hellooo ~ this & that

Hello and happy July! I recently finished repainting the little table on the porch. I've this table for at least 30 years - a cast off from a neighbor. It's been several colors. The last few years it was yellow and it was fading and peeling. I was tired of the yellow anyway.

The Chicago area has been hit hard with the smoke from the Canada wildfires. I took this photo last week, when the sun was trying to peek out through the haze right before sunset. That was the day we had the worst air quality in the world.

My little veggie garden is doing great. There's two tomato plants on the left, then red onions, and purple beauty bell pepper. 

Exciting to see the first fruits.

This beautiful purple flowered perennial has turned out to be one of my favorites. It's in the geranium family (geranium pratense); more commonly known as Meadow Cranesbill. I purchased this plant at least 25 years ago with my then next-door neighbor, Thanam. She had recently moved here from Malaysia and didn't have a car. I took her to the garden center with me and we each bought one of these plants. For some reason, she thought the name of this plant was Heavenly Death. That's what she always called it. Did it have that name on the plant tag? I don't remember. I've Googled to see if any variety of Meadow Cranesbill has this name and don't come up with anything. But to this day, I still call this plant Heavenly Death because of Thanam. It reminds me of her. (She moved back to Malaysia 20 years ago.) 

Another interesting thing about this perennial is that it's been moved several times and has always done well. It loves where it is now, nestled in-between coral bells. It gets a nice mixture of sun and shade.

Our new(ish) next door neighbor never did cut down the mulberry tree like he told us he was going to. We even left him a nice note on his gate last month, offering once again to help him pay for having the tree cut down and to let us know if he needed any help finding a tree trimming service. We left our phone numbers and also told him he was welcome to stop by and talk to us. Never heard from him. *sigh*  

So, you guessed it, we're once again having to deal with millions of mushy mulberries falling all over our patio, in the hostas, and all the other plants that run along the privacy fence ~ not to mention the walking path to the patio and in all the fresh mulch we lay down in the spring. We haven't been able to use our patio in for three weeks, so far. And when the mulberries are done falling, Brian will then have to power wash the patio to get all the stains off. Have I ever said how much I hate this tree? 😜

INDOORS:

I got tired of looking at this squished space in "my" room. (I never know what to call this space. I have several names for it: Phil's room {used to be my son, Phil's bedroom}, the guest room, my room, my office.) 

I cleared the space out, including the bookcase so I could move it.

I started by moving the bookcase underneath the mirror. Clementine immediately took up residency on the chair moved to the side. I stashed my yoga and exercise equipment into a basket in the corner.

In this view, you can see the opening to the room, as well as how the wall next to the door juts out, creating a little nook next to the bookcase. 

I decided I didn't like the basket of exercise equipment in the corner. The corner needed some height. So I moved the exercise stuff into a smaller basket, tucked the yoga mat and bolster next to the other side of the bookcase (as seen in photo above), and put a stool with a plant on it in the corner.

Took the framed cat art print from the kitchen and moved it to this wall. 

I think this space looks much better now. Less cramped.

The white chair got moved into the living room across from the couch. The chair has become Clementine's new favorite napping spot. Funny, because she rarely napped on it when it was in "my" room.

For those of you in the US, have a happy and safe 4th of July. (Clementine doesn't like fireworks ~ and neither do I.)

the swing of summer

Hello, friends! This is the longest I've gone without blogging. Two months. It's been a busy summer and I've chosen to take a step back and just live in the moments. The past couple of weeks I've felt a post calling me again, but it was hard to know where to start.

Of course, all my gardens and pots of flowers are now in full swing. One of my simple pleasures is to walk around the yard most every day, checking on all the plants and flowers, seeing if anything new has bloomed, perhaps taking a few cuttings to bring in the house.

Last year, I had a pot of black and blue salvia on my front porch, which was not only striking in its color, but attracted hummingbirds. I couldn't find any of that salvia this year, but found this red variety. I've only seen one hummingbird, so far.

Another garden center had this unusual variety of salvia. Can't remember the name of it, but the plant stalk is sturdy and thick and the plant grows several feet tall. You can see it's just now blooming, so time will tell if this salvia will attract the hummingbirds.

Cosmos are one of my favorite flowers. Not only are they beautiful and daisy-like; they're so easy to take care of because they basically survive on neglect. Sow the seeds or plant the established annuals in full sun. They only need watering during drought conditions. They make for beautiful cut flowers in arrangements, too.

They're even beautiful on their own in a little bottle.

Any of you long-time readers of my blog will know about our ongoing annual saga of our neighbor's overhanging mulberry tree. This year was no different. We knew this was the year we'd have to hire tree trimmers again because the mulberry tree was not only dropping berries and destroying our patio and surrounding plants, but it was hanging over the roof, dropping berries there and into the gutter.

We were also dealing with the neighbor's invasive buckthorn overhanging our property and patio. It provided needed shade, but it was out of control and ugly.

Here's some mulberry photos for you, so you can see how bad it got!

We obviously had to move all our patio furniture into the backyard so it wouldn't get ruined.

I'd sweep up these dang mulberries every day (they fermented, stunk, and attracted flies!) into a dust pan and then dump the berries over the fence into the neighbor's yard. They're hers - she can have them back! 

You can see how the berries stained our patio.

After we had the trees trimmed. Much better!

Brian got to work power-washing the patio. You can see the clean difference around the perimeter of the patio. He also had to get up on a ladder and clean all the mulberries out of the gutter. 

Our patio furniture is now back in place where it belongs! I love being able to sit out here again. We now have no shade in this area, so we're looking for one of those free-standing umbrellas with the heavy base. 

