Rudbeckia Blooms

Because I very diligently planned just about everything related to my garden, it makes sense that the absence of one color from the carefully orchestrated palette of the whole would significantly detract from the intended effect.

Wow, I'm a dork. Let's try that again.

What I meant was: Until the rudbeckia fulgida "goldsturm" (black-eyed Susan) blossoms opened last week, I didn't have anything yellow in the garden, so the other colors didn't "pop" as much. But now that they have bloomed, they're making everything else look better. :)

First Tomatoes!

Despite summer's late start this year and the fact that my tomatoes aren't usually ready until August, I was able to harvest one Brandywine and a few Yellow Pears this week.


With a little olive oil and some sel gris, they were absolutely heavenly. :)

Happy Bees

There are any number of reasons that I love anise hyssop (agastache foeniculum) "Golden Jubilee" -- it's a Minnesota native; its chartreuse foliage is beautifully bright and offers great color contrast with darker-leaved plants; the purple bottle-brush flowers are long-lasting and lovely; the leaves smell of mint and can be used to make a stomach-settling tea -- but maybe at the top of the list is how happy it makes the bumblebees in my garden.

The AN Fence Project

The Awesome NeighborsTM used to have a chain-link fence semi-covered in bridal veil, but because they're on a pretty busy corner (and because Seza and I keep talking about how nice it would be to sit in a kiddie-pool in the backyard whilst drinking margaritas), they decided that a little more privacy would be nice. Hence, the fence project.

Renting the dingo clearly helps (post-hole digging kinda sucks, evidently), but more importantly, it's just fun.

Tim drives the dingo and runs the auger attachment.

It definitely works!

Holding the posts while the quick-dry cement sets. (That's Tim, Matt and Mason.)
The finished product (and a peek at Seza's new raised veggie garden)!

We benefit from the fence quite a bit ourselves. Here's the view from our veranda. Kiddie-pool, here we come!

Counting to Four

It's sooo cliche to fall in love with a song featured in an iPod commercial, but I'll cop to the fact that that's why I first became interested in "1234." After downloading it, I was truly tickled to find out that the song in its entirety is far more charming than the limited clip in the commercial lets on, and even more excited about it after seeing Leslie Feist rock the eff out on SNL. Now, she's gracing an episode of "Sesame Street." How awesome.