Cherry tree picking

A cherry tree will be going into the backyard of the Little Bitty in the Syracuse city neighborhood of Eastwood. My dear wife Karen and I took the trip to Chuck Hafner’s Garden Center in North Syracuse this past weekend, walking the aisles under the sun out back and inside the greenhouses, too. We spied…

Green backyard grass, except for that one patch

The mower will be out of the shed soon in the yard of my dear wife Karen and I’s Little Bitty in the Syracuse city neighborhood of Eastwood. A good portion of our backyard is looking lush, considering it’s the year-round playground for Ellie B aka Dogamous Pyle. Playground-plus, actually, if you know what I’m…

So about this Syracuse snow

I know the snow that’s fallen in the last three or four days cannot compare to the way in which my blogging friends Ann Koplow and Austin Hodgens in Boston and Bangor have been blasted this winter. And besides, our winter-of-2014-15 fate had been relatively tame except for some early December storms until now. But…

What are you doing here?

An unexpected guest showed up at our home in the Syracuse city neighborhood of Eastwood, and just five days from the New Year yet. I noticed the visitor loitering in the corner of our backyard when I let Ellie B aka Dogamous Pyle out for her morning Saturday romp. OK, I have to admit that…

I can smell the September flowers

It’s a good day to step out and appreciate what I’ve got here with my dear wife Karen in our home in the Syracuse city neighborhood of Syracuse. In the hourglass front-yard garden, the roses are celebrating September with another cycle of blossoms. Pink and white, side by side. The violet peeking out belongs to…

Ellie B got the skunk shot right between the eyes

I relaxed for a moment too long after dusk fell last night, typing on the recliner my weekly film news blog that will be posted a bit later this morning on syracusenewtimes.com as my dear wife Karen relaxed with a bit of TV. Ellie B aka Dogamous Pyle came inside from out back at a…

Operation Skunk Be Gone, so far, so …

I do not want to jinx it. The halogen light has been shining from the back porch for seven nights, flooding the area between the butterfly garden and the backyard shed, the space where our Syracuse city skunk shot its spray into Ellie B aka Dogamous Pyle at dusk eight days ago. Saturday and Sunday,…

3 pretty bushes all in a row

In the last week, my three sturdy backyard garden butterfly bushes have changed personality a bit. The white, in fact, became the loudest of the bunch, with blooms so big, so long, so wide, they threatened to drown out their neighbors. But the pink indeed morphed chameleon-like into the multi-colored beauty of seasons past, and…