Other than the home and garden update, my days and evenings have been filled with vet appointments (Clementine is still doing well with her kidney disease and subcutaneous fluid treatment), PT appointments for myself (my back again), and summer fun: get-togethers with friends and family, BBQs, day trips, an outdoor vintage pop-up sale, walks to the lake, and attending my friend's son's baseball games. 

Hope you're having an enjoyable, fun, and safe summer!

answers to your questions about the mulberry tree ~ and a new project

Hi everyone ~ there were a lot of questions in my last two posts about my neighbor and her mulberry tree that's dropping mulberries all over our patio and walkway, so I thought I'd start out by answering those questions.

Here's me one morning last week, surveying the mulberry damage before cleaning it up. Notice the patio is now cleared off except for one chair and the grill. That one chair has now been moved into the back yard with the rest of the furniture.

Can you attach a big net from the roof of your house to the fence?

No, we can't because the fence isn't ours. It's the neighbor's fence, so we can't attach anything to it. Also, the berries fall along the entire length of the house, not just over this patio area. There wouldn't be any netting big enough to cover the area.

When do the mulberries stop falling?

They fall for 4-5 weeks.

Do you know if she uses the berries?

No, she doesn't. They are all over her yard, walkway, staircase to her deck, and the deck itself. Obviously, she and her daughter and granddaughter (that live with her) don't care.

I wonder if moving might be in your future?

Not in our immediate future. We've lived here 30 years and have spent a lot of money these past few years fixing up the house. Housing in our town is inexpensive. If we sold this house now, there is nowhere else we could move in the Chicago area that we could afford. We can't move out of the Chicago area, as Brian still has five more years at his job until he retires.

Could you set up your patio table and chairs elsewhere in your yard?

There is nowhere else to put them. We live on a very small piece of property. The set is currently in the back yard, but it looks "funny" back there in the middle of the grass.

Later PS: I received a comment and another email about trimming the neighbor's tree branches that overhang our property. Yes, this has been done several times. I talked about it in my previous posts. It barely did any good. This is a huge tree that even with trimmed branches, manages to drop mulberries all over our property simply because it is so tall and wide.

On a more positive note, Brian and I worked on totally clearing out the guest room yesterday. It's currently yellow, which I initially loved, but after about eight years, I'm tired of it. It's too bright for me and I also think it brings out the yellow undertones in the wood floors, which I don't like. Painters are here right now, painting the room a cream color. They are also painting that ugly, faux wood window trim white.

Everything from the guest room...the mattress, bed frame, dresser, desk, bookshelf, pillows, bedding, curtains, blinds, everything from the closet, plants and knick knacks...are now in the tiny room next door, which used to be Tim's room and is now Brian's office.

Somehow, Brian managed to squeeze into the room to get his work clothes out of the closet.

After a long day yesterday, this is what we both felt like! Besides cleaning out the guest room, we also did yard work and washed windows. But washing the kitchen window proved to be a bit disastrous...

We have windows that tilt in for cleaning and long story short, something happened where one of the hinge pins inside the track broke off and Brian couldn't get the window back in. After fooling around with it for a long time and hearing a lot of swearing, I texted our nice neighbor that lives on the other side of us, to see if he could help. He came over and helped Brian for about 45 min. I was losing hope as they were working, especially as this neighbor is a DIYer who put in windows on his house and is also a roofer. I thought they were just going to have to leave it and put plastic over the window until we could get a window repair person out here. We certainly couldn't leave the window open as we're running the AC constantly. It's been 90F here and will be even hotter this coming week. 

They finally got the window temporarily put back into place and Brian called Home Depot where we got our windows from. We won't even be getting a call back from a service person for 3-5 business days. Good thing we're not living with plastic over an open window!

Have a wonderful weekend and a safe Fourth of July.

finally summer

Always a great start to the summer to have long-distance cousins in town (Tim and our four-year old cousin)...

and taking a jaunt to the local antique mall.

 Our evening walks take us down to the lake where we watch the sunsets...

 and another weekend day trip was in store where we to a vintage market and then had drinks on a rooftop overlooking the town.

Rain, rain and more rain, now in the form of thunderstorms....

 But I guess on the plus side, all this rain has made everything SO green.

 My herb garden...

The butterfly garden is looking fantastic, though nothing is in bloom yet except the columbine. That's purple coneflower in the foreground, then sedum, lamb's ear, bee balm, phlox and black-eyed Susan.

 It's also mulberry time, which means our neighbor's tree is dropping these berries all over our patio, the patio furniture (which is why the chairs are moved to the side for now) and in the plants and mulch all leading up to the patio. We can't use our patio unless the berries are cleaned up first and they ruin our plants. They rot and smell and then attract flies. They stain our patio and the furniture. We've had our neighbor's tree trimmed back to her property line a couple of times, but it doesn't do much good. Those berries still (obviously) find their way to our property. It also costs a lot of money for a tree trimmer AND this neighbor is very nasty about us trimming her trees, even though we have every right to. 

But back to better things about the patio...summer nights sitting out there with a glass of wine is peaceful and relaxing...

And now that the hot, humid weather has hit (low 90's this weekend!), it's time for more salads. I had this for dinner tonight and it was absolutely delicious. It's brown rice pasta tossed with steamed asparagus, baby spinach, artichoke hearts, fresh basil, salt and pepper, Asiago-Parmesan cheese, and then a homemade lemon vinaigrette (fresh lemon juice, salt, pepper, a little raw honey, and extra-virgin olive oil). I toasted some pine nuts and added them to my salad, too. Leave out the cheese (and the honey in the vinaigrette) if you want/need a vegan dish.

Happy summer!