fence. Last year, Brian planted the clematis and four cherry tomato plants. This year, Brian dug up more ground and so we have from left to right: pole beans (we're using our kid's old crib springs for a trellis!), rhubarb, yellow and red cherry tomatoes, clematis, and a peony bush - which I know is hard to see in this photo. It's tiny right now.

I am thrilled with the clematis this year. Brian bought this plant for me for Mother's Day last year and it was maybe 6" tall. Amazing that it's already growing over the top of the trellis.

The idea of even planting something against this ugly privacy fence came to me last year when Brenda at Cozy Little House said something to the effect of, "If you don't like the view out your window, do something outside to make it pretty." So, we did just that. Much better!

We have a little circular garden in our back yard but it doesn't get a lot of sun. The tickseed that I planted several years ago that came back beautifully every year, didn't appear at all this year. And the rose bush I had here was scrawny and weeds were overtaking it, so Brian dug that up and threw it away. That left two phlox plants and one was looking pitiful, so that got dug up, too. All that remained was one lonely phlox. Brian dug up another from the butterfly garden and planted it in the circular garden, and then we purchased two Bleeding Heart plants and planted them in the circular garden as well. When all these plants fill out and flower, I think this little garden will be really pretty.

On to the butterfly garden...the only thing blooming right now is the Columbine (back, left). Brian dug up (notice Brian has been doing a lot of digging?!) a small area in the middle of the Lamb's Ear and we planted Bee Balm. We planted two more Bee Balm plants near the back, right underneath the bench. I can't wait to see if these do well in this garden...they're supposed to grow tall with beautiful, brightly colored blooms. Most of all, I hope the bees, butterflies and hummingbirds are attracted to them.

While Brian was busy doing all that digging, I was busy planting flowers in pots. We picked up this two-tiered planter on our last trip to IKEA. They sell these pots individually, so you can make however many tiers you want. After filling up the bottom pot with dirt and flowers, I found it was really heavy, so I didn't want to do the same with the top pot. I found three small, lightweight planters in my garage and planted vinca vines in each. I think this will be really pretty when the vines start growing down the sides of the planter.

We've not set up the patio yet this year except for uncovering the patio furniture and getting it into place. It's been so rainy that the cushions are still in the garage. I did get one large patio planter done - except I ran out of petunias when doing this planter! Back to the garden center for me.

 Yellow petunias hanging on the fence...

Meet my new gardening buddy - the Fiskars Deluxe Stand-Up Weeder. This thing makes weeding so easy; I wish I knew about it earlier. You simply place the pointed prongs over the weed, put your foot on the foot press...

tilt the weeder back as you're pulling up...

and then eject your weed into your pile! It actually makes weeding kind of fun...though my entire yard is weeds, so I'd have to dig up the whole yard to get them all. And that's not gonna happen. I'm just pulling up the ones around plants and the walkways.

I still have more to do...coleus is waiting to be planted and so are a few more herbs.

What's growing in your gardens right now?
Have a wonderful and safe Memorial Day weekend!