So Now We're Up To Speed...

Well, fast forward through the fall and winter and that brings us to this year - 2007. This is our last year living in the City of Chicago. We put the townhouse up for sale. We've started looking for a new house for our growing family. Although we love the city and our current home, we really look forward to having a house surrounded with trees and flowers.

It will be nice to wake up and see a blue jay or a cardinal outside. Right now pretty much all we see are pigeons, a resident pair of doves, and the lone robin that visits our deck.

We aren't planting up the roof deck this year because we plan to move sometime in the next few months. We emptied out the two large cedar planters and took down the lattice screens. The remaining 3 planters (which hold dogwood and curly willows) are coming down this week and being transferred to one of our parent's yards for the time being along with the Adirondack chairs.

Our association has decided to rip the roof off the entire complex and re-do the pitch since the water hasn't been draining off properly over some of the units. Therefore, we have to dismantle the roof deck and transfer it to a neighbor's roof while they work on our section in 2 weeks. That is something we're not looking forward to.

It should take 4 days for the workers to rip off the roof membrane, change the pitch, add insulation and re-roof our section. They're also taking the AC off and recharging the compressors. So no AC (with a baby in the house) for a few days! Plus they have to remove our penthouse doors & raise them to adjust for the new pitch. This is not going to be fun (especially since our house is on the market in the midst of this construction).

We did set up a bunch of containers on the kitchen deck. This year we picked up some great herbs at the Oak Park Conservatory Herb and Flowering Plant Sale. Among those plants is a striking red and gold lantana, two varieties of lavender, thyme and sage. We've got a mix of colors going this year - no particular theme - purples, yellows, reds, pinks, and whites. In that mix are:

• yellow plume celosia
• silver dust dusty miller
• lantana (shrub verbena) in Bandanna Red and Peach Sunrise varieties
• lobelia
• heavenly blue morning glory
• cleome (spider flower) in pink and white varieties
• verbena in white, pink, red and purple
• violas in purple and yellow
• ornamental cabbage in lime green and purple veined
• lavender in Provence and Goodwin Creek varieties
• basil
• thyme
• Greek oregano
• parsley
• black sweet potato vine
• rosemary
• dill
• sage
• cherry tomatoes
• poblano peppers
• jalapeno peppers
• common chives
• garlic chives
• spike plant
• jasmine
• hydrangea
• cubanelle peppers
• peas

We're still going to plant up a few more planters to fill in the sides of the deck. Perhaps some mints, licorice, calibrachoa, angel wings and geraniums to add summer long blooms.