Jake Wertz
@jakewertz
Living + gardening just west of Chicago. PhD sociologist doing research + transformation in a large suburban public school district. 🏡🪴🌉📈📊👨🏫
Followed this butterfly around my garden for two minutes and saw it snack on four different prairie flowers (cup plant, cutleaf coneflower, bee balm, joe pye)
Welp it’s now sold out through Sunday. I can get the 4th row at 2:40am Monday morning, but that might make work tough
Awfully smoky out, but I did like the look of this part of my garden - sideoats gama grass, rattlesnake master, echinacea
Neat profile of Hinsdale in the WSJ yesterday, touching on many of the reasons why it’s a great place to raise a family. Not mentioned: the air is poison.
Ominous that they’ve adjusted the graph so that where we’re at now appears to be the middle of the air quality spectrum
A first for me - planting a rose bush, about a month ago. I came home to our first blooms today. This is ‘Bathsheba’ by David Austin. Starting its climbing journey up a trellis I installed in spring. 🌱
New York City people claim the “bodega” as an endemic institution, but at this rural Michigan country store, they sell handmade deli sandwiches, beer, cat food, cleaning supplies, liquor, and loosie sleeves of Oreo in about 200 sq ft.
Flying the kite is a spring-coded activity. It’s April, maybe May. When the Cherry Trees blossom on Cherry Tree Lane. Not summer.
We gotta fix the time zone situation though. 10:15pm fireworks on the 4th of July is a bit rough.
Mercifully after a year they let him do a partnership with a real suit company
Came by this in a little free library a few days ago. Remembered my AP US History teacher raving about it once or twice, 20-odd years ago. Turns out he was right. Great read.
Californias are too modest to boast about it, but they actually have the best barbecue culture and cuisine in America. Grilled tri tip with fresh produce. Hors d'oeuvres are a sample of raw whole Central Valley stonefruit. 🥭
Bizarrely, it’s a convict Halloween costume that I wore in middle school (late 90s). My mother did not save any of my clothes, but she did save Halloween costumes. Anyways now my kid plays dress up in it sometimes